I never thought

 I would bother to write about some dumb Netflix action movie. But dumb movies need love to, and truly entertaining dumb movies are hard to find. I’m talking about old fashioned values here - i.e. not going nuts from boredom. I noticed The Gray Man the way I notice everything on Rotten Tomatoes — any movie that gets called ‘limp’ by the critics but has a 90% audience rating  deserves to be noticed. Let’s say the silent part out loud; Ryan Gosling is the new James Bond — the movie hints at this when he tells someone his secret agent number is ‘6’ and then adds casually ‘You know — 007 was already taken.’ Right.  What does it take to be a true action hero? It means being a great actor, which Ryan Gosling is, while at the same time oozing accidental sex appeal. Keanu Reeves (John Wicks) has only his personal appeal; whereas Gosling can actually act sex appeal; but paradoxically, whereas Keanu Reeves, is, I would argue, studiedly masculine (He’s gay isn’t he? I mean who is that old lady he calls his girlfriend?) Gosling is ‘effortlessly masculine’ -- meaning you just want to lick whatever he’s got. On top of that, Gosling makes us believe he’s a nice guy — which he may not be. But it’s not just Gosling, it’s the script — which is actually warm and witty and has real characters who you get to know, and you want to see them again and again. The action in a good action movie must make sense, you must care about what’s happening, not just think it’s ‘cool.’ So why, if this movie is the new James Bond movie in disguise, is it getting bad reviews?  Well — right now Hollywood is probably working very hard to create the new, official James Bond hero — probably a woman, non-white, and politically correct. Meanwhile the Russo Brothers (who everyone seems to hate for some reason) snuk The Next James Bond Movie onto Netflix and the critics are mad, but the public is ecstatic. I remember when I used to read the Ayn Rand Newsletter (didn’t you know that about me?) and Rand used to love James Bond. She talked about some poor hapless guy (Rand was always talking about poor hapless guys who approached her with idiotic questions) who said — ‘If James Bond opens a bottle for a girl, he always does it perfectly, but if I do it, I might mess it up. I could never be James Bond, so what’s the point?” Rand aptly pointed out that if James Bond did not pop his cork in precisely the correct manner it wouldn’t matter to him, so it wouldn’t matter to the girl either. In other words a hero is not perfect, he just makes others believe he is. This is fiction, not real life, and definitely not therapy. And no, it’s not about seeing yourself ‘represented’ up there, it’s the opposite of seeing yourself, because you are a bumbling fool and always will be. There’s no hope for you, me, or any of us, so we must see visions that are not in any way like us, i.e. Caliban who is half fish half human, or Miranda who has never seen a man before and is dangerously impressed by Ferdinand. This is fiction folks, and fiction does not teach because there must be no lessons in art. If you are a better person after reading that book or seeing that play, it is not because of ‘the message’ — but because great art has it’s source in the imagination of a person in touch with something very deep, and offers you an alternative reality which you might as well not necessarily strive for  — because you will never achieve it -- because life is dull, tragic, painful and pointless.  But this alternative reality may redeem you nonetheless. The fact that The Gray Man can’t get a completely good review anywhere — although it is an entertainment masterpiece — is a big problem. I mean you know me by now, don’t you? I desperately need to be entertained, and I am trying to do that right now — trying to keep myself from slashing my wrists on the bus on the way back to Hamilton after an uninspiring rehearsal of a play that is going to need a lot fo work. And yes I found the cat on the porch this morning (when we came back from signing that stupid piece of paper for the lawyer). How did she get out of the house? She’s not supposed to ever leave, because she’s not an outdoor cat, she’s a housecat with no front claws. Yes, that’s the brutal truth. Yes, we tortured her in that particular way, we allowed a sadistic vet (one of the only ones left who will still do it) to pull out her claws because we were selfish enough to want to keep her as well as our furniture. But as she has a tiny cat brain she loves us anyway, and after we accidentally let her out of the house this morning, there she was, chewing on a leaf, and soon after docilely submitting to being taken in. This is reality; a cat on the porch and facing your own cruelty for defanging her; it is a tale told with sound and fury signifying nothing. So when we get a chance to see something sublime (and I mean that in the Edmund Burke definition of the word — both beautiful and frightening simultaneously) it is incumbent on us to submit. Submission is highly underestimated — though it is much valued by Muslims, who made it their religion. I advise you to submit yourself to art, to the imagination, to wit, to beauty, to yes —entertainment — to senseless fictional violence, to the unknown — to all that is not real and beyond life. I don’t know how I arrived at that particular idea, but it it was The Gray Man that took me here. Odd as that sounds.

