Shorts, Canlit and Copyright

A little sleepy.
I went to the Queer CanLit exhibition at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library last night.

Quite a stunning library and there was a small collection of Canadian gay and lesbian literature on display. The exhibition even had a catalogue which I got for free as I was at the opening! That was cool, I would have paid for it.
There were readings, most notably by Wayson Choy and Shyam Selvadurai. It was really excellent and the show runs until August so check it out.

Afterwards I went to the Worldwide Short Film Fest and saw two screenings, one called Celebrity Shorts which was a mixed bag, including some garbage by Kate Hudson called Cutlass about a girl and her father and somehow a Christmas Tree even though it was the middle of the summer.
This was followed by an EXCELLENT series called The Neu Europe, which was mostly films from the Czech Republic and Germany where I just was. The two standouts were Cargo, about human traficking through the eyes of a young boy. It was a chilling tale but excellently done, where the boy gets Stockholm Syndrome and starts to become like his captors. At the end the audience just kind of sat there in shock.
The other standout was GAINING GROUND (LAND GEWINNEN). This film was about a Ukraine family that immegrated illegally to Germany and now had a son that needed to go to school. They couldn't risk sending him and being exposed and deported but they also couldn't keep him at home, they had moved to Germany to make a better life for him. VERY well done.

Finally the Canadian Copyright Law is trying to change and you can read about it in comic book form here. I have contacted my local member of Parliament, not that I voted for her as she's Liberal, and voiced my concern, namely that the reason to change this law seems to be pressure from American corporations. We don't have a system in Canada to sue people for thousands of dollars like the American's do, so who will enforce this new copyright law? Will there be random lawsuits by the motion picture industry? The maximum fine for personal use is to be set at $500. Will this make people start buying CD's again? Doubt it. What it will do remains to be seen. I would be breaking the law right now, I'm downloading the 1956 version of "1984" as I type. Is someone going to send me a $500 invoice for a movie that's out of copyright?

Have to book my hostels today, one of them is already full! Eeek!
Tomorrow an art opening by Robert Giard:

and the Better Reasons festival, whatever that is.

Credit: A Tale of Woe

It was especially nice in the rain coming home last night, soaked to the bone, after 10 innings of baseball.

I work in bankruptcy, plus I've lived a couple years now, and I know a couple things.

1. Don't have more than one credit card: Someone called me today and left an urgent message, asking me to call them back, saying it was an "emergency". When I called it turned out the guy was denied credit at Home Depot and he wanted to know why. Sure he only declared bankruptcy 5 years ago, but he already had 2 credit cards again.....

Don't have more than one card. You will not be able to pay them back. You will not be able to resist using it. One is enough. Bringing me to my next point...

2. Don't have too high a limit: Really, let's say you have a $5,000 limit. When do you think you will pay that off? The day you die, that's when. Don't do it. If they increase your limit, bring it back down. That thing you need today, if you do need it, you'll still need it tomorrow.

3. Don't use your credit card to live: When you look at your bill, be able to account for SOMETHING substantial. If you carry a balance, as I think everyone I know does, have something to show for it. Go on a trip, buy a car, buy a piano. Let's say you spend $1,000 over three months on crap. At the end of the 3 months, you again have no money and now $1,000 in debt to boot.

4. Don't declare bankruptcy: It happens too often, just don't do it. There are very few situations where you HAVE to declare. Someone called me yesterday saying he was 86 and needed to declare bankruptcy as someone was getting a judgment against him for $5,000. A judgement is HARD TO GET and it MEANS NOTHING. The company still has to know where you work and where you bank. Let's say they get a judgement, they know where you work and where you bank. As a single person you're still allowed to make almost $1,800 a month before they get to touch a cent.

Let's say you're on welfare. No creditor can collect against welfare. They will call, encourage you to pay, threaten, they can do nothing. NOTHING.

5. If you do declare bankruptcy, don't be a sucker: Too many people come out of bankruptcy broke. Once you know you are bankrupt you cannot make too many financial decisions that won't be undone when you file. So the day before you know you're bankrupt, put money in a locked-in RRSP with a designated beneficiary or a life insurance policy.

