Run Silent, Run

Deep is not propaganda, or not mainly propaganda, or at least not propaganda in a ‘political’ sense, as  everything after all is propaganda. The title refers to a moment in the movie which is (perhaps) memorable, when two submarines lie right next to each other in the deep and are silent, so that each does not know the other is there. I have a bit of a 'thing' for submarine movies --  partially because they mean instant drama — men locked up in a claustrophobic environment — and they are also sexy for that reason. I associate submarine movies with my father and my uncle (his brother). My uncle was an engineer who fixed atomic submarines in New London, Connecticut (I was baptized in New London at the church where my great uncle was minister). My Dad loved submarine movies, I remember watching Operation Petticoat with him — starring (yet again) Cary Grant, about a submarine that was painted pink for (why? I can’t remember). Of course that’s a big laugh, because submarines are masculine. Also I am fascinated by deep water, terrified of it, actually, swimming in deep water is nightmare for me, because I imagine what is below and it gives me the heebie-jeebies. But, paradoxically I love swimming underwater. As Donne says it is a ‘fine and private place’ and “none do there embrace” except in porn movies that take place in swimming pools (they are funny, sperm looks funny in water, sort of like white jelly). (That was a joke when I was a kid, another boy would ask you “You know what sperm looks like in the bathtub don’t you? And if you said 'yes' it meant you masturbated in the bathtub and they all laughed. It was like that other joke where they could tell if you were gay by how you looked at your nails? They would ask you to look at your nails and if you turned your hand in, and curled it over, rather than just looking at the back of your hand, that was like a girl, and you were gay.) I wish to discuss the patriarchy now. All my writing is about showing my behind to the 'political father,' to paraphrase Roland Barthes. This is not merely therapeutic, my father actually approved of my naked behind more than my mother did. When I was little he caught me in bed with my best friend and I’ll never forget it, he opened my bedroom door and said “Rise and shine you bathing beauties!” This seemed like good-natured acceptance of our childhood polymorphously perverse activities at the time, though my father was kind of sexless, so maybe he just didn’t know what was going on. Anyway I don’t really have anything against my father except that he was somewhat non-existent. But Run Silent, Run Deep is offensively patriarchal. There are, again, almost no women, and the conflict is between a younger man (Burt Lancaster) and an older one (Clark Gable). They are both too old to be serving on a submarine, and all of the men in this particular submarine are far too old to be sailors (maybe that’s why I found the men less attractive than in Destination Tokyo) but that’s the way it goes. So it’s a conflict between the authoritarian Gable and the rebellious Lancaster; it’s sort of like The Caine Mutiny without Humphrey Bogart and the courtroom. Then when Gable starts making his biggest mistake as captain, he hits his head, gets sick and Lancaster takes over. But very significantly Gable continues to run the show. In other words Daddy is always right; which is really what makes the world go round (I’m not saying it should, just that it does). This is also what makes the movie slightly repellent. Also, in the book that is the basis for this movie, apparently the Clark Gable character is supplanted by the younger officer who takes over, but Clark Gable would have none of that, saying it would ruin his image. That is truly sick. It makes me think the only lovely thing about Clark Gable was that he was married to Carole Lombard (who was perfect in every way) even though he does have very big ears. But back to the patriarchy; I want to warn everyone of a terrible mistake that is happening right before our eyes -- and yes it will bring us much misery. But no one will listen to me because #1 no one reads this blog, and #2 the truth is just too difficult. (So I’ll try and dress it up as a lie.) The problem is that everyone wants to get rid of the patriarchy and they think that means dis-empowering straight men. As much as I generally dislike straight men (Sean' and 'Shaun' you are exceptions!) they are not the problem, believe it or not. People are evil, and absolute power corrupts. Period. The theatre I ran -- Buddies in Bad Times Theatre -- was handed over to women two times, and they were much worse dictators than I ever was. People talk about them with more hatred even than they talk about me. This is not to demonise women, but the fact is that what is happening now — powerless people suddenly being given power — is not a good thing. When the powerless are suddenly given power they act in an even more maniacal way than those who have had it for a long time . Of course 'the powerless' should have 'the power' — straight men shouldn’t always have it, but if you suddenly give power to the powerless they will go crazy and destroy people, they will decimate them, burn them alive, and lie back and enjoy it, cackling all the while. I’ve seen it happen. I don’t know what the solution is, but it might help not to be an essentialist. My old friend Sue (now Johnny) taught me this; that essentialism really is the root of all evil. By imagining that men are like this (evil)  and women are like that (good) we are lying in a fun and sexy way, but literally we are also killing people. Sorry I know no one wants to hear this and people will even call me more names than they ever have before if I say this. But they won’t read it, as I am just an abject outcast homosexual you-know-what sucker anyway, Thank God! (If he existed, and if she was a man, I mean).

Destination Tokyo is

very good propaganda. I remember -- as a child in the 50s -- there was lots of postwar racism. A boy in my 1st grade class couldn’t stop talking about killing ‘Japs’ and constantly drew planes dropping bombs on them. Destination Tokyo claims “Nips” abuse women as “females are only good for work, or to have children” and little Japanese boys are taught to be knife wielding killers at age 7. The is typical racist propaganda — white Christians pretend that they treat women better than brown Muslims do, when in fact both religions have long traditions of persecuting females. But remember this: any movie with a ‘message’ is also a lie. All the sailors on Cary Grant’s submarine are good men (not a knight errant among them)— they all love their mothers, or girlfriends, or spouses -- one even locks his cabin door once a day to listen to a record of his wife saying ‘I love you.’ Such unmitigated corn can be forgiven as long as we remind ourselves of the deft skill being employed to manipulate us. World War II wasn’t all that family friendly — quite the opposite— married couples were separated, women started to assert their independence — and men had a foolproof excuse for promiscuity (‘I might die tomorrow!’). Of course Destination Tokyo thinks war is a grand thing, that it makes men more sensitive — i.e. makes them talk about God and death. Young Tommy (Robert Hutton) doesn’t even shave yet -- but asks his mate: “If we got conked off do you think we’ll see our parents in the hereafter?” The closest thing to reality on this seaworthy vessel of virtue is John Garfield — who plays Wolfie — the class clown. He shows off the girl doll he takes to bed saying:“The doll and I want to be alone.” The fact of the matter is that navy ships in World War II were hotbeds of homosexuality. Some ships had a cruising area buried deep in the hull. This is of course never talked about. Men would hang out there late at night and get blowjobs or whatever. One sailor volunteered as ‘sea bitch’; he would lie in the hold of an evening — hoping to get screwed. I thought about all this while watching Cary Grant use his periscope to navigate the ship. Garfield makes a filthy sexual metaphor out of this particular submarine apparatus, yelling — when he sees a beautiful ‘dame’ —‘up periscope!’ So when Grant (a notoriously closeted Hollywood actor) presses his face into that periscope, we know what’s really going on. What kept me glued to the screen though, was that I kept thinking the submarine in Destination Tokyo was a gay bath house. It certainly resembles one — the sailors have little rooms — or cots — and stand around in various alluring states of undress, so fresh-faced —all in tremendous shape. This distracted me from worrying about whether or not they were going to hit a Japanese mine. Are you shocked? Do you disbelieve my stories about sex in the hold and ‘sea bitches’? Don’t. I am told -- by my gay friends who enjoy straight married guys -- that they're a dime a dozen, regularly offering themselves to us (unfortunately I’m not interested). Like Kinsey said, there really isn’t any such thing as ‘straight’ or ‘gay,' just a graded scale. I know this puts the fear of God in some women; quite understandably — but all of it has nothing to do with homosexuality. People are liars, period; that’s why they like movies that are lies, like Destination Tokyo. It wouldn’t be so bad if we didn’t live in an anti-sex culture. We are all extremely sexually frustrated during this pandemic, unless we a) don’t like sex or b) have a live-in sexual partner (neither applies to me ) — the rest of us are, admit it, going-crazy-with-lust. I’m so old that it’s not so much lust as a stirring of the loins — which, is believe me, quite similar and very lovely. I spent the afternoon with three young men, all of them were barely half my age. I wish I could say we were having a merry sex romp on the couch — but, in fact it was a great deal of pleasure  just to watching them bill and coo — at least, one member of a couple coo-ed a bit with another friend of mine who was not officially a part of that duo. How can this be, you say? Because some gay men actually have a civilised attitude to sex. My friend doing the cuddling with one member of a couple —well,  his boyfriend had just marched off to see the Leafs game (Go Leafs!). The sports homo is not so rare a bird,  there are far more straight-acting fags addicted to actual -- not sexual -- team play than you might think. Oh, by the way, I once had sex with my friends’ partner — the Leaf’s fan (it happened by accident, I met him at a bathhouse in Montreal, hadn't met him before, he was a top in leather, this was just my ticket, the rest is history. Back in Toronto I happened on him and his lover-- my friend -- at a bar and I didn’t recognise The Leaf’s fan from our encounter in Montreal  -- he wasn’t wearing his police cap --  he asked —  ‘Didn’t we meet in Montreal?” Now I hang out with him and his partner -- but we don't have sex. ) So by now you’ve  probably lost your way in this labyrinthian well of depravity. We should all be so lucky; we should not be sitting at home worrying if we are properly masked -- instead we should be navigating our way through the maze of desire that constitutes our real sexual natures, which, if, you were only honest about it — you’d admit -- is true. You don’t need to screw everybody you’re attracted to, but if you don’t at least screw some of them you will certainly live to regret it. Well I have no regrets, except that I never served on a submarine with Cary Grant and John Garfield. Cary’s eyes are dreamy — and he is so bloody authoritative! John ‘Wolfie’ Garfield is cute as a button in Destination Tokyo, and at the slightest provocation he rips off his shirt to reveal an expansive chest and an inviting treasure trail -- a literal stairway to heaven! I would be the ‘Tommy’ character; thin, wide-eyed and innocent, worrying about meeting God. And yes, I am proud of being deceived by movies like this. Remember those who are deceived by art are wiser than those who are not (that’s what Gorgias said). Unfortunately the same cannot be said of life.

