Goodbye homo hill

Nevermind the weather

“It’s such a nice day,” he says from the warmth of his sweater, all tucked into the shade.

The lunchtime patio workers wear truck stop sunglasses; tuck t-shirt guts into denim shorts. We play footsie under the table. The bubbles rise up, he lights another, blows menthol everywhere.

Words float over from the other table: “They think I’m the only one that gives a shit in this town.”

They, are wrong.

A few weeks ago we both fell down the rabbit hole. Rapidly dashing from school to work and back, rarely checking messages, inboxes, or knocking on doors. We've disappeared into the pages of books and between the lines of text we've written. Sleep is alone, fragmented, always ending too early. Coffee comforts the Redbull lining our stomachs; we often forget to eat.

We spin and spin and spin, not quite ourselves or others, or anything at all. Just blurs pushing past whatever it is we're trying to accomplish. But we'll get there.

Until then, Love me till I'm me again?

Get Slushed

Gays, get ready. You're about to be slushed in the face. Mr. Ryan Murphy is on the hunt for three new Gleeks for season two of Glee, including a boyfriend for Kurt.

We’re going to make them a power couple. We’re not going to do the whole hiding in the shadows thing. We’re going to make them popular, and out and proud and glamorous. Like prom king and king," Murphy tells EW.

Who will fill the shiny tap shoes? My vote's for Brett Owen, better known as Bretney, my school's singing, dancing star. Back in seventh grade Brett taped the video for Hit Me Baby One More Time and taught himself all the moves.

He polished his performance and took to the school stage each time his teen queen released a new song-and-dance. And if bringing the Britney to small town Manitoba doesn't call for a Slushie in the face, I don't know what does.

Brett filmed his audition tape for the open casting call, which he 'released' at a party at his home in Vancouver last week before a Dragonette show. The tape hasn't hit Youtube yet, but he's uploaded some stills to a Facebook page urging the producers to pick him that I've posted above and below.

Send the boy some support, if only to further my constant quest put CCI in the gossip pages.

Street lies for lovers

“All the good ones are straight,” he breathes at me through the funnel of his cigarette. I nod, curl my lips, and give no details of the girlfriend I’m off to see. He tells me his friends have coupled off and dropped him downtown, where men at bars pay in compliments, fluff his self-esteem.

Life wouldn’t be worth it without the cocaine, he says. Wouldn’t be worth it without the drinks, the anti-depressants, the darts for that extra buzz. I stare at the half eaten pizza crust and downward paper plate that car tires have run into the road. The streetcar pulls up, and I step on.

Bold whatever applies

Art Fags
Body Type: Emaciated, tattooed, usually with some sort of ironic facial hair and an enormous coif.
Description: The art fag is cooler than you. He's also cooler than all your friends, and he is not afraid to show it. He is usually an artist (duh), photographer, fashion designer, band member, or something that requires a degree from RISD, FIT, or some other art school that is an acronym. He dresses either in the most current prissy fashions or (and) like a homo version of Terry Richardson, in big glasses, flannels, and jeans that looks so thrown together that it took him hours to put together. You're more likely to find them at a gallery opening or model party, but every so often they'll be at a gay bar to rub elbows, and other parts, with the other homos.
Subcategories: Alternaqueers, gipsters
New York City Hang Out: The Cock Toronto: West of wherever you are
Diva of Choice: Peaches
Preoccuptions: The hottest club, looking down on things, cheap coke, being bohemian, the outer boroughs
Top or Bottom: Bottom

*Thanks to Gawker for calling them like they see em. And hey--at least we have the option of opting out of the '90s circuit and into another stereotype.

Self portrait of a North American male, homosexual
2006

Penile economics

*Photo: Pinups mag

It takes more than a head shake saying, “I’m not that kind of boy.” to throw them off our scent. Still, we find ways; believing fiercely that in the homo-caste-hierarchy we are the owners and not the owned. When sprouting silver turns us into foxes we will become more than our twenty-something selves. Until then, we call ourselves buyers not sellers; send steely glares, push back drinks and sneer, “Nothing’s cheap.”

Those boys in gym class
*photo Jason Bell for OUT

Tight lipped and eyes glued to the television screen, we waited for disaster. It was a moment we’d each been through, in one way or another. But sitting silent in a stagnant car, trembling teary-eyed at your mother just isn’t the same as slapping on that made-for-TV-smile and announcing to the nation: yep, I’m gay.

It’s not like the audience was without its suspicions. In a culture like ours, roman a clef and reality blend together, leaving us wondering which personalities we’ve made up, and which ones we’ve become. But in every television persona’s career (and every homo’s life) arrives a time to come clean. So just as we had, around dinner tables and after long, awkward telephone pauses, Adamo anted up the information.

It was an E-Talk Canadian celebrity special and big news on the blogosphere. But the attention only served as reminder we’ve chosen few gays as idols and kept countless others hidden in closets. So it was with relief we let out a breath, logging on to see the not-so-cumstained pictures on Perez, welcoming him to the Gaybourhood.

It didn’t kill Neil Patrick’s career, and it won’t kill yours, we told him. We’ve moved past that time, or at least like to think we have. And as it turns out, the ordeal meant as much to the audience as it did to him. Letters in the mail from boys like the ones we were in small-town-somewhere confirmed we still need to see ourselves on TV to believe. That shouldn’t be how things are, but it is. Now they see stereotypes, but at least know the options. We weren’t so lucky.

It’s with that I’ll extend a nod in the direction of Mr. Ruggiero, an honouree in the recently announced OUT 100.

