What's he on about now?

In case the articles, essays and opinions throughtout this site just weren't enough for you, here's my online diary (a.k.a. 'blog'). It's as close as you'll come to the inside of my head, so don't say I didn't warn you
(and remember, you can always e-mail me if you love or loathe anything you're about to read)...


   Tuesday, August 26, 2008

   FIRST LADY

Michelle Obama speaking at the Democratic National Convention in Denver earlier tonight:

Barack and I were raised with so many of the same values: that you work hard for what you want in life; that your word is your bond and you do what you say you’re going to do; that you treat people with dignity and respect, even if you don’t know them, and even if you don’t agree with them.

All of us driven by a simple belief that the world as it is just won’t do – that we have an obligation to fight for the world as it should be. That is the thread that connects our hearts. That is the thread that runs through my journey and Barack’s journey and so many other improbable journeys that have brought us here tonight, where the current of history meets this new tide of hope. That is why I love this country.

Okay, pardon my French but that speech was FUCKING AWESOME. This woman has taken a lot of undeserved flack this year and come back with grace and, dare I say it, hope.

Labels: America, politics, repair, tributes

I love a good Letter to the Editor and this week, my friend James Ip wrote:

Scottie - why don't you blog anymore? I checked your site and the last thing was from the fall?...

Sigh. True, so true. What started out as a slight Christmas break became a full-fledged shutdown.

Not that I was lazy. Being the managing editor of fab was always more work than most people assumed a fluffy gay rag would need but, as rumours of a buyout from Xtra became louder and louder, the urge to write about my life or state of mind became quieter and quieter. I endured months of paranoia and aggravation until the hammer came down in February and who wants to read about all that? You, my kind readers, had already endured the entirety of 2005 (aka The Year George W. Bush Made Me Insane)!

In the end though, it kind of worked out. Well, if you can call getting fired along with virtually everyone at the magazine 'working out' but I'm now writing for three gay magazines, including the one that fired me. At the time, it felt a bit like being dumped and then asked for rebound sex but, in the sunshine of a Toronto summer, that water has flowed well past the bridge.

I wrote a massive piece on the first year of the new gay and lesbian radio station and was offered the 'daily roundup' blog on Xtra's website, where I get to put on my Jon Stewart hat and have a bit of fun with the news. That and the ever-addictive Facebook have stolen from this page, my first love, but I think it's time to see just how promiscuous I can be. Now that I'm out of work and freelancing, it's important to just keep writing, writing, writing (preferably for money) and I think this blog could function well as an ongoing 'progress report,' just to let everybody know what I'm up to.

It's a little scary to be living like a journalist without necessarily feeling like one but, in times of self-doubt, I turn to the lovely people who post videos like these on YouTube:


How Not to Start an Interview


Blind, not gay


Disastrous Holly Hunter interview

So yeah, underemployed or not, it looks like the world still needs me! So I'm getting back to work and you'll see more of it here (along with a website revamp, hopefully soon).

Coming up: the 10th annual Friends for Life Bike Rally! Yes, I'm back in the saddle and you'll hear more on that soon...

Labels: fab, George W Bush, homo-a-go-go, introspective, money - lack thereof, repair, working girl, writing

Amazing how Cusack can so charmingly deliver the final ego-deflater.

-- Reply posted by  Whisky Prajer at July 17, 2008

 

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Today was the International Day of Solidarity with the Writers Guild of America, STILL on strike in an attempt to gain an adequate cut of the money that studios are poised to make from Internet downloads and streaming of content the writers create. To put it in perspective, the last time Hollywood writers went on strike was in 1988. The resulting deal had nothing about the yet-to-come DVD format that ended up making billions for the studios. In the current strike, the writers are asking that the 0.3% they now get from DVD sales of their work be increased to 0.6% -- and the studios ARE REFUSING.

So yes, a day of solidarity -- with protests in Canada, England, Ireland, Australia, Germany and France. I decided to go down this morning to add another body. This isn't just about Hollywood. I've seen in recent years how journalists are paid less because of a new belief that any blogger can do what they do; meanwhile, the bloggers are expected to write for free because they're not 'real' journalists. It's a tidy little scheme they've got going but hopefully one with a short shelf life.

