Category Archives: Toronto

This wacky city I live in.

You Gunna Eat Dat?

Toronto

Saturday, 1pm, Eaton Centre Food Court (South)

Over Sharkboy’s shoulder I can see him going to various people asking for change but with a twist. He’s asking for something else which makes his targets almost recoil at first and then refuse him after. He’s typically street person unkept, with one pant leg torn away 4 inches above the knee, exposing a yellowy bandage. His eyes are ca-ray-zee!

“Spare any change?” he asks at our table.

“Sorry,” we say.

“You going to eat that?” he asks pointing at the half pack of fries on the tray.

“No. Take them,” Sharkboy says.

He scoops them off the table and wordlessly turns to leave. Sharkboy says to his back, “You’re welcome!”

“What? WHAT? I’ll throw these motherfuckers out, man! I don’t have to say ‘Thank you’. You think I need to say ‘Thank you?’ FUCK you! Yeah fuck you buddy!”

Sharkboy and I are stunned. I make “Oh god don’t say a word” eyes at Sharkboy. With much more abuse hurled at us, he wanders off to another table. We watch him as he goes through his diatribe for the next lunchers. When he doesn’t get anything, he tosses our now-empty bag of fries down on their table.

Storage

Personal Bits, Toronto

I just got a call from the manager of the storage facility we send $50/mo to keep our extra things warm and dry. It went something like this:

“Ted? It’s P here from Bla Bla Storage. Were you in your locker yesterday at 3pm?”

“…no…? I was at work.”

“Oh well it seems that someone was by your locker. I can see that on the security video feed that there’s someone by your locker and a few minutes after that, someone went out the back door, which is labled in big black letters “DO NOT EXIT – ALARM WILL SOUND”. And of course, the alarm went off and it cost us $75 to get the security gaurd down here. We usually pass this cost onto whoever set off the alarm.”

“Well I have the key and I was sitting at my desk all day. Does not your security system log key swipes?” The reason we went with this company other than being crap-dragging distance from the apartment, was that it had (supposively) RFID at the front door and at your own locker. Secure!

“This particular entry seems to not have been logged.”

“Has my locker been compromised?” I’ve sit up from my workstation into a near upright position. This sounds serious.

“I could check.”

He hasn’t checked my locker?! He’s more concerned with who’s going to get the $75 security gaurd charge?

“Call me back if there is a problem.”

Ten minutes later he calls and quickly says: “P from the Storage locker! No problem, it was the furnace cleaner! The furnace door is right beside your locker. Sorry to bother you!”

Expect a rather large garage sale soon. I don’t think I want to keep my stuff there any longer.

Time For a Make-over

Toronto

Wellesley and Yonge, 12:30pm.

There is an attractive woman in front of me about 5 metres, walking towards the subway. Her hair is bouncing in time with her steps, the back of her short skirt resembling twin cantalopes in tight plastic wrap, stuck on a mini seesaw. She looks good.

She passes a street troll, wild eyed, unshaven for months and stained. He sees her and throws her arms open and makes smoochie lips. Of course she gives him a wide berth.

I pass the street troll and he makes eye contact with me. He wordlessly strikes a “put ’em up! put ’em up!” pose and with all the wiskers and wild hair, he reminds me of the Cowardly Lion.

Where are my smoochies?!

It Came From The Danforth

Personal Bits, Toronto

Happy MonkeysIt’s in the trees! It’s coming! You’re just seven days away from our troupe’s first golly-gosh performance of Happy Monkeys: It Came From the Danforth. Come out and see some pretty darn cool improv comedy (or the equivalent of a momma bird shove all her babies out into the world) hosted by long time improv trooper Gord Oxley (Bad Dog Theatre, Comedy on the Danforth) and starring a cast of tens.

It’s located at The Victory Cafe and starts at 8pm. The show is Pay What You Can (get a pop/beer/body shot! We need to impress the bar manager) so bring all those pennies and nickels from the hall ashtray.

