I want to remember

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It’s a masterful lie.

And by that I don’t mean it’s not the truth — because after all everything is a lie. If you think that, it’s easier to live. You won’t be as discouraged when things change, when you change, when things go away, and when you go away. If everything is true there is betrayal; if everything is a lie then you won’t ever be betrayed. It’s necessary to mostly believe the present lie that you are living in, the lie you need; there’s nothing wrong with that. And it’s quite natural. In fact the more deceived you are, the better. But you must never deceive yourself to the point that you abandon the notion that everything is a lie. I’m talking about COVID-19 — as well as about life — and particularly about the newest and most beautiful lie about COVID-19 that has  recently been manufactured. And you mustn’t blame science for changing it’s mind. That’s what science does. A thing is only true until the next research is done. Then another ‘truth’ takes its place. This is frustrating, because we take science for truth, and indeed we must, because what else can we do? Well perhaps we should take it as art, as the lie that tells the truth. Science is certainly artful in its rhetoric; its persuasion. COVID-19 is described in the most serious terms, it is about life and death; we ignore it at our peril. And of course, everyone wants to live. And COVID-19 nurtures the very attractive lie that it is possible to live forever, for never has death seemed so much an unecessary tragedy. Even when your 95 year old parents die — surrounded by family — people who have lived long (some might say very long) and fulfilling lives, their deaths become, within the COVID-19 paradigm —  inscrutable, cruel, a veritable knife in the heart. Why, oh why, did they have to go? Previously we might have thought— ‘Well they were in their 90s, perhaps it was their time.’ Now we know the responsibility doubtless lies with a thoughtless teenager in Florida, cavorting on the beach — and later cavorting in a bar — blithely laughing and performing karaoke as if there was no tomorrow — kissing her many boyfriends irresponsibly — and God knows what else! What had once been unfathomable becomes someone’s fault. And most reassuringly, it is the fault of the kind of person we never cared for much anyway -- and were eternally suspicious of -- a beautiful, carefree young person  — one who is much more beautiful than we are, and likely having much more fun. Mark Twain said a lie could circle the world while the truth was putting on its shoes. It’s very difficult to come to terms with the notion that we might die at any time, senselessly, for no discernible reason. Most of us never come to truly understand accept -- or simply just believe -- this incredible fact. But the notion that the person responsible for our deaths is a vain, heartless teenager who thinks only of herself (somehow it seems more satisfying to imagine the culprit as female — don't you think?) makes perfect sense. But this is not the COVID lie I am talking about. (After all, there are so many!) The nearly perfect lie is the notion of ‘aerosol.’ You may be confused by the term — I was confused when I first heard of ‘aerosol transmission.’ (But that’s another thing science loves to do, play with language, making it one of the most artful of all the ‘living arts’!) The word ‘aerosol’ is both mystifying and exciting. It brings to mind the image of a can of air freshener, which if contained COVID germs would be very frightening indeed. And we had just come to understand the notion of ‘droplets’ — through those eloquent yet terrifying animated images of the ‘fomites’ ejected from a simple cough or sneeze. But this theory of aerosol transmission supplants all previous ones. ‘Aerosol transmission’ means COVID is simply in the air. How horrifying! Hasn’t everyone been working very hard? Haven’t we waited patiently as waiters, clerks and sundry service staff disinfect surfaces to make them ‘safe’? But now it turns out we needn’t have worried about that; the virus does not live on surfaces to any dangerous degree. What is even more thrilling and shocking, is that after all this talk about washing hands we are being told that that one is unlikely to get infected by them, either. This should — one would think — be good news. But here is the genius of this artful theory! The virus needn’t even be projected directly at you by another person talking loudly or singing — that of course can happen — but it needn’t be that. The virus lives all around us, like a puff of smoke— but invisible to the naked eye — and anyone may just walk into it, unawares. How then may we protect ourselves? Measures more severe even than masks can and will  be taken; there is much talk of HEPA filters for the very dangerous indoor air. But the sheer beauty of this theory is that though we once tried to differentiate between ‘social distancing’ and ‘physical distancing’ — because being social was once fine as long as we are physically distanced — now it appears that we must not be social, because, let’s face it, people are dangerous. The terror around schools  now becomes magnificent in a scarifying way. And what about love? We had always heard of ‘love-at-a-distance,’ of ‘love-in-the-imagination’ — of platonic love — where no touching was necessary —  where the mere image of the lover conjured up by ones ‘minds eye’ was enough to facilitate a solitary ecstasy. And indeed this may be the answer. For now we have — on our cellphones and our computers — a preponderance of virtual images, of virtual beloveds, some we know, some perfect strangers we have never actually seen or touched, and probably never will. And these virtual images offer no danger to our health. We can carry-on affairs of the heart with these digital creatures, in our imaginations, with impunity. What COVID is telling us is  irresistible (and  by the way, it will be very good for capitalism!). For it is not just possible -- but advisable  --to live primarily in a world that is not peopled, by actual — well, people. The lie becomes, in this way, enormous, all consuming, and somewhat irresistible. And who’s to say this lie is any less fantastic than what we believed for so many years? The lie that is now over, and I am so sad to see disappear? The lie that it now seems incredible we ever imagined could be real: the impossible fantasy we might find love in living flesh?

