Sylvie Hill

Ottawa XPress – Shotgun – October 21, 2004

This month, Canada saw over 100,000 federal government public servants on strike. Many of us in Ottawa who were on strike walked about like a bunch of space cadets with our heads up our asses not really knowing what the hell we were fighting for or why. The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) strike was bloody confusing.

For those of us who knew the strike was for a wage increase, we either didn’t think it was sufficient since the “increase” simply correlated with inflation, or we didn’t see the need to have more money handed to us without a promotion awarded on the basis of hard work.

In addition, some groups were fighting to retain their five paid days off for marriage leave. I heard it said that Treasury Board, the guys making or breaking the deals, were threatening to drop it down to three. PSAC was fighting to have the five days apply to same-sex couples. Treasury Board’s solution: five days extra vacation for one year, then scrap the entire thing, period.

A local gay-rights contact speculated that this hinted at the government’s fear that gay marriage laws could spark a mass influx of men wanting to marry men, and a whole bunch of ladies going out to marry women, just to get that week off. That’s like jumping in front of an OC Transpo bus to get sick leave.

The whole experience was a bit disillusioning. The days of Woody Guthrie’s Union Maid seemed to have vanished; at least it appeared that way in light of the many feds who instead of freezing their balls off manning picket lines used the opportunity to network and “illegally” brainstorm on projects.

Many just stayed home and caught up with Days of Our Lives, roasted chickens, housecleaned or refinished furniture.

Some became scabs when they tried to cross the picket line or waited outside their buildings hitting “redial” on their cell phones, trying to reach managers to get credit for attempting to get into their PSAC union-guarded buildings only to be sent home to telework and earn their full day’s wages.

While loyal picketers stood wearing god-awful placards protesting for four hours at a flat rate of $75, others were topped up by their union to $90, then cleverly disappeared after signing in, returning only to sign out for the day.

We discovered discrepancies in strike pay, and mixed messages depending on which group you belonged to. Some groups were told they would only get paid if they picketed for three consecutive days, while others were paid by the day.

It was unclear what would happen if caught working: if you’d be kicked out of the union, have to hand over your earnings, receive harassing phone calls or get kneecapped. We were so lost and it was embarrassing.

The concept of the union has obviously changed from our parents’ age.

Once a powerful and respected voice for struggling workers and the subject of drinking songs, it has become a faceless force fighting for a cause for which there appears to be little buy-in or understanding.

Unions exist to protect workers’ rights and to fight for you when no one else will.

Got a problem with your boss? Call the union.

Bad working conditions? Hello union.

But as a public servant close to retirement said to me on the picket line, “Unions deal with 10 per cent of the problems made by 10 per cent of the people.” I wonder how accurate this is.

A busboy working at a Centretown restaurant with no union argued that if federal government workers’ wages keep up with inflation, then inflation will continue to rise while minimum wage remains the same.

“Labour is labour,” he said. “Why shouldn’t I be making as much as a postman?”

Something about a union, I guess.

Up until the recent strike, I didn’t pay any attention to my PSAC union. If I was happy in my government job and content with my wages, why should I organize and strike for more? Two people – a friend’s old-school East Coast father and a Northwestern Ontario small-town girl –told me to back the union. And my aunt told me to stop analyzing. But if you’re not reflecting on the cause, how are you supposed to support it or reject it responsibly?

Finally, it was a politically aware friend who advised me to think more about a single-parent family trying to live off my wage and highlighted the thrust of any union: solidarity.

She said unions are about sticking together and, just as people did before us, we have to fight for reasonable wages, paid holidays and other benefits for the next generation of Workers.

“But it all amounts to nothing if together we don’t stand,” sings Billy Bragg. “There is power in a Union.”

I wonder if the union will keep going strong into the next decade? Being blocked from office buildings by picketers is having less of an impact as people can now just turn around and go home to telework or, more creatively, sneak in via the backyards of entrepreneurial 10-year-olds like Todd.

Yep, in case you missed it, CBC TV featured a newsbrief on how public servants paid $2 to Todd for his backyard access route to Tunney’s Pasture so they could bypass the picketers and get to work.

That menacing kid. And those pesky scabs.

XXX

Raise your pint, lock arms and jig with your fellow workers to the sounds of Siobhan’s CD release party on October 23 at Barrymore’s Music Hall, $7. The raucous six-member band plays “kick-in-the-ass” Irish music like Great Big Sea, Spirit of the West and The Pogues. “So, if you like the Pogues,” Siobhan says, “come and see us. If you don’t like us, we’ll set fire to your face and put it out with a big shovel.”

– Sylvie Hill

The Ottawa XPress – October 21, 2004

Peters: a “hot and spicy” East Indian

Local Talent sticks around, and not just for laughs

With the help of local comedy clubs, Ottawa has been home to some of today’s most popular comedians, including MTV’s Tom Green, Saturday Night Live’s Norm MacDonald, and the recent CBS Star Search winner, Tracey MacDonald. Regardless of the pull toward television or feature film contracts in America, Ottawa clubs appear able to maintain a loyal following for comedy acts that are still going strong.

“Comedy was huge in the mid-’80s,” said Yuk Yuk’s manager Howard Wagman in a recent interview. “But then it reached a saturation point where standup became passé. Now it’s a healthy scene again, but what is important now to most comics is making the jump from the stage to the TV.” And the leap doesn’t necessarily cross the border anymore.

