Category Archives: Toronto

This wacky city I live in.

Troop Update

Dead Robot July 28, 2011 Queer stuff, Toronto, You Magnificent Bastard 3 Replies

I am utterly blown away.

You people have made me so very happy with your generous responses. Here I was all frightened that I wasn’t going to crest $500 and now I may have to increase my goal again.

As of this morning, I’ve jumped to the #9 spot in the top ten Individual walkers over on the Scotiabank AIDS Walk page. Within 6 days of signing up! With 56 days to go!

Thank you thank you thank you. I can’t say this enough.

If you’re up in Greektown during the Taste of the Danforth, come by Re:Reading around noon and get your picture taken with me in my armour! And buy a book, for god sake.

The Photo Game – Cemetery Challenge

Dead Robot July 23, 2011 Art, Distractions, Toronto 2 Replies

It’s time for another photo game!

This time our subject was Toronto Necropolis Cemetery in Riverdale, where we ran around for an hour shooting pictures of interesting things.

This time, SharkBoy brought a prop, which I think was cheating! Oooo! Next time Mr Cheater McCheatpants!

Anyway, here is my Flickr Set

Here is Sharkboy’s Flickr Set

And here are five that I like. You can judge in the comments!

Sacred

Carcas

Ruh?

Lichen

Cat

That I Can Do, Too!

Dead Robot July 21, 2011 Hobbies, I'm going to tell you what to do, Personal Bits, political, Queer stuff, Toronto 2 Replies

I took postbear’s words to heart and thought I should start out small – I’ve decided to walk (march?) in the Scotiabank AIDS Walk, this Sept 25th. I don’t think, however, I will be selling off space on my suit, unless I’m offered some ridiculous sum of money. Hint Hint PrideFM?

Within a few hours of tweeting my decision, long time internet friend (and one embarrassingly drunk pick up attempt night at the Eagle) “Bark” aka Steve K dropped $50 into my sponsor jar!

I’m off to a great start!

Here are the details:

My Sponsor Page: My goal is low – this is my first time doing anything like this, but secretly I’d love to crest $2000. Expect some aggressive tweets and boring blog posts. Why not donate now to shut me up early!? Plenty of payment options!

If you want to make a PayPal donation, my account is “deadrobot” At “rocketmail” dot com. Every little bit helps!

The Event: Starts around 11am and I’ll most likely get there early because who doesn’t want to get a photo with a Sandtrooper?

I’ll keep you posted on how I’m doing.

Wish me luck!

Pride 2011

Dead Robot July 3, 2011 political, Queer stuff, Toronto, You Magnificent Bastard 4 Replies

SharkBoy and I had a very nice Pride, thankyouverymuch! Quiet and low keyed, we wandered, we chatted and we took some pictures! The tone this year was more political than corporate, despite TD still having the same old muscle marys hanging around their booth making phototime with straight girls from the 905. No, this year had a tension to it, most likely from a missing asshole mayor. Noticed that not one Conservative political representative was on hand (unless you count some creepy city councilor skulking with a video camera during the Dyke March) and that would probably be a good thing, considering they’re kicking a hornet’s nest of prejudice and ignorance with their opposition to Pride.

Look at me getting all serious!

Here are some pictures that go bigger when click-oed! Remember to check out my Flickr account over the next few days for updates

Keep Feeling Fascination!

If You Need Proof

Dead Robot July 2, 2011 Toronto, You Stupid Dick 2 Replies

…that restaurants on Church Street don’t give a fuck about you during Pride, just about your money…

Pay up, get out.

Pride, Day One

Dead Robot July 1, 2011 Personal Bits, political, Queer stuff, Toronto 3 Replies

Just back from Pride where just two hours ago they closed the streets and people are still streaming into the neighbourhood. The energy is building.

While waiting for BobaDoug, SharkBoy and I sat on the wall outside the 519 Community Centre, where we were entertained by a young, slightly high lesbian youth who wanted to know all about my Five Finger shoes. She and I eventually left the topic of shoes and got into a game of shouting “HAPPY CANADA DAY!!” at random people. SharkBoy was in stitches because, in true Torontonian fashion, when you yell a greeting at a stranger in this town they instantly put on this face of “Oh my god you are yelling at me and if I ignore you, you might disappear…”

Of course the slightly high lesbian youth would yell “Happy Cananaerrday!” and that made me laugh.

Regardless, here are some pics! Enjoy!

Pride Tips for Out of Towners

Dead Robot June 24, 2011 political, Toronto 1 Reply

Hello potential visitors to one of North America’s largest Pride events! Welcome!

Just a quick note: I can’t really add anything new to my past tips: 2008 and 2009

Except there is this update: Last year I mentioned briefly that Torontonians have had their fill of political posturing due to a certain human rights group marching in the parade and getting other human rights groups upset about it. I said that if you meet a Torontonian, you should treat the subject of political posturing as a sore point.

This year, you’ll find we’re a bit more battered, but somehow, a lot more stronger. See we somehow managed to allow a red-necked, conservative mayor to take office (some blame the outer boroughs banding together to defeat the “downtown elitists”) and he’s making it very loud and clear that he thinks the LGBT community isn’t worth his political time. Our Mayor says he’s traditionally spending time with family at the cottage as he usually does (and parades his mom out in front of reporters to prove it) but can’t account for not showing up at any of the other events happening this week, including the flag raising ceremony at City Hall… just outside his office. Beyond the finger pointing and speculation and just how bad this looks on a Mayor to turn his back on one of the largest Pride celebrations in the world, let’s just say this might make things interesting between the LGBT community and City Hall. History (herstory?) has shown you never fuck with an angry drag queen.

