Stillwater was great.

 I was waiting all movie for a glimpse of Matt Damon’s new ‘Dad Bod’. Well, he shows it off (coming out of the shower near the end); he’s so big and gorgeous and bloody masculine he can hardly speak. Anyway I do hope that this brings lots of converts to the Dad Bod — as I seem to have one. At least a young man complimented me on mine the other night after we had sex. ‘I just love Dad Bods,’ he crooned. I was not the least insulted — just grateful he didn’t call it a ‘Grandad Bod’ which is what it definitely was, in terms of him. But as to the content of Stillwater, it’s all very ‘relevant;’ it aims to heal the divide — well — all divides really — as it’s the story of a redneck’s trip to Cote d’Azur, and sure he enough, he learns to love it, and it learns to love him. You see? It will all be okay. What’s fascinating to me is that Damon’s love interest Camille Cottin — who is meant to represent the opposite of the 'redneck' i.e. French high culture (and high culture in general) is into —you guessed it — theatre. It’s nice to know theatre retains its pride of place representing all things esoteric and pretentious. It’s nice to know that being a playwright still means being tedious, pompous and obscure! That’s what we always were and always will be. At one point Cottin kisses a theatre director— he's skinny with a ponytail -- but we know he is no competition for the slightly-saggy-titted-and-massive-bummed-Dad-Bod that is Matt Damon. And then there is a scene where the same bun-headed wimp is directing an avant-garde play (I direct those too, by the way) and in the play they are intoning: ‘There is no truth.’ The line is meant to personify the height of balderdash — i.e. egg-headed bullshit — and when Damon is asked about the play all he can do is shrug and say is “It was good.” (But you just know he hated it.) Dare I amend the error? Of course theatre must etnerally epitomize the height of coma-inducing boringness, but these days a playwright would ever write ‘there is no truth.' Now every playwright knows what the truth is; I shan't bother to tell you, we all know anyway, and we go to the theatre to have our egos stroked for being really good, tolerant pro-trans people, pro-Indigenous folk, guilty as hell but penitent, who want to save the environment, wear masks and just generally be better than God. It’s nice to know that films are still not only earnest and occasionally thoughtful but also well made and suspenseful (as Stillwater is). The big moment is a critique of ‘Woke Folk.’  When Cottin refuses to talk to a racist man — even though the man might save Matt’s innocent daughter from prison -- Damon confronts her saying something like ‘we have people like that back home -- and we talk to them.’  He becomes the messenger of tolerance from the right. But for all its good intentions, no one is going to buy this. Yes, Damon says he didn’t vote for Trump, but he does own two guns — something he mumbles as a kind of caress when he screws Cottin for the first time. Nothing can come of this kind of well-meaning dramaturgical compromise, because compromise no longer exists in life. Come on, you know who is evil --and it's not you  - she’s on Facebook or he’s at the shop, and you nurture your anger against them, aging it — like fine wine. There is nothing quite so satisfying as knowing you are right, and so many ugly numbskulls are wrong. Well I can solve all of this, literally with my butthole. Susan Sontag calls this an ‘erotics of art.’ I’ve figured out what is wrong with the world. None of us gets screwed in the ass enough. The fact that you might think I am cursing you or demanding you suffer just indicates how messed up we all are. Yes, I seriously mean this. We all need to get screwed in the anus— it has to be in the back -- the front just won’t do. In fact I suggest you do it now. I had this startling revelation last night when someone was screwing -- well, back there, I think. With something. His penis was somewhat involved (and yes it was suitably sheathed, so for chrissakes calm down) -- but probably also fingers and god-knows-what. It was fabulous. And I kept thinking — what have I been missing? And why? In Allen Ginsberg’s interview with Playboy in 1969 he said “The anal-sphincter-prostate orgasm… is a great opening of feeling and delight and an extraordinarily beautiful experience, and rare. Possibly everybody should experience it.” Well, no one listened. He also went on about what tolerant people we would all be if we all had rectal ecstasies. This I agree with, too. Then he went on about men understanding what women go through. This is a bit too essentialist for me, as first of all we’ll never understand what they go through, as we don’t go through it, and second of all not all women go through that -- I mean -- are screwed in the front. One of my best friends, who used to go on about how big her husband’s penis was, once told me when she was drunk — “I never let him screw me.” Apparently she just adores his penis, in various other ways, which is fine too. (But everything is fine.) The reason why you need to be screwed in the behind is because it’s a nasty place, a bad place, a place that yucky things come out of, and nothing should go in to. Wrong! Can’t you see that both conceptually and biologically anal sex is the definition of revolution? Which begins at home,  so please start sticking things up there right now. I know. You’re going to say that Allen and I believe this because we are homosexuals. No. I mean we are, but — stop me if you’ve heard me say this before. Straight men are much more obsessed with anal sex than gay men are. I’m practically dead — and I’m only coming to terms with my asshole now. What took me so long? Whereas straight men have been obsessing about putting it up women’s bums (and doing so) for centuries. Vive la difference! Except when it comes down to it, there isn’t any, really. Unless of course you want to have sex with it. And then for most people (sad but true, I don't know how to tell you this--all you 'genderqueers') it matters very much what kind of ‘it’ it is.

