Sylvie Hill

Ottawa XPress, March 2, 2006

If you’re not sorry for who you are
Why are you sorry for where you been?
~From “Wasted,” by Joseph Arthur

Inebriation.

Is it about celebration or medication? Jubilation or depression? Can you remind me again why it’s ever a good idea to get wasted?

I gave up drinking in July when I realized that mixing a breakup with copious amounts of liquor didn’t taste so hot. Drinking left me at the end of the night all hyped up with no one to do, and nowhere to go but to stupid things and many regrets.

Why should you care? ‘Cause that was you or a friend last weekend, yeah?

Shotgun taking the piss at getting drunk is about as fun as inviting me and my six-pack of ginger ales to your cottage party, right? You’ll feel differently when I’m the only camper fit enough the next morning to cook your sorry ass some breakfast, so shut up already.

I’m not telling no one to stop drinking. No way, not here. I just want to know why you can handle it, while I – and a whack of others – cannot.

What is it about drinking that people love so much?

Society puts way too much into alcohol. That we know. Beer commercials market instant parties-in-a-bottle, signalling a social opportunity to be with people, be seen and meet strangers easily.

Problem is that while the world puts so much meaning into alcohol, alcohol puts way too much meaning into some people. You know, the ones who only come alive when they drink. Nice beer goggles. Or others who get sappy, or violent and want to kung fu fight you.

When it comes to saying “I don’t drink,” I have a lot to learn from those straight-edge punk rockers I used to make fun of at Fugazi shows a decade ago. You know, the Henry Rollins followers who marked their hands with an X to show they didn’t do drugs or drink alcohol.

Those kids annoyed the piss out of me with their vegan ways and their underground politics and their silk-screened patches and their shoegazing sways and their tight-fitting hoodies. (Sorry, I found them holier-than-thou.)

The supersonic, loud, raucous music blasting out the jaws of pierced and tattooed aggressive onstage screamers inspired me to want to get liquored and jerk my body frantically against the wall – not just stand there stylishly in the cramped space that was 5 Arlington, for example, “appreciating” the emo.

And now it’s 10 years later and I think I missed a very important lesson in my dislike – and posturing. ‘Cause I see many of those kids have developed into very self-assured folks who are contributing to the community, be it through a band, knitting parties or political activism, whereas at 31 I’m just figuring out where to throw all my energy.

To copy Joseph Arthur, “In my heart is a hunger I will never give away.” It’s just a matter of staying away from booze – which supercharges the intense energy – to keep from going under. ‘Cause what goes up, must come down.

I appeal to indie kids now, who I thought were little nerds back then, to find out how the hell they did it. How, amidst such a tough-as nails scene, did they say “no liquor, no kickers.”

‘Cause if I had kids, I’d encourage them to embrace punk music and look like a skid all they wanted if it meant celebrating an underground scene that promotes alternative thinking and rebels against mainstream constructions of cool. And let’s face it, drinking has always been seen as cool. Martinis are chic. Shooters are hip. Straight-up is tough.

By contrast with the punk scene, the rock and roll world isn’t as welcoming to straight-edge types. It’s more popular to trash your hotel room under the influence, fuck preteen groupies, abuse narcotics and disregard world politics.

But we’re not without role models in rock who turned away from that crap. Johnny Cash and Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails are good examples. (Did you know Gene Simmons of super group KISS never touched alcohol, drugs or smoked in his life?)

“It’s not that drugs are bad, just recovery is awesome,” says Gene Bowen, tour manager for many bands, including the late Jeff Buckley who died before completing his last album, My Sweetheart the Drunk. Bowen started up Road to Recovery (www.roadrecovery.com), a non-profit organization of music industry professionals whose lives have been touched by drug and alcohol addiction. They promote the benefits of a substance-free life through live performance and action programs.

Now, I’m not about to self-identify as straight-edge and sport the pin on my mechanic’s jacket. And I can’t pretend I was ever hardcore like Cash or Reznor. But what I will own is the belief that maybe some of us just weren’t designed to drink.

Getting drunk for me is like packin’ a loaded gun in my Levi’s – I often end up blowing off a toe, but usually my heart. What I want is to blow off the perception that you need alcohol to have a good time. I appreciate my social outings more now that I have someone special to share them with.

I have Me. Not that fucking poser who thought it was impressive to get obliterated or the other one with so many issues she needed to hide from reality.

– Sylvie Hill

Ottawa XPress – Shotgun – February 23, 2006

Winterlude or Bluesfest? Long johns or lawn chairs? Would you consider these among the cultural symbols of Ottawa, the icons that epitomize what makes Ottawa Ottawa?

I’m going to say “yes,” Alex, for $30, the price of my Hawksley Workman ticket at the Bronson Centre on March 19.

Let’s say aliens, or your cousin from Moncton, abduct you tomorrow and force you to describe Ottawa. You’d say it’s got an amazing music scene, right?

You know it. Ottawa is home to some of the planet’s hottest talents right now and attracts a great number of outside acts. A ton of readers defended this back in December when Shotgun contested that Capital Music Hall’s fall would kill the music scene. Most of us agreed. Fuck the rest of you, ’cause have you seen February’s, and now March’s, lineup of shows?

BLUE BALLS

I’ll bet you cold balls to snowballs that this year’s Winterlude Snow Bowl concerts were the best in years.

Fans standing frigid and freezing in minus-holy-fuck weather last Friday for Daniel Lanois, on a night that earlier saw major flight cancellations and mega car pileups, is what I proudly call Ottawan. It’s that festival-going gene that readies Ottawans for a good time, hardening us against the elements. (Think Tulip Festival: from toque to tank top.)

Avid Ottawa music fans have got stamina, no doubt about it. Like Olympic athletes, they sprinted and slid hither and thither in unpredictable temperatures to reach their goal. Perhaps you completed last Friday night’s

triathalon that included Lanois at Winterlude, Celtic-punkers Siobhan at Zaphod’s, then Gypsy punks Gogol Bordello at Barrymore’s on Bank Street.