6. Don't expect a free ride: If you declare bankruptcy, you will have problems. Want your GST refund? No. Want your income tax refund? No. This is not a free ride.

Blue Jays Photo Day

Today I ate a veggie dog at the ballpark and a grilled cheddar flavoured tofu sandwich for lunch. Everyone told me it was terrible and tasted like wax but surprise of surprises, it's good! Dinner is vegan pesto sauce on bow tie pasta with grilled zucchini and Tofurkey with stuffing and gravy. Fresh pineapple for desert.
I went to the health food store and spent $50. If you had told me a year ago I would be spending $50 at the health food store I would have said you were nuts. But the soy yogurt I had for a snack was also really good.

Morris Day and a question

Went to see Morris Day and the Time at Nathan Phillips tonight. This was something an artist was making:

I can recognize Andy Warhol and Basquiat, who is the other guy? Keith Harring? Yes, after a Google search, I believe it is. Excellent artwork.
When we got there people were break-dancing in a circle:

I took this picture as I was thinking about how this is something done the whole planet wide, people dancing in the middle of a circle. Is it possible that dancing is fundamentally human?
I took a couple shots of the stage:


I'm thinking there may be an advantage to the $800 cameras vs. my $150 jobbie as the guy beside me was getting excellent shots. Also it pissed me off that Morris Day kept calling us "Toronto, Canada" as in "How are you, Toronto, Canada?" I think we know what country we're from. And at one point he had the crowd chant about the Iraq war "What are we fighting for?" We're not fighting, right? It's them. Although we are in Afghanistan. Can someone give me a one sentence answer about why America is fighting Iraq? What will history say? Civil war is slavery. First World War is territory? Second World War is First World War. Iraq, will history say 9/11, oil, or something else?

Now I'm looking for comments here. I don't think I've ever requested people comment on this blog before, it's always been one way with me providing information/entertainment.
Recently a cyclist was biking down the street and a man opened his door to get out of his parked car, knocked the cyclist into the road under a passing truck and killed him. What should the punishment be for the man? It's a $200 ticket to not look for cyclists before you open your door, should he get more than that? What about criminal negligence causing death? And what should his sentence be?
As you can see from this article, the man got nothing, no charges. Is that fair?
I'm going to say $5000 fine, payable to the family of the victim and 6 months probation. What do you think? Leave a comment.

Finally, I was speaking to my brother today and he asked me what everyone asks when I tell them I'm vegan.... "What do you eat?" So I'll share what I ate today and yesterday.
Yesterday morning I had iced coffee with vanilla almond milk for breakfast. For lunch I had a veggie burger and salad with water. For dinner I had veggie meatloaf and spinach puff pastry with apple pie for desert.
Today I had cereal with strawberries and vanilla soy milk. For lunch I had a veggie spicy sausage on a bun and I didn't feel very hungry for dinner so I just had cantaloupe. For a snack when I got home I had chocolate soy milk and sea salt and malt vinegar chips.
Proof being vegan does not mean eating only nuts and berries you foraged.

Pictures of People Taking Pictures 1

Fringe Festival

SPOILERS: Coming this weekend, my long-awaited photo series "Pictures of People Taking Pictures: Part One"!

The good thing abotu living in Toronto is they have something on every 5 minutes and I'm quite busy as a result but why is it always in the summer??? Why can't we have the Fringe festival in February when I'm dying to get out of the house?

The Fringe Festival this year has about 100 plays showing in the space of a week. It took me about 3 hours just to narrow down my list, I still have to wait and see what friends are doing before I commit.

July 6 - 4pm At The End: A Good Book Musical

It's the end of the world as we know it! But does any apocalypse ever go as planned? The Horsemen are out and the Devil heads to earth to inform the Pope of mankind's imminent demise. But when complications arise, will it be possible to stop the other worldly ball from rolling? Director Larry Westlake comes with a long list of shows to his credit both on and off the stage - too many to put into 30 words. But feel free to ask him. Composer Kevin Nelson is an international award-winning songwriter who won the 2002 SIR TIM RICE AWARD. THE DIVINE HERETIC won Patron's Pick at the 2004 Toronto Fringe and he directed JASSY'S SASSY CABARET in 2006. Writer Marsha Mason is also an actor/singer/mover-shaker who recently appeared in Stories From Our Black Books in Toronto . She thinks she's funny on occasion.