Local comic Rick Kaulbars, for example, in addition to standup, writes episodes for the Kevin Spencer animated show on CTV and the Comedy Network. A veteran of the scene and revolving host of the Wednesday Open Stage at Yuk Yuk’s, Kaulbars has seen it all (or much of it) and explains that Yuk Yuk’s is possibly the “best stage in Canada.

“Onstage for talent, and backstage for energy and consistency of morale amongst the talent,” he told XPress. Yuk Yuk’s “pops ’em out,” Kaulbars said, referring to the consistent talent pool due in no small part to the godfatherly style of Wagman. With more than a decade in the business, Wagman spends his days setting the busy schedule for the club and booking corporate functions. But his influence goes further.

The Absolute Comedy Club on Preston Street is run by two comics who were once regular performers at Wagman’s club.

Bruce Hills, chief operating officer for Just For Laughs, said, “Ottawa has been a great source for Just For Laughs. It has given us Mike MacDonald, who has appeared at every festival, and Jeremy Hotz, one of the most popular comedians to have graced our stages and is featured in this year’s Just For Laughs Comedy Tour coming to the NAC.”

XPress caught Canadian comic Russell Peters at one of his sold-out shows in early October at Yuk Yuk’s. One of six in the 2004 Just for laughs lineup, Peters’ blunt commentary on cultural differences, midgets and Brampton, Ontario gangsters is described as “hot ‘n’ spicy East Indian humour.”

“When they don’t get a joke,” Peters says after the show, “I always associate it with stupidity.” The comedian is Yuk Yuk’s single most successful event to date according to Wagman, who showcased him starting last March. Opening for Peters that night was local comedian Wafik Nasralla whose jokes about his malfunctioning eyeball are reason enough to stick around Ottawa for the second show.

To check out more local talent, drop by these venues to see who’s movin’ up: Absolute Comedy, 412 Preston Street, reservations at 233-8000, www.absolutecomedy.ca; Wall Street, 303 Bank Street, first Sunday of every month; Yuk Yuk’s, 88 Albert Street, reservations at 236-5233, www.yukyuks.com/info/locations/ottawa.cfm.

JUST FOR LAUGHS TOUR 2004
NATIONAL ARTS CENTRE
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 24 AT 7 P.M.
TIX: $49.50, $39.50, $32.50.
VISIT WWW.HAHAHA.COM FOR INFO

– Sylvie Hill

Ottawa XPress; October 14, 2004

Not everyone wants to get married and have kids. Some want to get married and not have kids or have kids and not get married. For me, it would be nice to get the relationship bit down for starters.

Confused, I turned to Gene Simmons – the exotic tongue guy from KISS – for advice on how to understand the dynamics of a healthy romantic relationship. His book, SEX MONEY KISS (2003), is a lot like reading Maxim magazine; it’s fun, and will likely guarantee you more success with the opposite sex than girl mags like Cosmo, which give you “The Top Ten Things To Attract a Guy at a Party.”

Both Simmons’s book and Maxim entertain you with humorous facts, trivia and jokes that are more likely to get the attention of an interesting bloke than standing there like a vacant tart paralyzed by protocol. That’ll just get you laid, which is fine too.

Taking direction on relationships from Gene Simmons probably seems about as useful as following advice scrawled on the bathroom wall of a pub. But despite his reputation as a skanky asshole womanizer who comes across like his own shit doesn’t stink, this guy is not as stupid as he looks without the KISS make-up.

His book has allowed me to accept, without question, that some guys really do think about sex a bazillion times a day, and that some women are romantic idealists. I for one always idealized my boyfriends and assumed they never checked out other women. Wrong!

But aside from acquiring a greater understanding of the battle of the sexes (or gender types) through the KISS bassist, most importantly what stood out for me in SEX MONEY KISS Sex Money Kiss was the chapter, “Women are From Mars, Men Have Penis.” Here, Gene touches on the really sensitive topic of sex, coupling and procreation.

He writes: “The thing that makes young women attractive is not necessarily any reason other than because biology makes them able to bear children. ‘Prettier’ means ‘younger’ for women. Men physically stay the same longer. They are able to remain the physical partners women aspire to much later in their lives. It’s all about bearing children. That’s what makes people appealing.”

If hooking up is all about bearing children, safe to say, many women are in deep shit because a) some of us are too old to conceive and b) some of us don’t want to share our lovers with a wee tot-not yet anyway. There has never been a better time for divorced fathers to get out there than now!

Tick, tick, tick.

Biologically speaking, men have like, billions of sperms to offload to a female’s few eggs. Most men can make babies when they’re old farts. Women can’t.

There’s the blasted biological clock, like some ominous Rolex hanging on my wall, with the time always pointing to: “You’re 30, asshole, find the guy, get shakin’!” When you hit 30, folks start talking about it being time to “settle down” and there is no enemy like fertile family members.

Mine think I’m a total failure for being single, unmarried, and without the baby, house and car. If you are someone who met your partner young, had time to build a solid relationship and are now having kids, consider yourself fortunate because it worked out so conveniently.

At a later stage in life though, it’s a bit freaky for the rest of us to pre-screen our dates for their potential to father or mother phantom children of the future. And if you’re doing this, there’s your answer for why buddy hasn’t called you back.

If women in Ottawa can’t translate a hot fella into masturbatory fodder, but instead, project immediately onto the poor bastard some fantasy of family life, we’re all in trouble.

Certainly wondering whether your date would be good with kids is a reasonable question as it pertains to YOU – if this person has the patience to educate a toddler, they’ll likely tolerate you when you’re freaking out about burning the Christmas casserole!

