What's a no-account girl like me doing in a place like this?

It’s been awhile since I felt like an Accidental VIP. Summer has been pretty casual, but now September is here, and I always feel a new beginning in September. Once upon a time it was because I was an academic and September, of course, marked the beginning of a new school year. Now, however, my lofty ideals have brought me to a new annual tradition: the Toronto International Film Festival. I am moving past the Uma Thurman party this year and checking out some of the films and exhibitions that make this festival wonderful.

Earlier this week I was fortunate enough to have been invited to a private viewing of Road Movie, a film installation from directors Elle Flanders and Tamira Sawatzky. The exhibition examined the segregated road systems in the West Bank, incorporating stop motion photography and personal narratives from the very people who use these roads to create a visually arresting and thought-provoking work.

With three double-sided screens set up in sequence to call to mind the road blocks and checkpoints along the road systems of the West Bank, the installation is a physical manifestation of two nations on opposite sides of the wall, trying to make sense of what separates them.

I spent about an hour viewing the films and listening to the audio pieces, and to be honest, I was left a bit speechless afterward. I wished I had given myself a day or so to digest what I was seeing before interviewing the directors. Nonetheless, and with no small thanks to Elle Flanders and Tamira Sawatzky, consummate professionals who were able to answer the questions I didn’t think to ask myself, I managed to get their take on the exhibit and its relevance to the queer community. You can listen to that interview here.

Road Movie is showing at O’Born Contemporary, in the studio space on the 5th floor of 51 Wolseley Street, until September 18th. There will be a reception with the directors in presence on Saturday, September 10th, from 6 to 9 PM. Check it out—it’s incredible.

Last year Michelle and I were fortunate enough to acquire tickets to the Beer Festival, which was almost every bit as awesome as a festival designed around one of the nectars of the gods ought to be, except… Well the thing about this particular godly nectar is that it attracts a lot of flies. And by flies I mean frat boys. Or guys that aspire to be frat boys, or guys that once were frat boys and choose to relive their glory days by worshipping the gods of beer.

So while I was able to taste some fantastic local microbrews and international beers, and I even tried mead for the first time, the event was somewhat sullied by the dudes in backwards baseball caps crowding in hordes around any available female in the joint, braying and stumbling over each other like Keystone cops, vying for her attention.

And when they weren’t trying to get the attention of an available female, they were trying to get each other’s attention by insutling each other, making the kind of nasty comments you would expect from a horde of frat boys about anyone to whom they were *not* attracted. It was really douchey, for lack of a better word. Thus, after a few samples of mead, Michelle and I took to photobombing the douchebags. It was self-made entertainment at its best.

Thankfully we didn’t have to come up with our own entertainment this year. The fine folks at the Beer Festival came up with a fantastic solution to the frat boy scenario: the Queer Beer Festival!

While I am sure that there are queers of the frat boy variety—we do come in all styles and colours, after all—I am pleased to report that no one particular sort of queer seemed to dominate this event. The crowd was delightfully diverse and generally a whole lot of fun. And the event helped to support one of my favourite local community organizations, donating money to the 519 with every advance ticket sold.

The festival organizers sent a bunch of VIP passes to The Little Queer Radio Station That Could, so I was able to bring a small group of Hot Dates to enjoy the sudsy spectacle with me. We had access to the VIP Lounge, where we enjoyed a couple of pints of beer on the house and tasted from flights of food from the kitchen.

On the food, I should note with a bit of disappointment that there was nothing—not a bite—of the vegetarian variety. There were sausages on rolls and little battered and fried links on sticks, chicken wings and ribs, but not so much as a carrot stick with which to cleanse a carnivorous palate. I think that maybe the stereotype of the beer drinker is exactly the caricature of the frat boy that so dominates the general-population variation of this festival—meat-eating, loud-talking, beer-guzzling, backward-baseball-cap-wearing, sexually-harassing gorilla-man.

This is not to say that all carnivores are gorillas—in fact, to say so would be incredibly misleading, as gorillas are primarily herbivorous, but I digress—but that organizers of events such as this have become accustomed to a certain kind of crowd with a certain kind of appetite, and as this was the inaugural queer-focused event associated with the Beer Festival, I doubt it occurred to them that the queer population would show any stronger inclination toward the humble vegetable.

I was incredibly hungry, however, and didn’t want to get myself drunk before even having a chance to sample from the multiple microbreweries displaying their craft outside, so I mooned about pathetically, even begging one of the servers to bring me a roll without the sausage in it just to tide me over, until finally someone brought me a plate of four tiny veggie sandwiches and told me, “This is all yours, and it’s all you get, so don’t tell anyone.” Of course I couldn’t hold to that. I am a generous person by nature and my first instinct was to share this food with the other vegetarian I knew in the joint. However, on my way to find her, I ran into two other hungry veggies, both partners of my coworkers, so I shared with them, too, and in the end, I was left with just one tiny little dinner roll with a bit of shredded cabbage and some cheese. It was the most delicious thing I had ever eaten at that famished moment.

To her credit, the chef did eventually bring out vegetarian fare. She in fact went home to her garden, pulled out a couple of cucumbers, and sliced them up with some cheese to make some more dinner rolls. She seemed almost ashamed to offer such low cuisine, but let’s face it—the carnivores were eating what amounted to be miniature corn dogs. It’s the Beer Festival; it’s not exactly gourmet.

