They are gone

or perhaps there is just something missing. I wonder if they have taken the drug. If so did they want to take it, or was it forced on them? I have visions of them strapped down, screaming - 'no, No! NO!' But I don’t think it went that way at all. Something in the drinking water, perhaps? Or something on TV? There was a movie about a killer cassette once, remember that? This virus is certainly viral, many times over, so it seems, but this — this thing that people have, or rather don't have. It’s a kind of a lack, a gentle ‘something missing,’ something sliding away. You gaze into their eyes and wonder —they are the same people, aren’t they? I’m talking about the ones who are not upset, and certainly not angry. It’s a Stepford Wives sort of  thing. I ask them, ‘How is it going for you?’ — meaning that it’s some kind of agony for me. They consider the question. “Um…well…?” Oh come on. You have to think about it? You have to consider what this pandemic has done to you? It reminds me of years ago when I was trying to figure out whether Anne-Marie MacDonald’s novel was gay without reading it.  I asked a woman I knew who was a kind of a lesbian (it’s complicated) is it a gay novel? She screwed up her nose and thought for a minute “I think there’s a scene about halfway through where… she kisses somebody….I think so.” Well forget it then, if you have to think that hard, if doesn’t start off with some woman’s hard nipples or a mess of sperm on the walls, then well it’s just not gay, is it? So when I ask someone if the pandemic has been difficult for them, I don’t expect an actual thought process. I expect a flood, a confessional expectoration, an unbound ejaculation, a song of pain —remorse, something. No. But they are still considering. "Um actually, I have a lot more time to spend with my family, that’s a good thing, I guess.” You guess, okay, I won’t go there, I'm certainly not going to be the one to suggest that there might be anything wrong with your friggin’ family. Or “I’m kind of enjoying the time alone, I guess.” Great, You’ve got lots of that now. I won’t even dignify those who say anything about yoga, meditation, or baking cookies. I really want to know how it happened to them. The Stepford Wives were robots —   is it possible that some new software has inserted a device into their brains and now they are computers themselves? I daren’t mention hugging, kissing —would never mention sex — drinking, getting completely blasted, partying of any kind. I’m sure they would stare at me blankly as if — and what am I to say? The only way to come clean in this respect is to actually admit that I am a debauched person,  that I am somewhat of an addict, a lowlife, that I used to stay up all hours of the night in certain unsavory public places looking for (un)love and afterwards they had to wipe the floors with me because that's frankly all that was left. But that’s who I am — and what I miss (which is the same thing). But one by one my friends are becoming more docile. A kind of passive acceptance of everything. And then they begin talking about Netflix. I too, have started watching The Crown. I admit it, I’ve been pestered for so long ‘Don’t you just love The Crown?’ Okay, okay shut up, I admit it, it’s good. I’m mad at myself for watching it, I think mainly because there is always the thought somewhere deep inside that I  actually might be doing something else. But that’s crazy; there is nothing better I could be doing probably — other than writing this (and that's a moot point). Last Sunday I spent the evening with two dear friends —they are COVID friends — that’s the kind you want, the ones you got to know during a pandemic, and the kind of connection you make is desperate and somehow, for that, more real than it ever was once before, when you 'kind of' knew them. I’ve had sex with one of them (not bragging, just explicating) and they are lovers and open, in fact I think they regularly service the Niagara Peninsula with Good Old Clean Canadian Fun. At one point in the evening the one I had sex with once in Montreal (it was an accident, honestly, I didn’t know it was him) handed me a butt plug (just to examine — we weren’t having sex or anything — we were just getting very drunk and listening to Old Grace Jones Albums). And it was a vibrating butt plug. But the interesting thing was that you could turn on the butt plug with your iPhone. Yup,  your iPhone. The vibration was very intense. I had to imagine what it would be like to be shopping for toilet paper (in other words, posing as a quite normal, i.e. COVID-19 -terrified, individual, wearing a mask — with not one, but two filters on it -- just in case)  only to have someone somewhere, touch their cellphone, and then to feel my asshole vibrating as if there was no tomorrow. It would be an act of love. You couldn’t call it sex, because there would be no one there but the other shoppers. I must tell you I did have sex with a stranger two weeks ago. If you can call it that. It was really something awful, beyond sex. No it was behind sex. It was definitely in back of sex. But I had to do it, just to get out of the house. And I mean that metaphorically; in other words to literally get out of this friggin house which is my own friggin rational mind. And it went well. Meaning it was one of the most bizarre fiascos that I have ever endured in the name of ‘doing it.’ I moaned a lot (he seemed to like that). His apartment was far too clean and at one point he pulled out a big black dildo (I know, I feel the same way, a dildo is one thing, but a black dildo? He was, after all whiter than white, so isn’t that appropriation? Where’s Black Lives Matter when you need them?) And then things got messy, to say the least. And all I could think of was -- this is embarrassing, and I’m not enjoying watching him clean up. Watching a man clean up his own apartment is far too intimate — far to personal. He was very polite. I left the fashionable suburb of Forest Hill in a fashionable Uber (yes, he lived in Forest Hill) and was on my way home regretting every minute of it. No. I lie. I relished every bit of what was a terrible experience, because despite it all, it was actually real. It is that longing for reality that I no longer see in the eyes of my old, now somewhat ex-friends. My terror comes from watching it dwindle; once a fire, then a spark, then, barely a light. Then, it all goes dark.

It is with honesty I

 say that we are sad. We must come to terms with this hurt. Much time is spent acknowledging the pain of those who must endure the sudden inexplicable death of a loved one. But what we are experiencing now — for most of us — is not that. Perhaps it can be best described as a giant’s foot coming down from a cloud and stamping on our lives? Calling it a sacrifice is hardly enough. I know that I can never match the suffocating sea of altruism that gushes from  the open hearts and glad hands of the preternaturally generous masters and mistresses (and master-mistresses) of social media; of this I am and will be, eternally guilty. I feel that the kindest thing I can do for anyone now is not just ‘to stay at home’ (well, there is no choice really, is there?). But instead I must revel, for a moment, in how sad all this is. I suggest the 'Giuletta' act of Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffman as accompaniment to this blog. You will hear the famous barcarolle (you’ve heard it many times; it is as ubiquitous as melancholy). My melancholy feelings all concern connecting — or not connecting— with other people; that is with not having fun, parties, celebrations, the much missed bacchanales, but mainly just not  acting silly in the presence others. I love entertaining other people — or thinking I do. I love being entertained — being truly surprised by someone's wit or turn of phrase. I love it that I have forgotten, the next day, exactly what was said, who cares that it disappears — in that way it is theatre — but also like theatre -- it's brief appearance  does not mean it will have no effect. I associate my apprenticeship at The Shaw Festival with melancholy. I don’t know why. Oh yes I do. Christopher Newton grabbed me out of the Toronto avant-garde theatre scene. But it’s not only him, it’s the time there, and for that I must think about the evenings, it’s always evenings (thinking of Reynaldo Hahn right now, he has a gorgeous song with a gorgeous title L’Heure Exquise’ — it’s all about dusk). And now I’m getting very sad, in a very gay way. But it was those evenings on that porch of some old mansion in Niagara-on-the-Lake; because dusk always carries with it expectation. There is the decline of one day — which will lead to night — but in no time at all we will be asleep and there will be another. And then another. And on that porch in Niagara-on-the-Lake various actors were gathered and —well!  I must tell you about actors. Very few of them are my friends — but they are the most amazing people to be around, briefly, as one can get very intimate with them, very quickly. They are emotionally promiscuous, and perhaps because my social experience with actors resembles my sexual experience with men, I cherish the fleeting, intimate moments I have with them. Really some actors are beyond charming -- and most of them are also beyond insecure -- they are not relaxed unless they are entertaining you (I am somewhat like that). But most of all, every moment is delicious. They are paid for that, after all. And in this way they are aesthetic whores, not that whores are not aesthetic (someday I will tell you about one night at Flash Bar on Church Street). But being with those charming beautiful actors — for they are almost all beautiful — in the gathering dusk and talking about nothing really, except our dreams which were nothing, or amount to nothing, but seemed so big at the time. Oh yes. There was another night like that, much earlier, at the end of high school, because — did I tell you about my friendship with Dan Hill? It’s a sweet remembrance of things past. Yes, the famous Dan Hill or he was once famous for Sometimes When We Touch the barefoot pop singer who had such a brief birth and then demise (he’s still alive) as the most popular songwriter that ever lived. (I know he wouldn’t like me talking about him like this but what can I do? He was, in a way, a part of my romantic life, but he’s not gay at all, and we never did anything like that.) Anyway, there was a dusk then: I think I must have just heard that I was accepted into the acting program at York University, anyway I was 19, ecstatic, and sitting on a hill at the end of summer with Dan Hill and a woman (she's a blur—well there you go  — she was probably the reason Dan was there!). And Dan had starred in the play I wrote for my high school that went to the Sears Drama Festival. (He wrote the title song for the play.) And the three of us were just talking about all the things that would happen to us; like young people  do.  It's one of those moments that are the centre of my life; and those moments have now been banned — they keep saying not forever but — it's so hard to believe. I think it’s very important that we come to terms with this  - or is that asking too much? Maybe just that we at least acknowledge what we have a great loss here. What has been stamped out willfully (or rather willy-nilly) is the very essence of everything, basically what makes life worth living. The fact that it can be taken away, not by a hurricane, or death, but by a government that just says: it’s over -- is something to at least acknowledge, isn't it? I am back again to Offenbach’s opera. Hoffman has fallen madly in love with Giuletta, who has stolen his reflection in the mirror (mischievous woman!) but he loves her still. And since they are in Venice he catches sight of her floating by in a gondola, and of course she is with that detestable dwarf Pitinchinaccio (yes he’s a detestable dwarf with an irritating laugh, it’s not my fault -- I didn’t create him -- I wish he was nice dwarf but that’s the way it goes!) and Hoffman speaks this line over the unspeakable barcarolle: “I feel like I’m sliding a slippery slope, in spite of myself, and cannot stop. Who’s coming? Niklausse? No. I am afraid…” 

I quite understand. 

