4 Years O’Hotnuts

This is our 4 year anniversary party. It’s official, we’re the granny night at The Beaver.
Come early to avoid line uppppppp.

It’s for real. This time we’re having dance hall queen Jamaica Lioness-Fischer as the performeress. She told us she eats herbs for breakfast. And that’s why Jamaica couldn’t be more appropriate for Hotbox Hotnuts. YAY!

Hosted by Mary Messhausen
DJs Mi-Nuh Care (aka Jeremy Laing) and produzentin
Door: El Bear Ho

Saturday, May 29th, 10:30pm

The Beaver
1192 Queen St. W.
$5 cover, free in drag

Will Munro

We met Will 4 years ago, shortly after we moved to Toronto. Will and Lynn had just taken over The Beaver. It was the first party there, for his 31st birthday in February 2006. I remember talking to Will while he was djing. He played a Mylo Club Mix of a cover version of Sweet Child Of Mine. I had not heard the song before, asking him what it was.

A few weeks later, Andrew Harwood and myself would ask Will if we could have a Saturday night at The Beaver. And so, in May 2006, we started Hotnuts. Will was such a big part of it. From the beginning he dressed up with us, djed and got the night going.

For the first year or so, we would do silk screened posters and flyers. And when I say “we”, it was Will doing most of the work. A lot of times, we wanted to meet at 8pm to work on the posters. In the end, we met at midnight or 1am. Will was always so busy, doing 5 projects at the same time. So much energy. He didn’t mind doing the silk screening at night. So, we would meet at his studio, listening to disco and house, drinking coke, eating double doubles. And I was just trying to not get to messy from the silk screening.

In May 2009, Will djed at Hotnuts for the last time. He had sewn his outfit out of Mc Donald’s fabric and called the headpiece “tumor balls”.

On May 21, 2010 Will Munro passed away after a two year battle with a brain tumor. Toronto lost one of it’s most prolific artists, promoters, DJ’s, musicians, community activists.

We love and miss him so much.

Some pictures are below. Most of them are from Hotnuts. I have uploaded much more to flickr. Will’s make up by Margot Keith. (You can download the original sized photos on flickr by clicking on the “All sizes” link on top of the pictures.)

There is a facebook group: Honoring the Heart of Will Munro. And this Wednesday, May 26, there is a Memorial / Party for Will Munro at the Gladstone.

Pearls Over Shanghai

On Saturday, Mary Messhausen and myself saw Pearls Over Shanghai, the reproduction of the musical by The Cockettes. The updated version is brought back to the stage 40 years after its debut by The Thrillpeddlers in collaboration with some of the original Cockettes members.

It was great to see original composer Richard “œScrumbly” Koldewyn on the piano and original Cockette Rumi Missabu reprising his role as the evil Madame Gin Sling (photo below). It is such a fun and exciting show, including an opium induced scene played in the dark. Our favourite song is “Apples and Won Ton” sung by Lili Frustrata.

Pearls Over Shanghai is playing in San Francisco until August 1st.
The Thrillpeddlers are currently also playing Hot Greeks, which was the only other scripted book musical by The Cockettes. Now I wish I had seen this one too.

Photo by David Allen

Let It Burn

Recently, I started asking friends at parties what their all time favourite song is. Usually, people enter in a kind of blank stare, hypnotized mode, thinking hard & going back in time through a wormhole. Before I get to bored, waiting for um-teen minutes for an answer, I blare out: “Mine is Burn by Usher.” Most of the time, this is greeted with laughter, disbelief and mockery. I don’t care, ’cause the haters can’t take Burn away from me.

Also, a lot of people don’t seem to remember that I’m in the video. It was a very exciting time in my life when Usher’s manager called and said: “Ush wants and needs you in his next clip.” I just screamed into the phone: “Where is my flight ticket?” and hung up. Next thing you know, I was in L.A. shooting a video with Usher under burning palm trees. My love was burning up for him. SO HOT.

Of course, I’m totally into lyrics of the song. At the beginning, Usher is so sure that the relationship is over. Only when he calls his new “girlfriends” by the ex’s name, he realizes the big mistake. But Usher knows, the boss lady ain’t coming back. So he has to: LET IT BURN.

Ok, I’m not really in this frame, but we did a photo shoot for the big picture on the wall.

This scene features a one of a kind Usher jacket with a print of me in Japanese drag on the back. So cute.

Another fun Burn moment. I mean does he even recognize I’m still thurr for him? As you can see, I was trying my hardest to get noticed.

I ruined a couple of shots for this scene on purpose. I wanted to show my pretty make up and always turned around to blink my lashes. This would have been so good. Anyways, it was lots of fun to stop Ushy in the middle of the road. Total Boss Lady style.

And now, just check out the full clip. Burn.