This is an ode

to Montreal. Matt Walsh my very best friend at York University was from Verdun, which he spoke of with some contempt; and he was the essence of working class. And then my friend Ed and his memories of the craziness of being held up at gunpoint once in this, my favorite city. And Leo who wanted to have sex with him only when he was pretending to be dead. And the The Rubber Gun — Stephen Lack and Peter Brawley—the essence of late 70s Montreal hippy drug scene. Evenings spent at Peter’s apartment (and staying there too) the bottom floor of one of those old Montreal houses (the entrance underneath a spiral staircase) everywhere his paintings and the smell of dope. And Peter introducing us to his young man at The Second Cup, who was indeed very handsome. And then staying for two weeks in Montreal with Hillar Liitoja and Kirsten Johnson and Andrew Scorer and Ken McDougall and Daniel MacIvor -- to play Claudius in an 8 hour version of Hamlet at the Festival of the Americas. I ate a whole (cooked) chicken onstage — but only in Montreal did the audience steal the chicken off my plate — which was disconcerting. It's then I discovered Montreal nights; staying out very late and doing bad things. I wrote many poems about Montreal. One about having a bagel in the morning remembering how receptive the young man was the night before, how those thighs opened for me, and how he was not only obliging but perfectly beautiful. I remember going to what appeared to be a drag bar, in drag, only to be kicked out because I had big fake breasts. Apparently they thought I was a hooker. How flattering. And breakfast with somebody, more bagels on St. Laurent, and my lover partner (let’s just call him ‘the other’) and I spending New Year's one night with a fabulous dyke couple (one was a clown in Cirque du Soleil) only to have them break up the next day — was it our fault?  Pont Jacuqes-Cartier and all that beauty — and I’m not talking about the men — just asking, why decorate a bridge with lights? Why so much pleasure? Why is it necessary? Oh but it is. And lately walking by the AIDs park and thinking about all the sex I had there at the very end of June, when the bath houses weren’t open and I was desperate for any — yes let’s just call it what it is — dick. Joe Orton used to complain about London. He and Kenneth Williams (of the 'Carry-On movies' whose photo is the screensaver on my telephone) would go to Morocco (with Orton’s lover Kenneth Halliwell -- the less said about him the better) and pick up boys. Orton said the boys in London were so uptight, but in Morocco they were offering themselves on the streets —which since it is due to poverty, is sad in a way — but on the other hand, it’s just sex isn’t it? Remember sex? That fun thing you do because it’s the only time you can really lose yourself (without drugs) and merge with the general miasma that is our biological existence? Speaking of which, that’s what Orton used to say about the British, that they were not by nature very human (by which he meant humane) because in a human/humane society young men offer their bodies to strangers (strangers they like, that is) because I’m not at all sure what dicks are for, otherwise — oh yes for procreation —sorry, I forgot. And then there is confession, which I think is the key. It’s why Montreal is so exciting. Speaking of confession I’m doing an awful lot of that in this piece of writing. You can’t imagine how freeing it is, one becomes abject — anxiety vanishes—  because now you, the reader,  know the very worst about me —or the best — (depending on how you look at it) and I expect to be rejected and damned for at least a moment or two, and that’s the great thing about confession. Imagine all those constipated Ontarians, all that damned up desire. Ford has outlawed singing because of all the 'projected particulae.' Well one of my favourite things to do with someone — especially a young man — is to have him project his 'particulae' all over me me. But no, not in Ontario. No singing, dancing or ‘funning’ why? Because they are Protestants and they don’t confess. Instead the evil is damned up inside them forever and causes illnesses like guilt and anger. Whereas in Montreal we just go to the local priest and close the door of that cosy cubicle and say —‘Yes yes ten young men sat on my face last night! One by one! It was heaven! I enjoyed it beyond belief! And I would love to do it again and again, in fact forever!  So am I expiated now? Ten Hail Mary’s? Of course I will say them. And I am terribly sorry for all that sinning.”And the priest, like Christ, dies a little bit with every confession, but we — thank God! — are done with regret and can get on with the sinning once again. Confession is human and humane. Living with pain and anger is not. Who will I meet tonight? Will I meet Parick Scholaire who likes to balance chocolate chip cookies on the end of his humungous member? Will I meet Julio who banged me like there was no tomorrow? I hope I will see that fascinating Asian boy ( or girl, in-between?what is she? does it matter?) with the long blond hair, who is always at the strip club, and claps a little too hard for the boys when they are done, as if to say, ‘they work hard, they deserve it!’ And it’s true, an older lover of mine used to say to me after we watched pornography together (because there was a time when watching pornography was quite a normal part of lovemaking. It wasn’t betrayal, it wasn’t judged, it  was just part of an evening’s routine.) When it was over, when we'd had our sniffs of poppers and both had come, he would lean over to me with that helpless stoned laugh I loved so much, and say “They really don’t pay those boys enough, do they? I mean for the pleasure they give us? They deserve so much, because they work so hard and make us so happy.” And I think of Leonard Chow — the star of Drag Queens on Trial and Drag Queens in Outerspace — he played the one and only Judy Goose, dancing up a storm with his ray gun in outer space. And then Leonard died of AIDS, and all we heard about him was that his mother had come all the way from the Philippines to feed him his favourite food on this deathbed. I think of Leonard Chow because he was Montreal; he was beauty and he was pleasure, and he was in addition, very obliging. And these are values we hold forever close to our hearts — under one God, indivisible, in Montreal, with liberty and fucking for all.