I finally figured

 out what drives me crazy about Starbucks. It’s not just that they’re all 'Woke Folk' (though they are) it’s that they’re having so much damn fun. It always irks me when the waiting staff at a restaurant is having more fun than I am. I mean they may frolic privately — but they should hide it, because their job is to serve you so that you will have fun. They are not the pleasure seekers but the purveyors of pleasure, and as such they should remain polite but silent. Strolling into any Starbucks is like attending a trans birthday bash in somebody's private home, all 'The Young Wokies' are whipping out their politically correct ‘isms, cooing their pet names at each other and sharing private inscrutable 'Woke Jokes.' Sorry guys. but I should be the one partying, not you. This used to drive me crazy years ago when I first 'came out.' It was fashionable then, to eat at Bemelmen's on Bloor. Of course all the waiters were gay, and probably screwing each other in the washrooms or the kitchen, and having a grand old gay time. And here I was, young and unsure of my new gay self, and as yet, unlaid, as I was finding it impossible to navigate the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. I resented those waiters terribly and even imagined they were laughing at me. (They probably were, as I sported an unruly curly mop top in those days, very unfashionable, which it took me nearly ten years to shave off so that I might morph into a respectable, if not exceedingly attractive, faggot.) If all this may strike you as classist, it is. I inherited it from my mother who was dastardly to all waiterly persons, in fact to any staff anywhere. Especially cab drivers. She considered all working people her private servants, and  treated them with the utmost disdain. One time she was in Port Elgin (she had followed an abusive man there; he wore 'transition lenses' — never trust anyone who wears those) and she was out in a taxi with her friend in some 'hell-and-gone' byway outside Port Elgin. Well, she started yelling at the cab driver and he (good for him) threw her and her friend out into a field in the middle of nowhere, and promptly disappeared (needless to say my mother and her friend survived). In restaurants with her I wanted to hide my head in shame because she was always browbeating some hapless waiter or other. I wanted to whisper  —“I’m sorry, even though she is my mother I know she’s a relentless bitch!’” The reason she was so classist is because she was working class -- her father was a farmer (my grandfather died young, mysteriously, in a barn fire) and my grandmother was a single mother and a teacher with no money. Because my mother (before she met my middle class father) spent most of her life struggling to make ends meet it was absolutely necessary for her to pretend she was rich, and to condescend to the 'little people.' For awhile she lived at The Sutton Place i.e. in a hotel. The moral of this (yet another tale of my mother) is that those who are most classist are often those from humble beginnings, as it is incumbent on them to shroud their origins in mystery. Noel Coward was such a person; he was born in a working class suburb and his father used to demonstrate organs in an organ store (sounds filthy doesn’t it?). Noel changed his accent, dressed up (but not too much, as he didn’t want to appear effeminate) and fooled most of the world into believing he was very upper class indeed -- which explains his affection for Princess Margaret and The Royals. Just a poor boy trying tomake good, and incidentally lying-- like a very fancy Persian rug. Noel Coward was the quintessential homosexual and always will be. Most gay men aspire to be like straights, and to be loved by them. Ever since gay marriage there’s been a kind of epidemic of this (though I’ve heard the the young are rejecting gay marriage, and I do hope so.) All this explains why you hate homosexuals so much. I know, I certainly do. (At last, the cats out of the bag, of course, I’m homophobic!) Most gay men are odious, pretentious, and repellent. But wouldn’t you be too -- if you’d gone through what they have? They resemble what James Joyce used to call ‘the New Irishman.’ These detestable men made a performance of not drinking and not being carefree and imaginative, but instead posed as down-to-earth, respectable citizens. Joyce found these ‘new’ Irishmen alarmingly pompous and wished them all dead. I must say I sometimes feel the same way about my own kind. Gay men are not effeminate because they take it up the ass, but because they are prissy, purse-lipped and uptight. They are the very definition of hypocrisy.“I draw the line there,” they say -- "I will be pissed upon but no one defecates on me!” Well, La-te-da. When Christopher Newton was my lover many years ago (I’m trying to impress you now) he  educated me in table manners -- as he said I would someday be invited to grand gay houses fro dinner.  Needless to say I wasn't. I still chow down in my own way, thank you, and have no illusions about it. And of course, I’m not talking about food. 