Unfortunately, the inability to chill on the kids factor gets people manic, jumping in too soon with some stranger, fast-forwarding courtship to buying a condo together. All to accelerate marriage and a family, not to mention investments.

In effect, insisting that partnerships, and indeed marriage, must involve not only shared finances (which Simmons cautions about) but procreation, not only pathologizes infertile couples and puts a wrench in the whole gay marriage thing, but it’s fucking with my chances of aging peacefully and being satisfied in my current singledom, thank you very much.

Together, Gene Simmons and my little silk-screened hand towel reading “I fuck to cum not to conceive,” that I got from an anarchist/queer shop in Kensington Market, have alerted me to the reality of biology and selecting alternatives to, and variations on, marriage. Wow, KISS and dyke linens – recipes for success in the ways of love.

Extract the pressure to make babies from your life and you’ll be less desperate in that blossoming relationship, freeing you to focus on the great gift in front of you instead of some absent stranger in your belly. First comes the love…

XXX

Cheers to the great number of Shotgun readers who came out on October 8 to the sold-out durtygurls event at the Mercury Lounge.

– Sylvie Hill

Ottawa XPress – Shotgun – October 7, 2004

“I’ll be dreaming of the kissing that I’m missing truly wishing that you listen when I simply say to you, striptease for me baby.” ~”Striptease” by Hawksley Workman

In most sexual contexts, and certainly in sexy films, magazines and Harlequin Romances, aren’t men stereotypically depicted as experienced studs whose technique between the sheets will blow your head off?

What is the allure of seeing that kind of persona reproduced on stage at a strip joint? What is the appeal of the peelers in general? Do we really find these strangers attractive? What’s with the business of paying someone to act attracted to you, anyway?

Since men are the major patrons of strip clubs, I began my research with them. I turned to the handy-dandy Shere Hite sexuality bible, The Hite Report on Male Sexuality.

A “controversial coast-to-coast bestseller,” the book aims to be a comprehensive compilation of men’s thoughts and feelings about love, sex, and relationships. Among other things, the index includes companionship in marriage; feminine-hygiene sprays; full-length embracing; K-Y cream; faking orgasm; rectum; sports; squeeze technique; stomach, sensitivity of, and foreplay; suicide; testicles (that’s where I paused for a cheap laugh at combining terms to read “suicide testicles”).

Like that chick from Romper Room, I too saw this and I saw that, but I didn’t see no “stripper.” Is a trip to places like The Playmate or Pigale’s such an inevitable institution that it didn’t seem necessary to ask men’s feelings about it? If so, wouldn’t “sports” be just as easily omitted? Even a search for euphemisms turned up nothing. There were no entries for “exotic dancer,” “peeler,” “nudie,” or “Sylvie Hill.”

OK, so the last omission wasn’t so surprising; of course, if I were taller and wore bras bigger than your teenage sister’s then I wouldn’t hesitate to try my luck as a topless dancer. Think of it, the power and the prestige and appeal of moving exotically around a pole to SEAL or something from the Lost Boys soundtrack for a group of adoring men. I think these Bare Fax girls have got something going on.

I don’t think the same is true for male strippers, though. A few of us women at Hot Shots one night for a bachelorette party found ourselves most attracted to the dancer who kept falling out of sync during a group routine.

It was weird, our reaction amounted to “awwwww, poor guy, he’s so sweet, look at him trying.” Who would have thought a weak male would be attractive?

Maybe he came across as more “real” than just a pin-up boy. Or, maybe it’s a lot more work to see a man strut his shit on stage and think it’s something new and exciting. Clearly, I needed a one-night stand with a different kind of male exotic dancer to check this all out.

Picture it: Friday night, September 24, at Capital Music Hall with 500+ other women watching “One Night Stand, the Second Coming” direct from New York City. It was an interactive fantasy show for ladies only.

Not just a strip show, but a live, simulated-sex-with-audience-participants show. Investigative reporting at its finest.

“How many ladies here like to get their pussies eaten?!” shouted the announcer. “Well, the guy coming to stage next luuuuuvs to eat pussy!”

Out walks a powerhouse dude named Unit (or maybe that was “Unique”).

To any question directed their way from the stage, the women roared their approval, celebrating their desire in an uproarious display of sorority. Dancer after dancer selected women from the crowd, then got busy with them on stage. This, and the beat of the sexy urban/dance/rap songs, whipped the ladies into a mad frenzy.

Women at the show had no hang-ups about expressing their sexuality and desires as an audience. And yet, as my friend said, “the show had about as much to do with sex as a pie-eating contest has to do with food.”

This could be said about most strip club experiences. A lot of my male friends tell me how boring or sad they find the whole experience, despite showing excitement and oohing and ahhing-stripping is not about prowess, it’s simply an unhappy woman doing a job in heels and a G-string.

I’m heterosexual but would rather watch female strippers because I want to learn the moves. Although, there are Ladyfest courses in Ottawa like Stripping for Your Sweetheart which can teach a few tricks of the trade in a very different atmosphere from most strip clubs. As for watching male strippers, I’m more taken by Hawksley Workman gyrating against a microphone stand on stage wearing a leather ballsack contraption over his tight trousers and sweet-talking me into some sex down by the Canadian lake. His talent is sexy, and his postures quite camp and feminine. No greasy buff macho dude on stage is going to do it for me.

