This year I attended for the first time, the raising of the flag at Toronto City Hall, and once again I count myself lucky to be living in a city where I can be myself!

Click here to view the embedded video.

This year marks PRIDE TORONTO’S 30th year of celebrations, and I was there to catch it all!

Click here to view the embedded video.

How the hell did I end up attending?  Hey!  I have connections o.k.!

Plus, this year my good friend Buck Angel was one of the speakers!  Maybe one year I’ll be a speaker.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

When you stop asking ‘What’s in it for me?’ or ‘What do I get out ofit?’ or ‘How much do I get paid?’ and start focusing on the things that truly make you happy and feed your soul, good things can happen!

I was asked recently to help a friend out with a project of his.  He is an artsy guy and the project was an artsy one.  No pay.  No anything, except the satisfying of an artistic need of mine to create something interesting and new.  I said ‘Yes, I would be happy to help.”

The artistic endeavor was for me to have my photo taken.  Can you imagine?  Me?  Having my photo taken?  Oh no!  Whatever will I do?!

The photo would then be sliced in with other images as a poem is read as narration.

Having participated in the project was enough for me, but guess what I was told this week!?!

The  project, called ‘Men Together’ by Jared Mitchell has been selected by The Canadian Film Makers Distribution Centre as an entry for the 5th Zebra Poetry Film Festival taking place in Berlin Germany!!  What!!!???

Advice: Do something today that feeds your soul!

Wow.  Wow.  Wow.  What great timing the universe has.  Not only am I deep in talks and discussions about my new website extraordinaire AND filming my porn star reality show with OUTtv in the coming summer months, but Chi Chi LaRue in her infinite wisdom has deemed it time to release an Eddie Stone best of.

Perfect timing as all my project come together (did someone say book deal?)

Watching the trailer for the movie is like looking at an old photo album or school year book.  Faces, asses and cocks all came flooding back from the past… ahhhhh.

Don’t feel left out.  Join me and my ‘friends’.  For a look at trailer click here.

No so.

OMG.  As we approached the Pride headquarters we saw police vehicules parked, police men and women patrolling the streets, news vans, cameras and a throng of protesters across the street from the Pride offices.

And to think, I was just going to drop Shaun off and go to the gym… haha, no way Jose!  I was stickin’ around to watch the inevitable fireworks.

I’m not in the thick of the drama, and I am not going to pretend to know all the ins and outs of the situation, but I CAN report on what I saw with my own two eyes.

The ‘protesters’ that showed up were there with the single intention of heckling the press conference.  Chanting things like “We won’t run, we won’t hide.  Politics is what makes Pride!” and “Resign!” to Pride Toronto’s executive director, Tracey Sandilands and “Shame, shame!!”  I guess they knew the news was not what they wanted to hear because they had the chants ready! (why Pride Toronto decided to hold a press conference outside in heckling distance of crowds of displeased people, I might never understand)

Here is my beef with the entire situation.  How can anything be heard, discussed, understood and agreed upon if one side DOES NOT LISTEN TO THE OTHER SIDE.  I felt like I was watching the government.  Where people yell over each other, cut each other off and NO ONE is listening to ANYONE ELSE!

What’s the point?

I’m sure there was a lot of back and forth between the groups in the preceding weeks, but I have too much CLASS, yeah I said it, CLASS, to yell and heckle something I oppose.  Let’s talk about this like adults and come to a conclusion, but that’s me.

All that being said, Shaun stayed composed among the yelling and hate spewing and I was very proud of him.

And I am proud that we are nit picking and perfecting our state of evolvement.  Think for a second the difference of debating over extremely heated topics like the one mentioned above and it’s inclusion in Pride and the fact that many countries DO NOT EVEN CELEBRATE PRIDE, because they do not have the chance to.

We are lucky.

I had the pleasure of attending a photo exhibit for the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival, Pervasive Influence.

Walking into the Hugo Boss store on tony Bloor Street, I’m met with sideways glances from pinched-faced employees.  Ignoring them, I follow the signs to the exhibit located up up and up on the third floor.  Climbing the stairs reminds me to get back on the stair master at the gym, but the climb is worth it, because the photos are raw and real.

For this exhibit, Glen Baxter travelled to Azerbaijan, a former Republic of the USSR that is affected by war, conflict and border disputes.  These are a population of people displaced from their homes, living in virtual exile and the photos reflect their struggles and their strengths.

Glen has captured the subjects in raw and real moments of their day to day lives.  The faces staring back have a story on the lips, a story of the juxtaposition of hard living amongst a fairy tale landscape.  The hard lines that crease the people’s faces betray the hope and passion in the eyes.

P.S.  Passion’s what I felt leaving the exhibit, but passion isn’t what was to be found in the eyes of the Hugo Boss employees.  What was with employees motioning to each other as I came and went from the exhibit.  Really? Secret hand gestures?.

Perhaps they were giving the “all-clear” that I in fact was not shoplifting (thanks!), but truly attending the exhibit.  All I could think was a famous line from AbFab: “You only work in a shop, you know.  You can drop the attitude.”

* The Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival continues to support RIGHT TO PLAY, a leading international humanitarian and development organization to build essential skills in children using the power of sport to transform communities affected by war, poverty and disease. A wonderful cause indeed!

Naturally I asked to snap a pic and told them it was for my blog.  When the weather is as nice as it was today, and your body looks like that, and you take your shirt off… having you photo taken is the next natural step.

Enjoy!

But, in the meantime, we can have a laugh can’t we?  Take a good look at this advertisement I saw on the subway the other day.  It is to promote tourism in Iceland.

Is it just me or does that hot spring look suspiciously like a fuming volcano, and the man in the forground with the spa facial (?) look like he is covered in soot and has been catapulted from the shore?  You can’t make up shit like that!