July 7 - 9:15 pm Domestic

Jim loves Betty! Betty loves Jim! The Smith household should be perfect except… why does God keep calling with talk about Hell? And why is there a pool of blood forming under Jim's body? Whoops! Looks like Betty might have to go shopping again!

July 4 - 7pm Travel or Entertain?

Writer/performer Thomas Corless explores the world of gay online hook-ups and dating in this mix of chats, monologues and stand-up. Playing realistic and relatable characters, Corless details the ups and downs of online life: the joys of a hot sexual encounter, the pain of a one-sided attraction, the egos of the unattainable and the desperation of the lonely. Corless presents a world of impossible standards and a world where “masculine” and “straight-acting” rule, and where sex is “ raw” or “wrapped”. This mix of comedy and drama is provocative, funny, sexy and moving.

July 2 - 8pm Baggage

Five playwrights drawing from their distinct backgrounds in film, dance, poetry and music form the Pulang Maleta Collective and share their stories in their debut piece, BAGGAGE. “Maria”- A woman's struggle between filial obligation and the desire for a new life through a mailorder-bride arrangement. “not my exotic”- Sunshine encounters a guy who is interested in a lot more than a one-night stand. “The Edge of Family”- Crime, dinner and an envious mother exacerbate the decision of a young girl and her two men. “Touch” - A young woman tries to navigate the world as a new lesbian. Her mentor, a Filipino drag queen, helps her try and find love and more importantly learn how to breathe. “Claim Your Baggage” A humorous look at cultural shame and a reminder that if you don't look back at where you came from, you'll never get to where you're going.

Warning: mature language, mature content, food may fall on you

July 10 - 8pm Casa De Los Fantasmas by The Canadian Space Opera Company

During the 1920s and 30s, radio airwaves crackled with the spooky creakings and moanings of horror and suspense radio shows like “Lights Out” and “The Inner Sanctum”. The Canadian Space Opera Company, creators of “Peril From Beyond Space!”, has uncovered long-lost episodes of the spookiest show of them all - “Out Of The Closet”. Join your host, The Closet Case, as we present a live recreation of a typical radio broadcast of this hilariously eerie program. In this episode, “Casa De Los Fantasmas” (House of Ghosts), newlyweds Duke and Emily Dane are honeymooning at the luxurious Hacienda De La Hoya in remote Argentina . Their wedded bliss is rudely interrupted when the hotel guests start dying off one by one...

July 3 - 5:30 pm Babies In Danger!

From the creators of Science Fair! (***** - EYE; NNNN - Now) and DOGS! The Musical!! (“The best dog-gone musical at the fringe!” - Toronto Star) comes a comedy spectacular with live music, video and babies: BABIES IN DANGER! This is Players Players' fifth fringe show and the culmination of two years of monthly sketch shows in Hamilton and Toronto . They have been described as “talented and beautiful bright lights of the Hamilton indie theatre scene” (VIEW Magazine). Come to the Supermarket to see the funniest show ever created about infants in mortal peril.

July 9 - 8 pm Big Shot

A twelve-year-old boy wishes his mundane life had something more entertaining. His wish comes true, and on a train ride home, he witnesses the most grotesque and exciting tragedy of his time. And he's here to tell it for your benefit, the audience. The boy slides in and out of all the inward, spiteful characters involved: the shut-in mother, a not-so-recovered heroin addict named Killiger, a seventy-year-old Japanese pickpocket named Odosung, and a gravelly police officer by the name of Byron. Each of these people know of the tragedy, but none want to carry the blame. Jump on for the ride as the reality of this one event emerges from the fog of uncertainty, and witness the filmmaker who was inspired by the murder

