The Untouchable...

Hello Friends.

I tend to book a window seat in the last row when I check in for a flight. WestJet lets you check in 24 hours before you fly, and I like to get as close to that 24 hour mark as possible to book what I slyly figure is a spot undesirable enough that it will keep others from selecting the seat beside me. This tactic often works, but didn’t last Sunday when I flew back to Edmonton after a lovely weeklong trip to see family.

There was a woman sitting in the seat beside mine who had that same, “Please don’t sit here, please don’t sit here” face I adopt when I’m watching others board. She gamely got up to let me sit down and we studiously ignored each other for the entire flight. She was a big person, broad and overweight, and she didn’t fit very comfortably into her seat. At 6’1”, neither did I. Those seats are built for no one’s body, and our bodies touched the entire flight. It’s an odd sensation, being hip to hip to a stranger for two hours, but we were, and maybe that’s why we couldn’t comfortably talk to each other. I couldn’t be mad at this woman, for whom flying has to be an uncomfortable experience, but on the other hand, maybe she flies all the time and doesn’t think anything of it. Had it been an international flight spanning several hours, maybe our mutual discomfort would have made us tense and irritable, but as it was, I was fine with this forced snuggle.

Dr. Jon was waiting to board a flight earlier this year where he saw parents waiting at the gate with two young children. The girl was being cute and dancing and twirling, and Dad completely ignored her. At one point, she went in to give her grumpy father a hug and kiss and he shooed her away because he was doing something on his iPad. I know travelling with kids must be awful, but Jesus Christ, hug and kiss your damn kid!

I bring up these two stories of flight because they illustrate how resistant we are to touching each other, even among loved ones. I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions (mostly because what is this blog if not that), but if there was something I’d want to pay more attention to in 2015, it’s this.

Dream: Touch more people.

Goal: Achievable, I guess. I know it sounds so creepy to say that I want to be in more physical contact with people, but it’s true. I noticed over the holidays that I’ve grown rusty when it comes to my hugging, if such a thing is possible. I’m all chin and shoulders somehow. Plus, I’m constantly paranoid that I smell bad, or that the person I’m hugging doesn’t want to be hugged and I’m torturing them with my spindly arms and pizza gut. I read this article once that said you’re not supposed to hug and kiss children that aren’t yours without asking permission of them, because you “rob children of agency over their own bodies.” I guess I can see that, but if I can’t squeeze the squirmy little lovebugs of friends of mine without getting everyone to sign a notarized document, that’s a real drag.

Plan: Touch more people.

This is one of those problems where the answer is inherent to the question. If I want to have more physical contact with people, I’ll just become a more touchy-feely guy. But how does one do that?

I could be in a play. I haven’t done any acting in a while, and while I’m pleased to be on the writing side of things for now, and I certainly don’t miss auditioning, I do much the insane amount of physical closeness that seems part of the process of making theatre. I went through a four year acting program and, while I didn’t have sex with any of my classmates, I can’t believe I didn’t graduate with an STD. Everyone’s always hugging and kissing, onstage and off. Or adjusting eachother’s bodies to optimum posture, or feeling someone’s diaphragm to ensure the right kind of breathing. Or you’re building human pyramids in some fruitless exercise, or starting classes with massage chains, or pounding on someone’s back while they sing. I didn’t even notice it while it was happening, but now that I’ve got an office job, I probably can’t run my hand up the spine of a coworker to check their alignment without getting a complaint sent to Human Resources.

The most tactile and physically demonstrative person I’ve ever met was in a play with me. I’ll call her Jill in case she reads this and is weirded out by my description of her. I could be misremembering, but I think Jill hugged me warmly the first time we met, and she was like that with everybody. We played a couple in the show, and we would kiss and hug without any initial awkwardness or jitters, but she would also grab my hand impulsively in rehearsals, or sling an arm over whomever she was sitting beside. Again, this wasn’t just me, she was like that with everybody. There was something so warm and friendly about Jill, and everyone was incredibly drawn to her, and I’m sure they continue to be. It wasn’t like she and I were best pals that connected on every level either. We were perfectly nice to each other and chatted backstage and whatnot, but it’s not as if we had a deep abiding love for each other, or a mystical connection that transcended beyond friendship. And yet I will always feel incredibly connected to her because she was so, for lack of a better term, touchy-feely.

