What an entertaining weekend this has been.

Without getting into the nitty gritty of it all, let’s start off by saying that it was originally planned to be a relaxing one – so that the mayhem of the 2 weeks leading up to the Pride Toronto Festival would be something that I could look at and say ‘Hey, I’ll deal with you on Monday, cuz I’m on schedule.”

Prepare for the worst, hope for the best – the greatest advice my mum ever gave me. And this very weekend, glad that she did.

Working in entertainment throws a lot of curve balls at you with varying speed, usually you’re able to zone in and knock that sucker out of the park. But sometimes, you get a nasty pitcher, and you get that fast ball right in the leg.

So what do you do?

Damage control – Assess, evaluate, plan, recover, carry on. This pretty much sums up the not so relaxing weekend that I had without bringing up group or business names because who in the world would want to start drama right?

The good news coming out of it all, is that nothing was lost, and oddly enough a few new opportunities happened as a result – looking on the bright side.

Celebrating my victory over the weekend, I was interviewed by the lovely people at CIUT FM Radio regarding this year’s Fruit Loopz Youth Stage at Pride Toronto Saturday July 3rd. This was an interesting experience, not only are they receiving a new studio space that’s still under development, but I had the chance to do a round-a-bout style style of interview with a few of the performers, organizing committee memebers, and one of the SOY Toronto representatives who are involved – which normally, I’m used to doing one on one radio interviews so this was a new experience. We talked for about 30 minutes about what we have planned for the stage and the talent that’s being presented before we started into background on each of us and what else we had going on besides the stage at Pride Toronto.

Let me tell you, that reply took forever for me to complete (a summary of the Pride Toronto activities can be viewed on my previous ‘Awesomesauce‘ entry), but I was glad that an interviewer was giving me the opportunity to promote what I had going on instead of just getting the questions answered that they felt were relevant or wanted to know personally – very professional.

Following the interview, I ventured over to Northbound Leather for adjustments to be made for my upcoming SERIAL SEAN PERFORMANCE DJ ACT WORLD PREMIERE with Pride Toronto on July 4th on their TD Canada Trust Wellelsey Stage – which I have been asked a few questions about because I am also performing on the Fruit Loopz Youth Stage the day before this occurs. The difference is that I will be doing a SERIAL SEAN DJ SET only on the Fruit Loopz Stage and the TD Canada Trust Stage on Sunday will be the SERIAL SEAN PERFORMANCE DJ ACT WORLD PREMIERE. I have spun records publically for a number of years so the presentation on Sunday is the debut of a new booking option for me which is a bit more than just being a DJ. I’ve been asked to elaborate on what sets it apart from my regular DJ sets, but I think the best way to answer that would be to encourage people to just come on out and see it on Pride Sunday – it’s something fresh, interesting, and different – which we need a lot of right now.

As a preview, I’ve since picked up the custom designed and handcrafted mask for the SERIAL SEAN PERFORMANCE DJ ACT WORLD PREMIERE on TD Canada Trust Wellesley stage that was developed by myself and Northbound Leather and have attached a photo. I strongly encourage you to come out on the day and take in the experience.

I can’t even begin to explain how excited I am!

SERIAL SEAN
xo

SERIAL SEAN is a Toronto based entertainment entrepreneur that specializes in publicity, event planning, public relations, journalism, photography/videography and is the creative director behind his Performance DJ shows. Contact him through his website http://serialsean.com or follow him on facebook at http://facebook.com/serialsean .

This past weekend I decided to venture out to one of the ‘Scotiabank Contact Photography Festival’s’ open exhibits in Toronto. I hadn’t really been paying that much attention to the press releases that had been coming my way but one of them caught my interest because the exhibit called was entitled ‘Porn Candids: Between the Shots.’

Now, I’ve never in my life been a fan of pornography or pornographic imagery – I always think it’s so contrived and fake. Not to mention the fact that I’d rather be participating in what’s going on rather than just playing ‘jack the willy’ as some perverted voyeur.

So why did I decide to go? The exhibit was entirely comprised of photographs taken of people working in the pornography industry, but after the director (or pornographer) yells ‘cut,’ – making the images totally non-composed and natural.

Being a candid photographer myself I was instantly intrigued, and after viewing the rest of the event information on Contact’s website I made up my mind to go to the opening.

