Will Smith’s appalling

action at the Oscars would just be silly, if it wasn’t for all its frightening implications. It all started when I caught Sean Penn commenting on the war in the Ukraine on CNN (you are behind schedule in terms of virtue signalling if you haven’t yet got your 'I support Ukraine’ bumper sticker). Penn — coaxing us all to whine ‘why don’t you just shut up you idiot actor’ --  was jawing on about how disgusting it would be if the Oscars didn’t acknowledge the war in the Ukraine. Here again politics consumes art; at that point I certainly wasn’t going to watch the boring, stupid Oscars (so afraid of a woke misstep that they don't have the guts to hire a lone host) but I turned it on for five minutes, for old times sake, and was shocked and appalled. Some dumb actress was going on about ‘diverse representation’ in Disney's Little Mermaid wearing a dress that was split up to the navel, and a little tube top she was bursting out of. Does our hypocrisy have no bounds? No, none at all. I shut it off, then went to the news this morning and the big CNN question was the same one that has been plaguing the mentally ill for weeks: ‘Will Putin use Nuclear weapons?’ Well if he does we’ll all be dead, so who cares really? Only networks care, as they are making a huge wad of money scaring the living daylights out of us. So I turned to the local news— it’s the only place, by the way, you can get any real news these days  — I mean about art, entertainment, the world, and non-white people (i.e. the un-Ukrainians). So there was the Will Smith slap moment. Wow. I almost wished I’d watched the Oscars. Rumour has it that they gave Smith the Oscar for his performance at the Oscars -- not just because he finally revealed he’s too old and tired to worry about his abs anymore, in King Richard. Let me explain this moment to you, and what it means. It means the end of art. Chris Rock, in case you haven’t noticed, is a real ‘artist’— at least in my opinion, he is friggin’ talented as hell, and manages not only to be political but apolitical too, as his humour is dark and politically incorrect and yes, truly funny (he should have been hosting the Oscars). The only loyalty Chris Rock has is to humanity, and history, and truth, his own personal truth as a standup comic, and I would say, for this reason, his work runs at least neck and neck with art. Well, anyway, it seems we are not allowed to make jokes anymore. Nothing is funny. That’s the lesson in Will Smith’s crazy unhinged moment. Because with humour, as soon as you say ‘I draw the line there’ you have cancelled all the fun. Similarly, when you say, about art (for adults) everything should be allowed except (I don’t know, negative comments about trans people, perhaps?) you have erased the entire history of art, and you have condemned art to a boring and inoffensive future which means, politics. What this moment said was that in this battle between politics and art, politics has won. As I understand it (and it’s very complicated to understand why Will Smith was ‘offended’) Rock made a joke about Will Smith’s wife’s haircut — which is due to an illness (that’s where the 'politic' comes in, I mean come on, Jada Pinkett Smith is a victim? — oh yeah, right, I forgot, she’s an enormously wealthy, talentless, movie star, victim — pardon me I forgot to feel sorry for her)  i.e. she has  alopecia. So Rock cannot tell a joke because the punchline rests on the vicitmization of the disabled (?) (Oh I guess we can’t quite call her disabled -- so, the ill poor little rich girl, Jada Pinkett Smith.) No, we can’t have art anymore; it might hurt somebody’s feelings. That’s the crux of it. But there’s more. So Smith, then when he receives the Oscar (as I say, for his performance at the Oscars, bravely disabling art) he apologizes (sort of) in his acceptance speech. He starts out with ‘Richard Williams was a fierce defender of his family.” Then he mentions God. He goes on to say he ‘protected’ the two actresses while making the movie King Richard. Then he talks about love and rivers. And then he cries and speaks of ‘disrespect’ and calls Chris Rock 'the devil.’ Consequently, he got a standing ovation. Well we now know what the sides are: do you stand with art and entertainment -- with  beauty, poetry, and inscrutable truth? Or are you on the side of God, the family, love, rivers, and victims? No contest. THERE WILL BE NO MORE ART! Will Smith and the Oscars killed it. Fine. But the whole debacle cannot be left behind without speaking of Smith’s unabashed and repellent sexism. So his wife -- and by inference any man’s wife -- must be protected from hurt. But what is the nature of the hurt that Smith is protecting his wife from? Verbal hurt. I have no problem with a man defending a woman from physical violence -- because men are generally stronger than women and do have a responsibility to protect them when they are physically abused. But no modern, adult, woman in this post-feminist culture needs to be protected by her husband from someone’s hurtful remarks. That was Victorian ladies. Never mind that words are not violence (if they are, then, again, it is the end of art). And secondly -- well aren’t you a big brute of a sexy motherf-r Will Smith? You cave man, you neanderthal. Let’s just get it on, you hot cookie, you are a real man! A real man protects his woman. Yeah. There are other politics going on here too (which I won’t comment on because I am no expert). But I know the end of art when I see it. Oh, by the way at the funeral of art (to be held soon) please don’t sing, alright? A) it might spread the new COVID-19 variant and B) well -- you know --  it might be ‘offensive.'