Maybe this is why I’m now reading

Samuel Delany’s letters. I kind of enjoyed one of his novels years ago (I’m not a sci-fi fan), but I really loved his non-fiction book about sleaze in NYC  — Time Square Red, Times Square Blue (for obvious reasons). In his letters, Delany dares to talk openly about his own gay promiscuity. His specificity is funny; he goes on about being attracted to men who bite their nails. Apparently he does sleep with men who don’t bite their nails (a relief to non-nail biters who want to sleep with Samuel Delany). Delany makes no bones about it— it’s street boys that he loves, guys who could be described as ‘thugs’ (I know it’s a racist term, I don’t mean it that way, and neither would he.)  Delaney revels in their lack of privilege, their violence, their drug-taking, and of course their magnificent, unsullied sweetness. Is all this classist? Well desire has no rules. So, I had been waiting for something to happen to me in Toronto for so long, and  I had a sexual encounter with someone who was perhaps homeless? Perhaps a street person? To be clear I was driven to the street by COVID — as no bathhouses or backrooms is death to me — or it’s AIDS — or it’s being back in the closet again. So I was drunk on Church at Woody’s street cafe. There was a pack of cigarettes on the table, and he asked for one. We smoked and I bought him a drink. Then he began staring directly into my eyes with almost ridiculous concertedness. His eyes could easily be described as limpid pools, or alternately as deep brown; or simply hypnotising. I think he knew what he was doing. He certainly knows what flirting is; and does it with flair — meaning an unabashed self-consciousness; a kind of meta-flirting. He told me I was beautiful. I told him he was beautiful back. I won’t describe him except to say: slender, with long furry arms, and well — it was all too much, really— but isn’t that the way it always feels when it’s right? We had a kind of a conversation, in which he indicated quite clearly that he was mad, or at least pretending to be. His attitude to madness was similar to his attitude to flirting. I think he knew what he was doing; it was all a kind of performance (with a basis in reality) a sort of ‘meta-madness.’ For instance, he told me he was telepathic. The confession seemed intended to trigger skepticism on my part. Instead I indicated that I am also a spiritual person (well, I am!). Then I asked him if he wanted to go somewhere. He walked me to an apartment building, buzzed the buzzer in the lobby, and no one answered. We then went to another apartment (a building I happen to know is exclusively housing for HIV-positive gay men). We got into that one, and he knocked on an apartment door. A very middle-class, middle-aged man stood there. “No you can’t have a guest — remember what happened the last time? He stole my cellphone.” I took my cellphone out of my pocket and waved it at the guy, as if to say that since I had my own device there would be no necessity to steal his. This had no effect. We were out on the street again. I dragged him into the living room of the guest house where I was staying. I did this first because I was afraid that he might not really be gay and that that he was just going to mug me. That turned out not to be true. I led him off to the bedroom and we did — well, the things people do. (It was lovely to see him naked in the backyard.) Then he seemed to want to curl up and go to sleep, so I made motions suggesting that it was time for us to leave. It suddenly occurred to me that he might never go. It wasn’t so much that I wanted to get rid of him as I wanted to make sure that I could. It was no problem, except at one point he sat on the bed looking up at me half-dressed, and said something to the effect of “You’re nicer than any other policeman I’ve met.” Perhaps I should mention at this point that he was black. This brought to mind a juxtaposition of contradictory ideas. Was he harbouring a sexual fantasy of having sex with a cop (after all, I do kinda look like one)? Or had he endured dreadful experiences with  the cops in the past and was afraid I was one? Or both? I told him that I was indeed the furthest thing from a policeman he might ever meet. We went back to Church Street and had another smoke and a drink. Then he got up from the table, went over to a railing and started moaning — I would say — medium loud. I asked him if he was alright. He showed me what had been causing such a big bulge in his pants pocket — it was a pack of Tarot cards. I remarked on the uniqueness of their design. He did not read my Tarot. Then he left. Then the manager of Woody’s told me: “He’s never allowed back here again.” I asked why? He said “because he’s crazy.” I said “I think he’s kind of fake crazy,” but the distinction was lost on the bar manager. I pleaded COVID-19 (don’t we all these days?) “My usual sexual hangouts are all closed, I’ve been driven to the streets!” He seemed to understand but I’m not sure. My fear at this point is that you’ve been repelled by all this. Why? You see it as purely sexual (ugh?!) perhaps even classist on my part? Yes I’m high on how different he was from me, as I am a middle class man who is supposedly sane. But that’s what sexual desire is, it’s all about difference, friction, danger and wonder. And if I tell you I loved him for those moments, you of course don’t have to believe me, but at least you could try doing me a favour. Instead of seeing sex as a taint, see it as an emulsifier? Without sex I never would have loved him at all, so doesn’t sex get some credit for that? If sex brings two people together, two people who are so very different they would otherwise ignore each other, is that not a good thing? I think we were both imagining we were in love with each other for that moment — whatever love is. And if you think you know exactly what love is, then don’t tell me. Not because it will spoil it for me, but because it has already spoiled for you.

