So I finally figured out where the smell of moth-balls is coming from in math class: this manky brown, hooded jacket that seems to stalk me as I move my way around the classroom day after day.  I have even gone so far as to experiment in different spots amongst the room, but time and time again, here she comes, late as usual, managing to find a comfortable spot right beside me.  Amongst all the didgets and numbers, figures, and dollar signs: the all-pervasive odour of moth balls.

They say that you get used to the smell of something because your olfactory cells fill up, or fire all their little chemical somethings to the brain, or some shit like that.  Purely something that  I have absolutely no recollection of from high school Biology.  But, with this smell, something’s not working right in the cellular department, because even after a two hour class of talking about the principles of transitivity, or equations of value, I am still perpetually distracted by the horrible odour.

So I’ve come today to think of various solutions for my problem:

• Do I just flat out tell the poor girl who barely speaks English that frankly, she’s kind of smelly?

• Do I, being the considerate person I am, take into account the fact that her English is sketchy at best, poke her shoulder, point at her jacket and wave my hand in front of my face with a grimace of conveyance?

• Do I pass her an anonymous note when she gets up to go to the washroom?

• Do I leave her one of my business cards, so that she can come, check out the site and discover the secrets of her jacket in the comfort of her own home?

• Or, do I somehow convey all of my disgust through the universal language of numbers….  Perhaps suggesting that she utilize the following equation on her next assignment:

U=(Pu x Pu)/me=:(

School keeps getting in the way and just like the weather, these studies of mine are preventing me getting from this place to that.   But it’s not so cold down here on Main Street  and Terminal.  Nothing like the top of the hill I just came down.  “Tops and bottoms,” I think, and I force myself to not write something ridiculous…

I can’t help but anticipate the changing of neighborhoods this evening, although, a part of me didn’t think I would make it out of the house tonight.  Yet, still, with head phones as little earmuffs, I make it aboard the train and I think how differently songs can sound from this day to that.   How in one moment, in one state of mind we are lucky enough to hear the way a song sounded the first time that we heard it, and then how quickly that changes too. I guess there’s always room to become burdened and bored with another magical thing in life.

How differently things can sound if we just listen to them.

Meeting up with old boyfriends on school nights is a  past-time I haven’t indulged myself in for quite awhile.  Tonight I allow for it and I wonder as I’m rounding the corner onto Davie just how fucked it is to have to think about “school nights” again.  I shudder and shake that one right off of me as I approach the one who waits on fences in the cold for me.

The things boys will do…

At this show hosted by Miss Cotton, I take my eyes across the room and up the wall to where Starlen Gold carries a pole between his legs and moves from the corners of the little stage.  A fellow makes a proposition about me dancing on the little platform and I’m not sure if it’s just my insecurities, but all I can do is laugh.

“This whole thing reminds me of a twisted retelling of Rapunzel,” I think, “Only there’s no hair to be seen…  and I’m pretty sure the real Rapunzel had more chest hair than Starlen.”

The show begins and instantly these boys and men all look more grown up.  There is something different about the way that they walk and they’ve really cleaned up.  Dressed in whites from head to toe, they make their way to the platform and back again.  It becomes instantly apparent that layers have been shed.  The nervous one with the phone has left the accessory behind to become the most scantily clad one of the bunch.  I wonder about the multitude of snaps on his knickers, and I wonder if there was some greater plan to put the one with all the nerves in the most compromising of uniforms.

There’s something to be said about being pushed to our limits.

The race car driver is clad in fur and the gymnast makes jokes about bronzer and booze.  There’s hair and skin galore and the ruddy one is celebrating a birthday.  I get a little lost amongst the questions and the running back and forth between the bar and the sidelines.  The tall one looks taller and the hairy one look hairier, the muscles start to look bigger and Marty Funkhauser makes the music a little louder.

Somehow everything tonight is a little broader and bigger than last time: the lights, the music… and I can feel it building.

The event raps up as the hungry audience is fed its first victims.  I don’t think this whole thing excited me as much as just this moment, when the first ones were cut from the competition.  All of a sudden I’m a child of a generation that’s waiting for the fallen to walk away with tears in their eyes.  And my belly is growling for more.

