Never read show descriptions, especially at the Fringe. Because then you’re denying yourself half the fun – the discovery, smugly unearthing “the next great show” before your Fringe-going friends.

With Morgan Brayton’s “Raccoonery!”, I don’t know what I was expecting. Rodents? Raccoon Costumes? Nonsensical monologuing? What Brayton in fact delivers is intelligent, cutting comic character work with a political undercurrent.

Brayton starts us off by offering the definition of “raccoonery” itself (somewhere past shenanigans and tomfoolery),  a term her own departed grandmother once used that has obviously helped inform Brayton’s own comic sensibility.

In this latest show she offers up a feast of characters – a weight-loss program infomercial host, a Class of ‘84 high school valedictorian, and an irresistible girl with a penchant for ice cream, among others.

Almost more enchanting than the characters themselves are the musical interludes that serve as transitions. Mundane, everyday lyrics set to whimsical tunes offer gems like “I want chips. Give me some chips” or my favourite, a hosting-a-party song asking guests to “put that guitar away, I know you think you sound good… you don’t.”

For those who have never experienced her, “Raccoonery!” is a fine example of why Brayton is celebrated as one of the city’s, if not the country’s, top comediennes. Not every character can be as infectious as the last but each has its own strength, be it a cutting commentary or even a single guffaw-inducing line.

But don’t read this review! Just go discover it. Sink into your seat and allow Brayton to release that belly-laugh you’ve been suppressing at your day job. It’s the best way to welcome the Fringe to town.

Raccoonery! by Morgan Brayton
Part of the Vancouver International Fringe Festival
Performance Works on Granville Island
Remaining performances:
Saturday Sept 11, 8:35 pm
Thursday Sept 16, 10:25 pm
Friday Sept 17, 7:00 pm
Sunday Sept 19, 12:25 pm

“I tend to find myself shirtless and in my underwear,” Cameron Macleod laughs. The comedian has a humble approach to his performances that places him in such strange and wonderful positions. His comedy group, ManHussy, will be hosting the much beloved annual Victory Square Block Party this Sunday, which features musical acts and comedic interludes.

Born and raised in British Columbia, Macleod began stand-up comedy in Vancouver after finishing theatre school. “I don’t remember any of the jokes I told but I’m sure they were terrible,” he smiles. “You have to get that tough exterior. Even after you’ve done it for a long time, you have to be comfortable with the possibility of going out there and doing your worst.” Macleod exudes a relaxed manner on stage that ensures his audience is always in on the joke, no matter how nonsensical or far-fetched it may be.

After paying his dues on the stand-up circuit, Macleod gallivanted across Europe and began his involvement in Vancouver’s booming sketch comedy when he returned. Macleod has been highly involved in the growing alternative comedy community and now has his hand in many comedic pies. In addition to being a part of Manhussy, Macleod is one of the producers of Bronx Cheer’s weekly shows at the China Cloud, the comedy curator of the Olio Festival, and collaborates with many other alternative comedy groups such as Pump Trolley.

“It’s not for everybody. My mom didn’t get it until she read Steve Martin’s autobiography,” Macleod says. But we think he’s just being modest. Enjoy the end of summer celebration this Sunday with the charm of Macleod’s Sex Guy and his many other comedic characters!

Victory Square Block Party
Sunday, September 5th
Victory Square Park
2 pm – 9 pm
Free!
See the Facebook event

Photo by Tina Krueger-Kulic.

“The Owls” brings the phrase “lesbian drama” to hyperbolic heights. Cheryl Dunne directs lesbian superstars, VS Brodie and Guinevere Turner, among others, in a poignant film that explores lesbian stereotypes through Sarah Schulman’s self-deprecating script.

The film follows a group of four 40-something lesbians struggling in their unhealthy relationships amidst the boonies of the California desert. The group hides a horrifying secret, of which the audience is aware from the beginning, and which another lesbian attempts to uncover.

The actors fill their roles beautifully, especially Guinevere Turner, who flits effortlessly from her character’s hilariously egotistical self descriptions to her dramatic interactions with the other characters. The film is effectively shot documentary style – the characters give individual interviews with the camera and flashbacks are shown.

The individual interviews showcase the film’s strongest moments but it takes a strange turn when suddenly, in the middle of the film, the actors begin discussing their respective characters and concepts like “butch” and “femme.” It feels painfully self-conscious and contrived and would have been best reserved strictly for the end of the film, if necessary at all.

Overall, the film reveals important and funny points about the portrayal of lesbians in media. If only it would lighten up a little.

Rebecca Slaven is a contributor to Sad Mag.

