By Nathaniel G Moore

The Combat Opera event is a vibrant tribute to video games, with familiar characters wrestling at the Toronto Underground Cinema. Courtesy Midnight Matinee.

I didn’t exactly know what WrestleCrisis was until someone tweeted to me about it because it had to do with wrestling. You see, people think I want to read about all things related to the squared circle. Perhaps it doesn’t help that I curate art shows and write about wrestling from time to time for national newspapers.

Regardless, I felt a kinship with local Ross Aitken, indie wrestler and local promoter who has been developing his unique brand of mayhem over the last two years. His most recent event, scheduled for this coming Sunday at 4 p.m., is his latest installment of WrestleCrisis at the Toronto Underground Cinema (186 Spadina Ave.).

At first, I thought the concept of the event was a tribute to wrestling video games—a festival of game playing throughout the ages, the evolution of wrestling video games, tournaments, that sort of thing.

Oh how I was wrong. This is real wrestling and real video game characters battling out in a real wrestling ring. It’s like a lazy Saturday morning cartoon and video game session on an acid trip.

Imagine your favourite video game characters entering the squared circle and wrestling each other in front of a live audience? The themed Combat Opera event is a vibrant tribute to video games, specifically of the 8-bit but not exclusively) generation.

Simply put, the event boasts pro wrestlers wrestling in character as classic game characters live. “For many it might be a shock to see the full sized wrestling ring in the theatre,” Aitkens explains. “We rented the from the wrestling school Squared Circle Training.” A facility in North York where Aitkens has been training for the last six years.

“I wrestle as Buck Gunderson,” Aitken says, “I’ve been doing that for two-and-a-half years, most weekends.” The indie wrestling circuit takes him all over Ontario, and he has even captured some regional championships.

Luigi is set to wrestle this Sunday. Courtesy Midnight Matinee.

The concept for WrestleCrisis grew from Anime North, a festival of Anime curiosity in which Aitkens first booked video game characters in a live wrestling match as a side show.

Last April in Toronto, fans were privy to a much anticipated showdown with Pac-Man and Mario. However, things didn’t turn out quite as one might think.

“The biggest surprises on the first show was when pac man turned on super Mario and revealed himself to be Luigi, which lead up to main event later that night,” Aitken explains.  The brother versus brother match (Mario vs. Luigi) ended in a disqualification when Wario ran in and interfered. Next Sunday’s show hopes to settle the score when Mario teams with a mystery opponent and faces Luigi and Wario.

The doors are at 4 p.m. and the action gets underway at 4:30 p.m. with music video game remixes—or “chip tunes”—will be presented. As for what patrons can expect for this, the first WrestleCrisis of 2012, Aitkens is cagey at first, but then reveals some old issues may get resolved.

I, for one, will be holding on the edge of my seat and cheering the baddies on all the way. Screw Mario and his mystery partner!

Tickets to WrestleCrisis are on sale for $10 in advance at Silver Snail (367 Queen St. W.) or $15 at the door. For more information, visit wrestlecrisis.com.

By Nathaniel G. Moore

’Tis the season of chocolate, stuffing, and gravy stains, of holiday work-party planning meetings, secret Santas, and loved one’s subtle gift hints. ’Tis the season of bus and train stations, mistletoe, gift receipts, egg nog, and humbug.

And now that the sludge of quotidian questions has hit the office break room like static, you know, “What are you doing for Christmas? Staying in town, going to visit family? You done all of your shopping? Why are you crying?” it’s time to face the retail music.

So just buy these books, will you?

Evan Munday, who spends his days marketing for Annex-area publisher Coach House Books just released his debut young adult novel The Kid Detective Agency, (ECW Press, $19.95) that explores the world of the undead, detective work, and high school anxiety.

When asked who he thinks who would like to receive this book as a gift, the author replied: “Any tween/early teen children who like Nancy Drew books but wish she were more goth and had more friends that were dead.”

As for Munday’s own desires for gifts this holiday season (listen up Coach House authors), “A T-Pain Microphone and a DVD of the Kolchak: The Night Stalker television series.”

Munday plans on spending his holidays “drinking himself sick on eggnog in the company of friends and family.”

Robin Richardson just returned from Sarah Lawrence College in New York. She also just released her debut poetry book Grunt of the Minotaur ($15.95, Insomniac Press).

Richardson describes her debut poetry collection with an wide range of panache and nuance, “Grunt of the Minotaur has all the naked women, natural disasters, talking hogs, cannibals, and crooked cowboys you need to make your holidays bright … with just a touch of baffling.”

