Pandemic

I keep hearing people say “Next there will be a pandemic.” It’s here, in case you haven’t noticed.

It’s not really a coincidence that AIDS emerged just after the Queer movement really started. Excuse me, Gay liberation, because that’s what they called it. The two epicentres of the pandemic were San Francisco and New York. There were also two experimental vaccines being given to gay men in both of those cities. For the old school boys, they still remember getting those vaccines and it still freaks them out. Obviously not every vaccine had HIV, because that would be too obvious. But I think whatever the concept was, they didn’t realize that pansexual identity was alive and well, and that it was never going to stay in that one community. Currently 70% of seroconversions world wide are through heterosexual intercourse. In Mumbai almost 600 people contract HIV every night.

You might be surprised to know that the best HIV prevention education I got was from sex workers, gay men, and recovering junkies. They were amazing to talk to! I remember dating a sex worker once and I started asking her how she stayed safe, I mean, because it is a risky job, clearly, and for all kinds of reasons. She told me some neat things. She talked about being careful with lipstick, because sometimes it eats away latex. She talked about how you never put your seatbelt on and if it gets dodgy you open the door while they are driving, because no matter what they were going to do to you, they don’t want to fuck up their car. She was intense! I don’t think she knew why I was asking, I wasn’t going to be a sex worker unless I had to do survival sex, but I always knew that it was possible I would need to do survival sex work because of my identity. But mostly I just wanted to know that she was as safe as she could be, because I loved her and we really didn’t know how to be ourselves in this kind of a world. We broke up over triggers, I was still pretty clueless about them.

And then some of the most politically aware people I met were recovering junkies. My friend Brent used to talk to me about his life in the downtown eastside and all these socialist things he used to do in his life. He was an amazing political activist for a really long time, and he’s an older guy, he must be fifty now. Anyway, I remember one day he said “They’re sharing HIV positive needles on purpose now. It’s the only way they can get on disability, and disability pays more than regular welfare.” It was sad. I mean, we both knew the kinds of people who walked through that neighborhood, and most of them had hard luck lives. ANYONE can end up in the downtown eastside. And once you’re there, holy fuck, it is hard as hell to escape. I gave him an Erika Lopez book to entertain himself with, I think he liked it.

I was talking to a friend once and was shocked to find out that she was as old as me and had only ever used condoms once. I think people have romanticized unsafe sex. I mean, you can do risky stuff but you have to be really really fucking careful and really clear about boundaries and wow, it’s intense. And not many people can do monogamy. Some can, but relatively few. And sometimes I wonder if that’s just because they’re looking for better sex, more than that they are not in love. It’s funny though, that in a time when we HAVE to really take this pandemic fucking seriously, so many of the most well trained HIV educators have been silenced because of their identities. And instead we have fucking True Love Waits campaigns, and girls are doing anal because they think it’s safer than possible baby making sex. It’s insanity! Most youth are total sodomites now, and they don’t see it as sex, it’s foreplay. I don’t know how that happened. I mean, sodomy is ridiculously fun, and if boys don’t know how vaginas work, and most don’t, then maybe they should stick to that! But really, you need to think about safer sex for all kinds of things, not just penis in vagina sex. And it’s true that condoms break, but fuck, that is better than none at all isn’t it? I don’t know, homophobia and transphobia really is going to kill the planet. And we’ve been distracted with some fucked up campaign against a country not many Americans really care about except they’ve been told to hate it.

Mikiki

I think Mikiki is going to start writing here, I hope so, because hir work is amazingly fun. Ze does an activity called the Drag Race, which has been in Saskatoon too. And ze has a makeup library. Here’s Mikiki’s drag race documentation.

Detroit

I think the scariest contrary I have never met is Eminem. I know no one has been able to place him in art history yet, because he is a complex little character. Stef turned me on to Eminem, I was so avoiding his work because I knew it was all hate stuff. But I was still curious, because he was so intense! I don’t think anyone has really clued in that he is pretty much in drag all the time. Detroit male drag! I didn’t grow up in Detroit, but in Saskatoon that was the American news we watched. And Detroit is hardcore! They set stuff on FIRE at halloween! They’re bizarre. So that was the male model he patterned his character after. And he has tried to make sure people know they are personas, because he uses different stage names. But he walked into the heart of darkness man, that’s been intense to watch.

