Does This Martini Make Me Look Gay?

Back in my late teens, early twenties, I got my first credit card.  It was a Simpson’s store card, and I promptly maxed it out at the Clinique counter as quickly as I could.  I’ve always been a product whore; the Clinique counter was not my first beauty high.  That happened at Caryl Baker Visage. Read the rest of this entry »

As I have mentioned before, I just love my pal, the writer, journalist and weekly guest on my show, Susan G. Cole.

So it was my pleasure to attend part of the launch party last night for a new anthology she has edited called Outspoken.  It’s available now at better bookstores (ISBN 978-0-88754-799-7 $19.95.)  Susan has culled from different lesbian writers across Canada to put together a great book of scenes and short stories and monologues.  Last night at the party, I got to hear many of the women involved read from their work, including the amazing Mariko Tamaki.  What a great range of stories.  From completely engaging to completely LOL, from crushing on a teacher to shaving your legs, Outspoken is full of amazing tales for anyone who loves great writing and great women.

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I like Kathy Griffin as a comic, but I don’t love her rabidly the way so many of my friends do.  And I appreciated the opportunity to have her on as a guest on my PROUD FM and OutTV shows  last year, but she wasn’t my favourite interview (you can hear our chat below).  Read the rest of this entry »

Julie Stewart, Susanna Fournier and Andrew Craig from True Love Lies, Brad Fraser’s North American premiere launching Factory Theatre’s 40th Anniversary Season. The show runs until November 1. Photo: Ed Gass-Donnelly Photo.

Time for some run-don’t-walk theatre here in Toronto: The North American premiere of Brad Fraser’s True Love Lies kicked off Factory Theatre’s 40th anniversary season this past Thursday.

The world premiere already a U.K. hit, this is playwright/director Fraser’s best work yet, and I’ve either seen or read them all.  More mature than anything before it, and shockingly funny on many levels.

Your mission – a tough one – is to keep up.  Read the rest of this entry »

If you love Toronto like I love Toronto, a new edition in a series on Canadian cities has hit the shelves.  It’s got a great sense of humour and shares endless fascinating facts about the city the rest of Canada loves to hate.  Finally I know why Toronto has ‘Hogtown’ among its nicknames; that the city’s top five mother tongues other than English are (in order): Chinese, Italian, Punjabi, Spanish and Portuguese; that Church and Front Streets were the hub of prostitution in the 1800’s; and that on a typical day here 82 babies are born and 49 people die.  Special kudos to the funny ‘You Know You’re In Toronto When …’ section.

Authors: Nate Hendley, Karen Lloyd, and Tanya Gulliver. $14.95 at your fave bookseller.

Your summer just got hotter.  

Next in the line of sexed-up classical musicians being served to the world comes Grammy-nominated organist Cameron Carpenter, yours for the taking at his Canadian debut during Stratford Music Festival’s ninth season. Set to change our feelings about organists and their instrument, the child-prodigy-turned-Juilliard-grad-turned-New York Times-rave composer performs three times in support of his new CD/DVD, Revolutionary.

Think colour, costume and self-designed organ shoes.  And okay! okay!  Insert organ joke here: ___________.

Cameron Carpenter’s Stratford Summer Music recitals will be performed at 11:00 a.m. on July 30, 31 and August 1, 2009 at 11:00 a.m. in Knox Presbyterian Church, 142 Ontario Street. Tickets are $30 or $75 for all three recitals in the series and are available on line at www.stratfordsummermusic.ca. Stratford Summer Music runs from July 20 to August 16, 2009. For complete concert and ticketing information log on to the website or call 519-271-2101.   

What with the weather so fine and divine as the weekend approaches, I can’t think of a better time to share the love for 360 Vodka.