After we had lubricated our senses in the VIP Lounge, we went outside to explore the different beers on offer. I love discovering new local micros, myself, although there were some international beers on offer as well. One of my favourite discoveries from last year was back again: Flying Monkeys. I went to reacquaint myself with their Hoptical Illusion, the beer with which I fell in love last year, and then went on to try a hoppier IPA called Smashbomb, which was apparently not available in stores until very recently because its label had a cartoon mushroom cloud on it.

Yeah. That’s so scary. If I saw that in the LCBO I would tremble in fear. Please. Anyway, it was super-hoppy and I liked it a lot, but I still prefer Hoptical Illusion. Yum. I tried various other beers, wheat ales and stouts, and even had myself a dark ale ice cream float from Rickard’s, but in the end I came back to Flying Monkeys to use up the last of my tasting tokens. It was a successful beer-tasting night.

But the best part in terms of entertainment was that with so many fun and un-fratly queers hanging around us, Michelle and I did not have to resort to photobombing douchebags for entertainment, which meant that we could direct our attention to the headlining act: Ace of Base!

Well, kind of Ace of Base, anyway. The guys are the same, but the women have been replaced by a couple of girls I am pretty convinced were still in zygote stage when “All That She Wants” was released. It was…odd. Ace of Base 2.0. Apparently the lineup change happened because the original women had discovered Jesus and didn’t want to be rockstars anymore, or something, I don’t really know. I heard it through the Queer Beer grapevine, which had about ten samples of beer filtering it before it reached my ears. I could be passing on some misinformation.

What I do know is that, all oddness of the new lineup aside, the show was highly entertaining, particularly because there were these two hilarious backup dancers who looked like clones of my good pal Mike Chalut. In fact when the first one showed up on stage, I thought it was Mike Chalut. And then he seemed to replicate himself, and although I do believe that Chalut has some special powers, I am pretty sure that that isn’t one of them. These dancers made the show. They were high energy geek-bots with pretty, pretty man-chests. It was like the Hot Nerds Club. I found myself imitating their dance moves just because they were so dorky. And I do love dorks.

At the end of the show we went back to the VIP Lounge for our last free beer, but the park was closing up soon, so we decided to get moseying out. Looking around at all of the tipsy, flirting homos, boys holding hands and hot girls making out, I was struck with the difference between the frustration I remembered feeling at the end of the night last year and the contentment I was feeling watching my people around me now. Queer Beer Fest. It’s so much better than photobombing frat boys.

Whew! There’s been a whirlwind in the life of this Accidental VIP since I last updated. Pride season descended upon Toronto, and as you might imagine, work at The Little Queer Radio Station That Could became very busy indeed. I actually turned down invitations to things. Free things! Like a taping of a reality TV show that looked to be hilariously awful, and a couple of film premieres. Very. Busy. I didn’t even have a chance to do much with NXNE this year, as it fell directly between Powerball and Pride. I did end up with a Priority Pass again, but only really had the time to utilize it for one show. It was a decent show, but not much to write about. However, I do want to take note that NXNE marks one year since I began documenting my life as an Accidental VIP, so happy anniversary to me!

But moving right along. Pride was intense this year! I started mine off a week before the official Toronto Pride activities by attending Stonewall TO, a march that splintered from the official events both to maintain the observance of the Stonewall anniversary and to highlight the grassroots, political aspects of Pride. Having come from a small, conservative prairie town where Pride was never (and still isn’t) actually recognized as a civic festival, it was a great reminder of the power of community. I was happy to have been part of it, because I felt like I didn’t have to sacrifice my lefty-pinko politics to party it up at a Pride festival.

And party I did, beginning on Wednesday night with the FCKH8 Purple Party, presented by ManCrunch.com and hosted by the ever-talented President of ManCrunch and afternoon host at The Little Queer Radio Station that Could, Mike Chalut. It was a blast, all purple-themed drinks on the menu, the proceeds for which were donated to FCKH8, everyone looking sexy in their purple outfits, ranging from shorts and tees to fedoras and ties. Actually my girlfriend was wearing the fedora and tie and I have to shout her out here—she looked smokin’.

There were some notable names hanging around, from local queer media guru Shaun Proulx and PFLAG Toronto President Irene Miller, to Nadine Spenser, director of the upcoming Delicious Food Show, which I am pretty sure I will be writing about in the future. Mmmm, I love food. But I digress. What was I talking about? Oh yes. Purple Party. Did I mention that Katy Perry’s backup dancers were there? No sign of Katy herself, but it’s a pretty safe bet that I would probably rather see her dancers anyway. Because although I can’t speak to her private personality, I reallllly dislike her public persona.

Funny side story: a certain friend of mine was invited backstage to Katy Perry’s show while she was in town last week and had the opportunity to go onstage with a bunch of schoolchildren. I was not at this concert and so I’m not sure why the schoolchildren were invited onstage or why they wanted a 30-something to join them, but that is beside the point. The kids—along with my friend—went out, did their wave-at-the-crowd thing so that Katy Perry could do her connect-with-the-local-audience-in-a-meaningful-way thing, and this friend of mine took one look at the shadowy crowds and the stage lights shining down from the ceiling of the Air Canada Centre and thought, “This is my place! These are my people!”

…Apparently it took three security guards to pull my friend back off of the stage. I was not surprised at all. Some other time I might tell you about what happened when that same friend of mine met the cast of Glee.

Anyway, so yes, the Purple Party was by and large a great success. There were people lined up outside to get into the place, and there were people lined up in the place to get back outside onto the patio. This was partly due to the venue’s incredibly limited capacity restrictions, which rumour has it was a product of a glitch in a license renewal application. I don’t know for sure. What I do know was that the place was hopping, people were begging to get in, and the patio of the FCKH8 Purple Party was the place to be that night.

