Dear Rob Ford...I send you a musical message....Love Sharron

A year of touring and now I am home...ish.

This is a picture of Cooch and I.
It is from two days ago.
We were in Pearson Airport waiting for our flight to Vancouver.
I bought this hat at a kiosk 10 minutes before...and, obviously, I couldn't be happier
I am a consuming mess at the airport.
I am now back.
Just over 48 hours later.
I did two shows (two sets of 45 each show) and a workshop.
And still managed to meet my pal, Bickerton.
Life is funny.
And busy.
I just unpacked my mid sized suitcase and put it away....with the other two pieces (I still think of the set as my "World Domination Travel Trunks"...a very fancy description of the red luggage I got at Winners last year)...I put it in the closet of...my sublet in Toronto.
Yup, back in Toronto...again.
If you recall...I moved to Stratford last year...huh.
Well, I wanted to travel, right? And what a year of travel it has been people....I have gotten around, people.
Really.
I started the year with my trip to London to meet with my UK producer, Rob Harris to find a venue and come up with a plan for Edinburgh and my London debut.
And have a look around Old Blighty.
That is what they call it.
If someone can explain to me why, I would greatly appreciate it.
It was my first trip to London...and it was awesome.
I worked all day with Rob, we toured all the venues in London, met a real asshole of a publicist...he knows who he is...and at night I would skype with Christian Vincent, my partner on Canada Sings...it would be just afternoon in LA and late evening in London...and we would plan our tunes and numbers...I felt very fancy.
And a bit tired.
I won't lie to you.
This is me in a self portrait...I am in front of the Globe Theatre on the South Bank...if you couldn't tell where I was by the big fricken picture of Shakespeare.
P.S. Went on the tour of the Globe...it £12 and a woman coughed like she had TB throughout...it was lame and short and the actor who led it looked like he wished we were dead.

THEN I started Canada Sings...out came the luggage...I stayed in Cambridge for a week when we worked with the hot chicks from Lone Wolf Real Estate....and we lived across the street from the Roots Outlet Store.The hotel has a questionable pool with a painting that a 15 year old did of a palm tree scene at one end...so every lap I swam I had to look at that fricken painting.
Next, we stayed in my hometown, Hamilton, when we worked with the awesome men of the Hamilton Police Male Chorus...at the Sheraton (which my Mom thought was super swanky...her words)...and the bed was so effing comfortable that I would eat, work, sleep, talk on the phone, look into space...whatever...it was like being hugged by a fabulous marshmallow.
Yes, Marshmallow.
The last week of team training, we flew to Vancouver to work with 1-800-Got-Junk.
I was so excited, because it was February in Ontario and I knew Vancouver would be so awesome at this time of year...so, I just brought a fleecy. Well, didn't we arrive and it had fucking snowed. In effing Vancouver. We stayed in a hotel I can't remember the name of and I remember being jet lagged as hell...but the bed, again, super awesome.
By the time Canada Sings wrapped I had already stayed away from home for 6 weeks...and it was March.
May I also add her...which has nothing to do with travel...but one night after a taping Christian and I walked out of the John Basset Theatre, in the convention centre, really late...and as we walked out there was a really attractive well dressed young lady leaning against a wall and peeing.
Attractive.
I couldn't quite believe it.
While Christian went three shades of red ( and he lives in LA, people) she looked at me and slurred out that she really had to go. Clearly. Fancy. Also, during this time, Cooch and I did a crazy drive (that lasted from 5:00pm to 12:00am) from Pearson Airport (where I arrived just back from Vancouver) to Deep River, Ontario...in a rented Jetta. We had no cell phone coverage for most of the drive (disturbing Cooch to the bone...ah, the young), never saw an open gas station, and Cooch saw a shack on a lake and asked me what it was, when I told him it was an ice fishing shack, he said, "Is that a thing?" It bears (again, bares? bears?) mentioning here that the show went well, but it started to snow during...and the drive we took THE NEXT DAY was in biblical weather...for 9 hours...hail, snow, ice, fog, rain....biblical. Where next?...if you have hung in this long and are still reading...god bless you...I got Cooch on a plane, much to his horror...and we flew to Regina, enroute to Moose Jaw people...to do a show at the beautiful Capitol Theatre.


It is a frontier town people. After the show Cooch and I luxuriated...yup...in the Temple Mineral Springs. FYI the hotel lobby has a bust of Billy Holliday in it...not sure why, but who am I to question a love of Billie?

On the flight home we had three hours of turbulence, people were screaming and I took a gravol and put on classical music and did my best not to throw up.
Cooch hadn't flown very much.
He was worried about our next jaunt...needless to say.


I have to tell you...I forgot about a whole trip here.
I went to New York for a week to write.
I am so fucking fancy.
I stayed on Lennox Avenue with Thom Allison...got a sinus infection and it was one million degrees outside...I never went outside anymore than I had to...I was pretty "traveled out" right at that time...I gotta tell you.
The best part of that trip?
Seeing Thom, working with my friend Karen and the flight on Porter.
Delish. Worst part? The sinus infection, the heat and losing my fucking fucking fucking Blackberry in a gypsy cab.
One month later I gave Cooch and ativan and we flew to London, en route to Edinburgh.
I bribed the flight attendant to give Cooch a seat with better leg room and I slept the whole flight.
We took the train to Edinburgh...and by we...I mean me.
Somehow, Cooch ended up on the bus...for 10 hours...beside a woman with a big....ass.
Hard times.
But, you guys all know about Edinburgh if you have followed along.
The bed in the accomidation NOT like the Sheraton...let us say.
And the food was mostly beige/brown.
I was sick as a dog.
But we still rocked that shit!!





