Richardson plans on a relaxed atmosphere this holiday season with family and loved ones, “and playing kid’s arcade games and going through haunted houses in Niagara Falls. “Please don’t tell my family,” Richardson muses. (She also hopes someone will get her a copy of Songs of Unreason by Jim Harrison.

Sherwin Tjia had a busy fall as well, just releasing his new choose-your-own-adventure style graphic novel You Are A Cat ($19.95, Conundrum), which tells the story of urban realities through the perspective of a feline. So for whom in the world is this book the perfect gift?

“This book is for cat people! I do not think dog people will like it,” said Tjia. “Also, it is not for children. There are some mature themes. As a cat, the humans in the story expose you to some things that they do not share with the other humans in the story. Mature things. But you don’t care, because you’re a cat.”

Liz Worth, on the tail end of her promo work on her non-fiction oral history of punk and the release of her debut poetry collection, had a busy year herself. She explains the difference for the discerning shopper, “Treat Me Like Dirt: An Oral History of Punk in Toronto is an obvious for punk fans, but it’s also for people who like their stories to be wild and raw and real,” says Worth, hoping readers who love and appreciate the city will learn something new about its recent past.

“Amphetamine Heart is punk rock and heavy metal that you read instead of listen to. Technically it’s a poetry collection but I think it’s better described as a book that appeals to people who like to hear about heavy nights of drinking, strange dreams, and stranger secrets. This is a good book for people who want to like poetry but feel it’s inaccessible.”

Worth is hoping for bright red lipstick and Duff McKagan’s new memoir It’s So Easy under her tree this December.

So head to Book City (501 Bloor St. W.), but if they don’t happen to have any of these titles, why not head online to the publisher’s websites themselves (they might be able to offer competitive shipping rates and local discounts, and hey, you can start a book-buying revolution!) and pick up these must-have reads for that special someone on your ever-growing list as you mutter to yourself down the subway stairs: “What am I gonna get Jim, I mean Jack, I barely know him!” Now you know—and knowing is half the battle.

Area man Nathaniel G. Moore is the author of Wrong Bar and Let’s Pretend We Never Met, both perfect for any aspiring weirdo writer in your life. In early 2012 he will (along with Burner Magazine) be releasing The Chelsea Papers, an unofficial prequel to Wrong Bar.

By Karen Bliss

Illyria Design creations are elegant with a bit of an edge. Copyright Rhett Morita.

Working out of the studio in her Liberty-area home, Illyria Pestich of Illyria Design creates dresses that are classic enough to be worn year after year.

“It’s strictly a dress collection,” Pestich tells the Gleaner. “It’s always very classy, but sexy with a bit of edge. It’s definitely different than your regular dress, very chic and streamlined for a sophisticated fashion-forward bold woman.”

“I never follow what’s trendy at the time,” she says. “I try to create design lines that accent and highlight the best parts on a female form on every single dress so it’s very flattering.”

While next spring and summer looks have already been put to bed and she is working on fall 2012, Pestich is currently selling her fall/winter designs, which are perfect for the holidays. Her colour choices were mainly black, navy, plum and grey.

Courtesy Rhett Morita.

“This season, I mixed a lot of different fabrics all in one dress,” Pestich says. “I’ve got a few pieces that have a skirt done in suiting, waistband does in jacquard and then the blouse of the dress is chiffon. There are several dresses done in suiting accented in some chiffon or a modern trellis lace. There are also some jersey dresses with three-quarter-length sleeves and over-sized pockets and a funky edgy cut that you can definitely take from day to night.”

Pestich, who was born in London, Ontario, where she attended a high school for fashion arts, knew exactly what she wanted to do upon graduation. She moved to Toronto to study fashion technique and design at Sheridan College in Oakville and premiered her first Illyria Design collection in 2001.  She has been building a loyal clientele ever since.

She frequently dresses top Toronto publicist Danielle Iverson and recently outfitted producer Julia Pacino (Al’s daughter) for the screening of Billy Bates at the Toronto International Film Festival. She also custom designs and is frequently asked to do entire wedding parties. “Having my personal clients has always been great for me,” she says. “I’m always happy to entertain new clients and have them come by.”

Pestich loves working from home—“especially in the winter,” she laughs—but is working towards a bigger dream. “Skies the limit,” she says, “ to get into bigger department stores and boutiques with multiple locations.  Just to expand and be a household name and wholesale everywhere and eventually start opening up boutiques.”

Courtesy Rhett Morita.

