And I kept thinking that as we were all getting older, only some of us are getting prettier. The rest of us are losing our hair and finding curves in the places where new hair is forming, taking the place of the ones on our heads.
I keep stumbling upon pictures on social networks of your receding hairline and the school that you now teach at is the same one that I went to so long ago.
I keep wondering how so many of you finished up with the classroom so quickly, and how so many of you just don’t care that you’ve escaped it entirely since high school…
I keep thinking about how many of us are left in limbo still, just hoping to see the finish line.
All of a sudden Fall came back again today, blew in the door, and made all the houseplants shudder in their pots. The clouds floated curiously on top of all the blue that is left on the horizon, and kept us secretly warm from the air pressure that’s been knock knock knocking since the end of October. I’m reminded of Halloween last year, the cold, the body paint, the strips and strips of movie film that I’d sewn onto that black t-shirt of mine. This was long before I knew the meaning of clothing that fit well, all the while just displaying my belly button to the world.
This was all long before New Years, the night that redirected everything. The night I met so many of you. And it’s cliche and simple to think that on a night like New Years we should be so redirected, but when I look back at the pictures, I certainly look older, simpler, and more worn out.
And we’ll all find the wrinkles to form on the back of our hands, and I’m sure that if I ever combed my hair there would be bushels of hair between the teeth.
For now I’ll ignore these signs of a wasting mind, and just continue to build upwards, skin tightening, hair thickening, eyes brightening.
If only the Jar Hippy really knew that she was the subject of so much of my writing. The quiet woman who fascinates and infuriates my days at school, surely deserves a thank you, even if she never receives it. Somewhere under her facade of wool and patchouli, is I’m sure a tender soul who thinks nothing of the mason jar that she totes from class to class. And me, the frustrated, overworked fellow in the front row could use some of your chill, adverse attitudes about the pace that we take in life, and the vessels in which we drink from.
And you help me to wonder, Jar Hippy, just who is following my every move? Just how many people take notice to me speed walking around this fair Vancouver campus of ours, scarves trailing, shoes clicking?? How many observers are completely filled with rage to see the texture of my jackets, the countless disposable coffee cups that I also tote around?… How many of them would want to consume me too?? Or completely deconstruct me?
There is something about those of us that silently sit in the corners of the room, looking still and transfixed by the books in our hands and the music in our ears, while completely hypnotized by the bodies in the room and the jars that they drink from.
And I’ve watched you run across 49th, and I’ve seen your body move in ways that a gay gold star would never understand. For the male form in all of its simplicity would never know the complexities of your layers and layers of feminist propaganda, or truths, or sentences that surround the center of every page and each period; all of it padding for something deeply interesting and intriguing inside.
I’ve learned how to walk in my best saunter, and still, I’m standing tall, strong, and new in this skin, and some might care to tell me that it’s all temporary.
And still, I must wonder, Jar Hippy, if I can feel such rage and fascination towards you all these months and days,
then surely there is hope for this new happiness too…
I became inspired recently by an article on Homorazzi called That’s So Gay.
I couldn’t help but think about a friend of mine, who has been known at times to let those same words slip from her mouth. I’ll tell you first off that I am part of a group of amazing folks who each, in their own way represents a totally unique and distinct part of the spectrum that makes up Vancouver. But as diverse as they are, political correctness is not their strongest character. In fact most of us tend to push the boundaries of what is acceptable in communication on a daily basis.
It has at times, gotten us into a little trouble.
I suppose that’s part of the reason why I let it slide off my back when I hear things like “that’s so gay!”
Part of the reason. And the other part?
Perhaps it really doesn’t bother me. The little things that we all say on a daily basis have lost so much of their meaning to me… to all of us, that what does it really matter? And I understand the disgust, I really do. I know that derogatory words and attitudes do nothing to advance any of us. And, they absolutely have the potential to re-enforce attitudes and behaviours towards others. I suppose, I just get so sick of having to watch every little thing that comes out of my mouth that I don’t expect others to always watch their tongues when they speak. But, you know what? It’s just not good enough is it?
