Ontario's gay deputy premier George Smitherman dropped an embarassing bomb on mayor Miller, announcing that the province would not fund the shiny new $1.2 billion streetcars it needs to replace the increasingly unreliable clunkers that make up the city's fleet. Quote Smitherman: "My daddy taught me if you have 100 priorities, you don't have any." Hmmm... What else did this "daddy" teach you, Mr. Smitherman?

Eye Weekly tears Pride Toronto a new one over their baffling "worst of the 80s" headlining line-up. See, Pride Toronto, it's not just Xtra...

And I'm certain you've seen these two handsome, naked gentlemen all over the city -- in posters, flyers, and on the TTC. Yes, that's me on the right. It's an advert for my play, Balls, which opens Tuesday night at the Lower Ossington Theatre. It's an award-winning coming-of-age comedy about two best friends and testicular cancer. Fans of seeing me half-naked will be pleased to note that the show is also a fundraiser for my run in this year's Toronto Underwear Affair, in support of the fight against cancers below the waist. It toured the national Fringe circuit last year and was a big hit, particularly with Vancouver's gays. Get your tickets here now (or by phone at 416 915 6747) -- before they're gone. And join the Facebook event. (Thanks go to print media sponsor, Xtra!)

Reviews are in for Sky Gilbert's new play, I Have AIDS!, playing at Buddies until Sunday, and they're...mixed. And I had to scour google pretty hard to find these reviews. The show is unfortunately not drawing much publicity and will close before Xtra has a chance to review it, so here's my take: I Have AIDS! is a crass, edgy, hilarious, nauseating, maddening, and thought-provoking piece of theatre, and you must see it. Gavin Crawford (the gay one from This Hour Has 22 Minutes) is perfect as a mouthpiece for some of Sky Gilbert's more outrageous political thoughts and HIV conspiracy theories, and Ryan Kelly gives a standout performance as a public health nurse, drag queen, and tragicomic person living with AIDS (wearing a T-shirt that reads "I have AIDS. Please hug me."). Buddies seems to have dropped the ball on marketing this spectacular play -- the posters unfortunately look like public health posters, not theatre ads, and do not picture the cast at all -- which may explain why the Friday night performance I saw was to only about 25 people. This is a crying shame, as it's by far Buddies most thought-provoking original production this season, and otherwise a fine way for the theatre to close its 2008/09 season.

For the rockers out there, Toronto gay punk band Dirty Chinese Thieves plays at Sneaky Dee's tomorrow night, before heading out on a tour of the Maritimes.

And coverage continues to mount for Hot Docs, which opens this week. Everyone's talking about Outrage, the documentary about closeted US politicians, which is predictably making waves stateside. As per Xtra policy, I will resist the urge to out any of the Canadian politicians we all know about, but encourage you all to think about them and write your own punchlines.

The first mainstream press story about the festivities planned for this year's Toronto Pride events came out today, and you can already see the conservatives fuming over government subsidies for "Beef Balls" in the comments sections. Still, good on conxity.com and the Ontario government for realizing the tourism potential of Pride.

Buddies in Bad Times Theatre opened the latest Sky Gilbert play I HAVE AIDS! this week. The play, which stars gay comedian Gavin Crawford, promises to be an unflinching examination of AIDS and gay love in the 21st century. Bizarrely, both Buddies web site and this Torontoist post about the play deem it necessary to inform their readers that Gilbert is HIV-negative, as if fiction is some kind of radical new concept. The play runs to May 2, so you've only got a limited chance to see it. I'm going tonight.

Sadly, my commitment to that play means I will miss the other big sexy event going on in the city tonight, the Feminist Porn Awards, which will be rocking the Berkeley Church tonight, hosted by sex toy emporium Good For Her.

And wrapping up the week on a downer, an HIV-positive man was found guilty of repeatedly sexually assaulting a 9-year-old boy over a period of two years. It was his sixth such conviction in 30 years and the Crown is now seeking to have the man deemed a dangerous offender and jailed indefinitely. The boy has since tested negative for HIV.

A couple of embarassing set-backs for Toronto this week. First, Torontoist discovers a casual reference in a BBC story that California's experiments in paedophile rehabilitation include showing the paedophiles pictures of our fair city to "establish a baseline of non-arousal." Something tells me Tourism Toronto won't be using "Toronto: We're less sexy than children" as its new slogan.

On the other hand, if the Border Services agents at Pearson keep harassing hardworking porn-stars-turned-producers on their way to perform at Toronto bathhouses, as Michael Lucas alleges they harassed him on his blog on Monday, then I guess we shouldn't be surprised that outsiders perceive our sex lives to be kept in pre-adolescence. Still, the comments that have popped up on Xtra's coverage of the story don't show much sympathy for Lucas, who, after all, is an admitted former sex worker and has produced porn titles that CBSA has banned from Canada. 

This embarassing news contributed to Toronto's slipping to sixth among top gay destinations outside of the US, behind Vancouver (fourth) and Montreal (fifth), according to a new survey. This is pretty important, since other studies are showing gay travel to be one of the few recession-proof industries.

But on the positive side, a gay Nigerian man who lives in Toronto has won refugee status in Canada after successfully appealing an earlier dismissal of his case. So some people are still coming to Canada.

Well, here's an interesting tactic to lure out-of-province tourists: "Drive to Toronto -- Park Anywhere You Please!" Of course, even if you are from the city, it's not like you ever have to pay parking tickets. Just formally challenge them. They get caught up in the municipal courts and never see the light of day. This reporter is still waiting for a court date relating to a ticket he received in December 2006.

Cool stage news this week, gay Toronto actor Michael Sutherland-Young is set to make his full-monty stage debut in the totally gay new play With Bated Breath at Montreal's Centaur Theatre. The play's about a small town boy from Cape Breton who moves to Montreal to become a stripper, so the nudity's not completely gratuitous like in that other Centaur Production the article mentions.

Also in stage news, and apologies that I'm a bit behind on catching this one, but Theatre Passe Muraille has announced its 2009-10 season, and it will include the gay hip-hopera Bash'd, which has already toured the country on the Fringe circuit and had a successful run Off-Broadway last summer. You'll want to catch this one.

Meanwhile, another gay Toronto arts gadfly, John Greyson, is stirring up controversy in the Middle East (and isn't that an accomplishment!), but boycotting the Tel Aviv International LGBT Film Festival citing the "growing boycott movement against Israeli apartheid."  

And we end the week with Mitchel Raphel's retrospective on Michael Ignatieff's rise to almost-power, including a lovely photo of Iggy at the 2006 Toronto Pride Parade.