Hot Damn! varied its usual slam context for a an evening with Jillian Christmas at Unit 2 in the west end. Home of Bricks & Glitter it provided a simple intimate space to feature this great poet/singer/storyteller. Host Charlie Petch was effusive, emotional and, for the most part, focused 🙂 Plus some mighty fine open stagers (including myself) made for a great evening.
Too many open-stagers to name – they ran the gamut from national champions to just plain folk. Pieces covered self-realization, the desire to be a rich bitch & scary Halloween (scare provided by me.) The space was welcoming for us who made it through the rain to fill the house. Some pieces brought out tears, some laughter. All satisfied.
I’ve known Jillian for several years now so my thoughts on her may be slightly biased 🙂 One of the good things about knowing performer over time is that one can see the changes in their approach and even in subject matter. It’s been maybe two years since I last heard her perform. She was one of the lucky Hot Damn! season winners who represented Damn! at Capturing Fire – which, I might add, she also won.
Her set was generous with a great range of styles, p.o.v and emotional frankness. Pieces about relationships, family, the ecology, same-sex self discovery & magic. Accompanying herself on uke (which she elevates to lute like delicacy) at times, on a snare at time & even with both at the same time for one piece – she held the audience spellbound. By the time she was done she left us as one heart – ruby red.
Next Hot Damn! November 15: Hot Damn! It’s a Queer Slam – 8p.m. – Buddies In Bad Time Theatre, Toronto
one of the horror pieces I read on the open stage
The Villagers
Anton was restless
it had been a boring week
it seemed like ages
since they had stormed the castle
to stop the brain surgeon
who had transplanted
criminal brains into spiders
which wasn’t as much fun
as the time the villagers
had tracked down
the radioactive slime centipedes
let loose by the deranged
unmarried woman scientist
she had hoped the slime
would restore her youth
but instead turned flesh
into hair then eyeball eating centipedes
Anton longed for the days
when there was castle
worth storming
when fools who would play God
with forces of nature
would be forced to face the wrath
of uneducated villagers
the last time they had lit their torches
was to storm
the local coffee shop to force it to add
pumpkin spice latte to the menu
but that wasn’t as satisfying
as chasing the giant
bone-marrow-sucking mutant leach
into the power lines
to electrocute it
that smell lasted for weeks
Dragos stopped him
‘Anton did you know
that the abandoned meat factory
that was once the asylum mortuary
has been leased to a Doctor Mortise’
things were looking up
it would soon be time
to open the torch shop again
June – Capturing Fire 2019 – Washington D.C. 
capfireslam.org
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