A recent article

in the New York Times — "Everyone Is Gay on TikTok" —  informs us the latest trend in social media is watching young men kissing and caressing online. There is nothing new about this, of course, people have been watching porn on the net for a long time -- in fact I would suggest that porn is the reason for the internet. No one talks about the ubiquitous world of digital porn, though, they just watch it in secret. And I mean not just hard core porn — I mean every time you click on a photo of a celebrity in a bathing suit. We like digital technology because it is a very private and titillating place to view photographs of naked people; the fact that it does our banking is a necessary and ultimately regrettable side effect. Period. But all that aside, this ‘new’ TIkTok trend is technically not porn. This is young straight men posting photos and videos  of themselves spooning, necking and caressing other young men. These photos and videos get a lot of clicks. (Duh!) As well they should. The young men are beautiful and we live in a youth centred culture.  As usual, the subtext of this article is ‘things are getting better.’ The story goes: 'Many years ago everyone was so homophobic! Straight boys would never have thought of posting pictures of themselves playing around sexually! Now, times have changed!  Young men think it’s trendy to be gay!' This is a stinky pile of bull crap. People love to imagine how much better things have gotten for gay men since gay marriage —  and gay men are the worst ‘Pollyannas’ of all — as their culture disappears, and young gay men mainline their lives away in an alarming gay crystal meth epidemic, gay men continue to insist we are just like straight people, and 'Hey, we even vote Conservative!' We are complicit in the denial of homophobia, so it just goes on and on. But why isn’t it true that things have gotten better  for gays and lesbians since gay marriage? Well, they have gotten mildly better, yes. However, though can change the law you can't change the human heart. Civil rights legislation ultimately makes things worse. It the reason for the appalling racism that is consuming America today. (Just as Roe vs. Wade is responsible for the present fierce, activist opposition to abortion). I am not opposed to legalizing gay marriage, or legalizing abortion, or civil rights for people of colour. But though legislation may temporarily open a few doors to the unfortunate victims of hate and prejudice, there are many who will not let a little thing like the law change their minds. They know what they think — or rather what they believe — and are deeply, intuitively, and emotionally attached to their hate. Okay, if people are still homophobic, don’t these TIkTok games at least open up a tiny window for tolerance? Um, no. It’s important to remember that these boys are categorically not gay; that’s the whole point. The little games they are playing are akin to all the straight boys -- a few years ago -- who would hug their best friends -- or even kiss them on the cheek -- and spout -- ‘No homo!’ Straight guys can get away with any sort of horseplay if the unstated agreement is that they are not gay. Professional sports are based on this premise; as is straight male culture in general. Eve Sedgwick calls it ‘the homosocial.’ Straight men love each other, bond with each other, and touch each other, with the subtextual agreement that all of this does not threaten their sexuality because they are not gay. I am not saying all men are gay; but Kinsey talked about ‘the spectrum’ —  still very threatening to people — that most of us are bisexual. That does not mean that we all have sex with both genders, but that most of us are capable of being turned on by same sex as well as heterosexual antics, but that doesn't mean we want to act on those desires. However, our culture demands labels: are you gay or not? Are you transgender, or transexual? Are you genderqueer, or non-binary? What are you exactly, and why? Fitting into these categories is all that’s required; the spectre of the spectrum is conveniently forgotten. Anyway, these TikTok boys are never going to have real sex with each other (or at least if they do, they are never going to admit it). It’s like Madonna pretending to be a lesbian — and it's why the closeted Cindy Crawford campaigned to have a photo of herself shaving K.D. Lang on the cover of Vanity Fair. It’s all bout the ‘clicks.’ The important thing to remember is that for us fags and dykes sex is a serious issue. It’s important to us. If it wasn’t we wouldn’t endure the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune, the difficulty of getting anywhere important career-wise if we are out, and if we do get somewhere, like I have (yes I am ’privileged,’ and yes I admit it) — being condescended to. (When I tell people I have a Ph.D. they often say ‘good for you!’ The subtext is ‘wow, you’re a promiscuous drag queen and yet you managed to get a Ph.D.!’) When I say we are ‘serious about sex' I mean sex means a lot to us; it’s a central part of our lives. This is why ‘trans’ is winning the battle of public opinion right now, over ‘gay' — because by definition gays and lesbians admit that sex is important to them. Being gay means — sorry you adorable TikTok boys! — getting down on your knees and sucking dick and getting screwed up the ass by a big fat you-know-what. It’s not about kissing and hugging — though that’s nice too (straight sports figures and lots of Italians have been doing that in public for eons) and though those photos are lovely to look at, this particular sad old faggot is not impressed.