What is interesting about his work is that we assume he is talking from the position of the ugly straight man. And he’s not! He’s singing about gay male misogyny. And it’s fucking intense! He brings out all the ugly thoughts gay men have about women and places it front and centre and somehow linked it back to heterosexual men, and that is scary! I think so many people have tried to pull him out of drag because he does make gay men look so awful! But it is a persona, because I’ve followed enough of his music and his personal life to know. And I think I know why he is doing it, because he’s the father of a girl! Do you honestly think he wants that kind of life for his daughter? Fuck no, and it comes out in his music, he gets violent if a fan comes around him and his kid. He seriously flips out to defend her, it’s so hardcore! I mean, he does love women, because he’s raising one, and he’s trying to figure out how to keep her from living in a world that worships Slim Shady. He’s so genderqueer, I don’t know how people don’t pick it up. He even dresses like a girl sometimes, but his fan base still doesn’t get it. I don’t know how he’s going to prove that lesbians are cool, but he’s trying. He’s so consumed by the corporations though, they don’t know what performance art is. And of course now he has a rabid fan base of guys who want to suck his cock and don’t know why. I’m so curious to see how he’s going to come out of drag, because it’s been bizarre to watch.

Milos Forman and Ken Keesey

Milos Forman is a brilliant director, because he knows how to cross cultures to talk about his life. It took me ages to watch One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, because I knew it was going to be fucking intense. And Stef tried to make me watch it for the first time in French and I was like “Fuck off!” Anyway, we did watch it together, I got the deluxe DVD. And there’s an amazing documentary on there about the making of the film. It was independent, that was not a Hollywood film, but he found backers who did come from Hollywood money, which was amazing. And he was actually making a film about his life in Eastern Europe. That was an Eastern European story. And he did it in an American style. His process for getting his actors into character was phenomenal, because he let them be crazy all the time. They actually lived on the ward and people stopped being able to tell if they were the patients or the actors. Some of them totally regressed, but they had a psychiatrist on staff who calmed them down and let them know that they were just playing like children, it was okay, they were going to be fine. And they were fine, because Milos set up the ultimate safe working experience. He made sure they were okay even though they went hardcore into their characters. And they didn’t have to put it away at the end of the day, they got to stay in character ALL the time. And most of those actors were then unknown, but of course now you look at them and so many have gone on to do amazing work.

And he was a true collaborator. He let them go where they wanted, some of it was totally unscripted. And he did put in a code, which was amazing, and I use it too.

We think it’s a film about Randall P. McMurphy, and it kind of is, but in the Ken Keesey book, it’s actually written from the viewpoint of Chief. It’s all about Chief watching this stuff happen to a white guy and seeing that race doesn’t matter, anyone can get seriously fucked over. Ken Keesey was a genius too. He wrote Cuckoo’s Nest after spending some time working as an orderly in a psych ward. And then of course he went on to drive around America in his Acid Kool-Aid van. He was a hippie! And to learn about power, he was an orderly, and obviously he didn’t like what was happening there.

There’s a great scene in Cuckoo’s Nest where McMurphy gives Chief a stick of juicyfruit as they are on their way to the ECT room. And Chief finally says something, after all that time being super quiet. And he starts trying to help McMurphy without being noticed, because he needs the staff to keep thinking he’s a dumb Indian. And they have these intense conversations about growing up as men and how you get worked on. But Chief was never going to say anything to McMurphy as long as McMurphy was racist. It was only when he finally realized McMurphy was curious about him that they really became friends.

I think maybe it is a good film to watch right now, if you do feel crazy. Because the end is amazing!