It’s mainly about

trying to forget it all happened, now. But all these bulging stomachs keep reminding me. Everyone is fat, I don’t even recognize some of my friends. Then there’s the friends. I depended on them so much during lock down -- needing them desperately-- which is all part of my abandonment complex, which  lock down put into warp speed. I think a couple of them are now scared of me —' Is Sky being clingy and needy again?' You see I got into the habit of urgently filling my life during lock down, planning weeks ahead what will I be doing at every moment?  I’ve always been a 'scheduler' and the fear was — I tried to explain this to my partner and he totally didn’t understand (that’s why I’m calling him my ‘partner’ today) -- the way my life was organized in the past, was I drank to — well nearly to --  but not completely, to — oblivion, two nights a week, and the rest of the week I was home watching CNN, writing, feeding the cat, and arguing with but sometimes loving (though arguing can be loving) my partner. That worked for about 20 odd years (and they were odd). Suddenly the spectre of every night is empty lay before me. I realize now that the reason previously I was able to endure five nights a week of no drinking, and oh yes this is very important -- 5 nights of no promiscuous sex -- was because I had the other two nights of the week to be a crazy drunken slut. I know this pre-COVID-19  life plan might sound unhinged -- but all of my therapists approved of it. They said — 'Hey if it works for you, then go ahead!'  So then the wrench got thrown into the works, that is I got hit hard by tet COVID-19 wrench and suddenly weekends spent drinking with a friend and not getting laid just didn't hack it. So okay, yes I admit it.  All alone in my room in Toronto (what could be more sad?) late at night every Friday and Saturday I would jerk off with the help of poppers and porn. It was poppers I was looking forward to, all week, really. (It's my drug of choice). But weekdays became difficult too, because poppers filled my nose but -- to be pathetically poetical -- not the hole in my soul. At home during the week, my worst fantasy was that at I might end up siting in my room staring at the walls at 11 pm wondering ‘why is there air?' (that’s a quote from Bill Cosby, sorry). So I would work furiously in the evenings until quite late at night. And yes I have managed to write most of a book, and far too many blogs. But it all had to be scheduled, every moment, and if I went off my schedule I panicked. So the trick now is, abandoning my abandonment issues, as there is now a shitload of stuff to look forward to (yes sex and even plays, maybe). So I threw the poppers out the window. I made a pact years ago never to buy them, and to rarely use them even when offered, as they rot your brain and are the same as huffing cleaning products under the sink. So can you see why many of us don’t take kindly to all  you self-righteous masked do-gooders warning us ‘there will probably be another lock down?” I really couldn’t care less about my or anyone else’s physical health, when our mental health is at stake. And the kids! I can’t imagine! When you see another fat belly jiggling by just imagine it's the brains and emotions of those kids bouncing up and down, locked in a their rooms when they should be running free, more lonely, more alone, than you and I could ever imagine, because for them it feels like forever. Perhaps my popper confession; was just too much? My unsavoury drug addiction? My masturbatory habits? It’s all I can offer; it's the way I crucify myself for you. It's the least I can do as an artist  i.e. strip myself naked emotionally -- because hey, your life isn’t easy, either, I’m sure. Speaking of which, if you want to see a very witty non-artist pretending to be an artist, watch Bo Burhnam’s Inside. It’s squeaky clean and politically correct, although he does get three-quarters-naked a couple of times (he has a lovely treasure trail leading to….?) and he -- somewhat like me -- also endlessly castigates himself. But Bo, if you’re going to put yourself down, you need to talk about having a popper addiction and jerking off to porn alone in a dark Toronto flat. If the best self-criticism you can come up with is ‘I’m a white person and I feel guilty, and know I should shut up, but frankly I just care too much’ well you need to go back to your electric piano and start over. Getting popcorn at the movie theatre before Inside -- there were only 3 other people there (you can watch it on Netflix. I just wanted to go to a movie theatre, because I can) -- was a lonely little family. A fat mother and her two fat sons.The sons were of indeterminate age but teenagers basically, and probably gender fluid. I had to stand behind them as I was waiting to get to the mustard for my hot dog (they were taking an enormous amount of time picking out toppings). Passing my time gazing their giant backsides scared the hell out of me. This is the youth of today, living with mom, fat, gender indeterminate, depressed about everything, generously accepting apologies ('No worries!'), nurturing their inner victim, and hoping they never have to do anything or live in the world-- or god help them -- lose weight.  