Her dresses can be purchased at select boutiques across Canada, including local shops Pho Pa (702 Queen St. W.) and Naked Red (171 East Liberty St., Unit 143), as well as directly from Pestich who lives opposite Trinity Bellwoods Park (phone: 416 -471-5936 or email illyria@illyriadesign.com). Prices range from $200 to $400 and are available in sizes 2 to 14. For more information, visit www.illyriadesign.com.

By Perry King

Outside her unit, in the stairway, at 250 Davenport Rd., Kathy Halliday has found makeshift beds and human feces coming from the homeless and drug addicted. Perry King/Gleaner News

“This morning, when I was coming to see you, I walked out to a nice condom and a pair of underwear,” said Kathy Halliday, a tenant of a two-floor townhouse at 250 Davenport Rd.

Sitting down with the Gleaner in October, Halliday says she has had enough of the living conditions, poor quality of service, negligent management, and lack of security in her Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC)-owned unit.

Visiting 250 Davenport, the Gleaner observed makeshift beds and human feces in the stair corridor by Halliday’s unit. “People are living in there, people are living in the staircase,” said Halliday, a tenant since 1988.

She has mould on her walls and windows and has had numerous leaks and water damage to her furniture—and says nothing has changed in ten years. By her account, the property managers have been negligent on a number of fronts—not just repairs. “My brother passed away in 2007, I’m still getting a lease in my brother’s name. That’s unacceptable.”

Other residents have come forward with similar stories to Halliday’s. “When I first moved in here, the quality of the people were different and it was definitely cleaner. It was in better shape,” said Mauva Smith, a tenant since 2000. “[Now] there’s weird people walking around sometimes, and there are drug addicts. They use the townhouse as a pathway all the time now.”

Halliday and other tenants are preparing a lawsuit related to the complaints. Through Downtown Legal Services (655 Spadina Ave.), Halliday retained Lee Webb, a second-year law student.

Webb says the final details of the lawsuit, including the number of plaintiffs and the basis of the claims, are not finalized. “People are starting to back out on us, I don’t know if it’s because they’re scared, because they have kids or what the deal is,” said Halliday.

As of press date, neither TCHC nor Greenwin Property Management—contracted to manage 250 Davenport until March of next year—had been served papers, but both companies say they do their best to respond to tenant concerns.

“We house 164,000 tenants in 58,500 units, so it is not uncommon for us to have tenants coming forward with service requests,” wrote TCHC representative Sinead Canavan in an email.

Canavan says that tenants have emergency numbers to call in case of emergencies and security issues. A Tenant Complaint Process form is also available. “Our bigger challenge is our $650-million capital repair bill, and the fact we don’t have the funding needed to bring our buildings to a good state of repair. Without change, more of our housing will fall into a poor state of repair. This is why we propose action like selling 706 houses and using the $300 million in sales proceeds for much-needed repairs.”

Vice president of residential services for Greenwin Bruce Creber said that they are aware of problems in the building, and that while they have tried to make repairs, the larger issues are structural and a matter of concern for the TCHC. “We really do care about the residents, a lot. But, we can only do that which we’re contracted to do. There’s no more resources which we’re given to do it. We’ve had the contract for a lot of years, and I think that sort of speaks to the service we endeavour to give and one we hope to continue to give. It’s not our place to address the overall global problem of TCHC, that’s a political decision that has to be made by far different people than ourselves. We’re just the servants of the masters.”

For Halliday, the last straw was management’s response to a flood in her apartment on March 4. While she called management, and they fixed the leak, three days later “there was just water coming up everywhere.”

After her calls to Greenwin went unanswered, Halliday contacted TCHC and a work order was drawn up. Greenwin did not comply until May 27 and Halliday says their response was insufficient. “I kicked them out of my house,” she said. “Caulking and plastering [for a leak] is not enough.”

Smith says she has noticed rats and poor maintenence of the building’s facade. “It’s not good, it’s not like they respect anybody. They don’t listen to our complaints, really. They just have little temporary solutions, but they don’t really address the problems.”

Halliday says all of the tenants have similar problems. “One of the girls had a major leak a couple weeks ago, which flooded out her basement. She had wall-to-wall carpeting. Housing came in and said ‘Oh’ and walked back out.”

For Rita DiBiasi, who is also involved in the lawsuit, negligence has been a theme for Greenwin. “I’ve had two days off .. for them to fix my bathroom—like the tiles, the tub. If you had seen them before … [the bathroom was] caving in,” said DiBiasi. “All these broken promises … How long does it take to do a quote?”

