For Chris Hyndman

When I die there will definitely be some people dancing quite openly on my grave — and a lot of them will be gay. That’s because I have expressed many radical opinions and admitted proudly that I am a sexually promiscuous drag queen.

The same cannot be said of Chris Hyndman.

In fact, since his tragic death on August 4th (one that so far has been attributed to sleepwalking off the balcony of the apartment he shared with Steven Sabados) many have stepped forward to publicly mourn Hyndman — who was only 49 years old — and to sing his praises.

I think it’s very important to talk about this.

First let me say that I am very sorry to hear that Chris Hyndman is dead. He was a brave man to come out on television in a homophobic society.

Period.

But though the official response to Chris Hyndman’s death may be to praise him, I’ve received a barrage of texts and emails from friends of another kind altogether. Many seem to harbour secret suspicions about the cause of his death. Gay men are all atwitter. I know that I’m not supposed to talk about this; but everyone is. I happen to think that Chris Hyndman’s death is very much wrapped up in our hopes and dreams of who we are as gay people, and attention must be paid — not only to his passing, but to what the gay and lesbian community are making of it. 

Why is Chris Hyndman’s death so important to gay men and lesbians, in Toronto (and I suspect, many other places too)? Well, first of all, there are hardly any out-of-the-closet actors in movies or television. So Chris Hyndman cannot help but become — in death — a significant role model for us as queer people, whether he would have wished it or not. There is simply no one else who fits the bill. Secondly, Chris Hyndman and his partner Steven Sabados were a very visible example of a very new cultural phenomena: the married gay couple. And we all know what’s going on in the gay and lesbian community these days. We all imagine that if we can be married, have kids, and lead the ‘perfect’ lives of straight people that we will be loved and accepted by straight people. And especially, by our own parents.

Of course this bid for acceptance is based on a myth. The haters will always hate, no matter how many civil rights we gain (in fact some may hate us more for achieving those rights). But much more importantly, straight people have been getting married for years, and it hasn’t worked out too well for them We still have crime, drug addiction, violence, insanity, rape, suicide, and divorce (lots of it). Getting married is not the solution to our problems; in fact it may cause as many problems as it’s supposed to solve.

What I’m trying to say is, just because Chris Hyndman was on TV, and proudly out, and married to his gay partner, it’s unfair for us to pin all our hopes on him.

He was a brave man to come out in the homophobic entertainment industry. But like the rest of us  — married or not —he may not have been perfect.

It might be time to remember that, as a community.

And it’s also time for us to remember, as a community, that if you dance on someone’s grave today, people very well some day end up dancing on yours.

DONALD TRUMP: RACIST CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT

It is astounding that no one is saying this. Trump is the racist candidate for president. And the scandal is that so many American voters are behind him.

Take the statements of Trump’s supporters. They want to ‘take the country back’ and ‘make this country great again’ and ‘inspire Americans to be Americans.’ The question that immediately comes to mind is: who do Trump supporters want to take the country back from? And what— especially these days — is so ‘unAmerican’ about America?

Let’s look at what Trump has to say.

Trump  was one of the prime supporters of the ‘birther’ movement five years ago, insisting —against all odds — that Obama was not an American citizen. In March 2011 on Good Morning America Trump said he was a ‘little’ doubtful about Obama’s citizenship. A month later on NBC Trump refused to relinquish this view despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. In October 2012, after Obama had released so many copies of his birth certificate that there could in fact be no more reasonable questions about his citizenship,Trump - trying to ferment further skepticism — pledged he would give $5 million to a cause of Obama’s choosing if Obama would publicize his college and passport applications.

In other words, Trump has consistently refused to believe that Obama is an American, simply because Obama is black. 

Trump’s recent comments about Mexican immigrants are part and parcel of his racist rhetoric. No matter how many times he says that some of his best friends are Mexican and that there are ‘good Mexicans’ as well as bad, nothing can quite erase the efficacy of the notions that underly his language. Significantly, Trump refers to Mexican immigrants as ‘a tremendous infectious disease pouring across the border. The United States has become a dumping ground for Mexico, and in fact, for many other parts of the world.”

What is both fascinating and horrifying is that it is possible for an open racist to be taken seriously as a candidate for president in 2015 without anybody calling him on it. Trump cannot run on a platform that says “Lets get rid of the ‘(just insert plural version of n-word here)!’ But he dances around political incorrectness just enough so that some Americans are perfectly willing to accept his views and no one is willing to call him a racist. (Hilary Clinton is only ‘disappointed’ in her ex-‘friend’ Donald.)

