“It is bad enough that people are dying of AIDS, but no one should die of ignorance.” Dame Elizabeth Taylor

I don’t understand why, at an event like the AIDS walk, where there will undoubtedly by tons of gay men participating, that the only size T-shirts they had were LARGE and X-LARGE. Hellloooo!! Where is my micro stretch mini capped sleeved belly top in lavender???

When I woke up yesterday I had NO idea that I would be leading the AIDS Walk For Life through the streets of Toronto. But you know me, I always have to be the center of attention LOL!

We had spectacular weather for the walk. The sun shone brightly and the air was crisp and clean. The masses of people converged across the street from the old Maple Leaf Gardens and assembled their teams. Thank God for corporate involvement! They were present, they were in the spirit and they raised a butt load of cash!

For myself, being a committee member at the AIDS Committee of Toronto, I had a direct hand in the development of the day and walked proudly with Team ACT!

Thanks again to everyone that sponsored me, and remember to support your AIDS Service Organizations!

Toronto has a reputation for its grumpy residents.  It seems as the temperature rises during the run up to Pride and the G20, folks have taken moody to an entirely new level.

Let’s take my friend for example. Since he’s not a computer savvy person, nor even uses one, I’m going to try to tell his story, as I know it.

While crossing at Church St. and Wellesley, the gay village main intersection, Rob (I’ll call him) noticed a fellow who had charted a course to walk right into him as the pedestrian’s attention was focused on texting.  Rob said, “heads up” as he gets out of his way, and the pedestrian yells, “fuck you.”

During this interaction, Rob had stepped slightly in the path of an oncoming wheelchair, which rode over his foot. While riding over his foot a walking cane in the back of the wheelchair popped up and hit this guy on its way back down.

The young fellow (at least younger than my friend) spins around and starts screaming about how Rob just hit a guy in a wheel chair to which he responded, “But you ran over my foot.”

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The other day I was taking a shower while I left the internet radio playing [my apologies Proud FM, but it wasn’t you….if I only you could stream you through my Apple TV – the device that connects your computer to your tv and sound system].

As I pulled the curtain, the über cheery — like quick I’m going into diabetic shock — song by the Brady Bunch, Sunshine Day, was emanating from the living room. It seemed a little surreal as I dried off to this cheery little camp tune from the 70s as if suddenly the LSD I had done in the 80s was resurging in a flashback.

They warned us about flashbacks in our school “Just Say No” campaign but I didn’t believe them.

Another reason for a metaphorical “Sunshine Day” is my next topic of my baby website I gave partial birth to last December.

On April 1^st PositiveLite.Com , a light-hearted take on poz living, will be going live with a new look as part of a hard launch – moving it out of its beta phase.

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I’ve had many moments of saying to myself, “How the hell did I end up here?”

I’ve rhetorically asked myself this question since the age of 18 after running off to Vancouver, carried on when I moved to the south of France at 19. Many of these moments in fact have been well documented.

It reminds of that song Drinking in L.A. (a hit in 2006), “What the hell am I doing drinking in L.A. at 26?.” just substitute L.A. for any number of cities in any number of countries.

Soon, it’s pretty certain that I will be feeling that way again, just not in a bad way.

I am off to New York to be interviewed by the RuPaul’s Drag Race reality show contestant, Ongina, for her Logo TV project “HIV & Me” on Friday for the weekend.

I have to tell you, honestly, as we sit there at 11 am come this Saturday, I am going to be struck by “How the hell did I get here?”

They were looking for people to be interviewed for this project. When I read the email, it stated an age range of 20 to 40.

We all know which side of the numerical value outside of which I fall.

Nonetheless, I decided to write them anyway. Read the full story

Last Thursday a friend had invited me along to see Joan Rivers at Centre for the Living Arts.

This was the first time I had seen her live. To be expected were the numerous of blue-hair rinses with expectations they were coming to an evening of “coffee chat” with Joan Rivers, and we were out in Mississauga.

Instead, I’d venture to say they probably never have heard references to female anatomy in all its forms in their entire lives than they did that evening.