I am going to

write about something of no importance. Lesbians. It’s important to write about things of no importance, because so much ink — or rather so many YouTube videos (the modern equivalent) is/are being spilled about the Ukraine. What about the one million Uyghurs presently in concentration camps in China? What about the Taliban locking young women out of secondary schools? What about the violent extremism spreading in West Africa? For some reason this information is not important for Western audiences to consume. Or perhaps we're just not interested? (Could it be because those victims are non-white?) So today I’m going to review the 1980 film Out of the Blue which is about a young dyke. Yes, I know, who cares about young dykes? Well I do. I used to know a lot of young dykes, used to hang out with them, loved them, in fact (no not in a physical way) and there are fewer and fewer these days anywhere to love (hence the very relevant title of the protest march, a few years ago Take Back the Dyke). Out of the Blue has a fascinating history. It is a Canadian movie — believe it or not — directed by Dennis Hopper (he also acts in the movie). Hopper was called in to save the flick — some scenes had already been filmed, but he managed to rewrite it and turn it into something uniquely his own. The most accurate way to describe Out of the Blue is to say it is kind of a straight director’s version of John Water’s Pink Flamingoes — it has all the sex, the anger, the outrage, the punk, the glorious gender dysphoria, the nihilism, the raw performances, the unexpected frightening honestly that comes from a film that dares to be — no, revels in — perversity. Out of the Blue is framed by a horrifying -- but somewhat campy -- bloody, tragic moment. Dennis Hopper is speeding along in his car with his daughter (the unforgettable Linda Manz) on Halloween. They are giggling away, she, dressed as a clown, and he, drunk. They promptly — and accidentally — ram into a school bus full of kids dressed in Halloween costumes. This film spares us no gore; we see the mutilated bodies of the children dangling from the wrecked bus. (Are you still with me?) Well Hopper has been in jail for five years and is finally released. His drug addict wife (the equally unforgettable  --vulnerable, slutty, uncontrollable, Sharon Farrell — think of Farah Fawcett on drugs — well actually Fawcett was often on drugs, but you get the idea) and his butch little daughter - Manz — eagerly await his return. Well it doesn't work out. The father of one of the dead kids is out to kill Hopper, and Sharon Farrell is having sex with his best friend while Hopper gets drunk in the next room. It all ends up a violent mess. What keeps it together is Hopper’s  grounded performance as a guilty, loving but perhaps molesting father — he is heart-wrenchingly real in every moment -- and of course Linda Manz. At the end of the movie, as she makes herself up as Elvis (her idol) Hopper is banging on her bedroom door wailing to Sharon Farrell ‘I don’t want her to become a dyke!’ Not very politically correct, eh? This is the kind of movie that the obstreperous, dense and hogtied stupid activists at GLAAD would ban in a second. Yet it is the ultimate peon to radical young queerness, and believe me it is still radical to be young and queer. These years it’s so radical that it is invisible; young women who dress like boys are no longer considered either tomboys or budding lesbians. They are to be inculcated with the notion that they are 'trans,' ‘gender queer,’ or ‘non-binary’ — and are told over and over that this has nothing to do with sex. Well there was no such deceptive lingo in 1950 — Hopper knows that if his daughter wants to dress like Elvis, she also wants pussy -- just like he does -- and it drives him crazy. My favourite scene  is when Manz picks up some guy on the street —  kind of an old hippie (the movie plays out at the end of the hippie/disco era and the dawn of punk — a real Vancouver punk band The Pointed Sticks perform in the film, and Linda Manz plays the drums). Anyway, Manz picks up this repellant relic, and you think -- 'what has she got herself into?' He takes he back to a kind of drug den whorehouse, with the intention of getting high and screwing her. Manz sits opposite some hookerish woman  bathed in red light who is playing with her own pussy. We think this is going to get messy in a bad way, until Manz steals the old guy's dope and punches him out. This is the kind of dyke heroine we all know and love. I will never forget her marching down the street in her Elvis jacket, smoking like chimney, scowling at everyone and looking for trouble and finding it. Apparently Manz was the narrator’s voice in Days of Heaven (I never saw it, too long) and is now married with children. Well more power to her. We need more movies like this; we are not likely to see their ilk again for a very long time. Chloe Sevigny restored this for all to see, God bless her, because the truth is, we all know it (Deborah Soh knows it) boys who dress like girls and girls who dress like boys are often, underneath it all, queer as three dollar bills (and if they're not, the crossdressing is turning them on!). I was in a restaurant in Hamilton the other day and a strange man walked up to me and shoved a cigarette pack in my face, in a threatening way, offering me one. Then he asked me if I was a homosexual. It was really scary. This kind of thing hasn't happened to me in years. No -- homophobia is not dead. We need more films like Out of the Blue. And we need to be reminded that being queer is all about sex. And hey -- that's just fine, too.