It’s not true,

really. That is, nothing is — and that’s the point. I haven’t written a lot of blogs, probably won’t write a lot more, mainly because I was traumatized by COVID — too many blogs — I wrote one every day and my life depended on them. My God, I’m sitting in a Starbucks in the heart of Leslieville and I don’t know if I can stand it here, the neighborhood is so bloody privileged and white and oh dear. Three girls trashed me in this Starbucks last week for walking too slow (i.e. arthritis). I told them to fuck off. They were three pretty, conceited, well-off girls and I just wanted to kill them. I said I was disabled and they had the gall to argue back— JESUS. The atmosphere in this Starbucks is incredibly toxic, everyone is super nice but at the same time totally poised to get into a fight about identity politics. And there are so many white people with babies. And so many nauseatingly perfect homosexuals. I just want to scream; but I’ll write this instead. Anyway, I have a bad taste in my mouth about blogs, after Covid-19. Strange, as I was fine after having my life somewhat destroyed by The Vivek Shraya Blog — or thought I was  fine— but it was writing movie blogs everyday during COVID that really did me in. I felt like a word whore, a literary prostitute; I was writing just to get through the day. But also what’s the point of expressing your opinions anymore? People are so generally hateful and eager to dismiss you as evil. Civil discourse is over as far as I’m concerned, so I try and keep my discourses uncivil. Like this. I wish it were a poem so I’ll try and make it more like one. I haven’t kissed a really pretty boy barely half my age — in at least a month — and it’s driving me crazy. I know I’m old and mouldy and to top it all off I’ve been suffering an arthritis attack (hence the slowness) which means I’m even scarier to the young than I usually am. Oh yes, I quite forgot (not to suddenly go all British on you!) but my therapist recently suggested that I need to not expect too much of myself anymore as I am aging. I know it sounds horrible but she’s right. In other words life just isn’t the way it was before; I’m not the centre of all things, and shouldn’t expect to be, and I should enjoy my anonymity and my work, as there is no need to get anywhere, I should just feel damn lucky that I’m still alive and have enough money to live on. Oh, by the way, can you believe all this hysteria about the two little black girls who were ignored by a mascot at a Sesame Street Theme Park? I mean yes, I would totally sympathize if it was a real human being that had purposefully ignored two black girls. But a mascot? My sister actually makes mascots (I hope she does’t mind me mentioning her) so I feel I have some sort of affinity with them. Sometimes I feel like a mascot, bobbing my way through life trying to make a good impression — but not really connecting — you know? Also a very dear friend of mine was once Polkaroo. He’s very tall and the costume fit.  (Also I was the genie in Dudley the Dragon once, and I had to act with a mascot-like creature, i.e. Dudley, which was weird.) I mean I know mascots are not real people. There are really people in them, but those real people are also trying to navigate a contraption, with fans on, and without really being able to see. And the person hiding in the ‘racist’ mascot claims that the mascot was not being racist, but just couldn’t see the girls because they were so short. That certainly makes sense to me, and I’m actually more worried about the mama of the girls turning them into professional victims by telling them that ‘Rosita’ ignored them because they were black. Let me tell you something, it’s probably better in the long run for children to come to terms with the fact that mascots may never notice you. Feeling depressed because a mascot won’t hug you is a bit like saying  “I saw Robert De Niro’ in The Godfather when I was very depressed. Yet he just refused to sympathize — and went on about The Mafia!” On the other hand what I do approve of, is that these little children obviously believe that 'Rosita,' a fictional character, really exists. I too believe that fictional characters exist. I have been reading novels by Stella Gibbons (of Cold Comfort Farm fame) and I’m telling you every one of Gibbons’ plucky little heroines is me. I live their anxiety with them, and I am obsessed with whether or not the beautiful boys they love will love them back.  If you think it’s odd that a 70 year old Doctor of Philosophy (i.e. me) imagines himself a teenage girl now and then — well get used to it. I never had a proper adolescence. This morning I was reading  Margaret Mead who was talking about the Polynesian Islanders sending their teenagers into little huts to experiment sexually when they reach adolescence --yet there were no unwanted pregnancies, and the kids turned into  happier adults than you or I. I never had my gay adolescence when I was supposed to — so I still want boys to notice me, and I’m still mortally wounded when they don’t. (Sigh!) Maybe that's why I shouldn’t write blogs. They become embarrassingly personal, as it’s useless to try and convince you of an actual idea anymore — as you’re all so set in your ways and resistant to thought. So all I can hope for is to send you a postcard from my reality, which, like any postcard, will be wacky, sad, and a little confusing. “Having a great time. (I think!) Wish you were here! Oh by the way, who are you?"

