Diet Diary

(I have to lose weight for an upcoming — minor — operation, and this is the diary of how it makes me feel)

Day Three

I went to the mall and bought some earphones. A man with a slender physique and long fingers who worked at The Source was unusually nice to me. I couldn’t help but think it was because I had already lost a little weight and was feeling lean, streamlined and very attractive. He was a very nice man — laughed quite a bit — and was very friendly to me, and he seemed to understand my preference for Skull Candy (the earphones that is). He really cheered my day, and, I thought, gee, I’m on the right track with this diet business.

Diet Diary

(I have to lose weight for an upcoming — minor — operation, and this is the diary of how it makes me feel. I know I promised I would never do this on a blog but hey, times change. And apparently if you tell people about your diet it helps to keep you on it. So here goes! Anyway this isn’t really a blog, it’s a prose poem. I know that poems on my blog have gotten me into trouble before but I’m going to try not to think about that.)

Day One and Two 

Nothing to report: I didn’t leave the house.

WHY DRAG KIDS ARE A BAD THING

Yes, it’s contrary to all your instincts, and your instincts are right, and I’ll tell you why. No, no there are no drag kids. The utter selfishness of this concept is beyond my comprehension. 

Okay, this is what happened. Every since AIDS especially (and before that too) gay men and lesbians have been trying desperately to get straight people to like them — especially the straights who will always hate them, i.e. the religious right. This is all instead of realising themselves as queer people, growing, changing, loving, sexing. This means that these new conservative gays and lesbians have to present themselves as non-sexual (or so they think) as they know that straight culture is hypocritical, and claims not to be sexual. So — it follows — the quickest route to being loved by straights is to say ‘I’m not sexual. Being gay or lesbian is not about sex, sex is not important to me, I’m just the same as you.’

So, are you still with me?

This new gay and lesbian alliance with the new non-sexual trans theory is part of this. Gays and lesbians are now happy to ally themselves with theories that say ‘it’s not about sex, it’s about gender’ and after years of having conflicted feelings about drag queens, conservative gays and lesbians are now willing to accept drag queens if they too — like the academic, theoretical wing of trans theory -- are non-sexual.

Well what could be more non-sexual than reading stories to kids? And let’s not stop there. Why not dress up little boys in drag — because drag isn’t sexual at all, is it? Just like being gay isn’t sexual.

We’re all very innocent, right, all us gay people — we wouldn’t know sex if it slapped us in the face.

Let me tell you something. Little boys should not be encouraged to do drag. Sure, they can dress up and play around in any way they want to — let them do what they want — but only with each other in private — please don’t get involved and supervise them, that’s just sick, and always has been.

Drag is all about getting laid, telling dirty jokes, camp, threatening the patriarchy, and rocking the sexual desires of straight men; it is about the sexual fetishisation of femininity and fashion and makeup. It’s about, to quote Lou Reed —Taking a Walk on the Wildside! Drag is essentially sexual and queer and it will never stop being that way, no matter how many times drag queens read stories to children or lead drag workshops.

So, I think it’s time to stop.

This desexualising of our gay and lesbian culture, is selfish, misguided pathetic attempt for approval that has finally reached the point where it is hurting the helpless. 

Please, stop.

Pride: Adults Only Please!

I’ll tell you what Pride used to be like.

I remember getting ready for the Buddies in Bad Times Theatre Pride float — this would be approximately 30 years ago.

We always decided on the concept first.

Of course I can’t remember the concept we chose — all I remember was my job was to suck off a dyke sporting a big, fat, black dildo. 

Conundrum. What to wear? Well, I had a sailor shirt, and I knew I could get a sailor hat at the army surplus on Yonge street, both of which would go well with the tight, white sexy shorts I would jam myself into (the ones where you could see everything).

I also decided that I would have to go on a diet so that I would look super sexy and fabulous on the float. I went on the banana diet, which was basically just bananas (I think you were allowed some oranges for variety). At the time I was also drinking pretty heavily which I didn’t intend on stopping, so by the time it got to Pride I had a pretty severe stomach ailment, but: I was skinny!

The day of the parade our float was waiting in line and a very officious Pride Official (aren’t they always very officious?) marched up to our float and said “Sorry, you can’t do that, there’s no more s/m on the floats.” You see, the woman I was sucking off was a very tall Asian woman dressed entirely in leather, and of course, she was bare breasted. We got angry at the official and then decided to ignore the orders from officialdom. (I know that because there are pictures of me, —in some book somewhere — sucking off — Joy — that was her very apt name — Joy!)

Anyway, that was the beginning of the end.

