Hi! My Name is Sky and I’m an Unserious Homosexual Guy!

        Reading all the huffing and puffing about U of T instructor David Gilmour’s recent comments on Hazlitt (‘When I was given this job I said I would only teach the people that I truly, truly love. Unfortunately, none of those happen to be Chinese, or women.’) I am struck by the amazing hypocrisy of it all.

         Gilmour’s remarks are just typical of the racism, sexism and homophobia out there in our culture. What’s the big surprise? Unless of course, you’d like to pretend that David Gilmour is the only person who thinks this way. Why do you think the Toronto Sun put him on their front page? We can try and shut Gilmour down -- but his bespectacled little old lady face wears the ‘what me worry?’ expression found on every proud member of Rob Ford’s loyal constituency. As much as we all profess political correctness in public, many in our society (even professional people of all stripes) still believe that marriage is for straights only, that the East Indians are taking over, and that women who talk too much are just good old fashioned bitches.

         But most hypocritical of all are the academics who say things like -- ‘David Gilmour is not a true scholar because he insists on teaching only writers that inspire him.’

         Bullshit. If that was true, why would universities spend months looking for an actual Asian person to teach Asian studies, using the argument that only a real Asian person should and can teach it? Why did we all go to graduate school and concentrate on our specialties, writing doctoral theses on subjects like “The Aural Practices of the Tseste Fly’?

         I’m not defending David Gilmour. But he’s certainly expressing what most people think about gay writers.  I can’t talk about what it’s like to be a female writer or a Chinese writer. But I can tell you what it’s like to be a gay one. You see, David Gilmour prefers ‘serious heterosexual guys.’ Big news flash: most  serious literary pundits prefer them too. Women writers may be selling a lot of books these days, but who do we really take seriously?  

Take a trip to Key West. You will find Ernest Hemingway’s house lovingly restored, and advertised in Key West tourist brochures. Do you know who else lived and worked in Key West? Tennessee Williams (he wrote a little play called Streetcar Named Desire there). Is his house an historic site? Sorry, no. Can you even find it? (It took me a couple of days on my bicycle to ferret out the place.)

Also in Key West you will find hundreds of bars called ‘Hemingway’s’ or ‘Ernest’s Joint’ in honour of Ernest Hemingway’s fabulous and much admired manly hobby of drinking way too much. You will not, however, find a single bar called “Tennessee’s.’ Furthermore, part of the myth of Hemingway’s much admired masculinity is all bound up with his hard drinkin’ reputation. And how do we remember Tennessee Williams? As a sad, dissipated alcoholic. And what’s the real difference between these two famous addicts?

You tell me.

Gilmour says that he has put two stories by Truman Capote on his course. But all he can say about Proust is he’s ‘very, very funny about human vanity. Particularly gay vanity.’ If that’s the primary thing David Gilmour has to say about Proust then he should never teach the guy. Proust is one of the greatest and most profound writers ever. He deals with all the big issues -- including time, mortality, and the ephemeral nature of love. But let’s face it -- to Gilmour -- and I’m sure to a lot of other people -- Proust was just another homo who sure knew a lot about vanity (we homos are very vain, did you know that?).

Gay writers will never be taken seriously in our homophobic culture. The best they can hope for, is that like -- David Sedaris --they might be praised as master humourists (as long as they don’t mention their homosexuality too much).

Thanks, David Gilmour, for saying out loud what everybody really thinks about gay writers. Thanks for saying that since we don’t procreate we can never do anything other than be ‘amusing ’ -- like Proust, and his fellow funnyman, David Sedaris. I always remember Ian Brown’s comment on Sacha Baron Cohen’s Bruno in The Globe and Mail, 2009. He and Gilmour are obviously (if you’ll pardon the expression) in bed together, when it comes to the whole gay thing: 

“I was on the floor with laughter. If you held a gun to my head and forced me to justify myself, I would say there’s something inherently edgy in the ideal of male on male sex – the primacy of desire, it’s genetic futility – and anything that defrays that tension can be funny.”

It’s true, I’ve always found gay sex pretty amusing, too.

So go ahead. Call us gay writers amusing, flighty, vain, whatever – and by the way, please put two of our short stories on your course, will you? I mean, I guess it’s better than no attention at all.

         

Ten Reasons Not to Go See ANGELS IN AMERICA

1.     It’s old.

2.     It’s a play about the United States of America. It’s ‘A Gay Fantasia on Nation Themes’  -- but that’s not our nation. Hey, this is Canada, remember?

3.     It’s a TV show. It’s already been on TV. You can download it from itunes.

4.     It has a token black character, who gets to be black and effeminate, that way none of the other characters have to be like that.

5.     There is one horrible scene where a character goes to the park and has disgusting guilty ‘park sex.’ This scenes makes people --  especially gay men -- feel bad about sex and sexuality.  For us queers, being openly and proudly sexual is, historically, part of our culture.