Perhaps I’ve lost some of my heart over the years.

Perhaps I haven’t yet discovered just how I’m supposed to write about all these boys.  I keep trying to make it about them but I’m just too selfish yet.  Give me time, you’re all beginning to grow on me, I’m just waiting to see who’s here for the long haul.  Ha…

Perhaps I’m all dried up and my eggs have already washed away.  And to think that I thought puberty was still upon me.  Perhaps in the absence of a microwave all these years, I’ve ironically irradiated my fertility.  All this time and  it was actually the microwave that protected our fragile sex drives, not a healthy lifestyle or a goodnight’s sleep like we thought.  And just like the one who died from lung cancer and never knew a cigarette to sit between lips and teeth, I am something of an anomaly.  I’m the one who never knew the gently puffing, and yet, I’m still a poofter.

I suppose I’m envious of this life.

But I’m still waiting for a go-go dancer to actually turn me on, a way to write about all these models,  and a gay bar to really feel like home…

All in good time, Trevor.

Vancouver’s Next Gay Top Model

We start with an introduction to gymnasts and race car drivers, those that market and those that stretch, and I’m beginning to think that I am witness to some high-tech thriller or some twisted erotica.  The latter perhaps is true, but only in waylaid fantasies; dreams that sit and wait before ambush, jumping out of nowhere, reminding me of my sexuality.  We get bits and pieces of occupations and struggles, successes and victories, but snippets is all.  For we just skim the surface.  So I’ll try to dig deeper, to find out what lies behind the facade, and see what each of these characters is really like….

It was hard to decipher the words that actually escaped his lips, or to conclude by the tone of his voice, that jesting was his true intention.  Because I could swear that I heard the words, “sports are gay,” slip out from between those lips of his.  So in the nature of mistakes and slip-ups, I suppose that we’ll let this one slide.  I suppose that by letting it roll off of our crooked backs as it has rolled out of your lips, that you will somehow ponder the words that those lips are creating.  Because we all let things slip once in a while, from this place to that, words, glances, and fingers between fingers, atop thighs and through buttons and zippers.  Although these slips are just instinct, they are the beginnings and ends of friendship and courtships.  One might argue that it is these slips that lead us out one door and into another.

So, we’ll see where they lead you…

And this guy on his cellphone makes me wonder how ridiculous I look when I tote the silly thing around with me.  I’ve come to walk into intersections without looking for lights that would tell me to stop.  This thing, this toy poodle, that I’ve come to rely on so unnaturally is my newest accessory.  I find no need to speak, because I’ve got everything I need, right here in my hand.  I wonder how many chance encounters are missed?  How many wandering eyes I was intended to meet have been totally disregarded by this silly little device of mine?  Hmph?

Security blankets…

And then the dancing begins, and the men now, they move.  Some are ridden with smiles, others ridden with shame.  Some have felt what it’s like to give all the bull shit up or perhaps they never had any to begin with.  These ones move with a confidence that is lacking in the others.  Who ever said that gay men had more rhythm than others was sadly mistaken. Listen to me, I’m one to talk, I can’t do much for dancing and I’m still full up on the shit, all the anguish and worry that would have me blushing as I struggled to move my hips from side to side.  The shit that tries to tell me that every little thing I do is utterly ridiculous.  The shit that would have me throw my arms up and surrender.

But I can drop it enough to know that, for today at least, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with me looking like the fool I am.

It was tricky to sift through the men and the boys, and even harder to filter out those who were  indeed there for the right reasons.  And that has me asking myself: what are the right reasons?  What brings you to this place?  The prizes are not understated, no, they are copious, desired, and admirable, but what got you here?  Some have crossed boundaries that at home seemed unbreakable.  Others traveled through mountains to get to Vancouver and then mere city blocks to Celebrities.  And all of these journeys I would like to believe, are backed with honest intention.  So perhaps rather than ask you my questions, I take a turn at myself and ask, why have you, said blogger, said writer of things, said eyes, and said hands, why have you parted your sheets and come to this place?