Right in step with the worldwide green movement, 360 Vodka is a wonderful example of eco-awareness and corporate responsibility.  It’s premium stuff, quadruple distilled (through a highly energy-efficient process with not a bushel of grain going to waste) and five-times filtered (in a facility noted for its improved eco-footprint over the last half-decade).  The bottle is 85% recycled glass (and totally reusable within your home), labels are made with 100% post-consumer waste paper, and if you mail back the swing top in the prepaid envelope that comes with every bottle, 360 Vodka makes a donation to regional environmental organizations.

Best part: beautiful vodka.  Try it on the rocks, or shake up an Ecoteani (360 Vodka + sweetened green tea … SO refreshing) or a Rhuby Slipper (360 Vodka, lemon juice, maple syrup, rhubarb compote) if you want to wow the Dorothy in your life with your mixology skills.

More info and recipes at Vodka360.com.

Illustration: Glen Hanson

What took so long for this wonderful 80’s comedy about four gay men four empowered Southern belles running an interior design firm to make it to DVD is anyone’s guess, but it is at long last out, and I snapped up Season One this past weekend.

Good writing never dies, so Designing Women still sparkles all these years later.  Back when it was on TV friends used to call me ‘Suzanne Sugarbaker’, the vain, self-absorbed former beauty queen Delta Burke played, although I don’t know for the life of me why  

When Burke started to gain weight in real life, it became an infamous part of the storyline, and although tension rose on the set between her and her co-stars (Jean Smart, Annie Potts and Dixie Carter, all magnificent) over whose show it really was, it didn’t affect the quality until the very end when Burke was fired.

My favourite scenes were always when Suzanne’s older sister Julia (Carter) would go on a tirade, launching rants like rockets at unsuspecting victims.  Again, what great writing by show creator Linda Bloodworth-Thompson.  I actually had my favourite rant memorized for years, and as it takes place in episode two of the first season, it was great fun to see it again. Turns out I still know most of those lines by heart from when Julia confronts a catty beauty queen mocking her baby sister Suzanne:

Julia: Excuse me, aren’t you Marjorie Leigh Winnick, the current Miss Georgia World?

Marjorie: Why, yes I am.

Julia: I’m Julia Sugarbaker, Suzanne Sugarbaker’s sister. I couldn’t help over hearing part of your conversation.

Marjorie: Well, I’m sorry. I didn’t know anyone was here.

Julia: Yes, and I gather from your comments there are a couple of other things you don’t know, Marjorie. For example, you probably didn’t know that Suzanne was the only contestant in Georgia pageant history to sweep every category except congeniality, and that is not something the women in my family aspire to anyway. Or that when she walked down the runway in her swimsuit, five contestants quit on the spot. Or that when she emerged from the isolation booth to answer the question, “What would you do to prevent war?” she spoke so eloquently of patriotism, battlefields and diamond tiaras, grown men wept. And you probably didn’t know, Marjorie, that Suzanne was not just any Miss Georgia, she was the Miss Georgia. She didn’t twirl just a baton, that baton was on fire. And when she threw that baton into the air, it flew higher, further, faster than any baton has ever flown before, hitting a transformer and showering the darkened arena with sparks! And when it finally did come down, Marjorie, my sister caught that baton, and 12,000 people jumped to their feet for sixteen and one-half minutes of uninterrupted thunderous ovation, as flames illuminated her tear-stained face! And that, Marjorie — just so you will know — and your children will someday know —is the night the lights went out in Georgia!

(Illustration: Glen Hanson)

It’s a little early for beach reading, but I just finished this fun breezy inventive book narrated by a totally likeable fat ad exec named B (as in ‘Beauty’) and highly recommend it for your summer picks.  

In the midst of being made miserable by her boss from hell at a Manhattan agency, B meets a Russian fairy godmother who shows B that she really is beautiful – and how to make a lot of money.  Lots of LOL moments (“I just couldn’t get myself to write one line of copy about those tampons.  Period.”), lots of sweet ones as well, totally satisfying, easy on the brain yet charming.  And some real thought provoking lessons on what true beauty really is. 

I had author Alberto Ferreras on my show a few weeks ago, who pointed out in our convo about beauty that as a gay man, he noticed that in our community it’s the bears who really embrace their inner gorgeousness.  Kudos to him for writing a believable female character.

