A feminist take on ‘Taylor Swift the Product’:
http://www.autostraddle.com/why-taylor-swift-offends-little-monsters-feminists-and-weirdos-31525/

Pedobear included in newspaper photo of Olympic mascots:
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/02/06/pedobear-official-ma.html

Sarah Palin wrote notes on her hand for her latest speech that included ‘taxes’, ‘budget’ and ‘lift American spirits’. ‘Awesome’.

A letter from Tegan Quin about Canada, touring and the long road to success: http://teganandsara.com/uncategorized/thoughts-on-home/

Brendan Burke, the son of an NHL GM and a star of the amateur hockey world, made a ton of news in November when he publicly came out. The 21 year old stepped forward as a poster child for acceptance and was warmly embraced by his gruff father, a blustery Leafs head. It put the spotlight back onto homophobia in sports for a bit and did a lot of good. Sadly, Brendan was killed in a car accident last week.
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/life/Both+Burke+demonstrated+courage/2535685/story.html
http://www.thestar.com/sports/hockey/nhl/mapleleafs/article/761917--brendan-burke-s-light-extinguished-far-too-soon

The column I’m working on currently has over 5000 words of content. My space is 800. This is a bit of a problem. 2 interviewees became 4 and one interview came with like 5 additional parts. I ended up also wanting to add some history of internet media and quotes from stories featured on the website I’m covering. This way more content than space is really becoming a constant issue.

I think I’m going to split it into a two parter, one about queer online media and one with the interviews. But we’ll see if that works. I have 3 hours to make this happen.

Instead I find myself looking at things like this: http://fashionindie.com/random-lady-gaga-cookies/

And this:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/expresident/sex-explained-by-pens

Remember when I was spazzing about how amazing the so far announced line-up of Lilith Fair was? It got better.

First of all, Edmonton was officially announced as a stop. Good.

More importantly, a bucketful of new artists have been added. A few directly from my wish-list!!

THE GOSSIP.

MISSY HIGGINS.

LA ROUX.

SIA.

LORETTA LYNN.

HEART.

CAT POWER.

Also Beth Orton, Melissa McClelland and Kate Nash.

The full newly added list: Loretta Lynn, Heart, Norah Jones, Cat Power, Sia, Gossip, La Roux, Beth Orton, Ceci Bastida, Erin McCarley, Frazey Ford, Julia Othmer, Kate Nash, Lights, Missy Higgins, Lissie, Marina & The Diamonds, Priscilla Renea, Rosie Thomas, Melissa McClelland, Toby Lightman and Elizaveta.

How can there be so much awesome in one tour? AND THEY ARE STILL ANNOUNCING MORE ARTISTS!

Queermonton: Trans Ban
http://vueweekly.com/article.php?id=14093

The Tegan and Sara concert was, in one magic word, EPIC. In two: FUCKING EPIC.

The Jubilee is a great venue (it’s not the Winspear, but it’s a runner-up) and their set-up (like the light show) was very well done. We were on Tegan’s side, which made me happy because she’s my mom and I’s favourite. We had Row A, which is front row of the regular seats but actually fourth behind the pit. Not bad at all.

The show was crazy long, with a huge mix. Again, like the Victoria show, an oddly heavy amount of So Jealous songs. But they played pretty much every song from Sainthood and a mix of others randomly inserted, including quite a few from The Con. They did a few songs that were re-worked, like Back in Your Head with just a guitar and one of those xylophone type things that I still don’t know the name of.

I got some really cool merch including a shirt, water bottle, 3 posters, buttons, postcards and this really neat glass pendant. My mom got a bag, shirt and a different necklace. We were really impressed with An Horse, the opening act, and got their CD and I got a sweet AC/DC take off hoodie. They signed the album and we got a picture with them, very sweet Australian two person band. And also, hott.

Their banter was hilarious. I got a seven minute conversation about West Ed and Galaxyland vs. Fantasyland that is definitely going on YouTube. Their may have also been a story about a ghost in Tegan’s Jubilee dressing room bathroom. I gots lots of video!

I was with Amanda and my mom and sold three tickets to Kendra. Then I bumped into Shawn and Sam numerous times and oh about twenty other people. It was so hilariously young lesbianland.

The best part? A re-worked, acoustic version of the Tiesto dance song Feel It In My Bones.

A-Ma-Zing.

Like I said, I caught a sneak peak of Leap Year, a romantic comedy about a women who goes to Ireland to propose to her boyfriend and starts to fall for the guy (or Irish rascal as Bart called him) who is taking her to Dublin through a series of unfortunate mishaps.

