Hostelling International Toronto (Canada)

During my two recent trips to Toronto I stayed at Hostel International Toronto. The hostel, like the city, is super clean. The lobby, commons areas, hallways and bathrooms are all very clean and nice smelling. H.I. Toronto has about three commons: the first floor contains book exchange, billiards, juke box, and public computers; in the cellar is the big tv room (along with the open kitchen and groovy restaurant); the fourth or fifth floor holds the outdoor patio.

Each of the rooms in which I slept were fine. Some of the bedsprings squeaked but not by a great deal and I found the mattresses, complete with crisp linens, comfortable.

There is a fee for everything, though, and it is not always worthwhile. For one, the available computers are unreliable. The Internet disconnects seemingly every four minutes sans known reason and have to be continually restarted. At $3/hr the only nice thing is that the time can be used throughout your stay as opposed to being used in one sitting. Since there are several outside Internet cafes which charge the same rate, and many of which stay open 24hrs, it is hardly worth wasting one's time using the ones in the hostel. The hostel doesn't offer free breakfast---or coffee!---local calls (some pay phones are on the first floor), towels or luggage storage. Jesus, throw a backpacker a bone, why don't ya!

There is a fee for everything. Jesus, throw a backpacker a bone, why don't ya!

One other very queer thing about H.I. Toronto is the big homo flag that hangs in reception, front and center of several smaller country flags. Homosexuality is not a country so the rainbow banner is terribly anachronous among State flags and since the hostel does not bill itself as a "gay hotel" it's even more bemusing to see it there. The only thing that increases the oddity of the situation is the noticeable absence of the Canadian flag (and I couldn't help but notice there was no American flag either). Huh?! Damn, even Canucks are ashamed to fly the Canadian flag.

And they wonder why Americans know so little about them.

HI Toronto

76 Church Street

1.877.848.8737

website

toronto@hihostels.ca

Safely out of NYC

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Holy cow, do I have timing or do I have timing! First I got safely out of Mexico, then Canada and, now, New York Shitty has declared its first swine flu death...and I just left four days ago. Whew!

Can I get a whoop,whoop!

"Why Torture is Wrong" is torturous to sit through

Last Sunday a good friend invited me to the Public Theater to see the last performance of "Why Torture is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them," a play by Christopher Durang.

The title is nothing short of arresting. The play, however, is not. I was ready to leave at intermission but as the playwright was sitting just four seats down---and blocking the exit---I felt obliged to see it through in the name of friendship. Maybe in the second half the dialogue gets beyond memorable one-liners, I semi prayed. Well, let's just say, God was out busy buying a Mother's Day gift.

New York intellectuals have to pen it ooh la la literati, making it esoteric and abstract. Like the crap exhibited at MOMA

The temper and sexual attraction of the supposed terrorist were unbelievable, and the injection of slapstick throughout the play was...an awkward head-scratcher of, What the fuck?! Funny, yes, but why include it? Perhaps to distract from the wanderings of the production.

It's not impossible to make torture morbidly ha-ha. One only has to look through the annals of psychopathology, capital punishment, New Yorker cartoons or recent Hollywood movies for tried and true material. Damn, he just slit her oragami style! Ain't that a hoot! But, no, New York intellectuals have to pen it ooh la la literati, making it esoteric and abstract. Like the crap exhibited at MOMA.

It's not impossible to make torture morbidly ha-ha

While the acting and directing were evidently polished---translation: overly cheeky writing---the set design took the cake. The scenes/rooms actually rotated round the stage. I thought that was cool. Sitting through Why Torture is Wrong convinced me that Mr Durang must be one of those people who loves them.

Add to resume: Underwear model

Well most times it's a tiresome pick-up line and sometimes it's legit. In this case, it was legit: when the Vancouver-based underwear company, Sweat Undergear, approached me on the beach for modelling they meant business. Now I can add "underwear model" to the 'ol resume. Ha!

You can view some of the shots that will make it into the company's new catalog at Taco de Ojo.

Why I still write letters

Talking online, which is to say, typing, is the most common way to not be yourself nowadays. People have sooooo many "friends" online they don't know what to do with themselves; but they know enough not to meet face-to-face because then the spell is broken.