And I think to myself as my fingers keep dancing the can-can, their knees making ninety degree angles to the dance floor, I think to myself, what would I be like in a situation such as this?  Surely I would be the one with the cell phone in tow, and surely I would make slips of the lips, surely I would say something absurd.  Surely I would feel as though the moving of my hips wasn’t nearly as gracious as his, or that my body looked different, turned different, walked different.  Surely I would think that I would be last to be picked, but know deep down that I was something greater.

But I am none of these things.  I am cynical and trite.  I am a writer.  I am someone more content with the desk across the room and the shots from the camera that have my eyes facing the ground.  And, there is my answer, this is why I’ve come across the city this week.  I’ve come for the sake of my eyes, so that they may play across the room at all the bare backs and deep slipping lips, and I’ve come so that I may write of the struggles of finding just who we are, and just where we’re headed.

I’m here for all the grief that I can find.  I’m here to see just how human you all are, what you’re lacking and what is billowing over.  I’ve come for all the character that’s been already taken and all the character that’s left to gain…

….

Vancouver’s Next Gay Top Model

To me, Davie Street at 12:30 Sunday afternoon looks more like Davie Street at 7:30 Monday morning.  Patrons wander the streets with their eyes glazed over searching for their first cup of coffee; their weary faces leave nothing of the apparent jubilation they held at two in the morning.  Making my way to Celebrities from the train station is more like walking through a mine field of hangovers, but having been invited to observe the auditions for Vancouver’s Next Gay Top Model, I manage the mine field and take my spot in the well-lit room.

It can be a frightening  thing for the sun to rise or the house lights to go up at the end of an amazing night.  The faces of those around us take on a grim and pale expression that does nothing for the sexual attraction that only moments before was glaringly real and explosive.  Seeing Celebrities in this state brings some of these same feelings for me, though the room has been cleaned, the floor retains traces of the Saturday night mayhem.  A broken shard of glass in the corner that was missed by the brooms and the shine of light as it bounces off a lonely speck of glitter give my mind a sense of what went on in these walls last night.  I realize as I sit and wait for the proceedings to begin, that everything really does change in the light.

As many of you may already know, I wrote a little piece on this here Stinky Stanky StinkWallet a little over a month ago regarding my feelings about Vancouver’s Gay Top Model, Mr. Gay Canada, Peter Breeze, and the whole concept of what it means to be a gay sensation.  I must say that with a very critical eye I wrote the piece in question and it could be seen to be colored by my distaste for a world that I’ve feared at times is overly saturated with superficiality.  Terry Costa, Director/Producer of VNTGM was brave enough to invite me to be a part of this whole venture, and with this opportunity I am hoping to see a different side of these events and how they relate to the queer Vancouver environment, and the environment of Vancouver in general.

So for the handful of potential top gay models the day has begun and as dreary as their little eyes may be, there is no longer time for beauty sleep.  The group is much smaller this year and as with most sequels there is a skepticism that was more than likely not apparent in the last round.  Thinking beyond the scope of a show of this potential, I reflect on what it means to be a part of the second round, to be the second child, or the second movie or book in a series.  An often highly criticized position, it will be intriguing to see how the event will pan out this year.  It will be a test to the attention span of an audience who some might say is in fact completely attention deficient.

Terry’s attitude is indeed a respectful one, and displays his capabilities as a director and professional.  He makes it known that no matter the amount of people who show up to an event like this, it is the numbers and contestants themselves that shape and create it.  These events are organic beings, dynamic works in an almost fictional world where the characters create the story.

The afternoon continues with an opportunity for the contestants to introduce themselves and do a whole lot of walking.  The confidence of some shines through instantly and for others it becomes instantly apparent that their nerves may best them before the day is through.  I can’t help but think about my own nerves and the opportunities that I’ve passed up over the years.  It takes a lot of balls to enter into an environment that is ripe with judgment.  Although I’ve happily lived on the outskirts of the community for most of my adult life, in confusion about some of the attitudes and behaviors of my gay brothers, I’ve always given credit where it is due, and to audition for anything is always a trying experience.

