Nothing.

Including This. That. No Other.

A lot has happened since my last posts and I suppose an apology is in order for the broken promises to update here. I’m sorry. Stuff [...]]]> I’ve been uncluttering my life lately, tossing stuff into piles labeled “Need”, “Want” and “Discard” — alternately: “Love”, “Like” and “Lose” — and nothing escapes scrutiny.

Nothing.

Including This. That. No Other.

A lot has happened since my last posts and I suppose an apology is in order for the broken promises to update here. I’m sorry. Stuff happened. Some good, some bad, some downright awful. And all of it leads me to variations on a theme: The End.

In late November I was enjoying the delightful company of the denizens of Vancouver’s The Pumpjack bar and although I was hungry, I felt full. So, rather than enjoying further the company of one gentleman in particular, whose staggering hotness is matched by his ultrafirm handshake, I beat a hasty retreat home and then out for a dinner which I didn’t — couldn’t — really enjoy. I slept not a wink that night, running periodically to the bathroom in an attempt to expel, from either end, that which seemed reluctant to be expelled.

The next day was worse. Chills, sweats, fever, excruciating abdominal pain and much rolling around in the fetal position on my bed. I begged to be taken to the hospital where I was quickly diagnosed not with food poisoning but with acute appendicitis. This was something I’ve been dreading for, oh, 40 years or so, as my mother (and her father) had had nightmarish, near-death experiences with their appendix removals. Mine wasn’t close to rupturing; it had practically disintegrated. Once discovered, however, I was treated quickly and professionally and sent out the door a couple of days later to recuperate.

While I was lying in the Emergency Room in mind-shattering pain, thinking that I might actually see The End (of My Life) before the night ended, my relationship — the one which brought me to Vancouver — was secretly ending, too. I found this out a few days later, amends were made and promises… promised. Two months after that, it officially ended. There are some events from which no relationship can recover, I suppose, and without question we’re now both better positioned to pursue that which we separately want to pursue. I wish him well. Honestly.

So I am a man alone now. And I am much happier for it, for the record.

Recovery from the surgery was slower than I’d have liked and I was deeply frustrated at not being able to exercise at all. But I healed and got back into shape. And was struck down, again, by a nasty, four-week flu. Not that you need to be told this, but you seriously do not want to be assessing (and reporting on) your life while engaged in a flu-fight.

The Olympics came to Vancouver and it was pretty spectacular — recent official break-up notwithstanding — and I had a helluva good time. But… again I was feeling poorly. And I wound up, once again, in the Emergency Room. It seems I developed prostate problems as a result of a 35-year-old cycling injury. I won’t go into details but I will say that I’m really fuckin’ tired of taking antibiotics and I have two more weeks to go. And then surgery. But, honestly? I’m eager to have it done as, like my appendix, this inevitable surgery has been hanging over me for the greater part of my life, cropping up every four or five years and that, I hope, won’t happen after May.

So, yeah, The End. Of my appendix, my relationship, the last flu of the season and my recurring prostate issues.

And The End of this blog as you know it.

Since moving to Vancouver, the flavour of my posts here has changed quite radically, and its whole raison d’être — railing against the serious dysfunction in Toronto — seems moot. I’m happy here. Really happy. No city is perfect, but this city is perfect for me.

I started noticing, too, a growing, personal frustration at the fake compartmentalization of my life, a life in which there really isn’t much compartmentalization at all. My online existence is represented by four different and distinct personæ and yet… in real life there is but one. And the ranty, curmudgeonly, bstewart23 persona, which served as useful a purpose as, say, William Burroughs’ “routines” — which eventually became Naked Lunch — needs an overhaul. Concurrent with this deeply personal observation was the increasingly-incandescent, online self-immolation of a former confidant, who now seems incapable of slowing his descent into unintentional self-parody. I so don’t want to do that.

Over the past four months or so, I’ve been recommended Alan Downs’ The Velvet Rage, an exploration of the consequences of growing up gay in a straight society, by four or five people whose opinions I value greatly. I’d avoided it because the central premise — that all gay men are affected by the deep shame resulting from their differentness — doesn’t quite mesh with my experience; I don’t really exhibit any symptoms of shame (of which, of course, you were already very much aware, right?). I picked it up and wish I’d done so much earlier.

