The Georgia Straight - Psychedelic City - October 8, 2020

OCTOBER 8 – 15 / 2020 | FREE

Volume 54 | Number 2750

For many decades, Vancouver has been on the cutting edge of trippy therapeutic treatments, only now it's on the verge of going mainstream

ESPORTS PERKS

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CANNABIS INFLUENCER

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CONDO MARKET

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O T T O TA U S K

LOVE WHERE YOU LIVE

CONTENTS 12

COVER

October 8 – 15 / 2020

Vancouver has long been a centre for psychedelic therapy, even back in the 1950s, but its future has probably never looked brighter than today.

By Charlie Smith Cover illustration by Andrey Korshenkov/Shutterstock

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ESPORTS

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Espo aims to bring ESports fans straight to the heart of the action by forging meaningful connections with teams and players.

By John Lucas

FOOD

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Despite the pandemic, Thanksgiving dinner is on the menu at many local restaurants—and this year, there’s also high-end takeout.

By Charlie Smith

e Start Here

e Online TOP 5

13 CANNABIS 15 CLASSIFIEDS

Here’s what people are reading this week on Straight.com.

14 CONFESSIONS 7

LIQUOR

10 MUSIC 3 POLITICS 6 REAL ESTATE 14 SAVAGE LOVE 11 THEATRE

Vancouver’s News and Entertainment Weekly Volume 54 | Number 2750 1635 West Broadway, Vancouver, B.C. V6J 1W9 T: 604.730.7000 F: 604.730.7010 E: gs.info@straight.com straight.com

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PUBLISHER Brian Kalish FOUNDING PUBLISHER Dan McLeod EDITOR Charlie Smith SECTION EDITORS Mike Usinger (ESports/Liquor/Music) Steve Newton SENIOR EDITOR Martin Dunphy ASSOCIATE EDITOR John Lucas (Cannabis) STAFF WRITERS Carlito Pablo (Real Estate) Craig Takeuchi SOLUTIONS ARCHITECT Jeff Li ART DEPARTMENT MANAGER Janet McDonald GRAPHIC DESIGNER Miguel Hernandez PRODUCTION SUPERVISOR Mike Correia SALES DIRECTOR Tara Lalanne ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVES Glenn Cohen, Catherine Tickle, Robyn Marsh, Manon Paradis, David Pearlman CONTENT AND MARKETING SPECIALIST Rachel Moore

1 2 3 4 5

The Reef Restaurant shuts down after two decades of Caribbean meals.

A 70-square-foot storage room is Vancouver’s lowestpriced real-estate listing.

Dr. Bonnie Henry says B.C. is doing the right thing but can’t let down its guard.

Mick Fleetwood proves how cool an old-guy drummer can be on TikTok. Shouldn’t we elect a few Greens to hold Horgan’s new government accountable? @GeorgiaStraight

CIRCULATION MANAGER Giles Roy CREDIT MANAGER Shannon Li ACCOUNTING SUPERVISOR Tamara Robinson

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POLITICS

Green Leader Annamie Paul seeks major reforms

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by Charlie Smith

he Green Party of Canada has chosen a multilingual Toronto lawyer as its new leader over a more radical candidate from Quebec.

Annamie Paul captured 50.63 percent of the support on the final ballot, beating Montreal lawyer Dimitri Lascaris, who ended up with 42.22 percent.

Paul, the daughter of Caribbean immigrants, has a law degree from the University of Ottawa and a master’s degree in public affairs from Princeton University.

She’s the first Jewish and Black leader of a national political party and she speaks English, French, Spanish, and Catalan.

An international human-rights lawyer, Paul has called on Canada to withdraw from the Safe Third Country Agreement with the United States. This pact enables Canada to turn back asylum seekers from that country.

In addition, Paul favours a national ban on fracking, a guaranteed livable income, and protecting 50 percent of Canada’s natural landscapes by 2050.

Paul received endorsements from B.C. Green Leader Sonia Furstenau, Juno-winning musicians Tegan and Sara, and actor R. H. Thomson.

Former Green leader Elizabeth May did

Federal Green leader Annamie Paul says her first name means “a friend” in the patois dialect.

not formally endorse Paul, but she supported fundraising efforts of equity-seeking candidates, including Paul. In addition, May joined Paul during the campaign for a virtual cross-country conversation.

In May, Paul explained to The Agenda host Steve Paikin that her given name, Annamie, is patois in origin and means “a friend”. She plans on running in an upcoming by-election in Toronto Centre. In 2019, Paul came fourth in the riding, losing

to Liberal candidate Bill Morneau, who has since resigned as finance minister and MP. The second-place finisher in the Green party leadership race, Lascaris, was endorsed by several outspoken critics of Israel, including Pink Floyd cofounder Roger Waters and Vancouver rabbi David Mivasair.

This support came after Lascaris called for political, military, and economic sanctions on Israel for “its illegal occupation and settlement”. He also demanded that Canada cancel an arms deal with Saudi Arabia and the resumption of diplomatic relations with Iran.

Others on the left who backed Lascaris’s candidacy included international antinuclear advocate Helen Caldicott, former Bowen Island mayor Lisa Barrett, and former Ontario CUPE president Sid Ryan.

In the spring, a party vetting committee tried to prevent Lascaris from running, but that decision was overturned on appeal.

In one of his policy papers, Lascaris declared that the 1493 European Doctrine of Discovery, a papal decree used as justification for Christians seizing land from Indigenous peoples, “lies at the heart of our troubled relationship” with First Nations people.

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Lascaris called this “destructive fiction”.

“The core reality that must be understood is that the capitalist, racist, colonial and extractive paradigm that drives our economic system and perpetuates violence against Indigenous peoples is leading to the extinction of diversity in its myriad forms— cultural, political, biological and social,” he wrote on his website. “The causes of injustice towards Indigenous peoples are at the root of the current climate crisis. We believe that a transformative decolonial paradigm shift is the only sound way forward.”

Over Twitter, Lascaris extended his congratulations to Paul.

“I wish Annamie every success as the Green Party of Canada builds upon the foundation created under @ElizabethMay’s leadership,” he wrote.

The third-place finisher was Courtney Howard, president of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment.

In order of votes received, the other candidates were former Ontario environment minister Glen Murray, former Liberal Party of Canada in B.C. president David Merner, astrophysicist Amita Kuttner, lawyer Meryam Haddad, and lawyer Andrew West. g

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ESPORTS

Espo aims to bring fans to the heart of the action

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by John Lucas

ave you ever dreamed about receiving one-on-one coaching in terrorist-hunting tactics from your favourite Rainbow Six Siege player? Ever wished you could rock that one killer jersey that was gone three seconds after it went on sale? Espo is hoping to make your dreams (and wishes) come true.