Walking in circles in the cold, I thought of Toronto's own Joe Shuster, the co-creator of Superman who was poor and going blind in a nursing home while DC Comics was making billions from his character. Lex Luthor himself couldn't have been as evil as those guys.

But as we marched in formation this morning, chanting slogans coined by the unstoppable Denis McGrath, I turned around to see David Cronenberg walking along with us:



Now THAT'S a surreal morning. He was warm and very friendly, patiently indulging me this fanboy photo. "I'm a writer too," Cronenberg said, "This affects all of us." Exactly.

Labels: politics, repair, Trawna, writing

Still feeling sickly after anything I eat. No fun.

Nothing like impulse shopping to cheer myself up and hey, X the new Kylie Minogue album is here. Braving a sudden and intense blizzard that hit for (I kid you not) five minutes (and just the five my dog and I happened to be outside), I ran to Sunrise records and picked it up.

I got a funny email from my friend Mark, who wrote:

You're really going to go and buy a CD? Really? Are you living in 1999? Well, enjoy your compact disc. Just don't try to play it on your 8-track, luddite! :)

I replied that I can pirate as easily as the next man but the people I love get my money. Make a CD, DVD or book that moves me in some way and I will happily hand over my money. Besides, after all this time, there's still a spark of pleasure in tearing open the plastic wrap, opening the jewel case and placing the new disc in the tray and hitting play.

I bought Kylie's CD because I think she deserves my money. Not that X is essential, of course; it's all totally predictable, utterly disposable electro-pop but damn, these songs are fun and sometimes you just want a cheeseburger. I especially love this one:


Kylie -- "Like a Drug"

It's hilarious -- the lyrics are a cliché-a-thon of dancefloor cheese but still that irresistible synth line and sugary chorus just makes me want to get all sorts of inappropriate.

Why do I give Kylie a pass on the nasal-voiced sex kitten purr that makes Britney look so ridiculous to me? I think it's her age (all this "woman of experience" vibe is far more credible coming from a late-thirty-something), her looks (she's a gorgeous late-thirty-something) and her silence. As a pop star, Kylie is a throwback to an earlier era where we don't have to hear about her every rehab stint, redneck boyfriend or opinion on the Middle East peace process. Kylie just gets on with making fun music.

Oh, and if she decides she wants to act again and signs on for Doctor Who?
Even better!

Labels: music, technology, tributes

"She deserves my money" - now that's a sentiment you don't frequently hear voiced about sexy pop singers! Nice.

-- Reply posted by  Whisky Prajer at November 29, 2007

 

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Did you laugh at that headline? I hope so, 'cause it's all I've got.
I've been sick for two days now with a, shall we say, delicate stomach.
On Saturday, after the Ben Lee concert, I went to a party that involved lovely people, freeflowing wine, a couple tequila shots and some gorgeous pan-fried garlic butter shrimp.

Too bad I was violently ill mere hours later. How embarrassing. It just hasn't been my party weekend, has it?

It's easy to blame the tequila but, after two days of gut pain, I think the shrimp is a more likely suspect. When I think of the (thankfully) few times I've been sick like that (notably that horrible incident in LA just before Josh's wedding), shrimp was often involved. I think I may have to give it up.

I had dinner with Ed tonight, still in town before he heads back to Wales next weekend, and even though I ate a careful chicken sandwich, I felt pained and nauseous immediately afterward and had to cut our time out short. This really sucks.

Why must something so delicious be so deadly???

Labels: friends, health

I have a really bad food sensitivity to garlic--something which is in nearly everything. Trust me--I feel your pain.

-- Reply posted by  The Guy in DKNY at November 29, 2007

 

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One of the many joys of living in Toronto (assuming you've got the cash for it) is the plethora of singers and bands who make it a stop in their world tours. (Bruce Springsteen may have added a Hamilton date this week but he's still in the minority.)