Dennis Raymond got so incensed when his AOL chat buddy refused to hook-up like normal real people, which is to say, face-to-face versus emoticons (smileys) that he stabbed her dead as she sat in a Bronx park on Tuesday. The weather was nice on Tuesday...perfect for enjoying the park...but I digress. And Dennis Raymond---aka Mike to his AOL friends---gives new meaning to reach out and touch someone.

With "friends" like that I'll take a computer virus any day.

52 jobs in 52 weeks

Sean Aiken has the enviable experiencing of test driving, as it were, a different job every week. Not sure of what he wanted to pursue after college---sound familiar?---the Canadian hit upon the idea of hiring himself out to any job offer that would train and employ him for one week. He's working fifty-two jobs in fifty-two weeks. And employers think my resume looks spotty! Well, that's one way to get around the interview question, I see you didn't stay long at your last job(s)?

hiring himself out to any job offer that would train and employ him for one week

Mr Aiken has been travelling all over his beloved Canada working jobs as varied as milking cows to instructing yoga to office desk work to shoveling manure. Shoveling shit doesn't appeal to my sense of adventure but I would be missing the forest for the trees if that is all I saw. This one job a week scheme is awesome! From working a smorkasborg of jobs Mr Aiken reaps a cornacopia of references (networking), hands-on training (experience), publicity as he's appeared on local programming and news shows not to mention print, and travel (adventure).

Wouldn't surprise me in the least if after all of this the man settles on a career in travel writing...or as a "blogger."

Sean's website

Stuck on a train on National Train Day

Travelling from Canada to NYC via Amtrak yesterday was a trip -- in the bad sense of the word.

Our train was stranded in Albany for over an hour, after having already arrived there an hour behind schedule, as we waited for the engine to arrive. Then we had to factor in rain. By the time we arrived to Penn Station it was pass midnight. We were slated to arrive at nine-thirty.

All of this on, of all days, National Train Day (May 9th). And can you believe Amtrak did not offer us as much as a complimentary cup of coffee? Tight bastards.

Subway is way better than Quiznos

Quiznos new $4 footlong offer is a footlong joke. I ordered the turkey-bacon sandwich and what I got was a salad with bacon bits between two long pieces of bread. I couldn't even taste the "sandwich." It was alost like biting into cotton candy. Subways $5 footlong (or 6" value meal) deal is way better because it the product looks like what's shown on the poster---and, yes, it actually includes meat which is more than can be said for Quiznos.

A rainy night in Toronto

Last night my host unkindly threw me out of his apartment. The episode had all the trappings of a Roger Corman fright night: cold, rainy night, a lost newcomer in the big city, a controlling antagonist.


Never mind the rain, it is totally unforgivable that I was sent packing johnny-on-the-spot. But I wasn't worried. I've been through worse---much, much worse---and, anyway, was ready to go at the drop of a hat. As the scouts cry, Always be prepared! And I was.

Reloaded MY things in my two suitcases and was out of there in under twenty minutes. The indian giver even took back the stuff he gave me. Talk about class! Imagine: inviting someone over and then tossing him out. You'd think I had stolen something. Fuck him. Though tasteless I am not bothered by that either. I left with what I came with, including my dignity and an ever fixed distrust of any "friend" over forty.

The apartment was beyond nice and comfortable but material stuff doesn't hold much of a trance over me. And I do dislike the notion of being kept. Am too independent and straight for that shit. No golden handcuffs for me, thank ye very little. Now if a wealthy divorcee enters my life, well....

Always be prepared! And I was

Luckily after leaving the bar, which, by the way, was the initial---and un-suspicious and totally innocent---plan of the evening, I found a hostel just two blocks away. Sweet!



This cool cat may not always immediately land on his feet from a fall but I'll be goddamn if I crawl and grovel to any man.

Male figure skaters need to get butch

Male figure skating is finally getting the attention it deserves...in the form of being told to ditch the frilly pooh-pooh costumes and toughten up. Legendary champion Canadian figure skater, Elvis Stojko,(right), a heterosexual, is leading the criticism of today's suspiciously un-masculine athletes who have turned his sport into a laughing stock.

click here to watch the news report

Canuck charm

Since coming to Canada I know exactly what aloof means. No, Canadians are not rude but they don't seem to be 'all there' either.