On Thursday I was invited to see rollergirls battle it out at the Clam Slam, an all-queer roller derby match with players coming from teams all across the region. It was everything I hoped it would be—at one point two jammers from opposing teams decided to make out before the jam. Um…hot. After the game we all headed over to the Gladstone Hotel for Libido, the Clam Slam after-party. Aside from some slam poetry that really didn’t rock my world, that part of the evening also lived up to my dreams. It was called Libido. That is all I am going to say about that.

Friday was Canada Day so I took it easy, going out to cheer on the Trans March in the evening, but that was about the extent of my activities, because I had to be up relatively early on Saturday to hang out with scantily clad men in the Pride Marketplace. It’s tough work, but someone’s gotta do it, and that someone was getting paid more than three times her usual wage to do so. Someone is a no-account girl who can’t afford to say no to that kind of money, even if it means missing the Dyke March and standing around for three hours in the sun. After my shift hanging out with male models in Speedos, I headed over to one of the Pride Stages to see some friends of mine perform drag and burlesque.

As it happened, they were opening for my old pal Carole Pope! Remember how I disowned her because she was less than friendly to me at the station? Well, I have kind of come around, and here is why: recently another announcer from The Little Queer Radio Station That Could went on a business trip to Vegas, and as it happened, Ms. Pope was part of her group, representing another queer media outlet in Toronto. And apparently once you get past her icy introductions, maybe slip her a couple of vodka-crans, she is a delight to hang out with. So… maybe I was hasty to judge. Also, she’s really sexy. Witness:

So anyway, she was really fun to watch on stage. And halfway through her show it occurred to me that I actually had a Media Pass for Pride that would get me backstage access to the event if I wanted it, but I had left it in my desk drawer back at the studio. So I was accidentally *not* a VIP that night. But I didn’t mind. I was surrounded by some very attractive—and very… affectionate—people at the time, and besides I didn’t really want to cool my recent warming to the Anti-Diva by risking a repeat performance of her first impression.

I had to be up early again on Sunday morning because I had been invited to be on the float for The Little Queer Radio Station That Could at the Pride Parade. How exciting! Of course I hadn’t bargained for the oppressive heat. Or the pain of a point-blank stream of super-soaker making a direct connect with my eyeball. Or the random friend-of-staff who showed up to dance with us, still high or drunk from the night before, and kept knocking into people, nearly sending them (and by “them” I mean “me”) careening off of the float. The pain from the super-soaker was somewhat balanced by the relief it provided from the sun. As for high-guy, well, I just avoided him when possible. And all things considered, the Parade was one hell of a fun ride. I got wet, I shookt my butt, I wore nearly nothing, I got a lot of attention from the crowd, and I had the time of my life. So much so that I was utterly exhausted afterward and basically melted into a barstool for the remainder of the day.

Errrr….week. I’m still recovering.

Michelle and I were lucky enough to acquire tickets to the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery‘s Power Ball gala. I had really high hopes for this party, because I had heard stories from last year’s event about hot tubs, hallways full of candy, mysterious holes in the wall into which people would reach their hands and squeal, bartenders in panda suits serving drinks against a backdrop of screens set to the panda porn channel… everything I want to see in an art party, in other words.

With that in mind, you might understand why I was mildly disappointed with the show this year. I hate when I go into something with such high expectations; if I could just remind myself that I am a no-account girl at the appropriate time, I might better appreciate what I had.

That said, I did have a fantastic time at the party. The gallery was packed with people, from the very rich, to the moderately famous, to…well, me. Power Ball isn’t just some gala fundraiser—it’s an art party, so you tend to see a broader spectrum of people than you might at any other event that costs a hundred and sixty bucks a head to get in. I counted at least seven Lady Gagas, three of them men. It was fabulous. Oh, and then there was the little matter of the open bar.

If there is anything I love in a party, it’s free stuff. Food, drink, swag, I will have it all. And Power Ball had all three…sorta. It was difficult to come across any prepared food unless you hung out near the kitchen door, or managed to make it out through the mass of people on the patio to where there was, apparently, although thankfully I somehow missed it, an entire bull on a spit. However, even if I had found myself in the convenient locations for food acquisition, the dishes they were offering were a celebration of animal carnage, and being more into the vegetable variety, I opted for the chips I found in one of the fridges in the fridge room.

Refrigerators lined the walls of the room, each containing something different. Some contained comestibles, such as candy or cold beer, for the taking, which came in handy for Michelle when she didn’t want to wait in line at the open bar, and some contained art—not for the taking. Or so you might think, although near the end of the night I did see someone carrying around a stuffed chicken that I had seen in a fridge earlier in the evening.

But my favourite of all was a fridge full of plastic eyeballs, the sort that are encased in some bit of liquid in the plastic sphere so that the iris always points upward. But even better than the mild creep factor of a fridge full of eyeballs was the fact that when you took two of the eyeballs and smashed them together, they began to glow. Fun! At the beginning of the night I overheard a security person tell someone not to touch the eyeballs, but by the time I made it over there a couple of hours later, they were practically handing them out like candy. Needless to say I filled my pockets.

The other draw to an art party, besides the art, of course, and the open bar—of course—is the people-watching. And the people-watching was second-to-none! The place was wall-to-wall rich folks. I also saw a few well-known Canadians, like hip-hop artist K-OS and dancer/choreographer Blake McGrath.

