Paris Is Not Appealing

The decision to return her to jail, that is. Additionally, she will now be serving the entire 45 days of her original sentence, since her 'time off for good behaviour' became 'let's have a kegger'.

Yes, the brilliant Ms. Hilton reportedly wanted to throw a party on her first night of house arrest, and somehow a thing like that got leaked to the media. I wonder how that happened?

Add a charge of Felonious Stupidity to this chick's rap sheet.
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Cole Porter's House Now A Museum

Should you ever find yourself with a spare afternoon in the vicinity of Peru, Indiana, here's a great travel tip: visit the Cole Porter Museum.

His birthplace welcomed its nascent composer and bon-vivant in 1891 and hosted him for a decade after that. Recently, the house was rescued by the Ole Oleson Theatre Group after it had fallen into disrepair. It had even been used as a meth lab when the city stepped up and ushered the project through.

Better a tribute to a well-known closet case than a tina-bumpery any day, I guess.

All flippancy aside, it's quite an honour when the town where you grew up decides to turn the house where you grew up into a museum. I shudder to think what Kelowna would do to that left-half of a duplex in which I spent my formative years; I can practically see the dioramas now, fairly redolent with the charm of growing up poor in the Seventies. [shudder]

[S O U R C E]
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Now Showing: Starveillance

If you're like me, you've never wondered about what was behind that famous Paris/Nicole feud. Now, though, thanks to Starveillance we don't have to not wonder anymore.

(C'mon, it was either this or you get to look at James Holsinger for another 12 hours. Apology accepted.)
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IS DUBYA ON CRACK?

This is his nominee for Surgeon-General? This guy?

This man is not fit to hold public office, on so many levels, in so many ways. Oh cripes and criminy on a cracker, no n-no no no.

On the other hand...

Letting the Republicans publicly fret about how distressing gay male sex is - even though they already know all about sucking it dry and fucking it up from governing - might be good for them. It's time there was a Great Butt-Sex Debate. It'll likely teach them finesse, for one thing, and maybe somewhere along the way they'll finally get the message that, when we do it, at least it's CONSENSUAL.

Oh well, all this dirty talk does makes the newscast a little brighter, doesn't it?. War War War... Anilingus.

Anilingus? Hello!
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Now Showing: Stephen Fry on "Shrink Rap"

More Stephen Fry, this time the first of five parts from a show called Shrink Rap hosted by Dr. Pamela Connolly.

Some of you may remember Dr. Pam as Billy Connolly's wife, although I remember her first from the 1980-1 series of Saturday Night Live, when she was Pamela Stephenson.

Yes, I am that old, but not as old as people who first remember her from Not The Nine O'Clock News. They're really old.
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From The Big House To The Spacious Apartment

Princess, er, Paris Hilton is in jail, but she's not in jail.

That is to say, she's not in jail, but she's still in custody.

What it comes down to is the little bitch went into a two-day snit and didn't eat and 'almost had a nervous breakdown' and so she's been transferred to 'house arrest' for the remainder of her sentence.

Ask me how I'd feel if someone told me I couldn't leave my apartment for three weeks... I'd love it. When I was a little kid and used to get sent to my room, that was heaven.

I guess Zsa Zsa and Martha Stewart are made of sterner stuff.
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HEAT WAVE!!!

WHOA! Joey Lawrence, formerly of Blossom, has certainly blossomed himself.

I mean, he was hot then, but this is like a supernova. Plus, it's a wet heat...
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Bush, Putin Meet To Improve Ties

...then braid each other's hair, tell ghost stories, and finally...

PILLOW FIGHT!
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In Search Of... Long-Lost Friends

I seem to gather long-lost friends at a rate slightly faster than I make new friends, to which end, it seems like I have fewer and fewer friends each year. The friends I have remaining are at least technologically adept, which makes staying in touch easier, and therefore the chance of any of them becoming lost - let alone long-lost - is slight.

Nonetheless, the trend bodes ill.

I have friends like Jennifer Heppner, whom I could contact (and who could contact me) if I (or she) were in the mood to do it, but I don't (and she doesn't) for no more sinister reason than neither I (nor she) has. (Or have.) Okay, I'll stop that now.

It's a similar case with Jay Demetrick. Although our friendship ended on somewhat shaky ground, I saw him at Pride Day last year, he seemed glad to see me, and he even let me take a picture of him. He and Jenn, then, are not so much long-lost friends as set-aside friends. Among these I count Peter Ryall, Vince McNeil, and Jesse Walters.

The real hard cases are the friends whose brilliance seemed to ensure them future fame who've simply vanished, not even to be found on the Internet. I'm talking mainly about Matthew Bankert and Mo Hanna, but there are others.

The last I heard of Matthew, he was living in Dublin, and somewhere around here I have his mother's phone number, so I could probably find him that way if I wanted. Mo, on the other hand, is simply gone. No profile on Facebook or MySpace, her relatively common name the ultimate Google nightmare: a blind alley. All I have are my memories and a portrait of her on my wall which fairly radiates with her insouciant vulnerability.

