Posts from — September 2010

One of my heroes came into the radio station today. Well, hero is a strong word. A minor celebrity who I had always believed deserved bigger celebrity than she had received, let’s say. Mike and Acey invited me to stay after work and sit in on the interview, not in small part because I was the only one of the three of us who had ever heard of Carole Pope. Beyond that, I was actually something of a fan.

I respected a woman who was singing about creaming her jeans over a girl back when even Joan Jett was in the closet. When Pope’s book Anti Diva came out in the 90s, I bought it and ate up every last shamelessly dropped name. So Mike and Acey figured I would be a good addition to the interview—I could ask her about something more than what I had Googled for the afternoon show prep.

So when she arrived, I met her at the door, which was locked for the after-hours, offered to get her a glass of water, and introduced myself. She was entirely non-plussed. Fine, woman’s busy; I understood.

However, when I returned with the water, I asked whether it would be alright if I sat in on the interview, because I had followed her career and was interested in what she had to say.

Ms. Pope gave me a long once-over with a curl to her lip and said, “I….suppose so,” in a way that clearly meant, “I’d prefer you didn’t.”

So I left. And when I got home in the evening, my copy of Anti Diva went to the curb.

I learned last night that rich people will spend money in exorbitant amounts on ridiculous things. It’s incredible, really.

I went with Michelle and a couple of other friends to Stems of Hope, a gala fundraiser for stem cell research to treat cerebral palsy and other children’s neurological disorders. The whole affair was black-tie, so I made sure to wear one. I dusted off the suit I bust out for my top-end job interviews and was pleased to find out that I still fit into it. We looked a pretty fancy bunch as we chucked our tokens into the subway turnstiles and headed down into our public transit limo tunnel.

Maybe it was that we were intimidating, all dressed so very nicely, or maybe it was just that we caught him on a bad day, or maybe he just had mental health and anger issues, but this guy at St. George Station nearly decked me as I was trying to get off the train. It was one of those situations that often arises on the TTC, where the trains were turning back at St. George for some obstruction on the track ahead, so everyone had to exit the train.

Meanwhile, a crowd had gathered on the St. George platform and were waiting to get on the cars. This guy decided he wanted to get on the train before allowing us to exit. I calmly said to him, “Dude.” I was going to say, “Dude, it will be easier if you let us off first before trying to get on the train,” but all I managed was, “Dude—” before he screamed, “YOU DUDE!” and shoved me so hard I actually left the ground and experienced flight for a few very interesting moments. It’s overrated.

So I said, “Seriously?” and stepped around him, departing the train.

He turned and said, “YOU SERIOUSLY! FUCK YOU!” And then he made as though to try to punch me.

Thankfully, my Fairy Leather Daddy magically appeared to save the day. I don’t know where he came from, but he was big and burly and clad in motorcycle gear, and he placed a simple arm across the man’s chest, stopping his advance. Speaking very calmly, Fairy Leather Daddy said to him, “Sir, you’re going to have to calm the fuck down. Now, let these people leave the train.”

Oh, thank you, Fairy Leather Daddy! I could use your assistance more often!

So we made our escape and headed down in our fancy clothes to the lakeshore venue for the gala.

Not even my most expensive job interview suit could compare to the snazzy duds surrounding us. I guess when you pay 300 bucks for a ticket to something you want to look swank. I made nice with the receptionist until she found my name on the guest list, and apparently my friendly disposition made an impression, because when she saw me milling about the silent auction area later, she smiled and said hello. I am comforted by the fact that I fit in more with the staff of these events than the patrons—although it does mean that I have to be careful that my attire doesn’t match theirs, or I may be asked for a refill on that vodka-and-soda and a new plate of skewers. It wouldn’t be the first time.

There was some alluring entertainment at this gala. An aerialist descended from the ceiling in fits and swirls of ribbon; a fire-bearer tossed lit batons around in a dance of heat and light; a group of dancers executed expertly choreographed routines. The food was tight, too—gourmet appetizers served in flights. The bartenders served up a stiff drink and the bar was open. I certainly wasn’t disappointed by the food and drink.

The appalling part of the evening was discovering what people with money will spend that money on. At the silent auction, things seemed pretty sane—the items I found less than thrilling seemed to be accompanied as expected by low bids or no bids at all. However, the live auction was a different story altogether.