The Velvet Rage is a deeply-affecting work, and I cannot recommend it highly enough to all gay men, especially those older than 30. If you don’t recognize yourself within its pages, you will certainly recognize your friends and your lovers, past and present. And having your eyes opened to a significant cause of the truly shitty things we do to ourselves and others, we can set out on a path to authenticity.

Which brings me back to this blog, which had become increasingly inauthentic. So it’s over. Done. The End. Besides, the updates to the software seriously fucked the commenting system, so the whole damn thing needed an overhaul anyway.

I hope you’ve been well. I’ve missed you. And I’ll see you here soon. New, improved, more authentic. I’m really fuckin’ excited. No, really, you guys. Life is good. I’m working on “Love”, “Like” and “Lose”. And it’s great.

Love fearlessly, y’all.

And before those there were [...]]]> Oh, bygone eras of sublimated male eroticism! Before there was Xtube there was newsgroup photo-sharing and before those there were dirty videos (βeta!) and magazines. And before those there were International Male catalogs and “fitness” magazines and before those there were the swimsuit and underwear sections of Sears and Eaton’s catalogs.

And before those there were Ivory soap ads:

“Ivory soap had a good many unusual experiences during the war…”

“Not the least of the pleasure of a hard game is the bath that follows it.”

I believe it’s safe to say that I’ve devoted the latter part of my life to being 0 ⁵⁶/₁₀₀% pure. And I can’t help but think that ads like these got Mad Men‘s Sal into advertising.

(From Divine Caroline via MikeP.)

Three days ago, to be exact, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention it (at least in passing). We all mark significant milestones in our lives, and 22 September 1979 was one of the most critical in my development. Not unlike a majority of gay men of my [...]]]> Oh, hey. I turned “30″ this week.

Three days ago, to be exact, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention it (at least in passing). We all mark significant milestones in our lives, and 22 September 1979 was one of the most critical in my development. Not unlike a majority of gay men of my generation, the moment we pass from acknowledging our attractions to acting upon them can be tumultuous, distressing, earth-shattering and wonderful.

Thousands of men later, many thousands of experiences later… and yet, that particular “birth” was more than sex. It was entry into Otherness. Outsiderness. I cherish and celebrate that singular moment, that birth, in every encounter, on every new day.

Happy Birthday, me. Thirty years. Ho-LEE.

I hope every gay kid reading this, but not yet having had the moment of birth of which I speak, knows that those who’ve come before you — heh — will always be your brothers.

Peace. And Love. Lots and lots of Love.

Video: The Dandy Warhols, “Godless”

(Thanks, Bruce.)

Video: B-52′s “Legal [...]]]> Next to “Roam”, this is probably my fave B-52′s song*. Don’t think the grocers’ apostrophe doesn’t drive me nuts — they fixed it last year, with the release of Funplex — but self-identification is to be respected. The literal representation of the instruments cracks me up and, Cindy, you ARE my goddess!

Video: B-52′s “Legal Tender”

*No, wait, it’s “52 Girls”. No, it’s “Deadbeat Club”. Wevs.

Though Champ and I never really did The Pride Thing in Toronto — at least, not together, and not for the past few years — we didn’t need to really discuss whether (or not) we were going to take in Vancouver’s festivities . We just knew, y’know? I mean, [...]]]> There really wasn’t much discussion about it.

Though Champ and I never really did The Pride Thing in Toronto — at least, not together, and not for the past few years — we didn’t need to really discuss whether (or not) we were going to take in Vancouver’s festivities . We just knew, y’know? I mean, Champ’s lifelong friend (and fierce-partying fire-dyke) Cindy Kampmeinert was named Honourary Pride Hero, so the parade was a given. And there’s no denying I wanted to check out the party because, hey, my two favouritest groups in the whole world are hippies and gay people, so it had that kind of built-in appeal, right there.

Toronto’s Pride has become a leviathan of scale with which I now neither enjoy nor even feel comfortable, so an expected crowd of half that seemed about right for me, about the size at which Toronto’s Pride in the ’90s balanced the city’s community, our neighbours and visitors from abroad. And, indeed, it’s at this point which Vancouver’s Pride committee will need to either scale back or expand to accommodate the crowds.