But I was more interested in meeting a couple of local artists that I really admire, Allyson Mitchell and Deirdre Logue. They run the Feminist Art Gallery (FAG), which is basically Allyson’s workshop turned into a display space. I went there a few weeks ago to see Elisha Lim’s Illustrated Gentlemen and fell in love with the whole project of FAG. So I was really excited to meet both of them and talk about art. I also gave Deirdre two of the glowing eyeballs I had acquired from the fridge. She seemed suitably impressed.

The bathroom was a mess of plastic-surgered clones primping before the mirrors. At one point one Eurotrash-tourist asked the room where the next party was happening. I told her that North By Northeast was going on and there were plenty of after-hours parties all over downtown. She leaned into me and asked if these after-hours parties would be the kinds of places where she could find some marijuana. Being in a jovial and welcoming mood, I responded, “Oh, honey, you can find anything anywhere in this city—it’s always snowing in Toronto!” And she called out to her friend in delight: “Did you hear that, Mariana? She said it’s always snowing in Toronto!” And the two of them practically squealed with approval. I had to make a quick exit before she asked me exactly where the snow might be falling, because in truth I don’t know the answer to that question. I just know that the sentiment is true.

So Power Ball wasn’t without some spectacle; I had a fantastic time—not panda sex fantastic, but fantastic nonetheless—and hope to have the chance to go again next year.

One thing I have become accustomed to having spent my last couple of years immersed in the glamorous world of radio is meeting celebrities in person. Now most of the celebs I have met have been lesser-known stars, a lot of indie Canadian artists and the like, which has suited me very well, since I am big into indie Canadian artists. I met Mary Murphy when she was judging So You Think You Can Dance and she was as much of a hoot in person as she is on the small screen. I met Tre Armstrong from So You Think You Can Dance Canada and she was kind, humble, and breathtakingly gorgeous. I also met Carole Pope, as I may have mentioned once or twice, and she wasn’t as friendly as I had hoped. And although I had been warned not to expect a warm welcome from k.d. lang, she was as lovely and professional as a human being could be.

So I have learned not to expect anything one way or another from celebrities. You might catch someone on an off day and they could give you the wrong impression, or they might give you exactly the impression they wanted to give. I know better than to wear my hero goggles when meeting famous people, because in the end, once you are face-to-face with them, they cease to be the mythical creatures that fame has made of them and simply become people, and as disappointing as that may be at times, it can also be the biggest relief.

This week I had the pleasure of meeting three celebrities and an unwitting celebrity look-alike. Early in the week, Matthew Morrison stopped by the morning show on The Little Queer Radio Station That Could. He was in town doing a CD signing at a chain record store and was able to pop into the studio in person first, which was a real coup for the producer who booked it; usually someone as famous as a TV star in a top-rated Prime Time show would be too busy to offer anything but a phoner. I showed up early to work to meet him, but as it happened, the morning show hosts were being a bit overly protective of their prized visitor, so I was only very briefly able to catch him for a quick photo. He wasn’t much of a morning person, it appeared, but hey, he was on his way out the door. Plus, he was so incredibly handsome in person that I actually physically felt my breath catch in my throat when I saw him.

Note the photobomber peeking out from the room behind—that’s Pearse, about whom you will hear more in a moment. Hi Pearse!

So that flicker of a brush with celebrity was barely a spark before it faded out. I shrugged and figured I would get a bunch of work done, being that I had arrived so early in the day. However, my buddy Pearse Murray had other plans. After Mr. Morrison was ushered out the door in a cloud of record reps and publicists, Pearse came over to me and said, “Ah, well, that was that. I hope Ms. Cattrall is more receptive.”

I was like, “Ms. Cattrall? As in…Kim Cattrall?!”

And Pearse said, “Yes, I have an interview with her at ten at the Royal Alex Theatre. You want to come? You can be my producer.”

And I said, “HELLS, YES.”

So off we went to meet Kim Cattrall. She was giving a press conference to announce her co-star in the upcoming Toronto production of Private Lives at the Royal Alexandra. Cattrall had starred in the play in London’s West End, and now they were bringing it to Canada before heading to Broadway, but in the leap across the pond the production had lost its leading man to British television. Thus, they had decided to add Paul Gross to the cast in what will be his Broadway debut.

Paul Gross, it turns out, is actually an old friend of Pearse’s, so after the press conference, as the two of them were being ushered from interview to interview with television and newspaper reporters, Mr. Gross would walk by and offer subtle quips in our direction. Our little radio station is pretty low on the totem pole, so we had to wait for nearly two hours before we finally had our chance to sit down with them, but even after having given something like twenty other interviews, they were both still in very high spirits when it came to hanging out with us. They were just lovely. Polite, friendly, passionate… And also, they are both soooooo pretty.

You would think that celebrities would look less attractive in real life, what without the staff of hairdressers and makeup people on hand to keep them photo-ready. Well, actually Kim Cattrall did have a woman dusting her up with a powder puff every ten minutes or so, but still. One thing I have noticed across the board is that many of them are actually sexier in real life. Maybe it is just because I find real people sexy.

And so it wasn’t that surprising that a couple of days later when I ran into a real person who looked a lot like a celebrity, I found myself flirting a bit. I was in this gorgeous new gallery at a party for Paramount Pictures, where they were announcing the year’s new releases in theatres and on DVD. My friend and I stepped out to get some air, and this woman came strolling down the alley into which the gallery opened. She was staring unabashedly at me, smiling with such familiarity that I thought that she must know me. She looked vaguely like someone I might have recognized from somewhere, so I smiled back and said, “Hello.”

