Just some video of the Pride Run and some special dancers throughout the weekend.
Pride Tips for Out of Towners: 2010 Edition
Holy crap! With all that was going on in my life the last couple weeks I utterly forgot to create my superhelpful Pride tips! I apologize, incoming tourists, for this oversight.
Here’s my last couple entries:
Pride Tips 2008
Pride Tips 2009
Both still stand, with a couple interesting edits:
Dining
PLEASE. However attractive the patio at O’Grady’s looks during the summer fun sun, scope out their food portions and how frantic their staff are. I can assure you that at least one of those points will be a disappointment. This goes for pretty much all restaurants on Church. Take a moment and look at the menu and the actual portions they’re placing in front of people before eating on Church Street. If you must, go to The Church Street Diner. These boys are back and have their head screwed on right.
The Parade
There are Three Parades now, in the spirit of inclusion and togetherness: The Trans March, the Dyke March and the Pride Parade. Next year we will have enough time during Pride week to have the “I can hold the iPhone 4 without losing bars” parade as well as the “Do these shoes make me look bisexual?” parade.
Hooking Up
If you’re trying to pick up a local, don’t mention the G20. We are still sore from it (see below). This year I would suggest combing your hair to look like a wet badger fell on your scalp from a great height, with a slight swirl, will get you laid. It’s working for Justin Beeper or whatever his name is. That or wearing jeans that are so skinny in the leg, yet make your ass look like you’ve dropped the remnants of a spicy burrito in the backside. Tsk. Kids today.
Post-G20 Politicalness
You might have heard that Pride was pulled back from the precipice of disaster by allowing a certain group to keep nasty words in their name while the streets of our fair city were overrun with thugs in black hoodies kicking the shit out of Starbucks on Yonge Street. Know that Torontonians have had their damn fill of political posturing and just want to have fun. If you have an axe to grind, make sure you find like minded people to grind it into.
That’s about it! I wish all your Pride miracles come true!
Happy Birthday Baby Canada!
I’ll Tell You Later
Chip Chippery Chip Chip Cheroo
Last night while eating home-made chicken nuggets (low fat, baked, of course) I chipped the inside of my tooth while biting down on a fork.
Yes. I know. I was eating a chicken nugget with a fork. You can’t call me uncooth.
For some weird reason I was holding my fork nearly vertical with the succulent, plum sauce covered morsel skewered upright on my fork. I guess I didn’t want the sauce to drip which resulted in me biting down hard on the prong, like an idiot.
Crek!
SharkBoy looked up from his plate. “What was that?”
“Moof!” I say. I half spit half swallow what was in my mouth and run to the mirror, expecting to look a bit Appalachian with a cracked tooth smile staring back at me.
Thankfully it was intact. However, there is what feels like a horizontal groove in the back of my tooth. As well, the groove catches on my bottom tooth when I relax my mouth and set my teeth together. I swear my tooth is swollen.
Coupled with the maddening tongue touch I have to do every 2 seconds, I’m slowly driving myself mad.
A Fine Weekend How-do-you-do
Ignore this post. Well read it anyway and get a sense that I was pretty lulled by the media that yes bad things happened, but they happened to the right people. After reading about how Blair lied about the 5 metre zone outside the fence (and apparently all over Toronto in some cops’ minds), I think both anarchists and police are douchebags.
You might have heard that there was a big summit in town with everyone getting angry and pissed off for some reason or another. If you were in Toronto this weekend you were either a cop trying to maintain the peace with extra super-cop powers added on, or you were an anarchist using Black Bloc tactics to get your message across, whatever that stupid message may be (well done boys and girls!) or you were like the majority of us, curious, on-looking, wondering how much our liberties were being eroded, worried the protesters are right but at the same time, thankful there are draconian dragoons whisking nere-do-wells behind the black wall of Kevlar amour, quickly subduing the rabble and carting them away.
