It’s the sad death

 of kings. But hey, it’s something to watch during lockdown. I’m not quite sure -- all conspiracy theories aside --if that isn’t why God created him. Yes he has caused the deaths of so many (or has he? Will Biden do better?) but he has kept so many of us alive. Could you trying being honest for one moment (I know it’s kind of impossible nowadays, but just give it a try). Are you honestly yearning for the Biden Boredom? If we get curfewed? To see that tedious, meandering, octogenarian jawing his politically correct mundanities, how can it compare on any level with the living breathing sweating lying swearing obscene profane Greek tragedy that is Donald Trump? I know what you’ll say. These days none of us are in it for the yuks, we’re in it for the redemption. Speaking of jawing I heard some expert on CNN  -- and please google all the pundits, you will discover that most are people with blogs who just want to be famous. At least I don’t want fame. I had it once, and I wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. You haven’t lived until you’ve had someone stop in the middle of blowing you and say “I’m sorry I can’t go on, I can’t blow Sky Gilbert!” (That gets real quotation marks because it's an actual quote.) I understand, I really do, I didn’t have sex with Rudolph Nureyev for exactly the same reason. (He was at the The Romans bathhouse in like 1985 — you would not know of that place unless you were are a very old fag like me. Well I was lying in my room minding my own business when who should walk by but Rudolf Nureyev. At least it looked like him; he was short kinda stocky — with a great body though. And he was in town. I got up and walked past his room a couple of times and he definitely seemed interested. But I just…I couldn’t do it. I knew that all the time I would be thinking, ‘I’m blowing Rudolph Nureyev’ which would have enflaccidated me [I just invented that word]. So I didn’t have sex with Rudolph Nureyev. I know it was him, because when I left I asked the guy at the door: 'Was Rudolf Nureyev here tonight?’, he said yes.) So I understand what it’s like to fear servicing the member of a famous person — but I don’t want to be famous ever again. If I did I would not be writing this. I’ve sent my new Shakespeare book to approximately one thousand (well at least six) people and none of them have gotten back to me. One of them -- who is  A Big Canadian Queer Academic -- ignored it. It may very well be because I’m stupid — but then I found out he doesn’t approve of Meghan Murphy; which means well basically he wouldn’t approve of me. A friend mentioned ‘Dad’s Renaissance’ — what Noel Coward called it when they finally re-discovered Private Lives in the 60s — but this will never happen to my Drag Queens On Trial. I can only hope for a quiet ignominious end. I may get COVID-19 and they will shove the camera in my face ‘Are you sorry now, that you made fun of the pain of so many?’ But I will die just before crying and apologizing about not realizing how lethal the virus can really be (the ultimate humiliation for any COVID-19 patient). Speaking of COVID-19, I heard some pretentious nobody, duffus, Ph.D., blogger, pundit going on about how after all these lockdowns we may see a resurgence in ‘licentious behaviour.’ Yes. That was the phrase he used. Well that phrase itself certainly says something about the amount of sex he has had, and what he knows about sex (i.e. nothing). Jesus Christ I had to explain to someone the other day for the thousandth time that we live in an anti-sexual culture. Everyone thinks that because we have porn galore (that’s not sex!) and Miley Cyrus twerking (I repeat, that’s not sex!) we live in a sexual culture. But we do not know what actual sex is. And we will never know, not after this COVID-19 business. Actual sex does yes involve hugging and kissing, and the insertions of various objects (human or not) into lubricated and expectant orifices. But here is the most startling truth of all — it also involves coming to terms what what you actually want to do in bed — not what your mother told you to do, or what is approved of by your local priest, or what makes babies, or something you saw in a porn movie, or in Everything, Everything (starring the luscious Nick Robinson). It means figuring out what you want, which is the hardest damn thing in the world. But no one cares about that anymore; we care about the prurient performance of sex, the detached online version of commodified repression -- and we will burn the hanky after -- when we need to understand instead that it was the symbol of all that might make us sane. Be afraid, be very afraid. But back to the pundit. He predicted that after endless epidemics and lockdowns we might, in the year 2025, find that some people are engaging in ‘licentiousness.’ It was kinda a warning, I guess. Gee whiz, I don’t know how to tell him this, but I will be getting naked with someone who is not my husband, tomorrow night — and not in my own f-in house. And the next night I will be searching desperately for some stranger to get naked with, even if he turns out to be some loser living in Forest Hill with a black dildo (again, I’m sorry to mention it, but that other guy had one). No I won’t be waiting until 2025 to be 'licentious.' Yes, even after curfew, I will (after burning my mask, in pure defiance of Theresa F-ing Tam) be having sex, as much as humanly possible, somehow, some way, even in the freezing cold, after curfew. We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in the alleyways, we shall fight in the dark and in the light, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in shared and borrowed air air, we shall defend sex, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight in the bathhouses, we shall fight on the backrooms of Eagle bars everywhere, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall fight in secret so that no one ever knows --  but we will never surrender!  And even if — which I do not for a moment believe — this thing we call sex -- or a large part of it -- were subjugated -- our brave boys and girls would carry on the struggle, and carry on the liberation of the young and the very, very, old, like me. (Thank you Winston Churchill.)