Practice Radical Love

My armpits (especially in the morning) smell so good through polyester and cotton. Sometimes it's hard to get outta bed because of this fact.

OBSESSED

with One Hundred Dollars these days. I do have a small confession to make though.


What a bunch of fuckin' babes and all around good folk!

I burnt their most recent album Songs of Man from CFCR and hardly listened to it cuz I didn't really care for it at first. In fact, I may or may not have referred to their album as a "snoozefest". Wellwellwell, was I ever wrong! I had the great pleasure of seeing them twice this past Halloween weekend and can't stop listening and internet stalking them. Simone, the lead singer, is such an enigma to me and I'm totally crushin' hard.

Oh yeah, they're playing with the Seahags in Bruno on November 9th, 2011, on their way back to Toronto. Do you think it's excessive and creepy for me to drive all the way to Bruno to see them again? I can just use the Seahags as an excuse, right?


Check them out here if you can:

Friday, November 4 - NELSON - Spirit bar ◊
Saturday, November 5 - ROBERT'S CREEK w/ the Sumner Brothers
Tuesday, November 8 - VICTORIA - Sugar Night Club ◊
Wednesday, November 9 - VANCOUVER - The Commodore ◊
Friday, November 11- KAMLOOPS - Cactus Lounge ◊
Saturday, November 12 - EDMONTON - The Starlite Room ◊
Sunday, November 13 - REGINA - The Exchange ◊
Monday, November 14 - BRUNO - Bruno Arts Bank
Thursday, November 17 - SUDBURY - Townehouse ◊
Friday, November 18 - TORONTO - Phoenix ◊
Saturday, November 19 - MONTREAL - La Sala Rossa ◊

If You Liked It Then/Than You Should Have Put A Ring On It

Unless you have a really good excuse, you should come to Amigos tomorrow (Thursday March 24th, 2011) night for the Diamond Rings and PS I Love You show. If you don't, you're a fool. Just sayin'.

My friends are always the coolest kidz on the block.

AUSTRA "Beat and the Pulse"

RyRy Superfly paired with sexxxi Toronto babes!

I'd like to see some sexy fatties though. Just sayin'.

Yum Yum

R.I.P Will Munro

Jaime Sin and Will Munro

(article by Bruce LaBruce)

The night before I heard Will Munro had passed on to that great rock’n’roll fag bar in the sky, I was sitting in Trinity Bellwoods Park smoking a joint with my good friend and his, Kevin Hegge, the cute young man who used to work at Rotate This to tell you what cool music to buy.

Earlier in the evening, Kevin and I had gone to see legendary Lydia Lunch at the Royal, whose eloquent spoken-word diatribe against this increasingly fascist world was still ringing in our ears. Long story short, a young cop emerged from a cherry top to inform us snidely that it was against the law for us to be there at 2:30 a.m., and that because there was a random empty beer bottle under our bench, he had the right to search our backpacks. The fact that he failed to find my secret cache of illicit substances, from poppers on up, was the only upside to this sobering encounter, which made me realize, finally, that we are pretty much on the verge of, if not already, living in a police state. (FYI, Toronto Bylaw Section 608-9 B states: "Unless authorized by permit, no person shall use, enter or gather in a park between the hours of 12:01 a.m. and 5:30 a.m." In other words, walking through any public park in Toronto after midnight is illegal and subject to a considerable fine.)

I bring up this incident now because it represents exactly the kind of Toronto—and world—that Will Munro always fought against.

Although Will himself didn’t smoke or drink or do drugs—he was always a straight-edge queen, and a vegan to boot—he never passed judgment on anyone who did, and in fact he was all about celebrating various sorts of nonconformist, rebellious, and anti-authoritarian behaviour. The loss of Will hits so many of us so hard because he was a warrior in that regard, someone who was offended by the very idea of being boring and conventional. In his own words, he always said he wanted to see "a lot of freak flags flying in Toronto." And his, I say with the utmost admiration, was one of the freakiest.

Will was always an art fag par excellence, even in his OCAD days causing consternation with his choice of medium (found underwear, largely) and his defiant, open queerness. For many years, he volunteered at an LGBT youth crisis hotline, providing an empathetic ear for kids who found it difficult to cope in a homophobic world. Empathy, in fact, was one of the essential parts of Will’s character. He was a great listener, and he always made you feel good about yourself. He also rarely had a bad thing to say about anybody. These are exceedingly rare qualities.

Let there be no mistake, though: Sheena was a punk rocker. Will had a very distinct punk sensibility, both in musical taste and attitude, and he enjoyed walking on the wild side. He had a fondness for the macabre and the grotesque, occasionally dressing up in drag as a zombie hag from hell. His infamous guerilla birthday parties, wherein dozens of his friends and comrades would descend in costume on a particular subway car and party while literally hanging from the overhead handrails by their knees, creating general panic and a public nuisance, were just his style. No mindless vandalism, no hostility: just a fun reminder that it’s okay to act out in public, to break the rules, to challenge the status quo. It’s hard to imagine getting away with something like that in Toronto now. More's the pity.