Arriving at the exhibit’s venue – I was warmly greeted by Anna, who is partnered to George, and together they own Northbound Leather, one of the most respected leather garment and consensual play businesses in the country.

After quick introductions Anna left me to talk to the exhibit’s photographer- Morpheous.

Morpheous has a very engaging personality and is very pleasant to speak with. He starts taking me around on a personally guided tour of his exhibit and as we continue moving through Northbound Leather’s store I can’t help but notice that more and more of the exhibit’s attendees are starting to follow us around the store to hear the rather unusual stories of how some of the portraits came to be.

Now, I’m not going to sit here and tell you about every photograph in the exhibit because of two reasons:

1. I’d be here forever, and
2. The whole reason I’m writing this is to get you to go out and enjoy this spectacular exhibit.

What I do want to do though is share the stories behind two of the photos that I found particularly interesting both visually, and from how Morpheous described how they went down.

This particular photo I I really liked because everyone in it is really enjoying themselves and having a great time – you just really want to know what the story is.

Morpheous explained to me that the photo was shot here in Toronto during the video shoot for ‘Desperate Housewives in Bondage,’ which was nominated for an AVN Award this year. Morpheous goes on to explain that it was shot in Velvet Sky’s home (the lady with the towel) and just prior she had been tied to the post behind her and stretched across the counter while “Maxine X used the Hitachi Magic Wand Vibrator on her until she squirted ALL over her kitchen countertop. She was used to squirting but not as much as she did and it shot about 6′ away from her…” Subsequently a towel was tossed to Velvet Sky and she started cleaning up her counter and howling with laughter manages to announce “I guess this is cleanup on aisle #4.” Which inspired it’s name – ‘CleanUp on Aisle No. 4.’

The other photo I wanted to share from Morpheous` exhibit (my personal favorite) was entitled ‘Metal Fingers’ and is a pretty graphic depiction of one of the more popular name’s at the moment in the porn industry – Sam Swift, getting pegged by a chick with a strap-on.

The set-up for this image, shot during filming for a step by step instructional called ‘How to Peg Boys for Girls’ involves Archean, the woman with the punk-esque expression, volunteering to be the ‘table’ that Sam Swift bends over to get pegged by the other woman.

Morpheous explained to me later re-passing by this photo that the woman doing the pegging was a strap-on virgin and didn’t know that you couldn’t just jam it inside a dude – Sam was unpleasantly surprised, snapped back and up – proceeding to yelp - Who doesn’t love the idea of doing Sam Swift though?

All in all, I’d say that this particular exhibit was definitely worth the time, especially with such comical stories attached to the images – every one of them also for sale in museum archival quality print.

Morpheous` exhibit  for the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival will be on display until May 31st at Northbound Leather at 9 St. Nicholas St. in Toronto – highly recommended.

SERIAL SEAN
xo

MLT Bottle Drive in Support of LGBT Youth Line, January 10.2010, The Beer Store - 572 Church St. location in Toronto, ON. Promotional poster designed by SERIAL SEAN.

Another holiday season has come and gone (minus New Years which is still to come), and I’m sure like many other people reading this, it was a holiday season full of boisterous laughter accompanied by the consumption of copious amounts of alcohol.

Looking around your home, I’m sure there are stacks of beer cases and empty liquor bottles just laying around and screaming to be taken back to The Beer Store to be recycled.

Fortunately, Mr. Leatherman Toronto (MLT) has organized it’s first fundraising event for 2010 to help you  resolve this issue – and it happens (conveniently!) just as the holiday season concludes.

On Jan 2, 2010, MLT, in association with Northbound Leather and with the generous support of Spearhead, will be holding a beer and liquor bottle drive at the 572 Church Street Beer Store location on Church Street in Toronto (just barely north of Church & Wellesley) from 10:00AM to 10:00PM.  This event will be hosted by Mr. Leather Fellowship 2010, Devin Thompson, and is in benefit of MLT’s 2010 charity – The LGBT Youth Line.

So gather up that collection of empties left over from the holidays (and the ones that will accumulate over New Years) and drop them off to support a great cause.  While you’re at it, enjoy a cup of hot chocolate courtesy of Northbound Leather.  Cash donations will also be accepted.

Complete event details for the MLT Bottle Drive and a rundown of previous charity events undertaken by MLT can be viewed on MLT’s bottle drive announcement page.

Hope to see many of you there!

SERIAL SEAN
xo