It's always a wonderful thing to find a long-lost friend in fantasy; alas, reality has its own set of criteria. I ran into James Gill, an old friend of mine from the very early 90s, last year. We went for coffee last September, and despite being in my best humour, I think I pissed him off. He's never called again. As soon as I can think of how to contact him again without seeming confrontational, I will.

Colin Palmer I just lost touch with, in the same way I've lost touch with Paul Akehurst. I call and leave voicemails, or I send emails that go unanswered, and I'll assume they're mad at me (always my first assumption, no matter what the situation) and so I stop. Then, out of the blue, a contact, indicating that all is well and always was.

Colin Palmer found me on Facebook yeaterday, so I sent him a reply. So did Steve Laporte, who found my blog, and perused it, and had some nice things to say about it. Steve wasn't so much long-lost as misplaced, but still... Two in one day.

My only hope is that some day Matthew and/or Mo will google themselves, see this story floating in cyberspace like a message in a bottle, and find their way back to me.
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Brand-New Brand Branded A Failure

Alright, who broke the logo? Was it one of you? I know it was one of you, so you might as well confess.

I'm waiting...

(I shudder to think what the mascots are going to look like; maybe a rat with a meth problem or giant syringe. After all, it's gotta be all street and hip and appeal to the kids.)
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Vancouver: City of Parks - Ravine Park

The history of discovery is littered with accidents. Searching for a faster route to Asia, for instance, Columbus accidentally found the Americas instead; the quest for the elusive Northwest Passage opened European eyes to many marvels - none of them what they were looking for, but oh well...

It was the same for me. Last Sunday I set off to discover a viable walking route to my friend Buffy's new place; along the way I encountered many wonders, including palatial homes on gracious avenues of mature trees and, my most favourite thing of all, a park.

See that tiny sliver of green there on the map? As its name would indicate, nestled into a ravine among the many folds of the Arbutus Ridge, is a tiny oasis of tranquility set amongst some pretty tranquil streets. Originally a streambed, water now rushes through the area in a culvert beneath the pathway.


Entering from the north along W. 33rd (between Arbutus and Yew) the park is almost invisible from the street. For one thing, the entrance is set quite far back, and for the other thing the frontage is narrow. All of this promised that my passage through the park would likely be undisturbed by other people.


The immediate sensation upon entering the park is that, despite the fact that it is hemmed in by some fairly busy streets, within itself all is quiet. There weren't even any birds. The trees touch overhead - far overhead, as these trees are fully grown - and wind shushes through the uppermost branches.

It's clear Ravine Park - like most of the parks in Vancouver - had sustained some damage in the storms of past December. At least one large tree had been felled where it broke, and was left to serve as a nurse log. None of them seems to have hit any houses, most of which are only occasionally visible on the upper slopes.


Despite the damage, the overhead canopy was unaffected, and remains unbroken. The uphill walk was never steep along the main path. Although there was a steeper auxiliary path, it didn't look official; more like the sort of thing roughed out by bored rich kids in search of... Who knows? I've never been one, so I have no idea what they're looking for. Judging by what they'd left behind, I can only guess: a place to litter, smoke, and commit grafitti. None of these, however, was overwhelming.


I'll definitely be going back to Ravine Park; the next time I go to visit Buffy I'd like to take some video of the route. I was walking slowly and taking pictures, and still I managed to get through it in under five minutes.


I couldn't have said it better myself.

Truly worthy of being called an oasis, Ravine Park is also a reminder. Not a hundred years ago, the entire west side was carpeted in mature hemlock forest such as this.

The city considers this an undeveloped park, even though there are cherry trees planted along both ridgelines, within the mini-forest itself things are pretty much as you might find them in the wild, right down to the profusion of bracken ground cover, mosses, and lichens.
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Worth Going To Alberta For

As The Princess Royal made a typically low-key public visit to Saskatchewan this past weekend, rumours that her nephew Prince Harry might be in training at CFB Suffield in Alberta have sent shockwaves through, well, mostly just me. But the rumours have set tongues wagging. They've even caused some people to start gossiping.

The world's royallest redhead is rumoured to be playing rugby with the Medicine Hat Ogres - likely one of the worst named sports franchises ever. I ask you, does this look the face of an Ogre?

Ginger-spotters are likely to be out in force, so if you're a guy, have the right colouring, and can do a passable British accent, I suggest you find your way to Calgary; you are sure to find yourself up to your ears in social-climbing poontang.
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Guess Who's Going To Jail?

Paris checked into the Crowbar Hilton at 11:38 PM (PDT) on Sunday. Under the terms of her sentencing, she had until June 5th to surrender herself to the authorities. Her family was with her at the time.

She will remain incarcerated for 23 days; although she was sentenced to 45 days on a charge of reckless driving, but the judge reduced her sentence almost immediately, citing "good behaviour".

