Pride Goeth Before Shame

Two years ago I quipped to my friend Rob that there should be a counter-festival during Pride called Shame. Not that there’s anything wrong with being gay, some of my best friends, etc. The point I’m trying to make is that eventually a counter-culture celebration, if it occurs often enough, becomes codified into an institution, with the usual compromises regarding corporate sponsorship, accusations of organizers rounding the rough edges and making the event "safe" and so on and so on. Vancouver used to have something called Music Waste, a somewhat antagonistic counter-festival held during Music West (now called New Music West). Toronto has a traditional of disgruntled folk creating events in their own image – the Cut and Paste zine fair was created in response to another zine fair (the Small Press Fair I think) which was formed in response to some other zine fair. You get the idea.

Anyway, I was pleased, very, very, very pleased to see posters last year for Shame at Vazaleen -- a monthly queer-positive event held at Lee’s Palace (and before that, the El Mo, I believe), founded by DJ, impresario and underwear artist Will Munro. And this year, it’s happening again. Here are the details, taken from the instantcoffee mailing list:

VAZALEEN -- Shame -- Fri 27 June @ Lee's Palace
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Vazaleen Shame Friday June 27th @ Lee's Palace 531 Bloor St. West with legendary special guest performing live Jayne County and the Electric Chairs – a transsexual punk pioneer not to be missed!

Event hosted by Plastick Patrick (0ne-976)
two floors of shameful goodness
video mixing by Mix Motion
special event price 10$