The fan-engagement platform—slated to launch later this month—is the brainchild of Henry James. Espo’s founder and CEO brings to the table a background in both financial technology and sportstalent management. More importantly, he brings his love of gaming. As he watched ESports grow into a multimillion-dollar industry, though, James felt that something was getting lost in all the hype.

“Over the last 10 years, as an ESports fan myself, I felt that the gap in proximity between ESports fans and players has been widening year on year,” James tells the Straight in a Skype call from London, England. “Our goal with our platform is to close that gap as much as possible and to bring the ESports fan to the heart of the action.”

FANS WANT LIMITED-EDITION MERCH

Toward that end, Espo asked hundreds of ESports aficionados which “perks” they most wished they could access. In addition to the aforementioned coaching opportunities, the fans expressed a desire for highly coveted team merchandise.

“Specifically, limited-edition merch,” James says. “So, stuff that they can’t go ahead and buy themselves on the website of Team X or Team YZ. They’d like to be able to access products made in a limited run or limited drops. Signed merch is extremely popular, from our research. As long as the merch is something that people can’t easily access, we’ve found that that stuff is super desirable—including old runs of merch. People have told us, ‘Hey, I want

The goal of the London, England-based organization Espo is to close the gap between newfound fans and players who have made the pro ranks.

to get my hands on that 2018 jersey, which seems to be out of reach now.’”

To date, Espo has announced partnerships with three ESports organizations: F2K (Fade 2 Karma), which started as a Hearthstone team but has since grown into a small army of dozens of Twitch streamers; Team Queso, a Spanish outfit fielding squads in LoL, Clash Royale, CS:GO, Fortnite, and PUBG Mobile; and Sweden’s

B ig MONEY AVAILABLE d TORONTO-BASED ENTHUSIAST GAMING has announced another edition of its Rising Stars reality competition.

As in the past, the goal will be to discover the next big gaming superstar. To that end, 40 contestants will get the chance to audition on Twitch. From there a panel of celebrity judges will whittle that number down to eight for a second round.

Eliminations will continue until there are two gamers in the final.

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For participants, the attraction is obvious.

Luminosity will give the last woman or man standing a US$100,000 sponsorship and a spot on the Team Luminosity roster. That means getting the chance to hang with fellow rostered players like xQc, Anomaly, RockyNoHands, Muselk, and Fresh, who will also be among the judges.

Entries close on October 10 at 8:59 p.m. at risingstars.gg. g

OCTOBER 8 – 15 / 2020

by Mike Usinger

Godsent, which has active LoL, Apex Legends, Rainbow Six Siege, Hearthstone, CS:GO, and Dota 2 rosters.

MEMBERSHIP IS FREE

For fans, Espo membership is free. The teams, however, will run their own campaigns and will set their own fees for the perks they offer.

“Just to provide an example, Godsent have said that they would like their first campaign on the Espo platform to be for their CS:GO roster,” James explains. “If there is a financial amount that needs to be contributed towards this campaign to access a certain perk, that amount will be stated on the campaign page, and it will be decided by Godsent.”

If you’re worried about being compelled to dig too deep into the funds you’ve been saving for new Fortnite skins, never fear. Not everything on Espo will cost you money.

“There will be some perks on there that will not require a financial outlay from our users,” James says. “Some perks will be available in exchange for EXP points, which are the loyalty points within the Espo platform, but that will

not require a cash amount.”

The way James describes it, Espo will be a win-win for all parties. Participating teams, for instance, will get a revenue boost from their campaigns and will also gain access to a network of corporate sponsors. It’s not all about the bottom line, though. It’s also about forging meaningful connections.

“What we’ve been really excited about is seeing just how open ESports teams are to engaging with their fan base,” James says. “They really want to do it, and some, more than others, are really struggling to do that. They might not have the resources; they might not know how; they might not have the infrastructure.

“That’s where, hopefully, we’re providing some value to them: in helping them to actually get closer to their fan base.” g

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REAL ESTATE

Condo market softening while single houses rise Pandemic concerns causing buyer shift from condos to more spacious single-family detached homes

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by Carlito Pablo

or hopeful home buyers, next year may be a good time.

If it’s a condo in big markets like Vancouver or Toronto that they’re looking for, 2021 could be their lucky year.

That’s because a recent RBC Economics report forecasts a softening of condo prices in major residential markets.

“The bottom line is we expect condo prices to weaken in larger markets next year…,” economist Robert Hogue wrote.

In September 2020, condo prices declined slightly month-over-month in markets represented by the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver.

The REBGV covers Vancouver, Burnaby, New Westminster, North Vancouver, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, Maple Ridge, Pitt Meadows, Richmond, South Delta, Squamish, Sunshine Coast, West Vancouver, and Whistler.

In its report on October 2, the board noted that sales of condos reached 1,596 last month, a 36.9 percent increase compared to the 1,166 sales in September 2019.

The benchmark price increased 4.5 percent from September 2019 but declined 0.3 percent compared to August 2020.

The price of a typical condo in REBGV markets was $683,500 last month.

Compared to June 2020, September’s benchmark price for condos represents a 0.4 percent increase. However, when compared to March this year, last month’s price was a 0.9 percent decrease.

Meanwhile, benchmark prices of detached homes and townhouses in the region in September 2020 increased month

The impact of COVID-19 on housing markets means reduced investor interest in condos, so Yaletown (above) might turn out to be a condo shopping mall. Photo by Stephen H./Unsplash.

over month by 1.1 percent and 0.4 percent, respectively, in September.

The same happened in areas covered by the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board. These are Surrey, North Delta, White Rock, Langley, Abbotsford, and Mission.

In September 2020, the benchmark price of a condo in FVREB markets was $436,900, a 0.1 percent decline compared to August of the same year.

Meanwhile, prices of detached homes and townhouses in the region increased 1.3 percent and 0.6 percent, respectively, over August.

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Hogue made the prediction about weakening condo prices as part of his broader report about the Canadian housing situation and COVID-19.

The forecast comes on the heels of previous observations regarding a shift in buyer preference from condos to detached homes because of the pandemic.

Last July, Statistics Canada predicted such a shift.