It became very clear very quickly that she did not, in fact, know me at all, but that I had thought her familiar because she looked a lot like Elizabeth Berkley.

…but, like, you know, clothed. And kind of arty. And totally hitting on me. Which was very nice. And now, see, here is the difference between how I treat celebrities and how I treat real people. Yes, I make that distinction. While I have learned—mostly—not to go all gaga over the rich and famous, I have not yet learned that trick when it comes to dealing with regular human beings. So here was this very beautiful Elizabeth Berkley-alike trying to get to know me a bit better, and all I could do was stammer and stumble and blush until I decided to take my leave and go back inside.

The entertainment industry is full of tips on how not to lose your cool over celebrities, but if anyone knows how to apply that knowledge to everyday encounters in the real world, I would appreciate the advice. Seriously, I am like, oh, whatever, you’re in Glee, you were in Sex in the City, and you used to be that Mountie guy, but here’s a woman who looks like someone who was in a movie so offensive as to be ludicrously cracktastic, and it’s—ohmigad! I don’t know what to say! HIDE ME!

And this is why I am only ever an *accidental* VIP.

A couple of weeks ago I went with my friend and coworker, Sabrina Pirillo, known as the Grace Adler of The Little Queer Radio Station That Could, to BluGod Tattoos and Piercings to hold her hand while she got a new tattoo. We had picked up a new client at the station and she made a deal with them to promote them with her weekend show in exchange for some free ink. Good deal!

The owner of BluGod, Yovany Cabanas, is a renowned tattoo artist and has been featured in several international tattoo magazines since his humble beginnings as an underground tattooist in the side streets of Havana. One of his less conventional tattoos has also been featured on the Gallery of Regrets, but even then in the comments, people noted that the work itself was incredible if the design was…questionable. Hey, but if someone really wants a tiger in a Goldilocks wig, the man is not going to talk you out of it. He’s just going to do a fantastic job with the material he is given.

So anyway, Sa-bay-bay got her tattoo, all the while crushing my hands into lobster claws, and I discovered a new artist for the tattoo I have been planning for two years now.

I take some time to decide on tattoos. I know people who just wake up in the morning and say, I’m gonna go get a tattoo today, and then do it. Those people are not me. If I am going to have something on my skin for the rest of my life, I want to know that I still want that thing for at least a year or so after it popped into my head. I have avoided more than a few really regrettable choices with this method. I know myself, and I am fickle. I change my mind all of the time.

But there is one tattoo about which I have not changed my mind, and at this point I was just shopping around for someone to do it, as I was not pleased with the last artist I had. Yovany fit the bill perfectly, but he is so popular that he was booked up until mid-July already, and I was hoping to get the tattoo by the end of May. So I booked with one of his other artists, on Yovany’s recommendation, and made a deal with him as to price.

However, when I went in for my appointment, I found that the artist with whom I had booked had unexpectedly left the company, and everyone working there thought that someone else had already contacted me, so nobody ended up letting me know about this until I arrived. Yovany was mortified, so he offered to make room in his schedule to tattoo me that week, honouring the deal that I had struck with my previous artist. I was well pleased. Not only was I going to get the tattoo within the week, but I would be getting the amazing Yovany Cabanas to do it, and at a price I could afford.

I knew that my tattoo was going to be going across some sensitive areas of my body, under the arm and along the torso. I am ticklish in these areas, and where I am ticklish, I also feel pain more keenly. Yovany reassured me, as he had done Sabrina before me, that he was known for having a “magic touch” with tattooing—I probably wouldn’t feel much pain at all if I could just focus.

Um…yeah. Right.

At the first touch of the needle, I found myself hissing, “Faaaaaacccckkkk!” He sounded genuinely surprised as he asked me, “What? Does that hurt already?” And I was like, “What do you think?” Yovany is a spiritual guy, big into Yogic tradition, and it is part of what makes him a great artist. He’s very focused and has an incredibly steady hand. But when he started telling me that I could overcome the pain if I just started to concentrate on my centre, I was like, dude. It’s not that I don’t believe in the power of the mind; it’s just that I am not exactly trained in transcendental meditation and I doubt somehow that the tattoo table is the best place to test out my skills in that department.

That red welting is my body’s way of demonstrating its mastery over my mind.

By the time he had made it through the outline, I was beginning to formulate some reasoning in my mind as to why it might be cool just to leave the design that way, without filling it in. I half-jokingly expressed that sentiment, but Yovany nixed it immediately, saying that although the lines were pretty clean, they weren’t up to his standards for an outline-only tat. He would have used a different sort of needle for that. I appreciate his perfectionism, really I do. So I sighed and put myself back into position for part two of the torture.

My hands are not clenched in ecstasy.

Yovany continued to wonder at my pain response. He told a story about a woman he had tattooed at another studio who rather enjoyed the pain of tattoos. More than most people, even. In fact, from all appearances, this woman was having an orgasmic experience, writhing and moaning, touching herself, and generally stirring the interest of everyone in the waiting room. And he just kept working, calmly reminding her to try to keep still. Now that’s professionalism.

I certainly wasn’t experiencing anything nearing ecstasy. I would love to be one of those people who experienced pain as a way of reinvigorating my spirit of living, and hell, I wouldn’t throw an orgasm out of bed, either, but I am, quite simply, a big wimp. I go through the pain only as a necessary consequence of the process by which I can achieve the end product. In short, I suffer for my art. And although I hissed and winced and clenched my fists and eyelids throughout the entire experience, that end product was worth every torturous second.