I actually did find a few people who helped me in the ward, it was hard though, because I was a closeted transman and they were gay men. And they spoke French, so we needed a translator. This was in the hardcore ward with the sex offender. Anyway, the translator I used was an HIV positive gay man. And he was awesome, it was hard on him though, because he had no clue what I was doing. And I remember when I went into the ward the staff kept saying “Don’t touch him, he’s . . . special.” They wouldn’t even let me hug him, they were so paranoid. And we weren’t going to have sex, we just needed to be affectionate with each other. So we held hands when no one was looking. And he started falling in love because no one was touching him, he was a pariah, really, and that threw him because he thought I was a lesbian, everyone did. I remember one time I forget what I was doing and the gay male orderlies were like “You can’t do that here, this is a straight ward!” And I said “What? No homosexuals allowed?” I knew what they meant but I didn’t want them to get away with a translation slip. And they started giggling like little girls, they were like “No no no, we mean strict!” I don’t think the man I was incarcerated with knew I was going to be okay, because by the end of psych care they do get rid of empathy. But I knew enough about HIV to know we couldn’t do anything, I mean, they sure as hell don’t pass out condoms in the ward. I hear that’s changing now. And the guy I was with, he was having a hard time on his meds because they stopped him from being able to ejaculate. And it was torture on him, I mean, it was the only release he had and he could not get it even on his own.

And I remember I really fucked up people, because they didn’t know why a girl wanted to be treated with respect. They were so confused on that front, because they assumed girls were passive and meek, and I was all “Fuck all y’all!” They called me a princess, and it really bothered them, because someone like me wasn’t supposed to be so uppity. Not a GIRL! If I had been a bioman, it might have been slightly different, but I doubt it. They always find some way to fuck you up with gender there.

So maybe my point is just that you should buy some juicyfruit for friends.

Womenvisions

My first contact with the Vancouver queer community was through co-op radio, on a show I worked on called Womenvisions. I was the control room dude. I remember one time they did a call in contest and the first caller was a man. And they were so shocked.

Stark Raven was just before Womenvisions, and it was the anarchist show. And that is how I met my friend Louise, because she was the control room dude for that show. She was great, she looked like a white Grace Jones. She ended up in a video of mine that aired on WTN and became some kind of butch sex symbol, it was cute. Anyway, we just started bonding on the control room thing and it evolved from there. She was fun to pal around with. I think hanging out with lesbians IS a good thing for trans guys, because they teach you about your body, and other girl bodies, and they don’t seem to mind handing you over to gay male friends to learn about boys. And gay men are also really good at talking about their bodies.

I remember when one of our friends seroconverted and Louise and a bunch of other lesbians stepped up to the plate and took turns providing care. And once Louise was over there cleaning and she picked up this thing and put it on her wrist. And when she told the guy she had forgotten to take it off and was going to give it back, he was like “That’s a cock ring!” And she was so cute, she was like, “Oh, well no wonder it’s on my wrist because that’s my cock.” He let her keep it, she wore it for a long time. And it was so great because she was such a nice person in every other way, and yet she totally flaunted this fisting symbol. I don’t think she ever knew how many girls chased her. She was the best butch barbie doll too, I’d go over and she would spend literally an hour trying to figure out which t-shirt and jeans to wear. She was butch but in so many ways she was such a girl! She convinced me to have a breast casting party with her, and all we did was feel up girls breasts, they loved it! Anne got her nipple ring caught though. And someone told me some intense BDSM fantasy while I was trying to cast her breasts and it made me all shy, it was funny. I think it was a bondage fantasy.

I remember her friend who seroconverted was telling me about it once, because he wanted to make a video. And he said “They always tell you that you are on a train to Pittsburgh. And you can slow the train down and you can take a few different routes but you will ALWAYS get to Pittsburgh.” What the hell? Is that some kind of Vera Charles reference? Are we all talking in English accents while on a train to Pittsburgh? The way HIV education in this world is going, it would seem so. I am so hopping another train.

Men do get hand envy, by the way, the educated ones anyway. I remember one time Archer was looking at my hands and he said “I am so jealous. Your hands are the right size. You’re so lucky!”

Native Youth Today

I’ve watched a disturbing trend show up in Native children. It’s like, they’re trying to compete with Europeans who have been taught a certain way forever, and it’s made them into assholes!

