Tag Archives: crowds

Pride Tips for Out of Towners, 2009 Edition

Queer stuff, Toronto, Travel

ketchup_prideSo you’ve decided to visit Toronto and enjoy it’s #2 outdoor attraction (second only to The Beaches Jazz Festival, according to their site).  Regardless of who tells you their numbers are numero uno, Toronto Pride reels in a crapload of cash for the city (The Gay Community has it’s own subsection on Toronto’s tourism website – take THAT Caribana!). It’s a good idea to research your options before opening your wallet and organize your fun before hitting the street.

That’s where I come in! Hello tourist! So glad I could help!

You may recall my article last year: Pride Tips for Out of Towners. I’m bitter happy to report that not much has changed. The bar you are drinking in will have a draconian liquor inspector grumpily wander through to see if they can make some money in fines. And some circuit party will try to seduce you with their glossy posters of near-naked men, but there will be a chance that you choose incorrectly and spend $95 to find you’re not at  the “A-List” bash and wind up with a crowd that looks more at home at a Phish concert. The Parade tips still hold true (early, sunblock, elbows), as do the street crowd crush. Don’t forget that “bagging and bedding a Torontonian” is still a bit like coaxing a snipe out of the bushes. We seem to have tightened our shy little cocoons around ourselves during this long, cool spring! All I reported last year are still valid tips. Take heed!

At this time I need to reiterate my number one peeve about Pride: You should NOT, repeat NOT eat at any restaurant on Church Street during Pride. Eat from a hot dog cart (blarg!), bring your own food, starve, devour your travel companion or gnaw on your own foot. Do not eat at any Church Street restaurant.

Wait… I think I need to nail that home:

DO NOT EAT AT ANY CHURCH STREET
RESTAURANT THAT IS LOCATED ON
CHURCH STREET DURING PRIDE

Got it? Just want to let you know. All restaurants will take you in their arms, whisper sweet nothings in your ear, thrust a pre-set menu in your hands and then jizz in your face while rifling through your wallet for your cash. And not in a good way.

Here’s a list of restaurants that are off the strip and worth your money:

Daybreak – This place is popular, pricey but has big portions. At the corner of Carlton and Church, just outside the Village.

Studio – When Daybreak is full, two doors south is this crumbly greasy spoon. Cheap alternative great for breakfast.

The Coachhouse – Same as The Studio, but over on Yonge and Wellesley. Greek twist on a diner.

Chew Chews, Johnny G’s and Gourmet Burger – Three Cabbagetown options that are a little walk away from the Village.

Sizzler – Late Late night burger place with baby sized meat patties at Yonge and College. Not much to look at but BABY SIZED BURGERS!! Late at night!!!

Olympic Pizza – Been in the village forever. Consistently good but unremarkable Italian food the recipe for a great restaurant!

Tokyo Grill / Okanomi House – uncommon Japanese food (read: NOT sushi).

Ginger – Not the one on Church, but over at Yonge and Bloor, there’s an outlet that will most likely not fuck you for cash. Great non-restauranty hot and sour soup.

Oja Noodle House – Right beside a pricey “EggRoll” restaurant. Dishes more authentic and way cheaper. Charles and Yonge.

That’s a good start. Yonge at Bloor has had an explosion of Asian Fusion dining places. All seem “good” if not a bit dollar-y.

New tips? Got a couple!

Photography

photo5In some cases it’s polite to ask if you can take pictures of random hot guys/gals/gender-fucks, but in most cases it doesn’t matter – cameras are everywhere during Pride and if you’re shy, stay the fuck home! But asking for a photo is not only as polite as a Canadian in a foreign land, it’s an excellent way to break the ice.  So if you do go this route, may I suggest little business cards with your Twitter/Flickr/Facebook page URL on it so you can ensure your subject can view your work later when they’re at home slathering on the aloe vera. And for those people you were jokingly taking a picture of (“Good lord that outfit!! I must ridicule it online tonight!“) and get caught doing so, may I suggest a separate card with www dot lemonparty dot org on it.

