I’m really over the idea of having to walk a couple of blocks to catch a Queen St streetcar. Due to the reconstruction of the tracks, it seems that Toronto the great is not so great after all. It causes much stress to people like me who are forced at all hours of the day to walk down the Queen West catwalk of trendy cunts and metrosexuals.
The strangest story of the week, though, comes from another city and I heard it while I was in Montreal for Divers/Cité: Montreal is being overrun by zombies. This became obvious this summer. Every weekend a group of medieval players (think Dungeon And Dragons role-playing game) meet on top of the mountain in Montreal for fencing matches. Well, this time they were fencing when about a dozen zombies came out of the forest to attack them. The knights went all medieval on the ghoulish zombies’ asses, and chased them with swords.
Lesbians On Ecstasy (LOE) were to perform at the Montreal’s Sex Garage Pride stage on Jul 28 but the generator running the stage power ran out of gas, leaving all the French kids asking, “What duh fuck?” The last minute backup plan? The nice folks at Zoobizarre offered LOE a spot on the bill with Toronto’s own Kids On TV.
That same day, LOE also shot a video with about 50 people dressed up as gay clone zombies (not the knight-attacking kind) doing a massive street dance. They shot the whole video on Super-8 and are planning to release it in time for the Fri, Sep 19 release of their remix album. The thinking? As LOE’s Bernie Bankrupt told me in an e-mail: “Gay is dead. We killed it. Every year when I go to Pride events, it feels like the ‘gays’ are becoming more and more like zombies. It’s all repetition and expected behaviour.”
The Anti-Capitalist Ass Pirates (ACAP), a group of radical queer activists who adamantly oppose the consumer-driven nature of Montreal’s gay village and mainstream gay culture in general, have been popping up everywhere in the city. Since last year they’ve been hosting an increasingly popular free monthly queer event in the Plateau-Mile-End area. They also organize their own anti-parade marches and go all anticorporate on queers groups that take donations from large corporations that could care less about you and your Pride.
I ended up going one night to one of the ACAP nights held in a small loft and publicized only by word of mouth. The $4 entry and $4 disgustingly warm beer made me wonder where this money was going. The DJs of the night were Will Munro, Fruite Frankie, Hamburger Helper, Sho Sho and J Diamond. Are you a zombie or not? Check out Ass-pirates.taktic.org for more information. For that kind of thing in Toronto, there’s Antiracistaction.ca or Limp Fist at Tao.ca/~limpfist.
Walk A Mile In Her Shoes – the Sat, Aug 20 men’s march to stop rape, sexual assault and gender violence – is probably one of the most important walks the GTA has to offer. I am so sick of being with female friends and seeing men driving by in their mother’s station wagon who feel it’s their right to verbally assault women. It happens all the time. For $20 you can make a small difference. Register at 11am for the 1pm walk starting in Dufferin Grove Park (875 Dufferin St). Women and children are welcome. For more information, check out Opheliaslove.org/walkamileinhershoes.html.
Safe And Sound, a benefit for Interval House (a safe place for abused women and their children) also takes place on Sat, Aug 20 at Sneaky Dee’s (431 College St; 416-603-3090); doors open at 9pm. Cover slides from $6 to $10 with performances from Natasha Pike’s Scandalnavia, The Guest Bedroom, Cougar Party, Galaxy (a queer girl trio with pop sound) Dance Yourself To Death (read more about them on page 28) and way more.
Vazaleen on Fri, Aug 26 at Lee’s Palace (529 Bloor St) will feature queer hardcore group Limp Wrist (not to be confused with the aforementioned anticapitalists). This band is so fucking amazing I can’t wait to be front and centre in the pit that night, singing along with lines like, “What’s up with some of the kids?/ Call yourselves hardcore punks/ Well, you’re all full of shit/ You’re not all so radical you closeted wimp/ You got the Bible up your ass and Christ is your pimp.” There will be a stage-diving competition to warm the crowd up. Doors at 10pm; cover is $7.
Return To New York on Fri, Sep 2 at The Mod Club Theatre (722 College St) will feature the first-ever Canadian appearance by legendary DJ The Hacker (of The Hacker And Miss Kitten), as well as DJ Will Munro, Kenny Glasgow, Jordan Dare and Captain Z. The cover is $10 before 11:30pm, more after. A style code is in effect. Check out Add-events.com for more info.
Finally, I decided to swing by Crews And Tango this month – the den of former lovers where everyone knows your name, who you slept with and with whom you’re presently sleeping – for a test drive to see if much had changed since my last visit.
The moment I walked in I saw the same old stale drag queens on the front stage, still missing the words they were trying to lip-synch. I went upstairs to the lesbian bullring and, R&B-infused music blaring, started to get my groove on when a squabble broke out. Action finally! I thought, as one dyke told the other one off, something about stepping on her shoe. The fight, which involved somebody’s body getting shoved into a fan, was eventually broken up by security, making me wonder what kind of routine bar regulars can get used to.
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