Empowered Houston

What's the next biggest gay confab in Houston after the Pride Parade? No, it's not the curtain calls for Nude Boys Dancing. It's Empower, the huge GLBT expo October 8, 11 a.m.-7 p.m., in the George R. Brown Convention Center. Although this bills as a trade show, Empower is way more interesting and fun than your normal business expo‹starting with the day it's held, which is National Coming Out Day. And it's free, in case you were wondering.

Going into its fourth year, Empower is the principle event of the Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. As of press time, more than 175 businesses and organizations had registered, quite a bit more already than last year.

Not only is Empower the way to network and find out who are the gay-friendly businesses, as you walk around you can pick up lots of fun giveaways (including a scavenger hunt for free airline tickets), listen to some of the ongoing entertainment , or take part in the kickboxing or aerobics demos, or get your flu shots, or look at the vintage cars from the Classy Chassis guys. This year there will even be a place to play volleyball. Stressing that Empower is targeted toward the community, the chamber has set up areas for businesses, health organizations, community service groups, and sports groups.

There is also a job fair, with companies participating such as Chase Bank, Compaq, Equiva Services, and Hewitt Associates.

Empower is doing something new and exciting this year. On Saturday, October 7, from noon to 5 p.m., the chamber has joined with the Lesbian & Gay Community Center to host a Regional Roundtable, open to everyone, in which they hope to bring together the leaders of all the diverse groups in the community to talk about ways to collaborate and make our efforts bigger and better. The Saturday roundtable is underwritten by the Elliot H. Matthews Foundation.

As Annise Parker wrote last year in a letter to the Empower participants:

"Money talks. Corporations listen to our community. Corporations offer domestic partner benefits.

"Money saves lives. Corporations air positive gay images. Civil rights advance.

"Money works. Entrepreneurs fund community activities. Corporations improve their bottom line. May EMPOWER improve your bottom line."

For more information about Empower, call the Empower Hotline at 713/523-7576.

Body Positive is hosting a remarkable free community program October 24 & 25 on new advances in the treatment of HIV. Speaking will be two of the top HIV doctors in the country, Dr. Tony Mills and Dr. Octavio Vallejo, both long-term survivors of HIV. Cosponsored with AVES (Amigos Volunteers for Education and Services), the evening with Dr. Vallejo will be presented in Spanish, while the evening with Dr. Mills will be in English. Presented at the Doubletree Post Oak Hotel, 2001 Post Oak Blvd., the program will include dinner, as well as music following the presentation, thanks to an unrestricted educational grant from Abbott Labs.

Dr. Tony Mills is a truly inspiring person. Now 39 years old, Dr. Mills was diagnosed HIV-positive in 1987. Many in Houston are already familiar with Dr. Mills from his appearance at Night in Black Leather, Don Gill's wildly successful fundraiser at the Venture-N this past March.

Although Dr. Mills spent the first decade of his professional life as a heart surgeon and anesthesiologist working with kids, he decided to start working with HIV after he spent 1998 traveling the world as Mr. International Leather. "This experience taught me that my true passion was connecting with people one-on-one and working intensively with my own community," he says. "I am happier now than I have ever been in my life. I have the greatest friends, whom others might refer to as my patients. My life today is about working with them, being a combination of student and teacher, learning from them every day and sometimes being able to share some of my experience with them."

During his time as Mr. Leather, Dr. Mills not only came out about being positive, he also revealed a courageous level of honesty when he revealed that he'd been abused physically by a former partner, to the point he had to be taken to the emergency room.

On the board of gay.com's "Positive Living" project, Dr. Mills writes columns for two California gay magazines, as well as International Leatherman. He also works in the field of addiction medicine, "utilizing my five years of recovery experience to help those in our community struggling with drug addiction," he says.

Of Mexican nationality, Dr. Octavio Vallejo is the most prominent person working in HIV/AIDS with the Latino population in California, and in building bridges in HIV care between the U.S. and Mexico. Working in the field of AIDS since 1989, through his work with the UCLA Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, Dr. Vallejo began a series of HIV/AIDS training programs for doctors throughout Mexico. In this country, he's worked with both the CDC and the National Minority AIDS Council in bringing HIV/AIDS care to the Latino community, including an education program he started in which Los Angeles Latino teenagers teach each other about HIV prevention and care. In March 1994, Octavio received a commendation letter from President Clinton for his work against AIDS in Mexico and the United States.

The Spanish program is Tues., Oct. 24, 6:30-10 p.m. Dr. Oscar Vallejo will speak, along with Nelson Vergel of Body Positive. For information, call 713/520-6630.