I don’t want people to be fat. I know, you think I’m shaming them. It’s about COVID-19, okay?  I never thought I’d say it, but that crazy lady Marjorie Taylor Greene did utter one wise thought (yes she did, bad people can say good things, i.e. I agree with Trump on free speech) when she said -- "Instead of doing all these crazy lock downs, people should lose some weight!" It's difficult to hear, but most of the people who die of COVID-19 are overweight. The fact that this crazy Qanon wingnut got booted off twitter for saying that just means… beware, everyone. When speech and thought become  crimes they will  be drawing outlines of all our bodies on the pavement. We need to say and think whatever we like honey! On pain of death, or just on having having to read a solipsistic, narcissistic diatribe like this.

I am on

the train beside a madwoman. I hope she doesn’t read this. She is very small, has long straggly hair -- constantly runs her fingers through it -- then waves those fingers in my general vicinity. She also has a gigantic suitcase about the same size as she is, and when she arrived she tried  to shove it into the bin above the seat. Everyone around said — ‘No No! It won’t fit!" I refused to help her for that reason. The suitcase almost crushed her; she almost fell to the floor, but I rescued her, and then insisted she put the suitcase somewhere else. Whew. She doesn’t seem to know anything about train protocol (‘Where is the bathroom ? Am I permitted to go now?’) She is now slumped down in her seat in her track suit sleeping(?), I think she just craves attention before mainlining whatever drug is the cause of her crazy. She is part of the new normal. During COVID-19 no one traveled, and when we did, we weren’t allowed to sit together — now we are packed together like sardines wacko beside wacko. Speaking of the future, here’s what to expect:
1. People Will Be More Divided
It looks like ‘health’ will take the place of race, and gender and sexuality as the primary issue of the day — i.e. maskers vs anti-maskers. Like all excellent polarisation issues, this one is a matter of life and death Those who hate homosexuality think we are killing you with AIDS, those who hate abortion think women are killing babies, those who want to give their children puberty blockers believe that if we don’t we are killing trans children, and now those who do not wear masks are killing you -- but especially your children — even though children don’t even get very sick with COVID-19 (don’t listen to anything they tell you about kids and COVID-19, it’s just  news porn, and fun for you to worry about, but that’s all it is, trust me). Add to that each ‘side’ has been online chumming it up with their dumb counterparts, the thickheaded numskulls on Facebook who scream  ‘Anit-vaxers should be shot!’ or, conversely ’Vaccinations will kill you.” Well they can eat each other for all I care, but they may accidentally munch on me in the process; so I am forced to pay attention. It’s all about conspiracy theories — the Anti-vaxers believe the government is trying to kill its citizens, and the Vaccinators think the Anti-vaxers are trying to kill everyone. But you may say— ‘The  anti-vax movement is a lie.’ It is, But everyone’s lying these days anyway, and that doesn’t give you the right to hate someone who doesn’t want to get vaxed, or to want to kill them. But you will, anyway. That is the new normal.
2. People Will Hate Other People More
If there’s one thing COVID-19 taught us, is that we don’t need other people. Don’t believe any of those commercials where vaccinated people are running into each other’s arms — hugs, kisses and certainly oral sex are now officially suspicious activities. You see, humans work like this: they fear everything until it becomes humanised. (The Nazis were able to kill Jews because they became un-human to them.)  As the world becomes less human,  it becomes more dangerous. You have spent a year in a half being  told the only way we will survive is by not reaching out and touching a person of another colour, a queer, or just anyone outside your little tribe. This is going to screw us up.
4. Nothing Works
You will have to go online for everything now, and nobody is going to answer the phone anymore, because they work from home. Everything will break i.e. be hacked, and no one will know how to fix it. The world will become more and more dysfunctional. Now that we have been told our lives revolve around the internet — bad people will try and destroy our lives by destroying it.