“As working from home becomes more prevalent,” the agency stated,” we may see an increase in the demand for larger living spaces that single-family

homes can offer, causing a shift in demand from condominium apartments towards single houses.”

On September 4, Hogue released a commentary about the August 2020 housing market, noting that buyers nationwide are “demonstrating a stronger preference for single-detached homes”.

Moreover, the “growing penchant for single-detached homes is supporting stronger price increases in that category”.

In his latest report on September 30, Hogue wrote that the “impact of COVID-19 on the housing market is complex”.

According to Hogue, it will “lead to diverging price trends among regions and housing categories”.

“It is cooling demand for and boosting supply of rentals in large urban areas,” the economist explained. “This, in turn, is reducing investor interest in condos.”

As noted previously, the pandemic is “also altering the housing needs of many current owners who look for more spacious properties in less crowded settings”.

“This is simultaneously shifting demand from condo apartments to single-detached homes and other low-rise categories, and increasing the supply of smaller condos in core urban areas,” Hogue wrote.

Moreover, “work-from-home arrangements and the lesser appeal of big-city living (with reduced cultural and socializing opportunities during these times of social distancing) are increasingly driving buyers further away from downtown locations into suburbs, exurbs and even cottage country.” g

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DRINKS

Acceptance is key to making Thanksgiving a blast

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by Mike Usinger

ike Christmas and booze-free wakes, Thanksgiving is one of those celebrations where the main goal is making it across the finish line with your sanity intact. Preferably without a major blowout over Justin Trudeau’s handling of COVID-19 or the continued existence of Conrad Black.

On that front, liquor makes everything better, including your thoroughly obnoxious relatives. And the key to dealing with that brother-in-law who’ll argue that Donald J. Trump is the greatest world leader that’s ever lived is getting your glow on early and quickly. Save the Cabernet Sauvignon for dinner—unless you plan to spend the afternoon drinking straight from the wine box.

The other key to surviving Thanksgiving is accepting that there’s no point in fighting the holiday. Everything’s easier when you try and have some fun with it, including dressing up like a 1621 pilgrim, including the creased canvas breeches and gold-buckled hat.

Capture the spirit of Thanksgiving with a few easy tricks. The easiest is to break out the muddler and the herbs. Assuming you haven’t gone the Butterball or Swanson dinner route, chances are good you’re stuffing your cranberry-brined turkey with fresh sage, rosemary, and thyme.

The Sage and ’Berry cocktail starts with fresh ingredients and some Thanksgiving prep work.

Make a thyme-infused simple syrup by boiling four or five fresh sprigs in a half-cup or water. After steeping for 15 minutes add a half-cup of honey or sugar and stir until dissolved. Substitute the thyme syrup in an Old Fashioned, muddling a sprig at the bottom of the shaker for an extra flavour kick. Go down a lighter path by combining 2 oz of gin with an ounce of thyme syrup and an ounce of lemon juice, once again muddling a couple

of sprigs in the shaker before going full-on paint-mixer after adding the ice.

We’ve already covered the fabulous Keefer Bar’s brilliant and simple Rosemary Gimlet in a previous Liquor Nerd. While perfect for summer, the cocktail is also herbaceous enough for a Thanksgiving drink or four.

More specific to the holiday is sage, which no one except for the ghost of Julia Child tends to use in day-to-day cooking. Same goes for whole cranberries.

Sage is a funny one in that it’s so mild it’s hard to truly capture its essence in a simple syrup. Don’t let that stop your from trying as per the thyme recipe above, but add a couple of extra sprigs and then bump up the steeping time by an hour or so.

Better yet, expand your simple syrup game by combining five sprigs of sage with 1/2 cup water, 1/2 cup sugar, 3/4 cup of whole cranberries, and 1/4 cup of fresh orange juice.

Bring to a boil, crush the cranberries with a muddler, and then let steep for hour or two, strain, and then store in the fridge. You can add an ounce of triple sec for an orange kick.

Your cranberry-sage syrup will tend to be overpowered by whiskies and bourbons.

Better to swap it in for cocktails that call for vodka or gin.

Unsure of yourself unless you’ve got the safety net of a recipe? That’s okay, fellow liquor nerd. We don’t want Thanksgiving to be any more stressful than it already is. It’s bad enough you’re going to be worrying about giving 85-year-old Aunt Enid salmonella.

Let’s make things easy. Here’s a drink you can make to capture the spirit of the day that every turkey dreads. Not to mention your liver in the official warm-up to the hellishness that is Christmas.

SAGE AND ’BERRY

2 oz. Sipsmith gin 3/4 oz. cranberry syrup 1/4 oz pure maple syrup 3/4 oz fresh lemon juice 2 dashes orange or cranberry bitters Five sage leaves Three whole cranberries Muddle three of the sage leaves in a shaker. Add gin, syrups, lemon juice, bitters, and ice and shake vigorously. Strain into a chilled coupe glass and garnish with sage leaves and whole cranberries. g

Mike Usinger is not a professional bartender. He does, however, spend most of his waking hours sitting on barstools.

OCTOBER 8 – 15 / 2020

THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT

7

FOOD

Thanksgiving options: dine-in or takeout turkey

S

by Charlie Smith

ometimes, cultivating an attitude of gratitude can help folks get through the pandemic. What are you thankful for? The return of pro sports—at least on TV? The pleasant weather that lasted through much of September and into October, making those outdoor walks, runs, and cycle rides a lot more pleasant? How about that U.S. presidential election? Are you grateful that the Trump era just might be coming to an end?

Maybe you’re just glad to know that the performing arts are slowly making a comeback in Vancouver. Or you’re simply grateful that none of your loved ones have contracted COVID-19. If so, we can thank our outstanding medical teams, not to mention the provincial health officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry.

One thing is certain—this Thanksgiving weekend, we can all be thankful that we’re still alive seven months after the World Health Organization declared a pandemic. We can also be grateful that there are plenty of dining options, both takeout and indoors, this holiday weekend. Below, you can check out 10 choices for this year.

BOTANIST

1038 Canada Place This dining room in the Fairmont Pacific Rim is offering two options for Thanksgiving brunch on Saturday (October 10) and Sunday. The two-course version costs $56 per person, and for just $6 extra, diners can enjoy a third course. The main event is slow-roasted turkey, pomme purée, roasted fall vegetables, and traditional gravy. Alternatively, diners can choose prime beef rib eye, wild-mushroom risotto, fish and chips, or crab and avocado, which comes with poached eggs, Dungeness crab, and hollandaise sauce. There are also plenty of choices for appetizers and three options for dessert: chocolate-raspberry bombe, buttermilk panna cotta, and citrus cheesecake.