The most sexual moment

of my Toronto day comes upon the insertion of my debit card. I had my card changed from ‘tap’ to ‘insert’ for this very reason; I watch very carefully the expression on the young clerk’s face when I ask “Shall I insert?” I’m careful not to say ‘can I insert?’ as it might be misunderstood, and I want him to know that my ability to insert is not in question, it is simply his permission which is required, especially for it to be a fully consensual act. The mask puts me in a quandary; I can only see his beautiful eyes, and I would need the mouth and particularly the muscles around the mouth to tell me the whole truth about his response. At any rate, it is an exciting moment and virtually all that’s left. We now live in a culture which forbids, nay denounces, intimate contact with strangers. Recently Anthony Fauci revealed, in a not-so-startling personal confession, that his skin literally crawls when he sees people gathering in bars for a drink. It isn’t the act of drinking that is COVID related, of course, it is the loosening of morals around it, the freeing of inhibitions, the fact that liquor, God forbid, will facilitate the proximity of strangers -- their boldness, and let’s be frank about it, their promiscuity. And the Toronto powers that be are recently quite hysterical over the possible transmission of COVID-19 at The Brass Rail. This is the modern reality. The tide is moving against bars and strip clubs, and if they are not made illegal (it is illegal to get closer to a stranger than 6 feet in Hamilton where I live, where we have had 45 ‘COVID-related’ deaths, 34 of them in a single senior citizen’s home) then they will simply be frowned upon. A person who frequents such establishments will be socially shunned and discouraged from publicly speaking of it  as ‘pleasure.'  I would suggest circumventing the subject of pleasure as a topic of conversation, since most pleasures involve other people who one is not married to, or co-habiting with, and we all know that mentioning such transgressions will make social intercourse at the very least slightly uncomfortable. All this is a trial for me, for I have always depended on 'the kindness of strangers’ — to quote Tennessee Williams -- at least when it comes to my sex life. And let’s be clear about it, Williams was talking about his own and Blanche’s sex life when he invented that phrase, and we were meant to be confused, titillated and somewhat disturbed by the purposed imprecision of his diction. Kindness means many things to many people, and to Blanche, and I -- and Tennessee -- it may very well have mean the joy of achieving sexual satisfaction in relationship to the smooth and tantalising young body of a stranger. Why must the body be that of a stranger? We won’t go into it now. There are ten thousand reasons why a prefer a stranger’s intimate touch to the touch of a known lover. Many would call it my psychosis. But it is a reality for so many people that I think I should at the very least, bring it up.  So putting aside for a minute your judgement of this personal choice, and the in depth psychoanalysis that such an admission seems to call for (there is after all, no couch handy!),what is it that makes a stranger so special? Well, there is simply the lack of expectation —  it is not unlike Jauss's aesthetics of reception. People, like genres, have certain expectations attached to them; the first joy for people in discovering Cervantes Don Quixote was in his shocking perversion of the medieval chivalric romance; suddenly it was comic, even grotesque. Cervantes turned the medieval heroic knight into a stranger; readers were excited by the novelty of encountering him now, again, for the very first time. Similarly one knows what to expect from someone  you love, and that is both  reward and that punishment, whereas with a stranger one knows not what to expect, and there is suspense and even danger, never mind transgression, which dare I say it for people like me is part of the joy. We want to do something wrong, something that no one else is doing, and the fact that intimate contact with strangers is presently demonized to such an extent just makes it simply more tempting. Nothing can compare of course with AIDS — we were not then worrying about  34 strangers who had died in a nursing home (people who were mostly very sick and old already) no, this was a case of your young healthy friends suddenly dropping dead in short order, and you not knowing why really, except that the powers that be had made it very clear that close proximity with another gay man might most certainly mean death from the ‘gay disease.’ Yet we still went out in search of strangers. At least I certainly did -- and discovered condoms eventually, but nevertheless encountered strange mouths, hands, and strange nether regions, which are often the most exciting strange thing of all. I can’t explain it except to say that all this is ineluctably human; and we can’t stop humans from being human, though it does amuse me and make me laugh --as well as cry -- that is, all recent attempts to do so. I must warn you that, as is my fashion nowadays,  much of what I have written here is lies. I would specifically warn you abut the first part of this little -- what shall we call it, piece of writing? — where I speak of cancelling the tap option on my debit card in order to facilitate the joys of insertion. I made that up. In fact I made up all of this, and you have no way of knowing whether it is lies or truth -- either about myself personally or about what is or is not 'human.'  But as Gorgias used to say (and I am paraphrasing) “he who is deceived is  much wiser than he who is not." I would urged you to be deceived. Accept my lies as truth. (See what happens!) It can only be as dangerous as having intimate contact with a stranger -- which may offer — especially those who have forgotten  — more joy than you might imagine. I don’t wish to lead you down the garden path, or maybe I do -- for who knows what one may find at the end of it? And that shameless pun was completely intentional, for puns make words strange, as indeed they are, too.

I, Theresa Tam

despise my name. There should be no ‘h’ in it. The ‘h’ is not pronounced. So why is it there?  I cannot stand things — or persons — that have no reason. Some —many in fact — don’t like the things I say. Too bad. I only speak the truth. I speak science — if I had a gospel it would be that. If people do not wish to listen, it is at their own peril. But much more than that — it is to the peril of others. They call it finger wagging. Hah! For years we wagged our fingers — we warned you about diseases like this, but no one listened. Now are you happy? Of course not. The expectation of happiness is of course ridiculous anyway. I certainly do not expect to be happy, I know that life is not easy, and requires self-sacrifice. Certainly mine has. It’s not easy being ‘Canada’s Top Doctor;’ I toil tirelessly from dawn until dusk, and yet people are often deaf to my decrees. What deluded children they are. Certainly I care. I do nothing but care — but at a distance, not with tears and pity, no — with information. I care with data, I care with charts, statistics, I care with graphs that soar yes —to alarming heights!  Stop this endless partying, socialising, drinking, dancing, singing and God knows what else! I know you have a stupid affection for these things, but you are a long time dead, and more importantly so is your neighbour! It is your neighbour you infect, your neighbour you endanger with your reckless acts! I, Theresa Tam have your best interests at heart. No, I do not wish to be a public spokesperson. I have no vanity. Truth be told, I didn’t used to be this way. I had a dog once. Yes, I, Theresa Tam had a dog! Useless creature. It was a miniature French poodle. Miniature, and French — two quite useless things to be! I thought I loved that dog. Love! How deluded I was. I spit on love, I spit on all French poodles. Well yes I had her put down. Her name was Fifi. Fifi! If you can imagine. I used to coo and cuddle with her, my ‘darling Fifi,’ my ‘gorgeous Fifi’ and I thought this was love — but I’ll tell you what it was! It was germs! I had allowed germs into my life. Yes, yes I was kissing that Fifi. I was kissing that filthy dog on the nose! It was not easy for me to give up something that I sincerely believed was love, but I had to do it, because I, Theresa Tam was kissing an unsanitary thing, all because I imagined it was cute. It was a painless death after all, and ultimately, truth be told — there are too many dogs. The world did not need my Fifi — and she was not mine anyway, she belonged to nature, to earth, to science. Yes I donated Fifi’s body to the study of diseases that are spread between animals — particularly miniature French poodles — and humans! Do you love a poodle? Stop now. I tell you the love of a poodle is dangerous and ultimately lethal. I endured the same thing too, with humans. Yes, I, Theresa Tam was once in love! I did not of course have sex. I am asexual. Sex is pointless because the world is overpopulated. You have an urge? Pah! Repress it. Why must you indulge — what sort of weak thing are you? Think of the diseases, why if I think of them my mind becomes densely populated with the colourful and horrifying images from the pages of medical textbooks. Closeups of rotting, stinking genitalia! No, stop now! Do not put that in your mouth! Would you put a used shoe in your mouth? Would you link a manure plow? Then why would you lick that? Though I am asexual, I am not of course heartless. I am not aromantic. I realise the necessity for romance. Not for me, but for men. Women are strong, they understand science, but men are weak, indulgent, irrational beings, and they need to imagine. The imagination is the culprit really! They feel the urge to imagine castles in the air — perfect endings and dare I say It — perfect ends! I understand that men are by nature unthinking beings, and I therefore, because I am not an unkind person — whatever you say, you cannot, must not say that I am unkind — I will occasionally allow a man to love me. Not because I want to participate in that love -- for I certainly have no need for it. And love has no need for me. It will go on it’s merry way -- wrecking lives and logic and dreaming of everything when there is nothing. I won’t let men get near me, as they have germs, they are worse than Fifi. But I would not have them put down, I would never have a human being put down, even though it is undeniably true that some humans should be put down, painlessly, in a sterile room, with music playing —  perhaps Mozart -- no — just a recording of the ocean, that would be nice — and they would just fade away, because so many people bring so much disease in the world, and spread COVID-19, without masks and without thinking. But I would never advocate mass extermination. I am not a Nazi! I am Theresa Tam, and I have a soul! Yes, people can and must be allowed to live — no matter how stupid, thoughtless and infectious they are. But soon, I hope, for your sake as well as mine — people will learn to follow the rules. Or else. Or else what? I have ways — we have ways — of making you into good and caring people. But please do not ask me exactly what those ways are.  For you do not want to know.