Alas we enjoy our captivity and

we love those who enslave us. I met an old friend on the street last night; to be honest he was more like a business associate — an actor -- who had been in my plays many years ago. He is what we would nowadays call a ‘nice gay man.’ He was heavily masked, so when he said hello, I didn’t refrain from asking ‘Who are you?’ (And if that is COVID-19 rudeness, so be it.) When he told me who he was I greeted him warmly. It didn’t take two seconds for him to say: ‘This is the first time I've been out of the house in months!’ and he peered at me warily. But after that admission -- was it an admission, or a defense of sorts?  -- I was speechless. Who was my friend speaking to? He certainly knows me well enough to know that I probably have been out of the house once or twice in the last 10 months, and so why would he find it necessary to tell me that he had not? Then I remembered that during the AIDS epidemic, he was one who denied being promiscuous, but I would see him, nightly, in some ‘house of ill repute,’ along with me, showering after an encounter with a stranger. It’s called blind hypocrisy; no more than that — blind obedience. And I think it’s time we came to terms with it. People are stupid sheep; we love mute submission. Erich Fromm spoke of it in Escape From Freedom many years ago. It was shocking — the notion that people, generally, wish to live in a dictatorship. Well never mind ‘herd immunity’ what about ‘herd mentality'? People are overall much happier conforming; doing what other people do. They don’t want to think, they don’t want to stand up in a crowd and raise their voice ‘I object!’ These days the only voices that are raised are those of anti-racism and as important as that cause is — when it comes to anti-racism all reasonable people agree and so it's almost a nod to correctness. (No one actually listens -- or cops would not still be killing black men -- but we continue to go through the protocol of pretending to). And all reasonable people agree with staying at home and watching Netflix. I have finally given up. I will continue to unleash my dissatisfaction here, in Another Blog That Nobody Reads, but that is simply because no one reads it, and there is nothing more safe than the notion that I am only talking to myself, for myself, and if someone overhears, well it’s their fault. You see, when this all started -- and we weren’t a month into it -- I was telling everyone: ‘there will be riots in the streets — you can’t lock people up in their own homes!’ but the silence was deafening, it continues to be deafening. Oh yes there are the crazy ‘conspiracy theorists’ (aren’t they mostly all ‘Forever Trumpers’ or something?) who go on about ‘human rights.’ But everyone has now accepted that when it comes to ‘public health’ we have no rights. For me even to speak of rights is ridiculous --I realize that now -- because how can you have the ‘right’ to put someone else’s life in danger? So we must now accept that this frantic scurrying out to buy toilet paper, the empty streets filled with nothing but the drug addicted homeless, this slow sad withering of our friends into suicide, young people giving up on their lives, independent business giving way to Walmart,  no theatre/movies/ concerts/galleries/art, the triumph of the digital world, the death of promiscuity, but most of all the meek, mild, shy, apologetic acceptance of all that is preached at us on television -- the fear, most of all the fear of everything of everyone, of life, of experience itself; this is our lot. Education in the traditional sense is over, as is reading. (I will continue to read of course, as long as books are available somewhere. It’s interesting that  Farenheit 451 never literally occurred —  no books were publicly burned — but they might as well have been, as no one reads.) I think we can take our cue from the news; when was the last time you heard about Africa? About The Middle East? About starvation in India (I guarantee it’s happening)? No that was what being informed used to be, but now we don’t need House, ER, Gray’s Anatomy, Code Black as the news is all medical melodrama (her dying words were ‘I don’t believe in this virus!’), and we will never be sated. School will become, for young people, a place to be inculcated to the party line, they will learn about self sacrifice, caring, that even feelings have feelings, that we must make sure to stay out of everyone’s way and not infect them. These will not be ‘live’ classes, no -- universities have gotten a taste of the money that can be made from online learning, rich stay-at-home-parents will I am sure figure out a way to put their kid in the basement and do online learning, as they do their yoga upstairs, and bake cookies --  but of course many can’t. And that is who will continue to serve us; the ones who have no choice, the inevitable underclass, those who we don't talk about the ones who are dying right now, the poor people of colour who don’t have raw fruits and vegetables in their neighborhood supermarkets, who don’t have proper health care, who don’t have time or money to go to the doctor, who are morbidly obese and diabetic, they will drive our buses and clean our streets and antiseptic-wipe all the banisters— there will always be work there (thank God!) as pandemic will follow pandemic. And we will be safe, as we didn’t want that kind of freedom, what we wanted was freedom from dangerous ideas, dangerous choices, the freedom from the notion that life offers any choice at all. Now we have no choices, and can’t we just face it? We are happy. We are happy with our lives of nothing. The notifications on your iPhone tell you not to be guilty about curling up during lockdown with a glass of wine and a box of chocolates. Run, don’t walk to your nearest pillow. No better yet make a little blanket tent in your living room, run the cord from your computer there, pop some popcorn, settle in. It’s not just a difficult winter; our lives our now a perpetual winter, and there is something about the cold and being inside that makes us feel so much more cozy than being outside in the sun, naked and hot, forced to make decisions, thinking, screwing, hugging, singing and making art. But that’s all gone now. No need to worry. It's what you always wanted.

This is for all those fat

girls out there, because I was one. Perhaps 'figuratively speaking.' But isn’t everything 'figurative,' really, when it comes down to it? So I was watching Bill Maher and a very beautiful slender woman was saying that the problem with COVID-19 is that nobody is talking about obesity. We are supposed to be so concerned about everyone’s health right now, but the reason so many people are dying is not just because they are old, or poor, or they had a private birthday for their daughter and invited her friends  -- but because they are obese. The shame heaped upon those who like fun and alcohol goes on quite unabated; criticizing a fat girl is verboten. To quote a t-shirt I saw recently on TV: ‘even my feelings have feelings.’ This is the signature motto for all tearful, perennially hurt millennials. Well as Germaine Greer said it in an interview recently --when someone accused her of hurting some poor trans person’s feelings -- “I don’t care!” It’s not my responsibility! People get hurt all the time!” But nothing, it seems, can match the pain in the eyes of a fat girl who has been shamed. So we must not mention the word ‘fat,' even though being fat is actually unhealthy, especially when one is morbidly obese, as so many people in North America are. You don’t have to look at the statistics (which lie anyway) all you have to do is look at the photographs of the young people who die of COVID-19 on CNN. They all had sweet smiles -- and inevitably brought cheer into any room they entered— however most were morbidly obese. (But  we don’t want to say that about ‘Kelly-Anne’ because she sang that song from Wicked so gorgeously at the school prom!)  Everyone is all concerned about saving lives at any cost, and it is incumbent on all of us to hunker down, isolate, become mentally ill, and kill small businesses, indeed  our lives must come to a full stop -- but God help us if we are to even imply that it might be a good idea for a fat person to go on a diet. On the contrary ‘covid-weight’ is celebrated. I got a ‘notification’ on my phone recently saying: “It’s a lockdown! Enjoy your wine and chocolate!” I could opine against puritanism, but why? After all, we are all Irish nuns now. A young woman told me a harrowing story from her research into Irish history. Apparently young Irish unwed mothers were at one time ‘sheltered’ by nuns, who had a little ritual. Which was this. When the young woman was writhing in the agony of labour (no anasthetic of course) the nun would lean over -- at the moment of the most acute physical anguish -- and whisper: “Think of this the next time you decide to have that kind of fun!” Yes we have all become despicable, unhappy, repressed, bitter, vindictive, jealous, covetous Irish nuns these days — but somehow we can’t bring ourselves to even hint that it might do a fat girl some good to drop some tonnage. Why do I keep talking about ‘fat girls’? What about fat boys? Well they are dying of COVID-19 too, in droves — and no one seems to care about them either. But it is women who have it especially bad, because of sexism. I know all about this because I was — as I say, figuratively speaking — once a little fat girl. I was the next best thing; I was an effeminate little fat boy; a  pudgy sissy. The doctor told my mother I had ‘constitutional laxity” (I searched for that term and found it recently in a 2005 article on the National Library of Medicine website so I guess it really existed.) It all came down to bad muscle tone. It was not my fault that I was tubby and hated gym class. I hated gym class because I not only looked ridiculous in those shorts, but lusted after all the boys — only at that time it was more about romance. My first love Tad Crohn (his grandfather invented Crohn’s disease) had what would be now called a six pack at the age of 9 — when I was mad for him — we used to roll around in bed naked because — well, what else could we do? He was perfect and played tennis with Shane (who was from England and said ‘maul’ instead of ‘mal’ for the local ‘mall’). I wanted to kill Shane and marry Tad, but anyway, the point is, my first erotic encounter was with a boy with a perfectly muscled body — a body I never had and never will. It doesn’t matter how much I work out. I managed to lose 40 pounds for a hernia operation about a year ago and that would certainly be getting me laid if there were any friggin’ bars or bathhouses open anywhere. The point is that I know something about what it means to be a fat girl because I was a fat effeminate boy. So okay, I acknowledge there is so much shame and so much self-loathing because men like you to be trim, and gorgeous — why?  Either all men watch too much pornography or their hormones program them to be more ‘visual’ sexually, we will never know, shall we? (So let’s not debate it.) The point is most men with six-packs these days oppress feminine creatures such as myself — and women — unless they have a body fat percentage of less than 15%. I get it. I get it so much that when I was younger I used to dress up in drag regularly, wearing almost nothing. Check out this video:

https://ca.video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search;_ylt=AwrCxnZO.uNf.DwAJwQXFwx.;_ylu=Y29sbwNiZjEEcG9zAzIEdnRpZAMEc2VjA3Nj?p=sky+gilbert&fr=yhs-Lkry-SF3&hspart=Lkry&hsimp=yhs-SF3#id=9&vid=edc0557cb8d30fab57c08e2ef4bb876c&action=viewG
I don’t care what you think. I thought I looked gorgeous at the time! Gay liberation for me was partly about well, politics, but also about me showing off my not very trim feminine body to likely males; I can’t tell you how liberating it was to stand up on that stage and go on about getting a ticket for riding in a cab without a seatbelt (it’s a long story), and letting it mostly all hang out. I wish all fat girls could feel as good as I felt about myself on that day. Alas, they don’t. It’s not my fault. It’s a complex issue. But please understand we are not helping those fat girls by encouraging them to eat lots of chocolates to extinguish covid anxiety. The fact is — I don’t know how to tell you this — but if your feelings have feelings -- then you have too many feelings.