The reason explicit sex was banned from the floats was because children would be there.

Huh.

If only we could get rid of the kids!

No, I don’t mean shoot them, I’m not that insane, I mean why can’t we NOT TAKE THEM TO PRIDE? Pride is a celebration of sexuality. Do children have sexualities? Nope, they don’t. Despite what some nutty trans theorist may tell you. Children are often polymorphously perverse (look it up) but of course they become adult sexual beings and make choices about behaviour and labels after they reach puberty (times have changed so much that some may disagree with me even on this). There are family oriented pride events for children, can the children be there, not at the parade?

Or better yet, why not celebrate Pride at night — like the Mardi Gras in New Orleans — and everyone get down and sexy and grungy and very very dirty? Celebrating sex? Remember sex?

Oh dear…..I fear…I’m very old fashioned.

But Joy….can you hear me? Joy…are you still there? 

Joy…I’m thinking of you!

All that is Useless is Human

Visiting the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp outside Berlin was eye opening for me, perhaps not for the obvious reasons. It was not — like camps such as Auschwitz and Majdanek — so much focused on immediate extermination as it was on a death that came more slowly — through starvation, lack of proper medical care, torture, and overwork. The distinction might seem like hair-splitting, but I would propose that what happened in Sachsenhausen exemplified the Nazi philosophy. ‘Those who deserved to live’ had to be separated from ‘life unworthy of life.’ It is true that at Sachsenhausen some were murdered quickly and in cold blood (Soviets, for instance, where killed here immediately, much the way Jews were in other camps). But many prisoners at Sachsenhausen were not immediately killed, and the ones who survived did so because they had the fortitude to live through the often meaningless and torturous jobs that were assigned them. In this way the propaganda on the entrance gate ‘arbeit macht frei’ (work will make you free) became a nightmarish truism.

Nazis were obsessed with those that they felt did not ‘contribute’ to society. This should remind us that what makes humans humane is taking care of those who may seem to ‘contribute’ less — for instance, those who cannot, for whatever reason, take care of themselves. It should make us think of  the inscription on the Statue of Liberty — ‘bring me your tired, you poor, your huddled masses.’ But it should also make us think about the distinctions that we make today — especially in the digital capitalism — between who is ‘productive’ and who is not.

The mega-corporations that dominate global capitalism consistently hire only those who will produce the most goods for the cheapest pay; and humans are gradually being replaced by machines, because machines are cheaper, faster and ultimately, more productive.

In reality, all that makes us human also makes us useless in terms of productive work — our capacity to love, to experience fear, to be inspired, and to have pity for others. Big capitalism would have us believe that modern mega-corporations like Apple and Google are interested in hiring radical thinkers and generous souls; in truth they are interested in people who ‘radically’ and ‘generously’ serve the company’s profit margin. 

To think otherwise is to believe propaganda on the level of ‘arbeit macht frei.’

Oscar Wilde made much of the notion that all great art is useless. And though I do not mean to suggest that we do not need science or technology, our ability to achieve in those realms is not what separates us from what is not human. No, it is those things that cannot be quantified or qualified, it is all that can be felt, imagined and dreamed; our sensitivity, our creativity and our imagination that makes us unique and ‘worthy of life.’

As humans, we must value what is ‘useless’ about us, for it is the essence of what makes us good and beautiful.

The lesson of history lies before us.

Please believe me. 

We value ‘use,’ over all else, at our peril.

DESTINATION NOSTALGIA

There were no standing ovations at the Berliner Ensemble in Germany last night. I have just seen Endstation Sehnsucht (A Streetcar Named Desire) directed by Michael Thalheimer and designed by Olaf Altmann — and ‘from the English by Helmar Harald Fischer.’ Though I adore this play on the page, I have never seen a production of Streetcar that I liked. No arguing with Marlon Brando’s performance; but Vivien Leigh was just too over the top for me (where is Jessica Tandy when you need her)? Nevertheless the performances in Kazan’s 1951 film are so iconic as to have blotted out this play as play. 

Anyway, the title of this German version translates as ‘Destination Yearning” (Destination Nostalgia is a literal translation). It seems to me to be somewhat of an adaptation (I don’t speak German so I was unable to read the program notes) but it strikes me that the English subtitles provided were not identical to the play that I have read so many times. Some text - here and there — was definitely changed and/or excised. It doesn’t really matter though, because this interpretation made this old play seem so alive to me. Thalheimer and Altmann have apparently collaborated before; the design and direction were unique and unforgettable. 

