Greta too, will grow old…

I was very sad when Buddies in Bad Times Theatre dumped me. I’m pleased to say that bad feeling is gone. I’ve realised something about all of this ‘generational’ business. This weekend in the press the left is telling us that the very idea of ‘generational divide’ is a product of our imagination; while the right insists that divide has never been greater and that young ‘uns  were never more cruel. I beg to disagree. The fact is that, quite simply, Greta too, will grow old.

What do I mean by that? The ‘woke generation’ is no more extreme than we were back in the 60s. And what they are doing is ultimately for good. Why? Because it won’t, ultimately work.

Take a look at our dreams back then — it was no less than world revolution. If the hippies had their way, blacks, gays, women and the poor would have taken arms against a sea of oppression. It would have been the end of the ‘family’ as institution: we would all be living communes, taking psychedelic drugs to realise our true potential, and enjoying promiscuous sex to spread the love. And, it goes without saying, capitalism would dead. You may have noticed that all that didn’t actually happen. Those were the ideals of a generation, but we had to settle for considerably less. Kicking me out of Buddies and vilifying me was very necessary; as are so many other ‘cancellings’ of the older generation — and as were the beheadings in the French Revolution. In order for the smallest change to happen, the dream must be big, and yes, I must say it — it must also be at least somewhat scary and violent. I have no doubt that those ‘woke kids ‘ — who are now insisting that there is no gender and that racism is okay when it’s directed against white people — will be singing a different tune someday. They will be raising a heterosexual family and pulling in a hefty salary from a big, white mega-corporation.  How many hippies stayed hippies? How many became virulent consumers? Capitalism is a sweet, sweet lover, and a liar too.

It’s good that Greta Thunberg is here. Something must be done about climate change, and if we didn’t have her melancholy, suicidal extremity, people would do nothing.

And we will never forget her, just as we will never forgot Allen Ginsberg. 

But did we all end up being gay, promiscuous, drug taking, meditating, mystic poets? No. We did not.

Is that a good thing? I’m not at all sure……

But we must remember, that Greta too, will grow old.

The Death of Tragedy

We live in the era of melodrama.

It is the era of good and bad, there are no longer any shades of grey.

Recently, I read Streetcar Named Desire with my students and asked them if Stanley was a bad man. ‘Why yes of course —yes  — he raped Blanche.’ I asked them to tell me, then, if Blanche was a good woman. They were confused —their faces contorted with discomfort. ‘But….you are asking us a question that can’t be answered,’ they said. 

Ahh.  

Well gee, I thought that was the whole point. Now the same students who are upset by Blanche’s dual nature — a mixture of good and evil — are obsessed with comic book heroes. I told my students I didn’t want any more talk of comic book heroes in their papers. One of them complained ‘But with comic book heroes, there is hope that good will triumph over evil.’

Okay, I get it. This is the world we live in now. Us and them. The world is divided into good and evil, period. How did we get here? 

Adorno once stated (and I am paraphrasing) ‘there can be no art after The Holocaust.’ I fear he may have been right. What Adorno meant to say was that it was impossible to write about The Holocaust without trivializing human suffering. But what I think happened is this: when we saw naked human evil up close, we lost all sympathy for the tragic hero. (The only author who has dared to see Hitler somewhat as a tragic figure is Karl One Knausgaard in his novel The End.) That is why, these days, if you dislike your opponent enough, you call them ‘Nazi!’

What is lost in all this? Of course we have abandoned political civility — the ability to have rational debates in the public square. But we have lost much more than that. Tragedy is about looking inward, about seeing the flaws in ourselves. When Greek audiences wept, wailed and screamed — bewitched by the masks, the music, dancing, and the shocking portrayal of mothers killing their children (Medea), women falling in love with their stepsons (Phaedre) and bloodied heads nailed to the door (The Bacchae) it was not just because Euripides was a ‘shocking’ playwright (something we rarely see today!), but because he was forcing them to look inward, and examine themselves.

When Prospero says of Caliban “this thing of darkness I / acknowledge mine’ he is doing something we are incapable of doing anymore. 

He is recognising the evil inside.

Rudy Giuliani Is No Hero

President Trump’s personal lawyer is not only up to no good in the Ukraine, he’s been up to no good for years. People keep asking “What happened to Giuliani?” As if he has had some dramatic fall from honesty and integrity. Giuliani is just the same crooked hypocrite he always was. His career — like Donald Trump’s — is mostly hype. As Associate Attorney General under Ronald Reagan Giuliani was famous for high profile cases — some involving organised crime. But though Giuliani may have put many criminals in jail, many of those he prosecuted also walked away — while Giuliani continued to bask in the glory of the celebrated indictments. As for being ‘America’s Mayor,’ the The New York Times says “Giuliani has exaggerated the role he played after the [911] terrorist attacks, casting himself as a hero for political gain.” Which is what Giuliani and Trump do best.