I am coming out in favour

of burqas for everyone. I know they are usually considered Muslim attire, but the word ‘Muslim’ means ‘submission,' and that pretty much describes what’s going on now. So ‘burqas for all’ seems quite appropriate. But more than being in favour, I want, desire — nay yearn, for the day we can all wear burqas — men, women, everybody. The great thing about burqas is that they are so sexy. Now just hold on and follow my train of thought. The origin of the burqa was not religious. The story goes like this: before they became a Muslim routine a woman ran through town wearing a burqa and everyone went crazy — i.e. the men found it wildly erotic and all of them wanted to have sex with  her. So from the start it was about the facilitation of eroticism; in other words the garment was clearly an aphrodisiac. I have no doubt it remains one to this day. For the burqa affirms the fetishisation of the female body. The reason for burqas is that fetishization; Muslim men are frank about this. Female bodies are considered by the Muslim religion (as in some Protestant sects and for people like Mike Pence) not just attractive under certain circumstances, (i.e. when the lights are low) no — if men are even to catch a passing glimpse of a naked ankle, they will and must become uncontrollably and dangerously erect and petrifyingly passionate, nothing will stop them, nothing must get in their way. This is apparently because men are -- evidently -- brutish unruly animals with no self control. Well, I would do almost anything to ensure men were sexually inflamed by my presence (outside of a getting butt implant — I won't ever do that!). So if all it takes is for me to wear a burqa  — well,  I’ll order one from Amazon now. And of course if everyone wore burqas we would be safe from the dreaded virus — no ‘should I take my mask off for minute?' It is about complete submission to the illness and all it’s persuasive paradigms, metaphors and myths. And as we have been told that this  pandemic is just the first of many and that viruses are always unpredictable and may mutate (COVID-19  is mutating right now, apparently), the big question becomes —  well — who knows? I mean, anything could happen. But beyond the safety and fetish aspects of burqas there is the complete submission of one’s entire person to the COVID-19 faith -- yes it is a new religion — not the least of all because it rivals the Muslim religion in its demand for utter and complete subservience. I always have been submissive — sexually (I know, TMI!) - but the pandemic offers an opportunity on a much wider, much more comprehensive scale to submit ourselves to whatever powers there be and to obey -- for ours is not to reason why — as we are clearly putting peoples lives in danger if we do. And the notion of ‘putting other people’s lives in danger’ is at the heart of this new religion and its demand for submission. A friend of mine who is a slut (she’s a dominatrix, actually) wanted to visit her 90 year old grandmother on her birthday. Her sister — who is somewhat of a religious zealot—  barred my dominatrix friend from visitation. This is even after my friend the dominatrix said she would only go to the door of her grandmother’s house, stand outside wearing a mask, greet her through the screen door, and leave the present on the doorstep. The 90 year old woman, of course, had no say in the matter -- though she did want to see her dominatrix granddaughter; but the evangelistic sister wouldn’t have it. And the finger wagging sister’s words are characteristic -- nay definitive -- of the religious dogma that dominates this pandemic: “It’s one thing if you want to kill yourself — but you have no right to kill our grandmother!” Wow. I bow in wonder at the magnificence of the rhetoric. J.L Austin introduced the concept of ‘illocutionary acts’ — the notion that certain combinations of words are actual acts, that change reality— as in during the marriage ceremony when we say ‘I do.’  The implications of the idea -- you have the right to ruin your life but not everyone else’s -- are beyond anything we might imagine. For at the heart of this divine eloquence lies not unselfishness, but revenge. The evangelistic sister who uttered these fatal words (and they are fatal) had always hated her dominatrix sister. Specifically, she had been jealous of her sister  making a tidy sum of money through her sexual control of men.  Undoubtedly she coveted her sister’s ‘lifestyle.’ But as a kind, religious woman she was never been able to say take responsibility for this jealousy (which had become contempt). And now, the new religion of COVID-19 has empowered her to curse her sister in the name of altruism. And surely there is a little bit of the evangelistic sister in all of us? COVID-19 invites us (I see it on TV every day) to provide an exhaustive and detailed catalogue of this sins that the selfish few bring upon the hapless many. One sees it play out excruciatingly in the stories of the COVID-19 deniers, the tragic victims who, up until the very end, have said 'this is a made-up illness, no different from the flu.' Inevitably and ironically they suffer the agonizing fate of succumbing to the virus themselves. The kind, older nurse will say "I just couldn’t understand it. Even up until the end, when he was choking for breath he would ask: 'What is happening? This can’t be real.'" Watching this wise nurse on CNN, we can’t help but chuckle at the way in which the virus sought to punish this wilfully ignorant unbeliever. No, that will not be us, only him, after all we all know that the wages of sin is death, so we submit. We will wear our burqa. I plan on going naked under mine. I think that men will know that I am naked. Yes I'll wash the dam thing -- don't worry -- just as I wash my mask. But  every swish and every sway of the delicate fabricate over my trembling limbs, as it brushes against my, tensely, vibrantly responsive naked body -- will tell a tale. And it will be the ultimate mask of all, the burqa -- my lover -- the mask that tells the truth.

Things You Can Do

 Outside

1) You can pee.
 I recommend peeing outside, as many public washrooms are closed — especially, it seems, when you need them most! I found a great outdoor spot to pee in Hamilton. There’s a wall on one side, and a little inset door, which says ‘no loitering’ (because lots of guys pee there). You just have to make sure there isn’t anybody in the parking lot behind you spying. Well, all they would see is your butt. (Of course they would know what you are doing.) Peeing outside is great! On the one hand you feel like you’re flaunting authority (which I love) and then of course, you get that pee out, which is often an absolute necessity. (I do apologize to all the women who don’t like to squat. But I know some of my best women friends quite happily, do! So go to it, ladies!)

2)  You can litter.
Littering is fun. For some reason the garbage cans have been removed from a lot of public places — I’m not sure what that has to do with COVID-19. But ours is not to reason why, ours is to obey. And most of the time you can’t eat inside so —. Well I found myself hurrying through a Tim Ho's coffee and bran muffin in sub-freezing temperatures while sitting on a cold rock, and there was no garbage can in sight. So yes, I littered. Again, there is something freeing about committing the ‘verboten.’ Also, as I’m watching the cup blowing away, I thought about that scene in American Beauty with the rumpled paper bag? Which was, I guess, all about beauty? (I was never sure.)

3) You can have sex.
This is awfully liberating!. Sure, you might freeze your nuts or vagina off. Or you could just throw somebody onto the back of an outdoor heating mechanism and have your way with them. If you are caught, you may be arrested for ‘public indecency.’ But you would be in good company! Oscar Wilde and many other homosexuals — famous and not — risked life and limb to have a good outdoor screw. Of course if you are an exhibitionist, it’s extra fun!

One more thing. I recommend you do any — or (preferably) all of the above — on a GO bus or train. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the Toronto GO Transit system has gotten particularly drunk with power during the pandemic. It has given them the chance to cancel the express bus between Hamilton and Toronto — something they always wanted to do — but now they have an excuse. It doesn’t matter that the new COVID system of stuffing people on trains and tiny connecting buses between Toronto and Hamilton is actually dangerous for your health. But GO has always been corrupt. There are several GO stations built in lonely, empty neighbourhoods simply because ambitious MPs wanted to to tout this achievement in their election campaigns. So if you live in a tiny neighbourhood that doesn’t need a GO station—  but  for some inexplicable reason has one — you can thank the corrupt GO Transit! As you may have guessed, I hate Go transit -- ever since they wiped out Coach Canada (and Greyhoud, practically) in the name of not providing proper service to small towns.  I used to travel on GO from Hamilton to Guelph before COVID.  My daily commute to work was 5 hours (there and back-- it used to be 1 hour and a half before GO). It was worse when it snowed. So, yes, I recommend you litter, pee and have sex on GO Transit immediately! If you can manage to do all of these things at the same time, that would be even better!

As you can see I have become mentally unhinged. Well I always was, but COVID-19 has made it worse. I know I am not the only one. I am a rebellious creature, that’s the problem, and I absolutely detest being told what to do (however wonderful the cause is!). And there are many like me. The way that most people deal with the stress and strain of COVID-19 rules and restrictions is by becoming a drug addict (or — I should say — more of one) and/or by raping their innocent daughters, and/or by killing someone. Since these are extreme and unsavoury ways to deal with stress, I would suggest you just go outside and have a good pee, a good litter, or a good screw. I feel I am doing a public service by suggesting these alternatives (which is something we’ve all learned is more important than anything nowadays.) No, you wouldn’t be hurting anybody by peeing, littering or screwing out of doors. The worst you might do is shock someone. But shock is good for people generally -- and especially with their mind-numbing daily diet of Netflix and/or logging onto Facebook in order to finger wag the ‘COVID naughty.’

Happy Holidays!