Or maybe you were gearing up for Saturday’s Snow Bowl show featuring Stars, then burning your Converse rubber over to Mavericks to experience a massive rawk onslaught with Toronto headliners Maximum RNR. (Is it me, or does rhythm guitarist Keith Maurik give you blue balls too?) And somewhere in there was As The Poets Affirm…

LUGE TO LUKE

But the biggest challenge yet is coming on Thursday March 2. Are you ready? Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to tear yourself away from Flecton Big Sky opening for the must-see Howe Gelb at Babylon (early show) and race Turin-style over to Quebec where 2006 Juno nominee Luke Doucet is so hot, I predict he’ll melt the iced lake outside of the Blacksheep Inn. It’s only $10!

For this event, it’s okay to dope up or sport your unitard for enhanced performance and enjoyment. I may wear the practical American Apparel’s unitard in paprika myself, just like the seductive nymphette splayed out in a window frame on the back cover spread of last week’s XPress. I only hope that Mr. Doucet won’t mistake me for that pole-beam in the former Capital Music Hall, and instead put in a good word to his Six Shooter Records (www.sixshooterrecords.com) colleague NQ Arbuckle.

Ladies: Arbuckle’s gruff and bourbon-soaked vocals will make your heart race so fast you’ll need a helmet. Take advantage of winter sales and buy one now ’cause you never know when the man himself may appear on a stage near you. (Meanwhile, catch Six Shooter’s Elliott Brood March 29, Zaphod’s.)

COLDPLAY

As for the rest of the month, how many Tricky Woo gigs can you fit into a Nine Inch Nails show? Five. Hell, anyone who mustered up the strength to dish out the exorbitant $70 the Scotiabank Place Centre is extracting for NIN (March 3), and Coldplay and Dickie Ashcroft (March 17), deserves a gold medal.

The ability to maintain composure during extortion is a highly underrated skill. But thanks to all who supported the durtygurls/McGilligan Press show at Venus Envy a couple of weeks ago, I can afford my tickets now. What I can’t afford is cloning myself so I can be at both gigs, so be sure to write in to tell us what we missed.

Speaking of missing things, tickets are going fast for the 2006 Juno Awards at the Halifax Metro Centre on April 2 ($50-$125). See Coldplay again, but at the Junos this time for free on CTV that night. More importantly, Ottawa’s Kathleen Edwards is up against Blue Rodeo, Low Millions, Luke Doucet and Neil Young for Adult Alternative Album of the Year, while local Lynn Miles (March 25, Blacksheep Inn) is in for the Roots & Traditional Album of the Year (solo) against Alberta’s Corb Lund, who played a sold-out show at Barrymore’s in the fall with Tim Hus. Go Ottawa!

You know we’re doing something right, ’cause it might be freezing out there but this town is a fucking cultural hotbed! And it’s because of super troopers like you, who I saw out there fired up and givin’ ‘er, that this cold season is keeping hot, hot, hot!

Ottawa needs this, because as our Toronto neighbours at Six Shooter would say, “Life’s too short to listen to shitty music.”

XXX
ONE STOP SHOP Save on service charges when you buy concert tickets at Vertigo Records (193 Rideau). “PRS Concerts is one of our new partners,” says co-owner Gunnar Van Vliet. “They do a lot of the bigger shows and we want to support them because they’re bringing some great acts to Ottawa.”

– Sylvie Hill

Ottawa XPress – Shotgun – February 9, 2006

People go to great lengths to get sex, either keeping their efforts between themselves and God or with all of New York City.

That’s right. Flippin’ through the New York Post last month, there it was in the popular Page Six column. John Lennon’s 30-year-old son, Sean, appealing to readers to find him a girlfriend.

“Any girl who is interested must simply be born female and between the ages of 18 and 45. I’m completely alone and I’m completely miserable,” he wrote in his half-serious ad.

Except for the “completely miserable” part, I’m like Sean sitting in the bleachers watching everyone around – from Colombians to Irish priests and my buddy, Bert – having relations and sex.

Imagine the sex going on in a small town in Colombia, where councilman William Pena is proposing that people 14 years old and up must carry a condom at all times or face a $200 (CDN) fine or a compulsory safe-sex course!

Penis-protecting Pena wants to reduce unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. But he’s enraging the shit out of Roman Catholic priests with this idea, which I don’t understand because it’s not like they don’t have enough money…

Don’t kid yourself – over in Ireland, apparently 40 per cent of the Catholic clergy is sexually active, said shit-disturber Bishop Pat Buckley in London’s Daily Telegraph (January 21, 2006). Some priests even refer to their collar as the “bird catcher,” Buckley added. Holy fuck! is right. (I can hear James Joyce snickering in his grave.)

Described as “Ireland’s rebel bishop,” the dude was sidelined by the Catholic Church in the mid-’80s when he set up his own ministry for those who felt alienated by the traditional church. He’s since set up an organization in County Antrim to “provide support to those in love affairs with the clergy.” So far he’s met with 147 ladies and their stories of adultery and “priestly promiscuity.”

Buckley’s observations leave a bad taste in people’s mouths only because he speaks the truth. He believes strongly that “enforced celibacy is an unnatural state.”

That sounds like Bert telling me how my current sexless state is making me boy crazy and that I should just go out and get laid. People like Bert seem to consider that “hot pussy,” as he refers to it, or “cock” is the key to (wait for it)… happiness.

And the latter has made yours truly very happy, but if it’s attached to an alcoholic dingbat it kind of loses its allure.

Sex doctor Ruth Westheimer said it best. She’s the author of Dr. Ruth’s Guide for Married Lovers and Sex for Dummies. She was in town last month giving a lecture at the Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies at Carleton University, and also did a CBC Radio interview. Dr. Ruth ordered us to get out there and do “it,” but to do it responsibly and with someone we care about.

Leads to the question, then, that when singles put themselves out there, like Sean, what are they hoping for? Sex? Or love? Or both? On a date, are you looking for constructive, wholesome output, or just to put out?

If you’re willing to wait for sex, great. But if you’re hornier than an Irish priest and sex is an inevitability, then drafting contingency plans when celibacy craps out on you is a smart move. Then again, if we all walk around with condoms in our bags, the sticky issue becomes whether carrying all that rubber will entice us all to go play outside in a wicked thunderstorm.