The English program is Wed., Oct. 25, 6:30-10 p.m. Dr. Tony Mills will speak, along with Sean P. Crawford, a personal trainer from NYC who will talk about the best exercise programs to build muscle mass. For information, call 713/524-2374.

What happened to Mayor Lee Brown's call to action in his declaring the spread of HIV and AIDS in Houston's African-American communities to be a "state of emergency"? That is what a group of AIDS professionals and artists are asking in a collaborative installation and series of community presentations at Project Row Houses.

Called State of Emergency, the collaboration is the creation of Kevin Ballew, coordinator for the NAACP's youth program and a former HIV outreach educator for AIDS Foundation Houston; Harry Livesay, a writer (and contributor to OutSmart) and social worker who has worked in HIV/AIDS services since 1988, one of the founders of the Harris County Hospital District's HIV Project Office and started the HIV Advocacy Project for Bering-Omega Community Services; Michael Peranteau, executive director of DiverseWorks from 1984-95, and co-founder in 1995 of the Center for AIDS: Hope & Remembrance Project; and Teresa B. Southwell, an illustrator and graphic designer who has worked closely with the Center for AIDS and created the design for their magazine, Research Initiative/Treatment Action! (RITA!).

Organized by Projects Inc. (Peranteau's latest undertaking), State of Emergency looks specifically at the HIV/AIDS situation in Houston's African-American communities, and includes a mini-information center about prevention, transmission, and treatment of HIV and AIDS. It will open Saturday, Oct. 14, noon-5, along with five other artists' installations in the rowhouses, and remain on site for six months.

For those of you unfamiliar with Project Row Houses, you need to know that this is one of the most vital and exciting places in Houston. Founded in 1992 by Rick Lowe, PRH has turned 22 row houses that were about to be demolished into an incubator of community and dreams. Located in the Third Ward, PRH sponsors artists' projects, community education, children's programs, street festivals, and world-class dominoes matches. Hours are Tue.-Fri., 10-6, and Sat. & Sun., noon-5. It is located at 2501 Holman, 713/526-7662. (Directions from Montrose: take Westheimer going into town, it turns into Elgin, go right on Dowling, left on Holman, and Project Row Houses is just a few blocks up on your left.)

• Don't forget, the 6th annual Houston Women's Festival will be held Sat., Oct. 28, 1 p.m.-midnight at the Garden in the Heights, 3926 Feagan. A celebration of music, art, culture and community, the festival is one of the largest annual events for the Houston women's community. Some of the music highlights are Tina (of Tina and the B Sides), Tret Fure, Terri Hendrix, the Therapy Sisters, and Tchiya Amet. Produced by the Athena Art Project, a nonprofit, 501(c)3 organization, tickets are $10 advance, $12 at the door. Children under 10 are admitted free and tickets for children ages 11-16 are $5.

• Every Monday evening in October, women can come to the Montrose Clinic for free mammograms, pap smears, testing for STDs and HIV, blood pressure checks, and other health checks, sponsored by the Lesbian Health Initiative, with funding provided by An Uncommon Legacy and the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. Montrose Clinic, 215 Westheimer, 713/520-6623, 6-8 p.m. To contact the Lesbian Health Initiative, call 713/603-0023, or e-mail LHIHouston00@aol.com.

• As part of Domestic Violence Awareness Month, the Houston Area Women's Center is hosting a variety of events, including a free training and luncheon for hairstylists to encourage them to look for signs of domestic violence in their clients and refer them to agencies that can provide counseling, support, and shelter. For information, call 713/528-6798.

• Under the auspices of the City of Houston and The Housing Corporation, a two-story near-town apartment building dating from 1923 has been revitalized to provide 36 efficiency units for homeless veterans living with HIV and related illnesses. The first of its kind in Houston, the 1923 San Jacinto Apartments will be managed by Everett Hull, himself a formerly homeless veteran. For more information, call 713/526-9470.

• The Pride Committee of Houston has put out the call to graphic artists to be considered to design the logo for next year's Pride celebrations. If you're interested, bring your portfolio to the Metropolitan Multi-Service Center, 1475 W. Gray on Tues., Oct. 17, 7 p.m. For more information, call the Pride Line at 713/529-6979, or e-mail info@pridehouston.org.

• The Houston Black Tie Dinner will be held Saturday, Nov. 11, at the George R. Brown Convention Center. For more information, call 713/523-9611.

• Hosted by Rice University's Department of Women and Gender Studies, Angela Davis will be speaking about race, gender, and the punishment industry. Fri., Nov. 3, 8 p.m., in the Great Hall at Rice. For more information, visit www.rice.edu/feministconf.