FABLE DINER Botanist executive chef Hector Laguna made tortillas as a child in Mexico, but now he oversees a high-end kitchen that will create a fabulous Thanksgiving brunch. Photo by PacificRimLife.com.

ANCORA FALSE CREEK

1600 Howe Street At $65 per head, Ancora’s Thanksgiving menu comes with turkey roulade as the entrée, along with root-vegetable pavé, sageand-cranberry jelly, apple purée, broccolini,

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and turkey gravy, followed by a pumpkinmousse napoleon dessert. The appetizer is wild-mushroom soup. Each comes with a recommended B.C. wine for an additional $49 per person and it will be served on Sunday (October 11) and Monday (October 12).

151 East Broadway One of the more affordable Thanksgiving dinners is available at this Mount Pleasant eatery on Sunday. For $20, diners can dig into roast turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, seasonal vegetables, and cranberries. Pay another five bucks and you get some pumpkin pie.

FIVE SAILS RESTAURANT

with brandy Chantilly, roasted Brussels sprouts, yam, potato purée, cranberry, giblet gravy, and maple-oat crumble. For dessert, the restaurant is offering pumpkin tartlette, marshmallow meringue, and vanilla anglaise.

999 Canada Place For $115 per person or $225 per couple, diners can enjoy “Duck Duo”—a seared duck breast and duck-leg ballotine stuffed with chestnut, foie gras, confit apples, brioche, wild mushrooms and truffles, blackberry, and duck jus. It will be served on Sunday and Monday alongside pumpkin velouté, Yukon gold espuma, beet purée, and white asparagus, topped off with crème brûlée for dessert. Tack on a deluxe room at the Pan Pacific Hotel for between $199 to $239, plus tax, and you get to park overnight for free in one of the city’s most expensive lots.

NOTCH8

THE FLYING PIG

1168 Hamilton Street, 127 West 2nd Avenue, and 102 Water Street At $29 per person, the Flying Pig is offering a traditional turkey dinner at its three locations on Sunday, complete with brioche stuffing, peas and carrots, mashed potatoes, and housemade cranberry sauce and gravy.

GLOWBAL RESTAURANT

590 West Georgia Street Glowbal is offering Thanksgiving at home for $35 per person with a minimum of two orders. It comes with plenty of salad options to go along with a main course of roasted boneless turkey, seasoned turkey breast, or turkey-leg roulade, which will be served with traditional stuffing, gravy, and cranberry sauce. In addition, Glowbal is offering a maple-glazed root-vegetable

The Homer Street Café (left) is serving rotisserie-cooked turkey as part of its three-course Thanksgiving meal, while the four Sequoia restaurants will offer takeout turkey for two.

(parsnip, carrot, rutabaga, and pepper squash) dish, broccoli-and-cauliflower casserole, and roasted Brussels sprouts, along with pumpkin tart for dessert. It’s possible to add seafood for another $35.

complemented with Parmesan Brussels sprouts, Bayshore honey-and-herb-glazed winter vegetables, goat cheese, and chive mashed potatoes. In addition, H is offering fig-and-brioche stuffing.

H TASTING LOUNGE

HOMER STREET CAFÉ

1601 Bayshore Drive There’s also Thanksgiving takeout available from this dining room in the Westin Bayshore for $45 per person. The menu features Rossdown Farms’ free-range turkey breast and confit thigh, which will be

898 Homer Street From Saturday to Monday, a three-course Thanksgiving meal is being served at the Homer Street Café for $50 per person. In addition to rotisserie Hayter’s Farm turkey, it comes with butternut-squash bisque

900 West Georgia Street We’re not sure how many people will be dining with large crowds this Thanksgiving weekend. But if you are, Notch8 at the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver is offering a $499 turkey to go that serves 10 people. It includes a whole roasted, free-range Fraser Valley turkey, fruit bread stuffing, honeyroasted root vegetables, bee-pollen butter, brown-butter Yukon Gold mashed potatoes, cranberry relish, pan gravy, artisan roll, pumpkin-cranberry cheesecake tart, and cinnamon Chantilly.

SEQUOIA COMPANY OF RESTAURANTS

Cardero’s (1583 Coal Harbour Quay), Seasons in the Park (Queen Elizabeth Park), The Sandbar (1535 Johnston Street, Creekhouse #102, Granville Island), and The Teahouse (Ferguson Point, 7501 Stanley Park Drive) are offering “Thanksgiving Dinner for Two” takeout meals for $69, which will be available on Sunday and Monday. People can preorder online for a meal that includes seasonal salad, turkey, a variety of side dishes, and dessert. For those who want to dine in, Thanksgiving dinner will cost $42 per person. g

IT’S LIKE

FALLING

IN LOVE ALL OVER AGAIN Fresh St. Market at Vancouver House 1423 Contin inental St. • Open Everydaay 11am-6pm m OCTOBER 8 – 15 / 2020

THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT

9

ARTS

VSO opens virtual season with Bach and Beethoven

W

by Charlie Smith

hen Maestro Otto Tausk led the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra’s performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 at the Commodore Ballroom on March 11, it came on a momentous day.

It marked the very same day that the World Health Organization described COVID-19 as a pandemic. That led performing arts organizations around the world to halt live performances in the following days and weeks.

“I thought it would all be over much quicker,” Tausk recently told the Straight by phone. “That’s me being completely naive, of course, because if you look at what was already happening in the world, the signs were

very clear that this is a very serious situation.”

The following day at the Orpheum, the VSO livestreamed Beethoven’s fifth and sixth symphonies to more than 100,000 fans around the world. According to VSO president and CEO Angela Elster, this marked the orchestra’s first livestream in its 101-year history.

But by then it was dawning on everyone in the classical-music world that the novel coronavirus was going to deal a serious blow to symphony orchestras. That’s because the musicians, including those using wind instruments, normally perform in close proximity.

“Within 24 hours, we transformed our

Limited Seating Available

business plan,” Elster said by phone. “You know, 40 to 50 percent of our revenue evaporated that day, with $9 million in ticket sales [foregone].”

But because music is in the DNA of Tausk, the staff, and the musicians, they decided to carry on. A new VSO@home digital series was launched, attracting more than 500,000 viewers. Major sponsors also stepped forward to help.

