Category Archives: Queer stuff

Bears, Queens, Fags, Twinks, Dykes, Trannies, Transexuals, the whole nine inches.

Teach Your Heteros Well

Disney, Queer stuff Leave a reply

“We were thinking of heading down to Disney World for Gay Days.”

“Ah. What happens then? Are there parties?”

“There are, and they’re off-site. But we don’t go to them. We’re kind of old to be going to those things. Since we don’t go to them all that really happens is that for 4 days The Gays go to a certain park per day. They wear red shirts to show solidarity. One year my sister in law and her son came and they wore red shirts too. It was a nice gesture.”

“That’s cool.”

“There’s also sky writing and signs behind planes over the parks.”

“Oh yeah? Like what?”

“I’ve seen JESUS SAVES in skywriting and WARNING: GAY DAY AT MAGIC KINGDOM or WARNING: GAY DAY AT EPCOT kind of signs behind planes.”

“No shit! What do they think is going to happen? You’re going to set off a glitter bomb??”

Bless your heart, David T.

Garage Sale Update

Distractions, I'm going to tell you what to do, political, Queer stuff, Toronto, You Magnificent Bastard Leave a reply

Last weekend was our (I guess now) annual PWA yard sale fundraiser held during the massive Cabbagetown Festival.

Saturday was a washout with all the rain. I’d like to officially apologize to TJ, Jordan and Doug for cancelling their costumed appearance but I think I saved you guys a good soaking. It was a good thing I didn’t reschedule for Sunday because it was “neuken mentale” as the Dutch say.

Loosely Translated: fucking mental. Seriously.

The crowds were out at 8.30am when we walked over to Postbear’s house to start setting up. As we started to pull things out of his basement, there was a line up forming. We opened at 10am, sharp and literally the three of us, postbear, SharkBoy and I, were swarmed with all manner of shoppers. And it didn’t let up at all.

Needless to say I could not have put on my TD armour at all. Though I did get a couple people asking me where the Stormtrooper was this year! So definitely next year!

The Bad: The guy who stiffed me $0.40 on a $3 glassware purchase AFTER we haggled for 10 min about the price. Yes, I punctuated my argument with “IT’S GOING TO CHARITY!” A

The Really Bad: We had quite a few things stolen right from under our noses. The yard is big, there was a super amount of stuff from one end to the other and maybe some of the “missing” stuff might have been legitimately bought and we forgot about the purchase but all three of us conferred at the end of the day on certain transactions and discovered that some things walked away without being paid for. I don’t know why people think it’s cool to steal, but apparently there are horrid people in the world. I hope they enjoy stealing from a registered charity.

The Good: We must have had 40-50 boxes of stuff. At the end of the day (it was getting onto dusk when we finally packed up the remnants), I would say there were 10 good sized boxes left – we’re talking those 16 gallon Rubbermaid thingers. So nearly all sold!

The Gooder: All three of us, during the madness of sales, had at least one person come up to us and stuff money into our hands for NO REASON AT ALL. Remember when I said I was bitter? This kind of kills that vibe. We were so busy we couldn’t set up a donation tub, and we probably couldn’t have kept our eye on it anyway. So it was great to see people organically giving money. Thank you random strangers!

The Goodest: We raised over $1400. There is still a couple outstanding sales, post-sales, that might push us over the $1500 limit but there we are. Think about that for a moment. Imagine moving/selling that much stuff through an afternoon of crazy.

Postbear has given the money to PWA to be distributed to a few needy channels within the foundation, like their foodbank.

Already postbear is talking up next year. Ideas are churning. Volunteers are being organized. Things are happening…

I have to single out Andrew (postbear) for all his hard work in organizing this amazing day. He worked really hard and long on making sure the yard was level, the stuff was donated and delivered on time and hauled his “never out of bed before 2pm” ass up and moving at 8am. Thanks for a great day!

Gar-b-age Sale

Queer stuff, Toronto, You Magnificent Bastard 2 Replies

This Saturday (rain day Sunday) postbear, SharkBoy and I are having a garage sale! 90% of the proceeds going to Toronto’s PWA and the other 10% going to my ScotiaBank AIDS walk (have you donated yet? GO!).

Below are two concept posters from our warm fuzzy friend, postbear (clicky go biggie):

And of course, the one we’re going with…

We hope to see you there!

Looking For Room

political, Queer stuff, Toronto Leave a reply

I’ve currently have 10 people coming along on the AIDS Walk event on Sept 23rd, which is awesome… but I’m finding it a bit difficult to find a room for all of us to change in, particularly closer to the event. We could change at Casa De RoboShark but it’s a 5 block walk to the starting line and I’d like the troop to be fresh for the event.