Take it to the beach and call me in the fall.

Run Don't Walk And Rent This.

Michelle Williams’ (of Heath Ledger fame) honest portrait of an independent drifter whose sole companion is Lucy, her friendly yellow dog is simple beauty.  And what happens when she leaves Lucy tied outside a grocery store unspools a story that left me in tears.  More movies like this, please. Now out on DVD.

If, like me, you watch Oprah, you might, like me, have been wondering, “Who is this Ali woman who sits on Oprah’s chat panel every Friday with Gayle and that emasculated husband of Kelly Ripa?”

I thought for a while she was probably an editor or someone from O magazine, but now I’ve learned she’s far more interesting than that.  Her full name is Alexandra Wentworth, and I was surprised to find it is her who writes and stars in a DVD of a show I picked up called Head Case.  (You might know her from Seinfeld, according to Wikipedia, but I never watched the show.)

Anyway, Head Case is a series airing on Starz in the U.S. that I’d read lots of good things about without ever connecting Wentworth with Oprah’s girl Friday. So. Fucking. Funny.  Wentworth plays the brash, incompetent (at $450.00 / hour) Hollywood ‘It’ therapist, Dr. Elizabeth Goode.  Judgemental, self-absorbed, argumentative, it is she and her unconventional methods who takes care of the mental health of celebrities playing themselves, from Jeff Goldblum to MadTV’s Nicole Sullivan to Trudi Styler to Tori and Dean.

Or, maybe you’re not like me and knew about this woman and her show all along.

Anyway, no wonder Oprah has her on.  And let the healing begin.

This is the best book I have read in ages.  Patrick’s reading it now (and loving it, too) and when I see him doing so I actually feel a tad jealous that my turn enjoying this novel novel has passed.

I bought it for a trip to Cuba this winter, after telling myself when I went book searching that I was just going to take the book that spoke to me from the shelf. Good instinct!  Two narrators tell this tale.  They both live in the same bourgeois building in a posh neighbourhood of Paris. Renée is an old cantankerous ugly consièrge far smarter than the people she serves (but far less wealthy), and Paloma is a bright 12-year old who has decided to commit suicide when she turns 13.  Their lives suddenly join when a new tenant arrives.

Gently satirical, surreal, normal, witty, moving, eloquent, heartbreaking, funny, and with an unexpected plot – so worth it.

Got GLOOP?

If Gwyneth Paltrow has GOOP, I have Gloop, which is what I call this healthy concoction I have every morning. Nutritionist Rose Weinberg shared the recipe with us when she came on the show last spring and I enjoy it as part of my morning meal almost daily.  At first I was aghast by it’s appearance, but turns out it’s way better tasting than you’d expect (sweet, for one thing) and I feel great on it, with lots of energy.  Everyone I’ve told about it loves it and I thought you would too.  

Blend: one banana, half an avocado, a handful of spinach, and a tsp. of honey with rice milk (or almond or soy if you prefer) in a blender. I add wild blueberries too.  Delish and, of course, very good for you!

I Was Here.

There are loads of places to stay in Montreal, but there are fewer wonderful places to stay.  Alexandre Logan (1870) is one of those treasures you must keep in mind the next time you’re visiting the sexy city.

Located in the Village just a block away from Rue St.-Catherine, the B&B has won the prestigious Grands Prix du tourisme québécois three years in a row – with good reason.  It’s gorgeous, immaculate, charming, and has been completely painstakingly refurbished as a labour of love in keeping with 1870’s authenticity. If you’re lucky enough to get a tour from Alain, the owner, your jaw will drop. Think high ceilings, original woodwork, plaster mouldings, a luxurious common area, two balconies and a terrace with an outdoor shower.  Add on the best breakfasts I’ve ever enjoyed while staying at a B&B and you know why I just had to pass it on.

Think of it the next time you head to Montreal, or check it out now.