“Love makin’ love to you baby, in a thunderstorm,” croons my buddy, Kansas rocker Arthur Dodge (www.arthurdodge.com), in his song “Carry Me” off his album Room #5. Me too, it’s just that lightning bolts thrust from the heavens can be dangerous.

Especially when they fry the shit out of you. Or worse – like when the fireworks are over and you’re left lying there wondering, Is that it?

Oh, the things we do for sex. I mean, love…

XXX

HE DROWN SHE IN THE SEA is the intriguing title of Shani Mootoo’s second novel. An accomplished writer and out lesbian who explores cultural, gender and sexual identities through her novels, poetry and multimedia, Mootoo will be delivering the annual Munro Beattie Lecture at Carleton University (Azrieli Theatre, room 101), titled “In the Temple of the Recurring Dream: Notes on Becoming a Writer,” on February 10 at 8 p.m. (free, reception to follow).

XXX

SEX ON SUNDAY Join me and Durtygurls organizer Nichole McGill, and McGilligan Books (Toronto) novelists Maggie MacDonald and Debra Anderson, this Sunday, February 12 at Venus Envy (320 Lisgar Street), 7 p.m. It’s gonna get hot, packed and sticky. Leave the kids at home.

XXX

BE MICHE’S VALENTINE Come on down to the Manx Pub (370 Elgin at Frank) at 9:30 p.m. for some big-haired guitar fun with Kelp Records’ Flecton Big Sky (a.k.a. Miche Jetté) and friends.

XXX

GIRLS GET YOUR PEARLS Pearls of wisdom, that is. Are you a savvy and smart businesswoman interested in learning about good investments? Come to Par-fyum Bistro Moderne (70 Promenade du Portage, Hull) on February 21 for a seated three-course dinner and business seminar from a hip Manulife Financial rep. The event is $75 (includes a fabulous dinner, taxes and gratuities/receipt available). Arrive at 6:30 p.m. for a champagne reception. Call 770-1908 or contact Cherry Pie’s Catherine Landry at catherineknows@videotron.ca or 776-5161.

– Sylvie Hill

Ottawa XPress – Shotgun – February 2, 2006

A lot of change going around these days.

Angelina Jolie changed the last name of her two children, Zahara and Maddox, to “Jolie-Pitt,” and will make Brad Pitt their adoptive father.

Here in Canada, over at CBC Radio, my favourite announcer, Anthony Germain, is changing offices and taking flight to Shanghai. I pretend he means the restaurant on Somerset West. (Mario, pass me a tissue!)

On CBC’s Ottawa Morning, Amanda Putz of the popular CBC music shows Fuse and Bandwidth has replaced Matthew Crosier as the Thursday morning music representative. On CBC Television, Rick Mercer’s Monday Report has switched to Tuesday nights (Mercer wants you to waste time at work here: www.cbc.ca/mercerreport) and This Is Wonderland’s theme song is now an excerpt from the Stars’ “Soft Revolution” off the album Set Yourself on Fire.

What else? Gritty punk garçonne Avril Lavigne has transformed into a girl Gucci model for next month’s issue of Harper’s Bazaar. And Toronto writer, human rights activist and musician Meryn Cadell – of the “The Sweater” song fame, about cuddling your man’s woollens – recently transitioned from female to male.

Why all these name, job, sex and soundtrack changes? Evolution and betterment, I suppose.

Like, I knew it was time to leave the dark ages, so I switched from dial-up to high speed Internet, but my dinosaur operating system can’t keep up with the new zippy-zap technology.

On the surface, I look pretty damn connected, but am I really? Should I get a Mac?

I guess some upgrades are necessary, but for them to work requires a whole new operating system. Sounds like Canadian politics, right? I mean, is Stephen Harper’s party advanced enough to process the modern and forward-thinking input from enlightened Canadians over issues such as regional development, medicare, same-sex marriage and social welfare?

With all this talk of change and transformation, I can’t help but think of Hasbro’s Transformers action figures. I checked out their website at www.transformers.com, and you tell me if this doesn’t sound like the Harper many in the media have depicted:

“For millions of years, MEGATRON has led fanatical legions of evil DECEPTICONS on their war for conquest of the Universe. A living weapon with dozens of self-inflicted modifications made in the name of increased power and destructive capability, his only weakness is a single-minded desire for the enslavement of the Universe.”

Or maybe that’s Bush?

And two guesses who this is:

“OPTIMUS PRIME is a leader in the best sense of the word, taking point on every mission and never sending his team into any situation he wouldn’t go into himself. Dedicated to the protection of all life and the preservation of freedom for all sentient beings, he serves as a role model for his fellow AUTOBOTS.”

Indeed, it’s Jack Layton of the auto-towners, the mining-, steel- and down-towners.

Now back to the Duceppeticons. I mean, Conservative DECEPTICONS. “Unsurpassed in ego or ambition, STARSCREAM [former Mulroney aide Hugh Segal] is the scheming second-in-command to MEGATRON with a vast array of secondary weapons [Stockwell Day].”

But hold up! OPTIMUS PRIME has a right-hand man too, called JETFIRE. Sounds a lot like Arcade Fire, I know, but no, JETFIRE as in Paul Dewar. Although, Dewar is down with the band too. In fact, a couple of Saturdays ago at Second Cup on Bank and Somerset, Dewar popped in with Ed Broadbent and, catching site of my new Dumas CD (who rocks my particular universe: www.dumasmusique.com), told me about another cool Montreal band called Pony Up. (Catch them at Café Dekuf on February 12.)

Dewar’s not just a cool man – there’s more than meets the eye with this guy.

“JETFIRE’s strategic genius and status as the upstanding, honorable second-in-command of the AUTOBOTS make him an invaluable asset at the AUTOBOT base,” where hard-working folks like some Centretown bike couriers showed support with their NDP sign attached to their courier bags last week.

(Now if only the bike couriers would transform themselves into a pair of my pantyhose…)

So, you’ve all picked a side – or rather, voted against the one you didn’t want – and now with the battle started you can support your action figures or threaten to shove ’em all up your brother’s butt like you did back in grade 5 when he kept bugging you.