Sometimes there’s God so quickly

— the phrase from A Streetcar Named Desire when Mitch kisses Blanche — though it is called an ‘embrace’ in SparkNotes — and ‘embrace’ is a lovely word. (Sorry I don’t have a copy in front of me.) Williams had a habit of equating sexual ecstasy with divine intervention, and so do I. It seems to make sense that the two come from the same place. But there is also a fear of abandonment here, one has the feeling that Blanche was meant to be abandoned, and I’m not sure where I got the idea I was. One of my therapists said it was my parent’s divorce. But honestly that didn’t bother me once it was over — I never liked my father much, and so was relieved to have him out of the way (what could be further away than Buffalo?). But my therapist said “No, it’s not that — with him gone you only had you mother, and the fear was what would happen if she disappeared?” The thing is my mother was inordinately attached to me — at the hip, as it were — we were a Siamese twin mother and son, and I think I knew that, didn’t I? And was perhaps secretly afraid more of her love for me itself, than of it disappearing? But my (partner/significant other/lover/whatever-term-suits-your-fancy) seemed to love me tonight, or I believed he did, or he was more convincing than usual, or maybe I deserved to be loved for at least a moment, I really don’t know, I really don’t care, but sometimes God does come very quickly, and it was a breath of fresh air. It’s cooler tonight, and it’s been rainy and I have needed something — I think all along I knew it was him, but I was afraid to wonder. The ‘new normal’ has hit him pretty hard, so this momentary flirtation with an angel may turn dreadfully sour at any moment — well there I go again. The problem is that when it’s not all dancing on rainbows I assume that it’s over. I do. I start plotting divorce, loneliness, years alone, walks in the rain. How would I leave him? I will take the cat for sure, that’s what I did the first time I left him, about 14 years ago. I went to our apartment — sorry, that is far too sweet a word — it was a sordid room in a sordid rooming house that we rented — or mostly I did — once a week, in Toronto, so I could proceed with my debauches (with his permission of course). But there wasn’t much actually in that room, so I grabbed the cat and whatever else I needed — a computer I guess, and took the train to Toronto and left him forever. I really can’t explain it. Was it a threat or a bribe? I suppose so, I was very angry for good reason I think, but I’m also painfully aware that I’m no summer vacation to live with. Eventually he came to see me in that squalid room and brought some man to defend him (very much the kind of thing he would do) in case I beat him up. I am constitutionally incapable of beating anyone up (as he knows) so this was a kind of fantasy-compliment. But anyway we made up, and the abandonment was officially over. Though it always looms as something I could do again. For I could leave him (I can’t imagine him ever leaving me) but if I left him it is I who would be abandoned. Explain that? Because my ‘abandonment issue’ doesn’t mean that I worry about specifically being left by things, or people, or institutions, but just that my whole life is uncertain, on shaky ground; everything could fall apart at any moment. Or else it’s the opposite of that, and God is here, and all is right with the world, perfect. This either/or existential dichotomy is apparently very psychologically unhealthy, and not everyone lives this way, as they don’t have abandonment issues. They carry on as if things will continue in the same manner and there is never any threat. This daily ‘something in between agony and ecstasy’ is what I have been told by my present therapist to strive for. But I am dead set against it, inside. Even though intellectually I understand its necessity. This is because my mother’s voice — and I know it’s hers — pops into my head saying quite unequivocally: ‘Don’t listen to them. You are better than that. You are not like other people; you deserve to be ecstatic all the time.” ‘Ecstatic all the time’ — that’s what the little voice  in my head says. And yes my mother was an alcoholic with no friends (duh!) and my therapist keeps saying “and where did that ‘demand for constant ecstasy’ get your mother? And she’s right. But these things are much easier to write about in a blog that you think no one is reading, then they are to convince yourself of. In the meantime I will keep my eye out for God, who does appear in all things — not that kind old man with the beard — he doesn’t exist — but the ecstatic eternal moment that is everything but eternal, that is it is experience, and it only comes occasionally, when you least expect it. But you certainly have to be alive and ready if you want it to happen. The stranger I had sex with last night (no not my boyfriend, this is someone else at the baths later --  keep up!) was just there, which is fascinating; he was absolutely present for every moment of our lovemaking. This is odd to me, as I was kind of drunk of course, but constantly wrenched back to reality by his being there. I’m quite used to having sex with cracked-out guys who are doing some crazy thing over and over again obsessively, banging into my room then running away (you don’t need to know) but this guy was actually present with me and responding, and making it impossible for me not to respond to him. That’s God in my view. Actually being there, not planning the future — or worrying about it — or worrying about what ‘they’ think about you, or comparing them — or the moment — with something else. I am an aesthete, so I’m not going to go as far as to say that I’m in favour of ‘reality.’ Let’s just call it being present in the now. (Because you can also be present in the now with a work of art, because art is, an alternative reality, and not inferior to the one we are prone to calling ‘the real.’) And all  ‘realities’ change into another reality before you know it. So does it follow that anything that takes you away from ‘the moment’ is the devil? But you see there is no devil. You are merely here in the room with me, or you are not.