So like the brave contestants in the room, I set out on a journey myself.  I hope that by watching these men learn something about themselves, I too can learn more about the community that surrounds me.  By indulging in the workings of an event that is fueled by generosity and a genuine desire to raise money for charity (Friends for Life), I too may learn something about myself.  We reveal a little more of ourselves every time the house lights go up, and like Celebrities on a Sunday afternoon or the pavement outside of the shops along Davie Street, there is always going to be someone judging us on the other side of the room.  It is our composure and confidence that prevents these prying eyes from taking us apart piece by piece.

Having grown up Catholic, I gained an early appreciation for ritualistic baths and ceremonial cleansing.  The act of baptism was something sacred to me, and I suppose for those who are devout believers, it still is.  As a child I would peer my eyes above the pews in front of me and stare in wonder at the priest, who I deemed had magical powers, as he splashed the holy water on the head of some unsuspecting babe.  But although the ritual and the priest as magician intrigued me, it was the water that took on the most alien and unusual quality of all.  The magic was in the water and it fascinated and frightened me.

These thoughts came rushing over me while watching Milk, and like the water itself, I was filled with a sense of something greater than myself.  I was filled with a reverence for something spiritual, but it was no God that pulled at me, it was the aged and crooked hands of a time that came before.  It was the reenactment of Harvey Milk’s story that baptized me into an entirely new church of mankind, and it came out of nowhere.  A movie I attended more on the desires of a friend of mine than the desires of myself, had managed to help me realize what gay pride was really about.

So let me start at the beginning.  I’ve always struggled to understand all the gay pride hysteria.  As a angry youth I marched for environmental, political, and human rights concerns.  Not once though have I marched for my own rights, the rights I merely adopted and took on, the rights that have actually seemed a chore to bear at times.  I’ve struggled to understand how my fellow members of the queer community could devote so much time and energy to something that I feel has been quenched.  I’ve grown up in a world and have felt, for the most part, completely free of discrimination,  I’m privileged to be who I am, and would have it no other way.  In fact, I’ve even found myself pitying straight people.  So, why should I, of all people devote my time and energy to a cause that I feel has been dealt with?

Well, my friends, Gus Van Sant and Sean Penn have finally given me a reason, and this movie, out of nowhere, put it for me in bold brassy typeface: PRIDE ISN’T ALWAYS ABOUT YOURSELF.  It’s ridiculously cliche to even go there in such a public domain, but dammit! here I go.

Pride is about the state of the world and how quickly things change.

It is about the people who make the change happen and the rest of us that ride the wave.

It’s about being thicker and richer in character, and knowing somehow that things can, and will be better.  I’ve not once, even thought that I deserved more, because I thought I had everything all along.  And maybe I do, maybe all the fights that were fought before I was born were done with self-serving intentions, but I have everything because of them.  And perhaps, I will never understand the oppression that those who came before me have dealt with, but my misconception has been, until now, that I should move on.  My misconception has helped me to realize how recently all this oppression happened.

If each and everyone of us just reached into history’s bag of bones we’d quickly realize that 60 years ago is nothing, and 30, is even less.

So in essence perhaps there is something magic in the water.  Perhaps the fountain pop machine at the Scotia Bank Cinema downtown is being fueled by holy water and I, in fact have been baptized again.  I’ve been invited into a whole new church of thought regarding everything that I am and everything that I’ve come from.  I am entitled to this life as much as the next one, but I should not presume so quickly that all I have is the road in front of me.  I will never forget that 30 in the past is nothing, and 30 years in the future is even less.  And I will never forget that there is always a brighter and better world to look forward to.

Just now, while washing the dishes, it came apparent to me that, more and more, I’ve started thinking in tweets.  These blips that run through my brain have become the majority of my absentminded thoughts.  I am forced now to ask myself about the affect that facebook, twitter, and social networking in general has had on our brain function, and perhaps even our brain chemistry.

Evolution is a many splendid thing.  With the invention of the typewriter and the personal computer, the brain was forced to think differently and the fingers were now required to move and operate in ways that seems unfeasible.  Is it then enough to only refer to the biological tendency to evolve physically?  Is it not possible then with the creation of social networking, our sharing of these status updates, these tweets, some of us might soon find ourselves thinking and behaving in a manner more consistent to life on the internet?