Despite this, only days after her conviction she was photographed driving.

She is quoted as saying: "This is an important point in my life and I need to take responsibility for my actions. In the future, I plan on taking more of an active role in the decisions I make... Although I am scared, I am ready to begin my jail sentence."

About bloody time.

[S O U R C E]
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TED Talks: Sir Ken Robinson on creativity

I laughed. I cried. It became a part of me.
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Dead Poets Society Admits New Member

Everyone,

I know that email is a poor way of doing this but it seems the fastest way to inform you of the bad news about T-Paul.

He passed away in his home in his home in the last 24 hrs. His good friend Ru found him this morning in his house on his couch. It looked like another aneurism or possibly a stroke. Not much is known at this time.

Arrangements are being made and you will all be informed about any services or gatherings held on his behalf.

It is a loss to the community and to all the people who knew him.

Please spread the word to anyone not on this list. I know you will all do so. He knew so many people that it would be impossible for any one individual to contact all of them. Thank you. Bill Mc.

[Behind The Photo: An interview of T Paul Ste. Marie
by Bonnie Nish, of Pandora's Collective.]
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Reality Vs. Pop Culture: Edward and Mrs. Simpson

Gorgeous, star-crossed lovers whose affair threatens to topple an Empire...



...or a mannish maneater who sinks her fangs into a flighty upper-class twit.

Make your selection in the comments section.
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Now Showing: "Bully Boys" by The Tiger Lillies

Because I thought your Saturday could stand to be a bit more surreal, here are England's Tiger Lillies.
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Vancouver: City of Parks

In 1890, following the bequest of 1000 acres of forest to the City of Vancouver that later became Stanley Park, the Vancouver Park Board became the first (and still only) body of its kind in Canada elected at-large like City Council.



Over the next hundred years, parks and recreation flourished in Vancouver which, after all, was designed as a garden city. 14 new parks have been added to the city in the last decade, with more to come as a consequence of development.

There are currently more than 200 green spaces in Vancouver, from the aforementioned Stanley Park and the lush Queen Elizabeth Park to some tiny spaces tucked away and unknown even to most Vancouverites.

I doubt I'll get to them all this summer - more than 200! - but I will be using my weekends to visit some of my favourites, as well as looking for a few new favourites.

In the meantime, why not visit the Vancouver Park Board. The site's navigability leaves a little to be desired, but it is thorough.
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Another California First

Gay and lesbian prisoners in the state of California are believed to be the first in the U.S. to be allowed same-sex conjugal visits.

Must... Not... Be... Snarky...
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Leave It To Red Sox Fans...

...eighty-plus years at the bottom of the league has given Bostonians a marvellous sense of humour, especially where the New York Yankees - the winningest team in professional baseball - are concerned.



Today, whenever Alex Rodriguez was at bat, Sox fans turned the shot into an instant photo op by donning "blonde babe" masks. The masks are in reference to an alleged affair between A-Rod and a blonde stripper which surfaced when photos of the two in Toronto appeared last week.

I say let he who is without sin don the first mask.

A-Rod is a first-class cooch hound who's been known to patronise nudie bars before, and, in public at least, he and his wife have been shown laughing at any photos of them in the papers. Of course, he's been buying her jewellery at the time.
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Princess Royal Arrives in Saskatchewan

Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal arrived in Regina Friday afternoon, for a low-key weekend visit to the city.

She was met at the airport by - among other dignitaries and well-wishers - Saskatchewan Lieutenant-Governor Gordon Barnhart, Premier Lorne Calvert, and Chief Lawrence Joseph of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations, who enthused: "She's very cordial... A beautiful person."

The Queen's only daughter, ninth in line for the throne, is Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Regina Rifles, which this weekend is celebrating its centenary. Her last visit to the Royal Regina Rifles was in 2004, to commemorate the role played by the regiment sixty years previously during the D-Day landings.

While in Regina, The Princess Royal is also expected to receive the Freedom of the city at a public ceremony at City Hall.
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Spooky...

The blogosphere is oddly silent today, so that means everyone's already on their way out of town or something.

I guess the silly season is well and truly upon us. I've been wracking my brain, trying to figure how to find content at a time when there's no content to be had. I mean, seriously, I'm thisclose to posting about Paris Hilton. Maybe I need to do a telethon.

Turns out my old melon still has a few ideas left in it, so stay tuned for what I might have in store...

In the meantime, I guess it's time to post something from YouTube.
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Nine Years In The Making

On June 1st, 1998, I left Kelowna and moved to Vancouver.

I came to the big city, like most do, to seek fame and fortune. Nine years later, broke and obscure, I keep telling myself: any day now.

Yet much has changed for me in these nine years. Though I am still accosted by the black dog on a daily basis, I recognise depression now more for its bark than its bite. I cannot shut off the sound of my own voice inside my head telling me outrageous lies, but at least now I recognise them as lies. Also, since no one else can hear them, they really don't matter. As long as I don't repeat them, or start to believe them, I know everything will be alright.