Realism is abandoned — as one might expect from a theatre espousing Brecht— and the set is nothing more than a ramp carved into a kind of cave in a massive wall (very technically difficult, I would think for the actors to act on). From the beginning this speaks to Blanche’s tragedy — as characters are constantly falling down or climbing up. Often they speak directly to the audience. At the back the walls light up at certain moments (the ‘coloured lights’ mentioned by Stanley) accompanied by heavy metal music.  

There were three major differences in this production and any other production I have seen. First, the class issues in the play were perfectly clear — Stanley and Stella’s working class friends were yelling and laughing (one section I will never forget was just a woman laughing savagely in the dark for what seemed like a whole minute)  in ways that reminded me of my Hamilton Hardcore working class neighbours. Second, Stanley wasn’t sexy, nor a brute (he had a pot belly) he was simply horny, somewhat violent man — like so many others. And Blanche was definitely horny too; in their first meeting she was clearly seducing him — it was her a mode of survival. All of this makes the play clearer as treatise; finally the fog of sentiment has been cleared away. Blanche is not fragile, she is a biting, scratching, desperate woman, very much as Stella describes her — misused by life and discarded in a pile of furs and fake pearls at the bottom of the ramp/cave at the end. Stanley isn’t a hot guy you might secretly want to rape you, he is just a working class man, caught in a web of his own male privilege and the class exploitation imposed upon him. 

The audience must think; but still, I was crying all through. All about the acting; the gestures — fierce, moments of repetition — haunting. Blanche whispering ‘Stella Stella Stella Stella' — a hiss. Stanley at the end, saying over and over again ‘everything’s going to be alright' until it becomes a yell. A production unafraid to be politically incorrect and completely real — oddly without a speck of old-fashioned ‘realism.’ We will not see the likes of this in Canadian theatre, for obvious reasons. And there was no standing ovation — like I see those oafs in the audience do for every bad play we see in Toronto. In Berlin, the audience just clapped and clapped and clapped (and clapped), because there was nothing left to do.

Remembering Jenny

I have to say a few words about Jennifer Phipps, who died very recently. I met her at the Shaw Festival when I was working there in the early 1980s. I had been brought in from Toronto by Christopher Newton to assistant direct, and due to my relationship with Christopher some of the actors seemed to view me with some suspicion. Not Jenny. We got to talking and I told her about my frustrations being away from my Toronto theatre company and I mentioned that I had written a play called Jungle Boy, about an incestuous relationship between a mother and a son. She immediately expressed interest: “I’d love to read it darling.” She always used that word — it always made me think of her as an old time movie star. I never thought that a big Shaw actress would be interested in acting in one of my plays; but in no time we worked it up and presented it in the Shaw lobby to an audience that was made up of an acting company somewhat bewildered by our efforts. A couple of years later I wrote a play about Cocteau called Radiguet, and I needed someone to play the role of a madwoman; Jenny enthusiastically agreed to star in the play at the tiny Poor Alex Theatre in Toronto; it was the first play that I directed Edward Roy in (of whom she was very fond). 

No one has said several things that it is important to say about Jenny. She was an enormously charming, generous woman. She loved gay men; I’m not sure why, but I knew that it wasn’t just me, but the fact that I was gay, that was so attractive to her. She was an enormously talented actress, highly underestimated because she was so kind and modest (not like her old friend Joan Collins, at all!). To work with her was a lesson in acting; her work was very instinctive and real. If you put a prop anywhere near her it was in danger of being used — perhaps in ways you had never imagined, so you had to be careful! I saw her at Shaw in a definitive performance in Coward’s perfect comedy Hay Fever, and she was perfect in it, as the dotty Judith — so full of love and insanity that she kept me in stitches from the moment she walked on stage.

I had written a play for her in the 80s called Cheri (inspired by the Colette novel) which was rejected by Urjo Kareda at Tarragon. The play was lost, but when I happened to see her a couple of years ago I rewrote it for her and we tried to do it again together, but she became ill.

And this is the final thing. At one of the rehearsals for Cheri, I asked Jenny her age, and it unleashed a tempest: “Oh I don’t tell my age darling,” she said “because it’s become an issue. Because they think that someone who is 84 years old can no longer act. And it’s because I’m an old woman. It’s not fair. It doesn’t happen to old men!” Her fury frightened me somewhat but I sympathized, because I know she had struggled — despite her magnificent record at the Shaw Festival — with finding work during her last years. If anything were to come of Jenny’s death it might be that artistic directors should remember their old actors. Being old isn’t very popular these days; but Christopher Newton had a practice in his company that I truly respected; he always made a place for them, even if it was a butler, carrying a tray. We could do worse than remember them.