And maybe that is why the two girls I ran into at the One Night Stand show, who knew me from high school and university, were shocked at my attendance: “Sylvie?! You’re the last person I’d ever expect to see here!”

Either they thought I was gay, or still a square, or they just don’t know about me and Hawksley yet.

Watch very sexy rock stars The Setbacks, get naked on stage and release their One Track Mind CD along with Les Pugilists and The Heelwalkers at the Dominion Tavern, October 9, for only $8.

– Sylvie Hill

Ottawa XPress – Shotgun – September 30, 2004

As you may remember from my first column, “Talk Dirty To Me,” I encouraged people to interact with porn instead of shitting on it. The latter leads to ignorance and threatens to push further underground an industry that needs attention and improvement. One reader suggested that people turn off their televisions and computers and instead explore each other for an evening.

I agree with her suggestion, and also with one gentleman’s online Shotgun comments that had tips about seducing the mind so the body will follow (hot stuff!). When I advocate watching sexy films, it’s to people who take issue with girls like me who are public and frank about sex and bodies. A later letter to the editor (September 2) grouped me in with CHOI and Howard Stern just because I talk about farting and fucking.

Fuck that shit.

Am I just a dirty girl, full of shit and sex?

If you are shocked by scat chat and sex talk in a column, how are you going to react when your girl brings on the kink or even the common – like her being open to letting you check out her anatomy with the lights on?

Will you turn her away and think she’s dirty?

I’m all for guys speaking up and for girls suggesting. But how many of us really do?

Or can? Or will tonight? Is it that easy?

It requires intimacy and being comfortable with everyone in the room. I’ve known guys who can whip it out in public and fuck all night long but are about as intimate and sensual as a bolo bat. And fuck like one too. A lot of lovers can more easily act out some part they saw in a porno flick than be themselves-being yourself can be too revealing. If you’ve got a sexual lout on your hands, why not relate to him on his level and work backwards? It’s not like putting on a Sarah McLachlan CD is going to work.

“Guys who are real macho are macho in bed – they want to fuck you in the ass, and they want it to hurt. Japanese are very sensual, very gentle, very sweet lovers.” Hey, I didn’t say this, Annie Sprinkle did.

She knows a few things about men and sex. Sprinkle encourages women to explore their vaginas with a mirror, or to take a picture of hers as she exposes it during her performances. She was one of CBC’s Brent Bambury’s most memorable interviews. She is a celebrated sexualite, a post-porn modernist breaking taboos and pushing limits.

One of her more famous acts, A Hundred Blow Jobs, featured her frantically sucking off a dozen dildos while a tape of abusive remarks like “Suck it you bitch!” played in the background.

Disturbing gagging and choking on stage culminated in a whole whack of women in the audience in tears, relating to the trauma. She has the ability to educate and rehabilitate through outrageousness.

Annie Sprinkle is the ultimate “dirty girl” and I call upon her to join me in spirit with two other talented performers on Friday, October 8 at the Mercury Lounge as we three hit centre stage, in-the-flesh, for a raunchy night of performance at Ottawa’s durtygurls event.

While neither Heather Birrell from Toronto, Montreal’s super talented Catherine Kidd nor myself will be performing fellatio on an impressive stock of Venus Envy dildos, the writing promises to be sexy and dirty.

Organizer Nichole McGill has defined durtygurls as people who “push boundaries whether they are sexual or societal. They are at the forefront of speaking about the unspoken … these writers use comedy, poetry, performance and narrative to get their thoughts across.”

To Oni the Haitian Sensation, who performed at previous durtygurls events and was scouted at a durtygurls gig to perform in the Vagina Monologues, “Dirty dames break beds while fucking and smack your ass with the debris. Dirty girls are scarlet and creative, sexually innovative, leather or lace, in your face, at home, or at the workplace … dirty girls make arrays of erections pop like bottled champagne under pressure with words.”

Frankly, I’m not that enticing, but over the years, durtygurls has featured some pretty hot women who have been able to turn on more than the stage mic, such as locals Melanie Noll and Megan Butcher, and Toronto’s Emily Pohl-Weary and Tamara Faith Berger. All telling stories about all kinds of situations with all kinds of insights.

In part, the night is about getting women to be comfortable with desire and challenging men (and other women) to let them be, without judgment.

Judgment and fear – that fucks you up more than cross-dressing, strap-ons, fetishes, kink, porn, and love ever can, no?

Liam Taliesin, editor of Ottawa’s Moist magazine that celebrates healthy sexuality’s dirty girls, dirty boys, dirty old women, and dirty old men, says, “Those who believe that sex is dirty, also believe highly sexed men are studs, while highly sexed women are sluts. Dirty girls know better. They take charge of their sexuality, embracing and reclaiming it as their own.”

Ya know, in Ottawa there are women who will only date hot studs with flashy cars. Then there are the rest who could value a Pinto if Buddy is cool enough with us gals taking over the driver’s seat from time to time.

Unleash your dirty girl, get filthy and roll around in the mud at durtygurls, October 8 at 8 p.m., Mercury Lounge, 56 Byward Market, $7. Limited open stage before headlining readers.

– Sylvie Hill

Ottawa XPress – Shotgun – September 23, 2004

I got half way up to the canyon
And all the stars were shining bright
Your Polaroid on the dashboard
It kept me going through the night
So don’t wait up, just rest your eyes
‘Cause I can’t rush this beautiful ride
Nobody move, this is Perfect
It’s just like you
~”Perfect,” from Tales from the Invisible Man (2003)

A lot of bands put out an exceptional, mind-blowing CD but fail miserably on the follow-up. Then there’s skater-style, bedhead shy-guy former Ottawan, Danny Michel.