Sad Mag is very proud to announce the winners of our Show Us Your Pride photo contest! Congratulations to REV and Tyler Bartoshyk, our first and second place finishers respectively. Check out their beautiful work:

And look! Sad Mag and its family was so busy this Pride season, and we received so many fantastic submissions for the contest, that we made this really gay slideshow! Share and enjoy.

Sad Mag does Pride 2010 from SAD MAG on Vimeo.

Thank you to the contributors to the slideshow:

Michelle Ricketts
Rev
Tyler Bartoshyk
Tina Krueger-Kulic
Chris J.
Jonah Fheonix
Shauna Nero
Terry Beaupre
Shane Oosterhoff
Charles Troster
Carter-Ethan Rankin

Thank you to the contest sponsors:

It may look like a reality show and talk like a reality show, but “The Real World” it ain’t.

Familiar conflicts and entertaining dialogue make the documentary “Queer Prom,” screened Monday at Tinseltown as part of the Vancouver Queer Film Festival, feel honest without indulging too heavily in saccharine feel-good moments or worse, slow-motion montages.

Directed by Nicky Forsman, who also directs the OUTTV series “Don’t Quit Your Gay Job,” the documentary follows a group of LGBT youth at the Qmunity GAB Youth Centre as they attempt to organize the annual Queer Prom: a homophobia-free event for queer 13-to-25-year-olds who may have graduated or are still in high school or college. Ultimately the event is a success, though the group doesn’t make it through unscathed.

TV Producers take note: Queer Prom is what happens when you put quip-heavy personalities in a meeting room deemed a furnace and tell them to plan a large-scale event. It’s also one of the profound secrets of people-based documentary filmmaking: when shit gets hot, the raised crankiness levels contribute to some really good dialogue.

“Nobody cares about fucking mocktails,” uttered by decorating committee member Taylor after an argument with GAB staff over the placement of Prom mocktail selection on that meeting’s agenda, was a laugh-winner, “It’s one of the top 4 or 5 best things ever. It’s pretty much better than the renaissance,” also care of Taylor, was another.

The list goes on, and it was a nice surprise Forsman avoided focusing on the teenage cultural obsession of drama, or should we say, da-rah-mahhhh, in favour of showing how humourously and amicably a group of youth interested in making a difference can work through problems without killing each other – though, threats are made. Friendships are tested during the film but are always resilient; every combatant inevitably reconciles over a fist bump with the other, in stark contrast to other documentary-style productions in North America that thrive on unresolved conflict (hello again, MTV).

Queer Prom reveals that the queer youth in Vancouver are, in a word, amazing, and can take care of each other in ways given families simply can’t, or worse, won’t.

To describe the documentary in one word would be the same way a GAB staff member describes Queer Prom, the event, at the end of the film: important.

Jeff Lawrence is a contributor to Sad Mag and V-Rag magazines.

Having a baby is absolutely terrifying – even in traditional circumstances. Add to that finding a womb and an egg donor, deciding who the biological father will be, endless government forms, and having to pay upwards of $30,000 in bureaucratic fees and you understand the complications of a gay couple having a child via surrogate pregnancy in Canada. Playwright Dave Deveau’s newest production, Tiny Replicas, explores the many issues this situation raises.

Tiny Replicas is informative, touching, and funny as it follows a gay male couple, Simon & Ethan, on their journey of conceiving a child from start to birth. Revealing the power struggles that arise with the government, society, and their involved friends, Tiny Replicas is at its strongest when delving into Simon & Ethan’s relationship. The situation may be specific but the theme is universal – how do couples cope with hardship, change, and growing up? Though it temporarily quashed my childbearing desires, Tiny Replicas is a tender, brazen delight.

Tiny Replicas runs from July 21-25 at the Cultch, as part of the Neanderthal Festival. For tickets, visit www.thecultch.com.

Photo by Brandon Gaukel.

I moved to BC from California when I was seven and yet, fifteen years later, I still think of myself as an American. Like it or not, the flag-waving, pie-eating, fireworks-blasting, apple seed-spreading American identity that seems so garish and cloying to many of my Canadian friends was, at least, a template I could work off of.

For me, the trouble was that Canadian identity—at least on the surface—seemed to come down to a laundry list of the ways Canada was not the United States. Which obviously posed a problem: How could I be Canadian and American if being Canadian meant not being American?