The 1980s is usually seen as a time when New York City was ‘cleared of crime’ by various mayors. In the 90s Giuliani took all the credit. But this was less an idealistic ‘clean up’ than an opportunistic money grab that toyed with the lives of sex trade workers and gay men (as brilliantly illustrated in the recent HBO TV show Forty Deuce) who were helpless to defend themselves in a misogynistic, puritanical post-AIDS environment. It is undeniably true that the crime rate in New York City has plummeted. But at what cost? Forty Deuce shows that New York’s mayors and police conspired with big real estate to close bars, bath houses and and massage parlours, driving gay men and sex trade workers into the streets. The result is evident to anyone who takes a trip to New York City today. Gone are the colourful neighbourhoods and sexual variety that characterised the once great city. (This sad story is also chronicled in Times Square Red, Times Square Blue by Samuel Delaney.) A small price to pay to stop crime, you say? But the crime problem did not originate in the massage parlours and the bath houses, and could have been eradicated without enriching those already flush with cash.

New York City is now a bland, bloated tourist destination, promoting mega-musicals and family vacations. We have Giuliani to blame for that. (Toronto, by the way is poised in the same direction — enriching the already rich and destroying neighbourhoods.) Meanwhile Trump and Giuliani stand up publicly against queer rights and abortion, while their own tawdry personal lives spill over with a succession of adulterous affairs and divorces.

It’s hypocrisy, alright. And as long as no one speaks up, our world will be dominated by a dull colourless hypocrisy — one that fills the pockets of the privileged, and oppresses those who are open and honest about their sexuality.

Let Meghan Murphy Speak!

Have we gone insane?
I ask that quite literally. A woman dares to identify as a woman, and dares to say that there are two genders, and people consequently brand her words as ‘hate speech’ and ‘equivalent fo physical violence’?

What is going on here?

Anyone who has actually read Meghan Murphy’s writings will tell you that her words are not hateful, and that she is not ‘transphobic’ or even homophobic. She is a thoughtful woman with an important, well-reasoned point of view.

Frankly, even if her words were homophobic, I — for one —would not demand that she be silenced or locked up.

Those who wish to ban Meghan Murphy’s ideas are effectively burning books. It is not merely ironic — but terrifying — that a library in a free society is being asked to curtail freedom of speech.

Vickery Bowles is undoubtedly Toronto’s top librarian. She should be given some sort of award for defending Meghan Murphy. She is on the right side of history, and has spoken bravely and eloquently— as a librarian should — about the importance of the unfettered circulation of ideas in a free society.

We need to stop the finger-pointing, name-calling — stop the hatred and the demonization — and start respecting each other as human beings.

Will some be driven to pain, distraction, or even suicide by ideas they hear or read? Sadly yes; this is the downside of living in a society that does not censor ideas. The alternative is much more horrifying — a world unburdened by the unfettered circulation of ideas

Words are not violence. Books are not violence. Libraries are not violence. 

In fact, they are quite the opposite.

Society has a duty to protect the weak from physical assault, but not to protect the vulnerable from offensive speech

Libraries offer ideas that may offend. It is their job to challenge our established and entrenched feelings and prejudices, and that is a good thing.

We abandon them at our peril.

You Are Erasing My Desire

With the rise of transgender washrooms comes the end of urinals. Apparently what we have to look forward in this ‘ideal world’ is rows and rows of bathroom stalls, with all genders and non-genders waiting in line to use them. There is only one problem with this model of the new washroom. 

It erases my desire.

Washroom sex is part of gay culture. And before you say — ‘What the…?”  — try and understand that yes we are a minority group, and yes we are oppressed, and yes we have developed a culture that is different than yours. Sure gay men are sometimes raped by other  men. But our rape does not make us afraid, like heterosexual women. No, in our bars, bathrooms, backrooms and bath houses we have developed a civli sexual culture in which gay men understand that they can flirt and touch other gay men — in very intimate ways - and that 'no still means no.' Sure there are rude outliers — but gay culture simply has less rules around unwanted touching. Frankly we need them less than you do.