It didn’t get

very good reviews. But reviewers are idiots, especially now — it’s all about the kids, and the critics don’t understand anything but blockbusters. I try my best to ignore them, but of course that’s impossible. Actors lie when they say they do. Knowing everyone else is reading the reviews except you is well nigh impossible. And you know anyway, because if it’s a bad review people treat you like a burn victim: “Are you alright?” “Well gee, why wouldn’t I be?” I kept falling asleep during The People Against O’Hara — because there’s an awful lot of plot, and generally I  don’t get plots. To this day I have no idea why anybody wanted that dumb Maltese falcon in the first place. I try and tell young writers that they don’t need plots; Shakespeare and Brecht stole them, and Beckett didn’t bother with them at all. What this movie has is Spencer Tracy — Katherine Hepburn was right to say that he was the master, and she the student. He always surprises with the simplicity of what he does — and when I least expect it, I’m hooked. He’s like a good lover in that way, yes — in that way he’s like the man you fall in love with. The most special moment in this film is when Tracy is asked to give a eulogy for — we don’t really know who (or maybe I’d lost the plot at that point) — and we realise as he continues, that he is actually actually reciting a eulogy for himself. The genius is that we see his character realise this very quietly towards the end of his speech. I don't know if you’ve ever delivered a eulogy, or even a tribute to anyone —   I have — and usually the stuff I really like about someone else is stuff I really like about myself (or maybe I’m just a narcissist). The other amazing thing about this flic is that it seems like just another stupid movie about a hero lawyer, but halfway through we realise Tracy is losing it: his character is getting old, is an alcoholic, and has serious self-doubts. All of this also applies to me of course; so watching Tracy disintegrate was like watching myself disintegrate — but that’s also part of Tracy's genius. I’ve always had self-doubt; don’t know if I’ve talked about it here. (Dammit, there have been at least 365 blogs during this frigg’n pandemic — I’ve written one pretty much every day, so if I cover the same ground twice, please forgive and forget.) Anyway yes doubt, I had the 'Mary Tyler Moore Syndrome' when I was famous. Dear, dear Mary. Well at some point when she was known as 'America’s Sweetheart' — she apparently became faint of heart, convinced she was a fake and a fraud. This happens to me daily; every trip to the computer offers that possibility. I’ve been writing a 2nd book about Shakespeare for approximately a year, and every other day I think it’s all a pile of stinking doggie poo -- and what right have I got to call myself an expert anyway? The way it works with me is that if my life is not full of work and sex and yes love of some kind, and I mean full of it — there must be no pause to think — then paralysing self-doubt may creep in. Yes I’ve tried meditation, and it worked briefly. I have a friend who apparently meditates 5 hours a day. (I don’t know what to say except I don’t believe it.) I’ve never been a very eastern person, I’m driven and western and fundamentally masculine in probably only that way. (Oh, also I like sex far too much, but you probably know that -- meaning I actually have sex when I’m not horny, if I can manage it, which is basically, just sick.) But what is sick in a charming way about this movie is that Spencer Tracy was in real life an alcoholic homosexual, so when he struggles with alcoholism here one wonders what it did to him. The final lovely thing about The People Against O’Hara is that Tracy dies at the end, which makes giving himself a eulogy actually make sense; and one knows that he didn’t or couldn’t live anymore really, because he just wasn’t a very good lawyer anymore. This is scary. This idea of becoming useless, and then dying. I wrote a fan letter to one of my favourite writers the other day — he really is quite famous. I never do this, and I think this is also quite a sick thing to do. I only did it because someone told me he was an Oxfordian and asked me to write to him. (Oxfordian, whaaaa? Ugh, very complicated: someone who thinks Edward de Vere was Shakespeare). I would have been too embarrassed to write him a fan letter out of genuine fandom, but since I had a practical reason I permitted myself to do so. (I won’t tell you the famous writer's name, he’s pretty famous, gay, and black, and the final hint is that he is sexually attracted to men who bite their nails — that is men whose nails show signs of disrupture — I know this from his autobiography.) Anyway, this famous writer kindly exchanged emails with me (I had sent him my 1st Shakespeare book, basically because I was told to) and he said he had enjoyed what he had read, but that he has difficulty reading now because of memory problems and age. This put the fear of God in me. He’s such a Great Writer and a Great Man. And I thought oh, well maybe this will happen to me (not that I am a great man, that’s not what I mean). I just mean I will grow old and not be able to read anymore, because I can’t retain the information from one page to next. And he just said this in passing — like it was somewhat of an annoying inconvenience. I know it’s much more than that, it must be; but anyway. That’s life. And that’s courage. I mean we can come to terms with anything, can’t we? I saw a porch today with hanging lights on it and I wanted to cry. I was riding the bus — because I do that for an hour and a half five nights a week, so my partner can 'work out' alone in the house. It was one of those -- “I should be laughing and talking and swimming and partying, I should not be riding a bus in Hamilton’ — moments. Then it went away. All things pass. Heraclitus said this -- and a couple of other things too. Apparently ‘one cannot step twice into the same river,’ which is I think, ultimately a good thing. Don’t you?

I can’t tell

you how lonely I am. And it goes beyond friends — when you’ve been using them like I have for so many months. And yes, they’ve used me too. To fill the void. The void left by no theatre, or events, or life! (I put an exclamation point at the end of ‘ life!’ because that is how I somewhat vaguely remember it to be.) I am like Bette Davis in The Old Maid. They spray her with that de rigueur Hollywood grey that means old  — the same makeup used in Now Voyager (interesting detail, Davis had the same name in Now Voyager — Charlotte — and the child had the same name too — Tina). I can’t stand Miriam Hopkins (neither could Bette Davis apparently) -- she always looks old to me. But not Bette Davis, she is quite youthful even when all uglied up. Little did she know what she would actually turn into? You’re probably too young to have seen her in what appeared to be the advance stages of cancer (she was so thin) on Johnny Carson -- being witty and mean -- smoking like a chimney. The Old Maid brought up all this for me, and more. It’s a real chestnut —based on a short story by Edith Wharton, transformed into a play by Zoe Akins. The original story was published in 1922 and yet even in 1939 (due to censorship) it’s never completely clear what the movie is about  (i.e.  Bette Davis birthed a little girl ‘out of wedlock’ with George Brent — the girl was raised by Miriam Hopkins — and Hopkins then pretended to be the girl's mother). Hence the final confession doesn’t really make sense. Instead of telling Jane Bryan she is her mother, all Davis is allowed to say is something like: ‘I gave you to my sister.” Wow, what a revelation. Edith Wharton is responsible for anything of any value here; she was a feminist way before it was fashionable. (Wharton hated the institution of marriage almost as much as I do. The horrific death by sled in Ethan Frome is perhaps the most ghastly revenge against marriage every conceived by a writer; every time I think of getting married I think of the sound of that sled hitting that tree.) But this watered down film version of one of Wharton’s last diatribes against matrimony has its rewards — watching Bette Davis act, and her daughter screaming at her -- “You were never young!” and later screaming at Miriam Hopkins --“She’s old and hideous and dried up and has never known anything about love!” While of course Bette Davis has known everything there is to know about love, she threw herself at George Brent for one thing, and she’s obviously carrying a torch for him. All that silent, martyred longing, was, and is, irresistible — then and now — we all wish we could be her, or rather we are her. For if we are feminine in any way we like to imagine that we have experienced an excess of tragic love that no one knows about, love that was ripped away from us by fate. And no one has any idea of the vast, awe-inspiring depth of our emotional experiences. Then there is Davis’ pragmatic acceptance of her daughters feelings about her: “If she considers me an old maid it’s because I’ve deliberately made myself one in her own eyes.” This is a kind of willingness to be old, to masquerade as such, whether one is or is not. This is what I’m struggling with right now. Speaking of infirmity is boring, so I’ll be brief: there is something wrong with my feet and lower legs, and has been for a long time. It seems chronic and no one knows what to do about it. So I may end up with a cane. I have toyed with the notion of a ‘bull penis cane’ (yes such things exist, you can have them shipped in from Alabama or some other redneck place — if you can buy a car online, you certainly can get a bull penis cane!). I saw one when I was young, at university — a student in one of the writing classes I took had one. Bulls’ penii are apparently extremely long, and when they are dried out they — but I don’t really understand? Are they dried out after the bull is dead, but in a permanent state of erection? Anyway the cane is impressive, and appropriate. But is it enough to convince me that being old is a busload of fun? This is one of the reasons I’m so afraid of this COVID-19 thing — not that I will die of our over-glamorized flu but rather that the world will start up again and I will suddenly be too old to participate. And it’s not that anyone wants me (only occasionally am I really wanted) it’s just — if I wish to imagine I am a part of it all again — I need something happening that I can at least imagine I am in. I think of the coat check guy at Woody’s. His name is Fred (is he still around?). He had a German accent, and was completely butch and sexy and from Texas. I miss him so much — yes the coat check guy. I do. He had a black lover who I never met — but if felt like he and I were close friends. One night last fall when the bars in Toronto were open briefly he grabbed me and suddenly confessed “My uncle is going to die because of COVID.” I asked him if his uncle had the disease and he said -- “No, his cancer operation has been postponed because of the pandemic.” And then he let loose with a string of curses. I was glad that he trusted me enough to tell me. I’m hoping we can take a moment between honouring the service of front line workers, etc., to remember all the people who have died — not of COVID-19 but of ‘friendly fire” during this pandemic. No one cares about the ones who are gone because their operation was cancelled, or who expired of a drug overdose, or from being abused by some alcoholic Dad they were locked up with — or just from depression. In exactly 10 days I will be in Montreal! I'm ecstatic! Montreal will be open. I will be get drunk on a patio and imagine I am flirting. I don’t know what will happen. I think I'll explode! Or I’ll explode the day before I go! I can’t describe to you what it all means. Life again! I’ll plunge in, and the water will be freezing cold, and it will either kill me or I’ll come bursting out — refreshed, and alive again, quite the same as before. We’ll have to see.

