I got to meet a Blogebrity last night! Thanks Rannie for the pics in the park!
Here is photojunkie’s “My Toronto Includes…” gallery. Look around his site too. I’ve said it before…it’s one of Canada’s best blogs.
And here is a preview of my headshot that will soon appear there.
Billowy breezes met me as I walked into the lobby of my office. A blast of cool air pummeled my near-sunburnt scalp during my ride up to the 5th floor.
Then the doors of the elevator open to hell.
The AC konked out some time over the weekend and baby, it’s hot in my cube right now, on this, the hottest day of the year so far. The fax and graphics server are running (so far) and are creating a nice pocket of heat that the 4 of us have to bathe in. Thank god for Costco’s sale on Right Guard. Four fans are pushing air around like Britney Spears shuffling a baby in her lap, driving away from the paparazzi. I can hear the chips in my computer getting crispy around the edges. I am Shvitzing. Like I’ve never shvitzed before.
Oh yes. Mark my word here for all to see. There will be another power outage to this fair city of ours. I predict it!!
Posted to Toronto.craigslist.org:
Door opener for video shoot. MUST KNOW HOW TO OPEN DOORS.
Date: 2006-07-13, 4:55PM EDTIm shooting abit of video by myself downtown Toronto.
I do need someone to open doors for me so i can shoot fluid
Uninterrupted shots.
So if you know how to open doors and are available a few hrs
each week then enclose a pic and contact info and we shall
take it from there.
Lord knows we wouldn’t want an ugly door opener.
A million years ago, when I was shooting with a Nikon Coolpix 300, before the word “megapixel” was used, I helped Jared Mitchell create Skipperworld.com, a collection of his web-novellas. Often noir, sometimes hillarious, always interesting, Jared constructs his stories like a web comic with local celebrities (the gay guy from Canada’s Worst Handyman!) in exotic locales (like Key West for The Sister Season or Niagara Falls for The Wash Out). They’re HTMLicious!
Now he’s got a brand new story on his brand new site: LAW OF THE VAMPIRE, a story of Vampire rights lobbyists in Canada. Someone has their tounge stuck solidly in their cheek…
…getting caught in the throngs at the tail end of the day.
Sharkboy and I came back early to people watch as the parade went down Yonge. Some quick impressions:
Video link of the parade in progress: Bravo! Brilliant! Especially beside the big beer tent. A great use of technology!
Red Bull at the corner of Church and Wellesley: Can of Red Bull Energy Drink = $3. Bottle of Water = $3. Booth next door selling water = $1. Gay Dollar gougers seem to be pretty rampant.
JackFM’s Giveaway (and any other booth that gave away promo items): I pity these people. So many hands outstreatched in their faces for a sample of crap. I got a rainbow slinky with “Steward” stamped on the side. Huh? Rod? Jon?
The Police (or poor po po): Bless their hearts. One female officer outside the Market was hit on by a guy and his girlfriend as we slowly walked by. She just laughed it off. At the corner of Carlton and Church, 6 bike cops had subdued a gentleman in cuffs and sitting while he shamelessly puked on himself.
The EMTs: Corner of Church and Wellesley, two EMTs in a golf cart honk like mad to get to the other side of the intersection (I guess some tweaker crashed at the electronica stage). While most moved over, a pack of girls looked at the cart, laughed and continued dancing which made the passenger EMT get out and shove them aside. Bravo!
Best Advertisement: Spamalot, the Musical. Wandering the crowd was a guy in full chain mail, tunic and boots singing to himself the song “Always Look On The Bright Side of Life” while his Serf followed close behind with two coconuts making the horse hoof sound.
Least Interesting Product: BearWear. Sorry guys. Your tees might be of great quality but your graphics look like they were created by someone using Illustrator 6. Gradation circles are out. Admittedly you had a cool “gas station attendant” shirt with patch that I would have bought.
After a while we stood with The Postman just out front of the Bear Store in the middle of the street and let the crowd go around us like we were an island. That was fun but after a while, people bumping into me just got annoying.
I had just enough Pride. Hope yours was fun!
…never having to be in the city for it.
I loved Pride. I mean I love what it stands for (sans most corporate sponsorship) and I love how it’s a huge party and such, but as I grow older I’m getting pretty crotchety.
I remember the exact moment Pride became a burden for me:
When I use to do bar work at the Black Eagle I would get home around 6am during Pride week due to the sheer volume of clients, not because I was partying after hours (which I would have loved to do). One Pride Saturday morning I failed to notice the “Lesbian” stage that was set up yards from my apartment. At 6am I wasn’t very observant, I thought it was a beer garden. At 9am there came a roar of horridly bad, amplified Dyke poetry through my window. Menzies! Earth Mother! Blood! Rebirth! Yadda yadda all in a nasally voice that welcomed the dawn of a new sapphic day. The morning prayer was followed by accoustic guitar hooting, like Hee Haw had been overrun by Xena.
I realized from that moment on that Pride serves not it’s immediate community, but a concept.
Slowly, over the years, my rosey optimistic glasses slipped from my face and I started to see Pride in a harsher light. The thudding disco music from 9am to whenever; drunken straight “tourists” (sorry, AP! You can stay!) come to look at the “freaks” or open-minded thirds to spice up their lovelife; drunken gay “tourists” vomiting on my doorstep; friends and residents so wrapped up in getting laid by fresh meat they’re unable to hold a conversation with you due to their head scanning the crowd. And the crowds. The crowds trying to get past each other while a poorly laid out “drag stage” blocks the through-fare, forcing frottage fanatics to frollic freely.