I wish I could find it again, but I read a really interesting article recently disparaging the fact that men, and straight men in particular, suffer from such a lack of physical contact, and it’s such a shame. And it’s really true! Not to engage in stereotyping, but women and gay men tend to be physically affectionate with each other and it’s not weird. But straight men must only ever get physical attention from their partners in a sexual context, and that’s about it. I don’t know how that gets fixed. I suppose I have straight male friends that I will hug, but not nearly with the frequency as my female friends. There’s a Friends episode I remember where two of the guys (Joey and Ross, I think?) fall asleep on each other once and realize they have amazing naps together. Of course the situation is played for laughs, and once they are discovered, they stop, but why is that such a problem, culturally?

The other side of this coin, of course, is that I’m a fella and I may not be strong, but I’m tall and imposing. That is to say, no one’s physical presence or attention has ever been a threat to me, ever. I’ve never been hit, or slugged in the gut, and I’ve certainly never been into (or really understood) anything rough or painful when it comes to sex, so touch is always a good experience. A stranger grabbed my ass in a crowded bar once, and all I felt was flattered. I spun around in surprise, but also gratitude, as he vanished into the throng. I wanted to find him and ask for a rating out of ten. So maybe I’m only seeing the good side of physical contact because that’s all I have ever experienced, and asking everyone to be more physically demonstrative is asking too much.

That said, something’s gotta change. I wear headphones at work, and if someone tries to get my attention by placing a hand on my shoulder, I act as if someone’s just fired a gun into the air. I jump three feet and spin around and can’t seem to temper that reaction. I have to get my hug back and I can’t turn into one of those people who genuinely doesn’t like to be touched. I mean, there are some things I can’t abide (don’t ever pat my head, I’ll tear your fucking arms off), but otherwise, let’s walk hand in hand when next we meet, or institute a kiss hello. I won’t think it’s weird if you won’t. I hope to see most of you in 2015, so let’s make a change! Here’s to a Happy New Year, the fun adventures that await us all, and staying in touch.

Brush Off Your Shakespeare...

Hello Friends.

On Wednesday nights, I meet a man I’ll call George at a public library to tutor him in reading and writing. George is a cab driver, but is taking a high school equivalency program in order to eventually take a course in a trade, and get a better job. He is incredibly motivated, and sees improving his reading and writing with me as one rung of a long ladder. Consequently, the work we do relates directly to his high school equivalency program, which means we’ve tackled a Steinbeck, differentiated some metaphors from some similes, and run smack into Shakespeare.

Dream: Remove Shakespeare from the high school curriculum.

Goal: Unachievable. There is no argument I could possibly make that would sway any school board to remove Shakespeare from their high school classrooms. My mother is an English teacher, and she would surely put spider eggs in my Christmas stocking if she knew I held this opinion. My drama teachers would have expressive and highly-physical heart attacks (ideally before an audience) if they read this missive. A bunch of old white actors like Ian McKellen, John Lithgow, and Brian Dennehey would wail and keen and get Tony’s for it. But I will not be swayed.

Here’s the thing about Shakespeare as it relates both to young teenagers, and adults like George with reading comprehension skills that need the occasional boost: it’s too difficult. The language is dense, the length interminable, the story a foregone conclusion. Everyone knows Romeo & Juliet die in the end, as much is stated in the prologue of the play! But to me, forcing Shakespeare on readers at that level is like making students copy pages out of the dictionary as punishment. Useful as it may be, brilliant though Shakespeare’s work undeniably is, students learn to loathe it. Shakespeare is exercise, vegetables, and church. To a young reader, the only reward of Shakespeare is just getting through the damn thing.

“But you need vegetables!” I hear you objecting, comfortably ensconced in your adult intellect and perspective. “Shakespeare is so important! His work is the foundation of modern literature and drama! He is unparalleled!” I agree. He knows his stuff. No slouch, that Bill. Real class act. But try feeding a T-bone steak to a four year old and see how impressed she is. Suggest to a 22 year old that they ought to put half their paycheque towards retirement. Give a homeless person a gift certificate for granite countertops. They can’t appreciate these things, not yet!