Clearly finding treatments for neurological disorders in children is a very worthy cause, so I guess I shouldn’t pooh-pooh the fact that those who have were giving it up like candy for the auction items. But $5,000 for 15 minutes with Jean-Marc Généreux to learn some ballroom choreography and then perform it during the latter half of the auction for the rest of the party guests seemed a bit…much. And when I heard someone bid an amount that totalled over one and a half times my annual salary for a three-hour dinner date with one of hockey’s historic greats, Mario Lemieux, I was like, really?! My entire personal worth couldn’t pay for a date with a hockey has-been?!

As a Canadian, I am certain to be strung up for that last remark. I apologize.

When I arrived home, I found a little blue pill with the letter “V” engraved in it wedged in the treads of my shoe. Another worthy investment, that.

In the end, the gala raised over a half a million dollars for stem cell research, and I enjoyed some fantastic food, drink, and entertainment for free, so I can’t really complain. Hey, what’s a year and a half’s salary among friends?

As TIFF continues on, I have been at the receiving end of a few invitations to post-film parties. It both tickles me and annoys me that I couldn’t get tickets to any of the films I wanted to see, but I can still gain access to these VIP parties.

Last night the big shindig was a party for Uma Thurman at Brassaii. I was like, Uma Thurman party? Count me in. I have been starstruck by her since I saw her sporting those ridiculous prosthetic thumbs in the horrible Hollywood adaptation of Even Cowgirls get the Blues.

Mikey was like, “Show up at around 9, before the crowd sets in, we’ll take some photos on the red carpet, and we’ll go in. Done!”

So Michelle and I proceeded to get ourselves dolled up for Uma and for Brassaii. I had not yet been to this club, but had been assured that it was “the place to be” by a number of higher-ups at the radio station. In fact, earlier this summer I recall one of my coworkers making a sidelong remark to another coworker that this club was not really the kind of place where one of the butchier dykes at the station would fit in. I believe the exact words were, “Brassaii isn’t exactly a [Butchdyke] kind of place,” followed by some derisive laughter.

As something of a butch myself, I thus felt both vindicated and maliciously pleased when Mike very plainly and publicly offered to me and me alone his invitation to this TIFF party, right in front of the very person who had made that remark. Take that, exclusionist! Fine, I was feeling a bit exclusive myself, but at least I based my elitism on not being a snob, rather than fitting into some heteronormative ideal of beauty. *ahem*

Anyway, so as we were leaving the house, I got an urgent text from Mikey: “Babe, meet me at the corner of King and Spadina and I will let you in. Security’s being a bitch.”

So we went to King and Spadina and met up with Mikey, who was looking very fetching in his black-on-black, if a bit stressed out. He led us not to the front door of Brassaii, as I would have expected, but along Spadina to an alley behind the King Street businesses. As he strode along, seemingly effortlessly picking past the stashes of garbage strewn throughout the alley, he explained that Uma’s publicist was something of a…handful, let’s say. She was throwing Hollywood agents out of their own party, and security was instructed not to let anyone in, even those who had been invited to the event. It was a bit out of hand. He would explain more later, but for the time being, he parked us outside the fence separating the alley from the Brassaii patio.

There we crouched quietly in our fancy pants and suit jackets until Mikey appeared on the opposite side of the fence to let us in through a discreet gate that led in behind the patio bar. We just sneaked into a TIFF party through a back alley. Good times.

I soon learned why Mikey had been so stressed. Uma Thurman’s party was inside the restaurant portion of the building, closed off by a sheer white curtain from the irritated milieu of media folk who had been invited to the event only to be kept outside of it. Apparently nobody is permitted to see Uma eat. The patio was full of disgruntled agents, screenwriters and assorted media personnel in dark blue jeans with black turtlenecks and blazers. One agent complained that she had been thrown out of her own party by Uma Thurman’s publicist.

Apparently the publicist had also called Brassaii about a half an hour in advance of their arrival to demand Mexican food for her charge, although there is no Mexican food on Brassaii’s menu. The publicist, however, was adamant—Uma Thurman, it turns out, is on a Mexican-only diet. That’s a new one for me. I do appreciate a good burrito, though. There’s a Z-Teca down the street, if you want. I am pretty sure Brassaii ordered the food in from somewhere else, though.

The bar had been bought out for the entire week by a certain online social media company, which had hired camera people to film the events for its website. Those camera people were also ousted from the goings on inside the place, even when invited to shoot by guests at the party. This seemed an especially unfortunate choice, because the film hasn’t been picked up yet and doesn’t even have a trailer. In fact, of all of the people I met at this party, nobody even knew the exact title of the film—so one might think that a little bit of publicity on one of the most pervasive social media networks would be welcomed. But…no.