I know I’m not supposed to say it, but doesn’t Trump resemble another political candidate — in fact an influential leader — from history? 

I know it would be way over the top for me to suggest Donald Trump is Adolph Hitler, so I certainly won’t do that. However, it’s interesting to observe the similarity Trump’s talking points and the Nazi Party’s platform in Germany in the 1930s. Trump believes that his country is being ruined by non-white people and immigrants, by the ‘other’ who have become an ‘infectious disease.’ He is a virulent anti-communist. He also  cultivates a dream of his very own version of the ‘Superman’: having little patience for ‘losers’ of any ilk, instead embracing highly personal and unrealistic standards for who a hero might be (witness his dismissal of John McCain’s war record). Like ‘Der Fuhrer,’ Trump is often ridiculed by his rivals; he not so much taken seriously as a threat — but instead dismissed as a clown.

Whether or not Trump becomes president, it should be a warning to us all that he got this far. We denounce fascists and insist that never again in human history will we allow The Holocaust to happen. So what kind of hypocrites are we?

Have we come such a very long way baby?

Could it happen here?

You’re damn right it could.

In fact, it is.

Why I Am No Longer An Artist

I know some might say — ‘Well I never considered you to be an artist!” or “Who cares?”

My concern here is with what it means to be an artist today, and how that has changed for the worse.

Unfortunately, art has become just another way to sell things in our mega-world. I rarely meet an artist anymore — just smiley, cheery, happy, upbeat people who earnestly yearn to become part of the entertainment industry — while singing a positive song or sending cute youtube vids.

This is especially tragic for young people, who are no longer taught what art is.

How did this happen?
I blame Richard Florida, a nincompoop who has somehow become a widely respected academic — despite the foolishness of his theories. (Richard Florida is — for some unknown reason — The Director of the Martin Prosperity Institute and Professor of Business and Creativity at The Rotman School of Management at The University of Toronto!)

The Rise of the Creative Class was published in 2002 and changed the way we think about art.

It was the perfect moment. Florida’s silly, badly argued theories changed the western world. The time was ripe, for the 19th century had seen the fall of communism, and the worldwide web had gradually morphed from a mechanism for creative dissent to a effective means of delivering advertising — through Google, Amazon, and iTunes. 

Also, the ultra-capitalist Reagan and Thatcher regimes effectively wiped out lefty radicalism. In the 60s (when I grew up) we learned that there was a secular human spirit. We learned that that individual human growth was cultivated through nurturing fellow humans -- advantaged or not, privileged or not -- through play, art and radical thought. When the 80s, came, with AIDS, the 60s not only ended with a dull thud, but ideas about self-realization and the importance of art were rejected as having led to promiscuity and, ultimately death.  AIDS was the perfect argument against 60s self-realization.

In the ultra-capitalist post 80s climate it was no longer possible for government or foundation funders to justify the arts on the basis of man's secular spiritual needs, since life was now all about making money and buying things  — not something as old-fashioned, silly, and laughable as the growth of the human soul.

So, arts funders, city planners (and finally sadly, today artists themselves) have come to embrace mantras such as ‘arts create jobs’ ‘arts create world-class cities; and ‘arts boost the economy.’

The result is a tragic one, for those of us who once loved art and artists. Young playwrights used to ask me “How do I write a great play?” Now they ask me “How do I write a commercial hit?” Actors don’t care about a ‘the method’ anymore, they care about becoming triple threats. Young theatre companies have learned that bigger is better and want to reach a mass audience as soon as possible.

Of course most contemporary artists are pleased to get humungous grants and create giant spectacles as part of city festivals to promote Toronto. Everywhere you see pretty pictures, ‘audience involvement’ dance experiences, light shows — contentless, unchallenging self-confirming, narcissistic displays. And hey — bring the kids! After all, there’s nothing upsetting going on here!

Whatever happened to vision, challenge, inspiration, confrontation, experimentation, soul-searching, despair, anarchism, socialism, nihilism, skepticism, nakedness, risk, blasphemy, obscenity and the breathtakingly precarious expression of scarifying beauty?

Gone.

So — just in case you are interested — that’s why I don’t use the term ‘artist’ to describe myself anymore.

A Closer Look at Kathleen Wynne

It’s time for some tough talk about Kathleen Wynne.

The recent scandal at Ontario’s legislature concerning the pornography displayed in an Ontario government gallery is more than dismaying; it calls for immediate action on the part of Ontario taxpayers.