My proclamation to

 Matthew on Saturday night was ‘I will only look at younger men, I will only screw older men.’ It really was very wise and continues to be; I am too old — the younger ones can see that, there is that turkey neck and frankly all my skin is starting to sag noticeably (most pitifully on my ass). I am no longer as pliant, I don’t bounce back. I'm assuming you adore hearing the details of my decrepitude, and if you don't, I don’t care -- stop reading, really. A journalist read this blog recently and said (in print) something like ‘Sky’s blog has turned into some sort of personal diary’ implying of course that it is useless. Well yes what I write here is useless; God help me if it was useful, there is nothing worse (as Wilde said) than writing that is useful. That might as well be an instruction manual, which is never entertaining (even when the the cartoon figures are having fun putting together that f-ing wardrobe, while you are still cursing IKEA over a missing bolt). So no, this will not, God help us, be useful. And it will not contain information — except about my increasing dementia.  Only joking (it was a poor joke) or maybe not — perhaps it was very apt— after all, one never knows. As you get older two things happen:  a) you must gradually separate from your body (that must happen, your body is not of much use to you anymore, as you will be leaving it relatively shortly, anyway) and b) you find yourself alienated from from the young, which is a good reason not to chase after their bodies. (Has any of this been useful so far? I do hope not. Hopefully you have already discerned that these observations are nutty, irritatingly personal, extreme — at least they are meant to be). So on Friday night (this is the diary part) I was chasing after the young. No, to be perfectly honest, it was worse than that. I was chasing after poppers. I must have let 20 guys into my room at the baths in Montreal (only one at a time, I'm still a lady, don't you know!!) only to reject them summarily. I rejected them because they didn’t have poppers. (Ergo, they can hate me instead of their feelings being hurt.) But of course I would have been pleasantly surprised if they did in fact, turn out to have poppers. So I rejected men who were attractive and probably nice, because I deemed them not attractive  enough. This is gay lunacy, and it's rampant on a Friday night at the baths, especially now as we all have COVID-19 PTSD in the form of ‘I’d better find a beautiful one now, because if I don’t, there could be another lockdown at any moment.’ (I hate Dr. Isaac Bogoch! I hate his ugly face when it appears at a movie theatre, siting stiffly in the trailer that features aptly diverse persons talking about COVID-19 safety measures! Get out of my face get out of my life get out of my movie Isaac Bogoch! You deeply unattractive, sad, self-important careerist fart! It’s Isaac Bogoch who drove me to this, rejecting men willy-nilly and then happily pouncing on poppers!) Well anyway I won’t tell you who I ended up with, but he wasn’t my dream man, and it was 4 in the morning. (Let’s just leave it at that, shall we?) I got up the next day; hung over, depressed and very unhappy with myself. So on the following night, when it came to the witching hour — instead of retying the birch bristles with new willow wood on my broomstick -- I made promised myself and Matthew that I would only screw older men, but continue to look at young ones. Lo and behold, beauty came my way. I must assure you that it was inner and outer beauty in the Neo-Platonic tradition. I knew he and I were meant to screw each other — not just because of his tight muscular body and petrifying ass (more about that later) and sweet face, but because he just radiated sweetness. When I started kissing him he let out an audible sigh that said: ’Oh, you kiss, thank God, and thank God you do it well!’ When you’re having sex with a nice stranger — and you happen to be sexually compatible — everything falls into place --there is no embarrassment (fear of embarrassment is key to my sexual fuckedupedness) it just happens inevitably, and yes of course, you both come when you want, how you want. Of course he may have just been pretending to be my perfect fantasy come to life.  But he was flesh and blood and goddammit I deserved him! I deserve beauty, we all deserve it. But would he have been beautiful if I had been desperately searching for the perfect younger man? (He was young by the way -- I throw that in just to brag -- and to confuse you!) And it’s not that the lighting was finally right or that I managed to finally successfully suck in my gut at the right moment. It’s that my energy was so friggin’ generous that I was open to beauty, and so beauty was open to me. Yes there was some face-sitting involving his gorgeous furry butt (You knew we’d get to that, didn’t you?) Perpetual readers of this column — and there are some, believe it or not — know that in the end, it must always comes to this.  I rid myself of my Norwegian Wood and and take a deep breath, at last, the way The Beatles do in ‘Girl’; i.e. more like a prolonged sniff, a gargantuan whiff, of love. I'm not size queen, when it comes to love; it can last only 15 minutes. And if you are skeptical of that it's you I pity, because, after all, there's more than enough pity reserved for me.