Deemed by darling Toronto pop music critic Ben Rayner as “a fine candidate for national treasurehood,” Canada’s Juno-nominated troubadour Michel has succeeded in making every one of his five CDs, from Before the World Was Round to Tales from the Invisible Man, a must-have, and he’s about to release Loving the Alien: Danny Michel Sings the Songs of David Bowie.

Just don’t call it a “tribute album,” especially to his face!

Danny is a good-natured gentleman who clearly considers his music “art,” and himself an artist before rock star. So he’s adamant about the idea that he’s not so much covering Bowie’s tunes as interpreting them.

“Covering anyone’s song is pointless unless you add a bit of your own spices. I tried to give them my own spin” – something he has wanted to do since he was 20.

“I finally got around to it … this CD is for me,” he admits. “I made it for fun. Pure art for no reason. That’s it,” and happily his record label, Burnt Bun, gave him the go-ahead to record a personal side project. Consider it a scenic stopover on a very cool Danny Michel road trip.

Experimentation is key in his adaptations of what he considers the “stranger Bowie stuff” like Moonage Daydream, Andy Warhol and Sons of the Silent Age. The only “hit” on the disc is opening track, Young Americans.

Michel chose that one to lead because, he says, “ever since I was a kid I heard the bass line and thought, ‘What are they doing? This should be a country song.'”

Michel has tweaked the tune so it sounds very western-folk and has overlaid it with raspy vocals that sound like he’s been chain-smoking Gauloises and drinking bourbon during recording. Another gem is his rendition of Ashes to Ashes – reason alone to add the new release to your CD rack.

What is also strange, beautiful and as interesting as the music itself is the CD art that departs from his usual punchy-coloured sleeves that have featured photos of kids, guitars, a burning house, a swimmer or Michel himself.

The cover shot on the disc is a Temple Bates painting which Michel bought from a gallery of what looks like a goat/creature chick behind a steering wheel sporting a white fur mullet.

“It was beautiful and a little creepy all at once. Just like Bowie’s music was to me when I was young. And who’s kidding who? That’s the coolest Ziggy Stardust hairdo ever! I wanted people to look at the cover and say, ‘What the fuck?'” (What the fuck then. Is it just me or does it actually look like Bowie’s wife, Iman, if she were off-white, fuzzy and a goat?)

On the inside, there is a drawing of Michel looking really creepy, like Edward Scissorhands as one reviewer pointed out.

Michel explains, “I wanted it to leave you feeling a little uneasy. I wanted to get a reaction out of people instead of all the boring CD art out there.” Danny says album art has to make you think and points to The Rheostatics, Queen, Bjork and The Flaming Lips as bands with album art that he loves. As for the rest of the inside art, the images of steering wheels are no surprise coming from a guy with a non-stop touring schedule.

Despite the buzz around the new disc, he will be playing only one or two selections at shows and is writing for a new album due out in spring 2005.

“I’m still Danny Michel and that’s what you’ll get,” he says.

And that’s great news for fans who will be expecting nothing but the best originals such as Almost There, Mr. Black, and Newton’s Apple, played recently on CBC radio’s Groove Shinny.

I’ll be honest – when I listened to the first few tracks off Loving the Alien, hearing Michel’s vocals and quirkiness immediately got me rifling through my CD collection to play his classics instead.

Bowie is a legend, but Michel’s tunes offer up a more Canadian-flavoured soundtrack of our lives that people have been able to relate to since his earliest days.

When he briefly joined Starling back in the ’90s, fans would come alive when he took the mic to play one of his own works. And once he was centre stage, the night would turn into a contest between fans shouting requests for Danny to play this song or that. Fans seemed as excited about Michel as Michel is about Bowie.

Has he ever met Bowie? Twice he’s missed him at a party and a talk-show on account of Bowie being sick. “He should take his vitamins,” Michel prescribes. “Oh well … probably for the best. I wouldn’t know what to say. I’d ask something normal, like if he’s ever been on a Jet Ski or something like that.”

Danny Michel and Luke Doucet play Barrymore’s Wednesday, September 29. Tickets are $10 in advance or $12 at the door.

Michel was also the producer of local folk-rock chanteuse Janice Hall’s emotionally intense six-song EP, Suspended (1999). Catch Hall, Autonomous Unit and Red Fey at Danny’s old stomping grounds, the Manx Pub, on Sunday, September 26 at 9:30 pm. Free.

– Sylvie Hill

Ottawa XPress – Shotgun – September 16, 2004

I remember it was back in my university days at the University of Ottawa, about 23 years old, in my Salvation Army-furnished living room on a Friday night.

Suddenly it came to me.

The revelation that somewhere in the cosmos, or on my bedposts, there was a posted limit, either spiritually or medically, of just how many dudes a girl can bring home until she found the right one.

We were drinking beer as Ani Difranco blared from my anarchist roommate’s bedroom, a bong as our dining room table centerpiece, getting ready to go out dancing at Zaphod Beeblebrox. I engaged my roommate and other girlfriends in some pre-bar introspection about how I felt I was slutting around way too much, and I ventured the opinion, “Girls, it’s time for a change!”

And it was.