Will was a real Renaissance man—a successful artist (collaborating with a host of Toronto’s most creative characters, including Luis Jacob and Jeremy Laing), but also a respected DJ, promoter, activist, and restaurateur. He truly hit his stride with Vazaleen, a club night that allowed him to combine all his favourite obsessions: punk and no-wave rock’n’roll music, queers, dykes, trannies, pornography, performance art, go-go dancers, wild costumes, public indecency, strap-on dildos, what have you. He was the only promoter in town who consistently brought in the international royalty of queer and underground performers, everyone from Stink Mitt to Limp Wrist to Vaginal Crème Davis to Cherie Curie to Jayne County to Carol Pope to the Toilet Boys to Kembra Pfahler. (I took a particularly memorable road trip to Niagara Falls with Kembra and Will the day after she performed at Vazaleen, a memory I will always cherish.) He also provided an early platform for now more widely known musical forces such as Peaches, The Hidden Cameras, and The Gossip. Vazaleen, which started at the El Mocambo before moving to Lee's Palace, was the first real homo club of note outside the gay ghetto, opening up queer culture to a broader audience of like-minded misfits of all genders and sexual persuasions. In Will’s own words: "When I started doing Vazaleen I was like finally there is a space where you can do fucking anything and no one is going to turn their nose up at you." In a nutshell, that was Will’s credo.

Will insisted on being inclusive, but he also never betrayed his old school gay roots. Of all his club nights, one of my favourites was Moustache, which he held upstairs at Remingtons, Toronto’s only gay male strip bar. It was so much fun to see people of all sexes and ages participating in the amateur strip competition alongside the professional male strippers and the regular clientele. Only Will could pull off that kind of bizarre cultural fusion.

After Vazaleen, Will doggedly pursued his promise of creating life outside the ghetto by turning the Beaver Café (with Lyn McNeil) into the first real hothouse of queer activity on the west side. It was only after several successful years there that he discovered he had a brain tumour. It was a particularly aggressive from of cancer (one more often found in children), and it’s a testament to his heart and determination, his unwaveringly positive attitude about everything, and his sheer love of life that he valiantly fought the disease for two years. I think we all believed that if anyone could beat it, against all conceivable odds, Will could.

The last time I had a chance to speak at length with Will was at his art opening at the Paul Petro gallery a couple of months ago. (I've reviewed the show in the latest issue of C Magazine.) The cancer had already come back with a vengeance and he was a bit fragile, but what struck me was that he maintained the same commitment to his art, the same positive energy, the same consistency of attitude, and the same generosity of spirit that he'd always had. It was beyond humbling.

From all reports, Will was surrounded by an extremely loyal, loving, and supportive group of family and friends, including his boyfriend Peter, until the end. I know that many people are profoundly and painfully feeling the loss of this gentle, elegant soul, including yours truly. Toronto is already a much, much dimmer and less bearable place without him.

Moving

Today I applied for a job in Toronto. I've been fantasizing about moving east since the day I graduated high school, but the closest I've come to realizing that plan was my stint with Katimavik. I am extremely terrified and am not certain that I'm ready, but I don't think I'll ever feel ready, so perhaps it's time to pull up my socks and take the plunge. Ideally I'd settle in Montreal, but ultimately I'll go where I can find a decent job. Tiffany's planning a trip to Montreal in August to house hunt. This means that I better brush up on my french so that I can get a good job in Montreal.

GAH!!!! This past year has been a tumultuous one for me. Cross your fingers for us!

Montreal vs. Toronto

Damian Abraham of Toronto band Fucked Up with Annie-Claude of Montreal band Duchess Says.

Toronto's Diamond Rings


vs.

Montreal's Lezzies on X


Montreal's Seripop

Seripop from Chris Roberson on Vimeo.

vs.

Toronto's Team Macho

It's Me, Is It You?

Contacting Toronto is an annual photography exhibition on the Onestop network of over 270 TTC screens. It offers artists and photographers an audience of 1.3 million people a day in over 50 stations. One of the many artists featured is Holly Norris and her photographs of a model with a disability, in an politicized take on contemporary fashion advertising.

'American Able' intends to, through spoof, reveal the ways in which women with disabilities are invisibilized in advertising and mass media. I chose American Apparel not just for their notable style, but also for their claims that many of their models are just ‘every day’ women who are employees, friends and fans of the company. However, these women fit particular body types. Their campaigns are highly sexualized and feature women who are generally thin, and who appear to be able-bodied. Women with disabilities go unrepresented, not only in American Apparel advertising, but also in most of popular culture. Rarely, if ever, are women with disabilities portrayed in anything other than an asexual manner, for ‘disabled’ bodies are largely perceived as ‘undesirable.’ In a society where sexuality is created and performed over and over within popular culture, the invisibility of women with disabilities in many ways denies them the right to sexuality, particularly within a public context.

