Douchey bosses suck.

So once again my current douchey boss is making horrible business decisions and alienating his artists yet again. There's a show coming up, and apparently my hoop act can't be in it as it was performed the last time we were in this area. I proposed a few other options including my new rope solo only to be told that not only could my proposed act not be used, as a similar act was performed over 6(!!) years ago in this venue, but that an outside rope artist has been hired for the show. WTF? Why have a company if you don't give them work? I think because I had the audacity to market myself on my own, suddenly I'm a traitor. Also, I responded via e mail upon finding out about this rope person that I was really disappointed that I wasn't thought of if a rope act was wanted and that it should be known that such an act exists if future gigs come up. I have to have a chat with boss-man, but honestly if this level of douche-baggery keeps up, I'm done. I have other options and a business to start up and frankly I don't make enough money teaching class and getting, like, 2 shows a year to have to put up with such disrespectful treatment. I'm getting 2-sentence e mails about how I have to pay for my own work permit but not to do anything yet as he'll let me know if he's "going to use me" in the show.

What a dick.

massive squee!!

Hey all. Remember the handbalancer guy I blogged about in the veeeery first post on this thing? The one I toured with? The nerdy one who was glorious and rippling and super awesome?

He may be coming to visit in September. This is very exciting news!!

I'll keep you posted on details, but if it happens, it's gonna be epic.

awesome cosplays I simply had to share!!

Ok, so these people are awesome, let's all bask in their greatness:

This is NOT Tilda Swinton. It's some chick from T.O. I can't believe it, she looks just like her! And the costume; she recreated accurate scorch marks! Awesome, I give her massive props!

Ok, this guy's cosplay is good, but he's super pretty so that's why he's here.. Sorry.

and finally, for Oscar: SATSUGAIIII!!!

more man issues and circus news

So first, I'm really tired of finding cool guys to fill my current dating void, only to have them end up identifying as poly in their preference or some such crap. I hate how it's trendy to whore around, so much so that now there's a hip new name for it, because I guess "swinger" went out of style in the '70's. I'm talking about fire guy, who I'm still tentatively hanging out with, but he's basically got a girl in every port so to speak yet still identifies as single. Uhh, dude, if you've been screwing the same girl for a year and seeing two others on and off, you're many things, but single is not one of them. Sigh. I guess that's what I get trying to draw from a pool of crunchy, "alternative" people like fellow performers and fire people. Oh well, they're all still fun to hang out with, so at least I've made some new friends. A silver lining of sorts.

As far as circus, I had a meeting today with Lexi, the other aerialist from TG about starting a company of our own that would hit up 2 main markets: the fetish scene and, get this, the anime convention circuit! I was looking at a page that had a list of every con in the world and there were at least 200 links. Even if one out of every 10 cons brings us on board, we'll still have enough gigs to, hopefully, keep the company afloat. Lexi's meeting with a graphic designer of tuesday to get a website up and running, but we need a name for our company, because right now it's just a number. Actually, we need 2 names, one for the overall company, something gender neutral, maybe a word that implies a group but not one that as anything to do explicitly with circus. The site will divide into 2 parts from the main page, with the more fetish-y area labeled as "skybound" but we need something similar for the anime section. Anyone know of a japanese word that might work? Or an english one, I'm not picky. Something implying the air or sky but with a twist that would be recognizable as anime-specific...

Grr! I'm still a bit bummed about fire-guy. Am I being too prudish? Is monogamy out of fashion/an unexceptable expectation? Should I pursue him anyway? Suggestions?

oh, and here's a pic of octopus lady from TG...Some/many of you seemed intrigued..

Finally..Torture Garden in review!

Ok, so it's taken a while for pictures to be approved and posted, but I found some good ones so here we go:

Friday: was at the swingers club Wicked, on queen, and was slightly awkward because the venue let their members/anyone who wanted to use the upstairs facilities for actual swinging..which would have been fine had our changing area not been the locker room where all the soon-to-be- swingers changed as well. Stretching is much harder when trying not to make eye contact with the dis-robing man beside you as he prepares to go have sex with a random stranger. Got a decent picture out of it, tough, note the man groping the girl in the background. Classy.

