What's he on about now?

In case the articles, essays and opinions throughtout this site just weren't enough for you, here's my online diary (a.k.a. 'blog'). It's as close as you'll come to the inside of my head, so don't say I didn't warn you
(and remember, you can always e-mail me if you love or loathe anything you're about to read)...


   Sunday, November 18, 2007

   MORE HUMAN THAN HUMAN

Blade Runner needs no explanation. It just is. All of the best. There is nothing like it. To be part of a real masterpiece which changed the world's thinking. It's awesome.

Far be it from me to argue with Rutger Hauer but just a little explanation is in order: I went with a few friends to see Blade Runner: The Final Cut tonight. It's the third time the film's been released in theatres but the first release that director Ridley Scott has had complete control over. And Hauer's still right.


Blade Runner: The Final Cut trailer

What amazed me about watching this movie again (since 1994 and 1982) is seeing how Ridley Scott removed everything that didn't work before (bad narration, awkward edits, a clumsy ending) and polished what remained into a dark diamond. This is a slow, despairing, elegant piece of future noir that's even more relevant now. Most movies set in the future end up looking silly when the time comes (welcome to the year 2000!) but this film's Los Angeles in 2019 is both increasingly implausible and increasingly unsettling. The details are wrong (no offworld colonies yet) but the overall dystopia feels disturbingly probable.

And the lead actors are so gorgeously understated: Harrison Ford is cynical to the point of brutality, Sean Young is cool and aloof but desperately sad, and Rutger Hauer is one of film's all-time great villains -- terrifying yet sympathetic. Watching the film again, you really see how he is the real hero here: trying to answer the question of existence in a mere four-year life span while the deadened and soulless human characters fail to match his vitality, curiosity or faith. I was going to post a YouTube clip of his big speech here but how can I? It's too good not to be seen in the context of the film (see for yourself when a splashy DVD set comes out Dec. 18).

What was especially nice about going to this screening was that I went with my friends Danielle and Josh and, in a surprise move, an old friend of mine from university named Glynis. I hadn't seen her in nearly 15 years but she'd seen me making plans on Facebook to see Blade Runner, her favourite movie ever, and asked if she could tag along. I loved that, especially in regards to a movie about a high-technology culture of emotional cripples. Here instead is technology bringing people together. I was impressed by Glynis taking the risk in asking to join us and it was great to see her again.

Meanwhile, other friends Victor and Trevor were literally just down the street, going to see Breakfast With Scot. I was able to make it to the theatre in time to join them and this Canadian indie comedy was a total delight:


Breakfast With Scot trailer

Though the film's plot is predictable as can be, the witty script, engaging actors and surprising lack of sentimental button-pushing thrilled the group of us. Plus it's just so great to see a film set in Toronto, about Toronto and filled with people you could mistake for your neighbours. And I love a film that recognizes that trying to avoid gay stereotypes doesn't mean making the gay characters bland, inoffensive and indistinguishable from other guys. We are different, just not as much as everyone seems to think. Breakfast With Scot got that and I was really pleased.

After seeing one film that questions our very ability to hold onto what makes us human, it's great to see another that champions all the little things that let us.

Labels: back in the day, Canada, friends, homo-a-go-go, movies

Obviously, it's a big nostalgia kick for we fans to see Peter Davison step back into the role of Doctor Who after more than 20 years but, upon watching the sketch filmed for the BBC's annual charity telethon Children in Need, it's clear that new Doctor David Tennant is just as giddy as the rest of us:

Doctor Who: Time Crash

It's a terrible risk for any actor to step back into a role from long ago, especially one so identifiable (who can forget cringing through Sean Connery's ill-advised return as James Bond in Never Say Never Again?). Davison, however, manages to recapture his mix of older-brother grumpiness and breathless urgency from the early '80s and Tennant, for his part, doesn't have to work too hard to convey a sense of delight at seeing him again.

And I love how the ending suddenly stops being about the characters or the silly universe-in-peril 'plot' and becomes a dialogue between them as actors. Davison did inspire Tennant, just as he was a role model for little 13-year-old me (not to mention the trainers). The All Creatures Great and Small star had the unenviable task of following on from the bizarre and iconic Tom Baker (much like Roger Moore having to succeed Connery) but he made the part his own and is now being honoured for it while raising money for sick kids. Absolutely lovely to see.

Labels: back in the day, Doctor Who, England, TV

But enough about Ted Haggard. Or Mark Foley. Or Ken Mehlman. Or Charlie Crist. Or any other of the seemingly-endless parade of right-wing anti-gay closet-cases (as comedian Bill Maher joked last week, if any more Republicans come out of the closet, they'll have to change their symbol from an elephant to a moth!).