Because this is the internet, and because I NEED TO EXPRESS MY OPINION, here’s my thoughts on the weekend:
I think the cops did an excellent job, right up to Sunday night. They might have been rough on some people, and they might have clubbed innocent journalists, but considering their job was to keep calm, follow orders and intimidate the wrong-doers, I think they did that exceptional job, judging by all I’ve read/seen on TV. I do say “up to Sunday night” where things turned bizarre. I’m referring to the corralling of a couple hundred people at the corner of Queen and Spadina, holding them tight for hours in the pouring rain and then releasing most of them without explanation. Police later said they suspected anarchists being amongst the crowd. From many sources who were inside the corral, including a Globe and Mail journalist, it seems 90% of the crowd were people just observing, innocent only for watching a small group of protesters doing their thing.
Reading various reports from journalists and regular people alike (and attempting to remove the hyperbole) I still get the sense that the police (or the people who instructed the riot cops) over-reacted. Extra, super new rights-stripping law in place or not, I got the sense that someone jumped the gun or fell asleep at the wheel in this particular police action. The intimidation got out of hand, which led to the cops waiting it out and releasing the crowd (after some purely Kafkaesque dialogue/actions).
After all is said and done, the best quote from the whole shebang comes from Christopher Bird and Christopher Drost, reporters for Torontoist.com who were on the ground during the Saturday Queen Street cop car buringin (emphasis mine):
In the exterior lobby of the Queen and John Starbucks, a group of protesters formed a human shield covering one of their own, who was apparently getting bandaged up after being struck in the head by cops (according to the group). The protesters got loud when an Italian reporter tried to take shots of the man, demanding their privacy. “You don’t have a legal right to privacy,” I pointed out, and the protesters rightly responded that “this isn’t about legal rights, it’s about being a human being.” And you know, that’s totally fair. What I should have said: “If you complain about being made the centre of attention when you’ve come out expressly to attract attention, you’re an idiot.”
In my opinion, the cops were utterly transparent in their handling of all things public. They may have tried some fearful intimidation on innocent people but they didn’t try to hide it – you got caught in their web, you paid the price. Inversely the anarchists hid behind masks and terrorist-like actions and cry about their freedoms. Irony all around, my friends.
Civility In The Middle Of Destruction
SharkBoy and I walked through the post-mob mentality.
Seriously, Anarchists, you’re not impressing me at all.
Grippen Lake Camp
Ah summer. Remember when you got out of school and came home to a scowling parent who demanded to know what you were going to do for the summer?
No? That never happened to you?
I got shipped off to a summer camp from age 8 to a remote place called Gryphon Grippen Lake Camp. While the camp is long gone and no mention of it exists online, I can fiercely remember the “main street” that went from waterfront to the open field where 5-6 cabins ringed the perimeter. The Main Street housed the crafts cabin, the spider den (the washrooms, ugh), the food hall, the older camper’s cabins and the Counselors. For the life of me I can’t say why they were called “counselors”. Like it was therapy camp or something…
…maybe…
Never mind.
Anyway, the camp had some bizarre rituals: chants before dinner, hand gestures to identify which cabin you occupied and the prayers – we would pray to a sun god in the morning and at the end of the day we were asked to thank a forest spirit for not attacking the camp. Seriously, we did. This was performed right after dinner with all of us in a circle around the nightly campfire, chanting like some cult, bellowing our gratitude into the trees. The younger kids (read: the ones shitting themselves every night after this gruesome ritual was performed. Read again: me) would drill the counselors for more concrete facts regarding this spirit: did it come in the night? Was anyone attacked? Did it have big talons?
I look back now and realize it was a disciplinary ploy to keep us in our cabins after lights out. Of course the older kids weren’t fooled and would pretend to be the wood spirit and bang on our cabin walls in an attempt to make us wet our beds. Some nights they were successful. Thankfully I grew a strong bladder.