The film ends

with chimes, and there is a religiosity to William Holden’s final speech. It’s great to see Barbara Stanwyck in Executive Suite (1954), she is the Jodie Foster of her time, a lesbian whose masculinity is more than fascinating — we always love these creatures (so unlike us, we think) that are both male and female at the same time. In Executive Suite Stanwyck is truly scary, she has one of her great fits — so much anger, and so deeply felt. The movie is well directed by Robert Wise and very well written by Ernest Lehman; never was boardroom skulduggery so compelling. When Holden stands in front of rows of churchy windows at the end, telling us that a corporation should be about the integrity of the product not money — we are undeniably convinced. Understand, I don’t wish to see capitalism abolished. After all -- much like heterosexuality and motherhood -- it is a deeply flawed, but absolutely necessary system, and I don’t relish the alternative. But Executive Suite hints at present day corporate orthodoxy: that Bell Canada, TD Bank, Telus and Cogeco not only love your money but are cultural leaders celebrating causes like Black Lives Matter, Green Technology, LGBT folx everywhere, and anything else fashionable. Please note that one spanking new corporation is so concerned about your children’s emotional development they have initiated ‘Greenlight for Kids’ — an opportunity to provide children with their own debit cards. What a service to humanity! ‘Greenlight Financial’ stresses that it is  “The money app for families” so we may…. "raise financially smart kids.” The website features a beautiful  multi-racial family (the parents are even quite sexy!), and offers the ‘custom card’ which will feature a photo of your child, that will “show off their personality.” Surely you  knew that corporations are less interested in profits these days than social issues? Yes, it’s nauseating to see this slimy, smelly pack of lies paraded before us every day -- because in every smarmy email you get from GO, or Fido, or Horizon Utilities, they never forget to remind you yet again how concerned they are about COVID-19. But if you're feeling suicidal be prepared to be put on call waiting until just before you decide to actually slash your wrists. Let me talk about my own personal experience with greed. I’m not saying I don’t like money. I’m a middle class person who has air conditioning and food on the table. I can take a cab to the theatre --when there is actually theatre to see (remember though, I don’t walk-too-good-no-more) etc. I’m not poor, but I’m not rich either. I’m not suggesting that I would rather be living on the street, and I like my CDs (yes I’m that old) and books (now Kindle) but that’s the extent of my 'greed.' However, I will say, I'm very proud of this: I’m not Kathy Bivona. (I’m using her read name. I really hope she reads this, because she tortured my father to death. Well he was going to die anyway, but the emotional manipulation I’m sure did not help.) I met Kathy Bivona many years ago — she and her husband were friends of my father and my stepmother (Carol). Kathy was a nurse and so was my stepmother, so they were best friends. Kathy’s husband and kids became close as ‘family’ with my Dad and Carol — part of the bargain. Then my stepmother died. Kathy Bivona (now divorced) showed up at the memorial in my father’s backyard in Buffalo. My partner and I thought nothing of it--  except that she was being very open-minded when she came up at the wake and commiserated with us re: Carol’s death. We did think — wow, why was Kathy so nice? But it seemed like a cruel and catty observation. Little did we know. It only took a few years for my father to reveal that he was in love with her; he was in his 80s at the time, and went so far as to say “I think the only reason I’m still living is because of this little lady here.” Kathy didn’t have to do much to precipitate such devotion, she only had to continue being her pretty young self (she was 20 years younger than him). Soon, it became apparent that my father wanted to marry her, but Kathy would have none of it. Then she wouldn’t move to Buffalo where he lived, she wanted to stay in Kentucky (her home). Then it became clear that he was giving her quite a bit of money (I’m pretty sure he bought her a condo). Kathy had it all figured out; she had made it clear to me (and supposedly to my father? anyway she claimed she had…) that she was not in any way romantically inclined to a man who was clearly head-over-heels in love with her. But if so, why, when I visited them in their hotel room in Toronto, did they sleep in a king size bed and greet us in their pyjamas? It all seemed like a racket to me. Now I knew my father had put her in his will, but I honestly thought it wasn’t my place to interfere. The deal, as my father told me many times, was that Kathy -- a nurse after all -- had promised to be at his bedside and take care of him if things ever ‘got bad’. Well when he was 89 years old he suddenly developed cancer. Kathy dropped by from Kentucky to say a breezy hello and promptly disappeared. I called her and said ‘my father needs you, you need to be here” and she started screaming at me --  like a demon possessed -- i.e. Barbara Stanwyck -- “You don’t love him you never loved him I’m the only one who ever loved him now leave me alone!!!!" When he died, she received a sizeable potion of the inheritance -- which is all -- I’m convinced -- she ever really wanted. I’m not bitter about all this. Honestly. I’m just telling you because it’s important for you to know that such people do exist, in real life, not just in movies. What is even more interesting to me are two things -- my father’s devotion to her (so fanatically intense), and their 'romance' --  as real as the tears of a unicorn, or a castle on a cloud. My mother, in her own way (it’s called alcoholism) lived not in this world but another; I am the human product of these two demented dreamers. And that is why I am writing to all you invisible people, here.

Some Came Running

is perhaps Vincent Minnelli’s gayest film, even though he also directed Tea and Sympathy (closer to being about homosexuality than any other film of that era). Trying to gather information about his life is frustrating. It turns out he was a window dresser in New York City before he moved to Hollywood. In NYC he was out-of-the-closet and hung out with the Dorothy Parker crowd. When he started directing films they had to ask him to stop wearing makeup. One can’t possibly construe what was going on between him and Judy Garland (they were married) — love possibly, and of course sex, as they had Liza. Watching Some Came Running there is — first of all — the ubiquitous boy gangs that populate the background. I counted at least three times when Frank Sinatra stood centre frame with a bunch of young men kibitzing and prodding each other playfully behind. I couldn’t help wondering if they were absolutely necessary to the plot (they weren’t) or the ambiance (possibly) but it seemed more likely that if Minnelli was not screwing them he wanted to have them around just to make him feel better. But it is the content of the film that is completely gay — in a way, of course, that we’re not supposed to be anymore -- that is, it’s all about outsiders. I just heard Fran Lebowitz in Killing Patient Zero (Laurie Lynd, how are you? Great film, I miss you!) speaking of how amazing it was when gay marriage came along, that all these gay men suddenly moved to the suburbs and started acting like straight couples — (Kinder, Küche, Kirche). No it’s not really amazing at all, because gay men are just as stupid and boring as straight people (possibly more so) and their lives are unfortunately not devoted to promiscuity, drunkenness, and drug taking, but instead to ‘fitting in’ and being approved of. Just before all this COVID-19 nonsense I attended a protest the Palmerston Public Library when Meghan Murphy was speaking: Murphy is simply a feminist who tells it like it is — she thinks women are people with vaginas, and that the no-gender movement is anti-female. She is right; but that didn’t stop the dozens (possibly hundreds) of fags from congregating in front of the library to demonstrate against her. They were all, in my recollection, kinda bespectacled, and theatrically unattractive, in that ‘I’m-gay-but-not-a-faggot’ way, funny-looking and fat — even when young — waving signs and chanting cliches to show how much they loved trans people. They of course have no idea that trans culture will bury gay men, and that some (not all by any means) trans people hate gay men, and especially drag queens — because the trans movement is anti-sexual (60% of all trans people identify as asexual). I'm digressing, sorry.  At any rate, I come from a generation of outlaw homosexuals, we are all supposed to go away and die now. Okay, don’t worry, we will, soon (I’m trying my best, abusing my body mercilessly during COVID-19 — it won’t be long now, so calm down). But we, like Vincente Minnelli, learned how to be outsiders from our oppression (which is still on by the way, how would you feel if your son told you he was gay, not trans, and liked to wear dresses and suck on you-know-what?). This movie is in the romantic tradition of presenting writers as outsiders. Frank Sinatra is a boozing novelist, we know what’s up when the first thing he takes out of his suitcase is a few bottles of booze and his copies of Faulkner, Steinbeck and Wolfe (where’s Hemingway?) and sets them on the table together, as if they are some brilliant decadent team. Let me just state  for the record that even though I drink too much -- and now and then do poppers -- and am a slut from hell -- I do not romanticize my abjectness (I know you don’t believe me) and by that I mean I don’t use it as an excuse for being a bad person. I am simply a bad person on my own — not because I'm an artist. Martha Hyer plays a prudish (quite repellant actually) school teacher in the film, she keeps rejecting Sinatra’s advances (did she know he had the biggest penis in Hollywood? Ava Gardner said “He weights 110 pounds and 90 of it is dick”). When Sinatra kisses her, she says “I’m not one of your barroom tarts!” which means of course, Shirley MacLaine (whose gorgeous performance in this film as a ‘dumb prostitute' — Dean Martin calls her a ‘pig’ over and over in the film — won her an Oscar nomination) . And when trying to explain the 'writer Sinatra,' she mentions some writers practice “neurotic promiscuity” and says of their personal lives: “Literary men have different standards” and “Good writers feel more deeply than the rest of us, they have greater appetites for life.” And finally, my favourite: “I would have been repelled by Poe’s drinking but I would have tried to understand.” I can’t help noticing that she also says of Sinatra “Big men, bigger in weakness, bigger in strength” (but I will disdain repeating the dirty joke). I have had several friends who imitated Tennessee Williams in their personal lives, I will not mention their names here. One of them — I remember lolling in the grass with him — I was in my late 30s, he somewhat younger. Now you must know I was never alarmingly handsome, just passably attractive, but still….  he said -- “Everybody’s always coming on to me because I’m so beautiful, but you wouldn’t know what that’s like.” Wow. Now he looks like the back of an old couch, his stuffing appears to be falling out. My other Tennessee Williams imitator friend is now drugless, thank God, because his addiction almost killed him. I remember Irving Layton (my once teacher) excused his profligacies by reminding everyone that artists feel more. We may in fact feel more; I’m not sure if that’s wonderful or even desirable, but it’s nothing to be proud of, and certainly nothing to excuse our atrocities. Our atrocities stand on their own, as does this film — a monument to the dead, tortured, excluded and marginalized;  exemplified by Shrley MacLaine, who is in this film divinely needy. So I imagine was Vincent Minnelli. I hope some boy loved him -- but we will probably never know.