Street Escape Routes

I failed to mention last year that to avoid the crush that is the uncomfortably crowded street in front of Woodys and the parking lot Beer Tent (Church and Maitland), the Pride Committee has smartly enshrined the alleyways behind these two venues open for easier access past this bottle neck. There are similar North-South routes between East-West streets if you need to dash up Church Street. Any Pride volunteer will gladly point them out.

Texting

Keep your cell phone charged. The crowds are so large you will want to know where your friends are. Twittering may not be such a good idea since it goes down more often than a career drag queen 2 days before rent is due. Thankfully iPhone users will have MMS texting by then and you can send your friends your location (or trick’s face) for group approval.

And lastly:

Your Outfit

Please take some time to consider what you will wear. Feather boas are for straight boys who were dragged to Pride by their girlfriends. Outrageous drag is fine, but consider it will be hot and you may be outside for some time. Melty creatures does not equal funny drag. You’ll scare children. May I recommend something clever yet not too noticable…

Whatever you do, enjoy your Pride. If you see me, say Hi!

Halloween 2008

General
Jedis By RodTO

Jedis By RodTO

Halloween on Church Street. You will never find a more retched hive of scum and villainy.

The evening started out good with a group of us getting together at Casa RoboShark, slapping on layers of makeup while we sucked back beers during rounds of Guitar Hero and Mario Kart Wii. It sounds very involved but it was pretty relaxed. I wound up doing Dollar Store cuts on a few guys but the wax wounds didn’t last too long after leaving the apartment… I blame sweat and not having a proper sealant to make it stick. That and they wrinkled their faces too much. NO LAUGHING!

Here’s where I apologize for not taking any pictures this year. My lightsabre for my Jedi costume was a two hander. RodTO (Photog 2) took some amazing shots, as usual. Go see them and praise him highly.

We left the house at 9 and got to the street in full swing. It was busy as usual. SharkBoy felt there were too many drunk Ryerson students, but I thought it was a typical Halloween night: packed, pictures everywhere. Our outfits weren’t as attention grabbing as last year’s Luchadores, but with the Force FX sabres, we were well lit and did get into some photos. Here’s where I mention that lucha masks were out in force this year. We’re trendsetters.

We met up with Da, the Xbox Boys, FrankenSteve (nice fairies!) and got to do one circuit of up and down the strip before going home. Some of the costumes were amazing, some were the usual “Throw on a boa and I’m done” kind of WTF kind of effort. In all, I would say that a lot more people are getting into the spirit of dressing up, even if it’s just a dollar store jumpsuit with a cheap plastic lead-based mask. I say “bravo” for trying!

The thing that did mar the evening for me: I verbally abused a drunk asshole in a rather (un)Jedi like manner. We were walking in the crowd and came upon a small pocket, empty of people and I had stopped to wait for the other guys to catch up. As I did, a drunk guy came pushing out of the crowd, past me, screaming like a 9 year old child. “No! NO!” he was hollering. Chasing him was another drunk partyer who was making noises like he was going to catch him. Upon seeing my lightsabre, he lunged at me and yelled he needed it to “get that faggot.”

“Uh no,” I said and turned slightly from him.

He drunkenly clawed at the toy. (okay, the $130 toy, none the less)

“Fuck off!” I said. I was shocked: I don’t say this lightly in public, to strangers. But his total disregard for my personal space and property was appalling.

“Oh chill,” he said and tried to go for it again.

“Fuck. Off.” I said, stronger. And the surreal part was that I had my hand out, pointing a finger at his face. Like the Force was going to save me.

Exit drunk queen, muttering something, trying to catch up to “that faggot”.

Gay Jedi

Gay Jedi

There were other extremely drunken exchanges that bewildered me, like the 60-some year old woman wordlessly trying to grab SharkBoy’s lightsabre by the tube and me yelling “Lady! YOU DON’T TOUCH A JEDI’S STICK!” (yeah I said “stick” but she muttered “dick” back). Or the three Ryerson tarts wanting to play with the sabres for themselves and when we refused, asked for a kiss. Wha?

I love Halloween, but I was kind of cheesed off by the overly rowdy drunks. We were out pretty late and the worst of it did happen well after 11pm so I shouldn’t be surprised, really.