I come not to bury cowards, but to praise Doogie, as actor Neil Patrick Harris came out on Friday. I phoned my friend Tara on Saturday to say hello and see if she'd heard. Before I could say a thing, she said, "Did you hear about Doogie?!" We're fans.

Long ago, Tara and I worked at a movie theatre in Hamilton with a boy named Darryl, of whom Tara was fond and I was...fonder. He was a fantastic guy -- funny and overly-confident but just decent enough to keep from being an outright jerk. It helped that we all thought he looked like Neil Patrick Harris' TV character so the name 'Doogie' stuck to him like glue. Doogie Howser MD was by means great TV but we liked Darryl and became fond of the show by extension (there's a soft spot even now -- Doogie was the first blogger, after all).

It helped that Harris was a wonderful kid actor and, by all accounts, a good guy. After the show ended, he got stuck in that image but, even so, he didn't go bad like the Diff'rent Strokes gang or the Coreys. He did a lot of theatre and later appeared in Starship Troopers, wearing a long black coat and looking like the leader of the Hitler Youth. There, I thought, is an actor desperate to get un-typecast!

Sure enough, he did it, by developing a Shatneresque sense of humour about himself. He first tweaked his image, playing the "white culture" expert in Undercover Brother ("I owe all of you a huge apology. I just watched this show...Roots? Maybe you've heard of it?"); he then destroyed his image, playing a horny, drugged-out asshole named Neil Patrick Harris in Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle ("Yeah, I've been craving burgers, too. Furburgers. Come on, dudes, let's pick up some trim at a strip club. The Doogie line always works on strippers!"). The producers of the sitcom How I Met Your Mother were looking for a Jack Black-type actor to play Barney, a disturbingly-cheerful womanizer, but they liked the 'White Castle' bit enough to audition Harris and he won them over. Barney's a jerk but Harris' dorky charm makes him funny and oddly endearing.

I'm whittering on like a fan but here's the point: Neil Patrick Harris has paid his dues and has a solid career. He's only 33 and he's on his second hit TV show, making lots of money and playing a wildly-popular ladies' man. Actors, singers, athletes (anyone making money, really) are only allowed to come out after their careers have run dry, not right in the middle, so following some press speculation (you just can't trust those Canadians), his publicist issued the usual weird Hollywood non-denial: "Neil Patrick Harris is not of that persuasion."

I saw that in the paper last week and was disappointed. I prefer it when actors just avoid the question rather than lie -- kind of like how Ricky Martin was interesting when people wondered if he was gay, as opposed to how boring he became when he kept going on about the ladies in that completely hypothetical 'who are you kidding?' way. It's sad. In Harris' case, the denial was especially pointless, considering how people had been commenting for a while now on the guy he keeps being seen with around New York. I could understand why the publicist would try to suppress the story but it irritated me that, in 2006, a TV actor still can't say he's gay.

Happily, it seems that Harris was annoyed, too. Rather than start playing that fame game -- hiding his boyfriend, showing up at parties with random women, jumping on sofas and yelling about his lady love -- he silenced his handlers and simply issued the briefest, classiest statement possible:

The public eye has always been kind to me, and until recently I have been able to live a pretty normal life. Now it seems there is speculation and interest in my private life and relationships.

So, rather than ignore those who choose to publish their opinions without actually talking to me, I am happy to dispel any rumors or misconceptions and am quite proud to say that I am a very content gay man living my life to the fullest and feel most fortunate to be working with wonderful people in the business I love.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how it's done. I can only hope the Republican party is paying attention. Bravo, Doog!

Labels: back in the day, evolution, friends, homo-a-go-go, movies, the 80s, tributes, TV

You really are a good writer ole pal. I enjoy reading your posts.

-- Reply posted by  Vinnie Delpino at November 08, 2006

 

Sigh. You always sound the way I should have but didn't. Its a wonder I don't put arsenic in your Tapioca. ;)

Marvy article darlin'....

T.

-- Reply posted by  Trev at November 14, 2006

 

Pet Shop Boys on Dancing With The Stars: the musical equivalent of Jumping the Shark.
Neil Tennant just had this look of "please, someone shoot me now" as he sang West End Girls, 20 years after it was popular.

RIP Pet Shop Boys
(1981-2006)

-- Reply posted by  Chris Lowe at November 15, 2006

 

I like that I have a better shot at Doog then my female friends do. Giggity Giggity Giggity Go!

-- Reply posted by  Dave at November 17, 2006

 

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Wow, where did two weeks go? Oh yeah, the new job as fab magazine's Number 2. In a word, awesome. I'm so happy. In a perfect world of better luck and smarter choices, this is the job I would have had after Glad Day books a decade ago but who cares? I'm thrilled and very busy working to advance the Dreaded Gay Agenda.