What’s up? You

might well ask. Well the world is turning, and I love my little spot by the window in Toronto. Yesterday three meth addicts were doing stuff just outside my building. The woman was wearing an odd long coat and a white leotard. She was distinctly mad, she was making little piles of stones in the dirt beneath a tree; but very intent as if what she was doing was terribly important; very much like me with these blogs. One of the meth-heads was adorable and had a big dog that he was stroking in what seemed to me an erotic way. (Once I knew a boy who wanked off his dog; he wrote a play about it, I produced it; he was in a rock band. I was briefly in love with him — but he was straight as well as being into dogs, so it didn’t work out.) The third member of the meth trio then lit up right outside my window, the pipe and all — and the smoke. The police were just down the street monitoring something, but obviously not this. Speaking of police, there’s an interesting thing happening in Toronto, the underclass is rebelling in their own quiet way — they don’t have direct access to Doug Ford like all the rich golfers and tennis players do, so instead of complaining they just get things done. The police apparently are ignoring people who drink beers in parks, they actually said to a friend of mine (who is also part of the sexual underclass) ‘We’re not going to bother with this, there’s no point' so a state of ‘lawlessness’ exists in the parks and streets, The police seem to know that we are drinking everywhere (I was doing it in the middle of Church Street the other day) and are in cahoots with us, the underclass. (Apparently there are small stores opening their doors on Queen Street as well, I mean why not? Is someone going to count the people in there, looks like they won’t.) I call myself part of the underclass because I am the lone survivor of a largely extinct species —those who admit to enjoying sex without love. On that subject, I’m really enjoying my little Iggy Pop — since you asked about my sex life (or maybe you didn’t) but I know you are eager to hear. What I like about him is he has more than enough gruff uncaring masculinity for a tiny man with an enormous penis, he is in other words, monosyllabic on the outside but actually quite cuddly on the inside (like most masculine men and most butch dykes). On Friday we did it while occasionally watching endless rock videos of The Doors — starting at Monterrey where Jim Morrison doesn’t move much, he just sings. (But there were earlier shots of Jim Morrison moving about as well, which made it almost like pornography.) Let’s see, what else? Oh! A friend of mine revealed that his cat is an heiress. I don’t know quite how to feel about this. He has always spoken of his cat — who is aging rapidly — with great tenderness. He speaks of afternoons with her the way someone might speak of a lover. And now to suddenly find out she is worth thousands of dollars, well  — I want to say that doesn’t put a different complexion on things — but I’m not entirely sure. I trust my friend, I trust he deeply loves his cat, but even I would be find it hard to not to notice my pet was an heiress. Apparently a very rich old woman left the cat to a guy (not my friend), and if the cat is taken care of, there is to be a bequest upon her death, and my friend, because he is taking care of the cat for this guy (who is supposed to do it but his girlfriend is allergic) will get a cut of the loot. This is unsettling for me because although my cat is not an heiress I do nevertheless love her very much — but we may have to get rid of her (don’t worry, she won’t die, friends will take her) because my boyfriend has suddenly developed allergies. I am trying not to be suspicious, but he’s never liked my cat (our cat has always been ’my’ cat). When we first met 22 years ago, my cat at that time had just died. My potential boyfriend gave me a tiny digital pet— a wristwatch sized video game that featured an animated cat that purred when you fed it. I thanked my new possible potential boyfriend for the digital cat and then promptly went out and got a new living cat to replace the old dead one, because that’s the kind of thing I do. Much later my boyfriend asked me “Why did you get a new cat? I got you a digital cat to replace the real one because I don’t like cats.” This indicates his amazing foresight, which I lack, but it’s kind of scary because he seemed to seriously think that a digital cat could replace a real one; this is indicative of some pretty fascinating and weird aspects of his character that I can't go into now. Because all I can think about is Montreal. We're going there soon, but I will honestly miss Toronto and it’s excruciatingly puritan provincialisms, so I promise I’ll come back and visit now and then this summer, because I always look forward to not having sex, not having fun, and yearning for friends who choose to stay home and be safe instead of leaving the house, because well, ‘you never know’. It’s become a syndrome for some; not wanting the masking to end, doctors say such folx are afraid of COVID-19, but I think they are just afraid of life. You know a mask is not so much an abrogation of my rights as a symbol of a certain lifestyle. It’s very much like condoms for blowjobs; they tried to foist them on the gay sexual underclass years ago; it didn’t work because — you guessed it, condoms do not taste as good as penises. A young black man (I mention his skin colour because it is relevant) yelled at me on the street “I don’t care what anybody says — we love you Sky!” And then elaborated: “Everybody knows Buddies in Bad Times Theatre will always be you!” That was gratifying of course (or else I wouldn’t be repeating it) but even more gratifying was my dyke friend Marcy, she is just a little more masculine than my miniature Iggy Pop who I have been lately licking like a lollipop (have I mentioned him? oh yes, I have...). I had removed my shirt (a grim sight —as my tits are gone — the lack of a gym) and Marcy said “A half naked Sky Gilbert on Church Street what a wonderful sight” I don’t think the faggots thought so, but to have Marcy’s approval, at this point, pretty much means more than anything.

The artist 'as

criminal' is no longer a popular concept. Artists must be ‘socially aware’ and that awareness must be transmitted through our work unequivocally, in other words, people must get the point..There was an attempt recently to stand behind the work of an artist who also happened to be a criminal. Canadian poet George Elliot Clarke wished to read a poem by Steven Kummerfield in January 2020. The reading was cancelled, because approximately 26 years ago Kummerfield  murdered an Indigenous woman. I heard about this because a woman called me when I was on the train. She was once a dear friend; no longer. She had just moved to Saskatchewan. She wanted to know my opinion of the Clarke debacle. I said that the fact that Kummerfield was a murderer did not mean his poetry should be banned. Yes, Kummerfield spent 9 years in prison for his crime. Perhaps he should have been in jail longer, perhaps he should never have been released; his crime is heinous. But that wouldn’t stop me from reading Kummerfield’s poetry — nor should it stop you. It’s not about whether or not people change; I doubt they actually do, fundamentally, once a murderer, always a murderer, you can’t wipe off that stain with a dinner napkin. But no writing should be banned ever — every adult person should be allowed to read or hear or watch anything they wish. Why? Because the person (or more likely institution) that bans literature will 100%-for-sure use that power to manipulate you, to keep you from knowing what must be known, what should be known, what every human being is required to know. After all the most valuable knowledge is the most dangerous, and the most frightening knowledge is the most likely to be censored, and very likely to be found in poetry or fiction; not in some damn essay (complain loudly if this starts to sound like one.) My ex-friend pushed further: “I know you are dogmatic about this, but in this case, wouldn’t you modify your opinion? Out of kindness? Human charity?” But it is not ‘kind’ to human beings to limit human knowledge. I suppose God should have shot Eve for tempting Adam to take a bite out of the apple? Don’t forget — women have traditionally been blamed for all kinds of knowledge we supposedly shouldn’t have (usually sexual knowledge). Hey, that might be a good reason to silence women, don’t you think?  The most eloquent argument I have heard in favour of burning books (let’s call it what it is, please) is in Forbidden Knowledge by Roger Shattuck. Shattuck uses the example of 120 Days of Sodom written in prison by the Marquis de Sade. (De Sade was jailed — ironically — by Napoleon —a dictator —  for seducing young women.) It is true that 120 Days of Sodom is probably the most amoral book ever written, it's unabashedly pornographic and equates sexual excitement with murder and mutilation. Fun, eh? Shattuck does not suggest that de Sade’s masterpiece should be banned, but rather that it should be kept in a locked room at the Biblioteque National de France; that only a select few be allowed to read it. It doesn’t matter what Shattuck's criterion was— no set of ‘criterion’ will do. Books must not be banned for some, but available to others. The argument is that certain adults — particularly ones who are mentally unbalanced — might read such ‘literature’ and be inspired to commit crime. This is Shattuck’s argument, but he is nowhere able to convince me of this with lucid reasoning. I am almost convinced by reading between the lines — by an admission so horrifying that Shattuck was not able to utter the words out loud. It is somewhat clear from Shattuck’s introduction that something terrible happened to his family —a wicked violence was done to someone he loved very much. He is not able to speak of it openly and certainly not in detail, he refers to it tangentially if you read between the lines. In other words he has written this book against poetry — against art — due to a nightmarish personal experience with human evil. This is certainly persuasive but not enough to convince me. The fact is that violent pornography is just as likely to serve as a harmless outlet to human aggression, as it is to inspire it; I have no doubt that if someone is unhinged enough to murder people and/or mutilate them they will do it whether or not they read about it in a book. One of the reasons we even consider censorship in the modern world is because we have forgotten what catharsis is. The reaction to Greek tragedy was a intuitive, tribal; the plays were filled with violence, rape, and mutilation — presented offstage, yes — but described in gory poetical detail. This was to purge the audience of pity and fear; this kind of purging is something people need. I am happy to report that there is a new play coming up at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre which I am eager to see -- White Muscle Daddy. It seems to be written about me. It is “the story of a vampiric predator at large in a major urban centre’s queer village’ and is labelled a “psychosexual thriller.” I seem to fit the description of the criminal leading man, the image associated with the piece is a giant, delectable looking, muscled ass — which of course, resembles mine. During my ‘cancellation’ at Buddies in 2018, I was demonised on social media (so they tell me, I don’t read social media) apparently as a filthy minded old homosexual (I stand convicted, I’m fine with that) who’s always on the lookout for more sex. Evalyn Parry and her ‘gang of many’ seemed to think that my blog about Vivek Shraya was a criminal act and that my plays should be banned. But art should -- nay must -- be a criminal act, as Penny Arcade says:“If you don’t have a functioning criminal class in your art scene, you have academia.” Shakespeare was a criminal, as was Rimbaud, Chester Himes, Nelson Algren, Genet, Olive Wharry, and Oscar Wilde, so probably is Woody Allen; Picasso stole stuff, Pound was a Nazi, we would have no art without criminality. If you need to put them all  in jail, do so, but leave their work alone. It needs to be seen; it needs you.

This is for

Ida Lupino. In 1953 she created the first film noir flick ever to be directed by a woman  — The Hitch-Hiker. It’s very, very good. Back 13 years earlier she ate up the screen as the femme fatale murderess in They Drive By Night, breaking down on the witness stand screaming: “The doors made me do it!”” (In her single-minded passion to bed the disinterested Joe, ‘Lana Carlsen’ kills her husband Ed by lowering the seeing eye doors in the garage when he’s asleep in a running car.) But Ida gets her own back; The Hitch-Hiker is not just a film noir movie, it is an all-male movie, in fact there are no female characters in it at all. The plot revolves around two men who are kidnapped and psychologically tortured by a sadist hitch-hiker/killer on a road trip through Mexico. It’s kinda like Ida is saying — “You made me star in all those stupid so-called ‘women’s movies,’ well I’m going to show you how to make a man’s movie.” There’s not a lot of dialogue but what’s here is ‘cherce.’ There are things that make this film very special — the killer hitch-hiker only has one good eye, he sleeps with his bad eye constantly open — always watching them.  Later, Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto plays on the radio while the hitch-hiker ponders his next move. Lupino not only directed films, but produced them, she  was one of the first directors to do ‘product placement.' I don’t know if modern day feminists would champion her, because these days we pay an enormous amount of lip service to the notion that masculinity is inherently toxic and women are perpetual victims. The kind of masculinity depicted in The Hitch-Hiker — like battles of physical strength, courage, and sheer force of will — is out of style. I am not a fan of masculinity — I’m not very masculine myself (and I'm proud of it) but the kind of shaming that masculine men receive today is largely undeserved. Most masculine men are really nice guys. It’s the patriarchy — i.e. institutionalised sexism —  that's toxic -- not masculinity perse. If this film is any indication, Lupino liked men a lot, and she liked guns, and she was excited by the threat of violence, and by  displays of physical courage. A lot of women like that stuff; in themselves -- and in the men they love, and that’s okay too. Women are not inherently nicer, or less violent than men, they are just more physically weaker than men and significantly oppressed by them. The way to fight sexism is not to wipe out masculinity -- or demonise men -- but allow women to grab what the patriarchy claims as theirs alone — anger and desire. Who am I to say all this? Well, I’m a drag queen, baby! This doesn't mean I’m a ‘tourist’ in relation to femininity; I live every day as a feminine man, and I’m consistently surprised at how visible my infirmity is to others; how it shocks and upsets. But I’m not claiming victim status here — just pissing on my territory. I don’t know what it’s like to have a vagina, but I do know what it’s like to be feminine, so nothing excites me more than the ‘Ida Lupinos’ of the world — who know how to pick up passel of guns and throw them in a politically correct feminist’s face. In Montreal, COVID-19 is now officially over -- when I go there Ida Lupino will be on my mind; she lived the life she wanted. Montreal is waiting -- for me, for Ida, for all of us; it will be the only city in Canada to open up with the full force of its closing. Ontarians will sit, percolating and pondering, worrying and adjusting their masks, writing vituperous rants on Facebook and Instagram —then finally venturing out — one ‘little toe’ at a time. When Ontarians are set free of COVID-19 no one will notice; everyone will be too afraid to talk about it, and if they do celebrate, they will be censored for having good time. Montreal will be ecstatic: they have finally burst the chains of curfew! In two weeks I will be on St. Catherine Street waving what is left of my ass and tits about (I don’t have much of left of either commodity, since I haven’t been to the gym for five months) trying desperately to get some young man’s attention. I will be as pitiable and exultant as I was meant to be, and no one can stop me. I’m already having fantasies of the guy I met in an alley who dragged me into a parking lot where I enjoyed giving him what appeared to be one of the most magnificent experiences  of oral pleasuring he might ever be priviliged to endure, or the boy who pulled down his pants on a side street and let me touch it — for a moment —or the boy at the bathhouse who I was afraid to reveal my age to, but when I told him, he lept on me  like a gazelle, yelling ‘You’re not just daddy, you’re grandaddy!’, or the magnificent young stud who balanced a family-sized chocolate chip cookie on his erection (and yes, I ate it). I don’t know how I have survived COVID-19 for a year and almost 3 months. How does a storyteller survive if he has no stories to tell? You make them up, or you tell the ones you’ve told before. It will be refreshing to actually have something to say, something that has been pricked by the prong of experience — not dredged up from the still waters of of memory. I imagine they are readying themselves for me; the Montreal drag queens are putting on their makeup, prepping their dogs for their long midnight walks (drag queens who parade about with their Chihuahuas at 2:00 in the morning are my favourite thing), the boys at the strip clubs will be telling themselves -- and their girlfriends -- that they are straight, but right now they really need the money, and ergo it will be surprisingly easy for them to bend over and display their bumholes for my expert perusal. I do all this for Ida Lupino, who in They Drive By Night utilised the then nascent seeing-eye technology as a hopeless alibi, but in The Hitch Hiker outgunned the dimwitted males who said it couldn’t be done; that no mere woman knows as much men about guns or suspense. No one gave Ida any credit; but she did it anyway, because she had to to prove she was more alive than dead, more woman than feminine, and that she was everything — god bless her — that she was not expected to be.

