Looking for some trouble to get into tonight? Try these:

1) Shop With Pride at Holt Renfrew

So I'm pretty sure I didn't get invited because they looked at my postal code and snort-laughed me straight off their distribution list. Still, someone else sent this to me to taunt and tease, so I'm here to invite you to shop shop shop till you drop drop drop. 

2) Celebration of Light - Mexico

I'll be heading to our first annual Everything Wrapped in Bacon party in hopes that EVERYTHING will be wrapped in bacon. It is Pride right? Show starts at 10pm and English Bay will be a waking nightmare. Still, there's nothing quite like the Celebration of Light. It makes Vancouver soooo purdy.

3) Celebrities Pride Week Imaginarium - Priape Presents Dirty Sanchez from Drag Race 2 and Samuel Colt

Celebrities' live porn shows are legendary. My personal favourite being that pornstar who shoved a red dildo you know where and strutted his way around the stage like a rooster. A close second was when the Flame and the Dame's Tommy D was pulled on stage during Reese Rideout's routine last July. 

Welcome to the start of Pride Week, y'all! About fucking time, eh?

To get things started this week, I'm posting a video for one of the cosmetic treatments I had while doing the Whole New Me package at Weights Fitness and Wellness Studio. Want to freshen up your face before the weekend? Maybe consider one of these:

Not sure what kind of trouble to get into this week? Check out the Ultimate Guide here. And here are my picks for the week for your convenience:

I went on my last mystery date for Xtra West yesterday. The article is going to be amazing. I'll post links to the teaser interviews here on Up Your Alley when they appear on Xtra.ca next week. Here's Bachelor #3:

I'm going to try to get my hands on some photos from last night's Rock the Hem Line event as well. I LOVED emceeing and so many hot models. Congrats to Rob Trinh and Brandon Howe for throwing a successful charity fashion event. Thanks to Celebs for hosting and to DJ Jeffrey for burning it up on the decks.

I promised some WinterPRIDE coverage, and here's my newsy piece for Xtra, with photos by the incomparable Brandon Gaukel:

Oh, look at cover models Mark W and Sean L... so hot and beardy!

And here's a text version of my Cocked & Loaded column for those of you who don't get the hardcopy Xtra in your area:

Cocked & Loaded

How easy is it to play spot the gay in Whistler Village during WinterPRIDE?

Shit girl! Some days I was trying so hard it felt like gayzers were going to shoot out from my eyes and wreak rainbow havoc throughout town.

The problem with Whistler is, of course, the snow gear and goggles and toques. They are like sunglasses… in the way  they make most people uniformly attractive.  

Yet still, wandering through the Whistler Village and checking out guys, I was left wondering: are they gay or straight? Fat or thin? Old or young? Hot or hideous? After four days, I was ready for a head explosion… a clear sign that I will never live in a ski resort town and amen to that.

Which is why it’s important to go to the Après Ski and evening parties during WinterPRIDE, which ran from March 1-8 this year. If you’re looking to meet other gays and lesbians during a Pride festival, these are some of the best places to do it.

The fantastic programming — which expands every year — provides mixed events as well as parties targeted specifically to men, women and bears, which I’ve decided is the new third gender (sorry, trans). 

One of the new offerings this year from Gaywhistler.com and Alpenglow Productions Corp was an indoor pool party at the Meadow Park Pool Recreation Centre.

It’s hard to imagine that after 29 years on earth, I’ve never been to a recreational centre with drag performances and a live DJ. I’m also pretty sure that I got herpesiphighonorritis from an over-capacity hot tub, living proof that what happens in Whistler doesn’t stay in Whistler.

On a side note: I don’t mean to be a bitch, but “You have a lot of tattoos” as a conversation opener at a pool party full of skimpily clad men is a sadgedy of epic proportions. I get it. I have a lot of tattoos. I can see my arms, right? 

WinterPRIDE’s Friday night, just like last year's, presented an event showdown that left many visitors playing picky-choosy. On one side of the plaza, the Priape-sponsored Furrocious party at the Longhorn Saloon. On the other side, the Celebrities Nightclub-sponsored Snowball at the Garabaldi Lift Company. 

This year, I modelled some leather gear for Priape at the Furrocious event and let me tell you, parading around in a leather jockstrap in a packed room full of men with mountain fever is a recipe for disaster.  

Still, the hour I spent at the sold-out Celebrities’ event in the DJ tent on the patio (also new this year) was the best dancing and best crowd I saw all weekend. Promoter James Steck, you’ve figured out the right recipe. Keep it coming. 

Despite its expanded programming, WinterPRIDE’s roots are in its skiing and the big Saturday night circuit party. Olympic restrictions left organizers with no choice but to hold this year’s circuit event at the Roundhouse on top Whistler Mountain, and the $90 ticket price included dinner. 

