Three windows open, three different conversations:
To PauLa: I miss you guys. Hows the house?
To dumb-fuck: I think dim sum is one big metaphor for life really
To scotfrot: mines a bit more involved. I would jerk off into them a couple times …then wash n wear them. I would get off on fantasizing about them doing their laundry…
I was going to qualify each conversation but I think I like them just as they are.
Sharkboy and I are on the patio of the Eagle playing our “Here’s Your Husband” game. Ive heard of many variations on this nightclubbing pastime but ours is as follows: The third person to walk by/come through that door/limp past you from the right, is your husband. The uglier the better because it garnishes all sorts of cruel comments from your friends. Hot guys that walk through usually are met with “That doesnt count” style grumblings. Yeah its childish and pubescent but we do it to stay young.
As I said, we’re at the Eagle. The last leatherbar in Toronto that doesnt enforce a dress code so you could be in your finest cowhide while standing beside twink tourists that just want to see old fat guys in their finest cowhides. Its Sharkboy’s turn and we’re counting guys coming through the doorway to the patio.
1… 2…
#3 steps through. Its Scott Thompson of Kids in the Hall fame. He almost timidly sits beside me on the patio bench.
Ive had two instances of contact with Mr Thompson. The first was when I was actually working as a doorman at the Eagle a few years back. My job was to ensure that patrons didnt bring drinks into the bathroom, so I was guarding the bar’s liquor license by standing in front of the loo doors and stopping people going in with bottles or glasses in their hands. One night I stopped Mr T (ha!) and said in my best Assistant Director voice: “Im sorry Mr Thompson, Ontario law now states that liquor is not allowed in non licensed areas.” Quite the mouthful to say to someone hell bent on wizzing.
He looks at me like I just asked him to pull a cat out of my ass.
“Im the Toilet Nazi. No drinks in there,” I condense.
He laughs. I made Scott Thompson laugh!
The last time was on the set of Prom Queen but that wasnt really contact.
Mr Thompson is sitting beside me and I turn to him and say “I loved you in Prom Queen.”
His eyes widen. I am pretty sure the best way to an actor (or blogger’s) heart is to mention the obscure stuff. We chat a bit and I introduce Mr Thompson to Sharkboy like we were Ryerson Acting School chums or something. “He’s your new husband,” I offer. Confusion. We explain our game to Scott and we turn our attention to the door again as its my turn to get married off. I wanted to go even more obscure on Scott’s head and say his voicework for RoboRoach was sublime but some guy went all ooglelygooey over Scott being in a leather bar (“I loved you man!”) and meanwhile my husband walked onto the patio.
Lets just say I won.
Who here has had their parents say something about sex that just makes you cringe to full fetal position and want you to become a monk? Raise your hands. I see.
The last two times Ive had dinner with my Da (72yrs old, is about 60 physically, 16 mentally) he’s done that to me. The first time he ranted on about extra strength Viagra and how much fun a weekend could be again. Then last night he’s telling me and Sharkboy about this project he wants to start working on about collecting stories of older gay men having sex. That’s cool. Then we start talking about the Old Simpsons Building at Queen and Yonge Streets.
Its now The Bay’s flag ship store but back in the day Simpsons was a multi level department store that was built in the 1600s or 1821 or some such year. Its old. Recently it was used in the movie Cinderella Man as the front of Madison Square Gardens so you can guess its about 1920s or so. Anyway. Dad use to sell shoes in the basement right next to the men’s washrooms. I bet you can see where this is going. Back then Gay was only heard in Noel Coward plays and songs and Dad, being the oldest to an Irish Catholic family of 7, he was quite closeted. Or tea-roomed if you will. Its one thing to be conscious of your parents indulging in sex. That fact sits in our minds like the thought of having to pay taxes or mowing the lawn: there but ignored. Its another thing to hear your father talk about risky sex with strangers in toilets. Especially when you’ve done it yourself and thought it dirty and bad and here’s the man you admire freely admitting it.
As a particular side note to this whole thing: I get on at the Queen St subway station when I go to work and wind up standing in front of the Simpsons building mural on the platform, sub consciously making some connection with my dad back in his day. Ive said before that life is cyclic, even in small circles.
Stressful times kids. I didnt get the GANZ job, and to justify the loss Ive been telling myself that the 1 3/4 hour commute either way would have killed me. Oh well. Anyone needing a graphic designer should email me via my portfolio site (sing it with me people…shaaaaamless pluuuuuug!)
I find I am returning to GAB, a “comedy” web board that I use to hang at. Its somewhat addictive to hit refresh all the time to see if people think your posts are funny. I use to post over on its sister board House of Bugs but there are a few people there who just get up my wick. Comedy is so subjective, really.
Regarding the ever-increasing name that the gaylesbianbisexualtransgenderedtransexualintersexedqueer community seems to be generating, I asked my brother (who was one of the original Toronto chapter of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgance) his take:
I was looking through Xtra this morning and found a letter to the editor regarding “our community” being refered to as Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered, Transsexual, Intersexual, Queer (GLBTTIQ for ease?) and I wondered to myself if back in the 70s when you were with the Sisters and being all activisty (I like my new word), did you think for a moment that the “gay community” would expand to include these groups as well?