There are people who seem to waft through life, and there are others whose lives seem to live themselves. I persevere, ignoring the fact that the bulk of that word is severe. Such is English, the language I love; it's perverse, which is probably why I love it so much. I have thrived because I have survived, so that each new day is a victory in itself.

I stay for any number of reasons: the beautiful setting, the reasonable weather, the fact that Vancouver is still new enough for me to find room for my niche. These things barely compensate for the savagery of its gay men, the cliquishness of its arts and publishing communities, the sink-or-swim cruelty of its governments. Barely, but they do.

All of my problems are my own to correct, but whenever I've needed help in the past, the cosmos has always managed to send an angel to aid me in my time of need. When I broke up with Dirk, with whom I moved here, I met Doug, and then Seumas - just the friends I needed to shepherd me through my darkest times. Sometimes pulling, sometimes pushing, I'd have never made it this far without them.

It was while living here that I lost Boo - the light of my life - and then found Pandora, who isn't so much a light as a car alarm in a fur coat. Still, she's definitely been an anchor for me, in more ways than one.

Part of my fascination with Vancouver today resides in its construction. I watch with awe at how it's changing, building up, rising. At each new building site I pass I memorise what the hoardings look like, so that some day when I'm standing in front of the shiny new slab they represent I'll be able to remember the pitted plywood, and the dreams it had.

With each new tower I can feel my own roots deeper into the ground. I take a picture (or ten) and then I move on, almost smug in the knowledge that each shot is a seed from which future poignance will grow.

As for this blog, it's been the greatest of all the innovations I've encountered since moving here. I realise I could blog anywhere, but if I did it in Manhattan or in London it would be a very different thing than it is here; in addition to being just one in a crowd of hundreds, I'd be retreading the same steps previously trod by many, rather than merely a few.

Someday, who knows? I may decide that I've had it with Vancouver's provincialism; I may decide that holding a man in my arms matters more to me than climate. It might do me good to see some other part (or parts) of the world for a few years, knowing full well that Vancouver will always be waiting for me to return.

In the meantime, it's back to work, to perservere with my perversity, to make the universe my university, to try and create a more diverse diversity.
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The Mystery of the Crows Solved

All this week at work there's been this pair of crows who've been following me around, squawking and swooping at me whenever I've done my patrol up and down the front of the building. I've asked around, and they didn't seem to be bothering anyone else. Their nesting time is March and April, and anyway, I couldn't see any nest. It was getting to be quite a mystery.



Well, today the mystery was solved when I noticed a small crow (at first I thought it was a starling) sitting on top of a low hedge. As I approached it the bird didn't move but the two crows who'd been harassing me went crazier than usual. I could tell once I was within two metres of it that this was not only a baby crow but also the cause (get it?) of their agitation.



I went back to the desk as quickly as I could to get my camera, and when I returned I embarked on the most perilous assignment in my career as a photographer. Under heavy fire I got as close as I could to the baby bird and took four photos and three short video clips. At one point, one of the crows swooped so low I got slapped in the head by a wing. Exciting!



The little one was utterly unafraid of me, but kept looking up at the parents, who were now in the branches less than a metre above my head and screaming at me almost nonstop. The baby made a couple of half-hearted attempts to fly, but was unable to leave the hedge. Finally, I decided to leave rather than risk getting a beak in the ear.

Besides which, I was starting to feel like Tippi Hedren in The Birds. Except that I'm not blonde and in no way am I responsible for Melanie Griffith.
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Who'd A Thunk It?

David "my private life is my own business" Hyde Pierce, famous for his role as Dr. Niles Crane on TV's Frasier has recently alluded to the fact that he's gay. This must have come as quite a surprise to that male model he's been living with for fifteen years.

Then again, maybe not.



I tell ya, it's a world gone mad. Next you're gonna tell me Sean "my private life is my own business" Hayes, Matthew "my private life is my own business" Perry, or Ricky "my private life is my own business" Martin is gay. Not since the last time my cell phone was on vibrate have I been so shocked.

In the words of Emily Montgomery, the character played by Joan Cusack in 1997's In & Out, "Is anybody straight?" Admittedly, the line is much funnier when you run out of a tavern in the middle of the night in a wedding dress and scream it in the parking lot. Plus, it helps if you're Joan Cusack.
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Beth Ditto: Right Or Wrong

Sometimes I post about a story the minute I read it; it's the closest one gets to a scoop in these days of world-wide 24/7 media. I love seeing a story on my blog that hasn't yet made it onto any of the other blogs I normally read, especially when those stories appear later. Other times, I like to see what reaction a story is getting so I can write about it from an angle that isn't being covered. (It's a fetish of mine, this always having to be different.)