I have such

contempt for people these days. No, not all of them — well, MOST. I'm at the the train station and they are flooding onto — and off of —trains. For most, it is the first time in a very long while — these are the fragile ones, the careful ones, the special ones, I can tell as they venture forth, fully masked, (outside) with their brave little families. All is safe now; the doctors have told us we may step out into the world, so these vulnerable folks finally do, with some trepidation -- they take a breath, take a step (we can do it!). I can smell the fear— for there is so much for them to be afraid of. I, too, am afraid for the children, not because of COVID-19 no, they never had much chance of ever being sick. And yet that didn’t stop parents from worrying (and even now, the school boards warn us — might it be too soon?). But I know how these children will grow up — anxiety ridden, with ADHD, depression, gender identity disorder — painstakingly politically correct, unthoughtful — somewhat stupid in fact, but prone to pontificating endlessly in moral and political cliches — triggered by nearly everything, they will remain at home forever (even though the outdoors beckons and is permissible) in their sweatpants (a damp brown stain on the rear, but who cares?) curled up in their beds, with fake cats, or real ones, or YouTube cats, it’s all about cats —or kittens; being cozy, munching, getting fatter by the minute. Gay men learned earlier -- from AIDS -- how toxic the demand was that we cocoon.  I don’t think anyone else knew what was going on. We saw portents of the impending new isolation: the dire warnings, the unprovable conjecture that everyone believed (you may be able to get it from blowjobs, at least no one can prove  that you can’t!) the lies (I’m a virgin, and yet I have AIDS!) the forever proclamations (that’s it for me, I’m never ever going to a bar again!). But most of all, gay men watched -- less surprised than most perhaps -- as  fear took over our lives. There are now two distinct types; the frightened and the unafraid, the pessimists and the optimists. The pessimists are young, millennial, liberal/woke. The optimists are truckers, viewers of Fox News, and your Dad. To be a credible lefty now you must be afraid of everything (as you are the ultimate victim) but specifically climate change, COVID-19, racism and now, of course Russia — and you must take it all very personally. After all, you were groomed as a child to nurture your vulnerabilities, to gather a list of reasons why you would not be able to finish that assignment or do that job. Despite how hopeless it all is, the pessimists nevertheless struggle on, avoiding plastic bags, sipping from paper straws, castigating those who do too much air travel  — and who don’t have ‘diverse’ enough friends — basically all those who don't care because they are not afraid enough. I am an optimist. It’s been tough leaving ‘the left’— I still believe in social programs, and I’m an anti-essentialist (your physical body does not determine who you are) but alas, years ago I realized that I am not fragile, but strong, and that the world is a battle that must be met. And though each of us is destined for our not so unique individual tragic ending, we must try not worrying about that -- every single day, in fact it’s best not to think about it at all. Because 'living every day as if you will die that day' is not after all so much unlike living every day as if death does not exist. It will not do, to worry. I had anxiety attacks as a teen, went to see Dr. Gordon W. Tisdall who convinced me I wasn’t a homosexual (You get erections dancing with girls, don’t you? That’s a good thing!). But even after I came out the anxiety didn’t completely disappear. So to keep it at bay I now confess endlessly, it’s the only way — you have to hear it all!  You may not approve — or may not even been listening — but that will not stop me from confessing. I’ve been writing about a boy recently -- I can’t be with him now because I’ve written too much about him, what’s that about? I’m seriously considering the idea of 'fuckbuddies' again — oh dear, they never work for me. I’ve been having unsatisfying evenings in the back room at my favourite bar, but maybe it’s because I’m so drunk when I  get there I can hardly stand up (yes, that’s a double entendre!), but also (importantly) because I’m fighting the fear that is projected daily in the news; some dark-souled doctor predicting another lockdown, which may be my eventual demise...because NO —  I can’t live like that! -- I can see no better reason to stop living than when all that is important in my life has been taken away. It’s the demonization of hippies that did this to us. No one really remembers them. I met an ex-hippie the other day.  I knew him back in the hippie heyday — when I was in my early 20s — I thought then he was crazy, then. Now I realize he was just living. Yes — laughing, yelling, screwing, singing, drinking, acting, getting drugged up, disagreeing, dancing, doing things you wouldn’t ordinarily do but now do all the time, hugging strangers, screwing strangers, having orgies, casting your fate to the winds, venturing out into the night half naked on the hunt for adventure, not remembering what you did last night, being worried about what you got up to and the next day calling friends paranoid and asking them -- ‘How much of an idiot was I? Did I spit on Monica? Did I insult Austin?' ('Did I take out my dick again?')  We cursed the hippies and forgot them, but those were the days — and still are — for those who never grow up. You have to congratulate J.,M. Barrie; Peter Pan got it right. But now, most of us are very VERY old, even the young ones; they are so afraid of death they can taste it. Instead, you might try living. Pretty much nobody one else is doing it anymore, so it might offer a nice change. 