I’ve never watched

it all the way through — that is, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Although I’ve read it many times. I always stop at the beginning of act two -- when director Mike Nichols takes the action outside. Overall, I have to say that though Nichols and especially Elizabeth Taylor give this a damned good reading (I apologise for what I said before, Taylor is a pretty good actress here, despite her decolletage) nevertheless it is an arrogant and much overpraised ‘second play’ by a prodigious, conceited, and very privileged young writer. Albee wrote The Zoo Story before this, but this is his claim to fame, and it will not stand the test of time. It certainly seems to be written for eternity, the title is echoed in the last lines “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’ “I am George, I am….,” (what in heaven’s name does that mean?). Yes, there are echoes of profundity — suggesting that we are on the edge of a new ‘decadence’ and when we final finally find out (spoiler alert, but you won’t care anyway) that George and Martha love each other deeply and George is really the one in control — it becomes a wannabe American realistic family melodrama. However Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is emphatically not Long Day’s Journey into Night, nor is it The Glass Menagerie, it is a genre that is an invention of Albee’s — and it simply does not work. Yes the first act is brilliant, witty and seems like genius — and is a novel take on comedy of manners. But Albee doesn’t come up with the goods. He seems to be aware of the deepest and most significant issue of aesthetics — the relationship between illusion and reality, as Albee has Martha state all too clearly: “Truth and illusion George, you don’t know the difference.” To which George replies “But we must carry on as if we did.” Yes yes of course Mr. Albee, we know how profound you are, but the problem here is that you— unlike the truly great writers — have not bothered to come up with an illusion that tempts us by transporting us magically to another world. For we don’t really care about George and Martha. Why should we? It’s not because they are evil, many writers make us care about terribly despicable people — it’s because Albee has not given any of himself to the work; he’s simply showing off. The fundamental flaw for me (there are so many) is that the play hearkens back to a time when the spoken word mattered — because it matters very much dramaturgically what George and Martha say to each other.  But it’s impossible to believe that those words have that sort of magical power here (yes, they once did but not here). 'Our son is dead!' says George. And Martha bursts into tears. But he is an imaginary son. Oh I see, -- the truth is that they have always wanted a child and therefore to hear George say ‘our son is dead’ crushes Martha —  sorry I’m not buying it. This a play where everyone can say anything they want most of the time— tell other people to go screw themselves, or that they are fat and ugly, but  the playwright has nevertheless arbitrarily decided that certain things, when spoken, are toxic (i.e. 'our child is dead') — it just doesn’t make sense on any level. Albee wants to have his cake and eat it too — write a controversial, shocking topical play about modern people but wrap them up in an ancient and moth-eaten culture of orality; it’s all just so pretentious and self-serving. That said; Albee has, generally speaking, been unfairly treated by the critics because he is gay. Although the fact that he was more closeted than Tennessee Williams is completely his fault. He didn’t come out until he was caught having sex with someone in the sand dunes in Provincetown (even then he claimed to be emptying the sand from his bathing suit). And to top it all off, yes,  (as Stanley Kauffman stated in his not-famous-enough homophobic attack on Williams, Inge, and Albee in 1966 “Homosexual drama and its Disguises”) Albee's work is evidently gay propaganda disguised as art. But Williams, and even Inge are better writers, and when Kauffman accused them of smuggling  a homosexual sensibility into the American theatre, he was partially right — but utterly unfair. There was no smuggling going on. Williams, by deifying his female heroes and objectifying his male ones definitely set heterosexuality on his head, but there is so much else going on that is of human and aesthetic worth there, that he needs must be forgiven. Williams also wrote quite openly and beautifully about homosexuality in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Inge yes — nothing but weak fathers and dominant mothers there — but who cares? Weak fathers and dominant mothers exist, and he observes them well. Albee, on the other hand, observed nothing for Who’s Afraid of Viriginia Woolf other than a couple of his gay friends arguing — it is undoubtedly a drag play. Bette Davis was offered the role of Martha — she wouldn’t play it because she said it was a drag role, and she was right. Taylor attempts to rise above all this by playing with realism and sensitivity, but ultimately this is not realistic drama (come on — if George has so much power over Martah— why is he acting like such a castrated wuss?). Oh right, 'nothing is as it seems,' says Albee. Sorry, but though it makes philosophical and aesthetic sense, it doesn’t make psychological sense, and all great writers need just a little bit of that. And why in heavens name do Honey and Nick stay? Why don’t they just run? I would. Who would stick around with this loser, narcisistic, ugly, old couple? Oh yes, Martha’s father is the president of the university; but no, I don’t buy it. I wish I could say I was jealous, and I am — of the first act — but what ultimately irks me is that nothing has changed. Straight people are still suspicious of what we might be smuggling into their lives. Well it’s as simple as this, it’s wit, sex, and tragedy, all rolled up into one; it’s about the idea that life is not one thing and one thing alone, but many things, and we're not saying that there is no right and wrong, but that such judgements matter less than the humanity and civility you offer another person in the very moment.

I flatter myself

 that I knew something was up with The V.I.P.s — the film just seemed a little better than the trash it should be, and lo and behold, it was written by Terence Rattigan. He is one of my favourite writers -- but not well respected these days. He is perhaps most famous for The Browning Version, which has a gay subtext, as all of his plays do. (Rattigan's The Deep Blue Sea was apparently about his abusive relationship with a young British actor named Kenneth Morgan, who committed suicide not long after Rattigan broke up with him.) Rattigan is the master of the understatement — the kind of poetry that happens when people say not exactly what they mean, while in the throes of emotion. There is abuse in The V.I.P.s, and there is understatement, but even though Margaret Rutherford got an Academy Award for the film (and she is delightful as always) it’s Maggie Smith who should have won. She is mesmerising in her scenes with the chesty, tight-pantsed Rod Taylor. It’s a cliched role — the purse-lipped, dowdy secretary, madly in love with her handsome boss. In the best scene she’s trying to get some money out of Richard Burton to save Rod, and Burton casually asks her if she is in in love with her boss. She denies it, and says she is only doing this for Rod's 'corporation,' and Burton glacially delivers the one line in the film truly worthy of Rattigan at his best: “It’s a wonderful company. They make wonderful tractors.” I don’t know what else to say about this rather silly film. You know what’s coming when you first meet Orson Welles and someone yells out out ”Overweight!” in his general direction; he turns politely and says -- “Oh, you mean the luggage — yes!” The stars are being stars, and Liz and Richard were apparently in the first months of their affair. Burton is much more attractive than I remember him (well this is 1963) and Liz is — well what can one say? I won’t say she is a bad actress, but it’s more like, after you’ve seen her earth-shattering decolletage, you can’t help but think quietly to yourself that it is surprising that she can also act. In the final very dramatic scenes with Richard Burton it is unfortunate that she is being eaten by her hat, which resembles a felt trash-bucket. The bizarre thing is she does look beautiful in it, and in everything else. And again, it’s more a case of — how in heaven’s name does she manage that? I had a very good time with my therapist today, even though the session was, for most of it, quite content-less. When you have been going to a therapist as long as I have — well, I started when I had my first anxiety attack at age 18. That was enough for me; sheer terror, I was immobile with fear, and though Adam's Rib helped, and my mother tried also, the only thing was for me to sit opposite a rather seedy looking man with greasy hair who tried to talk me out of my homosexuality. You’ll be pleased to know that he quite succeeded in his quest, for a time. You’d think that would have put me off therapists — but it didn’t.  I had another kind of breakdown in the late 80s (all the fame went to my head I guess) and I went to a gay shrink (never go to a gay shrink, if you are gay) who turned out to be a playwright.  This was traumatic  for me, as everyone in my life was kind of a playwright at that time, I didn’t need one sitting at the end of the fainting couch, pen in hand. Then I had another gay therapist who was in love with an actor I knew; he began to use the sessions to find out more about the object of his obsession. It all became too much; I went off therapists for awhile (what got me through, honestly was listening to Michael Jackson’s 'Man in the Mirror' over and over again. I don’t know what that says about me, or more importantly. what it says about Michael Jackson). Then in 1996 I decided to leave Buddies in Bad Times Theatre and I needed someone to help, and she was the best therapist of my life — Dr. Madigan — a kind of therapist to the stars -- some of the actors I knew went to her --  she really was very good. Then nothing. Until at one point until my forever lover  (presently nagging me about getting a new refrigerator) demanded I get a therapist, because he couldn’t handle how screwed up I was. I loved him so I got the present therapist, who is South African and reminds me of Cathleen Nesbitt (remember Cary Grant’s mother in An Affair to Remember?). She in fact is Cathleen Nesbitt, or perhaps a reincarnation of her, which reassures me. Anyway, today I realised I was just treating her like a friend and telling her all the wonderful things in my life (i.e. nothing, but it made be feel better to make things up) and then I realised that the session was becoming unproductive, and I said so. And then she said ‘but it doesn’t have to be productive’ which is the kind of revelation that rocks my world, let me tell you. If I’m not writing a play or a novel or a book about Shakespeare -- or arranging a play reading, or reviewing some stupid old movie, if I am not in my own mind moving ahead then I am falling down the dark dank hole of no return. There are two kinds of people in this stupid pandemic, those who embrace indolence (what could be better than jerking off, then watching Netflix and then jerking off again, only this time, stoned?) and then there are people like me, who if they cannot imagine that they are productive every goddamn second of their stupid life get all antsy and suicidal. My therapist made me realise that there is nothing I can do about anything. The lock down is, as I observed many times, like being sentenced to life in prison -- especially in Ontario, where Doug Ford can’t raise himself off his fat ass long enough to figure out if any of us has a future . If I was sent to prison it would be necessary for me to become The Birdman of Alcatraz -- if not I would feel fundamentally deficient, when I might really just want to lie back and look at the ceiling. Although I think I would still jerk off occasionally, which is — beyond being a quite necessary ‘little death'— productive in its own sticky way.

