If Halloween for kids is all about candy, it seems like Halloween for adults is just a reason to put on a pair of trashy fishnets, no matter if you’re queer or not.

Screenings of Rocky Horror pop up in cities all across North America, and everyone wants to be somebody else, often in the form of Frank-N-Furter, Magenta, Columbia or Rocky himself. Seems like nobody ever wants to be Riff Raff. (I always did.)

Tonight and all weekend long at Reflections Cabaret, the Dalhousie Theatre Society is putting on a live performance of the hit show/film. Performance times vary from night to night, so check out their Facebook page for more info.

If you’re looking for a screening on Friday night, University of King’s College queer student group, King’s Pride, is hosting a screening of the movie. For more info, check out their Facebook page.

For something completely different and a little less Halloween-y over the weekend, you can check out The Company House. They will be having a fundraiser for the In the Dead of Winter Festival, featuring such artists as Jenn Grant, Ryan MacGrath, Amelia Curran and more. You can buy tickets and find more info here.

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And to top it all off, a little gift for you, dear readers, as you head out toward your weekend. Jessica 6 is an electronic trio with vocalist Nomi Ruiz, formerly of Hercules and Love Affair. The track also features vocals by Antony Hegarty, whom Ruiz collaborated with on the H&LA track “You Belong.”

Have a great weekend!

Why does it always seem like everything happens on the same day? And it’s not even the weekend.

Today at Dalhousie, noted speaker and executive director of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, Richard Elliott, will speak on the issue of criminal prosecution in cases of alleged nondisclosure of HIV status in Canada. You can find out more info here. The lecture takes place from noon until 1:30pm at the Weldon Law Building in Halifax, 6061 University Ave in Room 207. This is a topic that Xtra has covered at length, and continues to do so.

Nineteen years ago today, the Supreme Court of Canada made a decision that changed the lives of many closeted service members. It ruled that gays and lesbians have the right to serve openly in the forces, after Michelle Douglas challenged her dismissal from the forces and won. To celebrate, the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic will offer free admission to its Hello Sailor exhibit and will have guest speaker Frank Letourneau on hand. Letourneau was discharged under the same regulations and will talk about his experiences.

In other news, have you read this? It’s an article about the history of Pink Triangle Press.

You really, really should.

The impetus behind this is a public art festival called Nocturne, which is now in its fourth year. Starting at the stroke of six and continuing until midnight, art lovers can stroll through five designated zones: Downtown Halifax, the Halifax Waterfront, Spring Garden Road, North End Halifax and Downtown Dartmouth. Events will happen everywhere from public to private spaces, from galleries to Citadel Hill. There’s even an app to help you organize your evening and map out your route.

If you’re looking for a decidedly queer bent during Nocturne, you may want to walk down to the corner of South Park and Sackville, at the CBC Radio Room. There, Krista Davis and Cari Tengedal, along with Kim Sheppard and Nolan Natasha, will present their very own peepshow.

Image courtesy of OUTeast

The show is sponsored by OUTeast, and true to its bombastic and cinematic lineage, the peep show will be a mix of performance and video.

“I’ve been carrying around the idea of the peepshow as a format to present video for a while,” says Davis. “Nowadays, a peepshow usually refers to the presentation of a sex show or pornographic images; however, different variations of the peepshow have been around for hundreds of years as a form of public storytelling.”

According to Davis, Nocturne is a perfect space for presenting art in a different and public format. “I love coming across art unexpectedly -- in crevices or alleyways or holes in walls. It's like getting let in on a little secret,” she points out. “And I'm nosy, so I find the idea of peepshows quite intriguing.”

Davis’s piece with Tengedal will be presented as an installation in the CBC Radio Room, allowing the public to view it through the large street-level windows. It will alternate with another piece done by Sheppard and Natasha. As to what audiences can expect, Davis is tentative and tight-lipped. “I won't reveal Kim's piece,” she hints, “but ours is titled Neither Science Nor Magic Took Responsibility. It is an animated story of an old lady suffering from an unknown illness that is slowly breaking apart her body.” The presentation will not be a one-time-only event. According to Davis, it will be the start of OUTeast’s public screening series, called Queer Film in Public Spaces: The OUTeast peepIN project. “The peepshow was one of the precursors to cinema,” she says. “This screening series is a precursor to our festival. It's a little metaphor.”

For more information about Nocturne, check out their website at nocturnehalifax.ca.

If you want to find out more about OUTeast, you can find their website at outeastfilmfest.com.

Author's note: Although this blog will predominantly discuss events that are happening in Atlantic Canada's queer community, it will also, on occasion, deal with larger issues at hand. 