This time it was a

sexual dream, so maybe you don’t want to hear about it. But you’re going to. I was at a party, wearing military gear (I remember looking down an seeing my military boots).  I don’t remember much about the party except it was a bacchanal, everything was wrecked; it started slowly and became chaos. I don’t know how to describe the room that the party was in — it was perhaps an artists house? Old wood? But the central incident that I woke up remembering was that I lost someone’s penis. Yes, it’s very complicated (and it must mean something, mustn’t it?). Anyway I stole it and then I lost it. I was having sex with him and he is somewhat dim -- in the detail. But his presence was strong and masculine, and he was an artist (was it his party?). Also I was not the only one who loved him at that party, everyone loved him, they all were protective of him, and were watching me with him. And with him, I had -- well — how shall I describe it -- tastefully? Shall we call it fabulous fellatio? Going down on him was fabulous. (I don’t know how to describe it except his penis just fit; it was heaven.) But when it was over I then suddenly had his penis in my hand, separate from him (odd that). Odd too, that his penis being separate from his body did not alarm me in the least. I just put it in my pocket. And then the worry came. Because the party was winding down and I had lost it. And I frantically searched my pockets, and pulled out all sorts of phallic paraphernalia, dropping them on the floor, but none of them alas, was his ‘equipment.’ Then the party was really over,  and people were cleaning up. And I caught of glimpse of him (handsome, masterful) and I wanted to talk to him. But oddly again, I didn’t seem to be in trouble -- for either stealing -- or for losing his penis. Oh yes, and I remember two other details, one very odd and the other not so much. The first detail was that before leaving the party I saw a large stuffed deer with diamonds for eyes. This may seem terribly symbolic. And perhaps it was - because I do know a beautiful young man who identifies as a deer ('deer' in gay lore is somewhat the opposite of 'bear'). And so this deer may have been that young man. But why was it dead? This worries me. But then again (and this is complicated to explain) taxidermy has been figuring prominently in my life of late (shall we leave it at that?). And finally, the other detail -- not so odd -- is I remember telling this gorgeous dominant, artist -- my lover -- during our lovemaking, that I was a slut, and that lots of people wanted to have sex with me. And I remember very clearly him saying “I can see why.” And when he said this I turned my head away from fellating him, and noticed that I was lying on my stomach and  my ass was exposed. Well as you might imagine when I woke up I was incredibly horny, and very worried about having stolen that guy's penis. But after all he hadn’t seemed very worried, so why should I be?  I find it coincidental that I dreamt this last night, because last night I had also watched a youtube video about Jung and dreams that a friend just sent me. Now I’ve never paid much attention to dreams. But in this video a therapist was talking about writing them down, which I thought was impossible. How can you remember your dreams? And then I remembered that I had written a blog about a dream recently. And when I woke up this morning, the image — but most of all the feeling of the dream — was overwhelming, so I wrote down all the details I could remember.  And now I’ve realised that dreams are not only the subconscious (which I’ve always been suspicious of because Freud used the subconscious for ridiculous ends sometimes) dreams are irrational. And the irrational is what I’m all about now (Heraclitus, Lucretius, Gorgias, Ovid — it’s a long story). And this woman in the video said — and I’m paraphrasing — that at the centre of Jung’s philosophy was the notion that everyone needs to believe in something, that we must have an irrational side even if we claim to be a creature of reason. In other words you may have that friend or relative or teacher or someone who says they are completely logical and dispassionate. I have such a friend now (or he seems to be an ex-friend as I hardly ever see him since COVID-19 so I can write about him here. I mean I still do love him but he’s definitely an ex-friend). And my ex-friend is one of those people who can no longer tolerate my anger (have you noticed that I'm a pretty angry guy?). And I’ve tried to explain to him that anger is a good thing but he very much above it all because he is a Buddhist. And in his mind anyway, the exemplary Buddhist is not emotional but instead above all human emotion. But emotion is irrational. And that’s what this woman was talking about in the Jung video -- that getting angry or frightened or whatever --  is necessary, because if we don’t allow ourselves to have feelings then they just go into hiding, but are still there, lurking. So we must be irrational. We must believe in things beyond reason. (So maybe my ex-friend still is irrational, and emotional, in one way -- because of his belief in his God. Because if there wasn’t a God we would invent him -- or her). Which brings me back to the penis incident. Now it seems almost de rigeur to analyse it. The circumstance seems, in fact, to invite analysis. But I would posit -- isn’t that somewhat contrary to the point? Why be rational about something that is irrational (i.e. a dream)? I mean why can’t it just be what it is, in the reality of a dream, i.e. I took someone’s penis by mistake and then lost it (silly me). I mean of course the dream had guilt in it; I’m guilty, I’m guilty all the time, my first novel was called Guilty, I have been suffocating in guilt ever since my mother told me to clean my room when I was a kid, and after I cleaned it she said: “I was worried because you made it too clean”. Or perhaps I’m the only male in the universe besides Woody Allen who has penis envy? Or perhaps I want to forget penises (horrifying thought). But really I do think we are ruining it if we try and figure out what any dream means. It doesn’t mean anything. Does water mean anything? What does a bowel movement mean? Does a whinnying horse mean anything? These things just are. It was a dream, and it must be respected, because well, right now, it’s what Shakespeare (oh yeah that guy again) said we are made of. And right now, frankly, my 'dream' is a lot more real than my 'reality.'

Since the fun is

gone I’ve been downloading lots of computer games. My latest is Fishdom and it’s lots of fun. You match gems and decorate little fishbowls. It’s good for loneliness, because the fish talk to you. They are pretty funny looking, and have personalities. Because it’s ‘interactive,’ you put your name into the app and the fish call you by your real name. And basically I have a lot of trouble getting together with my friends these days (they don’t answer emails, they’re depressed, it’s cold outside, etc etc) so the fish are like well — substitute friends. The only problem is they can get a bit sucky, and one of them reminds me of my father. Every time I win a game he says: ‘The way you win is just amazing Sky!” Near the end of his life my father used to call me and ask: “Any new achievements you want to tell me about, son?” I couldn’t  just talk with him about the weather, it had to be an achievement. So the only real problem with Fishdom is the one fish who lays it on a little thick and  reminds me of my father. Truth be told? I’m lacking an audience. I’ve always needed one, must have one, in fact. I’ve been zoom teaching, but the students are on Christmas break. So who am I going to entertain? My boyfriend resents it when I treat him like an ‘audience.’ And my friends, well as I said, it's just that the elements -- rain, snow, sleet -- and a dreadful fear not so much of COVID-19 but of being spotted on the streets laughing or having fun and then shamed by their Facebook friends  --  keep us apart. But I need to perform. Which made me think about Fran Leibowitz, and the HBO documentary Public Speaking, when she says: “All the best ones died.” And she’s right. Fran is so right, because the gay men who had crazy sex and died of AIDS were not only the greatest artists but the greatest audiences, because those three things go together, and if you don’t get that, then there is no hope for you (sorry for being so judgemental.). But anyway, she talks about how these arty sexy fags would go to the ballet and hold court on the way Susanne Farrell would turn her leg or flick her wrist. And that made me think about audiences. Because I need them so badly right now. I mean not just one person -- tons and tons of people to appreciate me -- and clap. (I can’t help it. It’s just the way I'm constructed. Some people are just made that way. It’s part of diversity okay?  Just like some people are made to hide in corners? Some are made to -- not.) Like Jerry Seinfeld said, there are people whose worst nightmare is to be dead, and there are others whose worst nightmare is to deliver the eulogy. In other words some people would rather die than speak in public. Me, I need to speak in public or I’ll die. Recently I caught myself speaking to the cat, and well -- the universe -- yesterday (my boyfriend was out, it would have bugged him; he would have thought I'd finally gone senile). That’s how desperate I am for applause. So let me make a case for audiences. What is an audience and why is it important? Because in the COVID-19 world there are no theatres or concerts or crowds of more than five (and what is the sound of ten hands clapping?) So what are we missing when we do away with audiences — i.e. if either they die of AIDS, or they just are not allowed to ‘audience’ anymore, like now, in the lockdown? A case could be made by conspiracy theorists that all these pandemics and epidemics have been whipped up to wipe out audiences forever. And it’s an important case to made, because audiences are important. I’m not saying that just because I love audiences and need them (though I do) but  because the world is a spectacle.  It’s not real or true, or right or wrong, it is simply a spectacle, and the wise ones know how to appreciate it (or critique it) in all it’s craziness.  And that means also realizing that it is a spectacle. And what is a spectacle? It’s something made up (i.e. in this case, by God). It’s fake. Spectacles are not real, they are manufactured. And that’s what the world is, it’s fooling you. Truth is a lie. I know that’s always a tough one for people to get, but if you understand this secret it will save you — it will save all of us. ‘The wise man,’ said Gorgias (who the f-was Gorgias? I’ll tell you someday) is the one who is fooled. But to be fooled means to know you are being fooled. I remember when my boyfriend and I (why does he keep cropping up in this blog -- probably because we are at home together all the time these days) we were walking down the street in drag on our way to the Dora Mavor Moore Awards many years ago, (what could be more natural?) and some kid lept off his little bike  and  yelled at us kinda fiercely: “You’re not fooling me!!!” It was very odd. But my answer was -- I can’t remember if I just thought it in my head or I actually said it -- ‘Relax — we were just putting on a spectacle.' Meaning it’s completely fake and we know it. And if you were a smart little boy you would know it too. It’s like COVID-19. (You knew I‘d get around to it eventually, didn’t you?) I’ll tell you some actualities (I won’t call them truths because I don’t believe there are any.) The COVID-19 test doesn’t mean anything. Any scientist knows this. It just means you might have a little COVID in your system. You are not a ‘case.’ If you test positive your life is not in danger and you are not necessarily even infectious. And in addition to that, they are going on and on about how all these people are dying — but I know for instance in Britain -- and I’m sure in Canada -- the overall national death rates have not increased. So it’s all a big deliciously juicy, scary lie. And what they should do is protect the people in old folks homes and those who are marginalized (what are called the poor 'black and brown folk' on TV)— those with no money for the doctor or health care. But instead they close theatres. And then there are no more audiences. And you know why they are closing the theatres? (Here's a conspiracy theory for ya!) Because if you were a discerning audience you wouldn’t just accept everything as truth. You’d be critical. You would question everything-- yes even the so-called truth.  You would see everything as a big spectacle, and enjoy it, but then say 'all this spectacle needs a little critique!' You would be like that old faggot, in the pink frilly shirt, and gold, too-tight, spangly pants, who died of AIDS, who would stand up all by himself at the opera, and give a standing 'o,' yelling 'brava!,' because he thought some fat opera diva sang Casta Diva as good as Callas -- which  of course is impossible. Where oh where has that very special faggot gone? Not only I— but you and me -- all of us, we shall not survive, without him.

