Category Archives: Queer stuff

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

Sorry Paul

Personal Bits, Queer stuff

Back in 1990, I had broken up with my Kiwi boyfriend Paul (amicably) and while I was in school, he and another friend, Colleen got drunk and I guess, bitched about men (me) through a couple bottles of wine.

The result was him painting a “heirloom” of a hall table that has been with my family for years. My earliest memory of this table (it’s always been deep forest green) was that it was in the basement to hold tools and kid’s mittens and touques (kids were not allowed through the front door of our house, for some stupid reason like… oh tracked in mud or something stupidly adult). When Dad separated from Mom, he took a few bits of furniture with him to the new apartment including this table. It was his new “dump” table. You know: you enter your apartment and on this table you dump your keys, letters, gloves, errant plastic bags of body parts you’ve picked up through the day, etc.

This table followed me through Brockville, Brantford, Kitchener, Oakville, Ottawa and back to Toronto. It’s rickety, there’s a huge crack down the middle of the top and the nails no longer hold things in place. It’s like a 15 year old dog you don’t have the heart to take behind the barn with a shotgun.

Cut back to a drunk Paul and Colleen. Angry through the alcohol, they decide to “give me a card” for my birthday. We had watched Ruthless People a while back and I had mentioned, rather snottily, that they used “Memphis” furniture design principals for the art direction. Paul hated that kind of crazy design, he thought it was “L.A. Ugly”. So in their drunken anger, they took brush to desk and here’s the result:

Sorry Paul

On the back they wrote: “Something to remember us by. Summer ’90. Enjoy your card – Paul and Colleen.”

Today is the end of 18 years of visual assault. I painted it. You can still see the purple and red “donuts” through the white. I know they’re there.

But I kept the back with the “inscription”.

Family, Secrets. In Repose and Response

Personal Bits, Queer stuff

Weekend Pictures Here

What can you learn of someone within 3 minutes? 30 minutes? 3 hours? 3 days?

This long weekend, we ventured up into the Gatineau area to visit SharkBoy’s “Summer Place” – Notre Dame Du Pontmain to be exact.

It’s a tiny village nearly smack dab in the middle of a massive amount of small lakes about an hour and a bit north of Ottawa, in the Gatineaus. NDdP makes it’s living on the one hotel, the one depanneur and one boat launch and a lot of video rentals. I’ve never been before and I hope I go back. A lot. Mountains rise up out of so many lakes it’s like visiting BC but without the weed. Every morning and evening the sun puts on a display of colours you become drunk with the spectacle. Deer peer at you with those creepy eyes from the sides of the road. Bears have been seen. It truly is one of Quebec’s hidden treasures from the English.

We left late on Friday night to a wall of traffic that spanned downtown Pickering to Brockville, where after 6 hours in the car at 2am, we desperately tried to look for a hotel. All the details of the travel can be found on Sharkboy’s blog. One thing I did enjoy was playing “Senator and the Hooker” in the divey-est hotel on the outskirts of Ottawa that had stucco swipes as wall decoration and other 70s Swiss Chalet motifs (“Spank your bottom? That will be $5 extra, Senator!”).

On the drive we talked a lot about family. The one we started ourselves (cat included) and the ones I was going to meet. As usual, but not so much this time, I felt the apprehension of meeting up with the in-laws and not being able to communicate as much as I’d like. But that always disappears within moments of getting past the front door because SharkBoy’s mom is always so welcoming and friendly (inbetween the “tabanac” and “câlisse”) and we generally communicate in elaborate hand gestures, drinks and the odd translation assistance from SharkBoy’s sister, Syl.

We did eventually meet up and make our way over to SharkBoy’s uncle’s extremely secluded compound after a long drive up, down, through, along swamps and riverbanks. Oddly enough we could see the house we were staying at from his dock, which would have taken 1/100th the time it took to get there if we had walked directly from door to door. Unfortunately the two places are separated by a large river, so unless you’re Jesus, that’s not possible. Visible but secluded. For a reason. He owned the entire mountain behind his house.