Yet another Muslim/American

epic. Central to these misogynistic films of the 40s and 50s is the concept of the ‘femme fatale,’ a notion that yields a shitload of narrative fun, and is sexy as hell -- but horrible for women. Just as some Muslims believe that the sight of a woman’s long hair or naked ankle has the capacity to inflame a man beyond rape — and she therefore needs to be fully covered from head to toe — the American film noir puts the blame on women. Apparently without them, men would be as innocent as lambs. Lang’s Human Desire (apparently he hated the title, he said ‘what other desire is there?') is quite watchable due to everybody involved except Glenn Ford (who registers as nothing but a sweet, honest and kind man, and one can only take a certain amount of that.) Marlon Brando rejected the Ford role apparently, dismissing the flic as a garbage -- and I wish I could say it was. In other words, I wish that men were only attracted to nice women and women were only attracted to nice men, or I imagine that I wish it but a) that is sadly not the case, and it probably never will be, and, b) is that even desirable? When Glenn Ford returns from war his landlord’s daughter (Kathleen Case)  bounces in, her gigantic breasts fighting obscenely to release themselves from her too-tight sweater. She, however is clearly meant to be an ‘innocent’ girl -- unlike Gloria Grahame -- who wears hoop earrings, smokes like a fiend, and has heavily-lidded, come-hither eyes. This is the kind of part Gloria Grahame was born to play, and she manages to make us sympathize with a woman who asks her lover to kill her husband; she is somehow not arch -- or really evil -- at all. Grahame rescues the film from camp, but even she can't stop that train when Kathleen Case says, innocently: “I don’t know much about love that makes people hurt one another”…and “I do know there are other kinds of love.” Yes I suppose there is such a thing as loving a very boring woman with humungous breasts who likes wearing sweaters two sizes too small, but who cares about that, when you’ve got Gloria Grahame? First of all, come on, are we supposed to believe that there’s any kind of love worth its salt that doesn’t hurt you? Honestly? I didn’t know what hurt was until I came out of the closet. The lovely Ukraiinian girl I was practically engaged to at 27 could never have 'hurt' me (though I know I hurt her a lot, by just coming out, and I do regret that— but it wasn’t my fault). It was only when I fell for Glenn Cassie (yes two ’n’s’ -- like Glenn  Ford) the first boy I ever loved, that I fully understood the heartache of popular songs. Most of all, though, I was suddenly suddenly jealous if any man looked at him or talked to him. He was a ‘bad boy’ if only for the sultry curl of his sensuous lips, or perhaps because he did take ‘a little’ heroin when he was staying in London (U.K.) -- which worried me a lot, so much so that he sent me photos of his bare arms saying ‘look -- no scars!’ (I still have those photos) insisting that he was not addicted. Then there was Shaun O’Mara who was bad boy defined, his middle name was Trouble. He had been a hooker and an 'exotic dancer,' was outrageously handsome, liked to order me around in bed; I was in heaven. He used to tell me that I didn’t need to go into work, which was so liberating, and freeing -- for me (a workaholic). Then he started throwing some other guy in my face (we were open, but we weren’t supposed to fall in love with anyone else). So I had to dump him, and what followed was months of mourning.  I must mention Rodney (can’t remember his last name) who was a stripper at Remingtons and had a twelve inch penis which he liked to pull out at parties. He was missing cartilage in his nose due to cocaine use, and used to disappear now and then -- which was mystifying until I realised he was doing short stints in prison. I broke up with him after he decided 'Dark Horse' by Amanda Marshall  was 'our song.' (The idea of us 'having a song' and it being that was truly terrifying.) He then wrecked my apartment. So there was lots of hurt back then and then came my present lover (it’s only been 23 years, we’re still working it out).  I wanted to murder him last week -- but then we made up. And yes he hurts me deeply all the time. That’s what it’s about, baby. If you want an easy ride, get a financial partner (i.e. a husband) not a lover. Real love means you care, but most of all it means triggering all the family issues that are the basis of all human pain. You’re not going to obsess over anyone unless they ignite some primal, incestual (yes,  I said that) memory. My present boyfriend is my mother, although he’s not, (or my therapist tells me he’s not) but I still managed to somehow acquire a partner who is so bizarrely controlling that he would like to measure my life in coffee spoons. Right now I’m actually feeling guilty because I haven’t looked up the price of a new refrigerator at The Brick (I promised him I would do that). Listen to me: for no one else would I compare prices on refrigerators. (Will they install it?  Does it have a bottom freezer and an ice maker? Then just ship it over now, money's no object!) So it’s all very nice for Marlon Brando to dismiss Human Desire as garbage, and for everyone to go around thinking that all anyone has to do is marry the sensible girl in the bulging sweater (do they actually exist?). But all that's highly unlikely -- because if you are human and you have desire, it’s partially because you'd  rather life didn’t bore you to death. I’ve been obsessing about Carol Matthau (nee Marcus) lately because she was the model for Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's. My friend told me this joke about the Holocaust.  I know you’re not supposed to tell such jokes, but it's from Walter and Carol Matthau— and they were both Jewish -- so it's allowed okay?  Anyway apparently when Walter and Carol were in Poland they were scheduled to do a a tour of a concentration camp but had a huge argument the night before. And Carol yelled at Walter tearfully: “There you go, now you’ve ruined Auschwitz for me!" Yes -- unsettling to say the least -- but truly funny in a very dark way; undoubtedly the real Holly Golightly knew that if he's not hurting you quite seriously -- at least now and then, well -- the relationship's not worth the trouble.

They’re showing that

horrible documentary about Larry Kramer on HBO. I abhorred the man. He was always going on and on about how he didn’t have a lover. The reason was simple, he was an odious angry person who hated himself and everybody else. Who would want to partner with that? If you don’t know who Larry Kramer is — well he gets kudos for practically single-handedly awakening the gay community in New York City to the reality of a deadly disease called AIDS, and for hectoring the Reagan administration to do something about it. He was tireless and indefatigable in this, but that doesn’t make him a good playwright or a nice man. He wrote the horrifying play The Normal Heart; basically an ode to himself and his own heroism. He also wrote the screenplay for the musical Lost Horizon (some aesthetic crimes are simply unforgivable). But the real problem with Larry Kramer is that he hated sex. One cannot forget his novel Faggots, an excoriating critique of the 'gay lifestyle;' apparently we’re all too promiscuous and don’t know how to love. (Who knew?) Well everybody who was homophobic knew that, and Larry just managed to confirm all the myths (that we are hornier than straight men, and less loving) and wrap them up with neat bow that said ‘if a gay man knows how horrible gay men are, then how horrible might they be?’ But understanding Larry Kramer may help us to understand ourselves, especially during COVID-19. Diseases are metaphors, because they — like any good televisions show — are all about life, and death and suffering, and such things can’t help but trigger our fantasies. Larry Kramer’s relationship to AIDS was personal, and by that I don’t mean that many of his friends died (though they did) what I mean is that his political activism was deeply related to personal hurt. No one ever loved Larry enough (he was the dreaded second brother, and his older brother Arthur got all the love) and he had been rejected by a beautiful boy just before he wrote Faggots — which is what drove him to write about how horrible gay men are. (No Larry, not all gay men are horrible, just the man who rejected you, okay?) When AIDS came along, Larry was able to transfer this dream/nightmare onto the illness. It was not about microbes and germs, just about gay men and their prodigious tendency to want to suck on you-know-what. If we would only stop wanting and needing to do that!After all, is sex really that important? Something we would give up our lives for? Well for many gay men it was, and they are the real heroes of the AIDS Holocaust, not Larry Kramer, who played his own self-righteousness like a violin, to exalt himself over all the nasty gay men (like me) who resisted AIDS orthodoxy. In the house I lived in in 1986 (it was a gay house on Homewood, kinda famous, we kinda had a lot of parties, a lot of somewhat influential queer people hung out there…just to give you a hint) a decree was issued at the advent of AIDs — there would be no condoms allowed. Condoms were a homophobic plot. This was partially true; AIDS IS ‘homophobic’ — we can’t talk about it without thinking about how much we generally hate gay men and their prodigiously overstocked libidos. Eventually Homewood came 'round: condoms were allowed, but we never stopped reminding ourselves how AIDS was not only a disease but a way of thinking. The same can be said of COVID-19. There are certain facts about this illness, and if I told you the facts (which admittedly are hard to discern amidst the uproar) it would bore you to death. But what really interests us about COVID-19 are the metaphors  — the disease for most of us has little to do with germ warfare and very much to do with how much we care about our fellow man. That is the primary metaphor attached to this disease — your reaction to COVID-19 proves how you human you are, or God forbid, are not. When a metaphor has attached itself to an illness there is nothing that can be done about it, science or no science, that’s what it will mean forever. But that doesn’t mean that COVID-19 doesn’t have other ancillary messages. One of them is agoraphobia/obsessive compulsive disorder. For some it is not all bout altruism at all -- but fear -- and a certain kind of selfishness — will I get it? Is it time to disinfect the mail? What about doorknobs? Can my dog catch it? Someone coughed next to me the other day, will I die? These become all consuming questions, and there is an all-pervasive fear of leaving the house. The third metaphor attached to this disease is the one — I must admit — I am susceptible to: control. For some of us, from the very beginning we smelled it — this illness was all about control, from the very moment it was announced we were essentially locked up in our homes. This triggered our righteous concern  about civil liberties. We don’t like to be told what to do -- some of us --and for us, that’s all COVID-19 means, a nightmare which we can never claw our way out of, in which we — once free agents who controlled our own destiny, can no longer do so. My point here is this: deal with Covid-19 in any way you wish, there are many conflicting facts. All you can do, as with any illness, is try and protect yourself and others as best you can, and respect others’ decisions as well as your own. But what you also can do is try and figure out which particular metaphor applies to you. How do you relate to COVID-19? If you understand this it might help you deal more kindly with others. The fact that I know that ‘control’ is my metaphor of choice means that I must learn to be kinder to the ‘controlled’ automatons who I see as gleefully sacrificing their lives and freedoms to an oppressive orthodoxy. Similarly, those of you who are primed to shoot me on the street because I don’t believe in disinfecting doorknobs or taking care of my fellow man -- put away your 'guns.' That too, is a metaphor, I hope. But everything is, and the sooner we come to terms with that, the sooner we will learn how to be kind again.