“I mean, a different guy ever single weekend, come on.” I said boldly, “This weekend, there will be no ‘let’s go back to my place’ or ‘wanna make out.’ No, this weekend, I’m coming home alone-ladies, I’m going to be promiscuous!” Yes, that’s what I said.

I took offense at their immediate laughter.

Sure you might have had to dig down deep to find my real virtue, but hell, it was there! I mean, I had just ended an honourable relationship with my first-ever love simply because I was eager to try out what I termed a real “guy’s guy.” So I knew what a solid relationship was; it wasn’t like I was flighty and I certainly wasn’t a slut. But I had chased so much tail and was still never satisfied, and I figured coming to this great conclusion to NOT attempt to find meaning in petty drunken flings was intelligent, not something to be ridiculed, you know? Their laughter rattled me.

Then I told them I wanted to lay low and be “conspicuous,” and they laughed even harder.

The girls finally stopped long enough to explain to me – the English lit major – that both words meant the opposite of what I intended. Promiscuous meant sleeping around. And conspicuous didn’t mean undercover.

Apparently in France, the word “promiscuity” has a different meaning. It means exactly what it denotes – to be in close proximity. It’s not necessarily fucking or anything sexual.

I like France.

European chicks can get away without wearing a bra. And it’s natural for two chicks in Paris to hold hands while walking down the promenade en route to purchase their brie and baguette, while if I walk down Elgin Street holding hands with my girl friend, I’ll get whistled at by the jocks at the jock bars.

And isn’t France the maker of the two male tennis players in the Olympics who rolled around on top of each other after a win, kissing on the courts with everyone cheering them on? Oh, they were Chilean? It’s the same to me – both countries make excellent wine.

I get a lot of things mixed up.

It might explain why I gave a thumbs up to the icon representing this column. Have a look up there, on top of my name. The column is called “SHOTGUN.” But the icon is a rifle. I was informed about this about a month ago over a sushi dinner, after which dear reader, yes, I came this close to having another accident in my pants.

But see how it all comes together.

We all consume things that are bad for us and give the wrong name sometimes to things that are good for us. Truthfully, the entire purpose of SHOTGUN is to tell readers that penis size doesn’t matter: Ladies, what you see is not what you get. Gentlemen, sometimes you think you’re getting one thing, but end up with another. Isn’t life like that?

Imagine how liberating our Ottawa lives would be if we all wittingly misattributed labels and identifiers to things!

Instead of “Dumb Jock at MacLaren’s on Elgin,” try “Physically Fit Outgoing Lady at Ideal Place to Watch Playoffs,” and replace “Shoe-gazing SAW Gallery Straight-edge Introvert” with “Quiet, Intelligent Individual With No Fixed Sexual Preference or Gender.” Don’t stop there though, let’s change some “Married Couples” to “Settling Friends,” “Pathetic Singles” to “Achieving Independents,” “Uneducated Peons” to “Degreeless Entrepreneurs,” “Blue-collar Workers” to “Making More Money Than You With Your PhD,” “Slut” to “Tour Guide,” and switch over that very problematic “Guy’s Guy” to “A Figment of Your Fucking Imagination” or “Preconceived Notion of Malehood as Advertised by CHEZ 106”.

Let me tell you, traveling from bed to bed during university and backpacking in other countries got me to reconsider what’s sexy and attractive, and what’s cool and what’s not.

As for just how many dudes a girl can bring home until she has found the right one? I don’t know, but I hope someone tells her sooner than later that the greener grass on the other side might just be Astroturf.

– Sylvie Hill

Ottawa XPress – Shotgun – September 9, 2004

I heard the most colourful booty call song this week. It wasn’t Nelly and it wasn’t Britney. It wasn’t even Justin Timberlake who wants to rock my body. It was most hysterically, from goth-rock band, The Cure.

Yes, that big fat British drunk guy with the pasty face, rat’s nest hair do, and MAC red lipstick named Robert Smith packs a lot of pussy into his tunes and he made a comeback with his Curiosa tour this summer, which didn’t come to Ottawa.

I’m convinced this Mr. Smith is disguising his libido in romanticism that hints at the poet Shelley, but stinks of Keats on Viagra. Even though his lyrics are more creamy than an oozing Laura Secord truffle up my bum on a hot day, I can see through them. Yes I can. I’m about to blow your cover, fat man.

The song I’m talking about here is “From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea” off their 1992 Wish album (remember Friday I’m In Love?). You remember it. It starts with cryptic guitar screeches, tambourines and then tumultuous drums all building to an epic sex trip. He begins wailing in desperation:

Every time we do this
I fall for her
Wave after wave after wave
It’s all for her
“I know this can’t be wrong I say,”
(And I’ll lie to keep her happy)
“As long as I know that you know that today I belong right here with you, right here with you…”

It sounds like longing but Robert Smith is actually complaining about having to give the girl so many ‘waves’ (read: orgasms). But then, for the rest of the song, Fat Bob goes on to wish he could just stop fucking her, not because she’s a little selfish cunt who doesn’t divvy up the bloodrushes, but because he knows another moment will break his, wait for it … heart. Precious.

Yeah, not to mention rip out the soul of the chick who has gotten so intensely wrapped up with Mr. Smith that her head’s on fire.

(Thank god it’s her head on fire and not her pussy. I was beginning to believe dude gave her a lot more down there while deep “C—” diving, if you know what I mean.)

And so he goes on crying but he lies, again, and says it’s the rain.

Yes, yes, boys don’t cry.

