While plotting this blog series, I considered swapping out this list of my fave events of the year for something more… timely. After all, as far as in-person events go, we’ve seen better years, to say the least. But as far as virtual events go? This was very probably the best year on record.
So here are the 4 events that stuck out most in my mind this year – some in-person, some virtual. I’m immensely grateful to everyone involved in making each of these happen, because this year needed a whole lot of brightening and they managed to brighten it.
(I’m not going to write about my wedding here, by the way… not because it wasn’t one of my favorite events of the year, but because that feels like a cop-out!)
Get On Your Knees
How could I have known what comedian Jacqueline Novak‘s one-woman show Get On Your Knees would be like? All I knew about it was that she was funny and well-reviewed, and that the show was about blowjobs. There are so many different ways a person can talk about blowjobs – I should know – so I wasn’t sure what to expect.
What ensued was a meandering and deeply personal show-long monologue about Jacqueline’s formative fellatio experiences. Her fears, her insecurities, her failures – and also her triumphs, her joys, her successes. She stalked around the stage, mic in hand, ranting about scrotal skin, vulva shame, and the inability to turn off her racing thoughts while giving head. Each and every observation felt fresh, relatable, and outrageously funny.
Part of the reason I do what I do here at Girly Juice is that women have traditionally been discouraged from talking openly about their sex lives – especially if they enjoy sex, especially if they’re critical of the men they have sex with, and especially if the types of sex they prefer to have are considered non-standard. To see a successful female comedian speaking frankly about sex on stage – in a manner both vulnerable and hilarious – reinvigorated my courage and drive to do what I do. I’m so happy Jacqueline’s show got the critical acclaim it deserved, and I know she’s changed the comedy landscape for the better.
The Beaches & Goodbye Honolulu at the Danforth Music Hall
Remember February? Ahh, ignorance was truly bliss.
On February 28th, I flew home from a weeks-long stretch in New York. The reason I’d picked that day was that on February 29th, I had a ticket to go see my brother’s band open for the Beaches. All I knew about the Beaches, going into this show, was that Max’s band had toured with them before, knew them pretty well, and respected them a lot. I knew they were an all-girl group, and some internalized misogyny led me to assume that they wouldn’t rock as hard as Goodbye Honolulu does. Well, I was very wrong.
Sitting in the cushy balcony of the legendary Danforth Music Hall with my parents, I had a quasi-religious experience at that show. Nothing out of the ordinary happened, at least not for the bands; they played their guitars and drums and basses, sang and screamed into their mics, strutted around the stage in hot outfits. But it had been a while since I’d been to a proper rock show, and I felt high even though the only “substance” I’d consumed was a beer from the bar downstairs. I was completely captivated by these bands – first the boys, and then the girls – their talent, their drive, their intensity.
Afterward, I walked out onto the snowy street, dazed and cleansed. I didn’t know, at the time, that this would be the last music show I’d go to in-person for a very long while. But knowing what I know now, I couldn’t have picked a better last hurrah before lockdown.
Abolish Police in Canada teach-in
It had been a few years since I’d been to a political rally, so attending an No Pride in Policing teach-in/rally at Nathan Phillips Square in late June was powerful.
Black and Indigenous activists spoke, read poetry, sang, and played music – some from afar via Zoom, some right in front of us – about the harm police have caused to their communities, and the structural changes that need to be made. Matt and I sat on the pavement, surrounded by hundreds of other (mostly masked and socially-distanced) rapt onlookers, and listened, clapped, and cheered.
The opposition to the event, while expected, was still disheartening. Police on bikes swarmed the perimeter; racist anti-maskers sprayed droplets with their enraged screams. But people attending the event, either as performers or onlookers, dealt with these threats in peaceful and purposeful ways, usually just blocking the opposition’s path to the stage so they couldn’t disrupt the proceedings further.
Since it happened around the same time Pride usually does, and was put on by the No Pride in Policing coalition, this was decidedly a queer community event. It felt so amazing to gather with other queers in service of a vitally important goal – defunding the police and redistributing their budget to other, more worthy causes – during Pride month, a time that’s always been political for us. The work being done by Black Lives Matter Canada (not to mention the organization’s other chapters worldwide) is absolutely phenomenal; I only hope that privileged policymakers start actually listening to them sometime soon.
Theatresports Online
The Bad Dog Theatre has been one of my favorite places for over 14 years. Unfortunately, now, it’s no longer so much a place as a community – both because the pandemic has prevented in-person gatherings, and because the pandemic has caused the Bad Dog to have to give up its physical space for the time being. They’re looking for a new one, but until then, we still have online shows to look forward to.
The programming put on by the Bad Dog this year made every week feel about 15% more bearable for me. Whether their improvisors were performing impromptu plays about love and sex, playing Dungeons & Dragons over Zoom, or interviewing fake “experts” about their fake books, they made me laugh so hard I cried every time I tuned into their YouTube channel.
Theatresports is the Bad Dog’s flagship improv show. I think the first time I ever saw an improv show in my life (that wasn’t an episode of Whose Line Is It Anyway), it was a Theatresports show. It’s a competitive shortform show where two teams go head-to-head to see who can create the funniest scenes and games. In its online form this year, it was hosted every week by Tom Hearn, a vivacious beacon of brightness forever wearing elaborate drag makeup and randomly breaking into song between scenes.
Every time I had a hard week, whether related to pandemic stress, work stress, family stress, or literally anything else, I always knew I could sit down in front of the TV on Thursday night and the Bad Dog crew would keep me company and crack me up. They helped get me through this hell year, and I know I’m not the only one they helped in that way. I can never thank them enough for the laughs they served up in 2020.
What events made you happy this year?