At the moment, for me, this is a delicious quandry.  It is a question that has me thinking deeper than the 160 allowable characters on facebook and twitter.  For me, it an exercise in something that is beyond my next hiccup on the page, and healthy, living proof that I am above social networking to some degree.

Critics of this form of communication ask questions about the value of the information that we so easily share with one another.  They wonder about the degree to which some of us share our dirty little secrets.  They ponder about the value of privacy and personal safety.  Many simply state: “Who cares about all the boring shitty little things that you are doing, why do I give a fuck that you just ate cherry pie, or petted an iguana?”

Well, I kinda do.

Weirdly enough, it brings me great satisfaction, from the comfort of my home, to know the little things that people are doing.  I suppose I believe that one of the greatest assets our society has is the information that we each hold in our heads, and our ability to share it with each other.

Sure I’ve thought about the sanctity of tradition and the loss of romance in communication.  Where once there was a phone call there is now the ever ubiquitous text message.  We’ve lost a lot of faff in some areas and introduced a whole slew of it in others.  Like the slow transition from traditional corks in wine bottles to the twist off cap, there is a romantical past that we have begun to leave behind us.  Even this blog, this plethora of thoughts knows nothing about the pen and paper.  This blog will never know the grace and distinction of being hand written, it will never feel the seductive slide of paper on paper as it is slipped out of an envelope, it will never know how truly exclusive it could have felt to be tucked away on a shelf somewhere, hidden and out of reach.

These things are all slowly being lost and I suppose, in turn some of us have become less uncommon because of it.  In a sense we have become something scandalous and are sitting with our legs wide open to the world, waiting for the wandering hand to slip its way down our knickers.

But, you know, as much as I’m aware of all the downsides to this loss of romanticism, and as much as I’m aware of all the trivial things that I could continue to keep to myself, I’ve never been much for keeping my legs shut, and frankly I love a stranger’s hand down my knickers.

It’s a funny thing, the time that it can take to discover something hidden.  A favorite scarf behind the couch, the channel changer, or a note written by a past boyfriend, hidden in a book for years waiting to be found.  The most former of these things is something I had the pleasure of uncovering today.

This discovery of such an old and dusty treasure has me thinking about why it could possibly have taken me so long to discover it, why I kept shelving the book to read later, and what I’ve learned since the little comment was written.  I suppose that sometimes it takes that time to fully appreciate what it is we’ve lost.  Relationships are broken everyday, and as much as we would like to think that they are just temporarily scarred, most often they are fixedly unmendable.

In truth, this note couldn’t have came to me at a better time.  It has been over 2 years since I ended the most committed and long term relationship of my life.  It has been over 2 years since I broke the only relationship in which I shared a home with someone, a set of dishes, and a mailbox.  It has been over 2 years, and only very recently has it become a relationship that I think the two of us feel is worth salvaging.

I’m naive when it comes to breakups, completely and totally socially backwards.  I never see the true reality of the situation until I realize that something special is fully gone.  I have a tendency to break up with someone before communicating it, and believing that it is actually possible to break up, take a couple minutes of silence, and pick up the friendship where it was left off.  You see, completely and totally socially backwards.  I’ve always thought of myself as a realist, others would prefer to describe my behaviour as selfish ass-hole-ery.

But besides the fact that I break up with people abruptly, there is this hidden thing, this little note that sat waiting all these years.  When I read it today I am filled with a sense of accomplishment.  I understand for a moment what it is I’ve been doing these past 2 years.  I get it that I’ve grown, and I get it that I’m behaving pretty much identically to how I’ve always behaved.  But amongst all this growth and repetition, there’s the relationships that we encounter only once in a while that are really worth saving.

And, really it is about more than a simple love note in a book, it’s about the little things that we are leave with others every day.  It is the tiny little changes that we unintentionally make when we hurt someone or bring them joy.  It is these relationships with others that shape us in the past, and all out of nowhere, on page 333 of the book you’re reading, completely shape us in the present too.