Last Class Pics

Hobbies, Toronto

Gord's Last First Class…are here. Actually I start into Advanced Short Form Improv next Thursday, so it’s not really an “ending” yet. But I will miss doing scenes with these galoots! The night was fun, high energy and full of gufaws. I was even quoted in one of the scenes (“notice how her tounge always points magnetic north?”), thank you Earl.

I’m still going through “shoulda coulda woulda have said…” which is natural post-performance.

My First Post

Queer stuff, Toronto

…no no no, no here! At Torontoist! I am their newest Queer news correspondent!

My first post is a quick and dirty email interview with Richard Ryder, a man I would bed in seconds (sorry Sharkboy!).

I’ve been busy the last few weeks with going away and such and missed reporting on the AIDS conference (I wrote a snappy article called “Steve’s Not Here” but tech problems blocked it) and the Church Street Fetish Fair, but I think I’ll be on top of things from now on.

Go figure! Me! A cub reporter reporting on cubs! Grammar and all.

Sexual Politics

Queer stuff, Toronto

Last weekend the southern Ontario BDSM group DSSG took over the entire campsite for their annual “whack-a-bum” weekend. The park, usually filled with drunken trailer trash manboys, was filled with straight men and women who communally believed in higher sexual prowess through pain and humiliation, made obvious by their thoughtful displays of St Andrew crosses and dog cages placed carefully beside their tents. How prepared! For those gay men who had rented for the year (the Seasonals), they were allowed to come and watch the festivities ($30 extra to actually join in on the slap-happy fun) and Sharkboy and I went to check it out.

One notable difference with this group as opposed to a regular weekend crowd was their energy level. It was up there and not in a FLY Nightclub kind of way. The music coming from their sites was a bit more rockish compared to the Cher beats that usually go on (and on) into the night. The DSSG people laughed in earnest, not in drunk/drugged hysteria. They smiled at the thought of being paddled. They dressed however they damn well pleased with not a word of displeasure coming from their fellow brothren/sisters. Despite all this, they weren’t as openly friendly as the usual trailer/campground gays. Why? Well, what happens when you insert a group of heterosexual women into a bastion of gay males? Right! Mysogonistic Cunt jokes! And I am sure that the tense comments regarding sexual identity and catty laughter coming from the Seasonal sites wasn’t falling on deaf ears as the DSSG women walked by. There was a palatable tension between the gay men and the straight women. I guess because they’re both after the same thing – a straight man. Regardless, it seemed to me that the most chatty, friendly people were the straight guys because they held all the cards.

Sharing the park meant that we shared everything. Including the tiny washroom/shower hut. One morning I exited a washroom stall after doing my morning poo, to clean my hands. I was stopped short at the sink counter by a woman who had her night bag and towel strewn across the only two sinks. I hedged a bit, making a “Um… Uh oh!” gesture with my hands.

She looked at me and glared: “I guess my stuff is in your way. You don’t want to touch my stuff?! Is it because I’m a woman?”

“No. I just took a dump and I don’t want to put my shitty hands on your towel.”

Regardless, the weekend was a nice change from the gossiping and trailer park politics.

After that weekend of whips. whacks and screams, we came home to the Church Street Fetish Fair. To compare the two S&M events would be like watching Philip Seymore Hoffman (DSSG) and John Goodman (Church St Fetish Fair) giving their best interpretation of Truman Capote. CSFF was embarassing, overbloated and over-hyped. No demos? No more than ten vendors? Only one bar doing an extended drinking patio into the street, and NOT the Black Eagle? Really Church Street BIA and Folsom Fair North: Make nice, stop this stupid, inane, in-fighting and get your shit together. The FFN boys know how to run a party. The CSFF people have a great party space. What happened between the two groups that split them like Nicole and Paris? Will they ever make up?

Tees

Toronto

Yesterday I saw a guy wearing a tee that said: “HUFF MY LYSOL”. Not sure if this was an ad for anything but it made me laugh.

Hours later I saw a 4ft nothing woman on a bike, braving rush hour traffic wearing a tee that said “You should see me dance!”