Leasing the road to the top of the mountain for a cell phone tower, he’s sitting on a developer’s wet dream of prime cottage land that overlooked the lake. But he wants to keep it to himself for now. That kind of power you don’t come by easy. As we were to learn when the pictures came out. Images of SharkBoy’s dad and his two uncles were presented in all their black and white glory and I got to learn how Romuald became the person who gave me SharkBoy. We also learned of some other stuff that I will respect a certain person’s embarrassment due to certain childhood behaviour, but let’s just say that it involved a chicken and a horse.

Later, SharkBoy’s cousin and her girlfriend piled us into their lesbian truck (who knew it was rampant in his father’s side?) and took us 1/3rd the way up the mountain on the maintenance road to the cell tower. Then we walked the rest of the way. Nearly straight up. For a solid hour. That’s right, this fat, office cube chubbo walked up the side of a mountain to get utterly drenched in sweat (thank god they’re all family now). I also got to spend my first really private moments with Syl and we discussed ex-boyfriends and how sometimes a family’s responsibility is not to mention that we’re dating a jerk. Nothing new or shocking but she managed to make me feel like a brother in those few moments. I also snapped a few shots:

After bombing around on ATVs, we went tubing. First time for me behind a boat where I didn’t fall down within the first couple of seconds of it taking off (I suck at waterskiing).

That night, after saying our bon soirs, we discovered that seclusion has a price: the road back to the highway was washed out in a freak flash flood that came down from the side of the mountain after a short rainfall. Who knew that a mountain could “retain water”? This is where SharkBoy’s family shone: they all came out to the site on their ATVs and trucks to see the damage and within an hour, we had “rebuilt” the road, moved a down tree and scouted ahead the 3 miles to the highway on the ATV to make sure that the road was clear. It was an adventure, to be sure (we could have been at that part of the road during the flood), and his uncle and cousins were actually apologetic for the delay.

The next day the “kids” (without Sharkboy’s mom and aunt) set out to discover the waterfalls at Windigo, a swanky time-share like resort that I’d love to spend a week at some summer time (hint hint). There I saw a frog. Hold your Quebecois jokes. But before leaving, I was struck with the biggest stomach pain right between breakfast and the time we got into the car, which I kept mostly to myself until it started to subside. I wasn’t too chatty that morning. But it passed and I don’t blame anyone’s food…

At this time it was becoming quite evident that one of the guests was not feeling the same emotions for being away for the weekend and would not put down their cell phone for all the texting that was going on. I kept on remembering that when I was their age, I was yearning for not being at family outings either, and would sulk annoyingly over in some corner with a comic or tv show. Kids today (ugh. shoot me. I just wrote “kids today”) have better ways of sulking the fun from the moment by tapping messages to their friends on a small keyboard. I wanted to take them aside and tell them that family time is extremely precious, especially at 40something, and that they should savour the time they have. But of course, I kept my nose out of it. But I did felt old remembering how I behaved exactly the same (sans electroniques). This led to the weekend being cut short by hours (thankfully not by a day) and we managed to get back to Toronto at an extremely decent hour, so thanks teen angst!

In all, a good weekend. I’d love to go back again!

FFN, meet BIA. BIA, Meet FFN

Queer stuff, Toronto, Travel

It must be an election year. Bush partially lifts the HIV ban to the US yesterday (as pointed out to me by Kingston Andy, the guy who married me off). Good news for HIV+ people travelling to the US. Now they’re pretty much level with people who regularly travel to the US and get nervous around power-mad TSA agents.

From Andy:

…the history of this is that it was a Democrat controlled Congress that introduced the restriction in 1987 and signed into law by Ronald Reagan, and it is again a Democratic controlled congress that sponsored the new bill signed into law by Bush. There was an expectation Bush might veto this line in the overall bill, but he didnt.

Of course, back in 1987, alot of straight people including law makers were under the impression you could get HIV by sitting on a toilet or kissing

So it looks like the FFN people can take an indefinite leave. Or maybe make nice with the Church Street BIA and stop this egotistical pissing match that countermands the Pride view of unity and maybe create a street festival that would rival Folsom’s. Just a thought.

Regardless of my bitchiness, this is good news!