5. The best way to survive is be  human if you  can, i.e — have lots of sex with lots of strangers, talk to strangers, assume anyone who is different from you is probably a good person, and constantly touch other people, and — most important — stay off social media at all costs, and avoid the internet when you can. You must see Pig — a new movie with Nicholas Cage.(It’s funny that people are falling all over themselves to assure us this is not a ‘Nicholas Cage movie.’) In one scene (in a restaurant) Cage talks to a chef — and in doing so, says it all. I don’t want to spoil it, but Pig is about a man who loves a specific pig more than anything else (he specifies that he does not have sex with the pig it's not that.) In this movie, you must read  'a pig’ -- as 'a human being' (remember pigs are nearly as smart as us, and for sure smarter than the guy who is cursing you on Facebook presently!). Last night I did my bit to survive the new normal, I went to a strip club and happened upon a young man there who was once in a play I directed. He is now a porn star. Wow. Please don’t rush to be in one of my plays. His case is quite unique. When I worked with him, I found him very ‘interesting’ -- kinda beautiful in an odd way, very original, and perhaps on the autism scale. I really liked him. So I got his phone number. I don’t want to screw him necessarily. But he is doing his part to keep us all human by having as much sex as possible. You can rant all you want to against porn, but sex trade workers are kind of like Gods, so please try and be nice — even if being nice is  not part of the 'new normal.'
6. I think the very strange woman beside me on the train is masturbating. I think the man in the couple in front of me is talking to the baby in his wife’s belly. These are people. We must somehow learn to live with them. It's the only way,

I feel an

obligation to my two faithful readers, I know I have at least two. One of them is a dear friend who keeps saying “Where are your blogs? I live vicariously through you!” Which I’m sure is unusual, as I stand as a case study in how not to life your life. What has happened is merely this; I’m trying to enter the world again. Those damn blogs took five hours a day to create — two hours of movie — three hours of writing. It was a perilous daily deep sea dive into a underwater cave when there was nothing else to do; but now I must exit the cave and stand in the sun, naked. I can’t begin to tell you how difficult that is. Have you noticed? First of all I don’t trust that anything is actually going to happen again. Then there is the craven nature of the Toronto theatre community. What are you doing? What are you afraid of? As far as I know, theatres in Ontario are permitted to open today at 50% capacity. So what's up, Ontario? People have been going to plays in Montreal for quite some time. I hesitate to speculate, but of course I will, could it be that COVID19 is an excuse? Could it be that the incredible socio-cultural changes (#MeToo, BLM etc) are causing theatres to take time to deal with well — whatever it is they have to deal with? I won’t imagine — yes I will — the endless, fraught, boring, vile, accusatory meetings, as theatres become social work, and it’s suddenly necessary to please everyone in the community, and theatre artists become politicians who must placate their audience, rather than innovators who lead. I hope I’m mistaken, I hope the next six months is just about putting in new air filtration systems and sanitising the seats. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great that women will no longer be abused (good luck just slapping a  new coat of paint on that!) and trans people will no longer be neglected and rejected, but shouldn’t theatre be about something other than ideas? For the great artists, ideas are just fodder, tools, you throw them in the audience’s face but you, yourself don’t actually believe anything, except that the world is scary and delightful, brimful of sex, candy, death, and putrefaction; and difficult to define, in words — but something you wish to have your audience experience during the two hour traffic of the stage. All you can do if you are an artist (I stole this from James Baldwin) is try and somehow understand the riddle of the world —but not by articulating it, or god forbid solving it. Well, one part of my life is solved; sex. My abandonment issues are over (for now). I thought it would all go away — that I was too old, that no one would ever want me again. Okay: so he was about 6’4”, furry, breathtakingly handsome, lean, probably an older man (but still younger than me) and from the moment he entered my room at the baths I knew he was taking charge. That’s all I really need. And I  realise now that I was rehearsing — all those years as a breathless feminine drag queen  — and have now compressed that into what has become my requisite sexual rputine. (If