Tamara Lindeman knows

which side her bread is buttered on; these days, the road to stardom is paved only by a clearly articulated dedication to social justice. One can be assured of Tamara’s self-sacrificing nobility, as (in a recent interview for NEXT magazine) she is excessively generous in her self-denigration: "It’s been really difficult. There’s a strange thing connected with activism, especially  climate activism. If you say you care about something you’re immediately put in a box as some sort of paragon of virtue. The perception is, If you care about this, you must be a better person than me. It’s weird.”

    Poor Tamara! It’s tough being good! Whatever you say about her (and I’ve never heard her music, but her hit album is, I suspect, aptly titled Ignorance) — Tamara Lindeman has mastered the requisite rhetorical tricks; she could give Trump a run for his money. If Hermogenes taught Shakespeare one thing it was that humility is the duty of the rhetor; if we are to sympathize with a speaker we must believe they are deeply flawed and humble.

Much in the same vein,Tamara alerts us to her victimhood, grabbing for the hearts of the ‘No Worries!’ generation: “Most of the musicians I know are men… something I share with most women in music you don’t receive the encouragement to play guitar or write songs or any of that” and here the interviewer intervenes: "she  says, alluding to the often problematic cultural practice of socializing children differently based on their gender." 

        Thus, the author of this manipulative puff piece (I wish I could find their name) positions Tamara craftily not as a ‘feminist’ but a social justice activist, who is also — alluringly — possibly, trans. But the author/interviewer reaches a certain zenith of poetic subtlety when they describe Tamara’s home: "She zooms me from her kitchen, and the background reflects the unpretentious, earthy warmth of her demeanour — softly glowing fairy lights, a dried bundle of lavender, a  couple of mugs, and a carton of eggs from the breakfast she presumably just finished eating."

    Lavender, fairy lights, and well….eggs? Need I say more? These are, in case you missed it, symbols of a very sweet -- somewhat magical -- person, soft, gentle, unassuming, well-meaning and yes -- we assume -- fertile.  Tamara Lindeman (a.k.a. The Weather Station) is just one of many ‘artists’/ entertainers/ celebrities who know that these days it doesn’t much matter how good your work is, it only matters that you are on the right — or one might say more accurately — the left — side of social justice issues. I, for one, will try my best never to inflict upon you a play novel or poem about gay rights, or any other rights for that matter. I’m all for social justice, but my creative work has never been sufficiently politically correct to satisfy the powers that be.  (For instance, Toronto’s gay Xtra magazine refused to review my drag queens when they were ‘on trial’ back in 1985, wondering if drag queens are a respectful enough representation of gay men). I can never seem to tow the party line, and I’ve never been able to hide my contempt for the gay ‘lifestyle,’ while being at the same time openly addicted to it — and thus habitually and compulsively alternately venerating it and attacking it — forever. Gay culture — like democracy — is horrible and dysfunctional, but it's the best we have.  Gay porn, bars, bathhouses — and even the judgey, prissy, anti-sexual sensibility that sometimes surrounds HIV  — are ultimately necessary, as a lot of people will never get their minds around male cock-suckers and ass-fuckers, period. Trans-activism is popular these days for the precise reason that it is not in any way sexual  — as trans activists go out of their way to desperately reassure us over and over — ‘it’s not about sex it’s about gender!' This grants parents permission -- at last -- to love their femme boys and butch girls without ever even tangentially making reference to the dreaded 'nether regions.' It’s not trans people I have a problem with, it’s the ‘no gender’ politic, which is as dangerous as climate change activism. In fact, it’s not at all odd that Tamara should yank these two equally trendy but equally dangerous issues together in her quest for fame. For though the concerns about gender and climate may be in certain ways  valid — a militant obsession with them can and will lead to chilling interventions on the part of the government. I, for one, am shell-shocked after COVID-19 -- for we now know that if Trudeau is feeling self-righteous he may use anything as an excuse to take away our rights. This is why so many now despise him. His father insisted government stay out of the bedrooms of the nation, but 'Trudeau nouveau' thinks the government might just close your family business at any time, without warning, and is trying to get into your children’s underwear and help them sort  out their gender (or lack of it). It’s all pretty scary. 