It’s everything I wanted, and in about five years, when I have forgotten the pain enough to want to repeat the process, I will most certainly be returning to Yovany for his magic touch.

Remember how I had a supposedly brief brief brush with fame as a superstar radio host? Well after the experience, my Programming Director at The Little Queer Station That Could came over to my desk to have a little chat. It went something like this:

Programming Director: So I was listening to you on Friday’s show and you sounded really good.

Me: Um… Thanks!

Programming Director: So… What would you think about maybe doing that more often? Like…for money?

Me: Well, I don’t want my own show.

Programming Director: No, well, you’re kind of boring to listen to, so I don’t want you to have your own show.

Me: Oh.

Programming Director: I’m kidding.

Me: Oh.

Programming Director: But really, you know, if someone goes on vacation or something, maybe you could fill in sometimes? Because I think you sound great on air.

Me: Yeah, okay, I could do that.

Programming Director: Awesome.

So that is how it started. My transformation into a fame whore, that is. The next thing that happened is that one of my best friends at work, a producer and weekend announcer, decided to move on, leaving a weekend slot free. It still didn’t make me want my own show. As I have said before, I am a writer, not an announcer. I mostly prefer to be behind the scenes helping the shiny people to shine rather than to have to shine myself. I’m part of the entourage.

But then the third thing happened. I went to a bank machine over the weekend following that conversation. It was a week since I had been paid, and I took out a bit of cash, only to find that I was already in the hole with a week to spare before I could expect another paycheque. I felt defeated. I know I like to joke about being a no-account girl, but the truth behind the joke was revealed in depressing colour on my bank statement.

So I texted my Programming Director the following: “Hey, remember how I said I didn’t want a show? Well, I think I just changed my mind.”

And he texted back: “I have created a monster. Let’s talk on Monday.”

So that is how I began my glamorous new life as a weekend announcer on The Little Queer Radio Station That Could. Listen live on Sundays from 1 to 5 EST.

I was able to attain media accreditation for Hot Docs, the Canadian international documentary film festival. Basically it was a matter of filling out a form. Anyone who filled out this form was to consider his or herself accredited unless specifically told otherwise. It wasn’t exactly exclusive access. I tell you this because Hot Docs is an incredible film festival and it is only getting bigger and better each year, so this kind of easy access may not be available forever. If you have a blog or some other access to media, I highly recommend getting yourself into this festival next year.

But I am getting ahead of myself. I didn’t get accredited through this blog; I did it through The Little Queer Radio Station That Could, because I have a little 5-minute segment on random Fridays called the “Dyke About Town,” during one of which I was able to talk about the festival. I also talked about it when I was co-hosting with Mike the other week. The best part about having a segment called “Dyke About Town” is that you get to have a media pass that looks like this:

Coworkers that had also received accreditation were jealous that they didn’t think to have passes with more interesting titles than “Staff Reporter.” I take pleasure in small things.

But enough about that. Let’s talk about the films! First I went to see The Castle, a vérité-style doc about the current era of airport security as it plays out in Milan’s Malpensa Airport. At times funny and at other times highly disturbing, the film highlights the rise of the post-9/11 security state by following various characters working, arriving, departing and even living in the airport. From the grounds crews crisscrossing runways and firing flares to scare off the swallows, to border agents conducting invasive search procedures on passengers, to a food inspector meticulously searching each individual lobster in a cargo shipment of seafood from Canada, to a presumably displaced woman taking up residence in an airport bathroom, where she does everything from preparing meals to dyeing her hair, the characters present a wide range look at the inner workings of airport security in a way that is at times mundane, at times disturbing, and at times absurd. The filmmakers offer no questioning or commentary, just steady observation.

On Wednesday I went to see a double feature of short docs, starting with Melissa-Mom and Me. My reaction to this film was a mixed bag, ranging from amused to annoyed, to awed. The filmmaker, Yael Shachar, offers up camcorder footage of her years working as a stripper in Japan with her friend Melissa, a woman who is at once alluring and untouchable. Melissa has clearly had a lasting impact on Yael’s life that she is not aware of. When, a decade later, Yael travels to the U.S. from Israel, where she has established herself as an artist and is thinking of starting a family with her husband, to find her lost friend, Melissa is as baffled as you might expect someone to be who is unexpectedly called upon by someone with whom she has had only a passing acquaintance.

Yet, instead of freaking out and turning this international stalker away, Melissa reacts by inviting this woman into her home and opening up to her about her childhood of abuse, her adulthood of addiction, and her struggle to put her life back together. And I think that is really the thing that makes this Melissa character so completely enchanting—she is an emotional open book, a constant work in progress who invites near strangers to witness the process. While I began watching this film kind of thinking that Yael was bit crazycakes, I found myself by the end also very fascinated with Melissa myself. Yael’s obsession became totally understandable. Although she still seems a bit crazy to me, but what artist doesn’t?

The second film was the one I had come to see, Oscar-nominated documentary Poster Girl. It’s the story of Robynn Murray, an American vet who is suffering from post traumatic stress disorder after a tour in Iraq. Murray allowed filmmaker Sara Nesson intimate access to her most vulnerable moments—we watch as Murray swings from a high-energy workout to an emotional breakdown after she accidentally punches a hole in a wall, we see her kicking the crap out of her car when it won’t start in the winter cold, and we witness her battle with veterans’ associations for access to her health benefits. The film was raw and heartbreaking, but ultimately held a redemptive message. Murray has become a strong advocate against war, and has found solace in creating art with the Combat Paper Project.