DiBiasi and Halliday have also informed property management about heating in their units, which has not been supplying adequate heat for several years. In the past, Halliday has pleaded with management to raise the heat further, as the old units—unlike the tower units—have reinforced conrcrete walls. As of press date, the tenants were still without heat, but Halliday had received a letter from Greenwin stating the heating system would be fixed and the units inspected. The letter said the repairs could take at least a month.

250 Davenport Rd. also includes 26-storeys of apartment units. Perry King/Gleaner News

Located at Davenport and Bedford Roads, 250 Davenport includes a 26-storey housing tower and 11 townhouse units. It is one of a few townhouse projects in the TCHC porfolio.

Greenwin is one of the largest property management companies in Canada. With numerous residential properties across the country, it is one of three companies contracted to manage day-to-day affairs for the TCHC—a large share of 10,400 TCHC properties. The company also manages the affairs of 200 Wellesley St. E., the site of an infamous six-alarm fire in 2010.

A class action lawsuit has been filed by tenants at 200 Wellesley against Greenwin and TCHC as a result of the fire, alleging breach of contract and negligence—on the grounds that the defendants permitted a tenant to create a fire hazard by hoarding large quantities of paper in his apartment. The case is still before the courts.

While the details of their lawsuit have yet to be finalized, Halliday is clear about the compensation she wants. “I want a one-bedroom apartment out of the deal, I want to move,” said Halliday.

Whatever happens, the tenants believe the lawsuit could be the force that creates more accountability for Greenwin. “We were afraid to speak” said DiBiasi. “We just settled for living in these conditions. Thanks to this, whether it is a lawsuit or not, it’s one voice that just made us wake up and say ‘We have rights.’”

By Karen Bliss

The Bloody Five will be releasing an 11-song album in the new year. Courtesy Martin Wojtunik

The Bloody Five frontman Kevin “KD” DeFreitas, a former Annex resident who is now a high school teacher living in suburban Toronto, is lining up a giveaway for his band’s show at Lee’s Palace (529 Bloor St. W.) on Nov. 26.

KD is happy to be playing in his former ’hood. “I used to be a student at U of T so I lived there when I was in teacher’s college, at 666 Spadina.”

The members of the alternative rock band—including KD, guitarist Tomi Fear, bassist Chris Hau, and drummer “Raw Beats” Sedran—have an 11-song album in the can, produced by Brighter Brightest singer Derek Hoffman, but won’t be releasing it until the new year.

Instead, KD says, “We are planning a surprise for fans who show up at Lee’s Palace that will be related to our upcoming single, video, and album releases.”

Chances are it will be a download card or CD with the single and maybe a few extra tracks.

The multi-generational band—Hau and Sedran were both students of KD’s and would perform at their Catholic school’s talent shows or in the liturgical band—has been together since 2009.

“We’ve got a heaviness to us; we’ve got a melodic flavour as well, kind of a trippy sound in some places,” said KD.

They released a five-song EP in June of 2010 that included songs “Never Again” (also available on the video game Rock Band in the “grunge” category), “And Me For The Forest,” “Bedroom Music,”  “Under This Mountain,” and “Just Joking.”

The Bloody Five’s cover of “(I Wanna Go To) New York City” by Canadian punk band the Demics (1977-1980), the forthcoming single on the still untitled album, is a departure from the band’s other material.

“The guy who owns Autoshare.com [Kevin McLaughlin] is our guitarist’s step-brother,” says KD. “He grew up in the ’70s and loved that song. When Tomi was a kid, for one of his birthday presents [he said], ‘When you try to get into this music business, I’m going to give you one music video.’ And that’s what this is. He wanted this song.”

The video, directed by Martin Wojtunik, was shot last summer in New York and has a rather amusing premise.

“We start off [with] us running around the Manhattan area taking things. ‘Oh, here’s sunglasses; here’s a wig; here’s a leather jacket,’” recounts KD. “We end up at Bowery and Bleeker which is the location where [legendary punk/new wave venue] CBGB used to be, and that’s where we posed as the Ramones.

“So we’re looking like ourselves and throwing on the costume as we run around and end up as poseurs,” he laughs.

The cover art for the single was designed by another former student of KD’s, Krista Arnold, now at OCAD University.

KD says the punk song fits The Bloody Five’s sound because “one thing that definitely is in common with the rest of the album is the rawness of the guitar sound. That’s something Tomi is trying to put across.

He’s more into that heavy side and I’m more into the Beatles. I like the harmonies.”