6.     The play uses Christian imagery (angels). But devout Christians have traditionally demonized gay men in the name of their religion and continue to do so today.

7.     If Tony Kushner was such a great playwright then he would have written another equally successful play. Face it, part two of Angels in America  (Perestroika) is unwatchable.

8.      It’s preachy.

9.      It’s long.

10.  The play presents an antiquated vision of AIDS, and completely misrepresents our community and our culture.  Straight people see it and it gives them a false idea of who we are and what we are going through. I don’t understand why gay people would want to see it. Oh, I know. Because they are in denial. Here are some ways in which the play is completely irrelevant to what is going on right now in Canada around AIDS and HIV. In Angels in America everyone is afraid of AIDS because it automatically kills people. But now AIDS is a manageable chronic illness and many who have it live to a ripe old age. When this play was first written gay men still thought of themselves as ‘outlaws’ and ‘outsiders.’ Now we have gay marriage in Canada, and most gay men in the western world are trying to forget that homophobia still exists (even though homophobia does exist and is especially harsh in places like Russia). So gay men in Canada get married and go to church and try and act like straight people. But the pressure to be straight acting and adopt a straight lifestyle is too much for a lot of gay men (we know many many Canadian marriages end in divorce, so it doesn’t work too well for straight people either!). This pressure has a lot to do with why a lot of gay men are taking drugs and practicing unsafe sex. So, gay times have changed significantly; unfortunately many members of the audience are also significantly unaware of that, or wish to live in denial. But the scariest thing of all -- and something that the play doesn’t deal with in any way -- is the recent criminalization of HIV in Canada. The criminalization of HIV is a much greater issue than fear of death from HIV for many of those living with HIV in Canada.  Since the 1998 R. v. Cuerrier decision (R. v. Cuerrier said that a person living with HIV could be charged with aggravated assault for having sex with someone without disclosure) persecutions of HIV positive people have significantly increased. The law is so imprecise on this topic that it is possible that an HIV positive person could face imprisonment for having sex with a condom – if they don’t disclose, or for having sex without a condom – even if they are honest about their status. Putting people in jail for not disclosing does not encourage people to be more honest with their partners, in fact it does the opposite. It drives people into secrecy, loneliness, and away from the advice, help and medications they need. The truth is, we live in a culture that still seems to think that AIDS is the most horrible disease a person could ever have, even though the face of the disease has changed significantly. A play like Angels in America completely ignores the realities facing HIV positive people today (and gay men today) and presents a false image of AIDS that is only related to the distant past. This play actually makes life worse for those living with HIV. Please do not go and see it.

The Real Truth About Justin Bieber

            Yesterday Vinay Menon had his say in the Toronto Star about Justin Bieber:

“Justin Bieber and I once had an agreement: He would sing and I would ignore him. He was free to record, perform and occupy a special place in the hearts of a billion young girls. I was free to snicker and turn a jaundiced ear away from his contributions to Western culture. But when Bieber became an adult last year — and regressed into an enfant terrible — our agreement was shattered like a teacup under an elephant.”

I’ve been doing a lot of reading about the Early Modern Period lately (and for you dummies out there, that’s what terribly smart people are calling the Renaissance these days) and one thing that differentiates the Early Modern period from ours is the notion that boys are another species. Not merely different from men, but another species. During the Renaissance, boys were thought of as closer to women then they were to men; they were not so much young men as another gender. There were three categories of people: men, women, and boys. Boys and women were alike because they didn’t have beards. That means they were dismissable, and well, frankly, screwable. Yes, if you were a boy you could get away with pretty well anything, including being the passive partner in sexual intercourse and wearing dresses in plays by William Shakespeare.

How much things change, and how much they stay the same.

Of course today we don’t think of boys as screwable and we certainly don’t they they should be allowed to wear dresses, but we certainly do think that between men and boys there is a great divide.

And we get very uptight when boys pretend to be men, especially when we know that they are really boys and should be dismissed.

The general reaction to Justin Bieber’s sudden ascent into manhood proves we share more with our Renaissance predecessors than we might care to admit.

Here’s the truth about Justin Bieber, according to moi.

He can sing.

And he’s probably gay, and/or ‘not sexually normal in some bizarre and hopefully wonderful way.’ I say this because he
                a)     bought a monkey like Michael Jackson did

                b)    dresses up like an angel and flies in the air like Liberace

                c)  comes from a fundamentalist Christian background

                d) became famous way too early.

                e)    is just too cute for his own good

Now if Justin Bieber is gay and/or ‘not sexually normal in some bizarre and hopefully wonderful way’ then this new strategy (probably invented by his fundamentalist stage mother to further his career) where he

                a)     is very rude to people

                b)    pisses in buckets

                c)     takes his shirt off all the time

is a very good idea. As we all know real men are rude to people, and piss in buckets, and take their shirts off constantly to show off their fab abs.