What we thought was that it already did include all these variations away from sexual “normality” under one word…”gay.” But that idea came under a lot of criticism, first, and most powerfully, from lesbians, and then there was a proliferation of names that got added as queer theory gained momentum in the 1990s. There was a time when it looked like “queer” would represent all the different sexual variations again, but that time’s past. We’re stuck with a shopping list.
Paul, a buddy of mine from Chicago, in an email, called our community “an island of misfits” to which Id like to amend to it “island of sexual misfits”. Just because the common denominator here is sex. Got some, need some, had some, lost some.
I was reading the local gay rag this morning skimming over the hairless boy ads, the perfect body by Pride promises and wondering to myself “what the fuck do I have in common with these people other than my sexual desires?” Suddenly even that was in question when I came across a letter to the editor where the first paragraph described “our community” as being gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, transsexuals, intersexed (WTF?) and queer. The sound you just heard was my “tolerance” snapping. When does this end people? Oh, I get it. We should include every single sexual dysfunctional/deviant group into the gay community because we ourselves have been demanding equality and we’re all about the equality, arent we?
Im bored of this. I moved out of the village two years ago and love living with the straights. Its like being proud of who I am an not having any lazy assed interest group riding on my coat tails.
Attraction is such a bizzare thing, no? I met this guy back in the summer and while I was trying to be “good” and “save myself” for Mike’s return to Toronto (which now is as distant as a Mars lander to some hippie scientist bent over his keyboard hammering out instructions, trying to get his robot to work), I met this guy. Lets call him Sharkboy. Sharkboy is stunningly handsome. The kind of handsome that makes you realize there are more leagues higher than yours, that you are not a part of and probably never will be. Sharkboy is charming: replete with a Quebecois accent that adds character and colour to his speech. And Sharkboy showed me an ounce of interest. We originally met for sex over the internet…
Oh god will you please stop laughing at me?
…and the day he walked through my front door I thought “Holy crap, I am not his type!” Then I thought, “Holy crap! He has an amazing body!” True, because he keeps active unlike me who spends his free time sucking radioactivity as nourishment from a monitor. After we finished our internet date (this aint no porn site), I was actually kind of relieved he was leaving and that I would never have to see him again. I honestly thought I was a charity fuck for him. Turns out Sharkboy likes the hairy balding guys with a gut. How odd.
I dont remember when the repeat romp was. Sharkboy tried a couple times to get more but I blocked him off. I thought that if I repeated sex with someone I was officially cheating on Mike. Meanwhile, Mike and I were going nowhere. Neither one of us were making moves to relocate to either one’s home city. Or find a good job, for that matter, but the emotion was still there. Yet Sharkboy still swum around me like my ankle was bleeding. There were moments where I could actually feel my feelings transfer over from Mike to Sharkboy. Call it sublimation, call it troo luv, call it wrong (believe me I wrestled with guilt – Im Irish Italian Catholic) but it happened. On a cold November day, driving back from a parade I was helping Sharkboy perform in, he fell asleep on my arm. Bam. Hooked.
Mike. What to do. I still had feelings for him but they had definetly cooled since his departure. I hope I let him down easy. I still consider him part of my family and would walk through fire for him, but I couldnt wait for him any longer. I wish him to be happy. I want him to marry into my family. I still want him around. I know that he will make someone extremely happy as he did for me (still does! …um…but not that way, now, you know?).
So now Im swimming with Sharks. And lovin’ it. Bada bap bah bah.
Okay heres my take on my brother’s show This Is Wonderland. If I could strain a muscle while wishing it didnt resemble Ally McBeal too much I would have, right up to the point where Alice has to get back into the security line at the court house door. What made me relax was her line “Bite me!” to someone in the line up. From there on I thought making comparisons wouldnt be necessary. It rambled along nicely and I got a good feeling about the show. Thankfully they didnt use an unsteady cam for the courtroom scenes, that would have been waaaay too ’90s cop show.
I got a call to be on the set of QaF again this week. What a surprise! I happened to miss the shuttle bus at 6am (went right back to sleep after shutting off the alarm) and got the second bus which got to set at 10, with 30 or so over-50 gentlemen. They were shooting a dream sequence where everyone in Babylon is old, shirtless and dancing. Because I was with these people when I got off the bus, I decided to stay with these guys for that part of the sequence. No AD came and corrected this mistake, even though clearly everyone was much older than I was. Heh. Subversive, me. So apparently a character dies this season. Wont spoil it right now.
