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.