you’re going to have sex with me don’t bother, as I’m going to tell you how it usually goes). I become a shy, yearning, doe-eyed female in straight porn movies -- or a semi-reluctant, moaning, yielding boy in the gay ones. Every touch — that is every touch of his — is magic; he likes that  and continues to touch me. I’m in agony and ecstasy and he has all the power. Let’s get the distasteful stuff over with. Yes, there was a teeny-weeny bit of strangling, but I trusted that he was acting, he only took it so far, and yes, he put it inside me, and yes it was heaven. Is that euphemistic enough for you? I must differentiate between euphemism and euphuism. The first I detest; my life has been devoted, up until now, to telling it like it is, it’s what’s gotten me into so much trouble, like when I said that Viveck Shraya was homophobic (latest infraction) or that perhaps HIV was not the sole cause of AIDs (my midlife misdemeanour) or that sex is good and everyone should be doing it constantly (I make that mistake all the time, to this day). I know I should just talk about how lovely dogs are (i.e. actual dogs, not gay male ‘pups’) and how thrilled I am to be doubly vaccinated. Aren’t you thrilled? Doesn’t it just give you a tingling sensation knowing the blood clots got somebody else, and you are squeaky clean -- in anticipation of the fourth wave (or is it the third; I’m such a ditz)? Anyway, I digress, yes euphemism is what an artist doesn’t do, it’s what Rod McKuen did. Euphuism is something else; it is the key to Shakespeare and all Elizabethan writing. I am convinced now that Shakespeare was John Lyly and invented euphuism -- which is simply language for the sake of language in the tradition of the Greek rhetor Gorgias — and the beauty of that language is its own persuasion. It cares not for truth, and yet it does. The truth is in the spaces between the things you say, and in what does not make sense, but primarily in the contradictions. I have a date tonight with an older man, his name is Roger (pronounced Roget) and we are meeting at the Eagle in Montreal. To me, it’s like a dream -- that I might have friends in the town where I mostly just screw and don’t as yet have a stick of work to call my own (i.e. theatre work). But I am trying to talk to the guys at the baths more. I really am. Mikey, I think that was his name (on Wednesday night) was a hardcore submissive, and he mentioned dogs in just the right way (i.e. that he was one) and serviced me mercilessly. There was something about him that makes me think he is working class, and that he hangs out under the bridge in Hochelaga. (That's a secret place; we mustn't talk about it, so I won’t.) I will be back. I promise -- not that any of you care!  But I have to get out there and feel it all eat it all (not food) and submit. Perhaps I will submit until I disappear; but remember you will always find me here, eventually.

Every day I

hate this lock down more. When we returned to Hamilton today the GO station doors were locked. They decided to close it because —- why? More buses are running, but the station is closed because of COVID-19? Stop the insanity!!! This was Susan Powter’s 1990s diet catchphrase and nothing could be more appropriate — other than perhaps: “I’m mad as hell and I’m not taking it anymore!” (i.e. Network). I’m tired of being schizophrenic, a split personality — sexually frustrated and drowning in friends in Toronto -- having sex every night, but no friends at all, in Montreal. (Oh whine whine you say.) The newspapers are filled with articles about how difficult it will be for people who haven’t left the house for a year to hug other people again.  Oh — ‘boo hoo!' What about all of us who have been attempting to have a life for over a year, calling people every other day, begging them to spend time with us, walking when we don’t want to walk, trying to find things to talk about with people who we see every day -- because there is no one else to see, getting tired of people who we love — or used to love — but now we question everything —including ourselves — because there is no variety change surprise excitement suspense, there is nothing but a vast wasteland of endless sameness. And to be confronted with what might be our own self? And  to be bored to death with it? But this is not me! I have sex, go to the theatre and hug my friends (sometimes simultaneously!). Jesus H. Christ (as my Dad used to say)! Better Davis is all bug-eyed in In This Our Life — I have no idea why this movie has that title, nor can I -- or anyone else -- explain why it is about two sisters with male names: ‘Stanley’ (Davis) and ‘Roy’ (Olivia de Havilland). This movie is also quite schizophrenic — halfway through I figured out it was an ‘anti-racism’ movie (all very admirable — the novel it was based on won a Pulitzer Prize), before that I thought it was just a melodrama about a selfish slutty woman — who Davis