I tried contacting the AIDS Walk event planners, hoping I could get a spot in the school but was turned down due to security reasons. I understand that. She sounded genuine and enthusiastic to see us, though!

Then I tried emailing the 519… you’d think a building dedicated to the support of the community would gladly open it’s doors to a group earning money for AIDS research. The response I got suggested they didn’t really read my carefully worded email. One line, paraphrasing: “We can’t store things during the day” No “good luck” or “thanks for thinking of us”, just “no”. Hoo kay…

I’ve got a couple other places lined up and one or two I haven’t approached yet (one wants a $75 deposit, $40 insurance and $50 to “rent” the room… I’ll file that under second last resort) and keep pounding the streets around the corner of Church and Carlton!

Remember kids, AIDS hasn’t disappeared. We still have a lot of work to do to eradicate this disease from the world. So BE A TROOPER!

Bonne Anniversaire

Personal Bits, Queer stuff, You Magnificent Bastard 6 Replies

5 years ago we nervously stood in front of a room full of people and declared our love for each other. If I could do it all over again I wouldn’t change a thing (well, maybe put my Audio Brother in charge of music… Would have liked the drag queen to perform instead of being monopolized by my mom).

The last couple years have been a real roller coaster, to say the least. I don’t know how I would have gotten through most of it without you.

On the upside, we’ve had some amazeballs adventures and I can’t wait for many, many more!

Let’s hit that steakhouse and crack open some wine!

I love you!

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I Polished My Gun For This?

political, Queer stuff, Toronto, You Magnificent Bastard, You Stupid Dick 3 Replies

Yesterday was perfect for the Scotiabank AIDS walk: not a cloud in the sky, warm enough that I didn’t sweat buckets and everyone smiling, working it for a great cause. I managed to crest $2500 in donations – mostly because of you people who come to read and mostly because I did it entirely by social media (aaaand a few donations from family, of course). If I haven’t thanked you personally, I apologize and thank you now. I thank all of you.

She's a Trooper - Pic Courtesy of SharkBoy.ca

As expected, hundreds of pictures were taken and I made a bit of a splash in the pool of corporate teams that filled the walk. But know that I had to justify my presence a couple times.

Googley eyed woman: Why you a robot?

Me: I’m a Stormtrooper.

Googley eyed woman: Not a robot?

Me: No. I’m from the movie Star Wars?

Googley eyed woman: (to friends) Take my picture!

And so it went. One woman hesitantly asked me for a picture, “Because I find you scary.”

“I’m just me!” I say, obviously forgetting what I have on – the symbol of poor aim and jack-booted fear throughout the galaxy.

“I’m afraid because I want your gun in my mouth.” she said. Smiling.

Seriously.

At one point I took off the helmet to hydrate and a young woman ran up to me for a picture. She was wearing a metallic, bright Arabic scarf, thick horn rimmed glasses, tousled hair,  and cut off shorts just at the knee. “Why are you in costume?”

“I’m bringing some nerd cred to the Walk. You should know, right?”

“I’m not a nerd!” Woops. Okay. Whatever.

Inside the suit you literally can’t see down. If you hold one flattened palm over your eyebrows and the other on the upper part of your cheek, that’s the range of vision I had, not to mention I wasn’t wearing my glasses. At one point I could hear a woman asking me for a picture and I kept turning around. And around. Until I heard “Down here!”. She was in a wheel chair and I nearly fell into her lap trying to find her.

The Walk itself was ok. I stumbled twice over some pylons down at Queen and Church, very embarrassing, but for the most part I made it OK. Two blisters and a dry mouth. Sharkboy says I was stumbling on the way home due to exhaustion/dehydration but I think it was an inner ear infection.

At home we sat through the news about how “Word On The Street” over in Queens Park was such a success despite the oncoming threat of the printed word by eReaders. This particular story got a full 2+ minutes with lots of cut away talking heads about how great books are. Then, after a ton of world news, the AIDS Walk got a full 20 second spot with a mere mention of why and a scattering of video of people walking. Granted, I was watching to see if I made it on the news but the shocking lack of news coverage depressed me.

AIDS walk, unmasking and howler monkey

Howler Monkey photobomb. Pic by Postbear

I’m kind of bummed that HIV/AIDS is being relegated to the back burner even though it’s not gone away. It sickens me that big pharma has not released any significant 3rd generation drug patents into the wild for cheaper development, researcah and most importantly: distribution. The average cost of a monthly prescription for anti-retroviral  medication runs from $900 to $1300 with insurance companies picking up a good portion of that tab (if the patient is lucky enough). Doing the math, that means at the low end of the cost for meds times all the HIV positive people in Canada adds up to roughly $230 million a year in meds alone.

I’m generalizing. But the fact can’t be ignored that HIV treatment is big money.