Walter and Perry

Overheard, Queer stuff

Home Movies - Walter and PerryAt my gym, there are two guys who are dressing just as SharkBoy and I are arriving at the locker room. I will call them Walter and Perry, based on the two 8 year old homosexual couple from Brendon Small’s understated cartoon masterpiece: Home Movies. The cartoon Walter and Perry transcend homosexuality. They bring it to a new level of devotion, well into the “creepy” zone. Like couples wearing matching soft focus kitten shirts in Wal Mart.

Our gym Walter and Perry, however, are not as funny.

While I suspect they’re gay, they yammer on about stupid shit that may or may not identify them as being gay, while throwing in vapid “guy talk” that completely destroys their butch facade. They think this is hilarious and have their volume set so that the rest of the locker room can hear how much fun they’re having. Once I saw them outside the gym, throwing punches at each other in a manly, “lookit us be butch!” kind of way. I can think of many other ways to look manly, starting with passive aggressiveness.

Walter, the short 5’5″ muscle guy, obviously overcompensating for his height, actually struts around the locker room with his towel strategically placed just below the start of his ass crack. Hot? Not! This kind of thing might work at a bath house, but in a public gym? Yerk! Perry, an average height guy and the “brains” of the two, creates the suggestive butch-shattering situations to see how far he can push Walter. Like this little gem overheard this morning, two isles over:

Perry: Move your ass. (Pause) I bet you’d do it for money.
Walter: What? Fucked in the ass?
Perry: Yeah! You’d totally go do it for $5000

I have no clue why he chose $5000. I know plenty of straight guys who would not even touch buttsex at 5x that amount, let alone gay guys who would pay that much to have it done to them.

Walter: You wish! Nah man. Not me.
Perry: Come on. You wouldn’t do it for …5 minutes for $5000?
Walter: No man!

There’s a pause. Then some mumbling.

Not sure which: It’s all about girth, not length.

End of An Era

Personal Bits, Queer stuff, Toronto


RESPAWN! Look left, look right, GO!

Back when I was 12-15 yrs old, my Da use to take me with him on business trips to Toronto. I would love the 4 1/2 hour drive from Brockvegas to the big city and would eagerly sit on the edge of my seat as downtown came into view.

We’d either stay at my grandparents house or if it was a quick visit, a cheap hotel somewhere near the big malls. Breakfast at these hotels was always a C Plus orange soda (“Don’t tell your mother. At least it has Vitamin C in it”) and some greasy spoon fare. Then Da would hand me some money and drop me off downtown. He would then go off to his “business” meetings, which I now know were some sort of tryst-like affair that involved an intricate network of homosexual men communicating their desires by mail. Can you believe it? PRE-INTERNET! They actually wrote letters to each other! Meeting up took months! Chemical based, thick paper backed images were swapped! That must have taken so much effort to meet up…

I digress.

Getting back to me downtown: It’s a changed world, people. Back in ’79 – ’83, nobody would think twice about a 13 yr old walking around unescorted in the city. I use to stop by the shop where my sister worked in the Eaton Centre and have lunch with her. Or I would scope out the “dirty” books at The World’s Biggest Bookstore (family health issues isle – they had an open copy of Joy of Gay Sex).

But mostly I spent the money my Da gave me at Funland.

Funland was a massive arcade just north of Dundas on Yonge. It had the latest games in a big smokey room (when you could smoke inside) that went on forever. The front 1/3rd was filled with cutting edge technology machines: Frogger, Qix and the mind blowing Dragons Lair. I even remember a 3D “holographic” game where video was projected up onto nearly invisible blocks in a basin-like game, played in the round – true Logan’s Run stuff. The name escapes me.

I got pretty good at some games, but I can remember never, ever “finishing” a game, but I did watch lots of other guys complete a few story driven consoles. Despite not being good enough to go all out on any games, I was able to carefully drag out the $20 Da usually gave me over the course of a couple hours. It was heaven. Typical to my extremely boring life, I was never offered drugs, sex or crazy shit the entire time I spent there (the “family issues isle” is another story).

I see the Star mentions it’s finally closing it’s doors, blaming crime, the home gaming industry and crappy games.