One example of the former is the story below, which I learned of about twenty minutes before I posted; an example of the latter is this one, which I first read about a couple of days ago. Since then I've gone to a couple of other blogs, read all the comments, and searched inside me for what I feel about it.

As is usual in the genre of "mouthy celebrity" stories, the opinions being stated are reductive, outrageous, and contain just enough truth to seem true while still remaining firmly specious.

Last week, I had never heard of Beth Ditto. Now, thanks to a bout of verbal dysentery on her part it seems I know more about her than I do about my own mother. So, from her standpoint, objective #1 has been satisfied. A niche celebrity finds wider fame at the expense of a controversial minority; while it may not move more copies of her new album, it may sell magazines, and may even draw more people to her concerts, which is more lucrative from her standpoint than album sales anyway.

And what did Beth Ditto say that's so outrageous anyway? She said that gay men in the fashion industry are responsible for eating disorders by promoting stick-thin models in fashion magazines.

There are several things in play here which, in typical mouthy celebrity style, have been lumped together into one big quip grenade.

I will be the first to admit that there are some gay men who are vicious bitches when it comes to fat cells, and I have met almost all of them. But there are women in the fashion industry as well, some of whom wield major editorial control. Designers, stylists, and photographers also share some of the blame for the state of the fashion industry.

Then, of course, there are those who buy the magazines, who are paying money to be sold this bill of goods.

Now I, as a gay man, would rather be scolded by a lesbian than any straight person, which is part of the reason I'm not furious right now. Mainly though, I'm not mad because there is a grain of truth in it. Okay, maybe a pebble. Alright, there's a boulder of truth in what she says.

For my sake, I don't care what size anyone is but me.

Ever since 1991, when it began to look like my boyish figure was not going to last, I have fought a war within myself. It's clear that I blame my appearance for my lack of success, as much as (if not more than) my lack of formal education. These days even authors have to be hot, not just for jacket photos but for the numerous public appearances it takes to move even a single copy of a novel. For every Alexander McCall Smith there's half a dozen Jonathan Safran Foers, and whatever my talents as a writer, I can never hope to compete with the willowy twinkishness of Mr. Foer.

I fight back with all I've got, but all I've got isn't very much, or at least it's never enough. I've lost count of the number of times I've stood staring at the pain reliever section of the drugstore, wondering whether it would take two bottles of Advil to take this particular pain away, or whether one would do it.

So I do not buy certain magazines because I know to do so would be masochistic. I do buy men's fashion magazines, but never the gayer ones (Genre, Instinct, Out) for this very reason. Women who are neurotic about their weight, yet spend every waking minute poring over Vogue magazine and watching America's Next Top Model have far greater problems than being a size 12. They are masochists, and should be treated by psychiatry before they are treated by TrimSpa.

Nobody ever makes you feel bad about yourself without your permission. I say it to myself twenty times a day. Maybe one day, a couple of years from now, it's message will start to sink in.

Some people are thin but unhealthy, others are fat and fit. Thin people have subjected fat people (and me) to their tyranny for most of my life, and now, fat people are returning the favour. This is progress?

Whatever happened to being the best possible you, whether fat or thin?
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King of Spam Indicted

His name isn't Hormel III, or anything cool like that either. It's Robert Alan Soloway. Apparently, he's responsible for most of what's in our Bulk folders.

He was indicted by a grand jury in Washington State on 35 counts including e-mail fraud, aggravated identity theft, and money laundering. Honestly, and here I figured he'd be a model citizen.

While prosecutors suggested there might be a dip in the volume of spam during his incarceration, he uses robots to send us all those lovely ads for penis enlargement via his company Newport Internet Marketing, so that's unlikely to happen any time soon.
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Now Showing - Stephen Fry's "The Secret Life of a Manic-Depressive"

This is the first part of 14 - two one-hour episodes - of a marvellous programme by Stephen Fry.

Highly recommended.
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So Long Sam The Record Man

Toronto's iconic "Sam the Record Man" location at Yonge and Dundas is closing; the store has been operating in the same location for 70 years. It was then that Sam Sniderman decided to supplement the radios and record players his parents sold with a small selection of records. Within a few years they'd overwhelmed the sales floor, and the rest (well, after June 30th anyway) is history.

As usual they're blaming file sharing for the closure, but...

I once worked at a Sam the Record Man, the location in downtown Vancouver. Management chaos is more like the real reason.

At that point, two of Sam Sniderman's kids were running the business. Jason and Lana. Jason's picture is next to "scatter-brained" in the dictionary, and Lana was a stone-cold bitch. She called the store on my first day of work, announced herself rather haughtily - by her first name only - then asked to speak to the manager. When I asked what it was in reference to, she said: "Lana Sniderman?"

Word around the company is that she'd fired people for less; at the time I thought I was lucky that she didn't fire me. Given subsequent events I'm not so sure.

I don't believe Lana and Jason ever spoke to each other, judging by the number of times they would call the store individually for the same information. The regional rep was allergic to innovation, and so on. I fought a three-month-long uphill battle to get permission to clean the years of filth and fingerprints off of our bins.