Men’s bathrooms are sexual places. Try reading the graffiti (or maybe that will be banned now, too?) Yes, when men — all of them, straight or gay — stand at urinals, you know what? They look. They look, and sometimes they touch. Sometimes they get a message — ‘No way.’ Most men when they get that message will stop touching. It’s civil. But all men know that urinals are sexual places, whether men choose to be sexual there or not. Period.

The end of urinals means the end of all that. It means the death of an iconic gay image — the drag queen at a urinal, her dress hiked up above her ass, proudly, freeing her libido and her wee. It’s over. We will not see that image again; we are not allowed to have that desire again.

I want to ask those who believe that all washrooms should be transgender washrooms one simple question.  Why are you doing this to us? Why?

Why are you so intent on erasing my desire?

Why Are Computers Polite?

I was buying stuff at the grocery store - at one of those automated quick check-out stations? And  when I was done with my purchase, the computer chirped — in a soothing female voice — “Thank you so much for your visit, and have a nice day!”

I resented it deeply. And at first I wasn’t sure why. Then I glanced back at the real live human cashiers (remember those?). They were all indeed living beings —  some with crooked smiles, some fat and some thin, some old and some young — and each I’m sure, replete with a complex, deeply changeable temperament. They were, in other words, people. I realised that — as deeply flawed as human cashiers are — I would rather do my business with an imperfect living person than an impeccably polite machine. 

For I am human, and am deeply imperfect too. Frankly, life  — for a writer — is sometimes lonely, and I relish any human contact (that includes an argument!).

So sure, judge me. But I don’t think that I’m alone in this. I think that — not only do people need to buy things at stores that are staffed by human beings — but that it is good for them to do so.

The politeness of computers signals the real problem. The digital world is increasingly replacing the human one. But I’m not here to rail against computers; the issue is actually capitalism. More and more, governments are being run by big corporations  — that’s what ‘populist’ leaders are, ‘ordinary’ business men, just facilitating business. Computers no longer simply disseminate information, they steal your data and clock your preferences, in order to  earn lots of money for big corporations.

In a capitalist culture, everything comes down to expediency and use. New products must make things faster and easier.  Human contact, in contrast, is slow and sometimes difficult.

Nevertheless, I humbly suggest that human contact is something every single person desperately needs. Computers are great, and necessary — and so is capitalism. But we must not forget that our economy essentially has no heart.  And some things that are easy and fast, also, coincidentally, kill the soul.

People need people (to quote Barbra in that increasingly relevant song from Funny Girl). Without other people — climate change or no climate change — we will suffocate. No, not from lack of air, from lack of love.

Anorexia, Judy and Me

I went on a diet to facilitate an operation a few months ago. I lost 45 pounds. This weight loss necessitated that I wrangle once again with my personal issues around gender.

Don’t worry about me. I’m not anorexic. But, boy! — or perhaps I should say, girlfriend! —  the gender issues that had been percolating during my summer diet kinda reached the boiling point after watching Renee Zellweger in Judy. The film triggered me — in the way that art is is supposed to trigger people. (It’s always a good thing when art upsets you and challenges your fundamental world view!) 

I was a fat, effeminate little boy. Judy Garland was a fat little girl. We both struggled with eating disorders. And for Judy and me, being skinny was all wrapped up with being beautiful and feminine. As a fat little boy I struggled with shame when people noticed my effeminate mannerisms, asking ‘You talk with your hands, why?” — and suggesting “You’re a big kid, shouldn’t you try out for the football team?” Of course I never wanted to play football (in reality I dreaded the thought). For me, as for a lot of gay men, my big masculine physical body was at odds with my inner feminininity.

I am not ‘trans.’ In fact one of the reasons I am writing this is to explain that gay men and lesbians have always had lots of issues around gender — and we had them way before the notion of ‘transgender’ ever existed. 

After losing 45 pounds, I began to feel very at home in my body. Before losing the weight, I was a big guy who made people uncomfortable because of my fluttering hands. Now — on the far side of my diet —  I have long slender arms and legs, and no belly to speak of. I feel graceful and delicate.  I feel like me. Now, when I dress up in drag I look like a female porn star — though an ageing one  — (the kind of girl I’ve always been inside, really!).  Not all gay men are effeminate, but we all (due to stigma) deal with issues of gender. Lots of gay men have eating disorders for many of the same reasons women have them  —  because being skinny seems to fit with being girly in a sexist society. If you want to be a feminine sex object, you are ordered to be lithe, poised, and petite.

Hey -- it’s nice to be an effeminate gay man, comfortable in my new body. 

But I promise I won’t be losing any more weight.

Cuz now I’ve got it all figured out!