Something is missing

and has been for a a very long time.  It’s different for each of us, I know. I finally figured it out watching Rome Adventure. If you live in the country or simply love your cat and your laundry then you’ve got all you need; and you are blissfully happy in lock down. There are others though, like me, who are profoundly unhappy, which brings me back to many years ago. The turning point was, as I remember A Summer Place, a 1959 movie vehicle for Troy Donahue — I saw it in the 60s. Troy Donahue is now a trigger mechanism for me; at the time I didn’t know what was going on. All I knew was that when I saw A Summer Place something happened. It was partially the music (Max Steiner -- the best) —but when the movie was over I didn’t want it to be, and I plunged into what started as deep depression, but soon became paralysing anxiety. I wanted to be inside the movie (as silly as it sounds now) with Troy Donahue and Sandra Dee, and the fact that the movie was over and I couldn’t return to that world (they didn’t have videos back then) was huge. The only answer was not to think about A Summer Place ever again. But what was missing in my life, exactly? At the time I thought it was fun and romance and sun and bathing suits and the beach (I was raised near the ocean). But watching Rome Adventure I realised what I was missing was Troy Donahue. I make no apology for being obsessed with him. Sure, there is his slim figure, his wind swept blonde hair, his startlingly blue eyes (enhanced by technicolor, surely?), the lips, the smile, but there is also his voice —  there is something vulnerable about it (I swear). These movies were made for teenage girls but I had never been one; my ‘girlhood’ had been cruelly ripped away from me. That's what I missed so badly. (You miss something you’ve never had much more than something you have.) COVID- 19 has taken all that away for a second time. My old friend Nick used to talk about the rush of emotion he had when mounting the stairs to a gay bar -- the expectation and anticipation. Nick was such a walking fantasy of a boy.  He could pick up a man at the variety store — so for him, a gay bar meant instant attention. I was never that adored -- but nevertheless, for me a gay bar is plunging into an environment where what matters to me matters to everyone else. This means that I matter. When I walk into a ‘straight’ room what I desire most of all is scorned — if not considered repulsive — by everyone there, when I enter a gay bar I know that everyone wants what I want, even if they don’t want it with me. And there is also even the remotest possibility that I might become the centre of someone’s attention. That’s all I want, and why I would rather be desired than desire -- especially now as I get older.  I enjoy looking, but I am as cold as ice with anyone who doesn’t desire me, and if someone really wants me I lose control. This is something that in lock down I no longer experience,  it’s been taken away from me. I know it doesn’t matter to you, I have to assume that even if you’ve read this far, it’s only because you pity me, or find it bizarre that I can’t be happy with my cat and my laundry. It was only right that during this lock down that never ends Troy Donahue would lure me back  through Roman Adventure. It’s a piece of crap really; they wanted Natalie Wood -- they could only get Suzanne Pleshette, so they made her up like Natalie Wood. All this is ironic because Pleshette is a better actress — there’s nothing wrong with her -- especially in a movie like this. She’s light and real and smart and naturally funny — all things that Natalie Wood never could be. The film opens up with Pleshette standing before a tribunal of stuffy old female teachers at a stuffy girl's school. They are firing her for putting a scandalous novel on the reading list. Interesting that such a situation was not only plausible in 1962,  but such situations are happening all over at universities today. Pleshette defends the book as a lesson in pleasure and it seems like this is going to be a feminist movie. The way she announces her upcoming trip to Rome we imagine she is going there to have — no take — pleasure. She arrives at a pensione, meets Troy Donahue and falls in love. Most of the movie is taken up with him taking her on a tour of Italy My favourite part is when they visit a medieval church and Troy explains to the wide-eyed Pleshette that the reason for the paintings and sculptures and murals was to teach those who were illiterate about the Bible. Pleshette's morals are annoying impeccable --  of course she will not sleep with him, she is even concerned about the propriety of the fact that they stay in adjacent hotel rooms even though they never sleep in the same bed. One day she returns from church and he picks her up on his Vespa, and she asks him why men don’t go to church, and he explains that men 'feel things differently' than women do. (I remember this from my childhood —that fathers did not go to church, mothers did.) The movie proves not to be feminist but misogynist — the lesson Pleshette learns (the movie is based on a novel called Lovers Must Learn by Irving Fineman) “Woman's most important function in life is to anchor men, turn them into the responsible civilised creators they were meant to be.” Yulch. What draws me to Rome Adventure ( besides the moment when Angie Dickinson announces how much fun it is to make love to 'The Stars and Stripes Forever' --that's worth the whole thing) is the image of Pleshette hopping on that Vespa and wrapping her arms around Troy Donahue’s middle. At one point in the movie a naive young American woman  comments on this typically ‘Italian’ practice, saying that she’s always wanted to wrap her arms around a man while sitting behind him on a Vespa. That’s what I want, essentially -- and what I miss, what I never had. Me wrapping my arms around him, and then he takes off, and we sleep in a chateau -- where every room has a view -- and I  am eternally the centre of attention simply because I do not sleep with him, but he does kiss me, endlessly and dreamily, and I sink into his bottomless blue eyes. I know it seems unfair of me to accuse COVID-19 of doing away with all that. Perhaps then, I am imagining this longing. Perhaps then I’ve always imagined it. Yes, that must be it.

The second Tracy

Hepburn flic Keeper of the Flame was released the same year as Pat and Mike. I had not seen it, and it’s not a very good film — despite it’s stars -- but it is a momentous one. We are offered a badly written bit of anti-Nazi propaganda that doesn’t get interesting until the last 20 minutes or so. Hepburn is an odd, dour — but of course beautiful — widow guarding the legacy of her late husband —who was a charismatic politician. Tracy is the reporter trying to dig up stuff. Nothing happens. Then there’s the mad scene with the mother (Margaret Wycherly) and Hepburn breaks down and confesses the truth (this scene is very well-lit, thank you, George Cukor); that her husband was an aspiring dictator. It says something about the failure of didactic art that no one remembers this movie — even today, when it is absolutely topical. Not only is 'Robert Forrest' Donald Trump’s twin — but in 1942 the screenwriter (Donald Ogden Stewart) was able to predict with uncanny acuity the tremendous appeal that a dictator might have for Americans. When Hepburn explains her dead husband’s strategy at the end of the film  it's straight from Trump's playbook: “Hates were played against hate -- all these poor little people who never knew what purpose they had been put to.” Forrest had a “frank contempt for democracy and incredible ambition.’” “He envied the dictators.” Probably the most shocking example of the film’s prescience is that it also predicts the part the media would play in all this. Hepburn speaks of the press manipulating people and promoting certain corrupt candidates (i.e. Fox news). The 'woke young' are tragically ignorant of movies like this (they don’t like history) and have no idea that they are being manipulated just as much as the Trump Brethren when they deem right-wingers too evil to live. It simply plays into a dictator's hand; as dictators urgently require the obliteration of civil discourse —the ability in a democracy to have open, persuasive discussions on issues that matter.  Such discussion necessarily goes hand in hand with an honest and earnest press; not with influencers and hacks. But when people settle themselves into armed camps — as the woke young have done against the conservative elite -- there is no hope. It’s interesting that it was Republicans who opposed the initial release of Keeper of the Flame, objecting to the idea that a rich man would be a likely dictator (the film was compared to Citizen Kane, and Robert Forrest to William Randolph Hearst). Like Trump, Robert Forrest wished to surround himself with other powerful rich men. So yes all this is eerily prescient, and it’s sad and frightening that not only does nobody care about Keeper of the Flame, nobody cares about history. There is a particularly preachy moment early on that caught my eye, when Tracy counsels the young Darryl Hickman (the go-to ‘earnest little boy’ in these 40s flicks). He explains fascism: ‘there are people who want to put  you in chains.’ The boy is incredulous, but Tracy articulates further: “the chains will be on your mind.” I think this concept is the most important one in the film, because I have experienced censorship personally and been told, in no uncertain terms, that ‘the only people who have the right to talk about freedom of speech are marginalised people.’ When I protest that I am marginalized (i.e. gay), I’m told that I'm not marginalised enough. Picking and choosing who is qualified for  freedom of speech is fascism -- plain and simple. Fascism has also found its way into COVID-19. We are only allowed certain information. In true '1984' fashion, information deemed dangerous to our health is removed from the web. Frankly I’d rather be free -- and get ill and die. So we are now in a dirty mess of a sticky wicket, all due to the fact that the approved COVID-19 information  is toxic; it’s driving us all crazy and will ultimately make us all sick. Have you heard the latest news? Those who were given the AstraZeneca vaccine in Ontario are now being given the ‘opportunity’ to take Pfizer for their second dose? The stated reason (and this is played down) is that the AstraZeneca vaccine is now less available than before, but there is also mention of the ‘risk factors for side effects.’ I  have listened very carefully to the news (you have to because they are fooling with you) and the statistics say that 3 people— out of millions — in Canada, have died of a blood clot from AstraZeneca. First of all, these three people were undoubtedly probably already ill and shouldn’t have been vaccinated at all. But even if this is not true, taking the vaccine is much better than not taking it, if you want to get the epidemic under control, but more importantly — for me — if you want to get back into a gay bar and cruise some weiner (and I don’t mean Anthony). But this tidbit of statistical misinformation about the AstraZeneca vaccine is typical of what is wrong with the  COVID-19 information generally; we are being told too much, we are privy to worries that should only be keeping public health officials up at night, not us — variants (‘These variants require vigilance’ is an idiotic CTV alliteration that makes me want to belch), wearing masks outdoors, fears about children, etc.... All of this is frankly bullshit. This does not mean we are being fed lies (God forbid!!)  just that the only information we are allowed to have is stuff we can’t process or fully understand — and we are being fed this crap for no other reason than it racks up anxiety, keeps people home, and improves the ratings of TV news. I’m pleased that Tracy and Hepburn thought it might be helpful to lecture us about fascism in Keeper of the Flame. But it didn’t work. No one cares; fascism will eat us, because division and hate is more fun than ‘the facts.’ The only fact is this: we love being ‘right,' and self-righteous, and we basically despise our fellow creatures. Hopefully it’s because we all had horrible mothers (I didn’t, no matter what I say) but sadly, I think it’s just the way we are.