I only half-joke because this is the secret issue I have with my magazine in particular and a good chunk of homo-dom in general -- it's all a bit silly, no? Skim through an issue of fab and it's all parties and dancing and sex and art and music and joking and costumes and sex (yeah, I know, twice). But so what? I've read Maxim magazine, I've watched NASCAR, I've listened to 'bitches'n'hos' gangsta rap -- 'straight culture' is plenty ridiculous too.

The difference, however, is that heterosexuality never has to justify its existence. Oh sure, that Gay Agenda notion is thrown around by people who find it less funny than I -- people who think that the human race is dying off because Vermont lets men marry one another. In reality, however, the world has been, is and will be 90% heterosexual. If I have to justify the content of fab magazine to myself, it's because I have to justify myself to the rest of the world. Why? Paris Hilton doesn't have to. But then, she's not a fag.

LAND OF A THOUSAND WORDS

Yeah, it's hard not to sound snide but I've been bristling all week over the gay witchhunt spawned by Florida Congressman Mark Foley's gruesome e-mail exchanges with the teenage boy pages on Capitol Hill. The media's calling it Foley-gate; I'm calling it Where-the-hell-have-you-been?-gate (April, people!). The pleasure I'd take from the imminent and long-deserved collapse of the Republican party is quashed by the disgust and sadness I feel over this whole mess.

Plus, it ties into an e-mail I got from my old friend Darrell, responding to the "Jesus Camp" post below. Darrell has always provided a thoughtful and eloquent counterpoint to my 'Christian-bashing' (like that time I passed legislation to stop them from teaching, or marrying, or joining the army). With all honesty, I say that his own blog is far more interesting and well-rounded than mine but, before you rightfully click on over to it, stay with me for a while as I think it's past time I answered his honest, wise and pertinent thoughts. He's had me mulling for a long while so it's only fair I try to get it all out. Let's go:

IT CAN'T COME QUICKLY ENOUGH

Re: the questions you raise on your post - I'm thinking you know the answers to most of them already, which makes them rhetorical. I'll raise one of my own, which we touched on in an earlier e-mail exchange: what are the chances the North American Gay Community (a term I use without irony), given its singular and revolutionary experience in the last half-century, will promote a sexual paradigm of trust, respect, sensitivity and safety - a commonly recognized "manifesto" for humanity at large?

This ploy might seem cagey of me, but I think it touches on surprisingly common ground. The religious impulse and the sexual impulse are not that far removed (I still blush to recall a Pentecostal meeting I once attended). I do, in fact, grind my teeth when I see footage of this woman and her vile little camp. But turning tables: if some evangelical had the fortitude for it, he could walk into a bath house with a video camera and put together a documentary designed to get His People similarly "put off".

I'm the quiet guy in the corner who considers sex a sacrament, as well as marriage, and thinks the two work best when they're purposely housed beneath the same roof. To my mind, the bath house is not a physically or spiritually (I don't separate the two) healthy environment in which to experience the sacrament. I believe a human being actually needs to recover from (as a for instance) group sex.

Furthermore, it would sadden me if either of my daughters' coming-of-age experience included some time in a bath house.

But the human spirit is a resilient thing. It can survive a Warrior For The Lord boot camp; it can survive extended exposure in a bath house. But I'd say in both cases, there is more than a little "figuring it all out" required when the tenure is up.

My question to you is this: what purpose does this video serve on your blog? My guess is that most of your readers don't need convincing of the malign intentions of Evangelicals and Republicans, just as most of their number don't need convincing of the unhealthy lifestyle of the Gay Community. I'd propose that the truths which both camps need to face lie in a very uncomfortable spot between the two extremes. If we can't be the first ones (sorry - I'm gay now) to take tentative steps in that direction, I don't see much hope for progress.

But I'm just a crazy liberal that way!

Much love,
Darrell

LIGHTS

So snarky, this talk-back from that brainy Mennonite. I'd slap him but he'd just go and turn the other cheek so where's the fun in that? Seriously though, much love to Darrell in return for standing up to my ranting. Contrary to popular belief, I don't blog just to force my own opinions on people, I'm aiming at a dialogue here (for years now, I've been hoping some irritated American will write me and explain exactly WHY the Bush Republicans must remain in power -- just ONE good reason, please! -- but, alas, only silence).

Let me move along through Darrell's questions with each paragraph. First, he asks:

what are the chances the North American Gay Community...will promote a sexual paradigm of trust, respect, sensitivity and safety - a commonly recognized "manifesto" for humanity at large?

Hmmm. I'd say the chances are not bloody likely. No, I'm just kidding. Half-kidding. See, don't ask me -- I'm a misanthrope. The problem with gay people is that they're people -- they carry forth the same trust, respect, sensitivity and safety as their heterosexual friends and family, no more and no less. And, watching the evening news, I'd say hopefully no less whatsoever.