My two years at Sam the Record Man were possibly the lowest two years of my life. Even though I was working in a hip, downtown store and in a long-term relationship, the store was a cross between a slave galley and junior high and the boyfriend was a control-freak without the capacity for compassion.

I think I called in sick more than I went to work; most days when I didn't go in I barely got off the sofa. The workplace was toxic in the extreme: bullying managers, crappy pay, and I never could get breaks (not even bathroom breaks), etc. The only days I went into work at all were the days I wanted to steal CDs from the promo box.

In 2000 I was finally fired for stealing CDs from the promo box, made to pay for the stealing everyone else (including one of the managers) was doing from the stock, and I have been harassed by my former co-workers ever since, as recently as April of this year. Crime doesn't pay, kids. In fact, it follows you around forever. Nowadays I don't even take an extra packet of ketchup from Wendy's unless I'm certain to use it.

So no, I'm not sad to see the end of Sam the Record Man. I buy my DVDs and CDs now at London Drugs, HMV, Future Shop, Best Buy, or A&B Sound. Despite claims by Sam's that the Internet is ruining music sales, there are more places to buy CDs now than there were when I finally escaped from retail hell.

As usual in the case of a failed business, I suspect the real reason was to be found in the Head Office rather than on the sales floor.
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Salma "The Mammal" Hayek: Hopefully It's Twins

It seems like this photo was all over the Internet today; far be it from me not to hop on the web-wagon.



Just in case I have any straight guys reading this blog (it could happen) I figured if I threw them a bone maybe they'd return the favour. I have always dug this little pocket Venus for sticking it to anglo Hollywood, producing her own movies and all that.

This photo adds a whole new layer of fascination, though. I swear, the breasts do nothing for me, but just look at them. I mean, really look at them. It's hard to look away, isn't it?
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"La Vie en Rose" In Theatres June 2007

It turns out my aversion to attending movies alone will have to be foregone. In amongst the shallow trench filled with dreck which is the summer movie season is this shining jewel.

Marion Cotillard's performance seems more like a seance than acting, such is her resemblance to Edith Piaf. The trailer gave me chills; I guess I should wear a sweater to the movie.
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TORIES DEFEATED

It scarcely matters that it's only in a provincial election, and that it's the smallest province at that. It's just always good news when Tories bite the dust.

Appropriately, the dust the Tories bit in Prince Edward Island is red; the Liberals entirely reversed their fortunes. Going to the polls the Tories held 23 seats and the Liberals 4. Today it's the other way around.

The new Premier, Robert Ghiz, is already a seasoned veteran at 33; his father, Joe Ghiz, was Premier of PEI from 1986 to 1993.
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I Be Illin'

It's amazing to reread the past few days' posts; when I don't feel well, I'm really a bitch. A sad, bitter bitch though, not the fun kind.

I think, though, the end is in sight. No, not death, I mean relief.

There's a simple remedy for bloating, which I learned from Gone With The Wind of all places... A thimbleful of straight vinegar after every meal is a holistic aid in digestion.

Turns out, the three weeks or more I was on antibiotics almost two years ago played havoc with what they call my "gut flora".

I was just glad the problem wasn't "gut fauna", because the remedy for parasites is... You guessed it! Antibiotics.

Damn doctors really get you coming and going don't they?

The best of it is, today's crunches actually worked past my next meal, and the sitting crunches I did at work seemed to take as well. I'm still a little sore from the bloating the past couple of weeks, but at this rate I'll be jogging again next week.

The best part is, it's $2.39 for a year's supply. That that Pharmaceutical Companies!
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Australian Pub Bans Heterosexuals

Gay-owned and -operated Peel Hotel in Melbourne has won an injunction giving it the right to ban heterosexuals from the premises if they don't play nice.



Despite some 2000 venues in Melbourne catering to straights, straights invaded the gay space of the Peel Hotel and made themselves some trouble, forcing the owners to go to court to resolve the issue.

Vancouver needs a few of these injunctions. Celebrities, the largest gay nightclub in the city, had a problem in the mid-90s, which came to be known as "the Biff and Candy scandal".

Despite a giant neon sign just inside the door proclaiming "This Is A Gay Establishment" on any given night, half of the patrons of Celebrities would be straight. And not the enlightened straights one frequently runs into downtown, but knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing suburban types who come downtown occasionally to enjoy themselves a faggoty floorshow.

Fights ensued, of course, because often the monkeys refused to dance. Despite Biff and Candy's dancefloor antics bordering on the gynecological, if two men so much as air-kissed near them fists would fly. After all, what's a greater display of insecurity than a man kissing a woman on the dancefloor of a gay bar? And how better to display insecurity than gay-bashing.

The straight owners, naturally, sided with Biff and Candy.

