Wedding

Oh, fuck, that’s right. There is an open invitation to Cindy and Megan’s wedding here, you can find the details on the LadyLady website, but here’s the link to their wedding. It’s the first same sex wedding I have ever gone to, and it might take my mind off of Easter. Some amazing people are in town for it, including Cheli. I still don’t know what to wear, all I have is a top hat and no tux. But at least I am at a place now where I can go and not be really weird. It’s a circus theme, and I guess I am supposed to dress as a freak, but I am one anyway, so I shall probably go as myself. Although myself wears some goofy clothes usually. If you want you can get them some awesome presents.

Conclusion

So I guess I can conclude this long dissertation, although I will always write here. By now you might have guessed that I really am the reincarnation of Sarain Stump. And Sarain Stump really was the reincarnation of Quetzalcoatl. Quetzalcoatl’s reign ended when the cult of Tezcatlipoca took over. A young man would be chosen for a year to live as Tezcatlipoca, and he had all kinds of girlfriends and was treated like a prince for a year. And at the end of the year, he would go up the pyramid and have his heart ripped out. And the next year it was the same, with a new boy. And Quetzalcoatl went into exile, and said he would be back. And he was trans. I think I have always wondered why Tezcatlipoca would be a more popular god. So I did spend many lifetimes following cults, trying to crack the code, trying to get people out. And I always died as a political prisoner. ALWAYS. Actually, that’s not true, the last time I needed to make amends to the Americas and clear my conscience and jump into a body that would be this age now, which is why I set my mom and dad up. I don’t think they need to be together, I think they just both have some awesome genetics. I’ve never gotten this far before, but then, this is the first time I have had the internet.

I’ve actually been working for six months on contract to my uncle, Doug Cuthand, who is a producer. He’s got some amazing scripts. I had to research HIV for him first, and then he sent me to the Merchant office to research residential schools. I couldn’t touch the files anymore. I know exactly what is in them, but I honestly don’t want those files near me again. Those are stories of some of the worst things that have happened to my people, those are stories of our Holocaust. And we are still in the Holocaust. I wanted to compare Nazi Germany, because that happened the same time the residential schools really got started. And our Holocaust was focused on our children, in the end. Uncle Doug has this amazing script he’s been working on based on the story we heard through Louise Mandell, about her grandfather, who was a Holocaust survivor. His camp was liberated by a regiment of Canadian aboriginal men. And they were amazing with the camp survivors. They held them and let them cry for the first time and gave them watery soup because they knew that they couldn’t have solid food yet. And that was when they felt free. And then some Americans came in for a photo op. He told her she should always work for Aboriginal people, and she has, she is one of the finest Native rights litigators in Canada, and it was lovely to apprentice in her office.

Anyway, I know he wants the research, and I know he’s kind of disappointed that I just took off and freaked out, but I was planning it. I didn’t expect to get so wrapped up in it, but I think I did crack the code and I think I did find a way for us to actually talk about it. I hope someone produces his script so that he does get something out of this, I didn’t mean to derail his project. But the research is all here, everything, everything I know.

Anyway, I have to go get tested for cervical cancer now. Because I contracted HPV and Indian Affairs wouldn’t pay for me to take Aldera. And Aldera is about six hundred bucks for a course of treatment, but they made me take some shoddy second rate one, and I don’t think it worked. No one was willing to pay for me to take care of an STD, because if I got an STD I probably deserved it. But I know who gave it to me and it was a girl. I have to put my time sheet in anyway, because I haven’t been paid for my last two weeks of work yet and I need to buy supplements for my brain and honestly, no one is lending me money anymore. And I have no job after this. So hopefully I can get paid and I can work this out with my uncle. He’s a legendary guy actually, he spent time in Haight Ashbury when it was all going on. There’s a rumour he helped draft dodgers. I’ve heard another story about him meeting the King of the Roma in a parking lot in Paris. He told me all about the sex workers using Smart Cars at Cannes. And he lost his son, my cousin Christopher, this year in an industrial accident. And we all miss Christopher so much. I didn’t want anyone to mess him over while he’s grieving. He’s had no clue what I’ve been doing, I think he’s kind of paranoid, poor guy. So I should go face up to that. Linda, who works in his office, was great fun to talk to. She’s worked in the Industry for ages and ages and she’s ridiculously good at what she does. And I hope he’s okay with the direction I took his research, because it really is all here. I just don’t think you need to hear about the shitty things they did to kids. That would be too hard on the remaining survivors. And other survivors, because it continued.

I dunno, I really hope I don’t have cervical cancer, but I’m honestly not sure. And some weird unknown liquids were injected to me in the ward, I have no idea what they were. They didn’t tell me. It was easy to believe I was a crazy person, because then somehow people feel safer. But I was never crazy. I was a political prisoner. And I doubt highly that I will get any recompense for it.

My whole file is in Montreal. I don’t want to look at it, but I’m aware it might come out after all of this, to prove I was fucked up. I think Mohammed is alive and well, by the way, because I see it in Maher Arar. I hope he can have a life again, he deserves to be able to relate to his family. He’s coming here this month, I was hoping to meet him. I dunno, I just want him to have some hope. Ten million dollars still won’t give you back your life, especially since he can’t even get on a plane anymore.

My last HIV, Hep, Syphillis, everything came out clear. I just have HPV. Which could still kill me unless I can get it out of my system and check my cervical cells on a routine basis. I guess it wasn’t important for Indian Affairs to actually provide proper treatment, but they sure did go balls out to pay for all kinds of psych meds, some of which are ridiculously expensive. If other people want to write on here they can send me an email, and I’ll add them, if they can tell me a good reason for them to add their voice to this Fit of Pique. And I’m out of pot, which I should get so I can keep healing, but again, people don’t want to give me money until I can prove I deserve it and that I’m a hard worker. I think they mean making shoes. Directing is not an option for me right now with the way government funding works. And I missed a bunch of deadlines, because I had to sort this out. I was writing about the psych ward, but it’s a long story that one.

I am curious about the ships here. I don’t know, maybe they can help me. Maybe I can’t get help on this planet the way it is. Maybe you do prefer Tezcatlipoca. I don’t want to commit suicide, and I won’t, so if you do find me dead I didn’t do it. I know we have to disarm all nukes in order to get out of quarantine, but I’m not sure that people are ready to let go of the ballistic missiles they’ve been cuddling while falling asleep.

And really, truly, I mostly just want to be a director again. And I want to live forever. Somehow I do believe that forever is possible.

So I’ll end my formal presentation with one of my favorite songs in high school by The Cranberries, Salvation. And they come from another one of my homelands that knows colonialism inside and out. I’ll still talk on here, but I do hope that the floor opens up now, because I know they are waiting in the wings. And I hope it makes sense now. Have a good Easter, and I will write again after the holidays are over. But feel free to write during that time. I have friends here who are checking up on me and they are really good. And now I should go fill in my time sheet.

The Unknown Country

I’ve been checking my site meter and notice that The Unknown Country keeps popping up. At first I thought it was government, but they are all Mac users. I think I know where the Unknown Country is.

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.