Tag Archives: fear

The Lesson: First for Everything

Personal Bits

Two upper middle class, housework-shunning, career women sit down to lunch, order martinis and the topic of their children come up. A common complaint is discovered and a plan is hatched.

When I was 13 (ish), my mother announced I would be going out on a date. Imagine the internal spit take that generated. My mother… the matchmaker! I was appalled for a moment at the thought of her talking about my inability to socialize with strangers. And my social ineptitude… Wait… What? With a girl?

Holyshitwaitaminnit… A date with a girl??! Would I have to kiss her?

At this time I had already had sex with a man. I knew it was right, my hard wired brain was just doing what it was genetically told to do. But somewhere in my chest, a voice said “Oh fuck it! Give it a whirl!” So when you hear earfucks saying “Gay is learned!” or “Gay can be behaviorally eradicated from your system!” punch those fuckers in the nuts for me. It makes me physically ill to think that people can “cure” you by rote (or disfiguring electroshock). I digress. I decided to give it a whirl, despite the huge fear that was in my goolies.

She was my age and slightly gangly and while she was not the most popular girl in school, she was smart. Near genius smart for her age. I was more intimidated by that, than her sex. My mom stood just outside of earshot (which, by the way is physically impossible) while I made the call:

“Hello Dorcas…?”

Let’s stop right there. I am sure the reason Dorcas was so intelligent and wise beyond her years was purely based on the need to constantly explain to people her name was not a vehicle for child-like slurs. Get it out of your system now, I’m sure she had heard them all well before she was 5 years old in numerous playground and recess gatherings. Dork Ass; Door Knob; Dork Face; Dumb Ass etc. Years after our date, I had seen her verbally rip the skin off of some drunk fucker who called her out about her name, during a illegal teen drinking party. While her words were venomous, her eyes were dead set and almost blasé. She had her name defense response honed to an art.

Of course, her name was the first thing we talked about on our date. I thought I asked politely but my question still riled her. “It’s from the bible,” she told me, “Not that I’m religious or read it at all.” We then tore into how embarrassing our mothers were: from naming conventions to matchmaking. We were friends then.

But throughout the evening there was a voice in my head. “You gonna kiss her when this is over?”

I admit that the night was a blur. I do know we went to Star Wars. I do remember her telling me that hand holding was not required. I do remember at the end of the evening, after walking her home, standing at her door, (thankfully without any parent in view – we lived in an age when 13 year olds could walk the streets unattended) we did kiss. I think I kissed her teeth.

We became friends after that. Like “holy Christ we will never, EVER talk of this again” kind of friends. When Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back came out, we went on another “date” much to the amazement of our parents. I remember my Mom reeling like being hit by a slap when I mentioned Dorcas and I were going out on another date, three years after the last. We laughed hysterically at the end of the evening when I kissed her hand.

Two upper middle class, housework-shunning, career women sit down to lunch, order martinis and awkwardly avoid talk of their children.

Pride Tips for Out of Towners

Queer stuff, Toronto

Hello tourists!

Thank you for taking an interest in coming to Toronto Pride – Unified! . It will be a great honour to have you visit our humble city!

Here, for your amusement, are a few tips you should consider while enjoying our little fete:

The Parade:

perchFirst of all, know that there are two: the Dyke March on Satuday and the Pride March on Sunday. Currently the Pride committee is petitioning humanity to create a new day, “Smunday”, to put the Bisexual, Transgendered, Transexual and People Who I Left Out Parade on that day (until further notice) – Happy Unity, Everyone!

If you’re not lucky enough to get a Yonge Street perch on one of the many store rooftops, then you should consider arriving at least 45 minutes to an hour before the parade starts. Bring lots of water. And elbow pads. Other non-homosexual tourists consider it their right to get to the parade route 5 minutes before it starts and shove their kids in front of you, after you’ve been waiting the hour. Be firm: you were there first and don’t need to be the “polite Canadian” at this point.

Don’t forget to hydrate. If you faint, you will lose your spot. Or fall into the arms of a date. Up to you. Waterguns, once a fashion must on the parade route, are on the way out. Unless the Conservative party decides to place clueless reps in the parade again this year.

