I don’t know

where to start with Terence Davies’ Benediction. I would say he is in a class all by himself, but there is a little club of bitter old fags many of whom are still alive (you see they didn’t have much sex, so they didn’t get AIDS) and who hate themselves for being gay, and hate gay culture, and have to write about it over and over again. Larry Kramer was the prime example of this type. It doesn’t matter how much that evil fag did for AIDS, he was still a nasty queen who hated the rest of us for getting laid and having fun. Don’t get me wrong. I hate gay culture as much as the next guy -- but frankly it’s all we’ve got, and it’s much better than straight culture -- which could put you to sleep when you’re already sleeping — it’s so boring and predictable and self-righteous that you just want to kick it in the ass and say "haven’t we listened to Beethoven’s 9th Symphony enough?" (Oh come on:"'Isn’t the Queen a Wonderful Person?" And: "When it comes down to it, there's just nothing at all quite like the loving warmth of ‘the family’"? Pullease.) Terence Davies new movie just makes me want to write something better. Benediction was for me, at first, addictively watchable. At last, a gay movie! But like The Power of the Dog, it must be set in another time and place because we mustn’t ever ever watch post-AIDS fags frequenting sex parties they booked online, or getting high on meth and ‘G’ and poppers, or cheating on their husbands because they are pretending to be nice middle-class straight people when they’re the furthest thing from it. So Davies brings us a biography of Siegfried Sassoon in which he relays the heart-wrenching tale of a poet (circa 1914) of great talent and integrity who somehow mistakenly forgets himself and ends up traipsing around  being a homosexual during his misspent youth. And before he knows it, he’s dancing the tango with beautiful young bucks, sucking off Ivor Novello, and just generally acting like a bitchy, nauseating, promiscuous sissy! Of course these parts of the movie are the only thing that’s watchable —Sassoon’s eventual redemption (he converts to heterosexuality) and conversion to Catholicism — as well as his courageous anti-war stance — is supposed to be what we are engrossed by (and what we can congratulate ourselves for adoring when we leave the theatre). But how can we even pay attention to all that noble stuff when these days we never ever ever get to see cute gay men being bitchy and screwing each other — sometimes even at the same time! (Except, of course, in real life!). I’ve got news for you, gay men are not the only people in the world who are narcissistic, superficial, promiscuous, and mean. Everybody is. So why are we still making movies about how horrible gay men are? I go clubbing every weekend (yes I’m the old guy you see in the corner trying not to look like he’s a day over 50) and tons of gay men (young and old) are doing Very Bad Things, and yes acting just like they did before AIDS, but that’s why I like them! Don’t you see? Most straight people don’t even do enough Very Bad Things in their whole life to have anything to lie about. (I do pity them!) But why are we still lying? Isn’t that what gay liberation was all about? Why do we have to put up with the self-important inflated egos of damaged gay men who try to pull this load of hypocritical horseshit over our eyes — it’s all lies! Do you hear me? Lies?! I can’t f-in stand it anymore. Can we at least try a little bit to stop hating ourselves for one moment for being who we are? I daresay (and now I sound like a character in a Terence Davies movie) I daresay I am one of the few gay writers these days who writes about gay men, and also one of the few of those few, who doesn’t detest his own kind — or at the very least, knows that he hates himself, but really tries not too. I’m not pretending to be the wisest person on earth but I'm old enough to know that gay men are no more horrible than anybody else. The problem is not sexuality, the problem is that the only thing that seems to make people happy is comparing themselves to other people, and deciding they are better, and doing horrible things to those other people because they feel inadequate. You can search for the why and wherefore of such behaviour but I’m afraid it’s just human nature — schadenfreude — relishing the suffering others. We are all to some degree sociopaths. And we love it, especially when people suffer because they do Very Bad Things that we always wish we could do but never did because we were far too cowardly. Or heterosexual. Or something.  Well I’m back! We’ll see how long I can keep this sort of thing up. I used to be able to do it for days, but I'm not quite the man I used to be (however I’m learning how to 'bottom,' don’t you know, and the rewards there are indescribable! We’ll talk more about that later!) Or maybe we should talk about it now. There is nothing quite like submission. There's a whole religion about it, Houellebecq wrote a whole lovely novel about it (I tried to do that too recently, but I guess I can’t, because it didn’t work out). Let’s just say this: what demeans you is what redeems you. And if you don’t understand that, then (sigh) —  he said condescendingly — then for you, there is very little hope. But I’m crossing my fingers. (And they are, presently, up my bum!)