On the glamorous side of things, there were certainly quite a few notable names about. I saw Jason Reitman grabbing some air and texting on the patio. The ousted agent chatted him up for some time, possibly in hopes of regaining access to her party.

Henry Winkler, whose son directed the film, was also there, and let me tell you, the Fonze is no diva. In fact, he was inviting people to take photos with him while he waited for his son to get his coat. Security, of course, nixed the photos, so I didn’t get to pose with him. The best I can offer is this:

‘Eeeeeeyyyyyy. Total highlight of the night. Well, that and the open bar.

Finally, there was a buzz among the media milieu. “She’s coming! Here she comes!” And so, feigning our best Toronto ennui, we banished partygoers sipped at our gins-and-tonics and cut our eyes as though only mildly interested at the Hollywood royalty passing us: Uma Thurman gliding by, escorted by that notorious publicist and an entourage of agents, security burlies, and assistants, with the flash of a pink scarf and that face that stops you and makes you think that the five seconds that it took for her to traverse the length of the patio lasted at least five minutes. She’s just so very, very pretty. It kinda makes the diva antics of an over-protective publicist worth the trouble.

Not enough trouble for me to repeat the process for the Keanu Reeves party tonight, though. I had my TIFF experience, and I think I’ll sit the next one out.

September is film festival time in Toronto and every nightclub wants to be the IT place for celebrities. Mike Chalut, my constant host to the city, has informed me that I am to spend my week at his parties. Who am I to argue with such a charming host?

So last night, Michelle and I had Acey, Mike’s afternoon show co-host, and her girlfriend over for drinks and snacks before we all headed out to Maison, which is holding its grand opening during TIFF. Mike had equipped us all with nifty little cards that gave us access to the place, but we didn’t actually need them, because he was there waiting for us on the red carpet when we arrived. He ushered us in, making a show of pulling us through the crowd lined up outside. It was all very Studio 54.

Having been a person passed over for prettier, more scanitly-clad women in the crowd myself, I am not really sure how I feel about the whole exclusive club experience, to be honest. I don’t really get why anyone would line up around the block to get into Maison, or any place, for that matter, when there will inevitably be another watering/dancing hole a half block down the street anyway. But hey, the drinks were free and I had good people with me, so I didn’t think too much on it.

Inside was a mishmash of style without context. There were classical mouldings along the walls and crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, but that more traditional décor was paired with modern minimalist white boxes for speakers and bars. There were random things like shoes hanging along the walls, and disco balls punctuating the place. It was very odd. The music was uptempo dance and Top 40, accentuated by these massive LED screens showing the most ridiculous videos, such as a porn-fantasy version of women in prison pressing themselves against the bars for a dancing dominatrix prison guard. I cracked up.

Watching the crowd made for an interesting ethnographic study in the mating habits of straight people. Next to us was a group of men with a couple of women. One of the women, whom I will call Leatherpants for the purposes of this story, was the object of desire of every man in the group. One by one, the menfolk engaged in some sort of demonstration of their masculinity in hopes of impressing her. Some of them danced, some brought her mounds of drinks, some lifted things, and some wrestled with each other for her amusement. Leatherpants was blitzed drunk and enjoyed every one of their demonstrations, without returning any advances.

In the meantime, the other woman, whom I will call OtherWoman, was trying desperately to win some attention away from Leatherpants. She pulled on the arms of the men, downed shot after shot with them, and even climbed up on a table and danced seductively until a bouncer came over and pulled her back to ground level. At one point she finally managed to nab herself a dance partner. Leatherpants saw people dancing and seemed to think it looked like fun, so she joined them, at which point, of course, OtherWoman’s hard-won catch deserted her for the more coveted prospect.

I found myself wondering how these arbitrary decisions on attraction were made. Both women were pretty, and both seemed quite pleased with the company. If it was about sex, OtherWoman seemed very willing and eligible, so why were the men all drawn to Leatherpants? Further study would be required in order to answer that question.

But as it was, my drink tickets had run out and I decided to call it a night. At one point I saw Mike, who had been running around making sure the party was pumping all night, and he reported to me that Ed Norton was supposedly on his way over, but I didn’t stick around to find out if he made it that far.

In general, Maison isn’t really my kind of place. It’s just a bit too straight for me. But despite that, I had a surprisingly good time just dancing and people-watching. I had my Studio 54 moment and it was pretty fun.