My hope here is that OPTIMUS PRIME and JETFIRE “unlock the power!” and frustrate the evil plans of MEGATRON. As for what part many think the Liberals play – well, those GoBots are, like, so yesterday.

And today, change is impressive if people can actually make it function properly. And I’m not only talking about Bradangelina’s marriage.

Cadell’s new gadget excluded.

XXX

VITAL IDOL Exotic dancers stripping to pay for school? Meet Danielle Egan, former exotic dancer-turned-assistant professor of sociology at St. Lawrence University (New York), who strips bare the dynamics of desire and fantasy in exotic dance clubs in her new book, Flesh for Fantasy: Producing and Consuming Exotic Dance. She’ll be giving a talk and signing copies of her new book and Dancing for Dollars and Paying for Love, on Friday, February 3 at Venus Envy (320 Lisgar), 7:30 p.m., Free!

Egan teaches courses in sexuality, sex work, social theory and qualitative methodology. Her work on exotic dance has been featured in several journals. She has also published work on post-9/11 political rhetoric and on the TV show Dr. Phil.

– Sylvie Hill

Ottawa XPress – Shotgun – January 26, 2006

Guys, do you ever wish you were porn-store clerk Nino Quincampoix in the French film Amélie, and Ms. Poulain would leave you secret messages by the Beaver Tails stands?

Or ladies, maybe it’s Laure you want to be from the movie Vendredi soir, hoping a suave Parisian named Jean will hop into your car as you’re stuck in traffic on Bronson and ravish you silly?

Full points for imagination. But do these spontaneous and adventurous rendezvous ever happen to us normal folk in Government Town?

Truthfully, does Rideau Street inspire you to gesture romantically to a passing lady and tell her she looks like an angel that you wish would fall from Heaven into your arms?

Did the Rideau-to-Bay bridge Christmas consumerism encourage any romantic unions in the Byward Market, or just drunken face-plants en route to vomiting in toilet bowls during holiday parties at the Honest Lawyer?

And how about Bank Street North? Piss-stained snow covers the piss-stained street full of two-storey discount shops and nice restaurants that aren’t even open for a Sunday meal. Hardly a hotspot for any hottie with a pulse on a Sunday night.

Don’t get me wrong – I adore Ottawa. Hell, in the hip Quebec film Les Aimants it’s our own cool “Ottawa Centre for Experimental Art” featured in half the scenes.

Okay, so Ottawa doesn’t have such a centre, but it’s pretty telling if the producers thought a little something Ottawa suited their film about the magnetic attraction between lovers and strangers.

Even if our real-life surroundings inspire us, though, or if some genius ever redevelops Sparks Street Mall into shops, bistros and cafés, florists and residences, I’m convinced that it would take something more than a bustling quartier to transform Ottawans into des vrais romantiques.

I’m talking mindset. Ottawa could give away tickets to the crucifixion and no one would show up because we’re comfortable and polite and we’ll just wait for the next show, thank you.

Where’s the passion? That neutrality may explain why if you approach a stranger in this town and start talking to them, they look at you like you’re from Mars. I’ve witnessed guys call a woman’s assertiveness “crazy-intense,” and girls mistake a guy’s interest as “stalker” or “too forward.”

We want people to notice us, yet when it actually happens we shit our pants. Or worse, we’re rude.

Our sexy French neighbours call us têtes carrées. I know this because when I strike up conversations with strangers in Montreal I’m told it’s impossible I’m from Ottawa because I’m too animated.

Add to that what a Montreal bike courier said to me once: Ottawa is a city devoid of eroticism. There’s a reason the producers of the reality TV series The Bachelor chose Paris over Orléans.

Sexy cities have a soul and a secret energy that infuse the air with a bit of magic. Sort of like how your apartment feels after you’ve had sex. There’s an aura.

To understand this energy, go to the shawarma shop – it will test your sex appeal. If you can appreciate the charming Lebanese shawarma restaurateurs, you will have understood what the French call le jeu or galanterie, where an invitation for conversation or physical intimacy can be communicated in a non-offensive way.

Second, forget you are in Ontario. Pretending you are on vacation can transform you into that self you are when you’re travelling, where no mould or expectations imprison the person you crave to invent.

Now that you’re acting like you’re not from around here and are feeling daring and receptive to sexiness, steer your ass into a parallel universe and make shit happen for yourself. See your target and zoom in. As Jean-Luc Picard says to his first in command of the starship Enterprise: “Make it so, Number One.”

Don’t know how?

I take my lead from two women I met at a party in Montreal months back. Each pointed to the hot dude beside me and asked, “Bonjour, is that your boyfriend?” I said no and they moved in.

They didn’t get anywhere, but who cares? These women went boldly where few Ottawans dare to go. Not into battle, but into the game. There, the rejection is as light as the flattery and no one is crushed by the crush.

The whole experience puts infectious mile-wide smiles on everyone’s faces – or makes us proud that we took a chance. Either way, you win.

I don’t know about you, but if we are, as the poet Tennyson writes, “a part of all that I have met,” I want to make damn sure I meet a ton of interesting people, regardless if they’re available to snog or not. In this, it’s not the city that makes us a cool person, but the other way around.

Let’s be urban angels and flutter about inspiring each other, sharing our stories, and nourish Ottawa’s little soul. Outsiders can think our city isn’t sexy or interesting, but only we can make it so.

– Sylvie Hill

The Ottawa XPress

…don’t you?

What better way to prove you’re getting laid? Nothing says you’re desired like a bout of chlamydia. What a catch you are.

And isn’t it exciting when your new lover is an International Man of Mystery? Like, when he doesn’t tell you about that sexually transmitted disease he got from another planet or, more intriguing yet, doesn’t even know he’s carrying some bugs?

In an extreme case, this sounds like Saskatchewan Roughriders linebacker Trevis Smith, the 29-year-old CFL player who is HIV-positive and is alleged to have endangered the lives of several women with whom he was having “relationships” and unprotected sex while he was also married with two kids.

But they say in every great relationship, we should always try to inject a bit of mystique…

Mystique my ass, man. The last guy who said I was being nosy when I asked him when he last got tested got his balls kicked out my door, Chuck Norris-style.