And we went on the awesome bus tour...
thanks to VisitScotland...


And then it was back to London....
my debut went awesome...but I was still sick as a dog and there was a part of me that really wanted to go home. I was so tired .


But, as you see, I had not been to any of these places with my dear George. So it was time for a trip to Greece...on Easy Jet...the airline with GENERAL SEATING!!!
Now, let us say that I am very competitive at the very best of times.
But to get the best seat on a flight I will knock over an old lady.
It is sad, but true.
Now, you guys, this was the trip of my dreams.
I always wanted to go to Greece.
Our pals Joe and Louise met me at the airport in San Torini and I fell on the floor with happiness.
And then I went to the same airport the next day and met George.
My sweet George.
I balled like a child.
Here is us.
We loved it.
We laughed, drank, ate and swam.
We napped and talked.
We drank more...ate more.
Got hosed by an effing asshole of a restaurant.
Don't go to Angelos in San Torini!
No matter how great the view is..





And here is the view...
DON'T GO!!!














And, after a wonderful trip, we flew back to London...for one day...and then home.
To Stratford.
For three weeks.
It was glorious.
Really.
And then it was time to leave again.

WE are back in TO (which is also awesome) and after my latest jaunt to Vancouver, I am putting away my luggage for the rest of the year.
Thanks to Cooch for being such a smashing travel companion.

I grew up wanting to see the world.
It is one of the reasons I wanted to do my own shows.
And I feel very lucky that I spent 15 weeks traveling...15 weeks.
It has always been my dream.
I am sure I will travel a lot next year as well, universe willing....but I feel very happy to be in one place for the next while.
With George.
It is never the same without him.
I hope you are all well out there in internet land.
Thanks for following my travels!
I do get up to some crazy shit, huh?

Rob Ford's Mayorless Arts Awards. And footbal.

So, Rob Ford LIED and said he had urgent business and went to a football game instead to the Mayor's Arts Awards. After his snubbing of the ENTIRE gay community during Pride I believe that this is a man, a cabinet even, who believes that he/they is/are above having to show respect for all the people who live and PAY HIS Salary in Toronto. He believes that he can just hand off lies to us, that we are stupid enough to believe him, and that he...won't be accountable...he thinks we don't matter...and we tell ourselves that it is better that he doesn't show...I know I have...let us show him differently...let us write him, the office, our councilors, the newspapers, blog, whatever so that he has to come, sit and be uncomfortable at all of our functions...let him learn about us...the hard way.

And then I thought of Jack Layton

Voting is not hard for me.

I have always voted NDP...It is just a fact.

(Let me just state...as I always do...I know next to nothing about politics...there, I said it...it isn't that I am a total idiot or anything...but I felt that it had to be said.)

But, today, as George drove to the polling station (inside the same building as the Tom Patterson Theatre) I was in a bit of turmoil.

I didn't know how to vote.

I don't want the PC to get in power...at all...not even with a minority...and the dude who has been running things here in Stratford for a while is a Liberal...which actually surprised me a bit...because Stratford and it's environs COULD NOT BE MORE CONSERVATIVE. Lord.

So, do I vote for the guy who can maybe get back in and who IS NOT PC...or do I vote my heart.

So, I got my little card...and sat behind the screen for so long that the lady (named Eunice...love) who is running my table at the polling station kept looking back at me.

And then I thought of Jack Layton...

I could not possibly vote against the NDP the year he made so much headway...the year he died...I just couldn't.

As George and I walked to the car...I told him all of this...and he said...well, they can't ever win if we don't vote for them....simple.

Love George.

Love the NDP.

Fall: An ode...

Dear Fall,

It isn't that I don't like you...

Though, I know I have said this in the past...publicly.

But the sweet and honest truth of it is?

I do like you...I like your trees that change their clothes in the dark...in secret...like a college dorm roommate who has gained the "freshman 15" after eating all that rice pudding in the caf...and doesn't want you to see that their thong doesn't fit anymore.

I like the winds that blow warm and chilly...like a speech from a passive aggressive friend, who you don't realize has insulted you till 20 minutes after a convo is over.

I like your leaves that fall from trees and then fly around...in the passive aggressive wind...like a drunken friend that passes out and then gets up and flails around...and you try to catch them before they fall down and crack their heads open.

I like your sunny skies...that change in a heartbeat to grey, grey skies...that then open up and rain on you...and then hail on you...and then thunder on you...not necessarily in that order...making it cozy to sit inside and just watch the entire season 4 of True Blood with not too much guilt...not TOO much, I said...you judgers.

BUT what I do hate...is in Canada...when you are driving from your home for about an hour...from where you almost didn't take your jacket and scarf...and you are in a new and lovely town...and you open your car door....and it is FUCKING FREEZING OUTSIDE... and IT IS WINTER AND WILL NOW NOT BE OVER TILL APRIL....WHICH IS 8 MONTHS AWAY!

I fucking hate THAT.

So, fall...thanks for dropping by...and having a skanky quickie with winter...who them after the sex WOULD NOT leave your place...it is your own fault.

Love

Sharron

P.S. I have included this photo Shawn Wright from the Urban Barn just in case you are as mad at Fall as I am...and need a laugh.