            Okay, so I don’t really know anything about Justin Bieber. But gay or straight, kinky or not, too many girls are in love with Justin Bieber and he is too pretty and likes to dress up too much – and therefore, he cannot never be a ‘normal’ adult male guy  and will always remain forever -- to guys like Vinay Menon -- an annoying boy trying to pretend he’s a man.

            The reason all this interests me is that most sexist homophobes think all homosexuals are Justin Bieber at heart: they think we are Peter Pani-sh, narcissistic boys who never grew up, and that we are not capable of breeding or defending the homeland with a loaded gun. These days, loads of gay men are putting on bow ties, wearing masculine looking Italian glasses (whether they are actually nearsighted or not), growing beards, and adopting children, all in an attempt be accepted as normal.

            It won’t work of course. Because ideas about what is a real man and what is a real boy don’t just disappear (cuz we’ve been nursing these fictions since the Renaissance.)

So when straight men like Vinay Menon get annoyed with Justin Bieber I just have to laugh. Menon is pissed off because Bieber’s doing something that most gay men will never succeed in doing – fooling the straight establishment into thinking he’s normal. And whether he is or he’s not (normal), the point is he’s not a typical ‘regular guy’ and never will be.  So it tickles my funny bone to see Justin Bieber – like Michael Jackson, Liberace, Noel Coward and all those other wily imposters before him – get the big money and the mega-influence in an uptight, straight, sexist world.

            More power to you, Master Biebster. Keep taking off your shirt!  (I especially like that terribly important aspect of your petulant young rebelliousness!)

             Cuz hey, a crazy old pervert like me likes nothing better than a good trick.

The ‘Othering’ of Michaela Pereira

I was actually kinda excited to see New Day – CNN’s latest brand of morning show. It’s an integral part of the new look that Jeff Zucker has brought to CNN in the last few months – all in an effort to boost falling ratings.

But I’m afraid I find the show almost too upsetting to watch.

I was born in the United States of America. This means I enjoy a little entertainment now and then, and that I’m addicted to CNN. American news is usually more entertaining than Canadian news (though CNN did recently hire Canada’s George Stroumboulopoulos to do a Friday night interview show). However, I may permanently shift back to Heather Hiscox in the mornings. She’s just so damn capable and perky! And the new anchors on CNN mornings -- Chris Cuomo, Kate Bolduan and Michaela Pereira are just so damn depressing.

Let me explain.

This wholesome, gruesome, threesome pretty well embodies everything that’s wrong with the United States of America.

You just have to look at them situated at the morning news desk. There’s Kate and Chris, shoulder to shoulder, looking like the most perfect, gorgeous heterosexual couple you have ever seen. My mother once asked me – (referring to Anderson Cooper) -- “Can a man be too attractive?” However I think the same question might quite appropriately be asked of Cuomo. Are such thick biceps, perky tits and juicy lips absolutely necessary for a morning news anchor? And Kate Bolduan rivals any of the Fox News Come-Do-Me anchors, with her pulsing red cheekbones and flawless blonde hair. And there, beside them (….well sorta) is Michaela Pereira.

Michaela, in case you haven’t heard, is the Hispanic member of the news team. If her name didn’t sufficiently announce her otherness, then her appearance would do the job. As lush and brunette as Kate Bolduan is slender and blonde, she represents the ‘rest of America.’ Jeff Zucker obviously wanted us all to know that New Day is not just a show for white people. No, no no, it’s inclusive. Yeah, well, if CNN is so inclusive then why is poor Michaela sitting all by herself? I know this just sounds like I’m being picky. But the whole setup is kinda odd. And it suggests a certain privilege. Pretty and white, Kate and Chris are the real news anchors -- the ones in charge -- and Michaela is (their somewhat overflowingly bodacious assistant) sitting…over there.

I think one of the reasons this pisses me off is that I remember the previous CNN morning show Starting Point, starring Soledad O’Brien. Damn but I loved that show. Back then, Soledad O’Brien was a somewhat daring, politically correct choice. CNN was getting their foot wet in thrilling waters of  ‘otherness,’ offering audiences a news anchor who was both Irish and Hispanic. But Soledad O’Brien didn’t sit over in the corner; she was actually in charge. I just loved to see her eat Republican congressmen alive. She was always at her best when confronting old, dumb, ugly conservatives (like John Sununu) with their own blatant lies.

But now must be content with poor Michaela Peraira, who – God bless her – was recently permitted an introductory feature on New Day in which she extolled her own kindness -- playing touch football with the ‘poor kids’ and reminding us ‘I was a poor kid once too.’

Awwwww…

This is what is wrong with the United States of America. They will never stop patting themselves on the back for electing an African-American president, while real queers, Hispanics, blacks, and anyone else who else isn’t straight, white and pretty, loses out on all the fame, money and privilege.

Of course, those of us who are ‘different’ do get a place at the table.

That place is just…over there…somewhere.

With Michaela Peraira.