Thanks for being a big gay, buddy.

We needed it.

About Buddies, and the best of bad times

It was that kind of bar. You know the type. Tucked into the neighbourhood, with the rest. The plaid shirts go home with the plaid shirts, v-necks with v-necks. Inside, it’s a big, blurry mess. Too much lipstick, too high of heels, airbrushed, plucked and tanned. That was just the men.

A cheer broke out before each song, and often after. Not once was this ironic. There was sweat dripping, hips bumping, kissing, and the like. One popular remixed dance anthem sing-along, then the next.

Outside was a lineup of new winter coats. We grabbed our own and went to shoot BB guns at living room targets.

He hit a bullseye.

Tomorrow's Parents, today

Men may be able to make babies, but we still can’t have them. And for gays, giving birth is admittedly a bit of a barrier when it comes to having children. But thanks to science, surrogate mothers, and increasingly inclusive adoption agencies, that’s beginning to change.

Still, what keeps many queers from having kids has nothing to do with insemination. It’s often that we don’t see ourselves as parental. The nuclear hub we know as the family has always been projected at heterosexual. Even when blended families started to mainstream, the Brady Bunch featured Mike and Carol, not Mike and Carl.

Each network series now seems to have a requisite LGBT character, but most still fill one-dimensional, requisite roles. Television’s gay characters also tend to be young, if not teenaged, making it seem reasonable there are very few fathers.

Luckily, the gays have their own media. Though it's not a heart-felt personal essay about fatherhood, nor a hard pressing feature on bringing PFLAG to the PTA, your boyfriend’s favourite magazine, OUT, recently published a well-styled editorial photo shoot of a series of male models posing with babies.

The magazine’s site lists few details about the concept behind the shoot, but Trend Hunter reported that the babies are the model’s true sons. Though many of the models may be straight, this is OUT, and the omnipresent homo undertones got me thinking.

Could the hordes of mini vans bustling through the suburbs en route to soccer practice one day be driven by dual-dads? Or have the gays tainted the term “daddy” with dominant-submissive sexual practices for too many years?

So when an e-mail showed up in my inbox inviting me to “make my own cover” of Today’s Parent, (as part of an initiative aimed at subscribers and shared with the publisher’s employees) I thought back to the OUT spread. What if I really were in the position to pose? And will that ever happen?

When the photo of Alex and I eventually loaded, I thought: Wow, no .

Or, at least not yet. Maybe one day. We look kind of good, right? Someone toss us a baby, we could use a prop.

There goes the gaybourhood

(Half of RealTalk, the infamous Johnny OC; photo by David Pike)

Saddle up boys, the Barn is back. After every fag's fall-back plan, Crews and Tango, recently closed its doors for renovation, the twinks have had few places to tango... or cruise. Until last night.

Conceptualized by pretty-boy party promoter Matt Sims, There Goes The Neighbourhood is a new weekly dance party that is equal parts hipster and homo. Columnist, keyboarder, and half of the now-defunt Dopplehertz, Sims' history on the see-and-be-seen scenester circuit has taught him nothing if not how to curate an electro evening that makes the kids dance.

And dance, they did. Despite the lure of no-cover, few of the street's resident creepers crept south of Maitland, which kept the crowd fresh and fashion-focused, something Church St. hasn't seen in years. The mix of cock and cool in the small but packed second floor projected the type of good-to-be-gay vibe usually only felt at Queer West haunts like the Beaver.

Gallerist and go-to DJ for electro shows, Vaneska, was enlisted to introduce new anthems to a street usually content to hear Britney on repeat. Also on the bill were ViVi Diamond, Shane Mckinnon, and DJ Doctor Baggie.

And as if he were possible to forget, former hardcore kid turned Circa-spinner, Jonathan O'Callaghan was also playing, as half of his newest incarnation, Real Talk. Mr. OC's usual knack is for bringing in the extra-young breed of blonds, rearing to break edge and/or rip off their Hollister tee's. But his appeal held equal weight with the horned up homos, cheering for his chest-hair at the Barn.

Yes Johnny, I'm calling you a bear. If you're going to spin east of Ossington, get used to it. Welcome back to the dark side (0f the club).

Last week I got an unexpected call.

It was Canadian Blood Services. They were interested in having me donate, again.

I thought back to the donor form, ticking off where I had travelled, what I had pierced and which medical problems I suffered from. Luckily, I haven't got any tattoos in Thailand, but I did remember one line on the form I couldn't ignore.

"I'm sorry, I'm no longer able to donate." I mumbled.

"Oh? Is it a medical problem?" the woman asked.

I was silent and focused on the word "problem". Eventually I spoke. "Um, sort-of.." I hesitated. "I guess."

I was transferred to another woman, who was to take me off the donor list. She asked me what kind of medical problem I was having. Awkwardly stumbling on my words, I made announcement I have stumbled over in the past. One I have lied about, avoided and side-stepped whenever possible.

"I uh.." I took a deep breath. "I had sex with a man."

"Oh.." she said. The woman was clearly uncomfortable. "When did this happen?" she asked.

Really? I thought. Does she want to know the details? Regardless, I told her when. And I insisted I hadn't donated since. She seemed to believe me.

"Just so you know," she said. "This is a permanent closure. But I want to thank you for saving six lives."

I wanted to say something. Something about hypocrisy and outdated stereotypes and a tory government. Or something about the people dying from a lack of transfusions. But all I could think about was the lives I wasn't saving. And why I wasn't saving them.

I probably should have said something. But I didn't.

I just mumbled a goodbye, and hung up.