For the last two weekends I've been helping my Mother in her garden. Last week, after having cut the lawn, my Mother handed over a pair of workman's gloves and asked me to help pull weeds and dried leaves from the flower beds in the backyard. Sliding my hand into the left glove I noticed that one of the fingers in the gloves felt stiff, like the seem was extra thick. I didn't think much of it, and for HALF AN HOUR I worked in the garden till finally I stopped, realising the stiffness in the glove felt more like a small stick, and reached inside . . . only to pull out a dead mouse! I screamed so loud that the neighbours came running out of the house thinking I'd hurt myself! My Mother just laughed at me. She is an evil woman. After I scrubbed my hands with soap for 20 minutes, and changed my pee soaked pants, I went back and took a picture for this blog. Enjoy.

Being a model is fuckin' hard! After four location changes, over four hundred photos taken, and two and a half hours of smiling, my cheeks were spasming and my self confidence was rapidly deflating. In between shots I'd sneak a peak at the photographers crotch. I'd seen his cock on display within his own photographs, being sucked on by models. His dick was HUGE! In person, his package was mouth watering and hard to look away from. "Michael, look into the camera please" he'd repeat again.

Drasko was taking my picture for Fab Magazine. A free periodical read by over 45,000 people. I'd been asked to pose as the Fab Boy, a column dedicated to eligible bachelors. I agreed to do it only if they published my HIV status. I wanted to show that HIV+ guys were sexually viable, to do my part in reducing stigma, and hoped to challenge perceptions around what an HIV+ guy looked like. To there credit, the magazine championed the idea, and on January the 20th I became one of, if not the first, openly HIV+ Fab Boys in the magazines 14 odd year long history.

The responces I received were great, and no pun intended, all very positive. “Hi Michael, a friend of mine show me your profile and I thought what you did was really courageous and inspiring. I also agree with you when you say stigmatization wouldn’t be so bad if more of us would come out, but, unfortunately, not all of us have your strength. Thanks for what you did”
wrote Nick. "Saw you in the Fab, very sexy and very outgoing! I love how open you are!” said Matt. But my favourite was from Dave from Toronto who has been HIV+ for over 20 years. "Please thank Michael Burtch for putting himself out there so fiercely. I would like to wish him a long healthy life, full of love and happiness, and all the success in whatever path he chooses in his life.” Right back at you Dave :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Thursday, May 20th, I'm hosting my annual Birthday Celebration! The party is in its third year and is a Birthday Celebration for yours truly, which doubles as an appreciation party for all my supporters who have donated cash, time, or talent to my numerous extra curricular activates as an activist and as a fundraiser.

Read on for my "bare" details.....

 

This year's event is tackling sexual stiga and prejudice, homophobia, sex workers rights, and protesting the criminalization of HIV transmission  It will feature the photography of Pat Croteau, who will be showcasing nudes of local community members to raise funds for P.O.W.E.R. – Prostitutes of Ottawa/Gatineau Work, Educate and Resist, (tinyurl.com/POWERottawa), and feature musical performances by Jayda, Dan Valin (http://www.myspace.com/danvalin), and band Brother's Through The Hill (http://www.myspace.com/somealmonteband), as well as many special guests!

 

After months of speculation, it appears Wonder Woman writer Gail Simone may have finally tipped her hand and answered the prayers of her lonely, reborn hero Achilles and gifted him a companion in the form of handsome real estate agent Patrick Cleese (aka Patroclus!)

For months message boards have been aflutter about the possible sexuality of the reborn Iliad hero. King of an island populated only by men, Achilles, aka Warkiller, has shown open disinterest in sleeping with women, and has even paraded into battle wearing the colours and symbols of Wonder Woman, almost as if he was the Amazon Princess in drag! Now, Gail looks as though she agrees with the modern interpretation of the Achilles and Patroclus relationship myth from the Iliad as not being one of deep friendship, but homosexual love! First Gail gave us the evil lesbian Amazon villainous Alkyone, now it appears she’s set to deliver us Achilles, the super powered pillow biter! Check out April’s Wonder Woman #41 to see what I’m talking about!

 

Update: Confirmation of Achilles’ sexuality came from Gail Simone herself in a DC Comics message board thread. “No point in being coy. Historically, Achilles was bi, but in this era, he's absolutely gay.”

 

We broke the bed and then we slept on it. A perfect metaphor for our brief relationship. "Ryan" was a tall, handsome, red headed emergency room nurse who had transferred from the Toronto Hospital to the Ottawa General in hopes of a fresh start, and I quickly looked to him to be my new beginning. On account of his huge penis, and sexy fire crotch, I was willing to over look his general immaturity till New Years, when his coked out behavior embarrassed me in front of my friends, earning Ryan a lecture. Thinking I may have been too hard on him, I made him breakfast in bed the next day and took him to see the movie Avatar, but Ryan decided I was cramping his style. I never saw him again. That is, until two months later.

Of course my awkward first run in with Ryan naturally had to coincide with my loss of AIDS Activist of the Year at Capital-Xtra Newspaper’s Hero Awards. Each year the struggling queer rag accepts nominations from the community for excellence and then gleefully chooses its winners based on which ones best fit their editorial direction. I was hoping to break my Susan Lucci losing streak this year after partnering up with Capital-Xtra Editor Marcus McCann on a topical, and well received, anti-HIV criminalization rally on Parliament Hill. Instead I lost to real estate tycoon Bill Renaud and his Ruby Red Ribbon fuck-me-over Club. (I don’t care what anyone says, it’s an honor to be nominated only up to the point that you lose, and then it sucks balls! Had Bill even bothered to show up to accept his award, I would have tripped him on his way to the podium, kicked him when he was down, and stolen his plaque for myself! Ok, maybe not, but next year I’m bringing pigs blood to the ceremony to throw on anyone who beats me!) Of course my overly competitive nature, and fragile ego, meant there was only one way for me to find solace in my defeat. I turned to the bottle. Which of course brings me back to Ryan.

As long as I stopped short of having to get my stomach pumped at Emerge, I hadn’t anticipated having to run into the guy that, once upon a time, had made me feel like a winner. Now I found myself reeking of failure and faced with the guy who had left me feeling like a loser for the past two months. Ryan looked good, smiling and laughing with a friend at Centretown Pub, Ottawa’s oldest queer bar. Like a dear in the headlights our eyes locked, and I mustered a half hearted hello and a weak smile. Ryan politely reciprocated, then returned to his conversation without a second glance. I took my second rejection of the night in stride and bolted for the upstairs bar, and got wasted. You win some and you lose some I remember thinking, but I have officially reached my threshold for the latter. This realization was greeted by me up-chucking on my converse shoes on my way home.