There’s that part of me that wants to care more about the things that people say, write, and do. It’s the same part of me that protested and debated everything that I disagreed with in my youth. I don’t know if it’s the same part of me that’s going to miraculously blossom out of me on my 28th birthday, or if it’s forever going to stay buried inside.
But at least I’ve still got that part of me that has me questioning, just how far are we willing to push our boundaries, and just how far is too far?
Hilarity overheard at the urinal in the bathroom at Celebrities Thursday night:
“Did you see Joel?”
“Ryan has pecs and abs, Joel just has pecks.”
“Well it’ll be one or the other, for sure.”
And I’ll admit that I was sitting on the same fence as these two fellows. I arrived to the party thinking that the competition would clearly come down to Ryan and Joel. Perhaps my distance from the judging process had me at a disadvantage. Possibly I was looking more at the faces and bodies of the competitors and less at the character behind them, or maybe I misunderstood the power of popularity.
So as per usual, maybe I’m just late to the party.
I mean, I had every intention of writing something sooner about the finale for Vancouver’s Next Gay Top Model, but something just didn’t click. In a room full of ex-boyfriends, maybe it was the alcohol that took over, or the fact that my favorite sweater got lost amongst the countless homosexual knees and feet, and the floor. Hands down, I was somewhat astounded by the results of the evening. Not simply because I thought that Ryan and Joel had nicer arms and abs than some of the other contestants, but more because of the overwhelming influence that knowing the right people has.
Every year when The Best of Vancouver in the Georgia Straight is released, it proves for an entertaining read. And I’m not alone, many have agreed that the survey very poorly represents what is actually the best in the city. The winner of Vancouver’s Next Top Model was decided by a process that involved 50% judge decided and 50% audience decided votes. I don’t mean to imply that Calan didn’t deserve the top spot, this little ginger really rocked it out the whole time. He was just the underdog that I didn’t see rising to the top of the competition.
I suppose it’s always a surprise ending that takes the audience in the fiercest way possible. And I suppose that endings are always anti-climatic.
For the performer, an ending can be an uplifting experience. Finishing shows in high school I was always relieved that the rehearsals were over and I could finally go back to drinking coffee and bitching about the world every night. But to the audience, and ending can leave you wanting more, or feeling a little dissatisfied.
In my case I felt a little bit of both.
So, although the competition is over and I have written much less that I first anticipated and written it much later than I should have, I am contentedly leaving this competition behind me. Vancouver’s Next Gay Top Model has shown me everything from the glory of well-funded camp to the importance of knowing a lot of people with cell-phones that can show up and vote for you. It has also taught me a lot about what it means to be on display, to be a part of a community with big opinions.
Most importantly, it has reinforced the integral opportunity that self-marketing yourself can have. Stepping out on a limb with confidence can be the most important thing that any of us can do for ourselves. In a competitive world, it sometimes seems impossible to believe that we have the potential to do anything beyond the limited scope of our worlds.
In this increasingly competitive world of ours, some of us manage to rise to the very top, even if just for a moment…
I have to admit I’ve had a really great time experiencing Vancouver’s Next Gay Top Model.
What started as an experiment and a learning experience about the going-ons in the gay community, has translated itself into a genuinely-healthy writing exercise.
And more than that, I’m actually a complete daze to the outcome. I genuinely have no idea how the whole evening will pan out on Thursday, and I’m really excited to experience what chalked up to be an apparent circus of chaotic fun last year.
Will it be Stephen? Who at 6′6″ actually towers above me, something at 6′4″ I don’t often experience,
The witty Adam, that seems to have a whole “load” of stories left to tell us.
Or, Micheil, whose unique look, and experience in the industry could set him apart from the others when it finally gets down to it?
What about Morgan, the techie whose undergone the most drastic transformation of the bunch (thank god!)?? Could Morgan, who’s gone from question marks to exclamation points take the prize?
Will it be Reese, the merchandiser whose merchandised his way into the audience’s hearts more than once?