George and I have taken several approaches to the Shakespeare play that will make up at least half of his school term. We try reading summaries before going into the actual text. We’ve watched film adaptations. We learned the choreography to West Side Story (not really). Eventually, we parse line by line and, motivated though we both are, we end each session frustrated and exhausted. I try to remain as driven and upbeat as the man I’m working with, but he sees through my attempts at cheeriness. “You are so tired,” he says to me. “You must go home, get a lot of rest.” This from a man who drives cab all night to go to school all day in an effort to make a better life for his family. But that’s Shakespeare, man! That’s the utter slog through. We will get through one speech, and then another, but by then, we will have lost our train from the first speech. An act doesn’t hold together, even with helpful prodding like, “But remember when Benvolio said…”, or, “Why do you think Friar Laurence agreed to…” When something is foreshadowed, it’s just another cog in an increasingly complicated machine. It’s like putting together a 5000 piece jigsaw puzzle, and the picture turns out to be frustrated man putting a puzzle together.

Plan: Replace Shakespeare with other stuff.

It’s not that I don’t think we should revere Shakespeare, it’s quite the opposite. But I wonder if we shouldn’t treat his works the same way many of us treat the Bible. We know it’s there, we know it is the basis of many faiths, we also know Biblical allusions are found throughout literature. In the same way, we know Shakespeare’s the guy upon whom a great deal of modern work is based. Other than the Greeks, he kinda laid out the template for how we tell stories. But people derive meaning from the Bible in a rather piecemeal way. This verse of that Book, or Dave’s letter to Shawn or whatever. Likewise, why don’t we tell kids that Shakespeare’s the big cheese, and treat the cannon like it’s something to be culled from, rather than pounded into young brains?

Can’t we throw some more diverse literature at kids as a general rule? How many prizes does Joseph Boyden have to win before teenagers read his fantastic work? Does he have to be white and dead? What about Esi Edugyen? I tore through Half Blood Blues, I couldn’t read it fast enough! For that matter, why not give teenagers Gone Girl? Yes, it’s popular, but it’s not 50 Shades of Grey; it’s well-written and engrossing! Why does a good, enjoyable read and an assignment in an English class so often feel so different? In terms of plays, why start at Shakespeare and end with Our Town? Make them read Thomson Highway or Joanne McLeod. For that matter, get them scripts from TV shows or movies and show them what makes a smart sitcom script or gripping drama. Can you imagine how thrilled a classroom of teenagers would be to go through a classic Simpsons episode to try to figure out what makes it so well-written? What techniques are employed, what is the rhythm of the humour? Speaking of humour, what’s so damn funny about Shakespeare’s “Comedies”? At live performances I’ve been to, some people chuckle when the fool character gets up to his antics, and I want to throw my bug spray into their faces. “That’s not funny!” I want to yell at the chucklers. “You’ve just be told it’s supposed to be!” I don’t mean to be like a drunk at a comedy club, but where’s the part where I start laughin’?

I’m not suggesting we ignore Billy S. entirely. I’m just saying I don’t know any adults who tuck into a Shakespeare play when they’re looking to unwind. Shakespeare is always an assignment, always an undertaking. And it’s not as if, by taking it out of a few grade levels, we are depriving the world of the contribution Shakespeare has made. Shakespeare will always be the standard, whether or not 15 year olds scratch their heads over Hamlet for yet another year.

Even as I make this argument, I see the holes in it. We have to challenge students to get them to learn, and what’s a bigger challenge than Shakespeare? Who can say that by eliminating Shakespeare in high school, we won’t eventually eliminate him from colleges and outdoor festivals? Maybe no exposure to Shakespeare as a young person means that, when you encounter him later, you’re just as confused. I don’t know what the answer is.

What I do know is that reading isn’t fun for the guy I read with every week. Shakespeare is a unit to be suffered through, a test to be passed, then tossed aside and never looked at again. As we go back over and over the same speeches, desperate to not only derive meaning, but retain all the information for test time, I can’t help but think this isn’t how Shakespeare himself would have wanted his work enjoyed. I close with the man himself:

If we shadows have offended,

Think but this, and all is mended—
High school years are troubling times
With so much heaped on fertile minds
Take from this text what you will
Sorry it’s boring
Sincerely,

Bill

Used to Think...

Hello Friends.