Actually, it’s not true. I was meek and recoiled.

And what a mistake that is for anyone who gives a rat’s ass about their genital health. But in this, my buddy Bert says I’m neurotic. He and the women he’s been with insist a good fuck is worth an STD and accidental pregnancy.

Well, we here at Shotgun would rather eat some shit and die than have sexual intercourse with a nobody, waste our precious time treating a herpes outbreak, or puke all over the bathroom floor, grâce à la morning-after pill.

Bert says I’ve got vestiges of Puritan values. I say Bert’s a slut. He goes:

“It’s about passion!” And I’m like: “Bert, you’re having cheap sex.”

I’m not puritanical ’cause I’d rather eat crabs off my plate at Flipper’s with my date than off of him.

Sexy and competent lovers agree to take their penises on down to the sexual health clinic at 179 Clarence Street (234-4641) before getting naked anywhere near your privates. People who are reluctant, in my experience, are tossers.

Like the guy I dated when I was 25. Up until then, I had only slept with one dude but I figured that “real life” was about fucking and being less idealistic about love. So, I jumped in with Michael Owen who said he loved me one night when he was stoned.

But lucky for me, around the same time, a girlfriend was having problems with her new crush, which helped prevent a stack of my own from happening with my guy. I asked her about why she hadn’t slept with her date either. It’s ’cause she was babysitting her new friend – genital warts.

After learning about the cauliflower explosions that infest the folds and tucks of the vagina, I freaked out! Mistaking the usual fleshy bits and bobs inside the female flower for the disease, I thought I had it and was going to die.

Then I realized it was just the coffee, cigarettes and sleeplessness from pulling an all-nighter to finish an English assignment talking, and I accepted it was impossible to contract the disease from my own hands or my lovely first boyfriend who deflowered me, bless his soul.

But I thought Michael Owen should get checked now. Just in case.

He told me with assurance and borderline arrogance, “I get tested every six months, doll.”

Case closed.

And I was just supposed to accept that like Bert’s chicks do? No. I insisted Mr. Cool hightail it to the clinic, fast.

A-ha! Fucker had asymptomatic chlamydia. His screwing some other guy’s girlfriend for two years probably had something to do with that. Remember the television commercial where the two people are in bed, then more beds multiply by the dozen? It’s an ad for sexual health and it shows how when you sleep with someone, you’re also sleeping with everyone they’ve slept with. STDs: The gift that keeps on giving.

But you almost need a degree in Sherlock Holmes to figure this shit out. Had Michael Owen really gotten tested six months ago? Was this one of those cases where the STD takes a while to develop and so they don’t find it on the first test? Even if you both get tested, how can you be sure your partner isn’t developing or catching something else in the interim?

But Bert says that sex is dangerous and that is what’s so appealing about it. Heroin’s dangerous too, so I don’t use it.

But we can’t really stay away from sex, can we? We can’t. So, like in football, before you score, you need a kick-ass strategy. First, get tested. Guys, get a stick up your dicks; and ladies, spread ’em for the speculum. Let’s go!

Yes yes, we all cringe when we think of some nurse jamming the long dry swab up your man’s pee hole. But you cock-swabbers can later have a blast forcing your lady to kiss your bobo better.

Step two: STD sounds a lot like “steady.” Steady on your mark. I love steady. Go steady. Why go casual? What’s your problem, man? Is your name Bert?

Lastly, the greatest lovers I know can count their sexual conquests on one hand. So where the fuck does Bert get the idea that sleeping around is hot? Top 40 radio? ‘Cause I ain’t hearing it in my Calexico.

– Sylvie Hill

The Ottawa XPress– January 5, 2006

HELL IS ‘ROUND THE CORNER

The devil’s in the detailing at Angie’s Ratt Restorations.

It’s easy to mistake Hull for hell sometimes. And where a fresh deer carcass dangles from a tree in the barren landscape that is the front yard of Ratt Restorations, XPress has indeed found the devil’s workshop sitting eerily at the bottom of a dead-end street across the river.

Tucked away inside with a cigarette in one hand and slugging back her beer with the other, is the farthest thing from a dead-end kind of woman. Meet DIY darling, Angie the Barbarian, frantically slaving away among her relics and tools and turning bad furniture into nasty furniture. She brings all you rockers, goths and dirty pigs only the finest in retro-rockabilly, hot rod-inspired décor.

“This shit you’re not gonna buy on any ol’ Tuesday,” Angie cajoles.

As if there’s a better time to buy what you really wanted for Christmas. Yeah, how about a ’70s-era retro coffee table painted black with flames, complete with Ratt Restorations’ signature Pure Hell lettering copped from a custom-made Californian hot rod motorcycle she fell in love with in a bike mag.

Her li’l shop o’ horrors is packed full of demonic accessories like mutilated doll heads, sacrilegious paraphernalia, a priest’s robe, a Quebec police car door, a Certificate of Slavery from GWAR and everything else you could ever need to stage that Rob Zombie cover band.

“There’s a part of me that lives in a post-apocalyptic sort of Mad Max universe where I’m just this fucking barbarian eunuch that marches through the fucking sand dunes and the fucking snow,” she tells XPress with a voice rowdier than the Reverend Beatman & The Unbelievers she bought from Birdman‘s Jon Westhaver when he delivered on Angie’s CD request for “a guy screaming about hell.”

We’ve got a live one here, folks – a psychotic blend of raw, abandoned primitive energy, savage garage punk style, and crazed psychobilly madness.

It’s the maniacal music, and all the death and stench of incense, grease and burning logs in the wood stove, worn-in Persian rugs and a lived-in couch that distinguish Angie’s workshop-garage from your usual hip and perky workshop-boutiques in downtown Ottawa.

GUTTING THE FAMILY GARAGE

Formerly known as H.D. Garage, this Hull shop was once a full-on classic car and motorcycle restoration garage, owned and operated independently by Angie’s dad, Barry Brown. He attracted many fans to this place, including Wayne Rostad, Jay Leno (in his Doritos days) and a lot of Gatineau police officers.

Brown was considered the town nutter.

“My dad always had Frank Zappa blasting all fucking night and shit,” Angie remembers.