It's not great, but it's a perfectly nice rom-com. Viewing it in the parameters of a very narrow genre, it practically soars above the rest of it's ilk. Not amazing, probably not even great, but certainly good. Would make for a nice matinee or date movie.

I quite like Amy Adams, but her performance in this is pretty dry. Matthew Goode turned out to be much more of a stand out. I was hoping Adams would be a bit more interesting, she was much more charismatic in Junebug and Enchanted. Whereas Goode, well, leaps off the screen with humour and personality. He's what made the movie work for me, whereas she let me down a little.

The film is lightly funny and sweet. The cinematography is rather incredible, made me want to visit Ireland. It’s very well framed and vividly coloured. A bit of it is touching and none of it is offensive. And most importantly, all the characters are decent. Her boyfriend is not a bad guy, it’s not stupidly black and white and he’s not a villain. He’s just not right for her. And the new guy isn’t a prince or needlessly antagonistic. He’s human. Praise be, there's no needless sex/people cheating which annoys the crap out of me with movies along these lines.

It totally reminded me of a “Barbie heterosexual” [in irish accent] Imagine Me and You.

The last third of the movie is especially good as things become a bit less slapstick and more emotional for the main characters. The scene at the bus stop/coffee shop and another with a fire alarm in the apartment are both especially well done and touching.

I’d recommend it if you want something light.

Boy am I angry.

I have an FtM friend who I met through activism on delisting of GRS. He just had his top surgery. Afterwards, we all encouraged him to post pictures of his new chest on Facebook. He wanted to. He was happy and proud of his brand new male body, as he should be.

Facebook banned his account.

No warning, no deleting the photos, no telling him why. He’s still not been able to contact them. It’s all just gone.

In a way I feel bad. I was one of the people who said “post them! nothing would ever happen”. I thought at worst the photos might be deleted or he could receive a warning. Which would be discriminatory anyway, as his chest is nothing but -male- and that’s okay to show off in our society. But a fucking banning?!

I will be pre-empting the story I was going to run next week, which is thankfully not time sensitive. This is a huge, internationally applicable issue. It’s bad enough they did it to him, but they could make decisions like this with anyone. This could potentially affect a mountain of people.

Thankfully Dominic is staying strong, even though he’s been in the middle of a difficult transition. He has decided to take this issue public and I’m so glad. I will be standing firmly behind him.

I hope you will too.

Dominic Scaia: http://twitter.com/DannyHeartache
FB group in support: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=240719433565

The new job is intense in a really strange way. The clients are just not like anything I was prepared for or ready to deal with. I’m worried, really. But I will keep trying. Mostly it’s been interesting and surprising, even shocking sometimes. And that’s two days in! I’m also being challenged by how undefined the role is, I do so much better with a checklist. But I will forge ahead. And maybe do some good.

Meanwhile, I have not slept more than 4 hours total in 3 days because I’ve been over tired, insomniac and nightmare-plagued. This is not so much fun.

Health still sucks, but I’m keeping food down with help of that aforementioned ‘magic solution’. A new doctor is also thinking it’s something different and tackling that and I have more tests coming up. So far the new med is helping some things and making others worse.

I saw a pre-screening of Leap Year tonight thanks to Bart, who gave me the pass. I ended up hanging out with him and his fun friend because my date bailed (with either a good excuse or an outrageous lie, I can’t decide). Lots and lots of laughs with him and Jeanine. The night turned out to be really fun!

Also, why do they continue airing Billy Mays’ commercials? It's creepy. I want them to stop that. I don’t even know who them is, but they need to quit all the same.

Double also, I want to review Leap Year but I’m too tired and I feel like I can either do a short crappy job or a rambling long one. For now I’ll just say that Matthew Goode is super, super dreamy. <3

The Chris Brown/Rihanna thing is still weird. On the AfterShow today Jesse (who hosts along with Dan ‘Eugene’s son’ Levy and provide the only two voices of generally intelligent humour on all of MTV Canada) mentioned that she liked, despite herself, Chris Brown’s new song. So I had to look it up.

Damn you MTV for forcing me to do a bunch of Chris Brown research.

The song is good but that’s entirely besides the point. The video features a Rihanna stand-in. She doesn’t look all that much like her, but she’s got the side-shaved head and she’s stalked by paparazzi in the video implying she’s famous, so she’s clearly supposed to be her (she’s also played by R&B star Cassie, ...wait singer girls still come near Chris Brown?). He spends the entire video following her around in a snowy Los Angeles (celebrities, they live in an LA that has winter!) all creepy-like until he eventually somehow wins her back. Then he dances exuberantly with a small child.