Or perhaps the only ginger of the bunch, Calan? I must say those gingers intrigue me and make me feel a little funny. I’ve convinced myself that gingers are the key to some unknown eventuality of planet earth. More than once I’ve found myself daydreaming about leagues of gingers marching through the streets. Beware, the allusive ginger! Especially the ones that are good in front of the camera.
And let’s not forget Ryan, the industrialist. This race car driver and construction-savvy fella is taking the gay stereotype under the welder and completely transforming it.
Let’s flip-flop to Joel, the resident gymnast, whose more than once grabbed the attention of the audience with his broad shoulders. Will those muscles of his be enough to grab the attention of the audience on Thursday night?
And last, but very not least, there’s Billy. He’s been the brunt of most of the criticism and jests that I’ve thrown at the competitors, and I must admit that this hairy-legged Carmen Miranda has taken everyone of them with a smile and a laugh. Joking aside, Billy has taken a firm grip of his place in the competition, and will be holding on to his chili peppers till the very end of the competition if he has anything to say about it.
So for now we’ll have to continue the drudgery for another day, and await the camp, chaos, and cacaphony of tomoorow evening.
I recently received a comment on an article that I wrote a couple of months ago. This comment had me walking down Main Street, completely transfixed into the screen of my Blackberry. What I assumed was simple praise or criticism, turned out to be a whopping volume of words titled FUCKIN’ FAGGOTS!
I won’t copy the article itself, but if you would like to read it for yourself check out the comments at the bottom of this page.
Anyways, the comment referred to the bashing of Ritchie Downie in the West End. I quickly read the work that referred to the events that transpired surrounding this attrocity and reflected on the comment that was written at the bottom of my article. Although I was left with a sickening feeling at the pit of my stomach about the attack, there was also something unnerving about the comment itself.
Really, I was left flabbergasted, not by the events that caused such an expression into my comment field, but more by the tone of the comment itself. Of course I’m disgusted by the things that happen surrounding my life, and the lives of those in the gay community, I’m disgusted by any heinous crime. But I’m confused about what the comment is attempting to tell me. What is it about the article on Vancouver’s Next Gay Top Model that inspired you to write this piece for me? Are you searching out every gay related website in Vancouver and sharing this piece of writing with them, or do you feel something about what I chose to write, or the way in which I chose to conduct my writing? I could have clearly mistaken the intention of the comment, but I somehow felt a little judged.
So maybe I’m lucky. Maybe I’m fortunate enough to have not dealt with a ton of adversity in my life. Therefore to some people out there who are older and more educated of the way the gay-niverse, I seem to run around taking advantage of everything that others who came before me had to fight to acquire.
I don’t know. I’m probably just looking way too deep into something that was more self-promotion than a judgment, but frankly I disagree. Shit happens, horrible, hateful shit happens all the time. Guns are fired, people are violated, and hate is disbursed upon its undeserving victims. I still value the city that I live in, and all the rights and freedoms that I have because of where I live. I still believe that we are all wrapped together in the fabric of this place and that sometimes there are holes. I am a firm believer that my sexuality does little to define me as a person, and perhaps this is why I have such a hard time reading something that comes from such a emotionally steady gay voice. I am not my sexuality. It has never and will never define me.
I understand your rage towards this occurrence of senseless violence. But, I will never let it fill me with such rage that I in turn become something that I’m not. I will never let my rage become me, and I defy your implications that it should.
After reading an article on homorazzi.com recently (which by the way is frieking awesome if you haven’t already checked it out), I was touched deeply. The article was regarding the “gay stigma”, and after finishing reading it, I was inclined to comment myself. I love comments, they’re a lovely surprise, and a welcome confirmation that people out there are reading and reacting to what you’ve written, whether good or bad, it’s always a nice surprise.
I suppose the lesson here is that I should never let the thoughts of others shape the work that I so desire to purvey to my audience. I’m sure the gay community has a lot to say about the ways in which I chose to live. And I in turn will continue to criticize the gay community. I have no interest in living in a world that is devoid of all fun, devoid of criticism, and devoid of the commentary that I hold dear.