Most Ontario parliamentarians passed by the work in the gallery — operated by Kathleen Wynne’s government — without giving it a closer look. But not Conservative MP and Conservative Women’s Critic Laurie Scott. She leaned in to examine it, and she was seriously dismayed.

You may have heard Scott’s name before. Indeed, she has been active in campaigning against human trafficking — that’s the exploitation of Ontario’s teenage girls, many of whom are kidnapped and forced into prostitution.

When Laurie Scott glanced a little more carefully at what was hanging on the wall — a monstrosity that has been promoted as ‘artwork’ — it was immediately clear to her discerning eye (like Elizabeth our queen, Laurie Scott is a horsewoman) that this was not art; it was the exploitation of women. You see, upon close inspection, this painterly mosaic proved to contain tiny pornographic photos of women participating in sexual acts. This is an obscene artist’s trick. The artist’s motives are irrelevant. The proof is in the pudding, and the pudding hangs on the wall of an Ontario gallery — and it’s supported by Kathleen Wynne!

Do I need to explain? Pornography exploits women, and women who participate in pornography are victims, exploited by the greedy men who wish to make money off their innocent bodies. Women, as we all know, do not like sex, and do not even like to be reminded that they have sex —which they only do in order to produce babies, which is their proper focus in life — unless of course they are riding horses, or being Women’s Critics, like Laurie Scott.

But can I ask the question — what is really going on here?

For instance, have you taken a close look at the new so-called sex education program in Ontario, a noxious course of study that wants to teach 1st graders that it’s okay to have a same sex partner? It’s okay — yes, for girls to be with girls?

Of course Kathleen Wynne — an admitted lesbian — fully supports this curriculum.

I have it on good authority that Kathleen Wynne actually has spoken to the pornographic so-called artist in question Rosalie Malheux. They may even be friends. (It’s certainly possible. Feminist-lesbian-pornographers tend to hang out together.) The two women may even be related. It is certainly possible that Kathleen Wynne’s great great great grandmother and Rosalie Malheux’s even greater grandfather were related (perhaps by marriage) or certainly might have spoken to each other many years ago.

Well.

As critics of the sex education program rightly asked: “What’s next, safe sex with animals?”

It’s a legitimate question, and I think one that needs to be answered.

Sure, some might not find it ‘politically correct’ to criticize a lesbian, but when the lives of our children are at stake, it’s time to take action.

I recommend you write Kathleen Wynne and express your anger over this unabashed exploitation of women masked as so-called ‘feminist’ art.

If nothing else, do it for the sake of the children. 

Do it for your little girl.

RUN, DON’T WALK — TO THE AMAZING KINKY BOOTS!

I usually don’t do theatre reviews. And this isn’t really a theatre review. That is — I didn’t actually see the show, but I’ve heard so much about it — and I so much share Toronto’s enthusiasm for this fabulous  musical — that I just had to tell you about it.

Kinky Boots is amazing from start to finish. The first thing you notice is that the story is all about Lola, a black drag queen. It’s not like Lola is some boring straight character’s sidekick (someone with a lot of invented conflicts and boring ballads). She is the central character in the story and all her songs rock! Kinky Boots is primarily about Lola — her life, her friends, her loves!  And you really get to know her drag queen ‘Angels’! At last, a play with a central character that’s gay and a drag queen — something you could only expect from famed gay writer Harvey Fierstein!

But what’s really amazing, and what everybody’s talking about, is the way this deeply radical play gets to the heart of ‘kink.’ It’s not like they called the show Kinky Boots just to lure in a middle class audience and titillate them with something they never deliver. This show delivers the kink. 

And how.

The opening number is a show stopper. When Lola sings “Don’t Just Take the Piss, Piss on Me!” — you can hear a pin drop. The song begins as a moving ballad — a brave testimonial to the joys of being urinated upon — only to transform itself into a toe-tapping dance number you’ll never forget! And when all of the male ‘members’ of the factory pull out their willies to pee on Lola (and each and every one of her Angels!) the audience spontaneously rises to their feet and gives the show spontaneous and well-deserved applause!

You have to see it to believe it!

The other big number comes at the end of act one, when Lola sings the heart stopping (and quite simply titled) “I Want to Eat your Shit!” I for one, never expected to see a scat song in a Broadway musical — but leave it to Cindy Lauper and Harvey Fierstein to transform subject matter that might shock some into a tune you just can’t get out of your head. And when the big fat factory worker Don squats down and does his ‘business’ (congrats to the props person on this — I think there’s a Dora in the future of this skilled craftsperson!) directly into the mouth of drag queen Lola, it is a moment that will forever change the face of kink! No more hiding in the shadows — scat now finds its home at the heart of a hit musical comedy — and it’s a hit with heart.