They put him in nerd glasses as if making him look like a dork will make you forget that if you’re female he’s likely to punch you, bite you, threaten you, kick you out the car and otherwise commit felony assault against you.

The video has 5 stars on YouTube.

And it is a good song, in the same kind of half-empty way that Halo by Beyonce is also a good song. All production and writers and teams of musicians. Any other star could have put out Halo (oh right, Ryan Tedder and Kelly Clarkson did! see the Already Gone) and anyone could just have easily put out Crawl. It’s just too bad the beater was the one that did.

Everybody says we're through [I wonder why?]
I hope you haven’t said it too [really, why would you?]
So where do we go from here [jail.]
With all this fear in our eyes [that I’mma hit cha again]
And where can love take us now [to the depths of hell]
And we've been so far down [like you, on that curb]

So once again we come to the question of whether an artist’s misdeeds merit ignoring their decent and sometimes great work? Think Roman Polanski, Michael Jackson, Woody Allen.

I swore never to pay for a Woody film until one with Evan Rachel Wood came out, then I most definitely turncoated on my ethics. And dammit, it was a GREAT movie. I’m just as weak as everyone else.

Always felt the need for space [especially in prison]
And now I can't reach your face [so I can bite all up in it]

Do you support Chris Brown? Will you buy and/or illegally download his music?

And has anything changed about your interest/support in Rihanna?

So we'll crawl
Till we can walk around
And we'll run
Until we're strong enough to jump
Then we'll fly
Until there is no end
So let's crawl....crawl....crawl
Back to love
[and felony assault]

PS: while writing this a story came on tv about how Chris Brown and Bow Wow Wow were driving drunk on New Year's ACCORDING TO BOW'S OWN TWITTER UPDATES. Fuckin' fuck tards.


what a d-bag

Best/worst/biggest in queer 2009.

http://vueweekly.com/article.php?id=13989

Yay, not a hideous amount got cut this time! Although I wish he would stop taking middle parts out because the remaining sentence about club music makes no sense when all the bands before it are rock...

When I first saw this it was at 20k hits, now it's past 2 mil. And it deserves it! If you haven't heard/viewed this mash-up, check it out. DJ Earworm actually creates a listenable hot song out of 25 top hits from 09.

After I got home last night I couldn’t sleep and started thinking about the website-type-thing I want to launch. Does it make sense to create it as a blog and then transfer it to a site later? What’s the best blog site out there? Do people still use WordPress or something else?

What would be a good name?

I envision featuring interviews, profiles, event listings, links, opinion pieces, news, the pop culture spectrum, historic briefs, reviews, a femme/lipstick perspective column, advice, photos, travel, submitted reader content, products, Accepted/Rejected to the Gay Club and all things I can’t currently fit into my column or send elsewhere. I think there’s opportunities for all those categories to feature straight but alt content, probably written by someone else.

How do I make it queer but open to hetero writing that’s sex positive or gender neutral or kinky or events/stories applicable to all and so on?

Is featuring alt-straight content just too big a net to cast?

I want to get started before the new job starts in 4 days, so that I can force myself to keep it up. I see a lot of potential here.

I got a new job!! I’ll be working in Old Strathcona at the youth drop-in centre. I’ll be the art and music facilitator working with high risk and street involved youth 14 to 24. Happily, it’s 28 hours a week (perfect) and it’s afternoon/evening (double perfect). My health isn’t really under control yet but I don’t care, I really, really wanted this job. I just hope this gets okay real soon though so I can do the job well. I think it’ll be great for me although I don’t really know what to expect yet. I go in tomorrow for training and then start next week.

The position has a term of a year and a half. The pay is really good for something in this field. I will be working with a ton of cool/diverse art and music equipment. I’m kind of scared with the lack of skills I have there, but I can do drama and I can do crafts. And I don’t think facilitating necessarily requires skills in anything other than leading because to do the job right, you should be showcasing their work, not yours. I will get to do things like take them to festivals and bring people in to play/teach them. And there’s a drumming circle. Plus you know, mentoring, role modeling and helping at-risk youth.

How awesome is this?!

WTTTTTFFFFF BRITTANY MURPHY DIED??!!!

Where have I been? She apparently passed away on Sunday and was buried today. She died 5 days ago? Seriously what the hell? This isn’t a hoax? How can this be?

Perhaps I thought that she was more famous than she was, but this seems like a pretty big deal. She’s not Brad Renfro obscure. I haven’t been on the net much in the last cuple days but I still don’t get it.