It started with an email from a friend of mine.

“Donny done died.”

Donny was in his early 20s when he contracted HIV. He had a hard time dealing with his HIV status, as well as other issues, both mental and physical. Donny knew that, statistically speaking, he could live for quite a while. But he wondered whether he wanted to. And I wondered if I wanted to write about his death or not.

The jury is still out on whether journalists should discuss suicide in the media, specifically when it is the cause (or the decision that led to, if you want to be a stickler about it) of death. In a world where queer teen suicides are being more and more openly discussed, it becomes an ethical quandary for journos. It has been argued that to disclose death by suicide is to glamorize the death of an individual in a public spotlight, a tactic that, according to some, may lead others to follow in their footsteps. Do we write about what is happening and address the issue, or do we circumvent it and report “just the facts”?

Well, here are “the facts” in Donny’s death, according to a local Texas paper:

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According to police officials, a Pontiac Solstice being driven by 32-year-old Franklin May was travelling eastbound on US 80 when his vehicle left the roadway near the exit ramp to southbound I-635. The vehicle became airborne, flew over an embankment and then struck the outer guardrail on southbound I-635. The vehicle crossed all lanes of southbound I-635 and struck the centre concrete divider. Debris from the vehicle struck two other vehicles that were travelling northbound on I-635.

May was ejected from the vehicle and pronounced dead at the scene by officials from the Dallas County Medical Examiner's office. May was the sole occupant of the vehicle and there were no other injuries reported as a result of the accident. Investigators are still trying to determine what caused the vehicle to leave the roadway. (The italics are mine)

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Franklin (Donny) May wrote this on his Facebook wall the day before:

“I used to love you. Maybe coulda change the course of both or our lives. Now I drive into the support beans of an underpass.”

He said shit like that all the time.

This is the same guy who talked about snorting Valium off Chuck Liddell’s ass. The guy who lived unapologetically. A self-described “short, stout, loud-mouthed, hairy, scary, sweaty, horny, friendly little guy from the deep south,” Donny was amazing. It’s hard to eulogize someone who would write “DOOOD I have not had Valium in a while. Wow. I JUST LIT THE WRONG END OF A CIGARETTE! WHO WANTS TO GO SWIMMING?!?!?”” or “Note to self: next time you have $200 to burn, do NOT go to IKEA for moar furniturz. GET A FUCKING PASSPORT. Also: don't forget to douche.”

My friendship with Donny consisted of chat logs and late-night phone calls. He’d be blazing out on some highway in the middle of the southern US, talking about how he loved Condoleezza Rice because “she was such a cunt.” He was unapologetic for being a highly sexual person. For being what he would often describe as “a hot mess.” This is a guy who once said on his (now defunct) blog, “So HERE I AM, YA STUPID CUNTS. Random hookups with hot guys make me happy. Meaningful emotional bonds make me happy. Nachos make me happy, and good spellers make my dick hard.”

It’s hard to eulogize someone who would finish conversations with “plz douche kthxbye.” I am not here to glamorize the death of someone who took his own life. There is nothing glamorous in a news brief about someone you know who was ejected across the pavement. There is nothing glamorous when someone feels the need to “drive into the support beams of an underpass.” I am not angry with Donny, or his reasons, or his decisions. But I’m not happy. And I don’t know whether I did the right thing in discussing his death. But I did it because I believe that it is best to bring things to light, rather than be shushed and mystified.

It was also the first day of this blog, so unfortunately, I was unable to post anything about it.

I was 17 when I came out. I was living in rural Nova Scotia and it was 1993. I remember writing down the date in my journal: Oct 11, 2011 – kids those days had journals, not blogs – and only as an adult did I find out about the strange synchronicity of that event. I’ve now been out for more than half of my life. Even though coming out is often an intensely personal and private matter, in the end, it is about public visibility. And if it weren’t for others that I met who had come out, I don’t know if I would have been able to do it when I did, and in the manner in which I did: with confidence.

My thanks to them.

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In keeping with the theme of “coming out,” well then come one, and come all to the 2011 Halifax Pride annual general meeting.

The meeting takes place between 7 and 9pm at the Residence Inn Marriott, at 1599 Grafton St (across from Maxwell’s Plum), in the Piccadilly Room on the main floor. The meeting will discuss and vote on new bylaws. You can read them here (with thanks to Daniel MacKay for posting these on Gay Halifax).

And for something on the lighter side, I’d like to share with you something that came across my desktop this morning.

Image via Gawker.

Happy belated Coming Out Day!