Goodhandys

In addition to the wonderful gallery of photos taken by Peter Bevan (sammy.snapshot@gmail.com) at this link, another Goodhandy’s club patron sent me this link to an excellent gallery of photos from Friday night’s show – thanks Jess!

I’m proud to announce that our most recent update on AmateurCanadianGuys.com is a trans boy jerk off video. For those who don’t understand how someone who does not physically have a penis can “jerk off”, I will quote Holden, our wonderful model: “My right hand does what my body needs to get off (rubs his clitoris) and my left hand does what my mind wants to be doing”…

When trans boy Holden approached us to do porn, he expressed that he wanted to do it not only to make some extra cash, but also to increase visibility of trans boys and their sexuality.

Mandy and I immediately booked the shoot, but we did not immediately decide to post it on www.AmateurCanadianGuys.com because most of our members are gay guys or females into looking at biological boys. But we thought about it, and we said Let’s do it, because Holden is a boy, and we do porn starring boys.

So if you are scared of the thought of seeing “trans guy parts” (this is how Holden refers to his genetalia) then don’t watch our most recent update.

If you are open-minded and want to see a fascinating interview and learn something about trans boys (and perhaps about yourself), please visit this link for a super fascinating solo interview / jerk off video.

Check out this wonderful article in the current issue of Xtra! magazine (www.xtra.ca)

It features a handful of our king performers and discusses Goodhandy’s’ role in the recent surge in new king activity in the Toronto area.

Here is the link to the article: http://www.xtra.ca/public/viewstory.aspx?AFF_TYPE=3&STORY_ID=2689&PUB_TEMPLATE_ID=3

And I will also paste the text of the article in case the above link goes bad in the future:

Renaissance men
Taylor Strande / Xtra / Thursday, March 01, 2007

Forget the suit and tie. Drag kinging in Toronto is rapidly evolving into an art form that goes well beyond the portrayal of a single macho stereotype. With the inclusion of faux-kings, trans performers, bio queens and other genderbending acts, drag has become as fluid as the gender spectrum itself.

“A drag king is not necessarily a masculine-identified individual. We cross spectrums,” says Flare, a local drag legend who has been a performer and producer since the birth of the long-gone troupe The Fabulous Drag Kings in 1998.

A lot has changed since 1995 when the only game in town was the Toronto Drag King Collective shows at Pope Joan’s. Today there are at least two weekly drag nights, three bi-monthly shows and two annual drag king events in Toronto featuring an ever-expanding roster of performers with a variety of styles. With audiences coming out to support this proliferation of events, has the Toronto drag king community finally come into its own?

“I’ve noticed a stepping up of performance strengths in the last six to eight months,” says local drag legend Deb “Dirk” Pearce. “There was a time when the shows were just not as strong and not as tight as they could have been.

“I’ve been in the scene for 15 years and only now am I starting to appreciate again what I’m seeing on stage. It’s about genderbending, genderblending and genderplaying. It’s more of a performance art now.”

Beginning around 2003 there was a kind of a dark period for Toronto kings that included lots of disorganized shows with bad lip-synching and nonexistent choreography and costuming.

The drag king scene remained fragmented for several years, but now there’s a renaissance underway, a new era of creativity and cooperation between kings and other genderbending performers culminating in a slew of new and improved performances.

The year-old pansexual club Goodhandy’s is largely credited with reigniting the Toronto drag king scene.

“I’ve had people come up to me recently at Goodhandy’s telling me they went to the shows at Pope’s and that they are glad the quality of acts is coming back,” says Xtra coverboy Milo de Milo, who coproduces A King’s Ransom at Slack’s with his faux-lover and roommate Sabastien Cognito.

Of course, Goodhandy’s isn’t the first bar to give the kings this level of respect. The defunct dyke bar Pope Joan’s served up a weekly drag king show for seven years before it closed in 2004 and Buddies In Bad Times Theatre has hosted drag king shows including de Milo’s first Colour Me Dragg and the all-but-extinct Hussihop. Tango, too, has had a weekly drag king show for many years.

“The difference with Goodhandy’s is that we’re able to have an opportunity to really work with an establishment that is willing to give us a little bit more power and not charge us money [for the use of the space],” says Flare, who is the reigning Mr Goodhandy’s. The pageant held in December was the first drag king title competition in Toronto, if not in Canada.

When Goodhandy’s opened its doors in May 2006, owners Mandy Goodhandy and Todd Klinck say they didn’t have much exposure to kinging, so when they agreed to have a weekly drag king show, they didn’t know what they were getting into. But it wasn’t long before they recognized the potential of the local performers.

