Painting the Town Red

On Monday, September 15, 2008, just before 1am, Lehman Brothers Holdings filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. At that moment, as the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history unfolded, Blair Prentice slept peacefully in his tiny Manhattan studio, oblivious to the chaos that would envelop him in just a few hours.
 
Prentice, an athletic-looking 28-year-old with full lips, had just moved to New York from Toronto; he’d landed a contract doing graphic design for Lehman’s marketing department a month prior to the collapse. He knew the bank was in trouble; his department numbered 100 people a year prior, but by the time he arrived it was down to 60. The week before the bankruptcy, that number shrunk even more. “When they started firing everyone, people were walking by my desk crying, and [I] was like this,” he says, cupping cups his hands around his eyes and staring down at the table. “I’m the new kid, sitting there, and everyone’s packing up boxes, people who’d been there for 20 years.”
 
Prentice tried to stay focused on his work, but his project—working on recruitment brochures—seemed more than a little absurd. Instead, he just lay low, read art blogs and hoped for the best. By the end of that fateful Monday, only a small handful of his colleagues were left standing, including his direct boss. Within a few weeks, however, they too were let go. For the next three months, Prentice was Lehman’s marketing department. “I’m sitting alone in this huge office on the 48th floor overlooking Radio City, this little Canadian wondering, ‘What the hell is going on?’”
 
It’s a good question: How did the marketing department of America’s fourth-largest investment bank land squarely in the hands of a dude from Canada with virtually no marketing experience? To answer this question, you’ve got to venture deep into the heart of a polite but powerful network that’s infiltrated New York’s media, music, fashion and nightlife worlds. You likely know some of its members; you might even be friends with them, but make no mistake: The Gay Canadian Mafia is a force to be reckoned with.
 
Although Prentice’s story is exceptional, its arc is not: gay Canadian arrives to New York with sketchy legal status; gay Canadian lands sweet job; gay Canadian holds onto sweet job as the economy collapses around him and thousands of born-and-bred Americans are left unemployed. But the story isn’t just about hard work, talent, ambition and luck; it’s about a loosely organized network of gay Canadian men who are quietly conspiring to take over New York. It must be.
 
What else could account for the tremendous fortune of Peter Knegt, a boyish 25-year-old with sharp features who landed a gig as associate editor of the indie film online trade publication IndieWire.com—while he was still living in Canada? In 2003, a friend introduced Knegt to IndieWire’s co-founders—both gay men in their 40s—and Knegt, then a student, began interning for the publication. By the time Knegt moved to Montreal for grad school, he was splitting his time between Canada and New York, working part-time for the website and telling tall tales at the U.S. border. He’d spend weeks at a time in the spare bedroom of his boss’s East Village apartment. Intimate conditions, no doubt, and Knegt makes no bones about the fact that it would have been tough for a straight man, or a woman, to get his job. “The independent film world is very gay,” he says. “Pretty much all the work I’ve gotten is through gay connections. I truly believe that if I weren’t gay none of this would’ve happened.”
 
Knegt’s brilliant move was exploiting the already well-known powers of the gay mafia to further his own goals. It’s a coup that he celebrated, no doubt, on Thanksgiving—when he gathered with fellow gay Canadians for what he calls “an anti-Thanksgiving” party. At the party, it’s safe to assume plans were hatched and grievances were shared. To wit, this example: “It can be annoying to witness the ignorance of Americans about Canada,” he says. “At parties you can get a laugh out of asking people to name Canadian cities. Never can more than half the room do it. Sometimes they get Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver. A few people have said Alberta.” (Alberta, of course, is a province.)

For Canadian Somsack Sikhounmuong as well, patriotism surfaces in unlikely places. He recounted a telling moment at a recent Blue Rodeo concert. The country-folk-rock band is wildly popular in their native Canada; here, however, they played the Mercury Lounge. Sikhounmuong, a native of the car-manufacturing hub of Oshawa, Ontario, recalls, “The room was packed with Canadians. Everyone was singing along.” Except, that is, for one outsider: “My sister”—also a New York transplant—“had brought her boyfriend along, and he was just standing there because he didn’t know any of the words.” For shame.
 
Sikhounmuong is among the better-integrated mafiosos; he’s lived here since 1995 when he came to study fashion at Parsons. At first, he enrolled in the architecture program—a choice that pleased his Chinese parents, who immigrated to Canada from Laos. They wanted a doctor or lawyer, but they’d settle for an architect. “They wouldn’t have let me come down for fashion,” he says, “so I had to spin it a bit. I just switched into fashion in my second year.”
 
This kind of deviousness is to be expected from Canadians; what distinguishes Sikhounmuong is his talent: shortly after graduating, he landed a job designing accessories at J.Crew. Nine years later, he’s risen to become a senior women’s wear designer and one of the company’s top talents—even designing Obama Inaugural event outfits for Sasha and Malia. To keep his colleagues quiet, he’ll often ply them with Canadian delicacies like Cadbury chocolates and ketchup chips. It seems to be working: Sikhounmuong is now eligible to apply for U.S. citizenship, making his infiltration, er, integration nearly complete.
 
Though we were unable to find any Canadians willing to comment directly on this pervasive and insidious organization, nightlife fixture and native Torontonian Ladyfag relayed a revealing anecdote: “I’m good friends with Geordon [Nicol],” the Canadian member of the Misshapes. “And when Sophia [Lamar] sees us together, she always says, ‘Canadians. You always have an agenda.’ She’s known for her cunty remarks—but she’s right; if you come to New York, you have an agenda.” Ladyfag denied, however, that the mafia is structured: “Obviously, we don’t have meetings with a secretary and a prime minister!”
 
At least, the notion of the agenda is one that few deny. “Over the past three years, I’ve come across many Canadians who come here with the intent to stay, but if you just move here hoping something’s going to happen, you’ll probably have to go back,” says Knegt. “The Canadians [whom] I know [who] are here permanently are successful. They have good jobs. It’s just the only way.” Native Torontonian Steven Dam, a casting manager for fashion powerhouse KCD, sums it up neatly: “Whether you’re from Missouri or Saskatchewan, if you move to New York, you have to be very driven. But if you’re from Saskatchewan, you can’t just do the penniless, I’m-going-to-be-a-waiter-till-I’m-Madonna thing, because you have to have a visa.”
 
Or do you? Nearly every single person interviewed for this story admitted to deceiving border officials more than once. Even those who ultimately got legal status here spent at least some time in immigration limbo. Which means that the Canucks who make it here aren’t just smart, talented, hard-working and ambitious; they’re sneaky, too. So beware, for one day soon, the gay Canadians will rule this city. And when they do, you’d better be wearing your very warmest toque. Because things are going to get very, very cold.