Celebrities was closed for a few years after these incidents (business fell off, some kind of "boycott", whatever), and reopened last year, again as a "gay" bar. The last time I walked past it on a Saturday night, at least half of the substantial queue out front looked like incipient Biffs and Candys, so I have my doubts. Too bad, too, because the place has a massive dancefloor.

Both the story and the photo are from Towleroad; click on the photo to get the rest of the story.
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Cindy Sheehan Giving Up...

...and having read some of the comments the stories about her have gotten, I can only think "Why did she stay at it so long?"

It's amazing to me that a peace activist could inspire such hatred, even death threats. "Pissing on her son's grave" was one of the more enlightened quotes I read.

Now, I'm a huge supporter of the Internet, but the weasels who write stuff like that and then hide behind a screen name have corrupted the Constitution in a far worse way than a grieving woman whose son was killed for nothing. At least when Sheehan committed her "treason" (as another commenter put it) she did so with her face and her real name.

Peace be unto you, Cindy Sheehan. You've earned it.
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What Is The Collective Noun For Birthdays, Anyway?

A passel? A bevy? A mess? A shebang?

Charles II - King of England (1630)
G. K. Chesterton - English author (1874)
Beatrice Lillie - Canadian actress (1894)
Josef von Sternberg - Dietrich's discoverer (1894)
Bob Hope - comedian's comedian (1903)
Tenzing Norgay - Sherpa hero (1914)
Gene Robinson - shown right (1947)
Danny Elfman - "Simpsons" composer (1953)
Annette Bening - actor/goddess (1958)
Rupert Everett - fop/hottie (1959)
Melissa Etheridge - lesbian singer (1961)
Lisa Whelchel - "Blair Warner" (1963)

Whatever you call it, it's an embarassment of riches.

Happy Birthday y'all!
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Happy Half-Birthday

Since this is the mid-point of my personal year, it's both the ideal time to look back as well as forward.

Well, I looked back. When they finally woke me up, they said it seemed a shame, because I looked so peaceful.

For all that I've done so far this year (this blog being the bulk of it) it's been a pretty boring year. A day or two a week of interesting followed by five or six days of the dreariest rut imaginable does not make for a magical life. Imagine living in East Berlin in the 70s but spending weekends in Venice; the good days don't seem to relieve the dull ones so much as mock them.

Yet most of the ways I can think of to liven things up involve other people - with their hard eyes and their instant hatred - and that's where my ambition usually crumbles. I've often wondered if I became a writer because I am a natural recluse or if these two manias of mine developed independently. Nowadays, given half a chance, I'd make Thomas Pynchon look like Paris Hilton.

Although one of my original intentions in starting this blog was to maybe reach out and help others come to terms with their self-loathing by writing about my own in some relatable way, I have been so thoroughly shouted down whenever I've tried to that I have discontinued these posts. The problem is, it's a hard subject to write about without actually doing.

So I do still write about self-loathing, I just don't publish most of what I write anymore. I'm tired of people telling me I shouldn't hate myself when I clearly still do. I know that if I can't sort out my disordered thinking somehow, I'll never get better; certainly, every time I have written about it, I've felt better afterwards, even if these efforts did leave my readers feeling a bit queasy.

Until I get this self-loathing of mine under control, the rest of my years are all going to blur together like the past six months have, and I may end up a bitter, lonely old queen. This is the one thing I do not want to be. I may enjoy being alone, but there is no enjoyment in being lonely.

Today, for my half-birthday, I looked up at a dusken sky and made a wish upon Venus. I sure hope it comes true. In the meantime, I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure it does. At least I've got that to look forward to.
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Now Showing - "Match Game"

Gene Rayburn has had enough, and he's turned the tables on Charles Nelson Reilly; turns out hosting's not as easy as it looks.

Also with Brett Somers, Eva Gabor, MacLean Stevenson, Marcia Wallace, and a celebrity I cannot identify named Bart. Alas, Marcia Wallce never yelled at him in the Mrs. Krabappel voice we've all come to know and love.

(Is it just me, or does the set look like psychedelic Dixie?)
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RIP Charles Nelson Reilly

In the 70s, when I was a little 'mo, there were two bright beams of light, and they both appeared on game shows. One was, of course, Paul Lynde. The other was Charles Nelson Reilly.

And now they're both gone.

I doubt that Match Game would have had half the zing it did without Charles Nelson Reilly's witty zingers and double entendres, playfully scrapping with Brett Somers the way he did.

He never bothered to come out, he said, because he never needed to. He lived openly in Beverly Hills with his partner Patrick, and just kept on with his patented schtick. In later years he turned to teaching, schooling both Lily Tomlin and Bette Midler in the art of funny.

In a career spanning fifty years he did it all: Broadway, movies, television. He acted, directed, and wrote, as well as teaching.

He will be missed.
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Now Showing - Lucy Analyzes Charlie Brown

She really is terrible to him, but she's much more likable here than she is in the strips.
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Good Grief! Fantagraphics Strikes Again!!