I remember I did my first official teaching gig with Cease Wyss, and we were training some youth to make videos. And they were assholes! I know not all of them were like that, but as an entity they found the true meaning of Wanker. They did stupid shit like change the clocks on the walls so they could get out early. They ignored instruction and then got mad when they realized they didn’t know something. We couldn’t even get to the basic three light set up because they’d pitch a fit about watching us assemble and disassemble a red head, and then when it was their turn to do it they’d get all sullen and smart alexy. I had no idea how to find anything they liked to start them out with, because they hated everything! I mean, it was insane, they could bitch out the sun if they wanted to. And it became a crisis in the aboriginal art community at large, actually, because suddenly all these well respected artists were like “We don’t want to teach youth anymore. They are assholes.” It’s true. And in fact the new thing is teaching elders to make videos, because honestly, the youth are way too arrogant to do anything with. And I’m talking people in their early twenties acting this way. And a lot of them were total phobes, so stupid! They coasted on assumption and it was never going to take them very far. I think afterwards some of them clued in, but fuck it was hard, because they took the lead of the major alcoholic in the group because he was a boy and he was big and he could open his mouth and make words come out.

Either way, I hate to say it but by and large the aboriginal community is abandoning it’s youth, because they’ve turned into monsters! Not all of them, but some really assimilated ones, yeah! Which is why I hope Laurel starts writing because she’s been teaching inner city kids and she’s finding out how to get them to talk about things they like. And she’s demanding. And she got a whole class to start saying veranda instead of porch, because they liked that word.

I didn’t have a deck in high school, I had a linai.

Norval

Surprisingly few people know that Norval is also a two spirited artist. Leanne Martin and Morgan Wood curated some of his explicit works in Exposed, along with some of my stuff and lots of other people. It was an interesting step to take, because our community was finally trying to talk about the fact that we had sex. And that was something that was hard for us to talk about because of what happened in the residential schools. I mean, so awkward, really, and understandably so. And I dunno, I talk about sex all the time because I’m hoping that eventually people won’t feel embarrassed by their sex lives. Because originally Aboriginal people were totally pansexual. And that’s something that was supressed during colonization. Did I spell supress right? Fuck it, whatev man. But I’ve noticed that people are so embarrassed by their sex lives that sometimes they self destruct on that front, and have terrible unsafe sex! And HIV is on the rise in our communities, so we HAVE to start talking about sex. And not being aggressive with each other, but just talking about the fact that it’s not a bad thing, it’s just abuse that is bad. I dunno, it’s hard for people to draw those distinctions. It was hard for me, I mean, if something bad happens often you just carry it around in your body until you can figure out how to let it go. And if you go stone, you don’t ever let it go!!! No, but there is a thing about touch, and that is hard for survivors of serious shit. Even when I was working through the hospital, I did not want my mom to come anywhere near me. I was all on guard.

My mom gave me a print of Norval’s for my apartment. It was “Bear as Keeper.” I could only find a titchy jpg of it though.

Only in Dreams

This one of the songs James Luna has used in his performances. It was my favorite song in high school too. Weezer was cute.

First Year Emily Carr

People sometimes think going to art school is a cop out, like it’s all fun and games. It is fun, but the workload is fucking intense, I mean, you really never ever stop working there. I still did school work in my dreams, it was so intense.

First Year was the weirdest though, by far, because in a way they had to weed out people who couldn’t hack it. And they did it in this so bizarre way, because they basically turn First Year into high school. You have a seperate corridor for doing first year things and all your classes and you get to go into the auditorium for lectures. This is the Lictors returning to Brutus the Dead Bodies of his Sons. Yes, that was the one I remember the most. I had the title memorized just because it was so unwieldy. But it was an interesting concept, I mean, if you wanted to know if artists could hack art school, simulate a high school environment, but with total free thinking.

I think that is what pissed off a lot of people, because we were so ready to leave high school. None of us had felt we engaged in high school society to our full capabilities. So I kept hearing my friends say “This is high school! We’re still in high school!” And it seemed to be the queer ones who had the most trouble with the concept, because we’d do something totally ‘mo and all these people would give us weird looks like we were fucked up. I think the professors really defended the queer students though, as much as they could anyway, because they knew queer theory was just always in art, always. It’s just there.

I remember it so well, because I was in a class Judy Radul was teaching on media and I did what I thought was a hilarious little composition. I had interviewed BDSM friends about the community we were in, and I mixed it to a four track. And I had some really funny clips. I had my roommate Christie, for one, and she had wild stories! I got her to tell me all about pansexual sex clubs in San Francisco, and it was so cool because she was very matter of fact about it. She even told me what a witches wheel was, and I still haven’t seen one of those anywhere I’ve gone. And so I made my little report to the class and all these people gave me this freaked out look. And I was like “What? What? Why is that weird?” I think after class Judy said “You know, most of these people haven’t had sex yet.” Maybe a different prof told me that actually. And I was like “Whatever, I’ve only had sex three times, why is this so hard for people to talk about? Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do with sex, talk about it?”