I just saw the BEST movie. A friend and I spent a lovely cheap Tuesday night watching The Theory of Everything. Friends, run, don’t walk to The Theory of Everything. It’s a movie about Stephen Hawking’s life, which sounds like it might be too science-y at best or boring at worst, but it’s neither. Eddie Redmayne, who plays Stephen Hawking, is really something. As Hawking’s body degenerates over time, Eddie has less and less to work with in terms of physicality and speech, but the character is so well-rendered, you know exactly what he’s thinking and feeling. Anyway, I’m overhyping it surely, but just go watch it because you’ll like it and because what else are you gonna see? Beer Farts? Rage Girl? Dying Tears? Actually, I hear Katherine Heigl gives an amazing performance as Jonah Hill’s mother in Beer Farts.

A lot of things will stick with me about the Hawking movie, but one thing in particular about Hawking’s life and work has burrowed in my brain. Apparently, Hawking spent much of his early work as a Physicist promoting a particular theory about black holes. That theory was the basis of his thesis and his early published work. Later on, however, he determined that his black hole theory was probably wrong and set about disproving it. Think about that. Arguably the most intelligent man of our time looks at his own work and says, “Oh, that’s probably wrong. I was wrong. I should try to fix that.” Amazing! I wish more important people looked back on their actions and said, “I was wrong, let’s fix it.” What if Prime Ministers and Presidents did that? What if the Pope did that? Maybe we’ll never get Bush to admit the invasion of Iraq was a mistake, maybe Cosby will continue to insist that dozens of women are just making stuff up, but I can change my mind about some stuff. Let’s do it now.

Dream: Admit that some of my past beliefs, ideologies, opinions were wrong, and revise accordingly.

Goal: Achievable. I’m just a guy. Who cares if I used to think one thing and now I think another? But I do think it’s important to question one’s values every so often. I feel so young in so many ways. I can’t possibly know exactly what I believe about the world when I have had (comparatively) so little life experience.

Plan: Think of things I used to think, and think about whether I think that thing anymore.

I used to think night was better than day. I was a night owl for many years. At jobs, I would always take the afternoon/evening shift, so I could sleep in, and the night was mine to do whatever I wanted. Turns out all I wanted to do was eat bad food and otherwise defile myself. It would be a different story were I out on the town every night, trying new bars, going to concerts, socializing and cultivating night-based friendships. But I was on the internet in my jam-jams. Now that I work during the day, guess what I use my nights for? Hours of glorious sleep. I indulge in a different kind of gratification by turning in at 9.30 to wake up at ten after seven. If you’re keeping track at home, that’s more than nine and a half hours of bedtime. I can read for as long as I want. If I fall asleep right away and wake up in the middle of the night, I don’t panic like I used to. If I have a lousy night of sleep, I have the next night to do it over. I do this for all those friends with kids, or spouses that work opposite hours, or have such a full life that this amount of time dedicated to sleep is a ridiculous pipe dream they will never realize.

I used to think cream rises to the top. In creative fields, I had faith that the truly talented would prevail eventually, and everything else would fall away. Then I revised that opinion and believe more strongly that it isn’t about what you know, it’s who you know. Now I think it’s a little of both, or a lot of neither. It’s arbitrary. It’s a crap shoot. I know so many talented performers and writers who might not “break out” in any meaningful way, in spite of being incredibly talented. I also know many people who are so good at the game of networking, or making connections. For a long time, I watched the glad-handers, the ass-kissers, and the people who show up to everything, desperate to sell themselves. But I think that desperation comes across.

I knew a guy who was (and I think still is) the Artistic Director of a prominent theatre company. That is to say, I knew him personally more than professionally, and so didn’t consider myself among the networkers and hangers-on, of which there were dozens. People are overly-friendly with him, and slyly working in references to their own ability and wide open schedules. They might say, “So great to see you!” when they mean, “Give me a job, already!” He sees right through it and, while he is gracious, seems pretty immune to the empty compliments. I think honing your talent is just as important as making the right connections, but I also think some people “make it” and some people don’t thanks solely to dumb luck. And lest you think this is a self-pitying diatribe, I make a living writing copy, which is not creative, but I still consider myself among the dumb lucky ones.