Being good never

mattered as much as it does now; it’s become a kind of mania and it’s destroying our society. Well good, you may say, our society needs destroying; but I’m not so sure. I remember when I was being ‘cancelled’ by Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in 2018 I had an intrepid journalist ask me,with some frustration “Can you at least admit that you have some privilege, Sky?” I told them that yes I do have privilege — as I was born into the middle class — but I don’t necessarily think that is reason enough to silence me. Today, when I turn on the television, and I see all the propaganda about Ukrainian orphans, you will have to accept (well you don’t have to, really) that I am hard-hearted enough not only to call this out as the propaganda that it is, but to challenge the zeitgeist which has made Ukrainian orphans the focus of our news media. What has happened that the only thing that is going on in the world is suddenly the Ukraine, and it’s all pity porn, Anderson Cooper speaking with sad, fat grandmothers whose houses have just imploded? Far be it from me to deny that we should have sympathy for fat Ukrainian grandmothers, but frankly on the privilege scale they are not, after all, BIPOC or trans -- and they certainly look well fed. Am I being sarcastic — well yes, and far be it for me to state my opinion outright here, I would ask you to search for it in the miasma of innuendo that I offer, not so regularly (hope that will now change) in this very personal and private public display of my disaffection. The point is that there are (if we may be intersectional) people other than Ukrainian grandmothers — whose unfortunate lives deserve our attention and who (if you are fond of the ‘privilege’ scale) much more deserving of our attention. The war in the Ukraine is a war over oil, pure and simple. We are much more concerned here in Canada about gas prices than we care to admit, and so, ultimately is our virtue signalling Prime Minister (certainly the nicest, goodest, most virtuous prime minister we have ever had; remember - he did apologize so many times for the blackface!) and all Russia is really concerned about is the fact that after the wall fell, they lost their world monopoly on oil and gas. Alight, yes, they are also quite concerned that NATO has been pressing onto their borders, deliberately provoking Putin (like poking dog with a stick), and it’s no wonder that he feels he has to firmly set the border of Russia yet again. Yes, there are orphans looking for homes and yes Ukrainian grandmothers are crying, but — look. I just refuse to play this game anymore. Alright I admit it. You the reader, are a much kinder, gentler, sweeter, nicer, and ultimately far far gooder person than I will ever be, let’s just get that out of the way. There, are you satisfied now? I’m essentially evil and you are essential good. Okay let’s start there. Now may I continue prattling on about how incredibly hypocritical the essentially ‘good’ society we now live in is? Take The Batman — a prime example of the bullshit now being dumped on us by the arts and the entertainment industry alike. So Bruce Wayne (sorry if I haven’t followed the superhero bios closely enough)  comes from some sort of a rich and corrupt family but in this movie we are supposed to see him as a hero. Why? Well he’s an outsider, you see? And he supports social justice causes. We know he is an outsider because when he walks by, people consistently call him ‘freak,’ This means that all the kids who identify as trans -- or just different--  may wear purple loincloths and knee-length wool batiked sweaters to school, and be safe in the knowledge that they are just expressing their inner selves and their gender (it’s not about sexuality it’s about gender, why do I have to keep telling you that  over and over again, jeeze!). It means that anyone who chooses to dress differently than the norm has a right to display themselves in such a manner, and they should not lack privilege because they do so. Bravo, Batman, for you moral courage in donning that sexy outfit. Wayne’s privilege as social justice warrior is also proved by his support for the black candidate for mayor of Gotham. This is a woman who we never meet -- and hardly hear speaking -- but is nevertheless black, and a candidate for mayor, and Bruce Wayne bravely and virtuously and I must repeat right-mindedly supports her candidacy for mayor. Oh yes, and he is madly in love with Zoe Kravitz, and is obviously deeply disturbed (not because he is sleeping with Kravitz - any man in his right heterosexual mind would want to sleep with her) but because he walks about with a furrowed brow. So Bruce Wayne -- white, rich and corrupt -- gets off the hook because he has social justice sympathies, has a furrowed brow, and is turned on sexually by a woman played by an actress who is admittedly non-white -- but also Hollywood royalty (in the manner of Meghan Markle)? Art and entertainment are no longer about any content -- other than how good the creators are, and how effectively they manage to portray that goodness in their films or plays, and how often they express quite explicitly that their films and plays and novels and poems support the right social justice causes. Whatever happened to madness, inspiration, irrationality, sin, desire, the inscrutable, the invisible, passion, depravity, impulse, drunkenness, animality and whim? It’s been eaten by virtue. But I have tried (valiantly, I think!) to offer you a taste of it here. 