That, in turn, led to the launch of the VSO’s new streaming concert service, TheConcertHall.ca, which will offer 40 concert performances this season for just $12.99 per month.

On October 16, the opener will feature internationally renowned Canadian violinist James Ehnes performing Johann Sebastian Bach’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in A Minor as part of the Assante Vancouver Centre Stars Series.

“We were so happy that James Ehnes, a soloist who has been with the orchestra for many years as a guest artist, was able to join us,” Tausk said.

According to Elster, Ehnes was recorded at Christ Church Cathedral in Vancouver on September 15. Everyone wore masks and proper health protocols were followed, but still, Elster said, there was anxiety in the air.

“But the moment they played, everything fell into place,” she said. “With that first note, we knew this is what we’re meant to do.”

Elster also revealed that hearing Ehnes play brought tears to her eyes.

As part of the opening concert, Tausk will also be leading the VSO through Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7. To him, this made perfect sense for several reasons. First of all, the VSO was coming off performances of Beethoven’s two previous symphonies. But equally important to Tausk, Symphony No. 7 has a great deal of energy, rhythm, and drive, offering a feeling of “very positively looking into a future”. In addition, it can be performed with a relatively small symphony orchestra.

The VSO is being exceedingly careful to

VSO music director Otto Tausk stays three metres from the musicians during rehearsals.

prevent transmission of COVID-19. One example: musicians who play wind instruments are kept three metres away from everyone else. Tausk himself also remains three metres from the orchestra, whereas the string players are two metres apart from one another. And everyone is wearing masks.

Tausk explained that, traditionally, musicians respond to what they hear. But when they’re separated in this way, they also have to rely on what they see.

“And this is a big change for the way you react as a musician,” Tausk said.

Tausk acknowledged that it was initially a challenge to form a transcendent connection with the orchestra when they were farther apart. With practice, they found their groove. “The first day, you needed half an hour; the second day, you needed 15 minutes; and in the third day, after five minutes, it had already started to sound pretty good,” he said. g

INCLUSION ART SHOW October 2020 Online show features artists with diverse abilities across Metro Vancouver.

www.inclusionartshow.com 10

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OCTOBER 8 – 15 / 2020

ARTS

Union-versus-union fight led to one-person play

L

by Charlie Smith

ike many aging stage actors, Allan Morgan reached a point where he needed to supplement his income because there weren’t enough gigs to pay the bills.

Fortunately, his brother helped get him a job as a mail clerk at the headquarters of a union based in the Vancouver suburbs. And for more than a year, Morgan enjoyed walking through the building with his cart, distributing packages and letters to clerical staff.

But it all came to a halt when contract talks stalled and the employer locked out him and fellow members of his union, MoveUP. “So there I was on the picket line, for 132 days, I think,” Morgan recalled in a phone interview with the Straight. “I posted on social media quite frequently because my understanding is all’s fair in love and war at that point. I called it as I saw it, and I was assured that everything was okay.”

Moreover, he emphasized that he wasn’t being “overly mean” in his social-media posts. But when the labour dispute ended and he returned to work, he was fired.

“My position was made redundant,” Morgan said. “It was like being eliminated.”

Morgan added that he didn’t know who the hell he was anymore after being in limbo again. “I had been an actor. I

My position was made redundant. It was like being eliminated.

– Allan Morgan

Actor and playwright Allan Morgan developed close ties with his colleagues on a picket line.

had been a mail clerk,” he declared.

Fortunately, The Other Guys Theatre Company came to the rescue, offering him money to write a play about whatever interested him. And that gave birth to I Walked the Line, Morgan’s one-act and one-actor production telling the poignant

story of staff at one union fighting for justice against another union.

He doesn’t identify the employer, only referring to it as a “union of professionals almost as well liked as firefighters”. But he’s more than happy to credit MoveUP for standing behind the workers, mostly “longtime unionistas”. And these colleagues shattered any misconceptions that he had, as a gay urban male, about working women from the suburbs.

“They did that through their humour and their fucking decency,” Morgan said.

“I became close with those women. I really felt that their story was not being told.”

During the labour dispute, Morgan applied his imagination—forged through

three decades in theatre—to help advance their cause. To cite one example, on Halloween they placed gravestones, representing union values, along a highway to embarrass the employer.

“It was absolutely Brechtian,” Morgan said with a laugh. “Those are the sort of skills I brought to the line.”

He also helped organize a food drive as well as a large banquet along the highway, attracting sympathetic union leaders and politicians.

MoveUP picket signs and a mail cart are important props in I Walked the Line, which is directed by Ross Desprez. When the 70-minute show debuted last year at New Westminster’s Anvil Theatre, MoveUP president David Black was in the audience.

“I certainly recommend the play for anyone who has ever been on a picket line or has family members on a picket line or has wondered what it’s like to be in that situation,” Black told the Straight by phone.

“It’s incredibly funny; it’s incredibly sad; it’s incredibly powerful. I would certainly go see it again.” g Allan Morgan's I Walked the Line is produced by Bread and Roses Theatre and sponsored by The Other Guys Theatre. It's at the Firehall Arts Centre from next Thursday (October 15) to October 25.

Firehall artistic director blazes trail with live shows

W

by Charlie Smith

hen the pandemic hit in March, many felt it was curtains for the performing arts in Vancouver. Not Donna Spencer, the artistic producer of the Firehall Arts Centre in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

“I spent my whole career producing or performing or being in live theatre performances or presenting dance,” Spencer recently told the Straight by phone. “And I know how much audiences appreciate it—and need it. So I felt if we didn’t move forward [with] some kind of plan to engage audiences, we were simply letting them down.”

She also knew that any strategy also needed to keep the artists safe. To advance understanding of their predicament, Spencer launched the Dramatic Pause: Conversations About the Arts podcast, offering an outlet to discuss everything from how they were coping to their thoughts on inclusion and the Black Lives Matter movement.

That’s not all. She also staged five live performances, including four in the Firehall’s courtyard, during the Dancing on the Edge Festival, keeping audiences to a maximum of 30 people. This came after Spencer studied a guide on how to reopen spaces safely, which was created by 300 presenting and producing organizations in the United States.

According to her, they had “thoughtfully” gone through all aspects, including how to sell tickets safely and how to remain physically distanced in going to washrooms.

In addition, the Firehall’s courtyard was the site of

Donna Spencer has produced live theatre for decades—and she wasn’t going to stop because of COVID-19. Photo by Pedro Meza.

Pride Performance Empowers!, featuring drag, theatre, and music over three days, from July 31 to August 2.