It’s the victory of

the dead over the undead. Literally. Back in April one of my friends said, jokingly: ‘It’s here, The Zombie Apocalypse!" and we laughed -- oh how we laughed. (Little did we know.) Who are the dead? Well when I was young it was clearly my father -- expressionless -- saying little, and telling me to be careful when I folded the American flag. And my mother was clearly alive, as there were red roses on her dress, and she was always 'going through' something or other, and I used to sing songs from The Sound of Music to her (“I Am Sixteen…”). And later, of course, she drank. Being dead was being expressionless and careful, and being alive was singing and drinking. It was all pretty clear; anyone could understand. History, if you look at it, has been a continuous war between the dead and the undead.  In certain periods the dead win -- the lights go out for awhile, sometimes for a very long time, like in the Dark Ages. But then the light comes back -- and people are dancing — like in the 20s — and women are flashing their you-know-whats and riding bicycles, and things are on the up and up. But how long oh Lord, how long? And why are the dead so intent on silencing us? It’s clear that we are an affront to them. COVID has never made it any clearer. Even the bandit kerchief with the skulls on it I wear as a mask is a trigger to some; it’s obvious I am too cavalier about ‘infection.’ And the other day when they started to ask me the ‘five questions’ on my way into the gym, I just said: ‘No no no no no!” which made me sound — for the first time in a long while — like a virgin. But why don’t they like us? Is there something about me that has always been evidently ‘alive,’ that the dead ones always hated? I think so. When I was a boy they used to ask “why do you always talk with your hands?” It was a gay thing, but also part of me being 'not dead.' And then many years ago when I walked past Woody’s bar (will it ever open again?) on Church street, some guy turned to his friend and said “If Sky Gilbert can walk by, then you can dance!” which was somewhat about me being alive too. But that still doesn’t tell us why they resent us so. It’s probably because, deep down somewhere, the dead understand that people are meant to be alive, and if they aren’t alive, they are somehow betraying their humanity.  After all, it's not 'reason' that makes us human. You'll find scant evidence of reason nowadays -- what with COVID and all. Why yesterday apparently two people in England got headaches or whatever (I could care less) from the vaccine and everyone went hysterical: “Oh no, not side effects! What’s going to happen? Are people going to have to stop taking the vaccine?” Well it turns out those two people were allergic to vaccines. So why did they take the bloody thing? (It’s like when you go to the doctor and say ‘oh doctor when I do this it hurts’ and the doctor says ‘well then don’t do it!') “Don't be so COVID!’”-- is what they will say, hopefully -- after this passes. Because being 'so COVID' will just mean not facing the facts. Because the undead actually know this fact: we all die, and we are more likely to die if we are 90 years old and/ or are already seriously ill. Is that rocket science? No, but suddenly to the 'COVID mind' this salient fact has become a ‘tragic situation.’ Well, when I see a photo of a 90 year old married couple on TV dying of COVID in their hospital beds,  it’s simply not tragic (except for the fact that the COVID police made them die in separate rooms.) Of course it will get worse before it gets better. And I don’t mean the COVID (that will go away). I mean the judgement and the approbation, the clicking of tongues, the shaking of heads. I remember when I was dating (that’s a euphemism) Christopher (Newton) a thousand years ago, he told me that we would never ever walk down the street of Niagara-on-the-Lake together. I was wounded and shocked of course (though it did have the the allure of turning me into the ‘other woman’ which I sort of was, because of Duncan MacIntosh — who is now the First Lady of Prince Edward Island —  but that’s another story….). So anyway I was shocked. And I asked him why, and he said “The twitch of a curtain means a ruined reputation in this town!” Eventually we broke up, but he still came to visit me in Toronto. And when he was walking up the sidewalk to my flat on Robert Street (it was right across from the Morgentaler Clinic, I used to sit at my desk and write plays every day — and there would be the dead and the undead quarreling right in front of my window — because the Evangelists used to accost poor innocent young women and try to stop them from having abortions). Well as he approached the lawn Christopher saw the ugly plants my landlord had planted instead of grass, and he made an ugly face. ‘Oh spurge,’ he said. “What do you mean?” I asked -- (as I am definitely not a gardener). “He’s planted spurge instead of grass, but it’s not working.” “Oh, is that what that stuff is?” “Yes,” said Christopher (ever the gardener). And then he sighed, wistfully:  ‘Spurge never works.” And then later when we hadn’t dated each other for awhile — and we were both seeing other men — Christopher had met a beautiful boy who lived on Church Street, and he was having a gay old time with him (so to speak). But then he had to break it off. (I think the boys name was Bobbi.) I said “Oh no, what happened? Why did you have to break it off with Bobbi?” He said: “Bobbi kissed the cat.” “Ah," I said. “Yes,” he said wistfully. (Christopher was often wistful.) "I couldn’t take it after that.” If all this sounds like Greek to you, then you are probably dead, and you don’t approve of me. And when it comes down to it, you never have approved of me, and you know —  it’s just envy. It’s just bloody envy. The undead don’t want to be dead you see, but the dead want to be undead. But they know that for some reason they can never be. (Why?) So they will lock us up and take away our fun. It’s particularly bad now. If you are one of the undead, you kinda wish you were dead right now. But it won’t last for ever. Because you see there is….well, life. And that’s something the dead can never understand.

This is hell we are

living in hell. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. To be locked up in your house, ordered never to leave, told not to see friends, told not to make love without a mask (thank you Theresa Tam!), told not to hug or kiss — universities, concerts, galleries, theatres, restaurants closed? All of the above are not ‘luxuries,’ they are what make us human. We are living in hell, and if someone tries to tell you otherwise, I give you permission to slap them -- good and hard. Joe Orton used to talk about Morocco (he would go with Kenneth Williams — that gorgeous comedian from the 'Carry On' movies — and with Kenneth Halliwell who eventually killed him) and he would say that the boys in Morocco would just come up and ask him if he wanted to have sex -- whereas in London it was a lot more work to get laid. He would say ‘Morocco is human, unlike England’ and (putting aside all the colonialist associations of his remark) I think his point is well taken. I was born in New England, USA, and my parents were Congregationalist Protestants, so I know about man’s inhumanity to man. I know a culture that views hugs, kisses, sex, music and art as godless. So I give you permission — since we are living in hell — to find the satisfaction you need. You are now completely under government control (I’m not a conspiracy theorist, and it isn’t a rhetorical device me saying that) and to be under anyone’s control is intolerable for most people unless they are masochists who have turned their life into one big sex party, or they have Stockholm Syndrome. No life is now intolerable for most people, and the worst part is there is no ‘timeline.’ Make no mistake about it, we are now being told that the much anticipated vaccination may not help -- will certainly not allow us to ‘hit the streets’ any day soon-- and that it may not even stop people from getting infected.  And even if this vaccine  ‘works,’ there will inevitably be another pandemic. The powers that be have been hinting for a long time that from now on  life will consist of one pandemic after another.  I worry not so much about the people in the middle — but the very old, like me, and the young. I don’t have much time left, so it would be nice to actually live the remaining years  — not just sit in my room feeling guilty that I am not wearing a mask in my own home. But imagine if you were young? Imagine if you are 18 years old? This is the time of your life -- when you must start loving and screwing; you are horny as hell and/or as romantic as hell and you want it now, because you will never be young again. So what are you doing to do? Well I say, run, don’t walk to the nearest porn site; they were made for you, that’s why they are there, after all, what other alternative do you have? Human contact is dangerous, porn is not. Sure it’ll screw up your sex life, it will screw up your expectations of what is and isn’t good sex -- no one has sex like that in real life — and it will completely wreck your idea of what the human body is (the body fascism in porn is beyond belief). Porn is a wildly unrealistic fantasy, sure, and it will deeply mess you up. But what else are you going to do? The natural urges you have, to love and to make love, are human ones. And you must somehow satisfy them. The same thing goes for drugs. Take them. Now is the time. They are readily available at every Cannabis store, and the government seems to encourage it, so go ahead — after all, it'll keep the economy going. Now is the time to indulge your vices! Because if you don’t you will simply die of boredom or slash your wrists. You are and will continue to be human and have human needs, but that is no longer recognised. So what you must do is figure out a way to live vicariously -- by consuming drugs and porn, and whatever else this little silver or black or white box in front of you has to offer (there's always Netflix, I guess!). Cuz that’s all there is. You can and will learn to live this way, and make no mistake about it; this little machine that I’m typing on — and that you’re reading this on — is a drug, and it was made exactly for this, to allow us to imagine that there is an escape from the world’s inhumanity.  Someone told me something very interesting and terrifying about China the other day. This is not hearsay; he has relatives in China and is Chinese. Okay, so this is what’s going on in China — and why they are apparently now the world’s greatest power. After the pandemic hit  China eventually  managed to contain it quite neatly because they utilised big data to control their population. This means that they put digital data collection to practical use beyond just discovering the specific algorithm that helps your computer figure out what you will want to buy next. In China, apparently, the powers that be can keep track of your every move digitally — they know where you are going and what you are doing, and ergo, they can restrict your behaviour, if you are an ‘at risk’ person, accordingly. This makes terrifying sense and I assure you it is real.  I’m no saying this to depress you. I’m saying this so that you can understand what life will be like in the future. Yes of course, you can find others like you, who will want to hug and kiss and have sex, and sing and dance, etc, but it will be hard to find them, and you will have to make sure not to tell Theresa Tam. Ultimately it’s best to do what Big Pharma — and Dr. Fauci — tell us — wear a mask and go online for the pleasures you have been denied in real life. You will not be able to completely replace those real life pleasures; and you will still miss them. Maybe, as  in Ray Bradburys Fahrenheit 451 you will join a secret society where people are allowed still, to be human? Maybe? So there is a kind of hope. But what you may need for the next little while at least, as the Beatles say, is a little help from your friends.