“We wanted to tell them they’re great,” says Mandy. “We wanted to tell them they could do better.”

Goodhandy says that the Friday night drag king shows have become her favourite at the club because of the appreciation she and Klinck receive from the performers. A longtime performer herself and former entertainment director at the long-lost Club Colby’s, Mandy describes the relationship she has with the kings who perform at Goodhandy’s as “a two-way love affair.”

It rings true with the way the kings talk about Goodhandy’s and its owners.

“From the day that I met Mandy and Todd they treated us with respect so we wanted to treat them with respect and put on a good show,” says de Milo.

Although the drag king night at Goodhandy’s started out as an open stage event, they soon shifted to booked gigs with a regular, rotating cast of performers. Now there are two rotating events, King For A Night, in which a particular performer is given control of the evening’s entertainment and its promotion. The other event is the King’s Cabaret, in which a core cast presents a fully choreographed themed show. Past editions have included a hoedown theme and a salute to the ’90s.

“Once kings started on the Goodhandy’s stage, Mandy started encouraging them to put more effort into their performances,” says Klinck. “She is very strict about quality, and she did not want to allow them to go up on stage in a T-shirt and jeans and dance around for their friends. She encouraged them to practice, to introduce choreography, to put on suits and costumes and do duets.”

For her part, Goodhandy attributes the increasing popularity of the Friday night shows to the kings’ passion for performance.

“You’ve got to love what you’re doing,” she says. “The audience needs to see it.”

***The recent renewal of the local drag scene has opened up avenues for new performers with different ways of playing with gender expression.

Skylar Rocket, producer of Genderfukt, a bimonthly show that currently makes its home at Hacienda Lounge, says the changes in the drag king scene mirror changes in larger queer women’s/trans scene.

“First there were lesbians, then there were butch lesbians and femme lesbians, then there were trannies,” says Rocket. “I think the next ‘thing’ is gender fluidity and androgyny.

“The only thing we’re looking for is some sort of performance of gender,” says Rocket of Genderfukt. “We don’t censor performances. We don’t censor art.”

“When you limit people from performing because of how they identify, what they look like or how long their hair is, that stops us from being artists,” says King’s Ransom’s Cognito.

Many kings, however, say there is still pressure for some kings not to perform because they are too feminine or because they are trans.

“One of the producers at Tango was only asking boyish-looking girls to perform,” says Justin Zaas, a Goodhandy’s convert. “There are women in this community who want to perform but they’re afraid to because they don’t look like a boy and they feel like people are going to laugh at them.”

“I am now at a place from performing at Goodhandy’s where I can get up on stage in a skirt or a dress and still call myself a drag king,” says Logan, who did just that at a recent King’s Cabaret performance at Goodhandy’s.

The international stages have also recognized this change. The annual drag king conference, which takes place at varying locations across North America, recently changed its name to the International Drag King Community Extravaganza to reflect the diversity of its performers.

Opening the scene up to a diversity of gender expression isn’t the only sticking point in the drag scene.

“Currently there is still a huge percentage of white drag kings in the community compared to people of colour,” says de Milo who produces Colour Me Dragg, a showcase for drag performers of colour (the next of which will be Tue, Jun 19 at Goodhandy’s).

However, things are slowly turning around thanks to establishments like Goodhandy’s that promote an environment that is open to all sexualities, genders and colours, and to producers who recognize the need for change.

“As the community gets more comfortable with its diversities, so do the performers, because we are part of this community, too,” says Cognito.

Goodhandy’s (120 Church St) hosts regular drag king shows every Friday night at midnight. Doors at 9pm; no cover until 10:30pm (unless there’s a special event on, such as Lynee Breedlove’s One Freak Show on Mar 2; see page 39 for details); $2 after. For more information check out Goodhandys.com.

Tango (508 Church St) hosts regular drag kings every Wednesday night at 11pm in the Zone. Doors at 4pm. No cover.

For information about upcoming A King’s Ransom events check out Myspace.com/kingsransomtoronto.

For more on upcoming Degenderit events check out Myspace.com/degenderit.

For more on upcoming Genderfukt shows e-mail skylar.rocket@gmail.com.

Cover guy Milo de Milo performs at the International Women’s Day edition of BrownGirlWorld on Fri, Mar 9 at Goodhandy’s. Sliding scale $8 to $12; advance tickets available at the Toronto Women’s Bookstore (73 Harbord St).

Just a note to everyone that we have changed our Saturday night cover charge policy for now – FREE before 11pm, $5 after.
Come on by and check out the Pansexual Showcase and one of our two kick-ass DJs – Nikki Red, or DJ Carma.
See you soon!