Half way through the parade, the crowds lessen for some reason (“Hey the beer garden must be kind of empty right about now…”) and you can relax for the rest of the show.

The Street:

Afraid of crowds? Avoid at all costs the half block between Maitland and Alexander on Church Street on both Saturday and Sunday. Right in front of Woodys and the city owned parking lot converted into a beer garden, is a small strip of road that is un-supervised for crowd control. Yearly this strip of street providing access to north and south stages manages to clog hard with aimless gays, camera obsessed Asians and incomprehensible dick heads who insist on bringing strollers/bikes/carts into the fray. You can avoid it by using the back alleys just east and west of Church. Love crowds? Dive in! You’ll get into that particular beer garden at noon and will probably not be able to leave until Sunday 11pm. Or later. Or until they scoop the passed out drunks off you a la Soylent Green.

Beer Gardens:

Best bet for shopping/drinking/entertainment and not getting crushed would be the Wellesley Street Beer Garden. Mel C is headlining on Saturday and MADO is performing at 5pm on Sunday. Don’t discount the South Stage (by Maple Leaf Gardens) either – Kids on TV are there at 3pm. Expect “Drag Times” to set these people back a bit, but lately the organizers have been pretty punctual.

The laws governing the purchasing of beer at one of these events are as bizarre as the lesbian poetry performers you’ll be subjected to by the north stage. Purchase a ticket, take the ticket to the untrained, sweaty volunteer who is sick of seeing drunk people (I kid! I kid because I love) and they will hand you a plastic cup of lukewarm beer. So English! Best to buy the maximum 2 at a time to avoid lines. Beer gardens, despite the lines and crowds are always the best way to meet someone. The combination of beer, sun and dancing always manages to combine people in a fun way.

Bars:

MomsBe forewarned that every Pride has been marred in the past by the Ontario Licensing Board in the form of bizarre charges laid on bars that might or might not have violated laws like over crowding, over service or over fun. Lines will be long to get in as that every establishment is frightened of having these gestapo order everyone out of a bar for a headcount. It cuts into sales, you know. While air conditioned, I doubt you will find fun people. Bars usually hold the old regulars, phobic of crowds and meeting new people, like you would at beer gardens. Try to hit them all on Friday night and you have a satisfying cross section of them all.

Food:

Avoid at all costs eating in ANY restaurants on Church Street. O’Gradys will fuck you without lube and shove you out the door without a kiss. It’s pretty much like that for all the restaurants: set menu, price hikes, forced tip, small portions, get the fuck out of the way for the next guy. Best to eat off the street (Daybreak at Church and Carlton, Chew Chews at Carlton and Sherbourne, for cheap and cheerful) or just eat a smog dog – plenty of vendours down Wellesley or up by the 519 Community Centre. I repeat: DO NOT EAT AT ANY RESTAURANTS ON CHURCH.

Seriously.

Don’t.

I warned you.

Partying:

Don’t ask me. I don’t go out anymore. Go to the Beef Ball if you want leather/bear/overtly macho. Any other kind of gays you might be hunting can be found at all the other $75-$100 ticket events. Check out the over-the-top graphical posters on the street. All parties will provide sufficient amount of bump (!) and grind for your clubbing needs. Personally, I will be staying on the street, finding a perch and watching people go by. It’s the best way to see it all and save some money. But I’m old, judgemental and don’t drink.

Scoring

Enjoy!!Toronto gays and lesbians are some of the most attractive people in Toronto, yet are not the most open individuals out there. After a few drinks, sure, they’re as loose as Tila Tequila in a Turkish prison. But if you make eye contact and signal your intention that you’d like to sex up one of these elusive homosexuals, you might scare them off. See, most Torontonian homosexuals during Pride develop the “bus stop” syndrome. Meaning, in the throngs of tourists that come into the city, they might see you and might find you hot, but they’re waiting for the next one along who may be hotter than you. Know that Toronto gays and lesbians are still mired in their fear of sex, not like Montreal or New York. You need to go slow and steady. And have beer at the ready.

I hope you have a great time during Pride!

England Memory #8 – Romance, or Wise Up Sucka!

England

Brighton holds the honour of being the location of the first romantic moment I’ve ever had in my life (Note: this story is completely trumped by many many many experiences given to me by SharkBoy. The ultimate being the day I got asked to be betrothed, of course).