plays to a tee. But unfortunately, Davis is a bit bug-eyed —  always a sign she doesn’t like her part. Olivia de Havilland is forced to play Melanie from Gone With the Wind -- yet again— she’s so nice you just want to smack her. There are echoes of Gone With the Wind throughout — Davis’ character is very ‘Scarlett,’ George Brent looks like Clark Gable —and even Mammy’s here! (Hattie McDaniel!). The ‘Good Witch' from The Wizard of Oz (Billie Burke) is also present, and so is Lee Patrick. I’ve mixed them up for years, the reason being (IMDB tells me) -- not only do they look alike, but they both played Leo G. Carroll’s wife in Topper (the movie and TV show, respectively). I am Bette Davis in this movie. All I care about is myself (that should be obvious by now). I am very impatient and not easily satisfied. I just want to dance all the time, smoke, wear pretty dresses, pick up a different man every night, and drive fast cars. I have no sympathy, empathy or actual human warmth; I am such a narcissist I make Donald Trump look like your kindly grammy. Yes you will find me, like Davis, all alone in a bar full of men, smoking and shaking my can, while they try and ignore me -- until I leave. Then Walter Huston the bartender (John Huston — his father and the director — gave him a bit part) says “I hope she breaks her neck.’ Indeed  eventually she kinda does. I have no doubt I will end up dead in an alley somewhere, not sure why I haven’t, I learned about life from these American movies, I was shaped by what I would call the ‘aesthetic’ of AIDS -- which was shaped by the ‘aesthetic’ of old Hollywood movies i.e. if you live fast and look hot you are sure to die young. I’ve never actually been ‘hot’ but I’ve acted as if I was, which is essentially the same thing. I kinda got picked up last night on a patio in Montreal (we didn’t have sex, so maybe we’ll be friends). Yes, L'l ol' me. He was a retired schoolteacher, and I noticed that he was handsome, elegant, and reminded me of one of my best friends who doesn’t really like me anymore. What could be a better recipe for friendship? I told him I was an alcoholic slut, in an open relationship, with a popper problem — which I think is an extremely accurate assessment of myself at the present time. He seemed somewhat entranced; we’ll see. I think he might be sexually attracted to me, and I’m sexually attracted enough to him to have sex with him, but if we don’t have sex that’s perfectly fine too. Actually I was simply flattered because he laughed at my jokes. That’s how pathetic I am! I’m trying desperately to make you laugh here — am I trying to hard? Is my mascara running, the sweat pouring from my brow,  due to my backbreaking effort at being eternally captivating? On my last night in Montreal I watched the strippers -- wistfully-- before sailing out the door to the bathhouse. It's really not so much about their beautiful penises (there, I said that word, but in a very chaste sentence!). It’s about the fact that they are compelled to show them to us, and really do enjoy doing it -- no matter how much they claim it's only for the money. There was a boy at the ‘Bearwear’ store (ashamed to admit I shopped there) with the most luscious skin. I almost told him that. Thank God I did not. I bought a sequinned tank top. It’s in my closet in Hamilton now; how appropriate. Trust me; I really am very entertaining, I am also selfish, I love to dance, and I’m very good at ruining people’s lives; driving them to suicide, that sort of thing. I’m sure I would be the life of any party. Will you please invite me to one? If not, I’m liable to accidentally kill somebody, then engage the police in a car chase, and then drive myself off a cliff. I see Bette Davis’ face as she looks at herself in the rear-view mirror. It’s a valiant death — all of the best people go that way, they do not expire peacefully, in their sleep. At least it will be sudden. And I will be as self-obsessed in death as I was In This Our Life.

When it comes

to Baby Doll — what was all the fuss about? It was the Catholic Church’s Cardinal Spellman who denounced the film from the pulpit  in apparently unprecedented fashion, calling it a “moral danger.” Yes there is something shocking in it, but there was something much more shocking about Warner Bros  changing the title of Tennessee Williams' play 27 Wagons Full of Cotton to Baby Doll. Then there’s the publicity photo they decided on -- Carroll Baker (a 25 year old woman) curled up in a baby’s crib sucking her thumb. Okay, so this is all about sexualizing children (bad). Or is it just ubiquitous? Are we  not all hypocrites? What healthy heterosexual male doesn't find teen-age girls attractive? I was standing at a bus stop the other day in Montreal. There was a young woman wearing a plaid Catholic schoolgirl skirt. She looked young enough to be a schoolgirl — but she was also wearing an exemplary pair of  ‘Mary