We have learned many things

from COVID-19.

1. It’s about quantity, not quality.
    The important thing is not how happy you are, but how many years you live. For too long, we have casually tossed off phrases like ‘let’s throw caution to the winds!’ as we down another whiskey shot. For some, ‘live hard, die young’ has been the motto, but this virus has taught us that we must become more and more cognizant of what shortens our lives. The thing to remember, is that though such a life may not seem enjoyable now -- if you expose yourself to illness and disease, you will most certainly pay for it later. So if you can possibly manage it — just don’t do anything. That’s the surest way to live a long, long life.

2. The old should be left alone.
    All those years we were hugging them and kissing them.  Sure, it was uncomfortable -- seeing them like that — ‘old’—  and imagining it might happen to us one day too. Now we know that it’s simply too dangerous for old people to have contact with the young. They must be put away somewhere— in buildings that no one enters — except for nurses and other trained personel, heavily supplied with PPE. Don’t worry, the old people will be fine. They can always chat with you on their iPads, and it will be virtually the same as having you there.

3. Stand together by standing apart.
    This is one of the most important of all the lessons. Before, we thought that when we were physically close, we were ‘together.’ What an old fashioned concept! We can be completely and utterly together in so many ways, even when we are far apart. Even more together in fact. We can send virtual hugs, kisses, pictures of our favourite pets, or just pictures of dogs and cats that we find on the internet and cherish, and want to share. We have to embrace the apparent contradiction (of course I mean embrace it virtually) and understand that being safe is what brings us all together. It's being unsafe that ultimately tears us apart.

4. Because, after all, home is where the heart is.
    This is undoubtedly the most important lesson to learn, but it’s most certainly the most difficult one. There have always been excuses for not staying home. “I’m bored’ or ‘I want a drink in a bar’ or, even:  'I want to pick up a street whore for casual sex! ’ Today, we can see how silly such sentiments are. Dorothy was right in The Wizard of Oz — ‘There’s no place like home.’ After all Dorothy traveled practically to another planet searching for happiness, when all the while that happiness was at home, on the farm — with ‘Auntie ‘Em’ and the three farm hands (who were not, in reality, a scarecrow a tin man or a cowardly lion). Once Dorothy realized her folly she also understood how silly the song ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ really was. (They didn’t put this in the movie, but that’s what happened.) Now this final lesson may be  difficult for some. Most of us -- with computers, yoga mats, and big backyards — will understand.  (And let’s face it, these days we all know for sure that there’s nothing better than a big backyard!). But there are those who  must be taught this lesson over and over again, because their situation is not exactly the same as ours. Let’s say for instance, that you are a young girl, and your father is an alcoholic and a drug addict, and you live in one room with him and your mother. Let’s say that he has always beat your mother. And late at night when your mother is asleep he sneaks into your bed and rapes you. Well lately, now with losing his job he’s been doing a lot more drugs. In fact each day during COVID-19 — when your mother is making the daily trip to buy toilet paper (masked, it’s a necessity!) — he rapes you for the second time that day. In this particular situation it may be harder for you to remember, little girl, that it is safer for you to be at home. But consider this. Let’s say you you were to go outside — or worse yet — try and run away.  And you might say -- ‘I’m young and I probably won’t get sick from COVID-19!’ While though that’s statistically true, l beg to differ. There are some cases in which children have suffered from a very rare limb inflammation disease that might be related to COVID-19. But never mind that! It’s about time — little girl — that you stopped thinking about yourself! If you run away from home you run the risk of infecting others with COVID-19. Others may die because of your selfish acts! Thank about that. Sure, your life seems troubling at home, and maybe it is troubling but when it comes down to it, what’s one more rape a day? What’s more important is that if you run away from home you may cause others to die. Listen little girl, you’d better start considering other people for a change — not just your own needs. After all, you are not alone on this planet!
    
5. It's wonderful, —when you think about it -- all the lessons we have learned from COVID-19. And if this horrible plague ever ever goes away (which won’t happen for a long time— and anyway —  it will probably be followed by another pandemic — even worse than this one) we will carry these lessons with us, forever. Yes COVID-19 has changed our lives. And ultimately, for the better, don’t you think?

I was so afraid

    that I rushed to my desk and wrote this. All I could remember, that is. It was a dream, wasn’t it? It must have been. We were gathered in a kind of luxurious bunker, and it was all my friends and sex buddies. But he wasn’t there, my lover — and I realised that for some reason this tragedy had kept us apart. There were vast windows looking out on numbing, terrifying vistas, I didn’t want to look, but of course I did, we all did, there were spirals of smoke swirling from the tops of buildings — whatever it was, it was a science fiction movie — but it was now happening to us, and we knew we were going to die soon, and that was the torture. There was nothing we could do. I touched someone, someone who I recognised, someone who I had touched many times before — but he didn’t recognise me and turned away. I considered getting very drunk. We were not listening to the newscasts, there was no point, and anyway we were afraid of what we might hear. We saw nothing before us but our own demise. I was wearing a Greek toga— it seems I had imagined it was some kind of party, but the various men that I knew there (or thought I knew) were ignoring me, when I turned to them they turned away. There was no laughter, if it was a party in honour of our own deaths. It seems we were together because we had to be, there was nothing else. And as we gazed out through that enormous wall of glass at the soul-destroying annihilation, well, we knew we were next.  I don’t think we can live this way any longer — and I don’t mean quarantine — I mean the fear and dread used against us. I don’t blame the lock down for my dream, I blame Dr. Fauci. I blame everyone who has ever used fear and dread as a kind of punishment. I’ve lived with fear and dread all my life — how many of us haven’t? And then there were the moments when the veil was lifted, when someone allowed me not to be afraid. First there was the social worker in group therapy who told me that it was alright for me — in my head  at least— to tell my mother off. And I did, in my head. I never told my her to her face — though when I told her that she was no longer my best friend (believe me, I know that sounds cruel but it was the only thing to do at the time) it was like telling her to jump in a lake, which was an important thing for me to do. (And she did jump, eventually, into the cool clear lake of alcohol, but not because of me, because of life). And then there was just — art, which lifted the veil, momentarily. (And there was my boyfriend who— and he said I could talk about him here — who gave me permission not to worry about being ‘the best’ anymore, which was a pretty huge thing for me, as I was eternally terrified that I wasn’t.) There was J.D. Salinger and Jack Kerouac and Frank O'Hara, and Noel Coward and Harold Pinter, and ‘the Barbaras' — Barbara Pym and Barbary Comyns — and Patricia Highsmith and Iris Murdoch and Rebecca West (really just The Fountain Overflows) Elizabeth von Arnhim and all the writers I loved. They gave me permission to relax. But that was an escape, it was an escape from dread, and to some degree, Daddy was still holding the ladder. (That’s Adorno’s metaphor.) You go to escape but when you’re halfway down the ladder with your fiancee in tow you look down and suddenly there’s Daddy — snarling, snorting, chomping at the bit. Which means it’s not easy ridding yourself of fear and dread. And so when some make it their job to utilise those two magical, hypnotic, lethally potent forces to keep you in line for their own special interests — which of course they deem to be yours (i.e.the public good) please don’t do it. No I won’t have it! It’s got to stop — they can tell us what to do, they can enforce the law, but do not manipulate my emotions do not make me afraid for your own special purpose. It used to be the only thing to fear was fear itself— but before that it was always a weapon. During syphilis it was a weapon. It was a weapon during AIDS. But we, the sluts, said 'no way.' I interviewed three people for Toronto Life magazine (1989?), there were two men and one woman with AIDS. Yes, they were diagnosed with AIDS, and the were alive and not on medication, and they were challenging the HIV paradigm, yes they were. You an look it up — I almost won a bloody journalism award for that damn article. And I’m not bragging, I’m just saying times have changed. Or maybe it was just that no one really cared about the fags, so we could be revolutionary, even about our illness. But we knew then — it was our shameful secret — that the doctors couldn’t scare us away from screwing. And when they went after us for blowjobs (‘well blowjobs might cause AIDS you can’t be sure!’) we just went out and had a lot of blowjobs. Because living in fear is not living. That’s what my dream was telling me. You cannot live in shame and fear and guilt and dread with people waving your fingers at you all the time, insisting you can and must be a better person. Screw you Dr. Fauci! Did they teach you that at medical school? That the best way to keep your patients healthy was to torture them with guilt and fear and shame and dread? It’s not for myself, or for those others who live in relative comfort, but for those can’t work from their homes, those for whom the deprivation is actually real, and especially for those who -- of the world -- were already fearful, never had any hope, never wanted to live, who never really wanted to leave the house ever. They. Will. Stop. Living. Is that the idea: to stop us all from living? I think so. Because living is about dying. It’s not about not dying. It’s about doing dangerous stuff — stuff that is dangerous to your health. Or else you may end up like I was last night, waking to a shivering doom and no way to lift the veil. I was there, I was really there, and the creature was slouching towards Bethlehem, it was the very end, and it wasn’t the dying, it was seeing it coming, and seeing no reason to go on living.