Again, audiences were capped at 30. Later in the summer, audience sizes were boosted to 40 for another series called Music in the Courtyard.

“We added intermissions so there was time for people to get to the washroom safely without having to go by people,” Spencer said.

All of this has set the stage for this fall’s theatre season, which begins on October 15 with Allan Morgan’s one-act play I Walked the Line. No more than 50 people

will be allowed in the theatre, with everyone in the audience wearing masks. People in different groups will not be seated side by side.

“Someone said, ‘Are you going to allow them to take off their mask when they have a drink?’ ” Spencer said. “My response to that is simply, ‘The mask can stay on, and they need to lift it and have a sip and put it back down.’ If that’s a problem, we’ll stop our concession offering.”

Actors, directors, and stage-management people are being kept separate from Firehall Arts Centre administrators.

Because Morgan’s show is a one-actor performance and has already been staged, it’s ideal for the season opener.

The Amaryllis, which will premiere on November 12, has two actors, Jillian Fargey and Shawn Macdonald, playing a voice-over artist and talent agent, respectively.

“We were just talking yesterday about how some of the rehearsal time might be done slightly differently,” Spencer said. “They might not be in the room at the same time.”

Moreover, lighting people will have to remain in their own bubble.

“What we’re trying to do is something that’s similar to what’s going on in the film industry,” she explained.

“There’s usually one liaison person who’s moving back and forth. If anyone does get sick, we have a backup plan for that.

“The first thing, of course, would be testing and finding out if it is, indeed, COVID. If it’s not, then of course everything can go forward.” g OCTOBER 8 – 15 / 2020

THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT

11

PSYCHEDELICS

B.C. residents at forefront of psychedelic revolution

Researchers and therapists are poised to make the most of psilocybin’s potential if the feds get out of the way

by Charlie Smith

Patients sought help in the LSD room at Hollywood Hospital (left), a New Westminster clinic that administered psychedelic therapy from the late 1950s to the early 1970s (Photograph by J. Ross MacLean, courtesy of the New Westminster Archives); Havn chief psychedelic officer Ivan Casselman hopes to standardize psilocybin; historian Erika Dyck has studied Hollywood Hospital’s patient records.

S

upporters of psychedelic therapy have been waiting in suspense for months for a federal decision that could mark a turning point in Canadian medical history. Earlier this year, 17 Canadian health-care professionals— including doctors, nurses, psychiatrists, clinical counsellors, and social workers— applied en masse to Health Minister Patty Hajdu for legal access to psilocybin. That’s one of the outlawed psychoactive compounds in so-called magic mushrooms.

They were assisted by Spencer Hawkswell, CEO of TheraPsil, a Victoria-based group that trains doctors and therapists to administer psychedelic therapy. If Hajdu grants an exemption under Section 56 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, these health-care professionals would be permitted to consume psilocybin to better understand what an altered state of consciousness feels like. Among the applicants are Vancouver Island palliative-care physician Valorie Masuda and Ontario physician Ryan PatchettMarble, who is one of Hajdu’s constituents.

“We’re creating pathways for patients who need access to psilocybin to get it,” Hawkswell explained by phone. “Because without TheraPsil, the only options that people have are to find a research study, maybe fly to Jamaica, or do it underground.”

In August, TheraPsil helped four terminally ill patients become the first to obtain a Section 56 exemption from Hajdu for psilocybin. TheraPsil’s training program for health-care practitioners places a premium on experiential learning because that gives 12

THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT

them greater insights when guiding palliative-care patients through a psychedelic.

As this week’s Straight went to the printer, these applicants had been waiting more than 100 days for a response from Ottawa.

“Psilocybin is a tool that allows many great therapists and psychologists to do their work better,” Hawkswell said. “Psychedelics might help people at the end of their life.”

There’s a growing body of peer-reviewed research supporting this proposition.

While psilocybin therapy is being used to help relieve patients’ distress at the end of life, MDMA is showing promise in the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder.

According to Hawkswell, being able to draw upon unconscious states with a substance like psilocybin—in a controlled manner with a therapist—can help people find more meaning in their lives.

Hawkswell insisted that psilocybin shouldn’t be viewed as a traditional medicine. “It’s not something that you just take and it does the work,” he said. “You have do to the work as part of a program. You have to do the therapy as well.”

THIS IS NOT new. From the late 1950s to the early 1970s, scores of patients addicted to alcohol or dealing with psychological issues received psychotherapy at a private clinic in New Westminster. According to University of Saskatchewan historian Erika Dyck, the Hollywood Hospital opened in 1921 as a sanitarium for people with tuberculosis. After J. Ross MacLean became its medical director, he introduced

OCTOBER 8 – 15 / 2020

LSD and mescaline treatments. This came in the wake of psychedelic therapy being offered in Saskatchewan by psychiatrists Abram Hoffer and Humphry Osmond (in 1957, Osmond coined the term psychedelic to describe the medications).

MacLean worked closely with an American who lived in Vancouver, Al Hubbard, who became known as the Johnny Appleseed of LSD for the way he distributed the compound to people across North America.

“They established therapy rooms or clinical rooms, but they also charged people for their treatments,” Dyck told the Straight by phone.

She said she has examined the patient records and they show that some came not due to any addiction but because they wanted a safe experience. Others sought help in addressing problematic behaviour.

“I have seen [in the records] up to 10 doses used on a single patient,” Dyck said.

“But the vast majority of them in the case records that we have had access to—the vast majority of them—get a single dose, albeit a massive dose. And they’re intended to sort of go through a psychotherapeutic session under the influence of, usually, LSD.” In some respects, Hubbard was a flimflam artist. Dyck said he faked having a PhD, for example. But he was also wellconnected with high-ranking U.S. government officials. And he has also been credited for bringing art or flowers into the therapeutic environment to stimulate responses from people during their psychedelic experiences.

“Actually, his wife [Ruth] was probably as much or even more involved in some of these things than he was,” Dyck said.

This history is one of several reasons why Dyck likens Vancouver to “ground zero in terms of debates around drug regulation and harm reduction in Canada”. In fact, Vancouver played a role in the rise of drug prohibition more than a decade before the Hollywood Hospital even opened its doors.

After racist mobs descended on Vancouver’s Chinatown and Japantown in 1907, a young bureaucrat named Mackenzie King was appointed to hold an inquiry. He concluded that there was rampant opium use in Chinatown, which led to the introduction of federal legislation banning its use except for medical purposes. Prohibition of drugs spread to other countries as he became an acknowledged international authority on the subject. King went on to become Canada’s longest-serving prime minister.