THE FORGIVEN is

a gorgeous film by John Michael McDonagh — Martin MacDonagh’s brother (Seven Psychopaths). But it will die an ignominious death -- killed by the cowardly, politically correct critics that would have it be something it is not. You see, because The Forgiven a film about decadent colonials in the desert, it, must, necessarily, be about how horrible white people are. But the critics have decided the white people in this particular flick are not bad enough. Generally the film is being damned with faint praise — “it has nothing fresh or insightful to say about the ugliness of white privilege. It’s like attending a weekend bacchanal and forgetting what happened once Monday morning rolls around, or perhaps not wanting to remember.” The Forgiven is ‘decadent,’ which means that people drink, and take drugs, and have sex (in excess) something which we prefer to pretend ceased after Covid-19, or after AIDS — or whenever it was that we all became so bloody self-righteous. The Forgiven has been accused of homophobia because the director is evidently “saying something by making two gay lovers the story’s most conspicuous embodiments of neocolonialist excesses.” Right. Sure, much of the action takes place at a semi-orgy hosted by gay couple Matt Smith (Smith is the new Neil Patrick Harris — see: Mobius) and Caleb Landry Jones (who must be gay, because he has no personal life on Wikiipedia). I for one, am ecstatic to welcome a decadent gay couple once again to the silver screen! Not since Michael York and Helmet Griem in Cabaret have we seen the likes of 'em! I’m so tired of  gay film couples who are mixed-race, married, living in the suburbs, adopting twins -- and who  have to unctuously deal with that homophobic/racist pa -- and one is a teacher and the other is a cop. And they don’t drink or swear, or do anything interesting. So, like — where’s the fisting? I have no problem with movies or plays that represent gay men as drunk, and/or stoned, and sex-crazy, and promiscuous, as that’s so, dare I say it — true to life! But apparently faggots in movies these days must be squeaky clean. And then there is the one moment — I kind of relished it, because I know people will necessarily be scandalized— belonging to  Ralph Fiennes (I forgot to mention he plays the leading character; a very sweet yet detestable man who kills an Arab child by accident, and then spends the rest of the movie paying for it). Well Fiennes goes on about how Morocco is the destination ‘vackay’ for ‘pederasts,’ citing Allen Ginsberg. (Unfortunately the word ‘pederast’ has been made meaningless by Christians who throw it around like an old football. They insist, for instance that Joe Biden is a pederast. Whaaaa?) But I don’t think Allen Ginsberg was a pederast. No, no, he was an epheberast, which is something quite different. In  case you don’t know what ‘epheberast’ means, it’s someone who falls in love with teenagers. You won’t find a definition online because of the prevalent societal hypocrisy. The whole of western culture is ardently epheberastic — it started with James Dean,  and climaxed, for many I’m sure quite literally -- with Miley Cyrus’ saucy twerks. And Fiennes’ character in The Forgiven, after all, is speaking the truth somewhat. Gay men who live in uptight western countries have, historically gone to Morocco to dally with gorgeous and very willing Moroccan boys. (You see sex before marriage is forbidden in Muslim culture, ergo, the ‘love that dares not speak its name’ flourishes. Homosexuality in fact flourishes anywhere the ‘powers that be’ forbid young men to touch young women — so, also in the city of Naples, and in the U.S. prison system.) Yes. I knew two quite celebrated epheberasts who loved Morrocco. They were both also quite prominent figures in the Canadian literary world: Bill Glassco and Scott Symonds. I can talk about them now, because they’re both dead (though occasionally dead hands do rise from the grave to grapple with me). I was told that Glassco had a house in Morocco -- by his fellow epheberast Scott Symonds  —when Scott visited me once. That was a debacle. I was sitting at home minding my own business when Scott knocked on the door and said “I’m Scott Symonds, and you’re Sky Gilbert, and we definitely should meet.” So I let him in. We talked for a bit about how repressed Canadian culture was, and then for some reason he ended up in my bedroom all by himself (I think he asked 'if he could see it') and when I came back with our iced teas (or whatever I was getting for him) I found he had slipped one of my porn videos into the VCR and was masturbating. I had to kick him out. But that’s another story. Anyway, The Forgiven tells it like it is, daring to see both white colonialists and Moroccan muslims as human beings — as flawed but still sympathetic, and the film kind kind of equates the two cultures. This is its fatal flaw, as presently right and left wing enthusiasts would have us see Muslims and Christians as irreconcilably different. Sorry to be the bearer of paradoxical tidings, but we’re all human, and kinda loveable  — that is, when we’re not being hateful — whether we are Muslims, Christians or just decadent fags.