Our dystopian future

Is on display at your nearest GO station. I suggest you drop by and get a taste of it. I stepped off the GO in Hamilton, and boy -- was I in for a surprise!  (Or perhaps I shouldn’t say that, as service has seriously deteriorated during COVID-19. And during COVID, of course, there was ample excuse.) Well, anyway, I was very afraid when — on my return to Hamilton last weekend —  I stepped onto the hard cement of the new station at West Harbour. I hadn’t taken that particular train in awhile. As usual for GO there is no signage — or, if there is —  it’s in some sort of cartoony language with illustrations of people in dresses or pants doing odd things. These are incomprehensible unless you think in pictures (which I imagine some people do). I didn’t know how to make my way up to the the James Street exit of the station, and there was no one around — except a couple of guys in construction vests. None of them was from Hamilton though. Finally someone leaving the train yelled at me ‘It’s that way!’ so I made my way to the end of the platform. I know that the station is six flights up, and I have arthritis, so I wasn’t  about to attempt the stairs. Alas, the elevator was broken. So, I pushed a button and asked the person who answered what I should do. He seemed  annoyed that I had bothered him, and reminded me with some irritation that ‘This is the GO emergency line!". There was nothing about the sign above the buzzer to indicate it was for emergencies, just a picture of someone yelling into a speaker. (Is that universal sign language for emergency? Sorry, I was not informed….) So I had to struggle up the stairs. I opened the door to the stairway. It looked like someone might have thrown up there-- i.e. not quite digested their minestrone soup. I climbed the first flight of steps and there — on a window ledge — was a rather frightening array of drug paraphernalia. As I continue to struggled up the stairs, I heard boisterous noise— someone was certainly having fun — and when I reached the top I could see  that it was a crack party of some sort — there were a couple of guys dancing around, shirtless — and of course maskless. Wow. They seemed not to take any notice of me -- which was good, because there was no staff around, as usual. That is basically the case at all GO stations. I’m sure if you phoned GO  -- (don’t do it, I’ve tried, it’s useless) -- they would tell you they are short staffed due to COVID. But what has obviously happened is that GO has decided to go ‘people-less.' This is what our dystopian future looks like folks — there are no people in it. The atmosphere at most GO stations resembles the  famous Twilight Zone episode A Kind of Stopwatch. (In case you missed it, it’s about a man who owns a stopwatch that permanently freezes time —  he tries to talk to people but they are frozen in time and cannot respond). GO is terribly fond of its recorded announcements (“Just a reminder, to take all your belongings when you leave the bus! And don’t forget to tap off!”) which have the unfortunate effect of making me feel as if I'm in a concentration camp. But it seems GO now believes that recorded announcements and ticket vending machines will permanently replace real people. What if you’re an old woman (or a young one) taking GO at night? Are you expected to party with the crack addicts? I suppose one could. Certainly at the Hunter Street GO station they are having a very good time. As far as I can tell, the crackheads have taken up residence there. I guess that -- in what appears to be an ongoing crusade to help the homeless and addicted -- GO has made stations more hospitable for drug users — in the following ways. First, (as mentioned above) there is no staff (except for slightly frightened looking young women in vests who no one expects to control the often massive, tattooed, usually nutty crack guys who are high as kites). Second, GO has gathered most of the seating and tied it up. This means that if you are waiting for a bus you will end up sitting with a crack addict (they will probably try and chat with you — or with the air — it’s best to just smile and nod). And last but not least, GO has installed ultraviolet lighting (it kills germs!) in the washrooms. (Yay! Party!) This makes the GO washrooms look and feel a little bit like Studio 54. You may not be aware -- but homeless people are queer too -- and the last time I was in the washroom at the Hunter GO station in Hamilton, I’m pretty sure the guy living in the stall was getting it off with another homeless guy. More power to them, I say. It really is nice and thoughtful of GO to singlehandedly take on the dire, twin social problems of homelessness and crack addiction by making these guys so welcome at GO stations! A heartfelt thank you, GO!  I, for one, never had the opportunity to visit Studo 54 in New York City in its heyday -- so I am very grateful to GO for setting up a kind of pseudo-Studio 54 in the washroom at Hunter GO! Because despite COVID and lockdowns and ‘staff shortages’ people still need to live. Somewhere. And they will. And there’s just no stopping them. 

I guess that’s why they call it ‘GO.’