LOVERS IN THE BACKSEAT

But I'm being snide. It's unattractive. More importantly, I'm dodging the real thrust of Darrell's question which is, why do gay men have cheap, anonymous, unhealthy, promiscuous sex more often than straight people do? Sorry, my homo brothers, it IS a legitimate question but -- ah! not so fast, my straight pals -- not THAT legitimate -- I've been on craigslist lately and I also know that gays did not (as rumoured) invent the sexual revolution, we just happily rode on its coattails. No, as always, the truth is somewhere in the middle so let's talk promiscuity.

I'll get the self-blame out of the way first -- it's easy 'cause it's flimsy. We're men. We're pigs. One of the big 'Mars vs. Venus' differences I always hear about men and women is that, when it comes to sex, men want quantity over quality; women, vice-versa. That seems generally true to me. Take the ladies out of the equation and guys will happily have sex in gas station washrooms. Women only do that in movies and even then only with Brad Pitt. So yeah, there's just a lot more of it with gay guys. Variety is the spice of life and we want the whole rack. In one bowl. Now. A little self-control wouldn't be such a bad thing once in a while, fellas.

But here's where -- having cheaply attempted to exonerate slutty men based on weak theories of biology -- I now return to the more fun side of the blame game and point my finger at religion. Whether it's Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism or what-have-you, religion has always served as a handy check on sexuality. Every horny adolescent has been stopped dead in his tracks by a lecture on how God watches everything (eeeeeeverything) a person does, that He thinks sex before marriage is sinful, that He finds your masturbation horrifying, that He absolutely hates those faggots, and that He created AIDS as a punishment for all of it. Personally, I think this makes God sound like a miserable and sadistic bastard but that's just me.

BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME

What does all that have to do with gay men not keeping it in their pants? Plenty! We get the worst of it. From the moment somebody thinks that we're gay (always before we do), we're told that our very feelings are disgusting, that it's impossible for men to feel love for one another, that every wildly-depraved sexual act possible (or impossible) is only performed by gay men, that we'll inevitably contract AIDS and deservedly die and that, because we just didn't learn our lesson from all this, we'll go to hell and burn forever in a lake of fire. Hey, they're just trying to keep us from making the wrong "choice"!

Given that twelve-ton-loaded-against-us scenario, damned either and every way, it's no wonder most gay men reject religion altogether but the real dirty secret is that their internalized belief in it all never truly goes away. Imagine how those years of self-loathing, that fear of damnation, simmer away until you're just screaming for sex, drugs, something, to quiet the voices in your head telling you how sick and filthy and worthless you are.

The people who did this to you have a solution, of course -- just accept Jesus Christ as your personal saviour, give up your life of sin and live a celibate life! Wow! I could've had a V8! Of course, your heterosexual friends and family won't be joining you. They'll get married, raise children and have a healthy sex life. Everyone but you, because you're a filthy faggot. Hey, stop that crying! God loves you!

KISS YOU OFF

That's not a solution. So we're back to option B: if you're going to lead an unhappy, loveless, diseased life leading to the pits of hell, you might as well have fun on the way down. Gas station toilet sex, here we come, woooo-hoooo!

This leads us neatly into Darrell's next point about bathhouses and yeah, they're not actually spiritual places, are they? The first time I went, I envisioned a brave adventure deep into the heart of darkness. I was actually disappointed to discover, well, just another bar scene -- only with towels. There was a very fine room of weightlifting equipment and a truly gorgeous little hot tub that was literally better than sex. I left feeling a bit gutsier but with little desire to return.

But I've always been a little more...flexible in a couple. Years ago, on a dare, I went to a spa with my little blond boyfriend and we discovered certain accessories and equipment that we'd never have been able to try at home. We felt supremely naughty about it all and laughed over it long afterward. And, just this summer, I ran into someone I'd gone on a disastrous date with a couple years ago. Reunited, we danced at a club before he suggested going for a swim. "A swim?" I asked. This was downtown Toronto. What I didn't know was that the bathhouse down the street has a large outdoor pool. At 3 in the morning, we swam under the stars and soaked in a hot tub afterward as he told me his stories. I found it all very soothing.

COMFORTABLY NUMB

But enough romanticism. I'm not trying to sell anyone on a bathhouse -- far from it. If you never go, dear reader, you're missing nothing and probably gaining. The problems with bathhouses are obvious -- they're geared towards quick, anonymous trysts between people too shy, too impatient or too creepy to chat someone up in a bar, and that sheer pace makes them breeding grounds for disease. But so is the Internet. And before bathhouses, it was public parks and toilets. None of it's right, you can argue, but it's happening (for reasons I'm saving for my Big Finale coming up). Bathhouses, at least, are controlled environments with attentive staff and bowls of condoms everywhere. The debate has been going on for two decades now and there's been no 'smoking gun' either way. Personally, I think the cons outweigh the pros but, in the end, bathhouses are simply venues -- what goes on within them is as friendly or as horrible as their patons' motives. Play or prey.