Friday Night’s street party on Davie saw two blocks of that avenue fenced off in what can only be described as Party Pens, because Canadian Anglos can’t be trusted with alcoholic beverages right out in the open where minors might accidentally brush up aginst them. But looking at a line-up of 45 minutes to get into one of the two Party Pens ($7 entry) and a line-up to get drink tickets and then yet another line-up of about an hour to get a goddamn drink? Uh, no.

With Ken and Champ (2 August 2009)

On Saturday we met up with our pal Ken, in town from Toronto for the weekend, and had some awesome sushi at the roundhouse in Yaletown while catching up. We set a date to watch the parade together and he took off for parts unknown while we went to a fireworks-viewing party in the West End and drank far too much, for which we apologize to our enchanting hosts. Any untoward behaviour, including shameless flirting, too. There were line-ups outside every bar and club along the route home. The gays love their bars.

Pride Day found us up early and eager to hit the parade. We met Ken and stationed ourselves at the corner of Beach and Bidwell, where we were treated to nonstop commentary from a Hippie Douchebag and unending jostling from the ever-increasing entourage of an Asian family who saw fit to bring one of their children’s bicycle to the front of the spectator lines. This happens with such regularity at Pride Parades — if not a bicycle, it’s a baby carriage which inevitable is pressed into the back of my legs.

And let me take this opportunity to tell those Hippie Douchenozzles and rude, straight gawkers out there: you may be a citizen of this country and therefore legally able to go anywhere in public, but THIS IS OUR FUCKING PARTY, ASSHOLES, not yours. You’re invited and you’re welcome to have a good time with us. But don’t you fucking ask to have pictures taken with complete strangers among us to make you look hip and cool. Because it demeans us and, most of all, WE ARE NOT HERE FOR YOUR ENTERTAINMENT. We are here because it’s our party, and if you do not like seeing fat dykes on motorcycles or old, wrinkly, naked fags with their junk hanging out, you can just keep your stupid-fuck comments to yourself while you are getting the fuck away from us, like, right now.

And then the parade started and it was fun even if it was also far too long. And that fucking bicycle. And that Hippie Douche, with whom we’ll deal in a moment.

There were Dykes on Bikes, the traditional harbingers of Pride parades:

Hippie Douchewaffle behind us felt it necessary to say, at a volume perfectly-suited to someone utterly oblivious to his obnoxiousness, “so… a bunch of fat chicks on motorcycles? What next?” Stay classy, Hippie.

There were mounties, who had to endure chants of “Take! It! Off!” when they stopped briefly in front of our section. Hey, it was really hot and we were just offering a helpful suggestion because us gays, we’re nothing if not helpful, especially when it comes to wardrobe and costumes:

If they laughed, that made it okay, right? It was hot, people.

There was the dashing and handsome Ian Hanomansing, a newsreader for a television network, the name of which I’ve forgotten:

There was Grand Marshall Cleve Jones, whose door sticker seemed as concise as it was… limiting:

My dad showed up unannounced:

Hippie Douchebucket found this particularly distressing: “straight people can’t go naked in our parades, so it’s wrong to allow old gay people to do it,” which, when you think about it, is a statement fucked up on too many levels to bother with for any reasonable length of time. Like beyond the end of that last sentence.

There was a quartet of First Nations chicks fiercing it up to Tina Turner to get the crowd going (and it worked):

It was tough not to get choked up by the abundance of love and respect for Cindy “Big Cins” Kampmeinert by her fellow firefighters:

I understand Cindy was also a bit of a Vancouver Pride legend when it came to water fights. Do not fuck with a kick-ass lesbian who knows how to operate pressurized water, people. R.I.P., Big Cins.

We screamed for ice cream. Okay, ice cream vendors:

We accepted a sincere apology, even if apologies fall far short of actual retribution:

We got a giggle (and mild political arousal) from the PumpJack float, and made a mental note to go there on my Vancouver Gaybar Re-Un-Virgining:

We observed a touching moment of silence for fallen friends:

Hippie Douchewaste: “what a downer, man.”