WIDESPREAD USE of hallucinogens led to another backlash in the late 1960s. Two of Vancouver’s most vocal opponents were Dr. Pat McGeer, who went on to become a provincial cabinet minister, and Dr. James Tyhurst, who headed UBC’s psychiatry department. His career ended in a salacious sex-and-abuse scandal. Former female patients sued Tyhurst for enslaving them.

Opposition was also on the rise in the U.S. and other countries. And in the wake of the hippie era, the 1971 UN Convention on Psychotropic Substances identified see next page

CANNABIS

Cannabis influencer: Ohai founder Emily Leung

V

by John Lucas

ancouver’s Emily Leung got into the cannabis-accessories business because she saw an underserved demographic. Specifically, she felt that, aesthetically speaking, existing brands failed to address the needs of those looking for an elevated experience.

In order to address that gap, Leung founded Ohai. The company sells joint rings, grinders, crystal pipes, and other stylish products through its website.

Leung says the brand had its genesis about a decade ago. At the time, she was working in a high-stress job, so she began smoking cannabis to help quell her anxiety.

“I was working at an ad agency in brand marketing, so I understood the value of creating a brand: to curate a unique experience that would resonate with the consumer and to build a community of like-minded people,” Leung told the Straight in an April interview.

“The light bulb went off. I realized that cannabis brands at the time weren’t fulfilling this need, or it only showed up in a certain way and alienated others. This inspired me to create something that didn’t exist quite yet, and that’s how the seed was planted.”

Eventually, that seed grew into the idea for a new business venture. In 2018, the budding

psilocybin and psilocin as drugs with a high potential for abuse. That led the Canadian government to outlaw these compounds, preventing psychedelic therapy at the Hollywood Hospital. Hoffer moved to Victoria, where he became an advocate for taking vitamin B to alleviate psychiatric problems.

Dyck said that Hoffer, Osmond, and others were trying to comprehend the nature of psychosis. And they felt that it was important for researchers and health-care workers to have that psychedelic experience so they might have a better understanding of what the patients were enduring.

“That’s an essential grain of this psychedelic research that’s sometimes been forgotten in the retelling,” Dyck said.

Now it’s 2020, and once again British Columbia is at the centre of a national debate on psychedelic therapy. One of the leaders in this movement has been Mark Haden. He cofounded the Canadian wing of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies in 2011 to educate doctors and fund research to evaluate the efficacy of this therapy.

Haden isn’t the only significant player.

In May, Vancouver addiction expert Dr. Evan Wood became the chief medical officer of Numinus Wellness Inc., which has federal approval to test, possess, buy, and sell MDMA, psilocybin, psilocin, DMT, and mescaline. The Vancouver company hopes to open treatment centres where psychedelic therapy can be offered.

create a community of like-minded people, the modern-day stoner.”

ONE THING I WOULD CHANGE ABOUT THE CANNABIS INDUSTRY

“Update regulations so brands can have more liberty to be creative with their marketing and messaging, which would empower the consumer with brand recognition and purchase decisions.”

SOMETHING EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW ABOUT CANNABIS

“It’s not going anywhere.” g

Follow Emily Leung and Ohai on Twitter and Instagram. (And while you’re at it, follow CannCentral on Twitter and Instagram, too.)

Emily Leung says she loves devising “ways for people to elevate their cannabis experience and using these connections to create a community of like-minded people, the modern-day stoner”.

entrepreneur launched Ohai. Leung characterizes her target market as the “modern-day cannabis consumer…sophisticated, styleconscious, and aesthetically aware”.

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MY FIRST EXPERIENCE WITH CANNABIS

“I love being creative and coming up with ways for people to elevate their cannabis experience and using these connections to

“I was in high school and learned really quickly what it meant to hotbox.”

“It’s not a cure for everybody,” Wood told the Straight earlier this year, “but in comparison to the best available treatments we have for alcohol or nicotine addiction—and there’s some work being done in cocaine addiction as well—the rates of remission are pretty dramatic over the best available standard of care that we have to offer for those conditions. So it really looks like something is there.”

Another Vancouver company, Havn Life Sciences Inc., is hoping to develop a supply chain for legal psychedelic medicines.

“When you start a business, you’ve got to focus down on certain things,” Havn’s chief psychedelic officer, Ivan Casselman, told the Straight by phone. “And for now, we’re focused on psilocybin because the way that things seem to be progressing.”

However, Casselman didn’t rule out his company later looking at gaining regulatory approval to standardize production of other psychedelic compounds in the future.

“We know this medicine works,” Casselman said. “But we don’t actually have a mechanism to get that medicine directly to patients yet. Our hypothesis is over the next three to five years, the Canadian government is slowly going to start creating those mechanisms.”

And if it leads therapists to administer psilocybin to themselves to learn how to better offer this treatment to patients in a therapeutic setting, it will be back to the future in British Columbia. g

“I’m living it right now.”

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13

SAVAGE LOVE

Selfish dumper needs distancing, not friendship

Also, you shouldn’t trust Google for dating background checks; queer doesn’t always mean poly as well

by Dan Savage

b I WAS DUMPED in August by a guy I was seeing for 10 months. He told me that he wants to work on himself and “needs to be selfish” right now. Since then, we have spoken every day, shared numerous dinners, and gone on hikes. Our friendship is killing me. With him, I hold it together. Away from him, I cry all the time. I’ve started seeing a therapist and I’m on medication. I’m trying to be mature about the breakup and match his level of “coolness”, but it’s destroying me. My friends tell me that I should stay away from him, allow

Scan to conffess

some time to pass, and reassess. But the thought of losing him is almost as bad as the thought of keeping him in my life.

- Simply Heartbroken And Talking To Ex Really Extending Depression

P.S. I should also mention that I ended a 10-year relationship for the opportunity to date him.

“Hey, Dan, what I’m doing is making me miserable—should I stop?”

Yes, SHATTERED, you should stop. Your friends are giving you excellent advice:

The Georgia Straight Confessions, an outlet for submitting revelations about your private lives—or for the voyeurs among us who want to read what other people have disclosed.

Secret Agent Wife My wife is eastern European and extremely attractive. People sometimes think she must be a spy...which is sort of true. In high school she worked at a sandwich shop called Spy’s. Anyway I’m very lucky! But whenever we watch a film and the beautiful Russian spy woman is seducing the moron that should realize that she’s definitely using him as a cover I start to feel a little insecure...