That's what leads from our bathhouse conversation into the bigger picture. After telling the good and the bad, there's still the ugly: I caught a relatively minor but wildly-unpleasant sexually-transmitted disease from a guy I went home with one night. No bathhouse was needed; this was a clean, comfortable condo that was home to a tall, blond, fun-loving guy I felt comfortable with. Until things got frisky and his games proved less open to negotiation than most. I put a halt to things but only long after the encounter had gone south. Finding out I'd contracted a disease from it was the cherry on the cake.

Now I can easily imagine some uncharitable type out there saying, "Well you see? Sex with a stranger? A homo? You were asking for it!" I can imagine it because he's in my head somewhere, actually. This is where I must be clear on this -- I didn't blame anyone during this. Not Republicans, not the Christian Churches, not gay advertising egging me on, not even the guy himself, really. It was my choice. I decided to go, I decided what I was comfortable with, I decided when to leave. No one controls me.

RETURN TO OZ

But there is one nagging thought in all that -- why did I let it go on so long? Why did I (why DO I) have so much trouble standing up for myself? Why is there always that inner voice that asks me, "Who cares what YOU want? A good person wouldn't be so selfish. Who do you think you are, anyway?"

Where does that voice come from? My parents? My teachers? Eight years of Catholic grade school? I feel we're getting warmer. My scientific curiosity about the world always quashed by people who insisted that the Bible must never be doubted, that the ones holding the Bible must never be doubted. The only person I could doubt was myself. And I did. And I do. Unlike them. They've got all the answers right there in that book.

But they've never been able to answer my questions and certainly not the ones in regards to sexuality. That's the crux of the problem here. Telling a gay teen to shut up and not be gay is not an answer. Telling him he's an abomination is not an answer. Telling him he's going to hell is not an answer. If that's all the Bible has to offer, then how can anyone be surprised when people reject it and seek answers elsewhere?

I got out when I was thirteen. Faced with the prospect of going to a Catholic high school, I snapped and told my parents I had to go to a public one. My first brave act of self-protection. One of my classmates called me a traitor. He meant it.

THE OTHER SIDE

Looking back on my religious upbringing, I don't think my childhood was a bad one -- I was a bit banged-up but not damaged. Nothing severe. Beaten by nuns but not molested by priests. As Bill Maher once joked, frankly I'm a little insulted. I can joke about it, inspect the dents in my psyche like it was a car fender, but I fear how much worse it's been for others, the ones who stayed.

To stick around, trying to reconcile two utterly conflicting worldviews, leads to a particular kind of soul-death. And I could never dream up a more apt, more grotesque example than this sad bastard Mark Foley, a man who devoted his career to crafting legislation for harsher penalties against paedophiles, while secretly trying to lure his teenage congressional pages into having sex with him. The news media is horrified at this bizarre double-life, this shocking self-destruction. Idiots. I remember what I was like at eighteen, screaming in my closet, and imagine what I'd be like if I stayed like that for the next twenty-five years. I'd be Mark Foley.

I imagine him spending his days working alongside Republican family-values conservatives like Marilyn Musgrave who -- in a time of war, torture, terror and lies -- says that gay marriage "is the most important issue that we face today." Foley wants to be one of these people, he always has been, but he goes home to an empty house, drinks a few glasses of alcohol and thinks of that beautiful 16-year-old page who smiled at him yesterday. I'd feel really sorry for him except that he's a grown man who chose to hide from these people and, well, those e-mails really are gross.

The real scandal, of course, is that Foley's right-wing buddies knew how pathetic and creepy he was but, as long as he stayed quiet about it, he was still useful to them ($100,000 useful!). They just ignored the chatter:

Mark Beck-Heyman told The Washington Post warnings were circulated to steer clear of Foley, R-Fla., after he began inviting pages to his office for ice cream in notes and e-mail.
...
"Mark Foley knew that he could get away with this type of behavior with male pages because he was a congressman," said Beck-Heyman. "But many people on Capitol Hill," including many Republican staff members, "have known for over 11 years about what was going on and chose to do nothing."