Finally, no description of Kinky Boots would be complete without mentioning the final blockbuster number “Sensory Deprive Me — Until I Die Me!” In the final moments of the show a relatively minor character, Charlie (who owns the factory) reveals that he has always wanted to be bound head to foot, wrapped in duct tape, and left to die in a closet. You think such material might be too ‘dark’ for a Broadway musical? Well you’re wrong. Somehow this genius duo — Lauper and Fierstein — make us laugh and cry yet again. And the whole audience rises to its feet once more!

I’m telling you, I’ve never seen a show that is so honest about the human condition — and that has such such power to change lives. Parents bring their kids to the show (which is great, why not)? I overheard one kid say to his parents “I’m never going to get married. When I grow up, I’m just going to find lots and lots of different people to pee on me!” Wow! What a change from Mamma Mia, eh?

As I say, I haven’t actually seen the show. I’m just riding on all the fantastic reviews and joining the general enthusiasm— because, hey, I believe in kink!

You heard it here. Run, don’t walk — to Kinky Boots!

It’s a Privilege to be Rachel Dolezal

The recent firestorm over Rachel Dolezal’s identification as black has been a hot topic for one reason only; when you wade through it all, the discussion ultimately serves racism, homophobia, sexism and transphobia.

Witness Margaret Wente’s recent carefully worded column in The Globe and Mail. When she weighs in on Rachel Dolezal it takes Wente awhile to get to her honest and quite vicious opinion: “Not everything is socially constructed, and feelings are sometimes different from reality, and we shouldn’t be afraid of being labelled bigots if we say so.”

In case you didn’t get that (because Margaret isn’t sure she wants you to) this is what Wente is saying:  “Come on guys — cut the bullshit. What is all this crap about the ‘social construction’ of race and gender? Caitlin Jenner is a guy, and he always will be a guy because of his chromosome count and the fact that he was born with a penis — and no amount of friggin’ plastic surgery is going to change that. Rachel Dolezal is white because her skin is white. I’m not dumb. I can see it with my own eyes!  And don’t call me racist, or transphobic for saying that. You’re just a left wing intellectual nerd and you are full of crap.”

This point of view is incredibly persuasive and unfortunately carries much weight with stupid people everywhere.

Trans theory has embraced the concept of ‘self-identification’ and this is precisely what Margaret Wente and other right wing commentators are so gleefully making fun of. On the contrary, I believe in self-identification. I believe that race, gender, and sexuality sometimes work culturally in different ways, but they all — like every other category which we use to define ourselves — are social constructs. (There is no biological justification for classification by race except for skin colour; and the fact is that that you can have white skin and black parents — and visa versa.) Gender, race, sexuality and ethnicity are all fictions that have everything to do with what we earnestly believe about ourselves, what we deeply feel, and how we are treated by others. This is all the more reason to encourage everyone to take special care to think about ‘who they are’ and ‘who they wish to be’ and to respect those choices, even if we don’t understand them or even agree with them. 

But if you believe that race, gender and sexuality are social constructs, then you must simultaneously, and with the same vociferous voice, speak of the notion of privilege.

Though Caitlyn Jenner identifies as a woman and Rachel Dolezal identifies as black, each of them has enormous privilege. I don’t know many trans people who have the money and power that Caitlin Jenner has, and I don’t know many black women who have the choices Rachel Dolezal does.

Similarly, President Barack Obama is somewhat of an Oreo cookie. Yes, he is black, because that is how he identifies himself. But he also has a certain amount of privilege, being raised by his middle-class parents, one of whom was white, and both of whom were university graduates (his father was a Harvard graduate). And, similarly, trans people who are able to pass and get married — and who look like every other straight couple — have enormous privilege. They have every right to identify whatever gender they want, but they also have to recognize that with that right, for some, comes enormous privilege.

The conclusion is — quite disrespectfully — screw you Margaret Wente! And screw you all the bigots who don’t want to be called on their bigotry! Trying to figure out who is ‘really’ trans, ‘really’ black, or ‘really’ male or female, really ‘gay’ or ‘really’ straight is the way of the haters. It is racist, sexist, homophobic, and transphobic to challenge anyone’s right to self-identify. However, supporting people who self-identify will only work as long as we don’t forget about privilege.