Janes’ -- a schoolgirl's buckled shoe -- which I immediately recognised as a fetish object, as a male friend of mine used to get orgasms simply from putting them on. So she could very well have been a prostitute. No,  children should not be sexualized by adults, but we fetishize youth — that’s just the way it is, so stop pretending it never happens. But Baby Doll is not about feshizing youth — it is about a young woman discovering her own sexual desire, moving from being objectified by her older husband (Karl —the nose! — Malden) to a loving relationship with the handsome self-confessed ‘wop’ Eli Wallach. The scene which shocked so many people is the one where Wallach woos Baker. There is nothing wrong with it; it's a celebration of a young woman's sexual maturation. It’s also incredibly hot (it made me horny). We pretend we are shocked by sexualising children, but what really shocks us is the the idea that a woman might  urgently desire a handsome man. Interesting though, that the priest who denounced this film (Francies Spellman) in the name of the Catholic Church also happens himself to have recently been denounced by Michaelangelo Signorile as "one of the most notorious, powerful and sexually voracious homosexuals in the American Catholic Church's history.” The sight of a ‘sexually voracious’ closeted homosexual priest attacking a gay playwright (Tennessee Williams) triggers me. I’m in Montreal. And I have spotted my nemesis the Toronto Reverend Brent Hawkes. I say ‘my nemesis’ because I’ve always detested him -- first because he made virtue signalling popular even when no one else was doing it -- disguising himself as a paragon of moral purity while at the same time getting up to some pretty suspicious activities with underage men. But that’s not why I hate him. I will never forget about 35 years ago (and I don’t hold on to a lot of grudges, I don’t) when Buddies in Bad Times Theatre (my own theatre at the time) was in deep trouble because Toronto city councillor Rob Ford and Christian Right Activists were blocking us from taking over what would become our home at 12 Alexander Street. We knew that public support from the ‘Right Reverend Hawkes’ would be crucial for us -- as the Christian numnuts had labelled me a misogynistic sadist, and called our theatre an orgy palace and  den of sin and debauchery (something which we attempted to be but could never quite achieve). Hawkes refused to come out in support of our theatre; for him (and some of the gay community) we represented s/m, promiscuity, and camp, all of which they hoped would go away (it did pretty disappear quite soon, as what Hawkes represented has now come into vogue for queers everywhere — virtue signalling, TVSAFE-unsexy-RuPaul drag queens, church attendance, support of the police, and the adoption of children. Well everywhere I look I see Brent Hawkes. He hasn’t turned up at the baths yet thank God — but I saw him and his ubiquitous partner walking down the street. And lo and behold I was sitting in Le Stock (my favourite strip bar) and they were right behind me. He has been known in the past to come up to try and apologise to me — mumbling something to the effect of “Sky why this negativity —." Oh dear.Well this negativity ain’t goin’ nowhere, baby. If you are gay and in Montreal (living or visiting or whatever) it is likely for one reason; you are an inveterate slut, a low-life, looking for nefarious nelly and non-nelly males to have you way with. I would have no problem with anyone else being here for that reason, but I can't abide Hawkes here, still pedaling his hypocritical, unpalatable, public display of virtue. My old friend Christopher Newton once described the type of play he was forced to schedule at the Shaw Festival just to fill seats and keep the board happy.  He called it ‘the Vicker’s Knickers.' At one point the vicker runs ends up running around with his pants around his ankles chasing some screeching wench. When I see Brent Hawkes I can’t get that image out of my mind. On the positive side, last night at the baths I met the same man I caught balancing a cookie on his you-know-what last summer. At least I think it was him, I don’t forget such a gorgeous prodigious member easily, And he was the same; tall, tattooed with an inch of his life, lean, muscled OMG! I choked on that monster for as long as I could, and then stupidly I tried to insert the thing my you-know-where but that was impossible — which I think he realized — he’s probably tried that with others before to no avail — as such a venture would be like shoving the Leaning Tower of Pisa into a paper straw (I’m thinking about the environment, even now).  I’ll never suggest we try that again. I hope he comes back. When I’m choking in that particular fashion it wipes the image of Brent Hawkes clear out of my mind. Like Carroll Baker in Baby Doll I defend to the death my right to desire the ‘wop’ of my choice.