So I was pleased last night to go see Australian pop singer Ben Lee play at the Mod Club. At the age of 29, he's a pop veteran, having released his first album with his early band Noise Addict when he was 15. My old friend Josh introduced me to his music back when we were flatmates and Lee was a teen grunge boy, his songs sounding like Liz Phair and namedropping the Pixies whenever possible.

These days, Lee's lightened up considerably, going for a heartfelt Jack Johnson kind of vibe. There's nothing new here, just a classic guitar-pop sound, and his 2005 album, Awake is the New Sleep, is one of my favourites -- stuffed with catchy hooks, charming lyrics and quirky instrumentation. Through the magic of YouTube, here's the boy at work last night:


Ben Lee - 'Into the Dark' (live at the Mod Club, Toronto)

What I love about this is the way Lee's precociously cute sing-along smacks right up against Toronto's icy refusal to never, ever show enthusiasm. I've witnessed so many train wrecks in Toronto concert halls, the squirmy result of artists trying to force the jaded crowd to give back. My favourite examples:

-- Peter Gabriel, who tried to lead a Euro-football-stadium-style chant to an Air Canada Centre crowd that resolutely refused to get on its feet. Scowling at us, he proceeded to lie down on the stage, fold his fingers together over his chest and stay that way until the worried crowd got to its feet to see if he was alright. He then bounced up and resumed his demand for chanting.

-- Bruce Springsteen (only days after that at the same venue), who had to announce to Toronto that, "We are having a HOUSE PARTY! And the FIRST RULE of the house party is that you have to get up off your ASS! You're not that old! GET UP!" This from a 53-year-old man who'd been racing back and forth across the stage, even up on a piano, for the last two hours. Shameful.

-- Chumbawamba, who did their punk-pop left-wing-anarchy thing with a full horn section and numerous costume changes to a Warehouse crowd that sullenly stood waiting for That One Song. When the band finally began, "We'll be singing..." the crowd gave up the screams and applause it'd been withholding for the last hour.

-- Mr. Bungle, who perhaps unwisely denied the Opera House audience the manic carnival heavy-metal of their first album in favour of the atmospheric prog-rock of their second. The crowd just stood there through song after song and the passive-aggressive battle between the band and its own fans peaked when singer Mike Patton announced, "Fuck it -- let's give you what you want," and launched into a pitch-perfect rendition of "Working For the Weekend" by Loverboy. The crowd roared with delight, while I looked around, feeling like Kevin McCarthy in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Couldn't anyone see how cruelly we were being mocked? During the cheesy guitar solo, Patton raised his fist in the air and screamed, "Canadian ROCK!"

By the end of his show, Ben Lee was standing on a Mod Club bartop, strumming his guitar and encouraging the crowd to sing along to his up-with-people anthem, "We're All In This Together." Half the crowd (mostly men) resisted entirely, creating an awkward vibe, though I'm not quite ready to condemn them like Peter Gabriel just yet.

I love "We're All In This Together" but, well, it is a bit TOO cute and worse yet, it's become inescapable after being licensed for a Telus commercial. Yuck. Licensing music for commercials has become the only way for a lot of bands to get heard nowadays and Lee himself jokes in another song, "They don't play me on the radio." Instead, he's shopped himself out to Hollywood, his music the kind of happy light-rock perfect for TV show endings or upbeat movie trailers (like this ad for Heroes airing in Australia).

So it's not entirely inappropriate that Lee has become loathed by hard rockers and Pitchfork critics but, hey, sometimes a feel-good record should make you, you know, feel good. As he puts it:

I think people like to hear a songwriter that reflects the realness of being a human being and at the end of the day, I leave my audience hopefully with the fact that it's worth it. And just to keep giving some hope.

See? That's the kind of statement that just makes you want to slap him.
But secretly? I kinda like it.

Labels: Australia, music, Trawna, tributes

Yikes! That makes me worry a little about the Spice Girls concert in February...

-- Reply posted by  The Guy in DKNY at November 28, 2007

 

I wasn't there, but I heard stories about Duran Duran being booed off stage in Toronto when they opened for David Bowie's Glass Spider Tour. That was still during the biggest years of their career!