I'm trapped

and to some degree it’s due to circumstances of my own devising. I didn’t need to start smoking, but I did — because of COVID-19. But COVID-19 is no excuse, and truth be told I smoked a little bit before anyway (don’t tell my ‘significant other’). Yes it became suddenly this: every day I must have a drink and a smoke (with my friend Denise) or I can’t get through the day. (And she had to listen to me read her this blog, because she’s a very dear friend.)  But that’s weakness, and bad for my health blah blah blah — so I’m trapped into stopping smoking. (I’m down to about a pack a week — yay! — but it will be a torturous last pack.) And bars are still barely open in Toronto, ergo, I'm in Montreal. There are men here, and there is craziness, and the luck of the draw, but I have no friends here, and we don’t have internet access (don’t ask me why). These two traps are thus of my own devising. I certainly don’t need to smoke, and I could afford the internet — but why can’t I make friends? Because I’m a semi-alcoholic (be kind, please) loner who loves crowds, and needs constant stimulation, and very few people are up to either a) providing stimulation for me or b) putting up with me providing it. But then there is another trap, not completely, I posit, of my own devising -- the aesthetic trap, the trap of words — the literary cul-de-sac we now necessarily find ourselves in. I just finished reading a novel by Elizabeth Von Arnim — Vera. You must read it: it’s Jane Austen writing Jane Eyre — a gothic novel with a realistic twist. A woman is trapped into marriage by a man who seems nice but then turns out to be a controlling monster. The last couple of days I felt that this novel was my life. It’s a realistic portrayal of what sexist men do to women; it’s Ibsen’s A Doll’s House written from the perspective of a woman married to a man who will not love her unless she agrees to be infantilised. And what ’s going on now in the artistic community is a kind of infantilisation. I ask you, who can be an artist right now? I know how Shakespeare felt — writers were never to speak of a monarch being deposed unless they wished to be drawn and quartered (except Shakespeare’s Richard II does deal with a deposed  king— we’ll talk about that later) — or what it must have been like to be blacklisted during the McCarthy era. I’m tempted to use a pseudonym because I am to some degree infamous (I understand my fame is quite limited  — I’m not deluded -- I know how small my influence is) and though I’ve always been associated with rebellion — never has rebellion been so rebellious, never has culture been so polarized, and never has the greatest sin been the spoken word. I encountered it first with the trans community, and now with COVID-19. It’s all very claustrophobic and makes me want to run around screaming like Joan Crawford in Strait-Jacket  — except that I actually identify more with Eleanor Parker in Caged because I can somehow believe she is actually nice. And I am nice; honestly I am — despite what you've heard to the contrary — I’m nice, but very flawed. (However unfortunately those credentials won’t get you very far these days.) It all started with the trans community,  I discovered I could not speak critically of a book by a transgendered person — Vivek Shraya — without the wrath of the entire internet coming down on my head. (At least that’s what people told me, I don’t do ‘social media’ so I don’t know, honestly. I only went to Facebook once — because someone told me about some praise I had gotten — go figure, doesn’t that just say it all about my narcissism? — only to find Gwen Bartleman, a dear old friend who I loved for so many years, was saying horrible things about me. Well all I have to say to you Gwen Bartleman are two words: 'David Pond.' And to those of you out there who don’t know who David Pond was, he was a kind, gentle man, who died.) Well anyway, apparently the whole digital world caved in around me, and I was a pariah, though Vivek herself never spoke to me — or of me (publicly) as far as I know. Though one of her friends (and mine — a mutual friend) did email me and said essentially: ‘I don’t think Vivek would have minded your blog’ — and they actually cc-d Vivek on the message, which is the closest I ever got to getting a reaction to my blog from Vivek herself. (Gee whiz, maybe we would have been friends if the worldwide web hadn’t intervened!) Anyway, I realised there were certain things you can no longer say about gender without getting your testicles cut off. Then along came COVID-19, and now I seem to be the only person in the world besides some morbidly obese, half-brained, gun-toting Trump worshipper in Omaha who has anything negative to say about Anthony Fauci, WHO or the effectiveness of lockdowns. (Oh yes -- of course an epidemiologist in Sweden — Anders Tegnell - agrees with me, but people seem to regard him as a mass murderer). So I am trapped by language, and this trap is not of my own design. (And yet it is, for I have chosen to speak this way in a kind of jumbled code that confuses memories, stories, poetry, theory, and opinion.) You might say ‘well if only you didn’t have outrageous ideas’ — but I can’t help that. Or ‘why do you have to express them?’ — but that’s me, too, I don’t know where it came from —  I wish I could beat it out of myself, and the world is trying, let me tell you. So the only way out of this trap is this blog (which is also a trap), i.e.,   this futile attempt at saying it but not saying it, at equivocation that can — because of the paradoxical nature of all language — revel only in persuasion and obscurity,  lies and truth. But there is no truth, so how can I claim anything I say here is true? I am trapped by my own trap: in the funhouse mirror universe I call art, where all is distorted and we see — not reality — but a freakish monstrosity which seems -- at least momentarily -- to calm me down. I know I’m not an Edwardian newly married virgin being terrorised by her tyrannical sexist husband, it just feels that way.  But ‘I think therefore I am,’ right?  Though lately I’ve realized that his oft-quoted phrase was, for Descartes, his only escape from being consumed by infernal, eternal doubt. Sorry, Descartes. Doubt will not go away. Though it frightens us all — it is perhaps the wretched key to unlock the door to — what? I won’t say to freedom, but to a place where we might not be quite so certain, again?