Both films were pretty incredible. Melissa, Yael Shachar, Sara Nesson and Robynn Murray were all present for the Q&A, giving further detail to the progress of their lives since the making of the films.

On Friday I went to see Who Took the Bomp?, a film about Le Tigre’s last tour. I think I may have mentioned my love for Le Tigre when I was drooling over JD Samson a couple of months ago. So as you might imagine, I was super-pumped about this film. And I was not disappointed. Acey was able to interview director Kerthy Fix before one of the screenings, and she was explaining that the footage was actually given to her by Kathleen Hanna, who wasn’t sure what to do with it and was hoping that Fix, who had directed and produced Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields, could make a film of it. Fix worked some miracles in editing, both with footage and sound, and the end product really captured the energy of the riot grrrl movement. I was chair-dancing throughout the whole thing, and even found myself cheering a bit after some of the musical clips as though I was really at the concerts.

After the film, I was kind of lamenting the loss of my riot grrrl movement, and my nostalgia for Kathleen Hanna’s voice. Acey and I got into a long conversation about the ways that young feminists are melding art and politics now, but I have to say, I miss my Kathleen and I hope she hasn’t permanently traded her microphone for an academic briefcase.

The final film I went to see was Becoming Chaz, documenting Chaz Bono’s transition from Chastity to Chaz. It was a very interesting and intimate look at Chaz’s home life as he makes the change, beginning with hormones and chest surgery and progressing towards his legal status change. Some parts of the films I found very acute and incisive. For example, in one segment, the TMZ paparazzi accost Chaz as he is leaving the courthouse after obtaining legal status as a male, asking him about what kind of beer he is going to drink and what strip clubs he will frequent now that he is a man. His lawyer, also a transman, remarks that if these are the kinds of markers that are supposed to define what it is to be a man, then perhaps it is time for redefinition of gender.

However, throughout most of the film, roles of gender are reaffirmed in very conventional ways. Chaz could look back at his life and see that because he liked to play with his dad more than with his mom as a child, and engage in more rambunctious activities, it was clear that he had been a boy all along. While I understand the idea of looking back at a life and recognizing the moments that perhaps, although you didn’t have a language for it at the time, you didn’t feel right in your own skin, my tomboy hackles raised a bit at the idea that only a boy child would want to run around with his shirt off or jump from trees. I did that stuff all the time, and believe me, I got punished from all sides for it, learning from parents, teachers, and school peers that a girl isn’t supposed to do those things. I just didn’t care. Or rather, I cared, but I couldn’t help myself. And I still can’t. I just found myself a bit disturbed because the film seemed to present the idea that Chaz’s experience could be generalised to represent the transgender experience as a singular phenomenon. And having known a number of trans people over the years (in fact, I was watching the film with one of my best T-girlfriends), I know that is not the case. That said, I thought that Chaz was really brave to allow an audience such intimate access to his very personal decision to change his life. He certainly seemed to be happy and fulfilled in his identity as a man, which gave the film a real sense of hopefulness. And his position as a public figure helps to make the experience a little less mystifying for an audience not accustomed to thinking about trans people or what their experiences may be.

All in all, Hot Docs was a great experience—both eye-opening and entertaining. Next year I am going to try to see even more films.

I’m a writer. I like to have time to think about what I am going to say. So when the Programming Director at The Little Queer Radio Station That Could asked me to go out on a chase interview with someone who can only be described as a legend in both the Canadian music industry and in the LGBTQ community, I was quite literally shaking in my boots. This is not what I do—I write commercials, I write events listings, media releases, lifestyle segments. I voice things, but aside from a once-a-week segment on the morning show about what dykey things are going on in the city, I don’t really do live announcer work.

That said, I’m an Accidental VIP. I am not about to turn down the chance to interview the one and only k.d. lang.

Oh. Mah. Gah. I remember when k.d. lang was that crazy country punk that simultaneously wooed the Alberta country lovers with her intense voice and repelled them with her insane fashion sense. When she showed up at the 1985 Junos in a wedding dress and cowboy boots, nobody knew quite what to make of the Most Promising Female Vocalist of the year.

But the voice won out, of course. There was no fighting it when she joined Roy Orbison in duet on “Cryin’.” There is no defense against that song. It just kills you.

So although people made a bit of fun, asked questions and made assumptions about her sexuality, they still bought her music. Even when the Alberta farming industry and the government decided to disavow her many awards and accolades because of their thinly veiled homophobia her participation in PETA’s “Meat Stinks” campaign, she rose to the top of her career. And when she showed up on the cover of Vanity Fair to usher in the era of Lesbian Chic, well… *swoon*.

So anyway, as you may be able to tell, I have followed her career for some time, having shared at least some of that prairie queergirl upbringing myself. I went to this interview pretty well prepared even before doing any research on her new album. And it’s been 20-plus years since I first became aware of the existence of k.d. lang, so when she walked into the room at her Secret Toronto Hideout—yes, she has one, and I got to visit her there—she looked so familiar to me that I fairly blurted, “Well, hello, k.d. lang!”

She kind of laughed and shook my hand. She was so personable I could have cried with pleasure. I had been nervously asking other media-field friends of mine for tips on how to handle this mind-blowing event, and had been warned by more than one of them that Ms. lang could be…prickly. Not mean, but not someone to put up with amateurs, either. They could not have been more wrong. She was a total pro all the way. Thank heavens! I didn’t want to have another Carole Pope experience.

She sat down with me and chatted a bit, and we headed into the interview. I had been listening to her new album, Sing it Loud, non-stop for about a week, so I was really interested in hearing what she had to say about working with a band for the first time in twenty years. And the Alberta girl in me wanted to hear what her thoughts were on the concept of home.