-- Reply posted by  hot tea at November 28, 2007

 

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This will be a hopelessly vague post but, believe it or not, sometimes I am actually concerned about my privacy. So no details but I'm writing to remind myself in the future how and why last night went so horribly wrong:

Trust your own instincts.
That voice in the back of your head knows what it's talking about.

At a party last night, I made a couple wonky choices, trying to "read" the room, and somehow became a really dreadful person. There's lots of thing I could blame it on but none of them stand up to much scrutiny. No, I got to see aspects of myself that I usually either beat down with a stick or run away from, screaming.

I shudder at my behaviour and hope that the host will forgive me.

I'm going to see Ben Lee in concert tonight -- he's got a lyric I like:
"I had to learn to sin successfully." It reminded me of one of my all-time favourite pieces of advice from Mark Twain:

Now then, I propose to inoculate for Sin. Suppose that every time you commit a transgression, a crime of any kind, you lay up in your heart a memory of the shame you felt when your Sin found you out, and so make it a perpetual reminder and perpetual protection against your ever committing that particular Sin again. That is to say, inoculate yourself forever against that particular Sin. Now what must be the result? Why this -- logically and infallibly: that the more crimes you commit (and forever amen) the richer you become, morally; and when you have committed all the trespasses, all the crimes that are known to the calendar of Sin, there you stand, white as an angel, pure as the driven Snow (protected forever from further Sin), the sky-kissing monument of moral perfection.

It's an argument that really makes me, though secretly, I hope Twain was right.

Labels: friends, introspective, repair

Okay, this NaBloPoMo stuff really sucks. A blog entry a day, every day? Really?
Who, aside from truly awesome people like Andy Towle, Digby or Denis McGrath can pull that off? I met the latter at the CBC press gig the other day and he admitted that he just tosses that stuff off. "Bastard!" I said. You make it look so easy! Sure, he said, but no one reads it. Oh please, I said, I write for fab magazine.

I'm back from the fab 13th anniversary party. Only two of the five DJs scheduled actually performed because -- on this cold, slushy, nasty night -- the event was sparsely attended. By 2am, I was on the dancefloor with the lovely Richelle, Brad and the aptly-named Andrew Awesome and no one else. Tragic! People will grumble, they'll blame Paul, they'll blame me, but whatever. I had a few free drinks, danced with my friends and we all later went to Woody's and closed the joint. Good times!

I'm impressed with my typing here. I'm so drunk -- and stupidly compelled to continue my blogging duties. Why? I've got nothing to say right now (I'm certainly not going to talk about what went on at the pub) and I should just go to sleep.

I shouldn't drink. I take in the liquid and become liquid. Soft, flowing. My neighbours are still up. Young kids, like 20, making noise. I want to flow under their door like water and join them. Yes, I know what that sounds like but please, they're 20 and have a lot to learn. I just want the company.

Does drinking make me feel lonely? Or just strip away the pretense that I'm not?
Wow, I'm gonna regret writing this in the morning. Shut up!

Thank god for my dog. She's curled up in a little ball at the foot of my bed. She just went out for a pee and didn't like the snow. Me neither. I've got to be up at 9. God help me. It's time to curl up with puppy -- g'night!

Labels: fab, introspective, Tegan the Jack Russell Terrorist

Here's your coffee, sir (glad you had a good time)!

Darrell

-- Reply posted by  Whisky Prajer at November 23, 2007

 

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I vowed to lose hope
To walk steady on clear ice
But I’ve slipped again

Labels: introspective, oh l'amour, writing

The words "sexy" and "Canadian Broadcasting Corporation" aren't often used together but that's what I'm hearing at the media launch for the CBC's "winter season" beginning in January, with a batch of new shows hoping to follow The Tudors' lead in sexing up our public broadcaster.