“I had my weekly fucking music lesson, he’d be a little bit snapped and go, ‘I’m going to explain the imagery of this fucking Chieftains song to you right now! Picture a train! Going full speed!’ And I’m like ‘yes yes,’ but I was, like, into My Little Ponies then… If only I could turn back time and appreciate it now.”

Angie’s taken over the garage in the tradition of her dad’s independent, “take no shit” spirit, keeping things legit and working by her own watch. The result is furniture that’s brought back to life with a rusty true love. (It’s fitting that True Love is the title of her first CD from her band Muffler Cruncher, which she describes as a “fucking rock duo on crack.”)

Inspired by motorcycle culture, booze and rock and roll, she restores the devil’s rejects – stuff people throw out. Take for instance the forgotten telephone tables she reupholstered in a pink alligator leatherette blazer she stuffed down her pants at the Salvation Army.

These “tuff tables,” along with “lewd lighting,” the “badass Inebriation Station” liquor cabinet, “charming chairs” like the “Get Yo’ Ass Outta the Kitchen” series, and “diabolical dressers” make up the Pure Hell line.

For the Discerning Goth line, there’s mirror-top tables and the “Devil’s Plaything” piece that has real vertebrae handles and drawers, “perfect for the BDS community for putting implements in,” she says.

Angie creates furniture for people who are going to use it and appreciate it, like rockers.

“Rock and rollers don’t have a lot of money – that’s a fact. But I want to sort of help their mythology, know what I’m saying? If they could have that in their living room to put their beers on, that’d be great… some Pierre Berton book, ya know?”

DELIVER ME FROM L.L. BEAN

Angie’s entrepreneurial, DIY spirit is as loud as her outfits and outrageous as the burps between guzzles of brew. This means she’s got a full inventory ready to roll. She also does custom. “If you have a vision for a piece, a saying you guys share together or a funny inside joke,” she says, she can do it up. She’s quite moved about personalizing the pieces. She likes to get to know her customers.

Her first major sale was to a big stripper in Vanier who was looking for something original for her boyfriend, who is in a heavy-metal cover band here in Ottawa. “Picture Pamela Anderson – all in pink, big hat – fuck, she was awesome! I could have put her in my museum! She’s like, ‘I’ll take that and that,’ pointing. She loads the huge fucking table into a fucking cab with the big-ass rocking chair. She was so fun – FUN – man! That’s the kind of chick that I like to hang out with sometimes, someone with a frikken spirit on her.”

A lot of her business so far has come directly from the Internet and by word of mouth. Her wares sell for between $75 and $400, but she’s a bio-exorcist at heart. “Like Beetlejuice up on a hilltop squeezing his balls,” she says, “I want to be that kind of saleswoman with my shit, know what I mean? All fucking yeehooooo! let’s make a deal, zany and shit!!”

She’s all about keeping it real in sales and with people. “That is the fucking man of my dreams, right there,” Angie screams, pointing to a picture of herself with Oderus Urungus, lead singer of GWAR. “He does what he feels and he speaks from the heart. And he likes to spew blood, which is also good.”

Angie digs blood, too. She describes skinning the blood-soaked deer (the one on the cover) as a “weird spiritual fucking moment” that was comically intensified by Stompin’ Tom’s “Mule Skinner Blues” coming on the stereo just at the time she was staring into the sad, sad eyeballs remaining, and then ripping Bambi’s face right off.

“I want people to feel fucking happy and have fun and be at peace with shit like gross-out death, and embrace it like something almost beautiful.”

Not afraid of the dark, the devil, death or success, there is one thing that scares the shit out of Angie: ending up watching plasma screen TV in Barrhaven.

“You know, big TV, pastel-coloured walls and the two little Bichon Frise dogs – fuck that. That’s a nightmare to me, man, oh God.”

Visit Ratt Restorations at www.rattrestorations.com and arrange a tour, view furniture online or order Angie’s zines (I Hate Latte Drinkers, Fuckin’ Loons, or She Was Debbie Gibson… I Was Martina, featured in Broken Pencil magazine). If you have a commercial retail space or are a retro bar and wish to feature a Ratt Restorations piece, or if you’re Big Jesus Truck and need an opener, e-mail Angie at philodoxa@yahoo.com.

– Sylvie Hill

Ottawa XPress, Shotgun, December 22, 2005

Do you know someone who flips through women’s fashion magazines in the grocery store line or has a subscription to Cosmo or Maxim? For 2006, get them the straight goods on chicks. Buy them a copy of Eve’s Quest instead.

From Mother Teresa to Mother Goose, Barbie to Body Shop, PMS to Title IX, Queen Latifah to Queen Victoria, the Eve’s Quest board game will keep you laughing while teaching you more amazing stuff about women than you’ll ever learn from the news racks, where we usually get our daily dose of “Did you know…?” about the ladies.

I’m convinced that the 1,000-plus questions in this trivia game about women’s accomplishments in the arts, sports, politics, on screen and everywhere else will help correct the imbalance of predominating male role models populating our collective conscience.

And if you just rolled your eyes when I said that, or don’t know what I’m talking about, well, it’s even more reason for you to try Eve’s Quest!

I was skeptical too like some of you: not another all-women plug! But fellas, take note. Here’s where you can finally get the upper hand on the value of your dirty magazine collection. Check it out:

True or false? From 1964 to 1983, the Playboy Foundation donated over $2-million, or more than 25 per cent of its budget, to American organizations defending women’s rights.

True!

Up to six players will use trivia, charades (try acting out a placenta, blind date or Mother Earth?!), song, sketch pads and intuition to move along the board and collect letters to spell out five winning titles, including “Diva,” “Goddess,” “Mother,” “Sister” and “Woman.”

Two very cool young married moms living in Montreal, Joanna Broadhurst and Odette McCarthy, are behind the game. And is it any wonder this wicked idea came from Montrealers?

“Montreal, being the wonderfully diverse cosmopolitan city that it is, and all that it offers culturally, certainly nourished us,” McCarthy told Shotgun.

McCarthy and Broadhurst met all kinds of interesting people in Montreal who helped them create the game. Artist Gina Raposo helped come up with a concept, and graphic designers Angelica Hardy and Lydia Moscato designed the playful packaging.