Dinner at a circuit party? That was another first for yours truly… sort of like offering a buffet at a bathhouse (which happened at a Queer Film Festival 2008 after-party…does anyone remember that one?) 

I was happy to leave the venue at 1am when the lights went on and Hex Hector played the infamous buzz killer “You Got A Feeling” by the Black Eyed Peas. Next year, my only request is for a different venue with a later closing time, something I’m confident Gaywhistler.com will provide.

Despite venue restrictions from the Olympic and Paralympic Games, WinterPRIDE being held two months later than it normally is and Games-related burnout, I think Dean Nelson and Ken Coolen did an amazing job.

If you want more information on this year’s event or to start planning for next year, visit www.gaywhistler.com.

Some things I’ll be checking out over the next two weeks:

Rock the Hem Line at Celebrities Nightclub on Thu Mar 11 will feature collections from four local designers. I’m hosting this one and all proceeds go to the Play 4 Phil Foundation. Come out and support a great charity. 

The newly redesigned J-Lounge (formerly Jupiter) is launching a Sunday brunch and T-Dance series this month. I’ll be at the launch on Sun Mar 14 with Vancouver’s first gay top model Aaron Ursacki.

Back by popular demand, it's going to be Homofication all week long folks. Reminder: homofication is projecting homosexuality on heterosexuals. Something we all love to do.

I've been waiting for this photo for a long time. Fitting that it came along in Movember:

Look at that moustache! Clearly, Katie Holmes is a homosexual man!

Now take a closer look...see how Tom Kat are even dressing alike? DELISH!

My print column hits the streets today. For those of you not in Van, here's a snapshot of this year's scene:

Cocked & Loaded

Well, I’m glad Halloween has come and gone because if I see one more person dressed up as a vampire or gladiator, I am going to have to gouge out both my eyeballs with a sharp pencil and wear symbolic red eye patches to teach the world a lesson about uncreative costumes.

Lest ye forget: Halloween is the costume lover’s holiday and for those of us who love dressing up, this is the one time of year where you REALLY have to pull out all the stops.

I mean, come on…a vampire? A gladiator? Get REAL! Come visit me at the Xtra offices and I’ll help you out with your costume for next year by writing YOU’RE BORING on your forehead in permanent black pen.

Now that I’ve got that out of the way, let’s talk about this year’s Hall of Fame.

It turns out that local pop star Peter Breeze could teach a crash course of Halloween 101 for the costume-impaired. He showed up at Junction’s Little Shop of Horrors party dressed as a giant bag of cocaine— complete with oversized novelty straw—and proceeded to let party goers take turns snorting him.

That, my friends, is a type of genius that few can claim to own and is evidence of two things in my mind:

1. That Peter Breeze is an addictive pairing of vision and whimsy (I just said whimsy…yeah I did) and we are lucky to have him in Vancouver.
2. That the big DJ parties at Junction (formerly Pulse, formerly Majestic) are the best of their kind in Vancouver and despite having to see a bat-shit crazy ex every time I go to one, I always have a great time.

Check out Peter’s costume on his Facebook page. You won’t regret it.

Now. Xtra West assigned me to a club crawl on Halloween and I would like to personally thank everyone who dressed up as Jesus. You made my night, particularly Buff Jesus and Hipster Jesus at 1181 Tight Lounge. You were sacrilicious and you know it!

Celebrities definitely had the hottest male angel on the strip. I also have never been groped like I was groped at Pumpjack. Apparently wearing yellow spandex and a giant Pac Man head is as an open invitation to inappropriate butt touching. Who knew.

If I have one final piece of Halloween advice, it’s that the Davie strip is a guaranteed good time, so remember that next year. And when in you’re in doubt over a costume choice and someone asks you what you’re dressing up as for Halloween, “slutty” is always a good answer.

For those of you who haven’t heard, it’s Movember this month. A number of guys I know are growing moustaches to raise money for prostate cancer research, including DJ Dreaddy. I’m going to be growing one and if you are interested in making a donation to support either DJ Dreaddy or I in our moustache growing efforts, please contact me at vancouvergayblog@gmail.com.

If you’ve got the post-Halloweener blues or intend to detox (like yours truly), check out the following:

Every Tuesday throughout the month of November, Pacific Cinemateque will be showing double bills of dance films. Shows are at 6:30 and 9:30 pm and the Razzle Dazzle Dance Film Series will include: Fame and Flashdance (TUE NOV 10); Cabaret and Chicago (TUE NOV 17); Dirty Dancing and Hairspray (TUE NOV 24).

There are also two big fundraisers coming up over the next two weeks.

Prairie Fairies Fowl Supper on SAT NOV 7 supports A Loving Spoonful. Tickets are already sold out, though some are available through the Ticket Swap menu at http://www.fillmorefamily.ca/fowl.html.

Art for Life on SAT NOV 14 supports Friends for Life. There will be a gala dinner, reception and art auction benefits. Tickets and the art collection can be viewed at www.artforlife.net. 