I'm led in by women from the CBC's PR firm Media Profile. There's over a dozen attractive women in headsets, like some power-lesbian secret service, leading journalists into a large, white-draped room. I sit in the second row, behind Due South star Paul Gross. He looks better now than he did as the hot Mountie, the bastard. We watch a slick montage of trailers for 12 new shows, including MVP, a hockey soap opera clearly modeled on the saucy UK hit Footballers' Wives.

Writing for fab, I'm viewing all this with a Queer Eye, like some pink filter. I'm forced to ignore the creators of gritty drama The Border and even the very cute David Kopp, star of the new comedy jPod. No gay office mate, David? I must move on, though I do have to stop and chat with Nicholas Campbell, Canadian TV veteran (if not icon). "You mean I have to play a gay character to be in your magazine?" he asks. Pretty much, I tell him, unless you want to come out, right here. He laughs.

I go looking for the very gay Chris Hyndman and Steven Sabados, stars of their own new daytime talk show. The former Designer Guys are thrilled. "This really is a step up for us," Hyndman says, "We feel like The Jeffersons!" Any pressure from their new masters to tone down the gay? None, says Sabados: "They keep saying, 'Just be yourself.'" Hyndman laughs, "As if they’re going to hire me and ask me to play it straight! They’re going down the wrong street!" The Steven and Chris Show will have the occasional celebrity guest -— who’s topping their wish list? "Pamela Anderson!" they announce in unison.

"We just want them to be themselves," CBC programming head Kirstine Layfield later tells me. (Did they rehearse?) But I point out that the CBC's gayest show, the British sci-fi drama Torchwood, has been airing with no promotion, buried in the Friday-at-9 time slot that MVP will occupy in January. Layfield insists they’re happy with Torchwood's half-million viewers and that limited funds for ads should be spent on Canadian shows. "We try to reflect Canadians back to themselves and diversity is obviously part of that," she says, "but we want to be natural about it."

The bubbly Natalie Brown has dubbed her single-girl show Sophie a "conflamady" (conflict-drama-comedy) and agrees that including a gay character felt natural: "Really, who doesn't have a gay best friend? Why would Sophie not? I do. It's not a cliché, it's true." My Gay Agenda satisfied, I'm ultimately forced to agree with Brown when she says, "After watching all those trailers, I have to say -- CBC is looking kind of sexy."

Labels: Canada, fab, homo-a-go-go, Trawna, TV

There’s been a lot of fuss this fall about the decline in ratings for last year’s hit show Heroes. In its first season, the show I was prepared to ignore as an X-Men retread won me over with its offbeat characters, crackerjack pace and wild cliffhanger-ending plot twists. How many times did an episode have us saying, "Whoa. Didn’t see that coming!" Gorgeous!

Consider then, however, the painful tedium of this season’s big plot arc (spoilers follow, be warned!):

-- A shadowy, cloaked figure starts bumping off the shifty parents of the main characters.
-- They all warn of one of their own who went bad: the mysterious Adam Munroe.
-- Our engaging time traveler Hiro Nakamura is separated from the other characters in an endless subplot set in feudal Japan. The samurai hero whose legends he heard as a boy is revealed, oddly, to be a British man.
-- Hiro makes a mess of history and this new man, who seems to heal from any injury, vows revenge.
-- That man is then shown in the present day and introduces himself as Adam Munroe.
-- Hiro returns to the scene of his father’s murder and discovers the cloaked assassin is...Adam Munroe.

And this blindingly obvious tale has taken nine hours to tell, why?

Personally, I was hoping the killer would be Nathan Petrelli. Why? Because that would make no sense and it’d be fun to see the writers come up a reason. Also because, nine episodes in, they haven’t done a damn thing with the character yet. I hope actor Adrian Pasdar is being paid well, because he must be as bored as the audience by this point.

But here’s an interesting thing: Tim Kring, the show’s creator, has actually apologized for the season so far, admitting: "We didn't give the audience enough story to justify the time we allotted it...The message is that we've heard the complaints — and we're doing something about it."

Whoa. Now there’s a plot twist. You don’t hear sentiments like that coming out of Hollywood every day. Alright, Mr. Kring, since the writer’s strike leaves Heroes with only two more episodes left, that and your apology will keep me on board.