“I didn’t want it to be too pink,” McCarthy says. Instead, you get a colourful board with hip graphics and funky fonts.

But added to that flash and glitz is a very serious side of the project. McCarthy’s work in international development and Broadhurst’s career as a social worker in Montreal provided the women with many examples, daily, of disadvantaged minority groups and women. That fuelled their desire to get more information and good news about women out to the world.

“The drive to do the game stems from the fact that a game of this nature doesn’t exist at all,” McCarthy explained.

“Why do I know so much more about men?” they kept wondering to themselves. Broadhurst is the one who first thought of it seven or eight years ago. Together, they did something about it and so named the game for “Eve’s quest for knowledge and empowerment.”

The game gave the ladies the opportunity to work out of their homes on something they were passionate about. And they’re “doing business with a social conscience” too, they say. For example, copies of Eve’s Quest have already been donated to the Elizabeth Fry Society, and $2 from every game sold goes to the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation.

So fine, fine, you may not think it’ll change your life to learn what year Kotex first marketed sanitary napkins, what a Pap smear is for, or which much-imitated 1930’s actress (Mae West, Ava Gardner or Marlene Dietrich) said the famous line “It’s not the man in your life but the life in your man.”

But you’ll sure as hell remember the answers when you’re scrambling for a pad, green-lighting disease- and cancer-free sex with your honey, or explaining to everyone “So what if my date is as old as Rod Stewart?”

Eve’s Quest is super fun for both men and women, and for intergenerational groups on a Friday night. Pass the Cheetos, Gramps! Fetch me a pop, Mario! Let’s Quest!

Available at: Mother Tongue Books, Chapters (several locations), Strategy Games.

XXX

LeFEVER’S QUEST Lindy (www.lindymusic.com), Toronto’s Icelandic adoptee, is a tall son of a bitch and he knows how to make inspiring music. And for his sexy new psychedelic slick-rock mod outfit Major Maker (www.majormaker.com), lanky Lindy has plucked an old Ottawa legend to play guitar in his band. Do you know who that is?

Hint: After fleeing the coop, this Ottawa rock star led a nest full of other famous starlings that included John Reilly-Roe, national treasure, Danny Michel and Maury LeFoy.

AS SHOTGUN AFFIRMS… DO NOT MISS the killer lineup this Friday December 23 at 8:30 p.m. at Zaphod Beeblebrox for $6. As The Poets Affirm (www.asthepoetsaffirm.com), Sleeping Pilot (www.sleepingpilot.com) and Army Of St. Joan are going to rattle your chain wallets right out of your tight Levi’s. You’ll need earplugs. Bring a stapler, ’cause Sleeping Pilot will blow the cotton right out of your head, and I like that.

Happy Holidays from Shotgun. See you back here in the new year unless I see you in your bedroom first. Just joking. But keep that absinthe away from my ginger ale, please.

– Sylvie Hill

Ottawa XPress, Shotgun, December 15, 2005

And sometimes the most lost and wasted
attract the most balanced and sane
And the wild and reckless take up
with the clock and the timed
and the mixture is all of us
and we’re still mixing.
From “She Came Along to Me,” Wilco, Bragg and Guthrie

Sometimes when I’m chillin’ with my male friends, I get a bit wonky. And that’s okay. ‘Cause like many single Ottawans, I’m in training.

Cue Rocky theme song.

Like the other Saturday night, I was hanging out at Mario’s place with him and his buddies. We were listening to super great tunes, enjoying the wicked view from the all-glass condo downtown, sharing hilarious stories, laughing at how low-waist jeans show off your bum crack, and eating pizza. Super fun!

The dudes were mixing up some cold adult beverages and my ginger ale was pretty damn refreshing, let me tell you. A perfect Saturday night, really, until…

…I went to bite into my pizza slice and the tomato goop squirted McCain Pizza Pockets-style down my wrist. And all hell broke loose.

It wasn’t that I was embarrassed by the physical mess. It was the mental one in my messed-up head that ensued, post squirting. See, the problem was that I expected Mario to fetch me a Kleenex to clean up and he didn’t. What an asshole, right?

Was he that distracted by my brilliant commentary upon Wilco, Billy Bragg and Woody Guthrie? And when I was, like, “Shit!” when the sauce spillage occurred and he jumped up to go to the other room saying, “I’ll get it,” surely he was coming to my rescue, boyfriend-style, right?

Wrong. He came back with a CD.

Reader, have you ever got pissed at someone for not doing something they had no idea they were supposed to do? In my fantasy re-enactment where Mario plays an awesome boyfriend, he was failing miserably.

But I’m not alone in my psychosis. Actual real couples in Ottawa get into real fights because of phantom expectations just like mine.

Remember when your husband didn’t answer his mobile on Valentine’s Day, and you assumed he was too busy overseeing the famous chef who was cooking you an exquisite surprise dinner? When he showed up with McDonald’s, you kicked his ass.

Or how about when you outlined a master plan for a nice romantic night to your boyfriend as he was half-baked or falling asleep and you perceived his silence as compliance? How pleased were you that Friday night, coming home to a house full of men and a hockey game? You ignored him all weekend.

That was me in relationships. And the maniacal thinking slips into my innocent friendships with the opposite sex sometimes, reminding me that I’m either still a fucking nutter or that it’s high time to fix the problems.

Problems, say, like fortune telling. I have this habit of fast-forwarding into the future to screen what life will be like with a dude I just met. And with Mario, within seconds of my secret drama, I predicted that if he was too absorbed and careless to get me a tissue, can you imagine how he’ll treat me as a lover? He’ll be one of those “I don’t like condoms” guys and with his slut sperm, he’ll impregnate me with four loser children. On top of raising Mr. Lazy Ass’s children, I’ll end up taking extra jobs to pay the maid (who he’ll fuck in front of little Dante, Giovanni, Sylviani and Bonita, poor souls) to clean up our house ’cause he’s a filthy pig.