Having never seen Joan River’s live, I’ve heard that she puts it all out there and crosses every line there is to be crossed.  What I discovered was a very funny 76-year-old woman who could care less about what you thought.

One of the reasons I think she can get away with it is that she has a history of community involvement, and raising a lot of money for charities.

For example, was she got on to the subject of AIDS, I laughed quite a bit, mostly because she dared go there and pulled it off.

“There was a time when AIDS was killing everyone, now it’s a long-term chronic illness. I don’t want to be delivering meals to the same guy three Thanksgivings in a row, and then watch him go off to the gym. Either AIDS is going to kill you, or I am!” she says motioning as if she holding a knife up.

At Spirits for their weekly Open Mic night, a friend and I had a recent conversation about how you don’t come to comedy and then complain about being offended. “Comedy is how we work all this shit out in our lives.” says my friend, a comic herself.

Having said that, one guy that night told a joke about rather than go to Canada’s Wonderland to wait in long line ups, and pay 60 dollars to feel like you were going to die for five minutes, why not just go get an HIV test done.

He lost the audience on that one, and had to work to get us back.  But that’s comedy, people take a lot of risk: Sometimes it works, sometimes doesn’t.  I wasn’t offended, but slightly uncomfortable for a second. The rest of his set was quite funny and he did win us back.

Joan continued on with her brand of inappropriate humour.

On Jennifer Aniston:

“She’s so needy that a rapist wouldn’t even go near her” Pretending to be Jennifer Aniston talking to the rapist, “Will I see you again?”

On getting older:

“Nobody told me when I was going to get old my vagina was going to drop. One day I looked down and I was wearing bunny slippers. Now I can have sex in one room, and watch TV in the other.”

On 9/11:

“Did you know that the families of people who died in 9/11 all got five million dollars, five million dollars. Really I can think of a few relatives that should have been there. Oh grow up! Just wait until Thanksgiving and look around the table.

It was a great night out, and I hadn’t laughed that hard since I’d seen Kathy Griffin.

I now know the litmus test of a good comedy night is when people walk out,  something both Joan and Kathy can easily make people do.

Oh the French always know how to do it.

I have to admit, being an avid fan of the sport,  these images make me want to rush out and buy a carton of smokes.

For some reason that wasn’t the intention of this French anti-smoking campaign. “Fumer c’est être l’esclave du tabac”, or  “Smoking, be a slave to tobacco,” is the caption under each photograph. Read the full story

Since I’m pimping my videos, which I call experimental video instead of experimental theatre, I thought I’d through this recent one out. It’s my submission to win a free DVD from Kathy Griffin. Of course I can just by the damn thing, but this is such more fun. Of course it is probably NSFW

The Real Housewives of Orange County,” and  ”The Real House Wives of Atlanta and New Jersey”  got me talking with a friend in the buidling on how we should make our own show. Always to be the one to take crazy ideas and make them reality — you don’t become a hooker with a passport unless you’re not that kind of person — and grabbed my camera and set out to make  my first John Water’s inspired Canadian Content of  ”The Real Hags of Cabbagetown.”

I start with the first two hags, Jone and Roxy, but there are more.  So for a cheap Monday morning post, I will share with you my train wreck.

It’s not pretty. And like I say, it can only get better.

Valentine’s Day is right up there with the December holidays! The only thing I like about it is February 15, because the chocolate is on sale. Despite the sales, February 15, bugs me as well with our provincial holiday called, “Family Day,” which sounds far too Christian too me.

Why hate such a holiday? Well, anytime I was in a relationship I rebelled at anything that felt contrived and forced upon me without my consent. Suddenly, because Hallmark says so, I’m supposed to be so in love that I want to go buy a gift, do a dinner or something.

Usually the day ended up in a fight, without the make up sex. Perhaps this is why I’ve learned this Pavlovian response to the day.  One time I was traveling across the country, arrived back home quite late, and didn’t have a card or anything and all hell broke lose. Sure, I know, I was a bad boyfriend.

To me it’s like doing drag. All these guys who put down the drag queens can’t wait to put on a dress come October 31^st, as if they somehow now have permission to do it. I’ve never felt the need to have permission to get into a costume, especially having been a make up artists. I can do this anytime of the year.

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