When travelling with a friend in London, a man at a street stall for pocket watches (English major crack) asked our nationalities and I immediately responded, “She’s Canadian, I’m American.” My friend and I had a long conversation afterwards in which she wanted to know why I was still clinging on to my nationality after having spent most of my life in Canada. In truth, it has nothing to do with a notion of national superiority or a hatred of the Great White North, but rather an unshakable feeling that I was always outside of Canadian culture, never having seen Mr. Dressup for instance, and was stubbornly unwilling to sacrifice my Americanness—superficial as it was—to join the party. I tried compromises, calling myself a West-Coaster or an American Vancouverite, but it was a flimsy attempt to reconcile the issue. I sort of resigned myself to being a bit of an outsider, wincing at the “Americans are so stupid” lines thrown out by my friends, who would quickly make fumbling apologies when they remembered my duel status.

Then, on a lazy day roaming around Vancouver with a friend, we decided to be cultured individuals and see what indie films Tinseltown had to offer. It came down to MacGruber or The Trotsky. Surprisingly, we went with the latter.

It wasn’t that The Trotsky gave me a Canadian identity, but rather that it made me realize that I’d been deluding myself for years. I am Canadian, and sometimes a nationality comes down to the smallest things—like the beautiful and nuanced scene in which Jay Baruchel, perpetual teenager, mocked Ben Mulroney to his giant face and forehead. Any movie that can do that deserves to be heralded as an instant classic. And would an American get that joke? Hardly. Sure, they may have occasionally seen what my friend Leanne refers to as Mulroney’s plastic Ken hair, his spray-tanned hands gripping a microphone while awkwardly asking pretentious and dull questions in both English and French. But they would not have been fuelled with the pure, unfiltered resentment of a true Canuck, faced with the sheer onslaught of nepotism and smarm that is Ben Mulroney.

Even better, the Big Brother to the south never gets a mention in the movie, unlike Paul Gross’s extremely self-conscious and hokey western also released this year, Gunless. This is not a Canadian film that felt it had to give the middle finger to Uncle Sam in order to earn its credentials, nor is it self-consciously Canadian, making cracks about beavers or Mounties. Instead The Trotksy is the somewhat surreal story of a 12th grader who believes he is the reincarnation of Leon Trotsky and tries to unionize any group of people he comes into contact with. The movie’s tone is warm, funny and sweet, but it doesn’t fit easily into any of the genres that it plays with; The Trotsky wades somewhere in the realm of a coming-of-age political high school romance that never takes itself or its characters very seriously.

Many reviews try to argue that a lot of the subject matter and humour flies over the heads of its target audience – assuming, I guess, that this film is aimed at teenagers. But The Trotsky doesn’t really seem to have a target audience. After all, who pens a screenplay about a 17-year-old who thinks he’s the reincarnation of Leon Trotsky and honestly believes that their target audience is other teenagers? If the movie is aimed at University students and adults, then it’s right on target: well-placed jokes about Marxist criticism, publishing history and the francophone Quebecois should be right up the alley of any self-respecting Humanities major in the lower mainland.

But more importantly than that, it is simply refreshing to see genuine Canadian identity onscreen that at no point feels it has to be apologetic, defensive or littered with stereotypes in order to be acceptable.

Joan-E, Robyn Graves, Symone, Raye Sunshine—Vancouver’s beloved drag queens were out in full force last weekend, united on stage at the Fit for a Queen concert, benefiting the Shooting Stars Foundation. The sold-out event at Richmond’s River Rock Casino featured stellar performances by twenty well-known female impersonators including Syren, Milan, and the unstoppable Conni Smudge, who met with Sad Mag backstage after the show.

A past Entertainer of the Year (Celebrities Nightclub) and Miss Odyssey 2006-2007, Conni has supported Fit for a Queen for all of its nine years in existence, and was part of the inspiration for the knock-out event. “Carlotta, Mandy Kamp and myself did one number at Starry Night for the Shooting Stars,” said Conni, “and that’s where they got the idea for having just one evening with drag queens. It was so spectacular, and I had such a great time.”

The Shooting Stars Foundation plans special events that raise money for people living with HIV/AIDS. The foundation supports organizations such as the Dr. Peter Center and a Loving Spoonful. An estimated 58,000 people in Canada live with HIV, and 1-2 people contract HIV in British Columbia everyday. The growing need for AIDS services and support often outpaces funding provided through traditional sources, such as the provincial government. Community-sponsored events like Fit for a Queen help to fill the funding gap.

The River Rock Casino’s show theatre, a 1000-seat venue, was packed with supporters this year—and according to Conni, the inspired performers put on their best possible show. “Standing on stage is like standing in a cereal bowl,” she said, “It’s such a steep audience and there are just thousands of people. We’re used to performing in clubs—Celebrities, The Odyssey, et cetera—but being on that stage raises everyone’s caliber, and brings their A-game. And we’re all very supportive of each other.”

