Nothing says Thanksgiving like a pyrex dildo. And nothing says pyrex dildo like Priape. This weekend, I'll be giving thanks by stripping down to my undies and promoting a new launch of Priape goodies for the fall/winter season. Everybody's favourite manties/clothing/lube/sex toys/"adult viewing material"/playware shop is sending some boys out to various Vancouver locales tonight and tomorrow night--and yours truly will be part of the crew.

If you've got time, come down and see us at the following places, buy a drink and grab a new catalogue:

Tonight

• 6 - 8pm at the Fountainhead and at the Priape store on Davie
• 10 - midnight at Pulse

Saturday

• 5 - 7pm at the Fountainhead and at the Priape Store on Davie
• 10 - midnight at Celelbrities

It's been a long week and I've told a number of people to suck a bag of dicks. Still, it could always be worse:

There's a lot going on this week so check the listings on the Vancouver page for more info on what you should get up to.

A friend of mine dubbed Labour Day Weekend "Mini-Pride" and rightfully so. My computer blue screened on Saturday morning, which is why I couldn't post a full blog post for Monday.

Before we get to the weekend review, check out Pizza Time! My friend Dean sent me this and it's hilarious.

Now on to the other news:

Gay Bashing: one of my best friends was gay bashed while walking home after Pulse closed on Saturday. He was on Thurlow Street south of Davie and got sucker punched after his attacker ran across the street calling gay slurs. That same night, I witnessed a group of seven guys harassing/threatening two girls hiding in the sex shop between Bute and Thurlow on Davie. I devoted my print column this week to the subject and will post it online here after it's published on Wednesday.

Pulse's AMPED UP on Saturday: DJ Dreaddy kicked the night off right and filled the club. His sets tend to be fun, vocal house and he plays to the crowd, which is something I always like. He's also very animated behind the decks and doesn't loom in the DJ box like a sad-faced robot (lots of DJs do...and it's something I hate looking at). Mexico's DJ Issac Escalante...well, I'm not a fan. The first part of his set felt sluggish and for the last half he played house tracks from the 90s. Pulse was packed though. Looking forward to DJ Ana Paula in a couple weeks.

CruiseyT's Final Cruise: it's officially fall. The cruise was rainy and windy but there was a lot of attendees and a lot of people were ready to dance off the bad weather. Randy and James really have the gay cruise experience perfected and it makes sense that they expanded the Cruisey-T crusing experience to the Seattle market this summer. If you have never gone on the boat, make sure you do next year. It's worth the ticket price and the four hours fly by far faster than you may expect.

Blame It On Rio at Gorgomish: after a year-and-some change on the job as Xtra's social columnist, I'm happy to report I finally attended a Big Roger event. Unfortunately, opener DJ Mat Ste-Marie had some questionable mixes and it sounded to me that he didn't mix a couple tracks at all - just let them run their course and then threw something new on. I also wasn't sold on his beat matching either. Brazil's DJ Rafael Calvente played some crazy dark non-vocal tracks that I've never heard before and from all the feedback I heard from attendees, everyone loved him. I'm interested to see what a full-scale Big Roger production in a bigger venue would look like.

After a long week of writing, I decided to hunker down last night and watch some US Open matches. I love playing on hard courts and this is my favourite of the four annual tennis grand slams.

It turns out my longstanding dislike for Maria Screamapova has diminished over the past year and I was happy to see her sail through her match relatively untested. I even sat through most of La Roddick's match. Maybe it's the fact that his last name combines two of wink-wink nudge-nudge synonyms. Or maybe it's his habit of touching his business after every completed point and his unpredictable tennis tantrums (which make me think fondly of the times an ex of mine and I would have to walk home from the courts separately after our matches).

I hope he makes it far into the draw this year.

In other news: it's Labour Day. End of summer shenanigans. I'll be covering CruiseyT's final boat cruise on Sunday for Xtra West, so come on down and get your sail on.

Mexico's Isaac Escalante is in town for Pulse's Amped Saturday night. DJ Dreaddy is warm up. It sounds like he's agreed to do an Xtra Xposed next week. Here's your chance to hear him in advance if you haven't had the chance before.

That's a good question. And despite dating one for a couple months, I have no answers for you unfortunately. Despite trying to cajole sources out of my now ex, I ended up with very little aside from a newfound appreciation for vocal and circuit house.

I do, however, remember the time I would go to clubs and the music in the background was just a wash of sound. Having spent my late teens/early twenties listening to hip hop and reggae, no big surprise there. However times have changed and with that, I bring you a Pinq.ca feature that I am quickly falling in love with.

The Pinq Top 20 features a Billboard.com style hit list brought to you by the following DJs:

• DJ Nick Bertossi (The World)
• DJ Ryan Bazeley (Celebrities)
• DJ MKW (Pulse, Lick)
• DJ Zach Shore (Celebrities, Oasis)
• DJ Betti Forde (Pulse, Flygirl Productions)
• DJ Drew (Odyssey, Numbers)
• DJ Del Stamp (Numbers), and
  
• DJ Dan James (Celebrities). 

And **gasp** they provide links to YouTube for originals and remixes. How awesome is that? Pinq.ca awesome. Love those gays!

Coming to see uber-brilliant director/producer Jonathan Caouette screen his award winning film Tarnation at Cinemark Tinseltown at 7pm? Yeah. I thought that's what you were doing.

I'll be hosting the FilmForward Spotlight Director segment immediately after the screening. If you've had a secret crush on Jonathan since his turn in Shortbus or if you like asking questions about the how's and why's of cinema, this is for you. I'm pretty sure I will make inappropriate sexual references. So come on down.