They taught us swimming during the day in a carefully cordoned off “beach” area that had colour coded buoys to mark off where more accomplished swimmers could go. After an initial test of skill, you were given a blue, red or white poker chip that stayed around your neck when you entered the water. I never made it past Blue – the kiddie pool, really. I struggled daily to learn to swim but I never could (even to this day) coordinate my kicking with my flailing arms. My lack of skill however, allowed me to stay with the best looking counselor who oversaw the Blue zone. He was my hero. He was a god. He didn’t mind me tagging along like a fart in a grocery store. I think I wasn’t trying too hard to leave the Blue zone because Red was patrolled by a Rubenesque blond girl who was clearly more interested in the Blue area(s) as well. Cow. During horseplay in the shallow end, I experienced my first gleaning of homosexuality too: an innocent game of tackle resulted in Blue boy’s bulgy speedo pressing up against the small of my back. What the what?!
There were other sexualized moments like this throughout the summer. Glimpses of teen horniness telegraphed between the counselors (hetero-based, of course) that fascinated me to watch. Snatches of conversation between the male guides about after-hour connections behind the food hall, in the craft hut, in the white swim zone. I didn’t quite understand what was going on, I just knew that it was a club I wasn’t part of.
Near the end of the summer we had to complete a scavenger hunt with compass and crude map that lead us into the forest. After weeks of the forest spirit story we were a bit desensitized and only slightly nervous. I remember setting off with my companion, who did the map reading while I held the compass. We got 9 out of 10 points correctly and returned to the camp to discover everyone sitting “injun’ style” in the field. Two counselors had gone missing and we were asked to stay put for a head count. The urgency of the situation went on right up to dinner. After dinner we congregated around the communal fire pit and were lead into night prayers for the spirit to return the two counselors.
You can guess where this is going. Soon noises were heard off beyond the light of the campfire.
To a 8 year old kid, this was horror brought to life. If you’ve ever seen a National Geographic video of a frightened deer pack then you have a good idea of how big the campers eyes were: bulging orbs that tried to pierce the darkness just past the fire as their heads whipped around to each new sound. In hindsight, I don’t think the counselors thought this prank through, entirely. The counselors around the fire kept up the faux surprise to the noises and feigned worry as to what the disturbance could be.
One counselor stood and yelled into the forest: “SPIRIT! RETURN US OUR FRIENDS!!”
Crashing from the brush came a guy dressed in strips of trash bags and rags, his head covered in feathers and grease paint. “FRAAAAAAGGGGHH!!!” he shouted.
The young ones started to scream. Imagine 20-25 little Jamie Lee Curtises, open mouthed and howling at this vision. They (we) shot off into the opposite direction towards the cabins. The fear spread like wildfire into the older kids who were cool but not cool at the same time, resulting in some of them running blindly, trampling slower kids, some of them seeing through the rouse immediately.
After all the kids who had run into the forest had been collected and accounted for, we were told that maybe not telling our parents about the last night’s “show” wasn’t a good idea.
I went back a few times over the years and it was pretty much the same – I never learned to swim; I followed my favorite counselor like a baby duck; I would continue to excel in crap crafts. The only exception was there were no more wood spirits.
Update: Yes Cas, you are correct. Funny how time can bastardize ones memory…
Canada’s Wonderland 2010
It was that time of year again, when SharkBoy got discounted tix to the City of Toronto’s BBQ at Canada’s Wonderland. This year we dragged JTree and Fortress of Solitude along with us.
For some reason, I was asked to digitize out FoS and only to refer to JTree as “Turdmorton Sheffield the Third” or something. I don’t get it.
Anyway. Pics here. All pretty self explanatory. I got super sick after the 15th ride. Go figure.
Vintage Cronenberg
I hatched up a movie idea while talking to JTree the other day. As we wandered the cobbled paths at Canada’s Wonderland*, we watched two brave souls trying the Xtreme Skyflyer, their prone bodies being hauled up 150ft into the sky, just to be dropped like a pendulum back to earth.
I mused aloud: “I wonder if someone would get bored of that?”
JTree: “How so?”
“Like if they did these rides enough that the thrill is utterly drained from it.” After thinking about it for a second I said: “It would be a classic vintage Cronenberg movie if a couple discovered that the only way they could get the thrill back in their marriage and these rides, is if they went on these rides and fingered each other’s anus as they did.”
JTree looked at me like I was a typewriter bug with a puckering pooper under my wings.
*Expect pictures soon.