You can keep your sterile world, and I’ll stick to the dust and the mud.
Someone recently questioned my sexuality. No, not whether I’m pitching or catching, or whose team I’m playing for, but rather my promiscuity. And I was immediately offended at the fact that this person seemed to be implying that I was a slut.
And I barely even knew the person. Outside of bed, that is (ha!)
But seriously, I never thought that I would be so set off by something as trivial as this. Maybe I was more offended by the thought that this person was not wanting to know more about me, and was rather imparting his criticism.
None the less, his warm hands on me would have been more welcome than his notes.
And as quashed as I was feeling about this person, and towards my own drunken behavior, it helped me realize something.
We are all being judged. Every minute of every day our appraised value is determined by wandering eyes. Eyes that look our bodies up and down, determine our physical worth, and search for our paychecks. We are critiqued by ears that listen to our insights, hear for the way we speak, and open themselves to the sound of our laughter. Even the lingering smells in our clothes after a long shift serving tables, and the booze on our breath are not immune to the keen olfactory cells of those around us.
So it makes me wonder about how it must feel–with the finale of Vancouver’s Next Gay Top Model right around the corner–to be blatantly carted around for 4 months, to be stripped to your skivvies, and to be ushered to the front of a stage time and time again. All of it with the intention of asserting to your community that “you” are who you think should be deemed Vancouver’s Next Gay Top Model.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a complete introvert, in fact I’ve been known to take the stage at many an occasion throughout my exhibitory youth and young adult hood. I’ve dressed as a nun and sang at the top of my lungs, bounded around a theater in what was more a gigantic rag than a cat’s costume, and divulged my deep dark coming out story to a room full of Christians. All of these things I’ve done without the slightest of pitter-patters in my heart muscles. But there’s something completely different about my time in the lime-light and that is the displacement of identity.
Even though I may have confessed my sexuality to a room full of holy-folk, there was a third wall there, and I was never truly myself.
It is these things and more that would have me shying away from participating in even my favorite of reality tv shows. If Mtv were to call me up tomorrow and ask me to be one of the next 7 (or 8 now?) roomates on The Real World, I wonder if I could live with the thought of seeing myself on the screen. I wonder if I could watch myself picking my nose, or having a hissy fit. But what good it would do for me. If I could deal with all the things that others were saying about me, then perhaps I could finally become comfortable with all that I’ve become in these 26 years.
So maybe that’s why I’ve struggled to continue writing critically about a process that I don’t fully understand. I’ve come far from the guy who was talking trash about Vancouver’s Next Top Model.
And though it may never be appealing to me to take the stage and assert myself as the most handsome thing on Davie Street, it appeals to me to be a part of a community that can keep their attention focused on something for long enough to make it valuable.
I haven’t quite figured out how to get over my own self-consciousness yet. My strength and confidence still crumble apart at the most inopportune of times. Even when I think that I have transcended love and have settled into a confident life of success and self-motivation, I find myself to be as weak to the judgments of those around me as the next guy. Even when we think we’ve escaped pain and hardship, we find it coming right back around the corner again.
So, I didn’t quite accomplish what I set out to do. I initially wanted to draw attention to all the contestants in the Gay Top Model webisode below and perhaps find out how I could get into that bathtub with Aaron Ursacki… (anyone??) But sometimes life throws you a curve ball and the last thing you feel like doing is poking fun at a set of hairy legs, a frighteningly charming baby face, a confusing head of hair, or an extraordinarily tall fellow.
So you’re all out of the woods for tonight.
For tonight, I’m looking forward to seeing what will all play out in little over a week’s time at Celebrities, and perhaps then you will feel all of my judgy wrath.
Waking up yesterday morning, I realized that I’ve been much too gracious to my liver.