X has been

put in a category with Midsommar (which I loved ) and The Blair Witch Project (which I hated) as a horror film for intellectuals. It is not. It is inexpressibly stupid and offensive. (But that can be said about most commercial films; X is certainly not in a category all its own.) At its squishy centre is something reviewers call real, psychological horror — the fear of aging. But fear of aging is not a universal human dilemma -- rather a problem peculiar to our contemporary youth-obsessed culture. As an aging gay man I am fully aware of what it’s like to be despised for my age -- and not necessarily by other gay men; thank God gay men have invented a category --  ‘bear’--  which is a kind of non-retirement home for sexual older men. I vaguely fit into that category (though I do not have quite enough body hair, but yes, there are hairless bears!) In other words gay culture — though it is often dismissed as ageist, is quite the opposite. (In fact young gays are sometimes dismissed as ‘dumb twinks’ and vilified as much as the old.) Don’t worry, I’m not bitter, and I get very well laid thank you. This is important to mention, as X seems to be under the impression that an aging body is horrific and that all old people run around desperately trying to get young people into bed. (Especially ‘cougars.’ This movie in fact should be retitled ‘Psycho-Cougar!!!!’ It would be even more popular and spawn even more sequels.) The plot— like most horror films, is not really scary, and is endlessly unoriginal. Horror films — like Marvel comic movies — are now a genre that have substituted self-reference for originality. (Apparently there are a lot of filmic in-jokes in X, I frankly couldn’t care less.) So yet again, it’s a bunch of sexy young'uns. But here, the women are very young, the men not so much — because obviously in a heterosexual film it is threatening for straight men to watch young bucks flopping around. But there are very young women, of course, who are invited to dangle their boobs in public. These sexual ne’er do wells rent a farm house (yawn) to make a porn film, and the house is owned by a decrepit old couple — incredibly wrinkled and ugly; they can barely talk or walk. Trouble ensues. Of course the film features lots of pornography (though nothing hardcore, sadly) before we get to the killing. Much of it is instigated by the old woman, who, unlike her husband, is intent on kissing and feeling up these infants — and even dallies with some lesbian action — climbing into bed with one of the girls. It’s so gross! (Just kidding. but that would be the reaction of youth today.) Remember Harold and Maude? None of you are old enough; it was the very opposite of X (and one of my favourite flics). In it, a teenage boy falls in love with an 80 year old woman (the incomparable Ruth Gordon). They have sex and yes, we see some of the action. (My favourite scene is the priest describing his horrifying vision of the two of them in bed: ‘his firm young flesh and her old wrinkled flesh co-mingling' -- making a face as if he’d just eaten bad tuna.) Such a film could not be made today. The mere thought of an older wrinkled lady trying to kiss a firm, hung, young stud sends today's young audiences into gales of laughter mixed with paroxysms of uncontrollable, panicked, screaming joy. (Ugh! puke!) X implies not only that the old are sexual predators because they are sexually frustrated (i.e. sex is over for them) but that they are bitter about it, and angry at the young for being young. This is nonsense. Has anyone ever diagnosed ageism as — not only woke narcissism — but a sociopathic illness? As I understand it a sociopath has no sympathy for others. The fact that we all get old is conveniently forgotten by today’s young; I’m sure it has always been so to some degree. But this romanticisation of physical youth and beauty has now become romanticisation of their ideas. Woke politics is fundamentally ageist. Though supposedly wokies fight the good fight: i.e. diversity for all self-identified minorities, lately they have focused on two relatively new categories -- trans and disabled folx -- while at the same time ignoring two very old categories — the old and the working class  -- as well as gays and lesbians. These are no longer included among the oppressed. (Note -- as my friend Allan Stratton mentions recently in Quillette — the destruction of the Alexander Wood statue on Church Street in Toronto). Whether you identify as old, gay, lesbian, or working class, your lack of privilege simply doesn’t count. Intersectionalism has become ‘age-exceptionism’. What we have learned from intersectionality is not that everyone has many intersecting points of privilege or lack therof, but that oppressed youth are much much more oppressed than anyone. Anyway, rest assured that most of us old folx are quite glad to say goodbye to the urgent erections and messy lubrications of the past. We get all the sex we want and need thank you. We may be wrinkled and repellent to you, but we sure love gettin' it on! And yes, along the way we have gained a little wisdom that (I know it’s sacrilege to suggest it) you might very well learn something from. 