When she talks about her music, her eyes just light up. It’s disarmingly gorgeous. I have to say, I have always thought k.d. lang was beautiful, but I had no idea how much more so she would be face to face. I had to concentrate on not swooning or floating away to Cloud 9—I was clenching that microphone like it was my anchor to the earth. At one point I tried to rest my elbow on the table between us and found that my arm was then shaking so noticeably that I was better off just suspending it in midair.

I had come up with some scripted questions and a plan to go off-script if the conversation took us there. However, I found myself so nervous that when I tried to take a thread of conversation and just expand on it, I would up babbling a bit too much and decided to return to the prepared questions for fear of annoying her. She was eloquent and sure in her answers, and I had to restrain myself from fangirling her too much. I think I did kind of gush a little bit at one point, but hey, that’s what editing is for. So you won’t hear it on the podcast—but trust me, it happened. In the end, I felt like it was a fairly successful interview, for a first-timer.

You can listen to my interview with k.d. lang here.

On Friday afternoon, I ended up co-hosting with my best boyfriend Mike Chalut because his co-host and show producer Acey Rowe had gone out of town. It was another first for me, but as Mike and I have such a great rapport together and I had that interview to air, we figured it would work out. Earlier this year I had tried to learn some of the technical operations that Acey undertakes when co-hosting, and decided fairly quickly that I would never want to do her job—there’s just too much to think about with editing interviews on the fly, running the sound board, and being generally personable on air. However, Mike’s job is great! We had another operator on the board for the afternoon and Mike and I just got to be generally funny and friendly on air. It’s a party!

All of that said, I am content to welcome Ms. Rowe back to her job, and to return to my desk and my writing and the precious time I have to think about my words before speaking them. It’s a lot of pressure to be that famous all of the time. And I’m just a no-account girl.

Let me tell you a little story from the archives of Young Stark. When I was about 4 years old, my mom took me to the movie theatre to see The Cannonball Run. Within the first few minutes of the film, there is a scene where one of the racers is distracted from the race by a woman on the side of the road who opens up her robe to reveal her body, naked but for a skimpy bikini bottom and pasties. My mom marched me right back out of the theatre immediately and explained to me about the existence of “flashers” in the world. She wasn’t talking about those creepy guys who surprise you in the park or on the subway with a gaping fly and a cheese-eating grin. She was talking about women who reveal their bodies for favours, entertainment, or money. So, like, strippers, more accurately.

A few days later my brother and I and our friends were caught in the basement playing a new game called “flasher” that we had made up based on what my mom had told me and I had passed on to the crew. My mom marched me upstairs and explained further about these “flasher” characters, saying, “Those people I told you about aren’t nice people.”

I beg to differ, mom.

On Friday night I went out to see some very nice people putting on one hell of a burlesque show to raise money for charity. It doesn’t get much nicer than that. My very good pals the Cinnamon Hearts teamed up with entertainer Ryan G. Hinds to perform in OMG DIVAS!!2!!, a fun romp through the world of the beauty pageant, combining drag, burlesque, singing, and some very unorthodox synchronized swimming, all to raise money for Camp Ten Oaks, a summer camp project for LGBTQ youth as well as children of LGBTQ parents. The only thing better than taking your clothes off is taking your clothes off for a worthy cause, I say.

As I said, the Hearts are good friends of mine. When I heard they were going to be putting on this fundraiser, I did what I could to get them as much air time as possible on the Little Queer Station That Could, adding them to my daily events listings and putting them in touch with Acey Rowe to arrange an interview. For my efforts I was given a pair of comped tickets. I felt kind of bad taking tickets to a charity event that I could actually afford to pay for, so I made up for it by buying my height in raffle tickets. Gotta send those kids to camp!

I sat with the Hearts’ partners and friends, front row centre, with a perfect view to the show. Ryan G. Hinds opened up the show with a great rendition of “Diamonds are Forever.” He was sparkling like a gem himself, with his custom blend of glitters all a-twinkle in the stage lights.

The show was designed as a mock beauty pageant, with each member of the show presenting their special talent. There was singing, there was drag, there was the taking off of clothing. Betty La Bomba did a fantastic dance with swirling lights, and Marky Marquee charmed the audience with his blend of swagger and dorkiness.

Swoon!

Bruin Pounder of Boylesque TO did a number in which the puppet would become the master. Ryan Hinds sang a tribute to his high school music teacher. Drag King Codi and Meat Pi dedicated a song to young, impressionable, and insecure teenage girls. Being that I was in the front row, I got to play the part of the young, impressionable, and insecure teenage girl and I did my best to fairly swoon any time they would approach my area of the stage. The Hearts and Bruin Pounder did a group synchronized swimming number that involved one of my favourite theatre props—the shimmying, shimmering blue fabric used to represent water. Plus shark hats. Those are always fun, too. Kenickie Street showed us her, er, teeth. Rani Rhinestone did one of her signature numbers, the feathered fan dance.

All in all, it was a great show with fabulous entertainment—equal doses of humour, sexiness, and poignancy. I have seen a number of Hearts shows and I don’t think I have ever seen one so well attended. The place was sold out. Good for those Camp Ten Oaks kids!

Oh, and I found within my height’s length of raffle tickets a winner in the bunch—I took home a basket of sex toys “for him.” So okay, I don’t have much use for a butt plug, but I work in a gay radio station. I’m surrounded by guys whose birthdays are coming up. Success!