It turns out a certain somebody from our general Vancouver vicinity is in the running to be one of the 16 finalists for MuchMusic's new VJ search and from what I've seen in the rankings, he has a pretty solid shot. Rob Trinh has appeared once or twice here on Up Your Alley for the charity work he's done for the Play 4 Phil Foundation and deserves a shot at VJ stardom. He's put his time into the industry and dances like a he-banshee.

You heard it here first: Robbie Trinh is island fresh. I've known him since he was about 14 and like the bad penny he is, he turned up again in my life after I moved to Vancouver from Victoria in 2005.

So here's the deal: do him a solid and vote for his sexy ass by clicking here. Give him five stars and send him to TO this fall.

Here's his entry vid if you need further convincing before clicking above:

Rob also invited me to a photoshoot last Sunday with the fantastic Peter Taylor. He shot the shit out of us down in a studio off Cambie Street near the Olympic Village. Check out his website at www.petertaylorphoto.com for his portfolio and contact info.

I am notoriously picky when it comes to photos (just ask my director Nicky Forsman and my producer Philip Webb at OUTtv). These are raw shots, people, with no cropping or editing at all (so I'm sure Peter is going to murderize me for posting them here) but I definitely am feeling them. What do you think?

Looks like I need a quick chat with Mr. Manners.

Let’s say your friend sometimes has a very similar taste in men as you. And let’s say that when you go out with that friend, he points out an object of interest and you may or may not feel something spectacular in your banana hammock region.

Sure, you can walk away.

Sure, you can tell him to do whatever he needs to do, wherever and whenever he feels so long as he can make it happen and feel something that feels like feelings, wherever and whenever those feelings need to occur.

Yet here, again, is a tetherball of sorts. You hit the ball. It comes back. You hit it away again—and  it comes back. So on and so forth. Ball. Balls. Beating. Etc. It’s a relationship that most of us can relate to.

But think, for a moment, about the pole.

The pole is there. It’s always there. Upright and pole-like, standing tall and proud by your side, as poles always do, doing their poley good work with the gusto and pizzazz that one expects from a modern day pole of good character and fine upstanding polemanship…

Now, I like friendly poles, but I REALLY like free-spirited balls.

All analogies aside, I don’t know what to do any more, loyal Cocked & Loaded reader. I need your help.

 If the ball, in this case, takes a pass on the pole, am I free to liberate it from what may first appear to be a fruitless tetherball match? Or do I walk away and let the pole and ball continue their eternal dance, uninterrupted by my well-meaning fist?

A good friend of mine recently invited me to The Snatch on Venables. Okay. He actually invited me to The Cultch, which is a historic and respectable theatre off Commercial Drive.  I misheard him on the phone and was unsurprisingly disappointing in a number of ways, but rewarded in a number of others.

It turns out that the Quebecois dance troupe Cas Public was in town to perform Diary/Journal Intime, choreographed by Canadian dance sensation Hélène Blackburn. Rumour has it that some of the female/male dancers may or may not be queer, which naturally made me think that this would be a nice, non-club oriented change of pace to my column.

I won’t deny that I was temporarily captivated by a Viggo Mortensen-esque performer. That said, the performance itself reminded me of a 50-minute contemporary dance spectacle, a la Mia Michaels of So You Think You Can Dance fame. It was a chest-pumping, hand-fluttering affair featuring one man-on-man dance love segment that mirrored my own romantic pursuits.

It’s also worth pointing out that the target audience for this performance was teenagers and young adults. For anyone in doubt: times have changed and Canadian art is now reflecting the diverse social fabric of our country. Amen.

After a long summer of sexy shenanigans, a group of friends and I also decided to visit the Health Initiative for Men clinic on Davie Street and take advantage of their rapid, 60-second HIV test. If you like a good prick, this is the test for you. Check out http://www.checkhimout.ca/ for more information.

What should you be doing over the next couple weeks? I’m glad you asked.

Queer Bash launches on WED OCT 14 at the Anza Club on 8^th and Ontario. This is a new dress-up, mess-up monthly queer cabaret dance party. This is one of my favourite venues in town. There’s also a good chance that I will be bartending for an hour at this one so come down and grab a drink.

Maybe you’ve seen the bus stop ads around the Lower Mainland. And if you haven’t: in the spirit of alternative queer offerings, Zee Zee Theatre and Screaming Weenie Productions have produced Nelly Boy, a play that explores suburban gender preconceptions. It’s running THU OCT 22 to SUN NOV 1 at PAL Theatre. Visit www.ticketstonight.ca for show times and ticket info.

The Vancouver International Film Festival is also in full swing. I’ll be checking out 65_RedRoses by queer filmmaker Philip Lyall on FRI OCT 9. There are a number of queer selections this year. For a full listing of all movies, times, venues, prices and passes go to www.viff.org/tixSYS/2009/filmguide/.