This is not a conspiracy theory but

 one can’t help wondering. When AIDS first appeared it was said to attack Haitians, homosexuals and drug addicts, a triumvirate that might be considered unsavory, at best, by most ‘right thinking’ individuals. But then the task of trying to decide who might set out to kill three such disparate groups was certainly beyond my own — and others’ - skill set. The extinction of these three constituencies would certainly have been considered desirable by many of those who, in contrast, are usually considered savory  — i.e. non-drug addicts, non-Haitians and heterosexuals. I gave up trying to figure that out. But I don’t want to give up on COVID-19. This, our latest ‘human catastrophe,’ clearly favors mega-corporations over small family owned businesses. But why in heavens name would a conspiracy favor one over the other? Surely family owned business are no threat to Google? But now, alas, it appears small businesses must go. And row it has been decreed that we must forever live our lives online. This, again serves Google. (But, really, are we going to blame Google for everything?) It gets more complicated when we realize that the activities that have been temporarily or perhaps permanently exiled from the human condition include singing, laughing loudly, and shouting — because of course these things spread germs. (There’s no doubt about that, because we have seen those germs in virtual graphic re-creations on news shows.) Then, to speak frankly (and you know I will), for those of us who enjoy our sex outside of marriage, well, we must give that up too, if for no other reason than most of the people you have sex with (if you are a slut like me) are people who only do it occasionally, and you are just lucky to get them on a bad night when they had a spat with their significant other. And if you knock off the market all germaphobes, hypochondriacs, and the sexual obsessives who were having sex not because they wanted to but because they felt obligated — and then you get rid of well, the human sheep (i.e. people who always do what everyone else does) —  then there is simply no one left to screw. With the singing, laughing, dancing and screwing gone, I was — quite early on on — ready to blame The Puritans, but Globe theatre critic J. Kelly Nestruck talked me out of that. And how do we account for the clearly tragic gradual disappearance of the aged and the non-white? (Most COVID-19 deaths in the USA and Canada involve those who are either over 80 or ‘of colour.’) One would think Puritans of any ilk would approve of the very, very old — as they mainly just stay home and knit and worry about dying. Isn’t that what Puritans want people to do? And why would black or aboriginal people outrage The Puritans? Well I suppose black culture — in North America at least - seems to involve hyper-sexuality. But surely it’s mean spirited to do away with black people because of a music video culture that is clearly not really representative of most? But of course conspiracy theories are by nature mean spirited. So what is the organizing force behind our present pain? And don’t forget ‘the mad.’ (‘Mad’ is a term I much prefer over ‘mentally -ll’ — and some mentally-ill people seem to like it too. I mean why be ‘mentally ill’ when you could just be mad, which seems to include, by default, being devil-may-care and perhaps even charming — though perhaps in a somewhat alarming way?) What would Puritans have against ‘the mad’? At any rate we won’t have the mad to kick around anymore because so many have already committed suicide during lock down number one, and many will continue to commit suicide — what with medical experts dourly predicting, on the hour, that we must prepare for a ‘dark’ winter. So you can see my dilemma -- trying to come up with a theory that explains COVID-19 — but especially an elegant one? Because  isn’t that we want in a theory, most of all: elegance? Whether or not a theory makes sense doesn’t matter because we are not thinking beings but feeling ones; most of our so-called ‘rational’ thoughts are simply rationalizations. In terms of elegance, in theory — I’ve always been fond of the notion that the universe is gradually being sucked into a black hole. (I think we have Stephen Hawking to thank for that.) Then there’s the ‘big bang’ theory (wasn’t that Hawking too?). But the most elegant theory of all was the notion that AIDS was caused by gay men having sex with monkeys —I say elegant, because it is so unlikely and yet so outrageously appealing at the same time. No gay man in his right mind would be caught dead having sex with a chimpanzee. (Although I will admit I had sex with a man once who liked to imitate a chimpanzee. He made chimp sounds now and then during intercourse.  But he was not actually a chimpanzee, he simply wished to imagine he was one, And outside of being very hairy, he in no way resembled a real monkey.) Well maybe we are simply very stupid people and we will ultimately believe anything that anyone tells us if they shout it loud enough while wearing a mask. I think COVID-19 is caused by capitalism. I say that precisely because there is no rhyme or reason to it, and — outside of God or fate — capitalism is one of the few concepts to exist outside morality. Capitalism (like Donald Trump) does whatever it wants to make money. And there is no doubt that money will be made, and people will die, and I’m not quite sure why everyone is getting into a snit about it, as this has been going on for the last 400 years and very few seem to care.  Perhaps we are waking up — or just going to sleep — and as Gorgias said “sleep already begins to hand me over to his brother, death.” If we must die, it might as well be for no reason at all, unless we make one up, and that’s what being human is. (Making things up.) I would make up a reason for our deaths but capitalism wouldn’t be interested as there is very little money in it, unless you are an evangelist preacher, which I am not. So now I must be silent.

Something Shakespeare said....

  “Dost thou think
because thou art virtuous
there shall be no more cakes and
ale?”  
                             - (Sir Toby Belch)  

                                        Twelfth Night or 'What You Will'       

How to survive

COVID-19. Of course I don’t mean the disease — you have more than a 99% chance of surviving that, unless of course you are very old, or in some way otherwise infirm. We shall survive countless germs in our lives, that’s what our body is supposed to do, not something we should be afraid of. But there is the lockdown, there is the most depressing winter we’ve ever experienced in our lives  — and we are about to experience it, apparently — so they say, and who are any of us to argue? So I am here to help you survive that. And  don’t worry I’m not going to go on about my ‘covid-radical’ ideas. There are no ideas about COVID-19 that are confirmed. No, it’s called science — which is all about experimentation.  After some well documented experiment and a peer reviewed article today's certainty could be tomorrow’s bad facts. Speaking of which we live in the era of alternative facts — but facts were always ‘alternative,’ because ever since Aristotle, reason has been in the eye of the beholder. That is, the rational man with all the answers is only the man who wins the argument. But I’m not going to go on about all that; no.  I’m going to talk about your mental health. I’m going to try and stop you from committing suicide. Suicide has been happening a lot lately. More of my friends have died of suicide than from COVID-19. It’s partially because they are artists and ‘sensitive,' but let’s face it we’re all sensitive when push comes to shove. I know how to deal with this because I got through AIDS. And I know you think, oh, he’s gay, and he’s different — and that’s a different situation. Well if you think that  just stop reading this now. Fear and disease are the same whether it’s the ‘gay plague’ or what Trump calls the ‘China plague’: it’s all about fear. And the first thing you have to do is rid yourself of that fear. It was all fine and good to be afraid when the lockdown first started in March, off we went scurrying to buy toilet paper, it would only be a few months, after all. And then came the worrying talk about the ‘new normal.’ Well now we are there. We know what the new normal is. So we can adjust to it. But before we can adjust we have to stop being afraid. How do you stop being afraid? Well you just stop. But one thing that helps, one thing I learned — yes during AIDS— is this: pick some best practice for yourself, and then follow it. If it means not kissing the kids, or not having sex with your husband, so be it. If it means kissing your kids constantly and then going out at night to pick up strange men on the corner -- and not using protection -- so be it. I mean it. I truly mean it. We don’t know anything, everything changes day to day, and as I say there are no facts anymore anyway, the best thing to do is  decide on a plan of action and then follow it; no guilt, no fear, no second guessing. Of course you can always change your plan of action when you get a new set of ‘alternative facts.’ But you must, again, at that time — be comfortable and happy with your new set of rules. You can’t be worrying all the time. Let me tell you if we faggots worried every time some damn condom broke we’d all be dead from anxiety, never mind AIDS. So: fear gone. And your plan of action is ? — well whatever you decide. Whether or not to wear a mask is a decision based on scientific fact, which could change tomorrow, but there are laws that tell you that you have to wear it in -- let’s say --  the mall. So wear it in the goddamn mall, don’t be an idiot and get arrested. But please remember this. There is science, which is always changing. And there are alternative facts. But then there are out-and-out lies. Here are some of them:
‘Stand together by standing apart.'
‘A mask is love.’
‘We’re all in this together.’
The kind of people who say these things also tell you that even though the next six months are going to be hell, you can solve all that with a little yoga and a good book (oh and don’t forget that zoom chat!) ‘Stand together by standing apart’ is just Orwellian newspeak, it’s a blatant freakish, f-ing lie. By definition, if you are standing apart you are not together. You might say — but it’s a pleasant thought. Yeah a pleasant thought that might make you lose your mind. I’ll tell you what being together is — it’s hugging, kissing, screwing, putting your body parts in close proximity with another’s, dripping saliva all over each other, singing in someone’s face, dancing with someone, yelling at some one, performing for someone in the same room, holding hands, linking arms, rolling around in the grass, going to a party and passing a joint and having a group hug, a group grope, an orgy -- flirting, touching caressing and yes: penetrating. That’s what it means to be together. We have bodies and they are made to love and touch and yes f….k. If we don’t do that, we die. We are social animals -- unless we are sociopaths like Donald Trump. You may decide that you will never touch anyone again, but it will kill something inside of you — chances are — before COVID-19. What about  "a mask is love? “ No, I’ll tell you, I’ve been in love, am in love now, I can’t describe it, but it’s the opposite of a mask; no, the mask is down; after all, he knows everything I do, pretty well, and I do everything, pretty much for him. I do things I never imagined for him, quite regularly, I think about him dying, and then think about me dying and think it would be better if I died first, but then that would not be fair to him -- and it goes on and on. That’s love. It’s not a mask. It’s not a frigging mask. As for “we’re all in this together,” well, we’re not. I hate to be the first one to tell you this but we live alone and we die alone, and thus, ergo, it stands to reason or unreason: we need each other. We need each other like hell because we are so alone in this life — at the beginning and end — that we need at least to have those few moments in the middle when we touch. Yes, it’s all about touch. If you don’t touch each other you  die. So. That’s my COVID-19 advice. I’m sure it will get me in trouble but frankly I’d rather be touching somebody than anything else, and if you told yourself the truth (and that is the only truth, what you tell yourself, not what you tell other people) it’s everything  you want, too.