Oh, and Claire’s dad coming back from the dead?
Whoa. Didn’t see that coming.

Labels: comic books, TV, writing

Blade Runner needs no explanation. It just is. All of the best. There is nothing like it. To be part of a real masterpiece which changed the world's thinking. It's awesome.

Far be it from me to argue with Rutger Hauer but just a little explanation is in order: I went with a few friends to see Blade Runner: The Final Cut tonight. It's the third time the film's been released in theatres but the first release that director Ridley Scott has had complete control over. And Hauer's still right.


Blade Runner: The Final Cut trailer

What amazed me about watching this movie again (since 1994 and 1982) is seeing how Ridley Scott removed everything that didn't work before (bad narration, awkward edits, a clumsy ending) and polished what remained into a dark diamond. This is a slow, despairing, elegant piece of future noir that's even more relevant now. Most movies set in the future end up looking silly when the time comes (welcome to the year 2000!) but this film's Los Angeles in 2019 is both increasingly implausible and increasingly unsettling. The details are wrong (no offworld colonies yet) but the overall dystopia feels disturbingly probable.

And the lead actors are so gorgeously understated: Harrison Ford is cynical to the point of brutality, Sean Young is cool and aloof but desperately sad, and Rutger Hauer is one of film's all-time great villains -- terrifying yet sympathetic. Watching the film again, you really see how he is the real hero here: trying to answer the question of existence in a mere four-year life span while the deadened and soulless human characters fail to match his vitality, curiosity or faith. I was going to post a YouTube clip of his big speech here but how can I? It's too good not to be seen in the context of the film (see for yourself when a splashy DVD set comes out Dec. 18).

What was especially nice about going to this screening was that I went with my friends Danielle and Josh and, in a surprise move, an old friend of mine from university named Glynis. I hadn't seen her in nearly 15 years but she'd seen me making plans on Facebook to see Blade Runner, her favourite movie ever, and asked if she could tag along. I loved that, especially in regards to a movie about a high-technology culture of emotional cripples. Here instead is technology bringing people together. I was impressed by Glynis taking the risk in asking to join us and it was great to see her again.

Meanwhile, other friends Victor and Trevor were literally just down the street, going to see Breakfast With Scot. I was able to make it to the theatre in time to join them and this Canadian indie comedy was a total delight:


Breakfast With Scot trailer

Though the film's plot is predictable as can be, the witty script, engaging actors and surprising lack of sentimental button-pushing thrilled the group of us. Plus it's just so great to see a film set in Toronto, about Toronto and filled with people you could mistake for your neighbours. And I love a film that recognizes that trying to avoid gay stereotypes doesn't mean making the gay characters bland, inoffensive and indistinguishable from other guys. We are different, just not as much as everyone seems to think. Breakfast With Scot got that and I was really pleased.

After seeing one film that questions our very ability to hold onto what makes us human, it's great to see another that champions all the little things that let us.

Labels: back in the day, Canada, friends, homo-a-go-go, movies

Look out, everybody -- here comes an Old Man Rant!
Years ago, I found this great little lamp in Chinatown. It's a little brown cube with rice paper sides and even a scented oil warmer up top (adorable!). It appears in that first 'day in the life' video I made:


Thursday, September 22, 2006

A few months ago, tragedy struck. The halogen bulb burned out and those are tricky to replace. I went to Canadian Tire, showed them the old bulb and left with a recommended replacement -- one that instantly popped and burned out when I plugged it in. I went back, got no further advice from them and began trying a couple bulb variations but with no luck.

I began to think the lamp itself might be the problem so, earlier this week, I brought it to Dudley's Hardware in my neighbourhood. Frank, I'm told, does small appliance repair. He explained to me that the wiring in the lamp is fine but the voltage of the bulbs I'd been recommended was too low. Since this little store doesn't carry such bulbs, I went back to Canadian Tire. I had questions about some other things too but, for the first time in a while, I found the staff there even less help than usual. Everyone just kept passing me off to someone else who didn't know either -- my favourite being the girl who directed me to an empty counter. "Just wait around here," she said. "He'll come back." When I got home, the new bulbs didn't work either.