I wish to speak on the subject

of chance and fortune; these notions are not particularly popular these days, and I think that is to our peril. I am not in favour of superstition; to accept that life is often a series of co-incidences — sometimes tragic and sometimes not — is not necessarily to endorse the idea that it can be predicted or changed with a deck of cards or a crystal ball. In fact if we accept chance we can accept life, because that is essentially what life is: change, flux and all the things that many of us dread, especially now. Life is also death as well as life. It cannot be predicted or controlled, ultimately, and it is this idea that is most frightening of all. Is it perhaps the acquisition of certain technological advances that makes us so foolhardy as to imagine we are not ultimately ruled by chance? Obsession with health flies in the face of acceptance of chance and change. Of course we can mitigate certain circumstances — we can choose not to smoke. We can — as we are told over and over again these days — wash our hands. We can put on that condom -- and yet still, somehow, still people die, and no one knows why. And it is especially wounding and terrifying when it is the ones who followed the rules most closely, the ‘good,’ who fall. Shakespeare said “As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport.” This is a markedly pagan sentiment. First of all Shakespeare says ‘gods’ not ‘god.’ And second, Christianity preaches that even in the most tragic circumstances there is some order or at least justice (i.e Christ on the cross), even if it is of a kind that we are not privy to because it is beyond our comprehension. And Shakespeare’s boys are definitively not adults, and definitively wanton. ‘Wanton’ for Shakespeare had sexual connotations, and also literary ones, in 12th Night (or ‘What You Will’ — a title particularly appropriate to this discussion) Viola suggests that language is wanton, which means that it is promiscuous, that one word may team up with another word and cause trouble. This is all very Derridean in it’s relativism — for we are to understand then that words have no discreet meaning, but only derive their meaning from the context — which is the basis of puns — and why Shakespeare so liked them. ( I promise to stop being pedantic soon). Wit and especially puns were virtually banned in England after 1700 — people were interested in what was called a kinder gentler humour — wit was considered cruel and dangerous. (This reminds me very much of present day trans activists who disapprove of gay camp — well yes it is cruel, filthy, and might incriminate you and everyone else, that’s why I like it...) What I’m saying, is all about — what I’m saying. Speech, in it’s own way — if allowed to have its own way — is as dangerous as life, because words don’t always have reference a single object or clear ideas, they are allusive, and what is allusive is tempting, and may make us laugh, and/or turn us on, and/or make us think about things in a different way; even in a way that was not necessarily intended by the author. If God is an artist then he or she created a world which is deceptive, one whose meaning can be read in many ways by many different people, and one which cannot be necessarily ‘figured out.’ Aristotle attempted to explain tragedy -- I would argue, with limited success. We have no idea what it would be like to sit beside that singing, dancing foot stomping chorus, weeping and wailing with pity and fear in the tribal pit, and it certainly couldn’t have been divided into six elements. Plato banned poets in his ideal school, and quite rightly. But Plato and Aristotle were wrong to think an acceptance of the irrational denies us free will; morality is still necessary, in fact believe it or not I am extremely moralistic and judgmental — but I also recognise such tools can only get you so far. My best friend in my university days --Matt Walsh (where is he now?) -- was obsessed with injustice, and I have always been, to some degree too; at least when face to face with it. I wish I was more altruistic in my justice obsession, but selfishly I specifically abhor injustices done to me, not because of the consequences — I can live with those — but because it’s just not right. People are like the world itself— unpredictable and not to be trusted, but nevertheless to be enjoyed when possible. Last night I was flying on the wings of chance. In Montreal I don’t know a soul and am virtually incapable of starting a conversation in a bar (I tried that once about a month ago and the person seemed, well, disgusted). Anyway I sat down beside what turned out to be an attractive young man (it was an accident believe it or not) at Campus (a strip bar ) and when I was outside having one of the few cigarettes I allow myself, lo and behold he chatted me up. He’s attractive, nice, somewhat effeminate, probably we have nothing in common but strip clubs, but it’s a start. And it just happened; I didn’t make it happen, or do anything other than to be there, as usual. Then later, at the baths, I met Nick Scolaire— God knows, he must be famous, that is I would imagine God knows him. (isn’t that what fame is?) At any rate God had granted him an enormous — well I needn’t go on. But when I entered his room he was balancing a chocolate chip cookie on it. I found this profoundly witty (am I nuts?). I must say I did not eat the cookie, -- that would have been --  I don’t know — too much? (Do I have a right to use that expression about anything at this point?) No I didn’t eat the cookie but — well you get the idea. And he was just something that The Gods had planted there, perhaps to kill me from COVID or AIDs. But remember God is not vengeful, just crazy. I think I am more likely to be hit by a truck then be punished for my challenges to the medical establishment, because that would be a wanton act of the gods. Or I may just fall down the stairs. (I will not, however, be pushed by anyone!) Though many would have good reason to push me down the stairs, I insist that my death will be ignoble and most of all, and will not make any sense, because none of it does. It’s natural to want to protect oneself from disease, it is unnatural to think that the a vaccine will make us all ‘safe.’ There is a freedom that comes with embracing uncertainty — or so they say. — of course I trust ‘them’ about as much as I trust anybody.