Too often, the pervasive influence of imagery in mass media goes unexamined, consumed en masse by the public. However, this imagery has real, oppressive effects on people who are continuously ‘othered’ by society. The model, Jes Sachse, and I intend to reveal these stories by placing her in a position where women with disabilities are typically excluded.

More details about the group show can be found here: http:/​/​www.​contactingtoronto.​ca

Jes Sachse has a brilliant CONTACT show on now called "The Justice League of Gawkamerica" at The Junction in Toronto.

Additional model credits go to Dana Levine.

Butch Cuts

Butch Cuts Five Dollars by T K Lasky

T.Dot

view from my hotel window

Vacations are so wonderful but admittedly, I always miss home when I'm away, and when I'm home I'm always dreaming of greener pastures. The conference was good, the hotel stay was great, and chumming with Ryan has been a delight!

Ryan


Some memorable events that took place but are not limited to:

Tasty Food!



Hours of walking around window shopping wasn't complete without these tracks playing through my headphones:

Lou Reed - Perfect Day (mp3)

Nico - These Days (mp3)

Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros - Home (RAC Mix) (mp3)

Vivian Girls - When I'm Gone (mp3)

Shannon and the Clams - You Can Come Over (mp3)

CocoRosie - RainboWarriors (mp3)

Das Racist - Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell (mp3)

Black Mold - Pristine Boobles (mp3)

Deerhunter - When I Taste Blood (mp3)

Kania Tieffer - Get Flunky! (mp3)

Crystal Castles - Xxzxcuzx Me (mp3)

Meeting many crush worthy girls! I had some really fun and sexxxi flirty nights on ze trip. I won't kiss and tell cuz that would be distasteful, but I was reminded of the 'butterflies in the stomach' feeling again. Total crush on the drummer! RAWRRRR


Ryan had to work some evenings which sometimes left me exploring on my own. One of the places I braved was this 'participant-facilitated discussion' put on by ShOUT – Queer West Young Adult Program & Unconferences @ Masaryk-Cowan Community Centre.

It was small event in which there were four speakers who spoke on a wide variety of topics. It was interesting to learn of peoples involvement in the Toronto art and activism scene. This was definitely the point in my trip where I REALLY fell in love with Toronto. Go to Queer In The City if you'd like more info. on the event.

Seeing Marilyn and Diana was a real treat! We went for drinks to the Henhouse, and for dinner to The Lakeview.

Met with Carley and Heather, two of the people I did Katimavik with back in 2005. We went to a smoking lounge and then for all you can eat sushi. So nice to catch up with them!


Visiting the CBC Museum.


My wallet was lost/stolen at a landromat. So basically the last couple days in Toronto were STRESSFUL for me. I was stuck with no ID or money. We missed the Miike Snow show that I'd pre-bought tickets for because I had to file reports with the police, and make travel arrangements to get home. BLAH! My Mom was able to wire me some money so I could get by, but the guilt and stress that is still hanging over my head sucks.

This is an identical picture of the wallet I had.

The only two items (that weren't food or party favours) I was able to purchase before my wallet left me we were:

This zine from the Magic Pony shop

and
this vintage shirt from The Public Butter.

Diamond Rings

Check out his Myspace for tour dates!

Smug Son Of A Bitch

Check out this freaky dude from Toronto.

GAWD! Sometimes I forget that douche bags like this actually exist.

The cherry on top is 'Dimitri's' website DIMITRI THE LOVER.

I just puked in my mouth.

Boi Crush

The Toronto International Film Festival is well underway, and the hype surrounding Xavier Dolan's film J’ai Tué Ma Mère (I Killed My Mother) is stronger than ever. The film is a semi-autobiographical tale of a young gay man coming of age while struggling with his tortured relationship with his mother. The super-cute 20-year-old Québecer wrote, directed, produced, and starred in this film.

You are a Lesbian Vampire

My friend Thirza Cuthand, is a local (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan) film artist. Her films often explore topics of lesbianism, mental health, disabilities and aboriginal issues, from the first-person narrative. One of her more recent shorts, "You are a Vampire Lesbian", will be screening at the 19th Annual Inside Out Toronto LGBT Film and Video Festival which will run from May 14th, 2009 - May 24th, 2009. "You are a Vampire Lesbian" is one of eight films included in Dykes on the Verge of a Nrevous Breakdown program which will screen on Fri. May 22nd, at 10:00pm.

I am especially excited for this film for a few reasons. First, I believe that Thirza is truly a great filmmaker. She has a distinctive style that is all her own, and I am often moved by how personal her films are. Secondly (here's where I toot my own horn), my girlfriend and I are the actors in this short film. So, if you're going to be in Toronto during this time, you might want to check it out!

Vampire - The Gorgon (mp3)
Vampire - Antsy Pants (mp3)

These Are A Few Of My Favourite Things

So basically, Rockstar Energy Drinks should be boycotted. Follow the link, and you'll understand why.

Stilettos (Pumps) - Crime Mobb (mp3)
I can't stop groovin'!

This is my lover. Her name is Carrie.

I saw this sweet duo from Toronto last weekend. Here's a video for their song 'Jerk It'.