Seriously. Can’t process.

I got really sick after dinner and had to partake of the medicinal treatment again so I’m really out of it. This doesn’t make sense. I don’t feel sad, just shocked.

Hope your Christmas was merry and gay! Sorry that this post is late, I was busy having fun. And then getting ill. But mostly fun.



The London Gay Men's Chorus ‘Coming Out at Christmas’:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWPMkDDAb7w



Apparently a ton of queer holiday music does actually exist: http://christmasyuleblog.blogspot.com/2007/02/queer-music-heritage-2006-christmas.html

Take care all. Happy holidays.
- Tam

Confused! So confused.

And I’m sure it has nothing to do with the vomiting about 50 times in 3 days so far.

God, this sucks. I may actually have to come home before Tegan and Sara. I can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t do anything except throw up on occasion. I’m shaky, dehydrated and starting to see visual disturbances. Poor Erica has been taking care of me and I’m pretty damn grateful for it. I have to think about going to the hospital here. Erica says she’s forcing me if I still can’t eat tomorrow.

And I now have a job interview the morning after I get back. Followed by an ultrasound to diagnose what my doctor thinks is a gallbladder issue.

I’ve never been this sick.

Sarah McLachlan has released the first 40 names from the upcoming Lilith Fair tour!

The initial lineup: A Fine Frenzy, Ann Atomic, Ash Koley, Brandi Carlile, Butterfly Boucher, Chairlift, Chantal Kreviazuk, Colbie Caillat, Corinne Bailey Rae, Donna Delory, Emmylou Harris, Erykah Badu, Grace Potter and The Nocturnals, Ima, Indigo Girls, Ingrid Michaelson, Janelle Monae, Jennifer Knapp, Jill Hennessy, Jill Scott, Katzenjammer, Ke$ha, Mary J. Blige, Meaghan Smith, Metric, Miranda Lambert, Nneka, Sara Bareilles, Sarah McLachlan, Serena Ryder, Sheryl Crow, Sugarland, Susan Justice, Tara MacLean, Tegan and Sara, Vedera, Vita Chambers, The Submarines, The Weepies, Ximena Sarinana and Zee Avi.

My excitement lies mostly in Tegan and Sara, Metric, the Indigo Girls, Jill Hennessy, Chantal Kreviazuk, Serena Ryder and Butterfly Boucher. I’ve seen most of them before, some a lot of times, but all together…wow! I can’t freakin’ wait.

The choice of Metric on the bill is so interesting. Emily Haines certainly evokes everything Lilith Fair means to me but they are a rock band that is three quarters male. I think they’ll make an amazing fit. This shows that Sarah has really grown in her choices and is moving out of only the women folk milieu.

I never got to see Lilith Fair the first time around. They played Edmonton but I was a bit too young, didn’t really think I’d want to go. In retrospect I don’t know why mom didn’t take me. I will be road tripping to Calgary or Vancouver or maybe a date will get announced here soon.

Great to see Sarah is keeping the Canadian element (Tara MacLean, Serena Ryder, T n S, Metric, Jill Hennessy who’s from Edmonton, Chantal Kreviazuk).

Other artists I would love to see added: Neko Case, Missy Higgins, Ferron, Sarah Bettens, Jenny Lewis, Melissa Ferrick, Bitch, Kimya Dawson, Sarah Slean, Ani, Cyndi Lauper

In my wildest dreams: Tracy Chapman, the Dixie Chicks, Melissa Etheridge

If Sarah continues making risky choices: the Gossip, Lady Gaga, Yeah Yeah Yeahs

And if only they got the recognition they deserved: Chris Pureka, Amy Millan, Uh Huh Her, Kate Reid

Also, I’d love to see a trans artist on the bill. JD Samson? Lukas Silviera?

I was just thinking the other day that Tegan and Sara really need a Christmas song. Voila.

Immediately after winning this year’s Polaris Music Prize, Fucked Up’s lead singer said that he would use the money for missing Aboriginal women in Canada. And he did! Damian put together this single benefiting three charities. It features comedian David Cross, Kevin Drew from BSS, Ezra Koenig from Vampire Weekend, Yo La Tengo and oh yes--TEGAN and SARA.



I just really wish it wasn’t only on iTunes. I refuse to use that service. I hate the player because it downloads hidden programs and I hate using my credit card for tiny purchases. I’d rather buy a single for 5 bucks in the store than 99 cents online. But I do understand that an iTunes single is free for artists and most can’t afford to press records. It still sucks.


this santa might not know its christmas...he appears to have had a little too many eggnogs. - Sara Quin