So there.

NITRAM is a

miracle. It’s a new Australian movie that you will probably never see. It stars Judy Davis: I would climb mountains to see her ever since I saw her in Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows. (Woody Allen used her for awhile but now we are now told to hate Woody Allen.) In Nitram Davis plays the mother of a very violent man — I guess he is psychotic, it’s hard to tell exactly what’s wrong with him — though the acting by Caleb Landry Jones as the son is so scary, touching, and real that he’s already won several international awards. (Alas, no Oscars for this work of genius, as the film is not entirely politically correct and features no deaf people). Nitram (the leading character) appears to be ‘retarded’ (I think that term is used in the film) or slow -- but also deeply troubled, terminally lonely, a doomed outsider (there is something of the ‘incel’ about him). Writer Shaun Grant and director Justin Kurzel have  fashioned a deeply moving, hauntingly naturalistic portrait of a depressed murderer. And, fascinatingly, we identify with him — or at least feel his pain. He’s even charming and touching at times, despite his fascination with guns. None of this is acceptable to the powers-that-be these days; the film has been pretty much banned in Tasmania where it was made (no one will show it, it's how stuff disappears now: i.e. Louis C.K.'s I Love You, Daddy). I won't to give away the whole plot  -- but let’s just say Nitram  has very important things to say about bad gun laws. Don't get me wrong. I would never extol a movie that was merely dedicated to reminding us how lax gun laws are-- this movie is not a platform, it is a deeply human document. Nevertheless the Australian and Tasmanian governments have come out against it.The Tasmanian Police Union has complained that the mental health of its members may be ‘impacted' by Nitram.This is 'Woke Victim-speak’ for ‘cancel this film it’s hurting me!’ In fact a member of the Australian parliament has complained that Nitram made him ‘uncomfortable.’ (God forbid!) But art is now so dangerous we must be protected from it. At one pre-Covid play I saw they were offering a room suppled with crayons, where you could do ‘colouring,’ to calm you down. (I would posit that any adult who can actually be calmed down by a colouring book is already irretrievably nuts.) One theatre in Toronto now offers 'a facilitator who will be available to provide one-on-one emotional support.' So if you need to gather your senses after being assaulted by some hateful, hurtful piece of art, there will apparently be people there to comfort you. A somewhat unexpected side effect of COVID-19 -- has been the end of art. (I've been complaining about it for awhile now). No one will notice; art was always a hard sell anyway, and just a few hapless Canadian artists like me  ever bothered to stand up for it; no one ever listened. It seems quite clear that after COVID-19, art will just limp away as it did in the Dark Ages. People will forget that the the best plays and films and books should upset you. Just as in medieval  Europe -- where the unwashed masses were offered church windows and the occasional passion play that reaffirmed the story of Christ -- today we are given films like CODA to remind us of the plight of deaf people, endless appeals to save the environment, and trans hagiography, but, God forbid (!) -- nothing that might make us uncomfortable! This of course will lead to more crime, drug addiction, and suicides -- more unresolved human pain. Art, in case you hadn’t notice, can be a harmless drug. At the moment reruns of The Sopranos are kind of keeping me alive. Tony leads a much more stressful life than I do, which reassures me -- but I also love it  because I can experience madness, pain, and death in heavy doses, something we all need to be familiar with, because our lives will be touched by those things at one time or another -- and art is the only place where we can practice them  without ever actually going mad, or shooting up an elementary school, or dying. I will use this blog to say farewell to art, in hopes that someone, somewhere will remember. Okay, what about Judy Davis’ portray of Nitram's mother? She is sublime, understated, and, thank God, she smokes, (There is something about Judy Davis smoking a cigarette that drives me nuts.) She’s still amazingly beautiful, though alarmingly wrinkled. What makes the movie triply controversial is the handling of Davis's character; Nitram neither entirely blames nor entirely forgives her, we are left hanging in a disturbing zone of paradoxical tranquility (where art should leave us). She watches her son commit atrocity after atrocity and does nothing, because, you see, she loves him. She says ‘I gave birth to him’ with a savage force -- like Brecht’s Mother Courage she is at once admirable and contemptible. The final shot is her, smoking, looking off into the distance, listening to a TV news program that exploits her son’s crimes. Nitram is a work of art because it offers up a real anti-hero -- not some  sexy marvel pseudo-tortured joke like The Batman. But, hey -- incel as hero; there’s a real anti-hero for you.