He’ll abandon us all. He’ll move back into his condo (with his secretary), which will give him a good view of me and our half-Mediterranean brats dumpster-diving behind Lapointe’s and stealing turnips from the Byward Market farmers’ stalls. I’ll have to form a mother-and-kids gypsy band and busk for coins on Rideau. Don’t even request Wilco, man – the painful memories will exacerbate my eczema.

Wow. In two minutes, and unbeknownst to Mario, I had had sex with him, got married and divorced, and started a band with our mixed-breed children with horrendous names all because of a fantasy freakin’ Kleenex.

Is it any wonder I’m single for the first Christmas since 2000! But thank Christ! I’ve got a few wrongs to right before I inflict them on any living male in relationship form. Obviously I haven’t fully detached from my system the bombs that blew up my past relationships, such as impatience, assuming, projection and, the worst of all, insane fantasizing.

And that’s why single guy friends are so important to us chicks. They’re like guinea pigs or a test ground, an outlet and means to diffuse our freakiness. They help us help ourselves clean up our own messes and store our baggage before Mr. Right comes along. Without knowing it, they force us to look at things differently.

Like when a guy forgets your Kleenex, but brings you a great CD instead – cut the fucker some slack already.

XXX

Ok, Rick Upton, you got me. The Sigur Ros show at the Sauna Centre was hot like a Bronson. I mean, like a bitch – give or take 52.5 degrees Celsius.

XXX

Thanks to all of you Shotgunners who supported the near sell-out Second Annual Feed the Homeless benefit at Zaphod Beeblebrox last month. The event raised a record-breaking $3,000 plus.

– Sylvie Hill

Ottawa XPress – Shotgun – December 1, 2005

You know that old saying “Build it and they will come”?

Capital Music Hall on Rideau Street was built in the fall of 2003, and bands and fans came. But now that it’s closing in January to make way for Claridge condos, will this un-building also crumble the music scene many credit it with cultivating?

I’m going to go with “no,” Alex, for $34 – the price of my Iron And Wine and Calexico ticket, December 8 at the Spectrum in Montreal, thanks.

But Centretown News Arts Beat columnist Alyssa Noel thinks Ottawa’s entire music scene will go pop when the wrecking ball goes boom. In her November 11 article “Trading mid-size music scene for condos a bad idea,” Noel said that when the condos go up, we’re all fucked. Well, she didn’t say “fucked,” nor was she the first one to warn us about this.

I said it first. I called shotgun on the idea, which first appeared in my November 4, 2004 column “The High Life,” in which I argued that if you buy one of those high-priced condos, you’ll become an owner of “culture-destroying property.”

I’ve since changed my mind. I’m fine with Claridge. It’s the much-hyped Capital Music Hall and its culture-making myth that I’ve turned my back on now.

Unless Capital reopens as a better quality venue, it will be doing true music fans a huge favour by closing. How? It will free up our time to check out home-baked goods and force us out to venues in Ottawa like Avant Garde Bar or Maverick’s where Lindy and Jim Guthrie and Ian Blurton played (not all in the same night). As for connecting us internationally with all the big names, why aren’t we promoting Barrymore’s more?

According to many, it’s all because of Capital Music Hall that the great bands have come to our little one-horse town. But I saw Radiohead and Teenage Fanclub at the Congress Centre. And, the fact that bands like The Stills or Sonic Youth played Capital is a bit of a tragedy for this music fascist. The sound was tin-can shitty and seeing these bands in that space ruined the experience for me. How about you?

Think Sigur Rós performing in a toilet bowl instead of the well-chosen Bronson Centre. Pixies at Robert Guertin – bonne idée. Sarah Slean in a church – smart! The Cure in ’89 at the Civic Centre – wow! Black Rebel Motorcycle Club at Barrymore’s – genius. I resented listening to some of my fave bands at Capital.

A lot of people say Capital was so great – as does Noel, who says that the 1,000-person venue was likely the reason bands came, because that gave the bands “an optimal venue to perform at.”

“Optimal”? Dude, you can cram 1,000 sardines in there, but only 500 of us can see anything! In the balcony section upstairs, only the first two rows of bodies behind the railing can see the stage. Barrymore’s accommodates less than 1,000, but you can see everything from any point, thanks to a superior layout and huge mirrors.

Noel mentions that groups like The Weakerthans had to play Barrymore’s for two consecutive nights in a row because the club didn’t have the same capacity as Capital Hall. They’re weaker than pussies, that band, if they can’t handle two nights of income and sold-out merch tables.

But how do you explain all the great bands that said yes to Capital?

You think Jeff Tweedy knew any better? It’s not up to him to book his band, Wilco. I would assume it’s the local concert promoter who knew they could make a lot of cash by charging 1,000 heads. Their people talked to Wilco’s people and cha-ching!

I’m not a rockstar, so I don’t know if bands play an active role in choosing the space. If I were, would I choose Zaphod’s? A lot of the gigs I’ve been to, including Maximum RNR and Ottawa’s Sack Lunch last month, were practically empty, yet these guys always play sold-out shows at the Bovine Sex Club in Toronto. Is it the early starts and 11 p.m. cut-off?

Shows that end by 11 p.m., though, get you to other gigs at The Dominion Tavern or home by bedtime. This is how they do it at Hope & Anchor and Borderline in London, U.K., La Tulipe in Montreal and for Bauhaus recently at Métropolis, which ended at 10:30 p.m. getting me to Divan Orange to see Bionic at midnight.

And if you think I’m talking furniture when I just mentioned Bauhaus, then it explains why you’re freaking out about the fall of the C-Hall. Anyone who grew up with Bauhaus knows O-Town fundamentally will never compare to Toronto or Montreal in terms of a “scene,” which deluded Capital-Hall-o-philes believe Capital created in under two years.

When Capital goes, Noel fears big bands will skip over Ottawa, and this means “kids will have to resort to begging their parents for a ride to a bigger city where they can get their musical fix,” she writes.

Show of hands – how many are still thanking Mom for carpooling the troops to Lollapalooza in Barrie a decade ago? Memories, gang. They shaped the audiophiles we are today. And sure, we may drive to Montreal every month, but we know there are excellent venues here too. It’s just a matter of focusing on them instead of whining about the Bi-way ghetto blaster that was Capital City Music Hall.

– Sylvie Hill