Over the last decade, HIV has been placed on the same public consciousness shelf as diabetes in terms of “manageable diseases” (did you know those glucose monitoring machines are literally given away for free, but the blood test strips run up to $1.50 each? Test your blood three times a day for a month and that adds up!). The fact that “cures” are dangled in front of our faces ever so often (that ultimately don’t pan out) makes it real hard for me not to put on my tin foil had and think that if they wanted to cure this disease, they could have years ago, but it’s now a profitable industry that can hardly be stopped overnight with a “Eureka!” discovery that halts AIDS in it’s tracks.

I know. I’m crazy. But after being on this planet for 46 years I know that money is the greatest motivator and when it’s flowing in at such an alarming, constant (gardener) rate, then turning off the stream is nearly impossible.

Now if you excuse me I have 9-11 EVP files to listen to.

Photos from SharkBoy.ca and postbear’s Flickr Stream

Day… um… forgot… San Francisco and Home

Queer stuff, Travel Leave a reply

Coit in the distanceWhen we got to San Francisco we discovered that a lot of streets are one ways, no turns and scarily steep. Actually this should came as no surprise because, well, we’re seasoned car rentalists when it comes to vacations and both of us have been to SF before. But not in a driver’s capacity.

Needless to say the first 30 min in SFO was spent swearing at the street known as “Geary”, which would not allow us to turn left to arrive at our hotel. We spent a few minutes with map in hand and watching end-of-day rush hour whizz by our Jeep. We did eventually find a way to the hotel, but the rest of our stay, I would punctuate our map references with “We have to cross over fucking Geary…”

Here are the talking points on our trip:

Big treesWe spend a few glorious hours at Muir Woods. I could have made a whole day there it was so beautiful. I asked a ranger where they filmed “Vertigo” and she responded that there was a place called “film ridge” where “some movies were shot there”. Mere metres away from where she was stationed, I swear to god we found the “Here’s where I was born…” scene with Marnie in front of the bisected tree stump was shot – at least I was convinced. Also, it’s rumoured that parts of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi Endor scenes were filmed there, but I’ve found no concrete evidence on the internet. Still, it was pretty frikkin amazing.

Even though the weather was chilly, which we welcomed after a summer of blistering heat, both SharkBoy and I decided we could live in SFO without hesitation. Every street, every neighbourhood, every nook and cranny was something to behold. Even the uber-scary Tenderlion had some impressive views of architecture, street culture and crazy pooping crack people.

Lombard StWe got a message on Instagram from BigRedDee saying how much he wanted to meet us. When we arrived in front of the bar we arranged to snag a drink at, we were surprised to meet up with Xianjessen and on another night, Ron (of both Flickr and Instagram fame, and boyfriend to Bark). Both were super nice, friendly and we had a great time chatting. I hope we can meet up again soon, they made our visit to Castro so much fun!

There was one “asshole moment” where our hosts, SharkBoy and I were wedged up against a wall in a packed bar just off the Castro. Due to time constraints, I had brought my big DSLR camera with me into the bar, unable to get back to the hotel to change after the day of wandering. As the place filled up, and the drinks flowed, I managed to be right beside an attractive guy who unfortunately kept on bumping into my long lens. My fault, really. Aside from the poking puns I could make, I felt kind of bad we kept on knocking each other and made efforts to try to avoid him. Finally he turned to me after the 4th bump and I smiled, shouting an apology for my camera over the bar’s music and noise. His glazed eyes took notice of the Disney pins stuck to my camera strap. “Oh look. Disney pins. So interesting! All you’re missing is the furry strap for your camera!” he slurred.

“Be nice! I *am* a tourist!” I said with a smile and an edge to my voice.

“I use to be a cast member, an actual character. Suit and all,” he said, with such inference that “cast Member” equaled “SS Stormtrooper just doing his job”. His eye never left my pins.

“Oh? Who did you play?”

“Rafiki,” he said with a weird mix of pride and shame.

“Ah.” I said. In my head I said ‘Rafiki? So boring.” To which I think he sensed my unimpressed internal monologue and we literally turned away from each other simultaneously.

Flickr Meet UpContinuing on… The Disney Family Museum with Bearexposed and his hubby was amazing (yet incredibly sad!) – probably one of the best museums I have ever visited. It was more of a visual biography than museum. Go with adults. Seriously this ain’t a Disney ride.

We walked the hell out of San Francisco, which as you know, is nothing but hills and ankle breaking sidewalks. I. Loved. It. If I lived there I’d have an amazing ass.

I speculated that at one point, some long forgotten mayor had won his position by promising every resident of SFO a bay window in every home. Seriously.

We have no immediate plans to go back, but rest assured we won’t wait another 20 years before we return!

More pics here