I dont think I will be going back to QaF anymore as that the conditions for background holding are quite deplorable. If theyre going to keep 200+ extras waiting in holding for 5 or more hours they should provide better rooms/chairs for the duration. Im not being a prima donna here, folks. You try sitting on a plastic fold-up for more than an hour and come back to me singing the praises of chairdom. Oh my angry ‘roids. And some heat in the room, other than the hot air coming out of loud mouth schnook next to you blabbering on about how stupid his agent is, would be nice. I am well aware that being an extra means “Hurry up and wait” but was there any reason for us to have a 10am call time and then hit the set at 4pm for an hour, and that was a wrap? Could this not have been scheduled better?
When I got home after that, I found an email from my brother saying they might call me back to be his assistant Crown Attourney on TiW again. Yay TV! Now theres a set!
Im sitting in the diner on QaF and Im in a two-seater booth across from a guy who has mentioned his girlfriend a few times (got it, Jack) and how nice the waitress’ ass is (“Nice pants,” I reply) and all during the scene Im mouthing the words “fisting at the Don Jail”. Suprisingly he picks up “fisting” and “jail” and laughs and holds up his meaty hairy forearm. At the cut I tell him of a guy I knew who had numerical increments tattooed up his arm past his elbow. He goes white. Take that back to your girlfriend, Jack.
Im in a bit of a tizz…I am forced to going back to the bar for pick up shifts and the odd promotional night as that there are very little jobs out there right now. As I write this I am moments away from a meeting with the GM to negotiate getting “half” my job back, which would allow me time to do freelance stuff but yet pull a decent paycheque (which is better than no paycheque) from the bar. I feel dirty and gross but its better than working at a bath house or scrubbing pots. I know a few guys who are in the same predicament, taking jobs for the sake of jobs right now (except for one Panda in the states who has landed a dream job koffkofffuckoffkoff). I call it the NMD or New Millenium Depression, because Im depressed about having to do this crappy work to get by (note: that was a joke, no emails please!)
It seems to be a trend for the post-Internet implosion people, to take on a couple jobs while still holding onto some shred of internet work. Ive reworked my portfolio site to align it with web trends (ie: got rid of the Flash navigation) and added new thingys to it. Its only been two days. Where the hell are the phone calls? I know…I know…hit the streets, send out emails and open my yap at every given opportunity.
Last night, at 2am, I applied to WestJet as a Customer Service Rep!
So Im in a holding pen somewhere out in a derelict Mississagua factory thats been converted into the set of Babylon, the nightclub where our lovely citizens of Queer as Folk bitch at each other on the dancefloor. And Im with 200 other club kids/musclemarys/heroin addicts/blithering idiots that make up the “background” as we are called (no longer “extras” weve been reduced even further). And Im listening to this loud mouthed, long haired homophobe spew third rate gay jokes. Im in shock. I am sure he was doing it to make sure nobody would hit on him. Fat chance. this guy wasnt as ugly as…oh…the Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons but he was just as annoying and far from amusing. As I went from holding pen to wardrobe (they didnt like my sparkly Hustler shirt–sorry Paul) to make up (the hairdresser tsk tsk at the back of my neck and said he didnt have the time to do a whole head shave) I was amazed at the amount of homophobic comments were made. Crew would joke about not bending over. Make up girls joked about who looked gayer. And of course you had the nervous straight guys asserting their machismo with comments like “They should make a show called Queer Factor where you have to fish used condoms out of a tank with your teeth.” Perspective time: Im on a shitty third rate soap opera tv set and I expect sensitivity?
Well…yes. I do.
I hear all the time that gay people “respect” Showcase and QaF for putting out some gay culture, but it looks like its rotten from the inside, kids.
Some random thoughts:
• I was “dancing” beside a group of kids, two of which had braces. You gat paid extra money if you are kissing on screen so they should have paired those two up and had them lock metal.
• To get the “background” going, they would blare out the music and start us dancing with lots of energy, only to shut it off mid-beat so the actors could say their lines. If you know what a “audio black hole” is then you know how hard it was not to stop dancing a beat after the music ended. It was like going over a cliff every time.
• Saw my brother’s ex-girlfriend’s brother on set doing makeup for the main actors. Nice guy. We did the gunslinging Isaac-from-Love Boat kapow at each other across the room. Funny.
• The guy that wound up being with me (my date, I shall call him) for the whole shoot was straight. The floor director paired us up and put us on the stairs and the first thing out of his mouth was “My girlfriend’s roommate got me into this.” Gotcha buddy…I wont come onto you. Kudos to you when we were asked to move through the crowd past the camera for grabbing my shoulder and konga lining. I hope they keep that.
• Food sucked. Hot dogs and PandJ sammiches. I bet first season background got better.
I truly hate panhandlers. I do. I got yelled at by one today because I wouldnt look at him or talk to him or anything. Fucking dick. He yelled at me that he had a $10/hr job and that he was trying to make ends meet. “you and me both,” I thought. What annoyed me more was that he did it with a drag queen’s attitude. Dick.
Im looking at a guys forearm today on the streetcar and Im thinking I wish I had forearms like Popeye. He was sexy…then I thought about Baloo in The Jungle Book and how that was my first eroctic stirrings when I saw that movie at the Capital theatre in Brockville…the bit where he rubs up against the tree with his back.