Even with the success of acts like Lonely Island and Flight of the Conchords, people still tend to view musical comedy with some suspicion, and not without reason. Those high-profile success stories aside, at the club level, musical comedy is too often the province of people who aren’t quite good enough to make it as musicians, but not quite funny enough to make it as comedians.

Two local comics, Robert Keller and Rush Zilla, are out to change that perception with their show, Off Key Comedy, which features a wide variety of acts whose only commonality is that they combine music and comedy in one form or another. The third edition of the monthly show will take place on May 23, at Comedy Bar.

Despite the fact that the last show in Buddies in Bad Times Theatre’s 2012/2013 season is titled Of a Monstrous Child: A Gaga Musical, Lady Gaga herself takes a secondary role. There are no homages to raw-meat dresses and gold-plated wheelchairs here. Instead, writer and director Alistair Newton uses the House of Gaga as a pathway into the history of the notable performance-art stars that came before her in the pantheon of queer iconography, and how she is and isn’t a construct of all of them put together.

Last week, Rob Ford confirmed that he would not be attending the Pride parade, and that he didn’t yet know if he’d be available to attend any other Pride events, including the flag-raising at City Hall. Needless to say this upset a lot of people (including us).

Now, one of those people has launched a new campaign, asking Rob Ford to prove wrong the concerns that he is homophobic, and show support for the LGBTQ community.

Raymond Helkio’s stock in trade is advertising and design, and he decided to put some of those skills to use in service of our public conversation about the mayor and his relationship with Pride. It’s a complicated one—not just for Ford, but for those in the LGBTQ community, who don’t agree about how to respond when Ford continually fails to attend or hedges on future plans.

Helkio told us that the response from the LGBTQ community to his campaign has been “very positive and at the same time very disappointing. There seems to be a large population of the LGBTQ community that feel that ignoring Rob is the best response. In fact, some have argued that we should send a ‘un-invite to to him.”

It’s a sentiment Helkio understands—it’s one he shared until recently, in fact, until a friend convinced him that ignoring Ford would only perpetuate the current pattern of non-attendance, and set a precedent for future mayors to skip Pride as well. Helkio’s therefore come to the conclusion that “ignoring our mayor (as he has done to us) will only push our fight backwards.”

Pride Toronto has no official response to the campaign, but we chatted briefly with executive director Kevin Beaulieu, who has seen the posters in the Village, though not the video. He thinks the best approach for Pride is to continue as it has been: “you extend an invitation in good faith,” and you let invitees decide how they’re going to react. He recognizes that it’s a vexed question for many people though, and that campaigns like this one are reflective of feelings in major segments of the community.

The campaign has a Facebook page and a second video is planned, as is a postcard campaign and more extensive postering. As for the mayor, Helkio tells us he has so far received no replies to the several letters that he’s sent. “Frankly,” he says, “each time I put a stamp on my letter I question what I am doing because in my heart I know he is not reading them or really considering my request.”