Canadian Gothic

"Scott Brison describes it as 'Canadian Gothic.' ... 'Just a couple of guys and their dog standing in a field,' he says about his Christmas card this year.

But there are others, the Nova Scotia Liberal MP says, who are describing it as 'The Brokeback Brisons' – an homage to the Ang Lee movie about two gay cowboys and their love affair on a Wyoming mountain. This is the first time, meanwhile, the couple has posed together for a Christmas card and it is likely the first same-sex married-couple MP Christmas card...

It was sent to about 5,000 friends and constituents.

Jully Black's words of wisdom

Have you ever had a notebook that you wrote everything in? A reminder to call someone, a phone number that's changed, a note to read something inspirational or simply a great idea? That's what THE BLACK BOOK is about.

It is more than just a book, a diary, an agenda, a phone book or a glossary. It's the place where the mental notes, important details and words of wisdom have manifested themselves into songs. These are lessons that I've learned and lessons that were taught to me through the experiences of mine and of others.

Jully Black is a Canadian R&B singer of Jamaican heritage, and was brought up in the Jane and Finch area of Toronto. She has collaborated and written for many notable artists, including Nas, Missy Elliott, Saukrates, Choclair, Kardinal Offishall, Destiny's Child, and Sean Paul.
In summer 2005, a newly recorded album, This is Me, was released by Universal Music Canada. The album included the hit singles "Sweat of Your Brow" and "5x Love". According to a piracy report by IFPI, the international music industry body, there were "2.8 million illegal file swapping requests for her music in the first two weeks of her album’s release in 2005". At the same time, Black reportedly "struggled to sell 15,000 copies of the same album".

In summer 2007, a new single entitled "Seven Day Fool" was released, eventually becoming Black's first Top 10 hit in Canada. Her second album Revival was released on October 16, 2007 and was awarded the Juno for R&B/Soul Recording of the Year in Calgary on April 6, 2008, at which she was the closing act on the telecast performing "Seven Day Fool".

The Golden Age of Video

A fun compilation of many classics.

Maybe Texas ain't so bad after all!

On Saturday, Houston, Texas became the first major U.S. city to elect an openly gay mayor, Annise Parker, after a hotly contested run-off election that gave gay and lesbian supporters a symbolic victory following defeats over legalizing same-sex marriages in California and Maine.

"The voters of Houston have opened the door to history," Parker told supporters at a convention center in Houston. "I know what this win means to many of us who never thought we could achieve high office."

Tales of Mystery and Imagination

Musician Eric Woolfson, a singer and songwriter best known as co-founder of progressive rock group Alan Parsons Project, has died. He was 64.

A songwriter since the early 1960s, Woolfson created 10 albums with Alan Parsons, an engineer who had worked on the Beatles' Abbey Road and on the Pink Floyd album, Dark Side of the Moon.

Their low-key albums, recorded with a revolving cast of session musicians, had a cult following, especially in Germany and the U.S. Their biggest selling album was 1982's Eye in the Sky.

Other albums included I Robot and Tales of Mystery and Imagination, which was based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe.

In the 1960s, Woolfson worked alongside two then-unknown writers, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice.

Canada Border Services Agency are DINX

An award-winning film, on its way back to Canada from an international gay and lesbian film festival in October, was held up at the Canadian border for more than a month.

On Nov 24, Edmonton filmmaker Trevor Anderson received a letter from Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) informing him that his short film DINX had been detained on Oct 21 and was being investigated for obscenity. A few days later, the tape was returned to him in the mail.

"It concerns me that the determination of what gets into our country is in the hands of individual border guards," he says.

A fun parody and a call-to-arms

Bash’d – A Gay Rap Opera will be at the Great Canadian Theatre Company in Ottawa from January 12-31.

Billed as “a gay rap opera,” the Edmonton-grown, Fringe-Fest-honed musical Bash'd has intrigued and titillated audiences in Canada and the United States. It garnered the 2007 Outstanding Musical Award at the New York International Fringe Festival and the 2008 GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) Media Award in the category of Off-Off-Broadway Production.

The plot follows two star-crossed lovers who fall in love and get hitched. As the name implies, one of the men is eventually gaybashed. Enraged at the brutal attack, his spouse vows revenge. That’s the opera part. The gay part, of course, is that the lovers are a couple named Jack and Dillon, who first meet in a gay bar.

The rap element is a twist that might initially perplex the average theatregoer. While there is indeed music, spoken word, and a bit of good old-fashioned poetry thrown in, this approximately hour-long production is presented and narrated almost completely through the medium of rap — by two MCs named Feminem and T-Bag.

Gay rap or hip hop, aka “homo hop,” has existed as an underground movement since the late ’90s, thanks to the influence of such pioneers as Tori Fixx and the Deep Dickollective. However, Nathan Cuckow, co-writer and co-performer of Bash’d, admits that he was unaware of the movement when he created the character of Feminem ten years ago, for Edmonton’s Loud & Queer Cabaret.

"I stayed in line as I was brought up to do."

Three months after suffering a stroke, Prairie Home Companion writer and broadcaster Garrison Keillor is more than ready to poke fun at the experience.

"I'm feeling fine," he said in an interview aired Wednesday on CBC's Q cultural affairs show. "If you're going to have a stroke, a minor one is the way to go."

Keillor, speaking from his studio in St. Paul, Minn., described why he drove himself to the hospital in Minneapolis after suffering a stroke this September.

"I didn't want to be any trouble to anybody, so, I got behind the wheel of my car," he said. "I felt a little odd, but I drove very carefully, very slowly, in the right-hand lane.

"And I got to the emergency room, and I stood in line as other people came up to the triage desk and talked about minor skin irritations and a mole that needed to be looked at and a possible ankle sprain. I stayed in line as I was brought up to do."

Keillor, author of Lake Wobegon Days and Life Among the Lutherans, has made a career out of satirizing his Calvinist upbringing, including its emphasis on never making a fuss.

"Sexually risky behaviour" NOT "Sexual orientation" for blood donations in Sweden

Sweden will lift its ban on gay blood donors as of March 1, 2010, but will restrict donations to gay men who have not had sex with a man for a year, national health authorities said Tuesday.

"Men who have had sex with men will no longer be permanently barred from donating blood," the National Board of Health and Welfare said in a statement released on World AIDS Day.

Sexual orientation will no longer determine whether a person can give blood. Instead, people who have engaged in "sexually risky behaviour" can be barred as donors for one year.

"Unscrupulous uses of the Olympic marks"

Police answering a 911 call about a home invasion in East Vancouver Wednesday found no break-in suspects when they arrived but did discover 107,000 ecstasy tablets, some imprinted with the Olympic rings symbol.

"The officer saw large bags of multi-coloured pills in plain view, which the officer believed to be consistent with ecstasy," Desmarais said.

Some of the tablets were stamped with peace signs and some with the Olympic rings.

Vancouver's Olympic organizing committee has vigorously pursued unlicensed use of the Olympic rings symbol in the past and a spokesman said it was aware of the Vancouver police seizure.

"This illustrates that there are and will be unscrupulous uses of the Olympic marks," said Bill Cooper, VANOC's director of commercial rights management. "Like the Vancouver police, we will continue to be diligent in our surveillance and rigorous followup."

[ Who cares about the ecstasy when the Olympic logo is being misused! ]