In desperation, I decided to schlep out to Gerrard Square, where there's a Home Depot. I loathe Wal-Mart and its big-box ilk but here I found someone who instantly took an interest in my wiring problem, hooking my lamp cord up to an electrical reader and testing the bulbs. Everything worked fine, just not together, and he too was stumped. Another Home Depot employee came over to see if he could figure it out. In the end, nothing was solved but it still felt great just to have people at least try to help. And during my time spent in the store, I could see a much more interesting and varied collection of things for the home than at CT. I hate having to lose a perfectly good prejudice but Home Depot won me over.

Monday, I'm going to Paul Wolf industrial lighting supply. They're my last hope. In the meantime, however, I'll remember that Frank at Dudley's looked at my lamp the same day, gave me solid advice and didn't even charge me a nickel. I certainly know where I'll go next time.

Labels: money - lack thereof, repair, technology, Trawna, tributes

Oh, I completely felt for u for the C.T. comments. I shop there all the time due to their weekly sales and wide variety of choices. However, their staff are just so little trained. They always point me into a totally wrong direction when I asked to find something. Furthermore, sometimes they're just too exhausted or too rude to even talk to me. They told me to wait there and just left to finish their work, leaving me standing there waiting like a fool.

Since then, whenever I shop at C.T., I depend on my own senses and observation and it worked better than their staff most of the time. ;-P I could be more familiar with the shelves and location of products at the downtown and Queensway store than some staff there... lol

Good luck, Scott!

Wingo

-- Reply posted by  Anonymous at November 19, 2007

 

I generally prefer Home Hardware to Ca-knucklehead Tire, partly out of convenience (got one in the village) but also because they're usually smaller stores with a staff that's geared to help in any way they can. After all, they're competing against the big Home Cheap-os and all their ilk.

-- Reply posted by  Whisky Prajer at November 19, 2007

 

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Obviously, it's a big nostalgia kick for we fans to see Peter Davison step back into the role of Doctor Who after more than 20 years but, upon watching the sketch filmed for the BBC's annual charity telethon Children in Need, it's clear that new Doctor David Tennant is just as giddy as the rest of us:

Doctor Who: Time Crash

It's a terrible risk for any actor to step back into a role from long ago, especially one so identifiable (who can forget cringing through Sean Connery's ill-advised return as James Bond in Never Say Never Again?). Davison, however, manages to recapture his mix of older-brother grumpiness and breathless urgency from the early '80s and Tennant, for his part, doesn't have to work too hard to convey a sense of delight at seeing him again.

And I love how the ending suddenly stops being about the characters or the silly universe-in-peril 'plot' and becomes a dialogue between them as actors. Davison did inspire Tennant, just as he was a role model for little 13-year-old me (not to mention the trainers). The All Creatures Great and Small star had the unenviable task of following on from the bizarre and iconic Tom Baker (much like Roger Moore having to succeed Connery) but he made the part his own and is now being honoured for it while raising money for sick kids. Absolutely lovely to see.

Labels: back in the day, Doctor Who, England, TV

Dating a married man seemed like a good idea at the time. I’d gone through a long rough patch of singles hell -— false starts and heartbreak I both suffered and inflicted. One-night-stands and 'friends with benefits' weren’t making me happy either. I craved something safe.

Jeff seemed ideal. A fantastic guy in an open relationship, he wanted to play around but remain emotionally faithful to his marriage. He and I had inventive sex and good conversation and it was all like the best parts of dating but without messy insecurities or jealousy. His lovely partner invited me for dinner at their place and was impressively relaxed about the whole business. To me, it all felt very open, liberal and 21st century, until Jeff told me one night that his partner wanted to start having someone on the side too. The very thought of this made him sick with jealousy. "But you’re the one who’s been sleeping around," I said. Not any more -— they decided to close their relationship to one other married couple. This monogamy-for-four was "safer," Jeff told me. But safer for whom, I thought, surprised at how hurt I felt.