I’m sitting in that crappy flat in Earls Court, expecting another penniless Saturday night, listening to the blubbering homesick basset hound when there’s a knock on the front door. It’s Nigel. By this time we have had two drunken nights out together and he had failed to mention that he’s got a boyfriend. I’m utterly clueless and only slightly wonder why he’s never given me his home number. Love and being in a new country blinded me, made me rather unsuspecting.

“Pack for one night,” he says. I’m out of that shitty flat like it was overrun with flaming cockroaches, and sitting in his Mini (a real one!) within seconds. We head south.

A little over an hour, we’re in Brighton. We stop at his brother’s flat, who is conveniently out of the country at the moment, and grab a post-road trip G and T. Then off to dinner.

It was my first French restaurant. Nigel bravely took up my dare of eating Steak Tartar while he ordered the Crab Salad for myself. He knew that it came in the hollowed out carapice of a King Crab, legs draped over the plate, face turned towards me as if to say “I ‘ope yew findz me, ‘ow do you zey… delishious? Mai oui!” When the salad arrived we both discovered that I had a fear of King Crab – insectoid and ugly and expecting me to touch it.

“Calmly lift the top,” Nigel instructs, and walked me through dinner.

Two bottles of wine later, Nigel pays the bill and we walk out into the night (£120 for two! To this date, that was the most expensive meal I’ve ever had. Later in our relationship he would regularly take me out to lunches in Covent Garden before my afternoon shift at the RAC and I would stagger into work, borderline drunk). He takes me down to the pier. To the ocean. I’ve never seen the ocean before. It’s bastard cold but the wine has made me giddy and I start running along the pebbled beach. I scoop rocks up as I run, laughing. I start tossing them into the sea, shouting, laughing. I’m really in that moment: the shitty flat, the homesickness, the crappy computerless job, all wash away and I feel Nigel’s hand, arm, encircle my neck and I lean back onto his chest.

Cue waves crashing on the beach.

To this day, when I hear waves, it always “centres” me, relaxes me. I don’t remember Nigel, but I do remember the happiness.

The next day he drops me off at the flat. As he drives away, it’s like being a puppy being brought back at the pound. Then it hits me: we haven’t made plans for another date, despite this one being so fantastic, nor has he given me his home number, just his office one. It was then that I smartened up and started to suspect Nigel wasn’t being honest with me.

Okay so I lied that there wouldn’t be any more adulterous posts, but this memory ties pretty much all my memories of England into one. I was happy, adventurous, independent and in love. I was also naive and innocent which was burst by my decision that it was ok to “be that other woman”. England taught me a lot about who I was becoming.

Brighton Beach 1986

Villains

Celebs and Media

One of the first memories I have is the Disney movie 101 Dalmatians. I was 9 or so when I first laid eye on Cruella DaVille. Cloned from Phyllis Diller and Joan Collins’ lesbian relationship, Cruella scared the crap out of me. Her boisterous attitude, the long cigarette, the out of control hair, mysterious all-covering fur coats all combined to remind me of the worst of my mother. But seeing how this is a post about Disney villains and not some pseudo Freudian inner sexual rant, I will continue.

There are strict rules about how we perceive a villain in the Wonderful World of Disney. The fastest way I can describe it is this: they’re either male or female. Congratz, you say! Hear me out:

The Men. All Disney Male Villains (DMVs) MUST have a British accent. Why? Because to Americans, a good North London born and bred voice sounds pompous and condescending, making our hatred gland secrete ire for anyone smarter than us. With the pompousness, comes a pseudo-homosexual undertone designed to sexually offset kids’ budding sexuality in the audience (or hetero parents, for that matter). Oddly enough I know no homosexual who actually disliked a Disney villain, male or female (females do rate higher though). The best male villains rolled their r’s and swirled their hands in large circles (from the wrist) when flamboyantly revealing their sick and twisted plots to a captive hero. When confronting their nemesis, DMVs looked upon their goody goody enemies with half closed eyes and big bottom lips, jutted out in feigned interest. This was usually followed by the DMV placing the hero in such a complex trap, the gods themselves couldn’t ex the machina.