Hey, by now you’ve probably established a mental picture of Señor Smartass, right? How close were you?

So hot.

And close to the end of the parade, my decision to not join Fitness World — despite their incessant, insistent phone calls to follow up on a single free workout at one of their facilities — was utterly reinforced by the bane of my gay existence: the sailor cap on a hairless, hot-pantsed go-go stud. People, for the love of all things good and sweaty, Let. It. Die. already.

Argh.

Following the parade, we traipsed towards Sunset Beach, where a whole bunch of vendors and volunteer agencies set up shop beside the — predictably overcrowded — single beer garden. Memo to the Pride Committee: next year? Think bigger. Like, maybe get rid of banking booths — who the hell opens a chequing account on Pride Day? — and stick in another beer garden or three. There are bears out there and they are thirsty.

I volunteered to model for checkhimout.ca, a gay men’s health website that looks, promisingly, as fun and sex-positive as it is informative:

And, no, that photo isn’t mirror-backwards. Hot, tired and thirsty, we headed back to a lovely BBQ at one of Champ’s colleague’s patio deck and then home to crash, happy homos, us.

Happy Pride, Vancouver-style, everyone.

Lately I’ve been going through boxes and boxes of stuff of neither use nor interest to anyone but the various people I’ve been over the past thirty or so years. And it’s all getting trashed. Well, most of it. Some [...]]]> It’s not that I’m a packrat as much as… okay, I’m a packrat. Or, rather, was.

Lately I’ve been going through boxes and boxes of stuff of neither use nor interest to anyone but the various people I’ve been over the past thirty or so years. And it’s all getting trashed. Well, most of it. Some tiny portions of it I’m saving and, as the brighter among you may already have surmised, some of it I’m scanning and then trashing.

Like this newspaper photograph from… 23 (?) years ago, which (in part) illustrates why baseball is pretty-much the only professional team sport I’ll watch:

“Uprising”

What’s funnier — probably — is that I’ve kept the stupid thing for 23 (?) years.

I want to tell you a story about a teenager in Calgary, Alberta. A normal kid, smarter than most, bookish but enthusiastically into politics and culture in all its forms. Like most teenaged young men, he had a healthy (read: voracious) sexual appetite. He had an [...]]]> So, hey, it’s International Day Against Homophobia 2009 today. IDAH’09!

I want to tell you a story about a teenager in Calgary, Alberta. A normal kid, smarter than most, bookish but enthusiastically into politics and culture in all its forms. Like most teenaged young men, he had a healthy (read: voracious) sexual appetite. He had an appropriately-secret collection of erotica, having moved beyond the usefulness of the Sears catalog’s undergarment and swimwear sections. Of course, he was still a virgin. But he had plans!

He planned to get married and have a family and live in a beautiful house he designed (and built) himself. He would be happy and successful. He would have sex with his wife and, on weekends in the summer, he would join the other husbands and fathers in the neighbourhood for “bachelor” weekends at the cottage. Where they would be naked most of the time and spend a good deal of time wrestling around naked, too.

Don’t worry, Mom, that’s as explicit as I’ll get. Oh, right, I forgot: that teenager was me. And while smarter than most, he wasn’t very smart when it came to things like his own, burgeoning sexuality. “Delusional” might be the best word to describe it.

Of course, that was over twenty years before information/community (re)sources like the intertubes, and it was a time in which the only information on homosexuals was in the aberrant-psychology section of the public library and in hair-raising articles in TIME Magazine, with headlines like “Are Homosexuals Sick?”

TIME Magazine, 31 October 1969
(Homosexuals == Scary, Pink, Sugar-Bowl-Emulatin’ Freaks)

Of course, ten years after that issue of TIME, a teenager no more, I met and kissed (et cetera) the man who’d be my first boyfriend. And I learned in short order that being true to who and what I was was far better than those childish fantasies, which today even don’t exist in the dreams of… anybody. Almost a decade after that I met and fell in love — real, passionate love — for the first time in my life. And I came out to my friends and parents. It wasn’t easy but it was necessary. And, man, did it feel good.