The Pope’s apology

 is at best fatuous, referring to (if not directly speaking about) ‘bad apples.’ The best I can suggest is that Indigenous people should hang him upside down and shake him for as much as he’s got; he owes it to them, as does the Catholic Church (don’t get me started on that). But what I really wanted to talk about was a revelation that came from the mouth of Kaluhyanu:wes Michelle Schenandoah, of the Oneida Nation. She said: “Because we didn't have souls, that gave the right for these explorers to do whatever they wanted with Indigenous Peoples — murder, rape, enslave.” This is a very profound and tragic -- but also beautiful -- idea. It’s also true. And it’s also nice to hear someone speak of ‘the soul.' Do we, in fact, have souls? One isn’t so sure as ever more frequently the transhumanists go on at length about how computers can write poetry. and we can download our personalities onto them. But computers will never replace people, thank God — though they may try to. (It happened to me recently -- twice -- at the bank. My debit and credit cards were both denied. When I complained they said — “We don’t know quite why the computer did it.” When I questioned one woman further, she said: “It was probably due to an algorithm.” It occurred to me, naturally, that the algorithm had something against me, but that’s what’s supposed to make algorithms so wonderful — that they couldn't, possibly. An algorithm has no soul, and if it makes a booboo it’s merely a booboo, there is no malice behind it. But, I must insist that a booboo is still a booboo; it still smacks you in the eye and makes you bleed, malice or not.) No. Humans have something called ‘the soul’ and no amount of bad computer poetry is going to convince me otherwise. There is something magical about truly bad poetry, truly bad art, and truly bad thought, because it comes from that glorious imperfection we call humanity. It’s as if God didn’t finish us. She/they didn’t get something completely right. The neoplatonists did not believe that; they believed that God intentionally bequeathed us with all his dreaminess, craziness and poetry, that there are various levels of reality. At the top is God. Then comes angels, then pure soul, then the human spirit, and then the material world. (I may have missed some levels — I’m imperfect, due to my soul, sorry.) The point is that most of us are pretty much always floundering around somewhere between the material world (the body) and the soul (spirit). What I love about neoplatonism is they’re actually not too bad on sex; they realize the body is necessary, and that people do need to get off -- a little more than occasionally (whew!). But they also believe that the kind of union we really need with other people is spiritual, which can only be achieved through love, And love is also the same as beauty. (Which is the really good part.) Lord in heaven (to coin a phrase) why am I telling you all this? Because I’m old, and will be dead in no time at all I’m sure. As I write this I can feel my spirit very leaving my body, ever so slowly. It’s a good thing. I don’t mean I am ascending to heaven (or hell, for that matter…) but my the body is becoming less and less useful, I experience less desire, less physical joy — and loads more physical pain — as my body gradually disintegrates with age.  I will not be sad to see my body go (my body and I always had issues). And I will still be there, but in some unrecognizable form — which I know is not reassuring. I may come back as a beetle, or a cock (not a penis, but a chicken, unfortunately, and not that kind of chicken unfortunately, maybe even -- a hen). I won’t bore you with any more of this, but I wanted you to know why I find the soul so interesting right now, because mine is definitely going somewhere else, soon. So my ears perked up when I heard the word ‘soul’ from the mouth of  Kaluhyanu:wes Michelle Schenandoah — it struck me that what she talks about here is the essence of human evil. It’s a principle also articulated by Hannah Arendt in her various studies of The Holocaust. Arendt theorized that the Nazis rationalized exterminating the Jews by dehumanizing them, compared them to animals -- to rats and pigs. As they were not human, they necessarily had no souls, and one could dispose of them. This kind of dehumanizing is central to genocide; unless you are a psychopath (or Donald Trump) you will identify with other human beings, but not with soul-less animals (we’ll leave animal rights activism aside in this analogy, as it is left out by Arendt). Therefore, you cannot and will not kill them because they are human and have souls. But here comes a difficult concept; try and get your mind around it. Everyone has a soul. Every human being. (How do you know you are human? Well if you are reading this and you are not a computer, then you are human). Yes, that means Hitler and yes, even The Pope, and Stalin and Putin and that guy who won’t wear a mask in the elevator (and is an anti-vaxer), and racists, and sexists, and homophobes -- they are all human.  Ergo, therefore, as angry as we get about other people we should not kill them. And it might be advisable not to even wish them dead. Living, you see, is not something some souls deserve and others don’t. Living just is, well, a thing. And for all our theorizing, we are not entirely sure, yet, what.

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.