I don’t know. I did know, however, that boys were totally willing to spill their secrets to the girls. A gay friend of mine was like “Do you know all the boys draw in the bathroom is penises? That is all they draw! I don’t think they know how to draw anything else.”

The best elder was there for first year, Shirley Bear. I can’t explain why she was the best, but she influenced EVERYONE who was there at the time. I remember one time later on in second term I walked into her office all glum. She asked “What’s wrong?” “Oh. The other day I was napping and a thunderbird flew in and started flying around and around and it dropped a mouse on my back and the mouse ran in to the base of my spine and did something and then they both went away. I feel like I am being called to something. What do I do? Do I have to start being a medicine person?” And she gave the best answer, she said “You are nineteen years old, you have to go be silly for a while.” And I was like “Hey man, awesome, now I can figure out who I am.” I honestly think that is the best recommendation for early spiritual seekers, except for that cult thing, yes, that is the pitfall. But I think going to Emily Carr for four years did help me figure myself out. And I remember by the end of it when I was on antidepressants, people started telling me “You act SO drugged.” I’m curious what it would have been like to do Emily Carr without pills, but they got rid of Shirley Bear just after first year ended, because she was freaking them out because she would smudge with students.

It hit all the students really hard. And we were trying to get her back for ages and the administration wouldn’t budge. Worse than that, we knew even if we did convince them to rehire her, she was never coming back. It was such a difficult time. I think she went to bat for the Native students a hell of a lot more than most of them knew. Ah, they probably did know. But she knew where students had to go and she would fight with people if they didn’t get it. Because Emily Carr seemed to think Aboriginal students needed studio classes badly, because they didn’t know that all aboriginals grow up doing studio really, in their own ways. So I think it was the rare person who actually got to move into a specialized area of learning. She fought for me to get into the film department, she was tough. But I don’t think Emily Carr was ready for an elder who knew that essentially all her students knew what they needed. Because we just naturally came in humble and saying we didn’t know stuff, and that was an attitude that Europeans never understood, because they assumed it meant we really DIDN’T know stuff. But mostly “I don’t know” is a really good mantra for learning, honestly, which is why you say it so much.

But the students did bond, the native students, because we had to, we still had to struggle with our race, in a friggin art school! And I remember watching other more brown native people being asked to talk about their culture in class. And I just thought, that is lazy. They’re learning about their culture right now and you’re trying to make them give answers instead of have good questions. I remember for one of our groups shows we all gave our treaty cards to Sondra Cross, who copied them and made a mobile. And this guy who’s name I have flaked on said “Yeah man, it’s called Statusfaction!” I thought that was so clever. I mean, we did inspire each other, which was the fun thing. Peter Morin went on to try to break the Guinness World Record for largest bannock. So you can kind of see where it all went. And the guys and girls did talk to each other, and they were fine with queers. They didn’t care who you were as long as you knew how to make them think. And they were having fun! They didn’t always want to make the hardcore stuff, they wanted to be silly and make each other laugh. We all knew our history to begin with, we didn’t want to talk about all the bad things. We wanted to goof off. We knew the bad things were there!

I think James Luna was one of my inspirations for being ridiculous AND political. He came to Saskatoon once and we all got to hang out with him. We went to Buds on Broadway and went dancing. And I used to talk to him about music, because he knew some funky boy music that I had never heard of before. And he did this one great transformation performance to Weezer, I mean man, such a boy! He was great. And he knew how hard it was for light skinned Native people, which was something that made me feel better. In fact, in the art community I find that skin tone amongst Native artists doesn’t really matter, they just want to know that you GET IT. And people can be clueless with any skin colour.

Apparently Norval Morriseau had a whole room full of dildos. I think Barry Ace told me that one.

orbs
Originally uploaded by fit of pique.

I don’t think Deanna will mind me posting this. This is a photo taken on the night we burned my psych stuff and set off fireworks for Christopher’s birthday. We are setting off fireworks here. I’ve never seen anyone in my family get orb photos before, but here it is.