To learn more about the Shooting Stars Foundation visit their website. For more drag performance, see Syren and Isolde N. Barron tonight at Queerbash.

Shiloh Lindsey is the sweetest cowgirl you will ever meet. Her steely voice holds steady even when lilting over her deepest heartaches and hangovers. Lindsey’s music is no top 40 – it is country in its most raw and pure form.

Born in Alberta and raised on a ranch, Lindsey’s family moved to McBride, B.C. when she was eight. Lindsey describes a run-in from her farm days that exemplifies her long history of learning the hard way, “We got in trouble by old man Froese… He owned some property and he had just seeded. I don’t know what they were growing but we went out, drunk teenagers in the car, and did donuts. He came out and grabbed [my friend] by the throat and said, ‘You’re fuckin’ with my shit!’ Farmers – don’t fuck with their shit.”

It was at this time that Lindsey started her musical endeavors. She began singing at age ten and bought an electric guitar when she was fourteen. “I got a lot of encouragement from my friends and siblings – three older brothers and an older sister. I could’ve totally sucked but I was their younger sister so they were like, ‘you’re awesome!’ Meanwhile, everyone else is plugging their ears,” laughs Lindsey.

Lindsey’s first show took place in Dunster, on the outskirts of McBride. “I think I performed half the song and had to walk offstage because there was a boy I had a crush on in the audience so I thought, ‘to hell with that! I’m outta here!’” Lindsey’s interest in the instrument faded until her older brother handed down his acoustic guitar.

In 1998, Lindsey moved to Smithers and briefly joined a band called “Fizzgig” after a creature in the “Dark Crystal.” Throughout the group effort, Lindsey learned that she prefers to work on her musical ventures alone and within the year she returned to solo gigs and moved west once again to Vancouver.

Raised on the likes of Creedence Clearwater Revival and Hank Williams, Lindsey’s music first fell into the alternative folk vein before reverting to what she knew best. “I listened to a lot of Sinead O’Connor and Kate Bush…and then I started writing country. I was sort of against the whole genre and then I just started penning it and it’s been that way ever since. I just absolutely love country. Top 40 country, on the other hand, unfortunately, gives the genre a bad name. There are totally different sections of country.”

Lindsey cites Lucinda Williams and Tift Merritt as modern heroes while her dad’s influence remains strong. “’My Favourite Cowboy’ is about my dad,” says Lindsey as she points to the acoustic guitar on her mantle with his photo shellacked on the back. “Murder ballads are one of my favourite songs to write. I think the first song that’s going to go on the new album is a murder ballad. ‘Hell in the First’ on [For Your Smoke] is written from the victim’s point of view from a chainsaw massacre.”

Although Lindsey resides outside of country’s geographical niche, she feels comfortable in Vancouver’s music scene. “When I first started out, I was opening for punk bands at Pub 340 and people were really receptive, for some weird reason. I guess because country might be the original punk, this is what people say – three chords and the truth.” When asked if she ever wants to migrate south, Lindsey responds, “All the time! It’s like, ‘What the hell am I doing here?’ Although, [Vancouver] is a nice place to come back to. It’s home.”

All this time, Lindsey has been financially backing her records working self-described dead end jobs and working her way into personal debt. “I put [For My Smoke] on my line of credit and then afterwards I couldn’t pay it and had to declare bankruptcy. I don’t know if you can print that but thank you, Canada Trust, for paying for my last record!”

Lindsey excitedly delves into a discussion about her new record, “It’s called ‘Western Violence and Brief Sensuality’ and I got that from watching ‘Once Upon a Time in the West’. It gives you that warning at the beginning when nowadays it’s ‘warning: violence, nudity, drug use,’ and so on.” She praises her backing band on this project, “being a solo artist you’re always hiring whomever you can – they come and they go, but now I have a solid lineup.”

When asked about her hopes for the record she describes them as plentiful. Her two standout goals are to “get some royalties to pay for the damn thing” by having her songs on shows such as “Heartland” and to significantly increase her show schedule. “I definitely want to tour more but I’ve been afraid. I’m shy and it’s hard for me to tell people, ‘I want this, I need this from you.’ When you’re sensitive or whatever you just have to build up the callous. Although I haven’t had to tour on a constant basis, and I’m sure it’d be a hard road as well, it’s something my heart wants to do.”

Shiloh Lindsey’s CD release is June 10 at the Anza Club. Learn more at shilohlindsey.com.

Her first CD “For My Smoke” and her EP “Tired of Drinking” are available online and at Red Cat Records.

— Rebecca Slaven