An ‘Ava’ is as ubiquitous as a ‘Karen’

perhaps more so. ‘Karen’ — as we all know by now — is a slang term for a white woman of privilege — someone who thinks she deserves the best of everything. She is demanding and right-wing, perhaps an anti-vaxxer. Wikipedia says the term has become synonymous with.’middle-aged white woman’ which suggests it’s not only sexist but ageist, as it also means ‘bitch.’ An ‘Ava’ is a left wing version of the same thing; but she’s really not the same at all. (I chose ‘Ava’ because I didn’t want to use 'Eve,' as that would be damning all women). The Ava is most commonly employed in politics, academia, or the arts, but you can find her anywhere you find well-meaning, left-leaning people. What distinguishes an “Ava’ from a ‘Karen’ is not only her political views, but the fact that an Ava is definitely not a bitch. She is not rude, quick to anger, or even remotely contrary. You might very well think you are close friends with an Ava. Butter does not melt in the mouth of an Ava; she really is very reasonable, fun, cheery, and seemingly malleable. She even seems to have a sense of humour (but there are, believe me, limits). Such behaviour is de rigueur for left-leaning persons — who generally wish to appear as just ‘folks’ (they use that term a lot these days) — as generous — as opposed to appearing like cold-hearted, greedy right-wing persons. So in one’s daily interactions they are inevitably nice. In other words an Ava is invisible — and quite appealing, until she reaches her breaking point, and that can happen at any time — and believe me there will be no warning. I knew an Ava once who let me chatter on for hours about love and sex (she used to give me rides to work) and then finally at some point — I think it was when I used the word ‘boy’ to refer to a male person (‘boy’ is a term that gay men often use for anyone under 30 — or for anyone who is considerably younger than them. It is not, as in heterosexist culture, a term for a child — nor is it used in diminution or as abuse, on the contrary it often implies great praise). Anyway, I was talking to her about my sexual partners, so I was certainly not talking about a child or even a teenager. But suddenly this Ava was very concerned.” You’re not talking about pederasty are you?” I told her that I was not. And I continued talking.  “I don’t really feel comfortable talking about this, because I have two little girls.” I can’t think what her two little girls would have to do with my crazy debauched love life, but a dark curtain had been drawn; her demeanour was suddenly very severe, and I felt very hurt. I never quite felt comfortable talking with her about anything personal again, and generally came to understand that she saw me only as an old middle-class man; that is I was necessarily an exploitative patriarchal figure, someone not to be trusted, someone from the ‘other side.’ As well all know, this tendency to classify people as either being on one side or the other is a relatively recent development, at least in friendship situations. It used to be a big thing on TV in political debates, but one didn’t expect it do come up while having tea or being driven to work in a friend's Volkswagen. Nowadays someone’s attitude can shift from lovely to malignant with no warning, that is until an Ava lets you know (and believe me, she will). So what is an Ava, exactly? She is a middle-class white woman of enormous privilege, but the hallmark of her personality — the defining feature, is that she does not see herself as a privileged or an ‘entitled’ person, whereas most likely you  — are (at least in her eyes). It’s a tall order to count as ‘lacking privilege’ for an Ava — one would necessarily have to be female, deaf, and perhaps in some other way also — disabled — and a recent immigrant from the third world, and perhaps a trans person? — to qualify. Since the Ava lives her life in the tangled web of victim politics (where so many practice to deceive) she is quick to judge, although, as I say, you may not know you have been judged until you have been cancelled, called out, publicly denounced on Facebook or until, as in my case, she won’t pick you up in her car anymore. But I haven’t really made the defining feature clear. The Ava is not merely politically correct, she is devoted to supporting — but much more importantly speaking for people of colour, trans people, the disabled, etc. — those on the margins of our society. No one can deny that these people need speaking up for, and normally I am quite happy to support anyone who supports those who do not have a voice — but the Ava is unique for not only appropriating the voice of those less fortunate than herself, but for building her life and career on representing them, to the point where she believes she is one of them and that her privilege has been erased.  I know a woman on Facebook who refuses to go to a party if it does not have a certain quota of people of colour (I can’t remember but I’m pretty sure it’s more than 50%). On the one hand, I’m not a fan of white only, un-diverse parties (when I do go to parties) but announcing your virtue everywhere and shaming others who do not agree is nauseating and that is what an Ava, when riled, will do. And it is the ‘riling’ that is a nightmare, for when an Ava rages free — bounding from her self-imposed cage of left-wing sweetness, and comes at you fangs bared, it's an appalling experience-- for you realize that ice runs in her veins. Didn’t you actually like each other? Haven’t you been, to some degree — intimate? But now because she is virtue-signalling her way to becoming the first NDP female prime minister she is all too eager to throw your intimacy under the bus. Nancy Pelosi’s daughter once said her mother could “cut off your head and you won’t even now you are bleeding” and though I adore Pelosi’s politics (and thank God she was there to impeach Trump) these are the tactics of an Ava. I won’t recite any more personal incidents, and please don’t try and figure out who I’m talking about. Ava’s are everywhere these days (it could be anyone) — kind as hell, but waiting to pounce. And when it happens, you will feel not only be depressed and betrayed but deeply shocked at how inhuman human beings can be. I prefer a Karen, when it comes down to it -- at least you know where you stand. When someone openly lies about themselves it should be celebrated and acknowledged as a beguiling and brilliant performance; the tragedy comes only when they  intend us to mistake such lies for truth.