One of the most ambitious projects in modern publishing has been undertaken by Fantagraphics: The Complete Peanuts, by Charles Schultz.

Every six months for twelve-and-a-half years a new volume, containing two years' worth of the 50 written and drawn entirely by Charles Schultz, is being released. The current volume (shown) is number 7, which I have been savouring all weekend. Then, when I'm done, I'll go back and reread them all. That's so much Peanuts I'll be lucky if I don't have diverticulitis by the time I'm done. ; )

I'll be the first to admit that Charlie Brown and his gang are not for everyone. The humour is subtle, and not every strip is funny, at least not in the laugh-inducing way. I will say, though, that reading them in this form allows their impact to build, an impact which is absent reading one strip a day in the newspaper.

"What a brilliant, truly modern, totally weird idea it was to create a comic strip about a chronically depressed child," said Time magazine, and I could scarcely have said it better myself. I have already made plain my assertion that I am Charlie Brown all grown up, from my enormous, bald pumpkin head to the casual abuse I suffer even at the hands of people who are nominally my friends.

Of course, not all of Charlie's friends are cruel to him; I've been lucky to have met my Schroeder, my Linus, even a Peppermint Patty or two (hey Seumas!). Really, it's only Lucy and Violet who are bitches to him, but when they are it is extreme. They are the kind of bullies who make it difficult for anyone else to be nice to him, and I am certainly familiar with their ilk.

Having the chance to revisit the Peanuts gang in their entirety has given me the opportunity to shed some light on the dynamics of the life I've been living, and once again (as I'm sure I will every six months for the next nine years) I offer my thanks and gratitude to Fantagraphics for making such a voyage of discovery possible.
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Emperor Pays Visit To Queen

Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko of Japan have arrived in Britain; their three-day visit follows a weeklong visit of the Baltic nations (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia) and Sweden.



During their stay the royal couple will attend a conference at the Linnean Society, which devotes itself to natural history. The society is named for Carl Linnaeus, the Swedish taxonomist whose methods for classifying animals and plants is still used. A visit to the historic university town of Oxford and a state dinner at Buckingham Palace are also scheduled.

The last time the Imperial couple were in London - in 1998 - they were jeered by WWII veterans. Veterans of that conflict are still calling for an apology from Japan for its wartime atrocities.
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Now Showing - BAFTA Tribute to Billy Connolly

The other week I watched a great one-hour tribute to Billy Connolly on YouTube.

Here's the first part. The usual rules apply: after watching it, tap the YouTube icon on the screen and it should take you to the rest. It features hilarious testimony from Bob Geldof and Dame Judi Dench as well as many others, and includes a great overview of his career thus far.

I laughed, I cried, it became a part of me.
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Say It Ain't So, Ro!

According to peerless font of celebrity information Entertainment Tonight, Rosie O'Donnell won't be coming back to The View to finish out the remaining three weeks on her contract.

Word of her early departure had been swirling around the blogosphere ever since Rosie's onscreen dustup Thursday with Bush Administration stooge Elisabeth Hasselbeck, but I guess I refused to believe the possibility that it might be true. According to ET the word came down from ABC itself.

In lighter news, Donald Trump stopped baiting Rosie long enough to castigate Elisabeth as "one of the dumber people on television". Coming from him that's, um, almost flattery.
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I Really Am A Pepper!

I used to love the Dr. Pepper ads, including their insanely catchy ear-worm of a jingle: I'm a Pepper, you're a Pepper, he's a Pepper, she's a Pepper, wouldn't you like to be a Pepper too!

Now, thanks to an online quiz I learned about from my buddy at Y | O | Y, it turns out to be true.

You Are Dr. Pepper

You're very unique and funky, yet you still have a bit of traditionalism to you. People who like you think they have great taste... and they usually do. Your best soda match: Root Beer Stay away from: 7 Up

What Kind of Soda Are You?

But I also like 7Up as well, so cool, so shiny, so refreshing... Oh dear, I suppose I'm destined to be unhappy.
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Sunday Funny - "Pardon My Planet"

I was cleaning out my iPhoto folder this evening (it could happen!) when I ran across this cartoon I'd admired, by Vic Lee.
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Photo Essay: 2007 Has Been For The Birds

This year, thus far, has proven to be a very good year. As I hope these pictures show, I've seen and done things that have enriched my life immeasurably. Some of these pictures have been published before, though some have not, and never in this configuration anyway. For my newer readers, who may have missed their earlier appearance, I hope you enjoy them.


From this Bald Eagle I met at the Vancouver Yacht Club...


...to this Rufous-sided Towhee in Bear Creek Park.


From one of Stanley Park's famous herons...


...to a Canada gosling at Horseshoe Bay.


From this dandy little fellow, who may or may not be a Varied Thrush...


...to this one I can't seem to identify at all.

2007 has been for the birds...




...and the ladybugs...


...and whatever this is!
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Where Am I?

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