I’m a woman that has an infatuation with Bi men.

This is my confession. We’ve heard the stories of the wife coming home and finding her husband in bed with another man. I’d be saying ...hey ! don’t stop I want to watch !

I Should Feel Ashamed, But I’m Not As a woman, I should feel ashamed for having had sex in various outdoor public places, but I’m not. I just miss it.

Last year I was in a toxic work environment and felt hopeless. Being bullied to death and manipulated by ignoramuses nearly cost me a great deal of my mental health. The whole experience just sucked the life out of me. It seemed like there was no way out and I contemplated leaving months earlier, but held on because I tried to fight until the bitter end. It was a losing battle, definitely not a win win situation. So I did something that I never thought I would do. I straight up walked right out the door. Didn’t give any notice.

Visit

to post a Confession

“We can still be friends” is a noble sentiment after a breakup, but if the dumper is selfish about demanding attention while the dumpee is still sad, it’s time to stop. Photo by Yaroslav Shuraev.

stay away from this guy for at least a year— don’t talk on the phone (with him); don’t share meals (with him); don’t go on hikes (with him)—and then see how you feel after you’ve talked, shared meals, and gone on hikes with other people. It’s always nice when exes are friends, but it’s not an easy pivot and it can’t be executed instantly. And transition to friendship is always much harder for the person who was dumped—because of course it is—and it’s even harder when a selfish dumper accepts or demands the kind of attention and emotional support from the dumpee that the dumper is no longer entitled to.

P.S. If you ended a 10-year relationship to date someone—if you ended it for a romantic prospect, not a romantic certainty (and there’s no such thing as a romantic certainty)—then that 10-year relationship needed to end. If your ex-boyfriend implored you to end that 10-year relationship and 10 months later dumped you to “work on himself” and then did everything in his power to keep you all to himself even after dumping you, then that “friendship” needs to end too. At least for the time being. b MY NAME IS a variation on “John Smith”.

I met a woman and she liked me but then she did a cheapo background check on me and found a “John Smith” who had committed felonies—including assaulting a high-school principal—and ended things with me. I am not that “John Smith” and I am innocent of these crimes! She had every reason to trust me: we met at my house and she viewed the premises without incident.

What do I do?

- Not That Guy

14

THE GEORGIA STR AIGHT

OCTOBER 8 – 15 / 2020

You had this woman over to yours, NTG, and she viewed the premises without incident. Okay… So you didn’t rape or kill her when she dropped in and that speaks well to the absolute bare fucking minimum of your character. But it doesn’t obligate her to keep seeing you.

If you can prove you’re not John Smith, High-School Principal Assaulter, and she doesn’t care, NTG, then there’s some other reason she doesn’t want to see you again.

(Was there a MAGA hat on the premises?)

But whatever her real reason is/real reasons are, you’ve been given a “no”. And like everyone else, NTG, you have to take “no” for an answer even when it feels unfair or arbitrary.

b I’VE BEEN WITH my boyfriend for almost five years and everything is amazing except that he sees his ex-girlfriend when I’m not around. He says she wants to meet me but he never wants to meet up with her when I’m with him. Their “dates” are becoming more frequent. She’s a single mom, and he has expressed to me that he wants to be in her son’s life. My feelings of discomfort are escalating and I’m having trouble believing him when he says he wants me to meet her. When I bring this up, he gets angry and says I’m being too emotional. Am I being a crazy jealous girlfriend? I need some help. I want to be a better person. Should I reach out to his ex-girlfriend directly since my boyfriend refuses to make it happen?

Or do I bail on the relationship? I feel that uncomfortable.

- Ex-Girlfriend Looms Over Everything

Bail.

see next page

- Noodling On This Problem Over Lattes, Yeah?

you from asking— asking directly—for a little clarity: “Hang out? I’d love to! But do you mean ‘hang out’ as in ‘spend time together as friends’ or ‘hang out’ as in ‘let’s go on a date’? I ask because I’ve wound up on a couple of dates that I didn’t know were dates and it was awkward.”

As for why this is happening… Well, either the poly people in your social circle assume—incorrectly—that all queer people are poly or you’re much more attractive than you’re giving yourself credit for, NOTPOLY, or some combo of both.

There’s nothing stopping

b I’M A GAY man who, due to extensive BDSM play, has developed very prominent nipples. They’re always erect and very visible through my clothing unless I wear outrageous patterns or tape them down. Yes, I’m somewhat embarrassed by them. I don’t have

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percentage of the people you meet will notice your nipples, TITS, and the thought processes for 99.9 percent of the people who do will go something like

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gynecomastia (moobs), just really, really, really noticeable nipples. While they are a definite boon between the sheets, they’re a bane on the streets because I’m very selfconscious about them. Do people notice this sort of thing on men? Is their reaction negative? Am I being ridiculed behind my back? Mind you, folks universally treat me with kindness and respect, probably because that’s how I approach everyone else, but a little voice in my head keeps telling me there’s this shameful part of my body that’s being made fun of by everyone. Well, everyone except the guys who helped get me to this point. Your thoughts?

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this: “Big nips. Eh, whatever”. Those noticers will immediately file this useless-tothem information about your tits away and never give it/them another thought. (Unless you’re Andrew Cuomo.) I think you’re self-conscious about your tits because you know why they’re so prominent: extensive and, I assume, highly enjoyable BDSM play, TITS, and you worry other people—straight people, vanilla people, judgy gays—will take one look and realize you’re a kinky motherfucker. But most people won’t make that leap, and the ones who do are either kinky themselves or aren’t going to dwell on your tits or hold them against you. Stop kinkshaming yourself. You earned those tits— you suffered for them—and you should be proud of them! g

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b I’M IN MY early 30s and I’ve been struggling to make new friends. A lot of the people in my extended social circle are polyamorous/ queer, and while I identify as queer, I’m in a monogamish relationship that isn’t poly.

Lately I have been finding that I have been getting approached a lot by people who want a romantic/sexual connection. It seems like the only people who want me around lately want in my pants and they assume because I’m queer I’m also poly without asking directly. So people ask me if I want to “hang out” and I’m often unsure if they mean “hang out” in a date context or a friend context. I’ve ended up on dates I didn’t know I was going on! My biggest issue is that I don’t understand why people want to date/fuck me but don’t want to be my friend. I’m pretty average looking and I am not overly flirty. So why is this happening?

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