Well of course not, Mark -- Republicans couldn't possibly have devoted any attention to a possible sex scandal involving one of their own trying to molest teenage boys because they were all too busy with a certain sex scandal involving Bill Clinton and an adult intern. Maybe you heard something about it. While Al-Qaeda was growing like a malignant tumour in the Middle East, America's guardians were holding month-long hearings about the President's penis and quietly hushing any talk from the congressional pages about that creepy old guy from Florida being "overly-friendly." One can't let the safety of teenagers take precedence over a big juicy impeachment.

MIGHT TELL YOU TONIGHT

My point (yep, here we are!) is that all of this nastiness might have been avoided if Foley had been allowed to come out as gay a long, long time ago. He would have run for Congress with Florida's support and found himself a solid conservative 40-year-old banker (okay let's face it, a 30-year-old banker) and settled down, leaving the teenagers alone. They could be as friendly to him as their ambition allowed and he wouldn't care. He's a married man, after all. The opposite of this is what we see far, far too often -- closet cases trolling parks and toilets, bathhouses and chatrooms, looking for intimacy-free ways to get what they need so badly. Such encounters are fleeting and rarely fulfilling so they have to keep going, faster and with greater desperation until something terrible happens. The closet kills.

EVERYBODY WANTS THE SAME THING

Darrell talks about 'sex as sacrament.' I believe that too -- or at least I used to. Clive Barker wrote a lovely book called Sacrament that took that theme, celebrated it, shook it around, warped it and came out the other side into beauty. Such a wonderful guy. I've been lucky enough to have had that feeling of sinking into another person on every level -- physically, mentally, spiritually -- and frowned at the big city 'sex as handshake' model. I used to try and see their side when right-wingers railed about gay sexual excess. Big warehouse orgy parties ARE over-the-top and safe-sex is not practised nearly as much as it needs to be. Road to hell and all.

The gay marriage revolution seemed to be the compromise we needed. Homophobes would have to accept our relationships, while we gays 'settled down' into comfy pair-bonds just like them. Couples would all be united in suburbia together, waving over the fence and inviting each other over for barbeques. But, like the joke goes, a liberal is someone who thinks his opinion IS the compromise. Suddenly, the conservatives were no longer complaining about gay promiscuity; they were complaining that faggots dared to equate their relationships to their own. What nerve! Suddenly, the compromise I saw was instead the end of civilized society. Was I wrong? Should I doubt myself? Nope, because I realized that this wasn't about marriage, this wasn't about society, this wasn't about rights. This was merely the same old song: shut up, go away, who do you think you are, anyway?

Conservatives don't really care about the health of gay people or the well-being of society or the state of marriage -- they just want us gone. Or at least tucked away in silence like Mark Foley. They knew for years that he was a quiet, pathetic, predatory pervert and they liked him that way.

Well, sorry kids, but I thought we settled this argument years ago -- silence=death, remember? We're here, we're queer, get used to it. This is what frustrates Darrell as much as myself -- the louder and angrier the Christian Right gets, the louder and angrier the militant gay activists become, and vice versa. The crazier the right gets, the more frustrated I get; the more I spout off, the more threatened they feel (and they feel threatened by everything). In a time of jihad, the reasonable middle ground seems shakier than ever.

But hey, I've got a little magazine now. It's silly and shallow and generally worthless but it's up against Newsweek and Fox News and billionaire Pat Robertson's 700 Club. Feels almost like a fair fight.

TAKE YOUR MAMA

My only real obstacle is that hoary old lie that 'the gays are coming for the children.' That's what all of this is about. Even the most violent homophobe could accept me if I'd just 'keep it to myself' (whatever that could mean) but they panic when they realize that the teenagers are listening. They think our tales of ribaldry are SO fascinating, SO intoxicating that entire high schools will go queer overnight. How flattering! Such a delightful notion but an utterly impossible one. Darrell can rest easy knowing that I'll never be able to lure his children into a bathhouse [attention crazy people: I am SO kidding! xo!]

You see, Mark Foley notwithstanding, we've never wanted the children -- at least not all of them. We could never turn their children gay (How? I was never turned straight) but, in the long run, we WILL take their children. We'll take the gay ones. The ones they teach to hate themselves, the ones they toss aside as worthless, the ones to whom they offer no hope. We'll take them in and give them the answers their parents never did.

Me, I'll be doing what I've always done -- listen to them, talk to them, rant at them and help them look at the bigger picture. I won't even have to work that hard -- they're coming out younger and younger now, with less and less damage. Many of them don't even like being called gay, even though they'll openly hold hands with their boyfriend in the street. Yes, I've worked hard to destroy society and replace it with this: young people happy in love. Read the paper lately? We need more of them, not less.

FILTHY GORGEOUS

I wrap up with one last anecdote, surprised at how chatty I'm being for someone who's never wanted to discuss his sex life on a blog. See? Repression! Look what it leads to...

