Author David Roddis is the founder of slowpainful.com, where since 2014, he has offered unabashedly progressive, outrageously funny political commentary and personal reflections. Culled from his blog, A Slow, Painful Death Would Be Too Good for You, was his first collection of personal essays. Now’s he’s back with his second collection, Sorry Looking for NOW LOL, that speaks with the impassioned, authentic voice of the generation of gay men who were famous for just being funnier. It’s witty, caustic, provocative and downright off-the-wall hilarious. He is freshly pandemicked, all caffeine’d up, and ready to dissect the world at large with his scalpel of finely-wrought prose. And then some!

Does the standard gay hook-up require actual teleportation? What are the skipping rhymes of Gen Z? Who’s Laurel to Greta Thunberg’s Hardy on Planet Titanic? What would William Blake’s twenty-first-century Proverbs of Hell sound like? And did Judy Garland fake her own death, only to return as former child star Ethylene Glum?

Roddis has seen it all, especially all things queer. He is an old-school raconteur, and breathes life into a nearly lost art of arch wit, making it great to be gay again. He is one of the few gay men of his generation to have survived the AIDS crisis, and was around during the bathhouse raids in Toronto. He has seen same-sex sexual activity decriminalized, equality come to be for queer people, seen sexual orientation added to Canada’s human rights act, protection for queers people made possible under our Charter of Rights & Freedoms, military bans lifted, the right for queer people to adopt, gay marriage made law, and witnessed a miracle called PrEP come into queer vernacular. He has literally been around for it all and is one of the rare voices we have left influenced by such times (often unshared) gone by.  

Roddis states, “I am one of the originals.  An old-time fag, wielding bon mots instead of fists . I come from a simpler time, when millionaires cried if you didn’t tax them enough, cars were the size of a studio apartment, and it hurt to touch your mom’s hair.  Back in the sixties, if you called someone a groomer, they were plucking their eyebrows, squeezing a zit, or at worst were maybe just a little too invested in keeping your shih tzu looking chic.”

Sorry Looking for NOW LOL is available at Amazon and local booksellers.

David Roddis has been writing ever since he could put pen to paper or finger to keyboard, but although he has produced short stories, plays and poetry, it was not until recently that he truly found his métier in the personal essay. David began his eclectic artistic career as a classical pianist, studying at the Royal Conservatory of Music, Toronto and the University of Toronto Faculty of Music. as well as in London, England. He ended up teaching piano in London, and staying sixteen years instead of the original six months he had planned. He also began acting when in London, creating one-man musical shows which he performed in London, Amsterdam and Bonn, as well as at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. His most recent accomplishment is that of fine art photographer, his signature work in this endeavour being extravagant, large-scale photo-based floral artwork. David lives and works in Toronto, Canada, at the moment entirely free from domestic animals.

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About the Author

Bryen Dunn is a freelance journalist based in Toronto with a focus on tourism, lifestyle, entertainment and community issues. He has written several travel articles and has an extensive portfolio of celebrity interviews with musicians, actors and other public personalities. He’s willing to take on any assignments of interest, attend parties with free booze, listen to rants, and travel the world in search of the great unknown. He’s eager to discover the new, remember the past, and look into the future.