Saturday went well, Heather's neck was better by this point and I think we had a rather inspired wardrobe idea. We used elastic to make shibari knots so that as we moved and bent, so would the elastic. It worked really well and looked, from what I've seen, really awesome. The outfits that night were out of this world. My fave was the guy in the custom latex Anubis costume, full body-suit complete with Jackal head piece with raised hieroglyphic applique. Awesome! Also made friends with some fire spinners, one of whom had commissioned through Northbound a latex corset in red and black leopard print. It was nice..and reeeally expensive. I also hit it off with one of the guys, Ian, who has super mad staff spinning skills and has agreed to teach me in exchange for aerial lessons. Needless to say I will do my best to remain in the company of this rather attractive individual. Here are some pics from saturday.

Heather and I after silks. Silks plus very little clothing =massive burns.

Ian in ninja mode.

Saturday had, by far, the most extreme performances, from the fire guys' fire swords act to the suspension guys (for those blissfully unaware, suspension is where grown people hang themselves from hooks implanted in their own skin. It was gross and disturbing in a compelling kind of way. )

Another performance was a girl who did blindfolded self-shibari, which I found impressive, but then finished her act by bringing out a giant dead octopus and doing inappropriate things to it, including having it ink all down her front as the finale..It was rather shocking, even to Heather' who has seen more of this stuff than me, but it had the audience talking and I guess that was the point.

Sunday was my big day, my hoop act went well, I made some good connections, including with the owner of Northbound Leather, who said he wanted me for his Halloween party, the Holy Grail of fetish nights and an event I have wanted to perform at for a long time! Yay! No pictures of hoop yet, but I'll keep you all posted. I really enjoyed the whole process, and for the first time really felt like I could make a go at this whole full time performer thing. Hopefully, if my place sells for enough I can start a business for real and get a website going and sell sell sell to the various events like this one around the planet. Lots of the other performers follow the TG dj's around from city to city. They don't make a ton, but they're living an awesome life and get treated pretty well as they go..I think Heather and I make a good team, here's hoping she agrees and all goes well. I need to have a meeting with her about where she would like to go from here, if anywhere, but hopefully she realizes that this market, the fetish scene, is starved for quality circus. I say we fill a void!

yay a new post and...showtime!

K, so don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to this weekend, Torture Garden Toronto, I really am, but can the circus gods please let me catch a break, for once? Please? My stuff is fine, but the other aerialist, the girl who got me the gig in the first place, just f-ed up her neck and can't perform tonight and may be sitting tomorrow out as well. This is v. not good since I'm not really in my element until Sunday, when I debut my hoop solo. (Go me!) Massive sigh. Now I have to do all the last min. running around because Heather's laid up, unable to look up or down. I hope she can perform tomorrow, I really do, because as you all know (or ought to) I really don't like silks, and that's the apparatus of choice for Saturday. On the up side, my make up should be, as the french say, le awesome. I'll try to take some pics of my own and post them here. I'm thinking they should be relatively nudity free, we'll see.

Hey, and I just re-read some of my older posts, the ones concerning the dress of doom and fabric copification..problem solved! When life hands you a creepy stalker copy-cat who keifs your fabric and makes a eerily similar historical re-creation dress; send them to Germany. Yes, Mike and the stupid-face girlfriend have gone to Germany and will be there until after the Casa Loma ren. fair! Yay! Just thought you all would like to know how that worked out. quite nicely, actually...Now if only the circus gods would be so accommodating.

ramblings

Hey all, just posting for the sake of keeping this thing fresh. Hopefully, something of note will be on here in approx. 2 weeks, I'll keep y'all in the loop about that.

There's a chance I'm going to be walking in Toronto Alternative Fashion week (or, FAT, for some reason) for a designer named Artifice Clothing. Check out their website, they make really cool and unique pvc designs, the likes of which I've never seen and which are shockingly reasonably priced. I want to buy their Lee-Loo cosplay option in red to wear on the saturday or sunday for the upcoming Toronto Fetish Weekend that I'm performing at.

That's about it, although for my own sanity I need to mention that Mikes stupid-face girlfriend is creeping me out more and more. Now, along with starting a blog, learning to sew, amassing a corset collection, going to ren. fairs, creating a modeling profile, and attending Anime North for the first time in May, she apparently just LOVES Dr. Who.

My urge to punch the both of them is rising...