I watched The

Fugitive Kind because I'd heard it was a failed Tennessee Williams play. In fact it is. There is just not enough conflict, and the bad guys are simply bad and the good guys simply good. It’s a bit of a lecture too -- a beautiful one at times, about the difficulties for those who are of the ‘fugitive kind’ -- a bird that can never land,  must always be in the air. Yes, certainly I get it. I’m that kind of bird, and it has caused me endless trouble. But you’re just supposed to want all the ‘fugitives’  -- Anna Magnani, Marlone Brando and Joanne Woodward  -- to get together and be happy -- and that’s kind of impossible for fugitives -- by definition. And then Anna Magnani’s mean husband Victor Jory burns her dream to the ground at the (sorry spoiler) end. What to say about Marlon Brando? He was 36 -- a tad too old for the part-- (like Magnani) but still breathtakingly beautiful. However the lizard-skin jacket -- well, I'm not quite buying it. The same for  his perpetual mumbling.Williams was very much writing about his lover Frank Merlo, and every other young man who he spilled his seed upon, and he writes about him lovingly. and makes this sort of male prostitute-ish character — i.e. the much maligned desired male — into somewhat of a real person. But Brando is an angel; his name sounds like saviour (Xavier). Again, a bit much. It’s all a bit much. Anna Magnani is astounding as usual; everything she does is real. And Joanne Woodward manages to be beautiful but not sexy, few can manage that (except perhaps Meryl Streep). The film is virulently anti-racist, and that’s good. But I hate preachy plays. There is a subtler and more controversial theme -- at least for us these days -- about the importance of art, as Brando and Maureen Stapleton (Vee Talbot) are both artists — she a painter, he a musician. Brando’s guitar means everything to him, he won’t let anyone touch it (gee -- what else might he be that protective of?). But he only plays it once, and is dubbed (Elvis Presley was supposed to play the part which would have made more sense). Stapleton goes blind (I think, the scene happened so quickly -- she appears in the distance yelling ‘I can’t see!’) And people keep threatening to take Brando’s guitar. All this makes sense if Brando is ‘Opheus’ but also I think this is all about Tennessee Williams sensing that his writing career was nearly over -- that the critics were trying to take away his guitar. Stanley Kauffman wrote that article in 1966 saying gay playwrights were undermining American culture, and the love of William's life -- Frank Merlo -- died in 1963, and basically Williams had nary a success after 1964.  I can’t imagine someone taking away my guitar (i.e. this writing) but I’m sure it will happen, especially if I continue to say the kind of things I am about to say here, now. Theatre Passe Muraille is suggesting, for Canada Day, that we read The Truth and Reconciliation Report ‘with them’ (whatever that means). I have nothing against the Truth and Reconciliation Report (except the title is too long), but the fact that a theatre has told you to read a certain political document -- one  that has a certain political point of view -- is offensive to me, and offensive to art. How many times do I have to tell you that I never wrote plays saying 'gay is good,' I wrote about what bastards gay men are, and got in a lot of trouble with my own community. Gay men are horrible wherever you go, I should know, I’m in Montreal and I’ve been having sex with as many horrible men as I can (it's research). When I ran Buddies I never made rules saying we wouldn't do work that was homophobic, or that we would only do plays by queers -- there was no 'screed.' Never mind, if you are an artist but not a polemicist you might just as well just send in a letter of resignation saying “I am not worthy, please burn everything I have created.” I have some friends who are already doing this — if I was to burn all my books I might as well just set myself on fire —  as I am them. What's the difference between IKEA and The Holocaust Museum? I was at IKEA with my ever-controlling partner the other day (we shall call him partner after what he put me through-- none of this 'lover' stuff) and I happened to notice that not only are The Holocaust Museum and IKEA essentially nightmares, but they are set up in exactly the same way. The sadists who designed the enthralling Holocaust Museum (it is beautiful architecturally, conceptually) designed it so that you cannot wander around and visit things at random you have to go through the museum in chronological order, visiting the various terrifying incidents one by one -- as if you were a Jew watching your life disintegrate. Similarly, in IKEA you cannot turn around and go back, you must view the various furniture 'stagings' in a manner that has been decreed by IKEA management, and it is generally torturous and frightening and claustrophobic (like The Holocaust Museum) that is, if you have the notion that you are an independent human being, not just an automaton who buys things. My partner is no amateur sadist. It was precisely at the moment when I said ‘I can’t stand this anymore I have to go home!’ when he decided that he would take another hour picking out bed sheets (striped or white, what do you think?). But that’s love for you, isn’t it? (I mean, my putting up with that is love, isn't it)? Or maybe it’s just s/m — as in, when you think that you can’t take anymore your ‘master’ just goes a little bit  beyond your limit, and then your tits are sore as hell the next day. Mine certainly are. I was drunk as a skunk at the bathhouse last night of course. Then this guy came along and twisted my tits while I moaned like a lady, gazing up at him imploringly with my big 'baby-hazels.' It turns out he was a massage therapist. He was kind. And when Tennessee was writing great plays (unlike this one) he said something about that. And it all had to do with strangers. Or something.