I’m getting waaay too old. It closes on my birthday. I think I know what I want to do that night…

Another Pride Video

Queer stuff, Toronto

Too tired to upload this one last night: Kids on TV’s Roxanne Luchak and John Caffery dance up the crowd at the south stage beer garden with MEN at the laptops (who did a great job, by the way).

You can see the kind of energy KoTV bring to the stage. Yesterday they gave a fun show, but the sound was really off. No beats or bass for most of the set. Whadapwitdat?

Oh and I want to say again: The Mayor felt up my husband. I’m still blown away by that.

Pride and Pre-Juices

Queer stuff, Toronto

All Photos here.

Pride in ketchupserifThursday:
Met up with The Photogs, The Mailman and Mr Insurance and broke my first rule of Pride (I think I broke 99% of them, this year), and had drinks at O’Greedys. Just drinks. While the service was attentive, mostly it was just smokey. Two pitchers of sangria, one pitcher of tap beer and a basket of poppers came to $120. Thanks for not letting me down, O’Greedys!

Friday, we went to get SharkBoy’s new ink and saw Wall•E. 72 hours later and I’m still thinking about it. Sign of a really good movie. Meesh was a bit endorphined-out so we headed home early, no visit to the street.

Saturday was busy: 7:30am we went to The Terminal Barber, where we manscaped, then off to the optomitrist where we met the most delightful new salesperson in the shop connected to our doctor’s office. She sussed us out in seconds and we left after SharkBoy dropped $1000 on new frames, lenses and contacts. Ow.

Radio City partyThen off to Church Street for breakfast again (I know I know), but huge KUDOS for The Churchmouse for not gouging their customers, just reducing the amount on the menu for faster service. So far I can say I have never had a bad meal there. Various early morning freaks abounded.

Off to a mid-day party at a friend’s at Radio City. These guys own a condo on the 9th floor who’s patio is as equally large as their condo. It was fantastic! Met new people and got a bit wet with some waterfuns.

Home for a drunk nap, then onto the street to try to catch TransX and Dragonette. Line up was impossible, so we stood outside the beer garden and while we could still hear them, bopped by ourselves. Home to bed.

Sunday was possibly the most relaxed Pride I’ve ever had. Breakfast in bed with Coronation Street (as usual) and then off to the Coach House for some real food. Then we wandered the street, chatting with people and taking the odd photo. This year I didn’t really have the heart to take pictures of weirdos and freaks like I’ve done in the past. I’m bitter about being bitter.

Mayor in da house!We got to see Kids on TV after a great set by two DJs who’s names I didn’t catch, but they played Black Kids, and we danced like 21 year olds. Then, we see Mayor David Miller. In a queer beer garden. Name any other mayor who’d do that. As Kids on TV are waving around a dildo-encrusted blow up sex doll, The Honourable David Miller was moving respectively and chatting with people around him, allowing photos to be taken and having a great time. He walked right by us and I guess SharkBoy had huge saucers for eyes (because the Mayor is like, you know, his boss, sort of) because The Honourable David Miller smiled wide and said to both of us WHILE PLACING A HAND ON SHARKBOY’S CHEST: “Happy Pride!”

Man has my vote.

Back home for a powernap and to tend to SharkBoy’s burning scalp. Poor dear. Overcast skies CAN burn you. Anyway, we went back to see Jully Black and SharkBoy wore his ThinkGeek Equalizer shirt. Which was a bit of a mistake. By 10pm, 99% of the people in the street and beer gardens are pissed to the gills. Wearing a shirt that flashes light in sync with sound for a couple thousand drunk people was asking for abuse. He drew attention to himself above and beyond what he’s use to and I was seething with jealousy. I’m not often out-gadgeted by SharkBoy. He was getting stopped every 2 feet and was chatted up which made me dance harder or hoot at the music or juggle plates. At one point someone waved at me. Gladly I wandered over and the person said “Can you move over? I want my friend to see that guy’s shirt.”

Mostly people swore at him: “THAT’S A FUCKIN’ AWESOME SHIRT!” “FUCK! COOL!” and “HOLY FUCK HOW DOES THAT WORK?” while they pawed his chest. One woman got a nice Indian burn on her wrist from not getting the clue of “no touchy!!” Poor drunk dear. Video below:

In all, a subdued, yet most enjoyable Pride! Yay!