The two of them there are both getting liquored and totally stoned and there’s some praying and crying happening but he’s still fucking her when she asks: “why why why (three times, dear reader!) are you letting me go?” and, naturally, his cock goes soft and then she does a striptease in front of him and, woops! they fuck some more.

This isn’t The Cure I know; it’s a typical Friday I’m Still Banging My X song! I thought this was the kind of shit that went on in dance or rap music and not in my “alternative” music, thank you very much.

In truth, any pathetic rebounding sex couple should have a soundtrack, every tragic romance its anthem, and so I give The Cure unto you because it’s quite the production and it’s taking over my goddamned column when all I really wanted to share with you is the benefits of my new superpower for seeing through bullshit, thanks to a) sobriety, b) getting totally fucked over by love in the past year, and c) revisiting my mother’s K-Tel collection called “Decade of Love.”

See, Mum got divorced in ’79 and moved to Vanier and K-Tel apparently documented this transition over a double vinyl set through Bonnie Tyler, Charlene, Minnie Riperton, Starland Vocal Band, and of course, Ann Murray.

But I’m convinced the tunes screwed with mom’s head.

On the same album as Charlene’s Never Been to Me pro-marriage song was Dr. Hook’s sexed-up medley, Sharing the Night Together that ENCOURAGED middle-aged chicks to greet the morning together with him or, call him up, because like James Taylor in the preceding song, he’s a “Handy Man” who can fix broken hearts.

And speaking of spending the night together, our Cure dude “watches the sun come up from the edge of the deep green sea.” We know what he was up to all night.

Explains the hair.

Now, a song about taking so many rides on the Rebound Highway should be called, simply, “From the Edge”. No pretty green sea. Just plain old fucking on the edge of a cesspool of sweat, bad feelings with the only greens here being the vomit of your drunken Seaman in the a.m. and the follow-up envy of the sea Queen as buddy replaces you with a new siren.

The cure for sex is not a booty call.

Do not drink and dial, people!

The cure for rebound sex is in effect, the disease. Are some of us in Ottawa so plagued by loneliness that we have become the next Cure video? Until you start seeing things in a different light, you may just go on singing the same old tune pal, without really knowing what the hell it means or, what you can make it mean.

Jaded? Maybe. Just you make sure to keep those shades on when you’re going through your next total eclipse of the heart so you can see clear enough to do a little dance out the front door, instead of making a little self-destructive love on the floor in the stick of your own AquaNet, man!

– Sylvie Hill

Ottawa XPress – Shotgun – September 2, 2004

In the spirit of TV’s Amazing Race, the Urban Challenge hit Ottawa this past weekend, challenging teams to use brains, OC Transpo and the Internet to use clues to navigate their way through the city.

What a neat way to get to know the city and raise money for Right to Play, an organization that helps bring sport and play to disadvantaged children around the world.

So far, the race, which is put on by Level 28, a Toronto company that creates street games, has taken place in Edmonton, Vancouver, Calgary, and Toronto, as well as Ottawa, with upcoming races in Winnipeg and Halifax.

August 28 was the second race in the Nation’s Capital.

The first was held June 5 with 80 people taking to the streets in Urban Challenge’s cross between a foot race and a scavenger hunt. Each team of two gets a sheet of clues identifying a checkpoint, or a location in the city. Teams phone friends and use the Internet to solve clues and find where they need to go. In June, participants were supported by more than 200 digital players helping them along the way – all very James Bond.

They have to take a digital image or Polaroid when they get to the checkpoint, to prove they were there. I would have participated, but I don’t have a cell phone, a digital camera or friends that love me enough to devote a Saturday afternoon to sit at home and cruise the Internet for answers to help me win a race. Low-tech races and scavenger hunts are more my thing. If you’re like me and your only pair of running shoes is an old school pair of Converse, and if your idea of exercise is raising your pint glass, then you’ll appreciate some of these low-key favourites…

Ever year now for 19 years and running, the Mayflower Pub on Cooper at Elgin in the month of May decorates its bar with checkered rally car flags, advertising the “Mayflower Rally Race.” It usually takes place the weekend after Victoria Day, requires eight weeks of planning and attracts upwards of 20 cars with teams of four people each. The cost is $5 per team, which goes to supply the great prizes.

Organizer Philip Cheesman explained to me, “Each rally has a theme based on what the participants see on the route; the route determines the theme.”

For example, one year on the “Oh Shit Tour,” Cheesman and his co-conspirators, John R. MacDonald and Geoff Barnabe, used cryptic clues to lure racers to the Mer Bleu Bog.

“Bog” in England means outhouse. Explains the shit part.

Another race was “Rest and Relaxation,” where teams found themselves motoring to victory through Wakefield amidst beautiful inns, laidback drinking holes, golf courses, ski hills and cottages, learning about bridges and other spectacular landmarks.

Unlike the Urban Challenge where participants rely on technology, the Mayflower Rally Racers have to be hands-on and on site.

For Cheesman, “It’s low-tech; that’s half the fun. Checking my library and the friggin’ Internet, that’s no fun; this one gets you out where you haven’t been before.”

But I’m not sure using outside sources to win a scavenger hunt is all that boring. It seemed pretty hilarious when my team was caught cheating one year at a Halloween Scavenger Hunt put on by McMillan Advertising Agency in downtown Ottawa.

McMillan, the ad firm responsible for HOPE Beach Volleyball, Bridgehead and Domicile marketing and design, organized a historic hunt around downtown Ottawa called “Man Building Ghosts” for employees and friends.