I remember when religion

 was private and sex was public. What does it mean for sex to be public? It means that it is not only polite to talk about sex -- it becomes obligatory dinner conversation. At certain festive gatherings it is suddenly de rigeur to speak of the sex you had last night — not only identifying the partner and perhaps the positions utilised — but also the device (dildo, tit clamps etc.). When we began doing this back in the 70s it was bragging — because we had never talked so brazenly before. And it was for gay men asserting what had been forbidden. Eventually it became a fine art, that is sexual discourse — because after all, sex is interesting. Like human beings, sex comes in infinite variety; one person’s feast is another’s famine. Ken McDougall used to go on about a man who licked him from head to toe — he moaned: ’It was heaven!’ But for me it would have been a certain kind of hell. Ken and I  had a friend, a musician  (he shall remain nameless) who was very beautiful, but for him sex was apparently a mystical experience. This again seemed to me a nightmare; to turn something which has as its primary value its very materiality into a prayer. Not that sex isn’t a kind of prayer; it certainly is, but it is a prayer for philistines who have only accidentally — and precipitously — fallen to their knees. But to say sex was public does not mean only that we talked about it openly, it actually happened in public, with people watching, either by accident or design. Group gropes were once commonplace -- and an integral part of theatrical presentations -- this was sexual liberation, it was believed we could discover not only other people’s bodies but their souls. I suppose it was a kind of religion because it replaced religion in the public square. But I still insist it was not mystical. God was not so much sensitive and all-knowing as extremely well hung. (The painting of Jesus that hung over my bed was very sexy — many of us had sexy pictures of a very white Jesus back in those days — and if he was not the actual subject of our first masturbation he might crop up, now and then, in our 'minds-eye'). The result of all this? AIDS? Not necessarily. AIDS is not the consequence of group gropes, but of a specific sexual act — the insertion of an orgasmic penis into a bleeding orifice. The raison d’être of a group gropes was not penetrating as many people as possible -- although that did sometimes happen of course -- but a plethora of human contact. Human contact is what it’s all about; what everyone requires, what keeps us healthy and alive. Today sex is no longer public, it has become quite unmentionable. Trans folk announce shockingly that their queerness has nothing to do with sex; young people are no longer proud sluts they are ‘gender non-binaries.’ Religion has taken over the public square. Religions are vast bureaucracies of varying degrees of corruptness (see: The Roman Catholic Church). They must necessarily recruit and lie -- the way any capitalist organization does. All this has nothing to do with the human spirit. What happens between oneself and one’s spirit — or the spirit of another, or the many spirits in the air — is a truly private matter; no one should talk about it or spread it around as they might COVID-19. Religion means simply a commonly held belief; or one should say a belief which is not actually believed, and certainly not practiced, but merely confessed to publicly, often displayed, often boasted of, and thus competitively asserted. The new religion is altruism; everyone talks about it, no one practices it. For instance; there is a quick solution to COVID-19. The people who die (except for those with mysterious unacknowledged co-morbidities which make up a very small portion of deaths) are the abject -- those who are not privileged, those people we do not in fact care about. People died in nursing homes and meat packing plants because they lived in appalling conditions unfit for humans. They were dying before COVID-19, but we refuse to admit it, for that would reveal our culpability. The majority of the COVID dead are also non-white. If we were to give these people access to health care and and basic human rights they would not die from COVID-19. We don’t want do that, but we insist that we do, fiercely displaying our public religion—  i.e. altruism — but the fact is we will never fundamentally change the social system because we don’t actually care about other people. Caring for others is difficult and time consuming. We would rather jaw endlessly about our evil neighbour who forgot to put on his mask. Last night I walked past a gay bar on Church street that was packed — as packed any bar can be these days. It’s called The Well, and it opened briefly and proudly for one night only before lockdown; The Well is now closed for a month. It’s what we all need. A place — like all gay bars — that offers the possibility of making sex public again — and making religion private. For some things just must not be spoken of; it is not sexual acts which are obscene but our hypocritical altruistic lies; they are the furtive greasy glue that holds society together. We want nothing less than to be thought perfectly good, and in our own minds we are.  Don’t ask if anyone remembers the Holocaust; we are living in it. Last night a man told me about his father. His father will soon be dying of cancer because his father will not get proper medical care, because of precautions taken due to COVID-19. Make no mistake. This Holocaust will be duly noted by future generations; and Hitler too — please don’t forget — often spoke of a uniquely German concern -- putting the common good above the individual good, performing his persuasive altruism. I know it’s not pleasant to think about it, but that’s the problem really. We wish for our imaginations to entertain and reassure us. Alas they will wither from this misuse and abuse; our minds-eye is the most valuable gift God gave us; it was meant to rock he world, not rock us to complacent sleep.

The Poetry of COVID-19

    We’ve all heard of  the ‘butterfly effect’ and we’ve all known intuitively that it was true. Things have effects, that can’t be denied — but unknown ones, unimagined ones, effects beyond our imagination and our control. In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is defined as “the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state."  In other words, if a butterfly flaps its wings in Arizona; a tornado occurs in Oklahoma. The wing flapping does not necessarily cause the tornado, but it has effects. The idea that these seemingly innocent butterfly wings have catastrophic results is irresistible; it flies in the face of hedonism and thoughtlessness; it is a stern rebuke to all who imagine that there are no consequences. There is something uniquely human about hoping beyond hope that our actions do not take place in a vacuum, that this is not an irrational world. Take death, for instance. Again, there simply must be a reason. We have long known that grandmothers die, alone sometimes, in nursing homes, perhaps abused, certainly neglected, unwanted, in inconceivable agony often precipitated by their undeserved abandonment. We do not want to think about them; but nevertheless we do. It also occurs to us that some grandmother, somewhere - if not our own — may just happen to die when we are feeling -- shall we say -- particularly carefree and uninhibited? When we are at a party perhaps? Peeling off our shirts? Lowering our panties? Proudly displaying that tramp stamp or sexy thong?  And is that not, somehow, wrong? Not the thong of course — everyone has the inalienable right to wear one — but the fact that we do so enjoy showing it off at a party, dipping a finger into our pants with a gentle tug at the strap — while at the same time some grandmother somewhere is most certainly dying? Is this not unjust? Is it not, in truth, selfish of us to enjoy ourselves excessively at the exactly moment that someone else is enduring inextinguishable suffering? Can nothing be done about this stupifying contradiction? The more one thinks about it the more one might be inclined to turn down the next party invitation. Or perhaps the old woman's suffering provides more of a reason to go —in order to block out such ugliness and our own guilt? For certainly we are in some way duplicitous? This brings us to COVID-19. Whatever else the disease is — and we might argue the night away about that (and why not? Is there really anything else to do?) —  COVID-19 is certainly, if nothing else, poetic. No—more than that — it embodies — in the inevitable juxtaposition of its images, nothing less than the virtual essence of a poetic injustice so terrifying that it might just (some hope) facilitate an ethical sea-change, a moral tidal wave, and halt the endless appalling cycle of man’s inhumanity to man. For COVID-19 not only sets the image of a party against a grim death — one in which we are choking on our own sighs, coughing up blood, lungs welling with congested fluids and unrealised dreams — but, at last -- we understand! It is the urge to party itself that causes death — it is that wild desire to release, let it ‘all hang out,’ throw caution to the winds;  this is  the origin of all worldly pain and suffering! For with such urges comes a toxic, infectious, unexpurgated narcissism. Think of an orgasm; sublime pleasure is ineluctably connected to forgetting that anyone else dies. And COVID-19 announces, in no uncertain terms, that when we are at that strip club gazing at a plump white  — or black, have it as you will — ass, we are killing someone. Today they closed strip bars in Toronto to save grandmothers from COVID-19. I see a young man’s back arched, the swell of his buttocks, his plying eyes yearning for —what is it? Perhaps the twenty dollars I will stuff into his shorts, but alas, the shorts are gone and ‘it’ bounces out and ‘it’ is pulsating growing. It wants me, or I prefer to think so, just as he does, and his mouth goes down to my nipple but still he manages to look me in the eye, and I am straining — not even so much with desire — as with the recognition that yes, I too have a body, even at 67 years, going on 68. But this momentary pleasure, this fleeting egoistical need (I imagine it is an need; in fact it is even less than a  momentary impulse — it is a preference — as easily satisfied as it is forgotten) is the primal cause for the aching, trembling expiration of a 99 year old grandmother, wizened and frail, yet still clinging  on to dear life, gasping through a respirator. And that grandmother’s life — though she is 99 years old — is that not worth something? Something more than my superficial joy, more than the wild look in that stripper’s eyes — which I imagine is pleasure, but is probably just greed? It is I who have killed this kind old woman (because surely she must have been kind, there is not much else for her to be, at 99 years old, abandoned by her family). No, she is kind, although somewhat of a curmudgeon — understandably so, at 99 years— but replete with a wealth of worldly wisdom, and ergo, she cannot help but be kind. And when her gentle eyes come to rest on anyone -- particularly the self-sacrificing nurse who is attempting so desperately to keep her alive; they speak — ‘Don’t I matter?’ 'Do old people not matter anymore?'  'Do I deserve to die, because Sky Gilbert must satisfy a neurotic penchant for some sad, vain, absurd sexual recognition in a gay strip club—fragrant with the aroma of man-sweat, cum and poppers?' Does this admirable old woman deserve to die quite literally at Sky Gilbert's own hand? I think not — says COVID-19. And we must listen. We must hear the poetry of COVID-19. There has never been a truth that was so beautiful, so painful, so very apt, so inevitable — one that frankly and simply makes such intuitive common sense that it erases all science. If we could eat it, we would. But instead, we just must understand: COVID is right, and I am wrong. And I am so terribly, terribly sorry.

I want to remember

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