Clearly it’s been almost a month since I spent all morning and early afternoon in bed. Clearly it’s been almost a month since I set out for my first coffee of the day in the early evening. But this was the entirety of my Sunday: setting out late and returning home early to spend the evening in pajamas on the couch, popping Advil’s and drinking water.
Speaking of clarity, I believe that it became crystal clear to me and a couple of friends, that I am at my absolute judgiest when I still have vodka coursing through my hung-over veins at 2:00 on a Sunday afternoon.
So, as many a weekend has tended to play out over the years, I’ve once again gone from Gene Kelly on Friday night, to Oscar the Grouch on Sunday.
But it is in this judgiest of judgey moods that some of the most ridiculous and hilarious things seem to escape my brain. And so I’m forced to wonder once again, where creativity comes from? I’m forced to wonder when I became such an asshole?
And I’m not ashamed, I’m just critical, exceptionally so at times. And its caused me to make exceptional friends and extraordinary enemies as I’ve gone about my days. It’s caused me creative inspiration and the courage to take a step in what I feel is the right direction and really stick to it. It’s caused me time and time again to take a look at my life and ask myself “what the fuck, Trevor?”
And maybe some day I’ll change, but for now, if you come into the coffee shop at 2:00 on Sunday afternoon with a frizzy pony tail on your head, and a face so made up your skin looks more like the epidermis of a tuber, then I just might call you a “turnip”.
All in the comfort of my close-minded little bubble that is.
If there’s one thing that I’m not, it’s a visual artist. I can’t draw and I struggle to paint unless it involves little more than pouring gobs of acrylics and just spreading it around a palette as though I’m icing a cake. It’s not my sense of color that’s the struggle, but rather the conveyance of anything life-like or even reminiscent of some thing. Anything. It’s the problem of getting the visuals of my mind to translate to the canvas.
Sure, in saying that, I set myself up. I have absolutely no authority to say the things that I’m about to. And some might wonder if I should. Is it fair to throw stones at a media campaign whose only intention is the betterment of society? Probably not, but I can’t keep it to myself any longer.
And all in all, this shit is really so bad, that it’s pretty awesome.
Exhibit A:
what-it-takes.org's capaign for awareness?
I first noticed this poster on Davie Street a couple of weeks ago, and since then have seen 2 other varieties in various locations around town. I was so dumbfounded by the thing that I had to stop for a moment and take it all in.
First off, obviously enough, it’s blatant. Obviously. What a better way to sell gay men something then have it regarding sex and nudity. But it’s not the blatant suggestions of sexual intercourse and bondage that bothers me, it’s just about everything else. Perhaps it was the bizarre proportions of everything in the picture, or maybe the fact that Tarzan looks more like Kenny G than an apparently attractive hero.
Was this some organization’s attempt at re-creating the stimulation that house-wives feel when they pick up a Harlequin Romance at the grocery store?
What really got me about this poster was more in the subtle details: I had to actually ask myself if the monkey in the background was trying to free the fellow on the tree, or if he in fact was the one doing the bondage. What does the panther have to do with anything? It’s almost like the artist is saying to us, “I can draw a panther!” “Look at my monkey, he’s pretty.”
And why does he have only one shoe? and… are you serious? Do those sequoias really have testicles??? You’ve got to be kidding me.
So maybe they’ve done what they set out to do. Perhaps What-It-Takes.org’s intention was to capture the imaginations, and attentions of us “high risk” individuals who wander the west-end. And, well, it worked. And I can’t say I’d turn away the opportunity to frolic around some mythical garden of Eden with a handsome fellow, or wait in a tree for Tarzan to swing in at-the-ready, but really??
It just goes too far.
It’s not like they don’t have something important to say. Honestly check it out. The message is vital to our community and the world. For myself though, the message is too fucked up.
I’m sick of having sex thrown in my face.
Maybe I’m alone on this, but the most stimulating thing to me still, is the intrigue and mystery in the long looks across the room before you’ve met someone? And am I the only one left that loves the biting tension before you have sex with someone?
Apparently. Sheesh.
And with that, I leave you with this. Don’t even get me started on this one:
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