More than a corporate ploy to educate participants about the history of the agency site at 541 Sussex in the Byward Market, it led us through a series of clues to reveal the intriguing and murderous drama of the killing of Thomas D’Arcy McGee by one Patrick James Whalen. Haunting!

Charged with spirits (of the alcoholic variety), by the end of the night (the hunt lasted four hours), my team was trashed and we thought it a clever idea to call bar staff at D’Arcy McGee’s Pub in Sparks Street Mall to talk to patrons and get help filling out our answer sheets. We were politely told to fuck off. But this effort did win us “Most Spirited Team.”

To be sure, the event taught us some really valuable shit about that big stone building, also home to Timothy’s and The Black Tomato along George Street.

In 1827, 541 Sussex was The British Hotel before expanding to a four-storey building that was requisitioned by Canadian government to serve as military barracks in 1866. It then became home to the Geological Survey of Canada in 1880 and later housed the inaugural exhibition of the Canadian Academy of Arts (the predecessor of the National Gallery of Canada). In 1911, the building was used as an emergency hospital during an outbreak of typhoid fever, and occupied by the Armed Forces Dental Service in the 1940s. McMillan moved in during 1998. It’s 2004, and I never look at the building the same way twice.

In my opinion, these organized hunts and races around Ottawa are crucial in helping us discover and appreciate the history that shapes the city we live in. Aside from that field trip back in Grade 7 where you visited the Parliament Buildings, when else did you get off your ass to learn about Ottawa?

And hey, who’s going to tell the younger generation that Quizno’s in the market wasn’t always a bloody submarine sandwich shop, man?

– Sylvie Hill

Ottawa XPress, August 26, 2004

For a lot of people, summer time means vacation time and what a time that is. Heading up to the cottage for a month or catching up on reading, gardening or drinking at your local.

One summer, when I was 13, Dad took us to Florida. We spent some time at a beachside resort in Key West. I stayed in the hotel room most of the time though because I had a First Choice Haircutters boy haircut and I was flat-chested. Hardly the epitome of beach bum babehood. And that’s an understatement.

As if that wasn’t embarrassing enough, my divorced father in red Speedos kept checking out the ladies. Then at the Clearwater Hotel during dinner, I almost shit myself.

Seriously – I had some kind of vicious flu bug and the debilitating cramps began attacking my innards. I thought I could make it through the meal in moderate pain.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

All of a sudden I had to bolt to the elevators and head for my room as fast as I could! But then, fate took over and my bowels started doing a rapid disco and you guessed it, they moved as fast as they could! All over the bathroom floor.

The problem was the hotel floors were made up in this miniature-squared tile type of deal and so what got stuck in the crevasses, like, really got stuck in the crevasses. Between painting the floor a deep shade of brown – a richness that could one-up Benjamin Moore – and having the worst pains I would ever, ever experience in my entire life, I got to thinking that if the worst was possible on a summer vacation, this was it.

Reminiscing about that experience got me thinking beyond scatological catastrophes on holiday and about the embarrassing experiences we find ourselves in day to day.

What’s the most embarrassing thing that can happen to you, really? Farting at the movies? Tripping on a flip-flop in front of a cute guy? Pert nipples on a cold day?

The best was an old boyfriend of mine who used to wear my combat pants around the apartment. He’d sometimes wear them out in public, which was fine by me providing he remember that these Irving Rivers army pants have a double north- and south-bound zipper, for easy access, presumably for a quick piss during the war.

We’d be lying there on the couch watching a movie and I would look over at him to see his willy staring right at me. Hardly camouflage pants at that point. The one time I went to send the north-bound zipper south, I nicked his ballsack in the zigzag. He yelped but was rather polite about it all but I could tell, guys don’t like their girlfriends playing with their zipper for that reason alone and decided I wouldn’t worry about his from now on.

Then one day he came home, looking a little quiet and shy to his usual outgoing nature. He told me how he was working out at the gym, in those same pants, and couldn’t figure out why everyone was staring at him. To be sure, he was a hottie, and people checked him out all the time.

But this time was different.

Sure enough, he had been caught with his zipper up and his dingle dangling out! Legs spread, right there at the peck deck machine.

It’s when you’re caught off guard, that upset is its most colourful. Like the time this same guy and I were on our first date at the National Arts Centre last summer. We had had a nice sushi dinner and were enjoying a hilarious Bernard Shaw play.

We had a blast and so did my ass at the quietest part of the fucking play.

All of a sudden, and out of nowhere, my intestines waged war against the sushi during a moment of silence during an otherwise uproarious play. A big rumbling sound emanated from deep within me and nothing actually came out but like you can tell the difference! I started to have a panic attack at the thought that my gut would sound off again in the company of Mr. Hottie.

I excused myself from the theatre, rubbing my abdomen apologetically, blaming it on the sushi, wondering if I was about to shit all over the NAC floors!

By the time I got back, it was intermission and my date was coming up the stairs with my purse to rejoin me, suggesting we get me some ginger ale and some soup.

The next day, my coworkers asked me how the date went. The women were forgiving and understanding: “These things happen, Sylvie, don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll understand.” The men were unapologetically cruel: “Well, you literally blew that one!”

I did have another date with this guy, then another and another. And to this day, he claims he heard nothing that night. What a gentleman, who can make an honourable trait of deafness and ignorance.

They say the key to a happy relationship is a bad memory. I say it’s also about accepting each other at our most pathetic, which is often, our most hilarious.

– Sylvie Hill