I appreciate that you identify as black, Rachel Dolezal. But you cannot compare yourself with an ordinary black woman because of the overwhelming privilege you accrue from being brought up by middle-class white parents.

Is that really too terribly complicated to understand?

ENTOURAGE: One. Damn. Fine. Flic.

A new movie opened last weekend. 

Here are some key moments.

A young man woos a woman who is a professional boxer/trainer. She deems him worthy of attention only when she can knock him out in the ring. 

(She does.) 

One of the movie’s most significant story lines concerns a man who has decided to help his ex-girlfriend through her pregnancy (she is pregnant with their child) even though they are no longer a couple. Just before his ex-girlfriend has her baby, the man has promiscuous sex with two strange women in a day. The women he has sex with ridicule him. He decides to reject promiscuity and — in the romantic climax of the film — re-unites with his ex-girlfriend to raise their newborn baby girl. 

The film finishes off with a gay marriage between an Asian man and his white boyfriend, presided over by a rabbi in a traditional Jewish ceremony. The Asian man is ‘given away’ by his ex-employer, a man who was once homophobic but now has come to see the error of his ways.

Hm. 

What might this be? An avant-garde feminist experimental film? A gala opening at Toronto’s Inside Out Festival?

Nope. These are some of the major plot points in the movie version of HBO TV show Entourage.

So what the heck is going on? 

I was a big fan of the HBO series, eagerly awaiting the release of the film. I tried to find a review in the Toronto newspapers last Friday. No luck. Then I went to Rotten Tomatoes. The film received got a rating of 40%. I  went to Now magazine, and  Radheyan Simonpilllai wrote: “Writer/director/creator Doug Ellin has filled the feature-length film’s vacuous space with misogyny, dated satire and as many cameos as a Muppets movie.” 

Okay.

First: the cameos. Doug Ellin can certainly be forgiven for the Mark Wahlberg cameo, since Wahlberg is the producer of Entourage, and the series is based on his life story. As for the other — yes, numerous — cameos, well I guess I’m a bit too old to be really up on my pop culture, because frankly, I didn’t even know who most of these youngsters were. In some so-called cameos — like the Billy Bob Thornton appearance — the stars were invisible and very well-integrated into the film as fictional characters. In other instances, sure, the stars played themselves — because the boys of Entourage are in Hollywood, after all. 

What about misogyny? Excuse me, but what misogyny? Where? Oh yes, in one brief  scene a model is performing cunnilingus on another for the amusement of a scumbag movie producer. In another scene — during ‘E’’s brief flirtation with promiscuity — ‘E’ enjoys an explicit sex scene with a young naked woman. And finally, yes, there are several moments where ‘the boys’ comment about how much they would like to ‘do’ certain women.

Call me crazy. But don’t we get a bit more misogyny than this in the nightly rapes on Game of Thrones? 

Honestly, are straight men not allowed to enjoy looking at straight women anymore? Are they not allowed to voice their appreciation amongst themselves? Are they not allowed to want to have sex with women they consider beautiful? Since when did lust become a crime? And anyway, who can look inside their own heart, and say they have been without lust? Men lust. So do women (and plenty of women lust in this movie too!). These are the facts. Is there any reason we should ignore these truths?

But I think it’s Simonpillai’s second (and most ridiculous) criticism that really gets to the heart of why the entertainment establishment has it in for this movie. Entourage is not what movies are supposed to be anymore. Movies are not supposed to be smart, contemporary, challenging, moving, and filled with detailed, relatable characters. Most importantly, they are not supposed to have a point. The major satirical point made in this film is not dated at all, but in fact fiercely relevant — Entourage is about a star who wants to make a movie that he is passionate about, instead of Hollywood superhero trash. Entourage is critical of the Hollywood establishment, and that is the problem.

Is it a co-incidence that Entourage is competing against a bunch of extraordinarily tedious, mind-numbing masterpieces of movie crapola, i.e.: San Andreas, Tomorrowland, Mad Max, and The Avengers (and don’t forget!!!! ANTMAN opens soon!!!!)

Unfortunately audiences only seem to want unchallenging pap these days — stupid, boring, violent, non-intellectually-threatening garbage. And apparently people don’t go to see X-rated films anymore — because you can’t bring the kids. The only movies people seem to care about are the bland techno-orgies that make big bucks.

Keep in mind you won’t hear this anywhere else. Because there is nothing but idiocy being spewed about this movie.

So let me say it here, once and for all.

Entourage is: One. Damn. Fine. Flic.

Period.