Weeks later, I met Sean, who liked me as much as I liked his boyfriend. This time, I abandoned any delusions of polyamory and told myself it would just be about sex, nothing more. Simple and tidy. The couple came to my home one night, bringing along another friend (who Sean obviously wanted to sleep with) and everyone seemed clear-eyed on what the night had in store. But as things heated up between the four of us, Sean was all over his new friend and utterly ignoring his partner, who stormed out of the room. Suddenly, I was sitting on my living room sofa playing marriage counselor, listening to this guy pour out his every frustration with his partner’s poisonous neglect. "I hate him," he cried. So much for safety.

Studies suggest that anywhere from 50 to 75 percent of gay couples are or have been non-monogamous but I’ve found that, for me at least, the truly honest, above-board, jealousy-free open relationship is a theory that only works on paper, like communism or Ikea furniture. Polyamory might be inevitable but I’m going to stick to dating single men for a while. It’s just safer.

Managing editor Scott Dagostino changes names to protect the innocent.

[reprinted from issue 333 of fab]

Labels: fab, health, homo-a-go-go, introspective, oh l'amour, writing

I thought my 15 minutes were up after my slew of media appearances (okay, three) concerning Harry Potter's gay wizard but hooray for Jiri Tlusty, the horny hockey player. Some gossip blog got a hold of nude photos the 19-year-old Maple Leaf had sent to a girl on the Internet and the ever-classy Toronto Sun gleefully made a spectacle of them today.

The news station AM 640 called up fab for a comment but editor Paul hates doing these things and suggested that host John Downs talk to me, "the resident pontificator." Ouch! Truth hurts. Soon, the AM640 website read:

Wednesday, November 14 2007
Scott Dagostino - FAB Magazine Managing Editor
Leafs winger Jiri Tlusty is the center of a whirlwind of controversy after being spotted online both nude, and mock-making out with a boy [though not at the same time]. John detects an undercurrent of homophobia running through the coverage of the story, and who better than Scott to comment on that?

Who indeed. Sweet of them to write that.
But my latest radio stint was difficult because the host and I were in total agreement. As with the "gay Dumbledore" saga, there's little to this story and we both thought the media's treatment of Tlusty today was ridiculous at best, cruel at worst. Chumminess doesn't make for gripping radio debate and I find that, when I'm out of my element like this (I prefer asking the questions), I basically fall into two modes: earnest or wisecracking. At my best, I do both but today I didn't get as many quips in as I would have liked. I was just too annoyed that this kid was forced to apologize. As the host said, 'apologize for what?' He has every right to kiss any buddy he wants, send any photo to any girl he wants.

His only crime, I said (if you can even call it that) is indiscretion. Tlusty didn't understand that, as an NHL hockey player, he's now a celebrity. He's now, like Bowie said, there where things are hollow. How could a 19-year-old from the Czech Republic understand North America's deep sexual hypocrisy, its double standard of both hyping and condemning sex, and its bizarre demand that anyone famous should be a role model to children? The poor guy was just partying and trying to get laid like any other 19-year-old.

As for the "gay" angle, bitch please! Trying to out this guy is the silliest thing I've seen in a while. I've made out with women -- that doesn't make me straight. I maintained on air, as I have in the past, that the gay rights movement has never been just for gay people. Sure, we want to be free to live our lives as we want without being attacked for it, but it's also about freeing straight guys from the homophobia that shackles them too. Two friends can't be physically affectionate with each other or (god forbid) say anything with real feeling for fear of seeming gay. It's a trap that European guys like Tlusty have mostly avoided. Hell, have you ever seen Czech Republic porn? These guys have cheerful sex with other beautiful guys, then take the money home to their girlfriends. Tlusty's drunken tongue play with his buddy is as hetero as it gets over there.

Thanks to the moral guardians of the Sun, Tlusty now says, "I have learned a valuable lesson." He did learn a lesson, but not one with any value in it.

Labels: fab, insanity, media, sports, Trawna

Tschye -- "Boyz Gone Wild."

-- Reply posted by  Whisky Prajer at November 15, 2007

 

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