Don’t get me wrong, I support Pride. I’ve done my time volunteering and being on either side of the parade baracade. I value it’s contribution to our visibility. But as a resident of the Village (and in speaking to others who live there too, straight and gay), Pride is like an 800 pound drag queen gorrilla that sits in the corner, demanding bananas, poppers and a DJ.
Maybe it’s time to move the celebrations to another part of the city? Sharkboy once commented that Riverdale Park would be ideal. I’ve been to Vancouver’s pride and it ends up in a large park. Why do we have to stay in the Village?
Regardless, I’m off camping. Be good, don’t puke in my doorstep and have a great Pride.
Scanning across the news yesterday I came across the story saying that Toronto is the 3rd “politest” city in the world. My initial reaction was to snort air through my nose, flop my head back like it was on a loose spring and say “yeah right.” They certianly didn’t do their research in the subway.
You can see that I’m a bit skeptical of this claim.
Last night I had to do the single most difficult thing a man has ever done. Ever. I had to try to get a refund from a computer supply store. In actuality I had put money down on a part that never materialized after 8 weeks of waiting (note to Mac-heads: never get RAM in a discount PC store. You might get it cheaper, but the hassles are insurmountable). To date, I’ve spent over $5000 in parts with this particular store so I’m familiar with the owner. He has an internalized uni-directional construct of cash flow (into the register only). So I knew I was in for a bit of a fight trying to get this cash back.
Getting to the store I had to wait for the owner to finish up with a tall lad dressed like a beach bum, purchasing more hard drive space than NASA. Suddenly the owner, bored of answering this guy’s questions, started to serve me while the Beach Bum was reading a label on a box. I hate that. I insisted that I wasn’t in any rush and that he should keep helping the Beach Bum. The Bum replies: “Dude! I’m in no rush!”
“I’m afraid I’m going to be a while with my question,” I said.
Regardless of our little exchange, the owner starts rifling through his papers to get my file. “I got you right here, Ted.”
The Beach Bum makes a deferral hand gesture so I start into my problem: I’m not happy, no calls from the computer store while I waited so I got the part from another store, bla bla bla.
“Ooooh, see Ted, we don’t actually give refunds,” the owner hisses.
“On product. In my case I never saw the product.”
“Oooh see, yeah. Oooo.” He shuffles my paperwork around as if it will make everything go away. “You’ll have to take a store credit.”
“I’m maxed out on my system now. I don’t think I’ll be buying anything new for a year now.”
Beach Bum has stopped reading his box and is listening to us by this time. “How much is your ‘credit’?” the Bum asks.
“$111. And change.” I say.
“I have that much in cash, I’ll buy it from you and use your credit towards my purchase.”
I blink. The owner blinks. Whole lotta blinking going on. It made sense. It was a nice gesture and we all won. Quickly before the owner could think of a reason this would put him out of any kind of cash, the Beach Bum hands me the money and takes my credit note. As the owner wrang us up, still fumbling over his paperwork, wondering if he’s getting the shaft because I’m certain he didn’t really understand what was going on, the Beach Bum starts to drill me about hard drive partitions. Fair dinkum, I thought, and offered as much as I knew.
The whole transaction was a fast-thinking, clever evade executed by the Beach Bum that saved my business relationship with the store owner. I thanked him and as I left the store with my cash, I thought that maybe there was some truth to that article after all.
Right by our place there is a row of halfway houses where the occupants are able (for the most part) come and go all day long. Sharkboy and I like to name each porch-sitting occupant and classify their offence:
“He’s Robbie. He was convicted for selling counterfit subway tokens.”
“That one with the meshback hat is Dwayne. He’s in for just looking bad.”
“Yonder is Pete. Got done for huffing Roots aftershave and going on a boob squeezing frenzy.”
This morning at 6:45, Sharkboy and I were passing one of these homes and a short man, dressed in an XXL tee that tented his lithe frame came bounding out of a doorway, cigarette balanced on his lips. He starts to run.
As he passes us, the baggy track pant cut-off shorts he’s wearing gives up a cheap cutlery knife with a slightly bent blade. Yeah the kind you used in high school for hot knives. It clatters to the pavement in a symphony of embarassment. Skinny turns back, grabs the knife and starts into his apologies:
“Mumble… knife is mumble… its for mumble mumble to a black guy. Mumble.”
He runs off. “Pretty good for a smoker,” Sharkboy comments.
What fucking knobs. What is this…? 1970s Poland?
Dear TTC Union managers: Fuck you in the prostrate hole with the car you drove to work today. Sorry Mr Busdriver, but you work for a bunch of thugs that seem to think they can take the city hostage.
Whew! I feel better now. Off to tune up my bike. Eat me, TCC.
Update: I can hear the familiar rumble of a streetcar at the stop just outside my window. Unincredible. What is interesting is the people yelling at the driver from the curb, from their cars, as the streetcars go by. It seems that the union got our attention, but like a bad puppy, shitting on our nice rug wasn’t the way to do it.
Alrighty people, DQ – Lucky Lady opens this week and it’s your duty to go see this musical extravaganza at the Hart House theatre, U of T. It’s for an amazing cause, Casey House Hospice, and you can expect Toronto’s best drag performers (and others – including my Sharkboy in bell bottoms and butchered wig) giving 100% on that stage.
I caught a few minutes of it last Saturday as the cast was polishing up the technical cues. This year was suppose to be a “smaller” show (next year is their 20 year anniversary – expect a surprise announcement at the end of the show) and it was anything but “small”. I guess drag doesn’t “do” subtle. If you liked last year’s formula of remixed camp movie/musical productions, then you will not be dissapointed. Who can resist a drag queen bitchslap fight set to the Dynasty theme?