I’d never seen

Morning Glory, I don’t know why; I thought it was the movie where Katherine Hepburn talked about calla lilies, so I kept waiting for her to say it. I can see why she won an Academy Award; the movie is lovely and she is so lovely in it. I like her much better in this film when she is dreaming of being an actress (most of the movie) — when she says things like ‘my name is partly made up and partly real’; and ‘I think artists should be free to sin.” Her idealism is delicious, her fantasy of being an actress is much more interesting than any realisation of it could ever be. And you get to see Hepburn do ‘to be or not to be’ — wow. I’ve never been quite so convinced that Hepburn was a lesbian, for although she swans about prettily at times: an actress, acting being an actress — who wishes she was an actress (the layers are Shakespearean) what is ultimately appealing about her is her androgyny. She’s every woman I’ve ever loved who was part boy. It’s a shame that Zoe Akins diverting script is so anti-feminist —Hepburn could not have approved of it. I saw her late in life in Coco — the musical written for her -- at the O’Keefe Centre in Toronto. My mother bought me a ticket, which shows she understood be a little too deeply, and though I still laugh a bit at the soundtrack (esp: the question she asks her father about her communion dress “Could it be red?”). the fact that she sounds a bit like a goose being strangled when she sings doesn’t matter — Hepburn embodies all she does best: fierce, angry, moral courage. (She was doing Liz Cheney before Cheney was born.) At the end of Coco — Chanel reveals in being alone, declaring that she is proud to have been an ‘old maid.’ This was equivocation for Hepburn who really wanted to say ‘I’m proud to be a lesbian.’ But I would never demand that of her, I understand why she was muted and had to pretend she was having a love affair with Spencer Tracy — who, if we are to believe Scotty Bowers was as gay as I am (when drunk). Hepburn holds a special place in my heart because my father once met her while selling insurance, and we have the same kind of upbringing (New England Yankee) and Adam’s Rib got me through my teenage anxiety attacks. The relationship Hepburn had with Tracy — both onscreen and off — is very much like the relationship I have with my lover — embattled, only occasionally sexual, not just for fans, and beyond compare. Morning Glory was entertainment in 1933 and is quite enchanting due to the belief which Hepburn showers on her character. But it is necessarily ‘light’ and must present the sentimental yet trite story of a woman who ‘gives up love for her career.’ But Morning Glory is  ten steps above what passes for entertainment these days — i.e. the news. I can’t imagine why anyone is subscribing to Netflix when CNN is so bloodthirsty. And if CBC isn’t speaking to dying people in hospitals, it is focusing on sex scandals in the military. This is a calculated change in the delivery of the news — CNN decided a year or two ago that it must focus on celebrities and trials and neglect actual information, so when COVID-10 came along it was a rare opportunity to plunge into the entertainment imbroglio. What we are offered has no relationship to reality, because personal anecdotes — though deeply absorbing — are authentic but not accurate. Endless interviews with hapless victims of a raging epidemic — though utterly ‘uplifting’-- do nothing to raise our awareness about what might and should be done about anything. I started watching the news as entertainment when Donald Trump came along — I think a lot of us did — and it’s hard to wean myself off. When rocket fire is going off in Tel Aviv, when our economy is on the verge of COVID collapse, when people are living in tents in your local park — when your kids are courting mental illness and you're hating your spouse because you just can’t stay inside any longer, but you must —when you are tempted to become a drug addict, and then you actually become one — well you don’t want to see any of that on television. Seeing an overweight nurse who has contracted COVID-19 whine about how tired she is and how difficult it has been sacrificing her life for us is worth ten films versions of Camille. Here is what came up on my news feed today: ‘Essential Reads for Self-improvement,’ ‘How laughter can improve your relationship’ and ‘This couple tried Hellofresh: Here’s How Much Better Life Got.’ A quick gander at this garbage is sure to drive you to the Oxycontin. I’m not sure on what planet I would ever want to read a book in order to improve myself’ — my understanding is that the purpose of literature is to frighten, shock, and  upset you (I know I am alone in this these days) or perhaps plunge you into the ‘depths of degradation’ (like the pool table in The Music Man). We are all likely to reach the ‘depths of degradation’ at some point in our lives anyway, even if it is only the requisite illness and death. I'm sorry if this wrecks the rosy picture that your newsfeed has created for you, since we all know know now that if each of us gets the COVID-19 vaccine (but watch out — don't get Astra-Zeneca!) our lives will be solved. Here are more news feeds to facilitate your move from pot to  meth: ‘Whatever happened to waterbeds?’ ‘Science proves a harsh truth about very good dogs’ and ‘What cats love of boxes and squares can tell us about their visual perception.’ I do love ‘news’ items that operate under the veil of ‘science ‘— which is ever so popular right now, don't you know? I love them almost as much as news items which operate under the veil of political correctness: ‘The Lesser-Known History of African-American Cowboys.’ I rode past a tattoo shop in Hamilton yesterday on the bus, it was called Evil Sin; it was, of course, closed. Hepburn’s name in Morning Glory is Eva Lovelace; people keep mistaking it for ‘loveless.’ We are without love now, but we do have the internet, and drugs, and porn, and most of all -- people dying on the news. We should be very happy.

The Criminal was

known in the USA as The Concrete Jungle and it is not without its rewards — and so is prison, apparently. I watch prison movies during lock down. The intention is to make me feel better but they usually make me feel worse — not because the reality of prison life is so daunting, quite the opposite. Unless you are in solitary confinement (what we are basically in now, and it means death) prison inmates seem to have the moon on a string. This is what irritates me so much about all the approximate descriptions of the COVID-19 experience  that come down from well meaning politicians upon high. No, it is not like being in a war, it is somewhat more like being in prison, but prison life is (believe me) much better. From the very beginning of Joseph Losey’s 1960 film we are plunged into what is supposed to be a harsh reality, but during Doug Ford’s latest exercise-in-securing-votes-through-indicating-how-much-he-cares-about-our-health what strikes me is that prison offers something we don’t have: a lively and engaging social scene. And why shouldn’t it? When you have nothing, at least you have that. The opening shot is the camera following a deformed-looking little old man running from inmate to inmate whispering “Johnny’s back!” In this way Losey establishes prison’s close-knit social fabric — and the ubiquitous oral shorthand that reveals little but tells all. It is a culture with its good guys and bad, dumbies, wimps, and bullies — it is the very texture of real life that we long for and try and recreate in social media, but to no avail. Stanley Baker plays Johnny Bannion, the charismatic leader of his prison tribe, just back in jail, but soon out again on a robbery. And when he gets out, there is a wild party in his honour — one old girlfriend comes to curse him -- soon after he’s rolling around with another in his giant bed.  There was a similar party in Toronto last weekend, described by our finger wagging press like this: “Upon arrival, officers could hear loud music and what sounded like a crowd at a nearby commercial property. Upon investigation, approximately 150 people, who were not wearing masks, were found partying in a building at Dundas Street West and Beverley Street.” Dear me, I hope they were screwing and getting high and touching each other’s infected privates. By saying this I am not being irresponsible; it is Public Health Officials who are irresponsible for insisting that vaccinated Ontarions need to stay indoors; this is the blind leading the deluded — it will only end in social rot, which is happening — tents in parks ?!! (Why don’t they turn some of those unused hospital tents ‘requisitioned’ for this fake emergency into housing for the homeless?) I’m tired of writing about this, tired of whining. It’s about being completely powerless, sitting here at 10:00 in the morning with the cat on my lap afraid to text my friends because God help me if I was to interrupt their depressive stupor. It feels like the story of my life, actually. I’ll tell you what I am, a self-sabotaging artist — so insecure that he’s hid behind his sexuality for years, terrified that he doesn’t have any real talent. This is what lock down does to you; it necessitates a brutal honesty. You might try it yourself, it feels like you are exacting revenge on Doug Ford and Theresa Tam, though you are not. Yes I admit it now, I have never been able to write about anything but gay subjects really (I wrote one novel about J.D. Salinger but the publisher made the mistake of putting an array of colours on the cover which were assumed to be a rainbow, and thus, without even reading it, people assumed it was just another Gay Sky Gilbert Novel to be left unread). Yes all I can write about is you-know-what sucking and you-know-what licking and the insertion of a you-know-what in my you-know-what (as you can see, I live in vain hope that someday this blog may go viral), and when I am not writing about gay bodily functions I am moaning about movie stars. Yes that’s what I must do and will die doing, but it provides a convenient cover, you see, because being an admitted dirty old fag (not a nice, dog walking, mask wearing Craig’s Cookies eating one) automatically puts me on the margins of  Canlit — no one takes notice (he’s a fag, he writes for fags, it’s fag stuff) so I’ll never know if my work is any good or if anybody would buy my books, even if given a chance, because no one really knows I exist. I adore this anonymity, because as you may have suspected from reading these blogs there is a lot more going on in my life and my mind than I am willing to commit to here; I am at least as incendiary as you might imagine. I am reading a book right now called Censorship and Interpretation by Annabel M Patterson, about the secret deal between the power-that-be and writers like me; we agree to write in code, and they agree to ignore our transgressions — this is what enables literature and ultimately metaphor. In other words, if you knew what I was really writing about it might send you directly to the police — so I am an adept influencer, a not-so silent menace, it is not even innuendo, it is between the lines. In fact the danger is in the very fact that you do not know where this blog is going and neither do I. It’s like sex or love (which we don’t have much of now) — it’s dangerous because it cannot be controlled, which is why people get married; the sudden lack of uncertainty is reassuring. I could do anything now, I could start talking about the sex I had last Saturday night and I think I will, but not before informing you that the way media affects you (thanks, McLuhan, for this) is through the medium itself, so it doesn’t matter what I’m saying but how I say it, and if you are reading this you are being subtly affected by it’s anarchic sub-textual threat (I've thrown in a little conspiracy theorist flirtation, just for fun). Oh yes and by the way we did very well with each other, my new f-buddy and I, last Saturday night -- thanks for asking! I have no idea whether I'll see my little Iggy Pop again, as I’m not sure where I am on his list, as he is an admitted sexual obsessive (and so am I). So is Johnny Bannion in The Criminal. Yes, we all are, criminals, and proud of it, too.