With that in mind, when you meet up with a Torontonian the proper greeting is “I am sorry you are currently suffering through 4 years of ignorance and child-like intelligence within your city’s government.”

That should be it for new tips. You will have a great Pride this year because I think this whole “hate city hall” (of course, except for a certain few like Krisyin Wong-Tam, always a voice of reason – see the comment at the end of this article) thing might galvanize Pride back into something more political, like it was in the 70s and 80s.

Oh and one more thing: DO NOT EAT AT ANY OF THE CHURCH STREET SIT DOWN RESTAURANTS. You’ll lose an arm and a leg for a palmfull of fries!

Happy Pride!

Comics, Walks, Flickr And Twitter

Dead Robot May 7, 2011 Celebs and Media, Comix, Distractions, Toronto, You Magnificent Bastard 5 Replies

Today social media overflowed into my life.

SharkBoy and I got up early-ish and had breakfast at one of our haunts… the Coach House on Yonge.

They Do, if You Ensue it Happens.

After, we hit the Toronto Reference Library for the TCAF where Social Media crashed into me hard. First I met Steve MacIssac of Shirtlifter fame and while my eyes hungrily ate up his thick frame (I follow his reference pictures on Flickr and smile), I happily shucked out $6 for a signed copy of his first comic. Signed. Suck it!!

Then it was a short hop to Joel Watson’s table. The creator of Hijinks Ensue was awesome and a really super great guy.

Me And Joel!

So I bought a book and he asked what sketch I wanted in the front cover. I hesitated and asked for “Joel”, not sure if I should have said “you” since the comic characters are of real people, himself included, in impossible geek situations. He hesitated too. “Me? Usually people ask for…”

“…Josh?” I finish. Josh is a gay character in his universe who 9 times out of 10 is the funny guy to Joel’s straight (ha.) man.

This is what I got:

I like you. I really like you!

After spending some time and cash, we wandered with our cameras down to the Distillery District and took some pics:

It's a Walking Eye, Hank! A WALKING EYE!

Then we walked down by some dockside bars and met up with @TomWDart. Actually he was out enjoying the sun and looked good especially after his bout with some viral thing.

Tall Tom

On the way home we saw some tumblers. Not the drinky drink kind, the bouncy bounce kind:

Boing!

And then SharkBoy was on his knees in the park. Tsk. But he got the shot!

Tyra called...

Now we’re about to sit down with a good movie or heroin or something. A perfect day!!

Shattered Pride

Dead Robot April 13, 2011 I'm going to tell you what to do, Toronto, You Stupid Dick 4 Replies

Poor Pride Toronto.

It seems everyone is out to get you.

There’s that whole Middle East problem that somehow has become a sword for any yokel who dislikes a few hundred thousand people getting together to celebrate diversity. Hey JDL and QuAIA – Thanks for bringing your fight to the mix and stop me if I’m wrong, but a festival about sexual freedoms is not a place for airing out your Forever War, even if you tack on the word “Queer” to your cause. Pride is now officially like a high school house party for theatre fags where the chess club shows up and insists on taking the B52s off the stereo and putting on Nana Mouskouri. ZZZ.

Meanwhile, at city hall…I imagine the mayor and his right winged goonsquad are melodramatically twirling their mustaches, thinking up ways to defund you. Like setting public opinion upon you by ramping up buzzwords like “hate speech”, painting you as being dis-organized, therefore not deserving the dollars. Seriously Pride Toronto, watch these guys. They’ve shown in the past they’d be happier if you didn’t exists at all, let alone being forced to give you money.

And at the Sun (snicker) newspaper, some hack awful reporter (who has her nose quite far up the mayor’s ass) is going behind your back telling religious leaders to lean on city council reps to de-fund you due to hateful messages in your parade.

Remember when you had to deal with naked people? Good times…

So what do you do?

I’m going to tell you what to do and you can do what you like:

Cancel Pride.

Hear me out: I’ve always thought the best advice for dealing with children who are throwing fits is to calmly stop, let them run their course, then punch them in the face.

Okay now I’m dead serious about this. Please cancel Pride for one year and let the city wonder where the couple hundred million dollars in tourist money went. Let these petulant whiners wonder how the city came up a few hundred million dollars short in the budget because of all the product placement, transactions and advertisements suddenly stopped flowing from business to business. Let the businesses who lose out without Pride deal with the mayor and the right-winged reporters and religious goons. Money has a funny way of shutting people up.

Wizard World Convention

Dead Robot March 19, 2011 Celebs and Media, Toronto, You Magnificent Bastard 2 Replies

The kid brother of the big comic con rolled into town this weekend and brought some pretty hefty stars this time, like Peter Mayhew, Billy Dee Williams and Scott Thompson

He has a new, excellently drawn comic book out based on his Buddy Husk character, which he signed for me.

Actually in all my years this was the first time I’ve ever approached a celebrity and gushed a bit. I told Scott about the time SharkBoy and I were playing “here’s your husband” on the patio of the Black Eagle and he walked through the door.

The con was fun, we watched the 501st table for a little while and hung out with BobaDoug (see his amazing Boba Fett costume below…) did some light shopping (new trooper tee shirts!), but it felt a but low key, compared to the big Con. Still, it was a good afternoon, considering I was with my husband!

Full photo set here, some below if you’re too lazy to click through.