A few years ago, I was madly, madly in love with that little blond boy who, well, just didn't feel the same. He did at first, I know that, but not after a year or so and I was too stupid or too in love (same thing?) to understand the change. I wanted to marry this boy -- sex as sacrament -- but there was one night too many lying in bed with a stranger who looked like him. No cheap one-night-stand could ever be as grim and soulless as this.

Finally facing reality, I broke up with him. I was 30 and convinced that my life was over. My love was gone, my youth was gone. Yeah, I know -- I was an idiot. But a dismally-unhappy one and I tried to make myself feel better by 'getting right back on the horse.' So I was at a dance club one night and found myself being eyed by someone really adorable. I felt hopeful again for the first time in weeks. We got to talking but, as it often happens, he had a boyfriend. I slinked away, only to soon find the boyfriend wanting to dance with me. In my lingering fog of heartbreak and disappointment, it never occurred to me that one of them would want me, let alone two, but I was invited back to their hotel room.

Now again, there's always risks. They could've turned out like a double-version of that horrible one-night-stand guy; they could've just been leading me on for kicks; they could've even robbed, beaten and left me for dead like Matthew Shepard. I only knew I had to try. We stayed up most of the night before I fell asleep tucked between them, arms and legs everywhere.

The next morning, we heard the cleaning women talking out in the hall. One of the guys sat up in a panic. "Did you put the 'do not disturb' on the door?" he blurted. "I thought you did!" said the other. He leapt out of the bed, down the hall and locked the door just as the cleaner was turning the handle. Hollering an apology through the door, he hopped back into bed and, a moment later, the three of us erupted with laughter, picturing the woman's face if she'd walked into the room. We chatted, we had breakfast and I went home.

It was a bright Sunday morning and I walked down Bay Street with a huge goofy grin on my face. I felt big. I felt brave, I felt funny, I felt sexy, I felt healed, I felt whole. Mournful thoughts of my ex-future-husband, like cobwebs in my head, were brushed away. I'd had a lovely night of trust, respect, sensitivity and safety far better then anything in the past year. This skanky little encounter in a bar had given me hope. It was fun and open and honest and it felt like a sacrament.

Labels: back in the day, evolution, fab, friends, health, homo-a-go-go, insanity, introspective, politics, religion, Trawna, writing

And somehow you manage to meet deadline, too! Thank you for this, Scott - it's quite an honour to have one's words given this sort of consideration. In the future, though, I'll keep my e-mails shorter and less provocative (the better to avoid carpal tunnel syndrome!)

-- Reply posted by  Whisky Prajer at October 06, 2006

 

I've been thinking a lot about this post (and not just because of the brilliant use of Scissor Sisters), but especially in terms of the belief of sex as sacrament. Like Scott, Clive Barker's Sacrament is one of my favourite books. But I've also deconstructed a lot of the false value that society has placed on the sexual act, mostly through the study of history and ancient religions. Traditionally, marriage was a property transaction between a thirty year-old man and the father of a fourteen year-old girl, and it was imperative that the woman have sexual fidelity in order to ensure that there was a proper line of inheritance. How this is exactly sacred I'm not sure, other than the religion built up justification for the social mores of the day. But looking back at ancient cultures that placed tremendous value on the sexual act for the very act itself, who didn't fill it with all kinds of artificial value judgements and who saw the beauty in it for what it was, I really think that perhaps we as a society need to recall that ethic and reclaim it for what it is. Casual sex is only really empty or damaging if we tell ourselves that the only "proper" way to have sex is within the confines of marriage. It doesn't have to be empty or damaging if we treat it for what it is, and honour it for what it is. Adding value judgements only serves to mystify the process and creates the very harm that it seeks to prevent.

-- Reply posted by  The Guy in DKNY at October 10, 2006

 

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Back in July, I wrote about the US Army discharging gay soldier (and Arabic translator!) Bleu Copas, saying that the whole sad issue was "post-satire." Well, leave it to the fine folks at -- you guessed it -- The Daily Show to try anyway.

In particular, it's Jason Jones, who I actually used to know. We went to Hill Park high school in Hamilton and starred in plays -- he was the hero and I the villain in Leader of the Pack and I wonder if he, like me, is still trying to get "76 Trombones" from The Music Man out of his head. I never felt compelled to keep acting but he did and I've been delighted to see him end up on one of the best shows on television.

I just didn't think I'd have to see so much of him:

Labels: back in the day, homo-a-go-go, TV, war - what is it good for?

And while I'm feeling nostalgic, here comes the National Film Board of Canada, who've decided to post streaming video of 50 of their greatest short animation pieces. In the early eighties, my mom sprang for Pay TV for a couple years (First Choice and Superchannel!) and they would run NFB shorts in between movies. I was introduced to some fantastic and delightful material and I'm glad to see that the NFB is finally using the Internet to keep that flame burning.

