It turns out a certain somebody from our general Vancouver vicinity is in the running to be one of the 16 finalists for MuchMusic’s new VJ search and from what I’ve seen in the rankings, he has a pretty solid shot. Rob Trinh has appeared once or twice here on Up Your Alley for the charity work he’s done for the Play 4 Phil Foundation and deserves a shot at VJ stardom. He’s put his time into the industry and dances like a he-banshee.
You heard it here first: Robbie Trinh is island fresh. I’ve known him since he was about 14 and like the bad penny he is, he turned up again in my life after I moved to Vancouver from Victoria in 2005.
So here’s the deal: do him a solid and vote for his sexy ass by clicking here. Give him five stars and send him to TO this fall.
Here’s his entry vid if you need further convincing before clicking above:
Rob also invited me to a photoshoot last Sunday with the fantastic Peter Taylor. He shot the shit out of us down in a studio off Cambie Street near the Olympic Village. Check out his website at www.petertaylorphoto.com for his portfolio and contact info.
I am notoriously picky when it comes to photos (just ask my director Nicky Forsman and my producer Philip Webb at OUTtv). These are raw shots, people, with no cropping or editing at all (so I’m sure Peter is going to murderize me for posting them here) but I definitely am feeling them. What do you think?
This week’s Cocked & Loaded
Looks like I need a quick chat with Mr. Manners.
Let’s say your friend sometimes has a very similar taste in
men as you. And let’s say that when you go out with that friend, he points out
an object of interest and you may or may not feel something spectacular in your
banana hammock region.
Sure, you can walk away.
Sure, you can tell him to do whatever he needs to do,
wherever and whenever he feels so long as he can make it happen and feel
something that feels like feelings, wherever and whenever those feelings need
to occur.
Yet here, again, is a tetherball of sorts. You hit the ball.
It comes back. You hit it away again—and it comes back. So on and so forth. Ball.
Balls. Beating. Etc. It’s a relationship that most of us can relate to.
But think, for a moment, about the pole.
The pole is there. It’s always there. Upright and pole-like,
standing tall and proud by your side, as poles always do, doing their poley
good work with the gusto and pizzazz that one expects from a modern day pole of
good character and fine upstanding polemanship…
Now, I like friendly poles, but I REALLY like free-spirited
balls.
All analogies aside, I don’t know what to do any more, loyal
Cocked & Loaded reader. I need your help.
If the ball, in this
case, takes a pass on the pole, am I free to liberate it from what may first
appear to be a fruitless tetherball match? Or do I walk away and let the pole
and ball continue their eternal dance, uninterrupted by my well-meaning fist?
A good friend of mine recently invited me to The Snatch on
Venables. Okay. He actually invited me to The Cultch, which is a historic and
respectable theatre off Commercial Drive.
I misheard him on the phone and was unsurprisingly disappointing in a
number of ways, but rewarded in a number of others.
It turns out that the Quebecois dance troupe Cas Public was
in town to perform Diary/Journal Intime,
choreographed by Canadian dance sensation Hélène Blackburn. Rumour has it that some of
the female/male dancers may or may not be queer, which naturally made me think
that this would be a nice, non-club oriented change of pace to my column.
I won’t deny that I was temporarily captivated by a Viggo Mortensen-esque
performer. That said, the performance itself reminded me of a 50-minute
contemporary dance spectacle, a la Mia Michaels of So You Think You Can Dance fame. It was a chest-pumping, hand-fluttering
affair featuring one man-on-man dance love segment that mirrored my own
romantic pursuits.
It’s also worth pointing out that the target audience for
this performance was teenagers and young adults. For anyone in doubt: times
have changed and Canadian art is now reflecting the diverse social fabric of
our country. Amen.
After a long summer of sexy shenanigans, a group of friends
and I also decided to visit the Health Initiative for Men clinic on Davie
Street and take advantage of their rapid, 60-second HIV test. If you like a
good prick, this is the test for you. Check out http://www.checkhimout.ca/ for more
information.
What should you be doing over the next couple weeks? I’m
glad you asked.
Queer
Bash
launches on WED OCT 14 at the Anza
Club on 8th and Ontario. This is a new dress-up, mess-up monthly
queer cabaret dance party. This is one of my favourite venues in town. There’s
also a good chance that I will be bartending for an hour at this one so come
down and grab a drink.
Maybe you’ve seen the bus stop ads around the Lower
Mainland. And if you haven’t: in the spirit of alternative queer offerings, Zee
Zee Theatre and Screaming Weenie Productions have produced Nelly Boy, a play that explores suburban gender preconceptions.
It’s running THU OCT 22 to SUN NOV 1
at PAL Theatre. Visit www.ticketstonight.ca
for show times and ticket info.
The Vancouver
International Film Festival is also in full swing. I’ll be checking out 65_RedRoses by queer filmmaker Philip
Lyall on FRI OCT 9. There are a
number of queer selections this year. For a full listing of
all movies, times, venues, prices and passes go to www.viff.org/tixSYS/2009/filmguide/.
Why you can trust Xtra