Proof? Here are some prime examples:

Jafar (Alladin): Can you say Joan Crawford in reverse mandrag? The droll downcast eyes and harsh uplighting in every scene would make any drag queen jealous. And those lips. I swear to god he’s wearing eyeliner and eye shadow.

Scar (Lion King): Voiced by Jeremy Irons. Remember him? Dead Ringers? Creepy. Scar is pretty much my cornerstone DMV. He explodes at his stupid henchmen, plots three steps ahead of the writers themselves and you know that as soon as he reaches power in the pride, he is going to have a Caligula-esque orgy within hours.

Professor Rattagan (The Great Mouse Detective): Vincent Price’s lilting foppish voice was perfect as the evil master mind nemesis to Basil (“Oh I love it love it love it,” he chants in one scene, like some queen at a Banana Republic year end sale). Mentioning Rattagan’s true self as a rat and you are fed to an obese fag-hag like cat. How’s that for denial?

Judge Claude Frollo (The Hunchback of Notre Dame): The most sexually fragmented character ever created by Disney. Don’t know him? Maybe you remember his voice as MegaByte from Reboot? Or even more obscure as Chairface Chippendale from The Tick (cartoon, not live action)? No? How about the voice of The Supreme Being from Time Bandits? He has a silky commanding voice and deserves better work than the crappy video games he’s been voicing lately. Who can forget his passionate song to a flaming fireplace as he tries to deal with lust and his piousness? While not gay, certainly he was repressed.

Sir Hiss (Robin Hood): Not so much Brit Evil than creepy smarmy sounding snake. With a lisp. And check out that penile head!

Gaston (Beauty and the Beast): No British accent but he is egotistical, narcissistic, body conscious, proud of his hairy chest, mentions his many hunting conquests and reveres his ability to spit. Can you say overcompensation?

Captain Hook (Peter Pan): Fresh cabin boy, anyone?

The Women: In the Disney universe, female villains are either skeletally emaciated or extremely fat, but most certainly are always Vamps, in the post-war, VD spreading way. Definitely Tramps. Their voices may not be played by British actors or have that Eton taught quality, but there is a throaty, gutteral and husky quality to their voice. I suspect these characters are played this way to entice underdeveloped fears of sexually from immature male children, confusing the crap out of them and making them squirm in their theatre seats. The Disney Female Villain (DFV) is always manic and prone to violent mood swings, going from sultry seductress to exploding volcano, swatting their henchmen with solidly placed firebolts or back hands, in seconds. Their make up is extreme, verging into scary clown effect. Their clothes are always ill fitting, either too loose to give a glimpse of side boob (Yzma, played by Ertha Kitt, in The Emperor’s New Groove) or too tight (Ursula, The Little Mermaid) to offer more curvaceous visuals.

The average DFV is overtly sexual:

The Witch (Snow White): A fine start to all of Disney’s villains by creating this rather anti-Christian device of black magic. As a large hag, her eyes are puffy and downright scary. In her true form, she looks down upon all with her half closed, painted lids. She�s the aunt that doesn�t approve of your birth.

Malificent (Sleeping Beauty) and Lady Tremaine (Cinderella): Joan Crawford was obviously the model for these two villainesses! What is it with everyone fearing large shoulders, smoldering eyes and wicked lips? In the end Malificent is run through with a sword while she’s a dragon. I will just shake my head at the sexual imagery here. Lady T was always looking at Cinderella’s buttkus as she cleaned floors.

Ursula (Little Mermaid): Fat. Pat Carrol. Shakes rump a lot. Fearsome.

Madame Mim (Sword In the Stone): I chose her because she’s prime cross over material: British accent AND a woman. Actually Martha Wentworth was born in NYC but she did a great job with the voice. Boastful and a poor dresser.

Cruella de Ville (101 Dalmations, etc): As I mentioned, her frail skinny body kept under layers of furs and loose fitting cocktail dresses is pure Die G�tterd�mmerung harpy sans wings. She came across like she had just polished off a 5th of gin and that would make any Al Anon kid nervous.

To sum up, Villains from Disney are designed for us to hate them for the following didactic reasons: they get our ire by their pompous, overbearing, authority-hating accent and a vague sexual fear, either by grating against our orientation or by confusing us with unleashed passions.