There are a lot of gems: The Sweater is as sweetly Canadian as maple syrup, Hunger is creepy satire done with early CGI, The Cat Came Back is deservedly loved by millions, Neighbours is as weird and sadly relevant as ever (the same goes for Every Child), and, of course, The Big Snit is the Greatest Thing Ever.

Thanks, NFB -- you do our country proud!

Labels: back in the day, Canada, the 80s

When I used to work at Britnell's Bookshop, Toronto's oldest and fanciest-schmanciest, I would often tell people buying a book that I'd heard the author would be on Talk Show X that week or that PBS was doing a televised version. They'd look at me like I had something hanging out of my nose and say, "I don't watch television," or better yet, "I don't own a television."

I always found this attitude strange since -- like books, movies or any other media -- 80% of television is indeed crap but some of it is very, very good. Some may think my 80% figure is too kind but even so, why dismiss an entire outlet when you can just be selective about it?

James Poniewozik, the TV critic for Time magazine agrees with me but far more authoritatively:

It's easy to knock the TV Turnoff Network as Quixotes, Luddites and naifs -- I've taken my own shots at them in the past -- but here's their dirty secret: they don't actually want you to turn off your TV. Not for good anyway. In a chat on the Washington Post web site, the group's director allowed that what they really want is for families to spend fewer hours in front of the tube: 1 or 2 hours per day, perhaps.

You can argue with the number (OK smart guys: America's Next Top Model, The Amazing Race, Lost and South Park are all on Wednesday night -- which ones am I supposed to drop? Am I made of stone?). But it's reasonable to say that people should be more selective about what they watch, and, especially, teach their kids to watch it critically.

So why not make that the goal of the week -- Watch TV Smarter Week, etc. -- rather than a kill-your-TV crusade that is, rightfully, almost bound to fail? Probably because, by asking people to turn off the TV altogether for a week, the group gets more publicity. But much of the publicity focuses -- again, rightly -- on how little success the group has: the Nielsens show no dent attributable to its efforts. Year after year, the group comes off like cranks, and incompetent ones at that.

Their message should be not that people should watch less TV but that they should work harder at choosing the TV they and their families watch. I have little patience for people who dismiss TV across the board: it's ridiculous to claim there's no qualitative difference between, say, The Sopranos and Date My Mom. But I also have little patience for people who let their young kids run the remote unsupervised.

Electronic media is a big part of modern life: rather than shield your kids from it, teach them about it just like you'd teach them about hygiene or traffic safety. Talk about what commercials are, why they're trying to get your money, and whether you can believe them. Talk about what they like and don't like on TV and why. In other words, teach your kids to be their own media critics, because that's what we all need to be these days.

In the end, that's a more realistic goal than unplugging your TV set--and, truth be told, much harder work. If there's a legitimate complaint about TV as a medium, it's that it too often discourages critical thinking and offers easy, simplistic answers. Ironically, that's also exactly the problem with TV Turnoff Week.

Labels: back in the day, bookworm, TV

mmmmmmmmeeeeyyyyeaaaah ... while I always appreciate someone else's efforts to help me be a better parent, JP's considered advice carries a whiff of "I might not be spending quantity time with Johnny, but I am spending quality time." I can vouch from first-hand experience that weaning yourself and your family from the glass teat (yes, the computer monitor qualifies) for a week or two will expand your family's sensibilities - because you will be spending both quantity and quality time with each other (just for starters).

-- Reply posted by  Whisky Prajer at May 04, 2006

 

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MY GEEK HEART BEATS FASTER

The BBC announced this week that, after a 14-year hiatus, a new series of Doctor Who will premiere in 2005, possibly starring Richard E. Grant and written by Queer as Folk creator Russell Davies. I remember watching QAF with Bryce and Gord and being teased by them when Vince secretly, late at night, pops a tape into his VCR. The shot reveals that, with no one around, he's not watching porn but Doctor Who. "It's you!" Bryce and Gord cackled while I, with teeth gritted, had to admit they were right.

But I loved Vince, and we both love Doctor Who -- wittier than Star Trek, more British than Buffy, and cheaper than Battlestar Galactica. Yes, everyone makes fun of its bargain-basement special effects (and deservedly so), but no other sci-fi show tried harder to surprise, amuse and terrify its family audience on a weekly basis. Besides, it ran for 26 years (though at least five of those were indeed crap)!

The late Douglas Adams said that the secret to writing for Doctor Who was "to keep it smart enough for children to enjoy but simple enough for adults to understand." Good luck, Russell, there's a new generation of kids out there who need someone to fight the monsters, and we older generation who'd like to cheer him on.

Labels: back in the day, Doctor Who, TV