Next year, more thoughtful planning, I should think. Something not so attention grabbing, yet attention grabbing.

Battle In Seattle

Celebs and Media

A “docu-drama” of the 1999 WTO protest, so Americanly named the Battle In Seattle, seems a bit appropriate as the current economic melt down ripples through everyone’s savings right now.

Go back with me to November 1999. Everyone is already crazy with Y2K, so when greedy capitalists decide to meet at a highly concentrated liberal city on the west coast, VW vans are fired up and everyone who has an opinion about poverty and money converged on Seattle. Social consciousness groups came together in a peaceful attempt to “stop” the convention which turned into one of the largest riots the US as seen since the 60s. Somewhere, someone got pissed off and the riot ignited like a Spike Lee movie ending. You might remember video of riot police casually coating a passive, sitting crowd of protesters with a fire extinguisher sized can of mace. Or countless images of rugby scrums with black armored cops hunched over cotton/hemp wearing youths. Whoever you side with, it was a violent few days.

What makes me curious about this movie is that it seems to be “Crash”-like in its structure: multiple viewpoints, perspectives and storylines converging to one point: downtown Seattle, just in front of the riot police. But in reading reviews from it’s TIFF showing, the movie hammers home it’s hatred for the WTO within the opening sequences, so it seems biased more towards the protesters. Another clue is that Woody Harrelson plays a cop. I think his acting default is set to “Villain” lately so he may be swinging a truncheon with abandon.

I’m also curious about the Massive Attack soundtrack. But that’s probably another blog post. Battle will be playing in limited release in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver October 17th.

Nooeet Blanch – Big Blue Turd Excites Us All

Toronto

Photos here.

My first NB was interesting. With all the crowds and revelry it actually felt like Toronto did something cohesive and collective as a city. And it was fun discovering a shop window showing a video or a sculpture instead of the usual goods and services. People were exposed to challenging pieces that, yes did make you scratch your head and wonder WFT? But the fact that the art got so many people out of their house and into the streets was a clear sign of it’s success. So what if you laughed at a big blue swirly turd hanging over your head in the middle of the Eaton Centre? You’re there, you’re experiencing it and it got you thinking, even if it was to laugh or get angry or wonder where your ScotiaBank savings are going. Art wins. Suck that, Stephen “I hate the arts” Harper.

One thing that really got me down though, was seeing Cabbagetown’s contribution. Sad. The section of street that was blocked off was utterly empty. I think amount of artists (I counted 6 “artists”) were dwarfed by the space that they had available. And considering how “funky” C-town is suppose to be, with it’s great diversity of neighbourhoods to the north and south. It really could have been a lot more. When we returned after being in the downtown core, there was one woman reading quietly from her literature (two people on bikes paying any sort of attention), a big screen video showing Breathless (original French version), a log tee pee and a bunch of drunk yuppies joking how they should burn the tee pee down. The local Liberal campaign office was busy, of course. But that’s hardly art these days.

One milestone: I’ve never stepped foot inside Maple Leaf Gardens before in my life and I broke my sports history hymen by visiting the dueling rambling milk blobs. It’s a shame that building isnt being used for anything these days. Damn you Lowblaws!

Next year, I’ll treat it like Pride: have a nice pre-Blance dinner party, plan an attack (avoid anything “Zombie” or “fame”) and wander around loosely after that.

UPDATE: I guess all the good stuff was in Zone B. Goes to show you where all the creative types live.

The Earth Shakes From Approaching Hoards

Queer stuff, Toronto

Went for ice cream last night and stood in awe as the crowds started their swell into the village like blood into a sex organ. (eh. best metaphor I could muster after dinner and an ice cream)

Here’s Joe! He use to have the best blog on the internet. Sadly he got bored and left. The brightest stars burn …um… bright and fast… quick. ly.
Joe

A big row of Dyke’s Bykes.

Bless her large heart…

We’ll be at O’Greedy’s tomorrow night at 730pm for “It’s Thursday, Damn it!!” Drinks. All welcome! (No. No food.)