And in the thirty (!) years since that time, when being honest to both myself and the people who purported to love me unshackled my spirit, I’ve traveled the world, fallen in love dozens of times, have had relationships as deep and meaningful as anyone could hope for, engaged an insane amount of ridiculously hot (SAFE) sex, buried lovers and boyfriends and tricks and friends and friends-of-friends during The Plague Years, been on television and in print and have made friends the world over. I’ve marched in parades and stormed government buildings, here and abroad, written politicians and worked for equal-rights groups. And I’ve never been happier or more alive in doing so.

And none of those things — not one — would have occurred had I not followed the first rule of Fruit Club. TIME Magazine told me when I was entering puberty that I’d wind up sad and lonely, because my “abnormality” and the homophobic world — though they didn’t call it that back then — would make me sad and lonely.

And that’s my wish for all the young people in small towns who are afraid because people are mean and stupid and hateful, and those people want to hurt you and make you go away: come out.

Come out.

It’s the first and most crucial thing you can do to become… yourself. It’s the first and most crucial way to fight homophobia, by shedding your own homophobia. Come out.

Move to a city, no matter how scary that prospect might be, because in a city you will find love and community. (Preferably, move to a city where your vote for marriage equality will tip the scales, okay?) Fight the homophobia you hold inside you and then you can fight the homophobia in others, alongside your gay brothers and lesbian sisters. Come out!

Happy International Day Against Homophobia, everyone.

17 May 2009: International Day Against Homophobia
(featuring vintage, 20-year-old Queer Nation Tee)

Funny? Uh-huh.

(via Gizmodo).

Gay Comics #22, Winter 1944

I mean, the physics of the whole scenario is wack. There’s NO WAY that cake’s icing would fly up like that!

On the heels of similar blogbuddy posts — here and here — I paid a visit to The Hero Factory and crafted my own, superpersonalized  superhero. Some parts of him are off and some dead-on. I’ll leave it for you to decide which are which.

I acknowledge [...]]]> Never let it be said I’m not a follower.

On the heels of similar blogbuddy posts — here and here — I paid a visit to The Hero Factory and crafted my own, superpersonalized  superhero. Some parts of him are off and some dead-on. I’ll leave it for you to decide which are which.

I acknowledge in advance that my shoes do not match my backpack (though my kneepads do). And, for the record, I apparently have no control over the comic’s title.

(Link courtesy Consumerist.)

In the fallout from the Prop 8 debacle, one thing is patently obvious: bigots really fucking hate it when they’re a) identified by name and, b), called-out as the bigots they truly are. Mike “Hateful Bigot” Huckabee certainly made that clear in his interview with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show earlier this week.

So [...]]]>
Eduardo Verástegui, BIGOT

In the fallout from the Prop 8 debacle, one thing is patently obvious: bigots really fucking hate it when they’re a) identified by name and, b), called-out as the bigots they truly are. Mike “Hateful Bigot” Huckabee certainly made that clear in his interview with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show earlier this week.

So it’s with considerable delight that I present, albeit a tad late (hey, I was upgading to WordPress 2.7 and trying to learn Ruby programming, whaddya want?), Mr. Eduardo Verástegui, undertalented actor and model, who not only refuses to kiss actresses not married to him — he’s “single” and totally Jesusy — but he also believes that denying equal rights to one in ten human beings is, somehow, “common sense”. This is how homophobic bigots operate, in case it wasn’t patently obvious. They lie, the lie for Jesus and they especially take delight in warping what the rest of us call “common sense” to their twisted unrealities.

And, hey, let’s not belabour the obvious notion that minorities should be particularly sensitive to the bullying of the majority, either, right?

Rumours do continue to swirl regarding the gender of those actually who stiffen Eduardo’s superchaste cougar, but one thing’s for sure: your “god” totally didn’t intend for you to press a naked feline against your genitals, Edu. Also? That cat’s a boy, bitch.

Eduardo Verástegui:

Predictably, more after the jump…

Oh, no, he totally doesn’t look even remotely like those whose rights he wants to restrict, does he? I hope Mr. Verástegui enjoys the fact that thousands of protogay Latinos are right now masturbating over photos of his seminaked self.

Important Reminder: The “Green on Thursday” series always reveals very much more about your host at This.That.No Other. than it does about any of the featured personalities.