July 13 - 2:30 pm David

"David" is a one-man show about sex. But not just sex in terms of who's having it and with whom. But sex as in: what is sex? What does it mean? Why do we have sex? Sex as lust. Sex as love. Sex as power. Sex as self-worth. Sex as self-destruction. Sex as status. Sex as failure. Nick, the one man of this one-man-show, doesn't know it, but on this Friday night he's working his way through all these positions. His past and future are coming together in the present: David, a random shag in a back-alley in Montreal 's Gay Village . Winner: Most notable promotion campaign; Most notable direction of a production. Nominated: Most notable original script; Most notable solo performance; Most notable production of the season, Harvest Festival, 2006

July 8 - 5 pm The Exploding Breakfast

by Ingle Knight presented by Perth Theatre Co. from Perth , Australia Welcome to Africa 's Big Apple - The poets, artists, live chicken sellers and small arms dealers are all brought to life on stage by Anglo-Australian writer and actor Ingle Knight in his South African survival tale... When he agreed to go to Johannesburg to write his next play… Ingle hadn't a clue what he was in for. The Exploding Breakfast tells the hilarious and occasionally terrifying story of how he survived his three months in Johannesburg . As he tries to write his next play some of his distractions include an assassination, William Burroughs, a Zimbabwean drug scam, a beautiful woman called Crystal Cleer and a washing machine called Aretha. Applying his unique prize-winning skills as both writer and performer Ingle takes his audience with him on this fascinating and sometimes excruciating journey of survival and discovery. “…a kaleidoscope of disturbing and fascinating characters. …very funny…” (The West Australian)

July 8 - 8:15 pm The Picture of Dorian Gray

by Oscar Wilde presented by The Absolute Truth from Toronto An adaptation of the classic Oscar Wilde novel. It's the story of a young society gentleman who wishes for beauty and youth. What follows is a horrifying and surprisingly witty descent into debauchery. "There's only one way to get rid of temptation, and that's to yield to it."

Footloose / Evil Dead

I noticed at lunch time today that my underwear was on backwards. I was quite busy today and didn't get a chance to fix it but I didn't really notice until I was sitting in the very uncomfortable seats at Footloose: The Musical. It was then I felt that something was not quite right. Which brings me to my review of the play.
I was really looking forward to this, I think I told everyone I know I was going and I had listened to the soundtrack 100 times. Who would play the Kevin Bacon lead role?
First off the theatre was small, I honestly believe there were as many people on stage and working the tickets and orchestra as there were in the audience. Then the play starts and out steps Lurch from the Aadam's Family. The man is 7'5 and 85 pounds. The last time he saw sun was 12 years ago and it looks like his face was dented with a brick. Several audience members fainted and one woman ran screaming from the theatre, shrieking "Run for your lives!!!"
Kevin Bacon, is that you?
I figured these people are not getting paid much, or anything, and was willing to look past appearances and check out his acting. Well he couldn't dance, act or sing, as his voice broke several times as I strained to hear what he was saying.
There were some high points. The role of Ren's best friend, Willard, was played by an amazing actor and Rusty and Ariel were also brilliant.
As I was looking around the room during Ren's songs (it was unwatchable), I started trying to pick out other actors who could have played the role better. I was trying to discern who was the understudy and had a fantasy where I kidnap Lurch and come to the show that night to see someone else play the role.
The story was of course ridiculous, a town bans dancing. The villain was a preacher, and I'm not sure if the actor was incapable (I think he was) or the role was terrible (I know it was) but I couldn't watch his scenes either. There were 4 or 5 songs about the evils of dancing and how hard it was on the priest being the heavy. Another one would start and I'd try to count the ceiling tiles.
The old songs were great and a couple of the new ones were pretty good too. I loved "I Need a Hero" where a shirtless muscle man is danced around by women like he's a maypole.
Overall, a cheap night out at $28 but you get what you pay for. RATING 4/10

Also saw Evil Dead: The Musical. The Star gave it 4 stars and it's obvious some money changed hands for that to happen. It was light entertainment, some songs good ("Blow That Bitch AWAY!") and some TERRIBLE ("Bit Part Demon") and overall middle of the road. RATING 6/10