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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