I used to think whether or not you were gay was nobody’s business. Now, with important caveats, I think keeping yourself closeted for the sake of “privacy” is a dumb cop out. Obviously, there are exceptions here. If you are young, still figuring life out, and you stand to get the shit kicked out of you, stay in that closet until you can safely get out of there. If you are dependent upon parents who are assholes and will disown you, cut you off financially, etc., then of course don’t come out. If you live in a part of the world where identifying as gay puts you in legitimate danger, stay in the closet with my deepest sympathies and open invitation to Canada. If, however, you are an adult, if you support yourself, and especially if you have some poor secret same sex lover, lurking in the shadows, available for trysts, but not invited to the work Christmas party, then come the fuck out. The water’s fine. I regret waiting as long as I did to come out, as I experienced no fallout, but I also wanted to get out of high school first. I went to a great high school with great friends, and probably would have been fine there, too, but it can be a rough road for any teenager. I knew, on the cusp of adulthood, that I had no reason to hide, and no excuse.

There are still people who will say, “But it’s nobody’s business who I sleep with!” I completely agree. But there’s a big difference between saying, “I have a boyfriend named Greg and this is his home address and we have sex on Tuesdays and Fridays” and telling someone that you identify as gay. Consider, for instance, a person of ambiguous ethnic origin who is learning English as a second language. Maybe they are Japanese or maybe they are Korean, but it’s hard to tell. Another person might ask them, “Are you from Korea?” Maybe that’s a little forward, but it’s not an invasion of their privacy. The person would likely respond, “Yes I am” or “No I’m not”, and that would be that. It would be rude to say to that person, “What are your parents’ names? What do they do? Where do they live?”

Maybe I’m getting too activist-y, but I don’t think telling someone you’re gay is personal; I think it’s political. It helps out. The more straight people know gay people who are cabinet ministers, construction workers, Moms, Dads, colleagues, best pals, and douchebags, the more we’re just part of the world. That’s why I always wake up mad at Kevin Spacey, who plays the “Nobody’s business” game. Or Queen Latifah who “won’t discuss it.” Why not? You’re rich and famous, but made terribly insecure by this part of you that’s supposedly “nobody’s business”? The famous person who made me the angriest was Sean Hayes, who played the flamboyant Jack on Will & Grace. That was the most progressive show on television at the time, he was obviously gay, if not as stereotypical as the character he portrayed and he “refused to discuss it” until finally coming out for The Advocate several years after the show had been off the air. What does that do to the gay kids watching your show, buddy? Man up. And actually, the reason I’m mad at Queen Latifah was that her show was playing in the dentist’s office the other day, and she was taking a picture of her audience with her phone to put on Twitter. She said, “That’s not a selfie! That’s a somebody-elsie! We invented something new, y’all! A somebody-elsie!” The audience laughed and clapped while I seethed. YOU DIDN’T INVENT ANYTHING! A SOMEBODY-ELSIE?! YOU JUST TOOK A FUCKING PICTURE! YOU’RE SO STUPID!

I used to think the world was a magical, wonderful place. I don’t mean that it’s not from a poor me, doom and gloom perspective, because I have been a lucky person for whom the world has been a magical, wonderful place. Everything has been sunshine and lollipops for me because, as a white male, I was born on the sunny side of a lollipop field. Loathe as we are to admit it, much in our lives are dictated by privilege and circumstances, not our positive attitudes. I’m not explain myself well. David Rakoff said, and I’m paraphrasing, that you can believe in all the positive thinking that you want. You can have the sunniest attitude, and a “relationship with the universe”, and the belief that, by putting positive vibes out into the universe, positive vibes will be returned to you. But, Rakoff continued, if you’re a labourer in Bangladesh making 10 cents an hour at a fucking sneaker factory, you can think all the sunny thoughts you like, you’re still going to wake up tomorrow and have to work at the fucking sneaker factory.

I’m finding it hard to transition out of the “magical, wonderful place” model, especially because, as I say, my streets are paved with gold. I’ve got a job and a nice fella and have never been followed around a store, let’s say, or turned down for a job based on anything other than my qualifications. As a white dude, I’ve never felt vulnerable walking alone at night, or standing alone at a bar. I’ve never turned on the tv and not seen myself reflected back a hundred different ways. I haven’t seen hundreds of young white people go missing or be murdered, and if that happened enough times that it was noticeable as a larger trend, it would be on the front page of every newspaper every goddamn day.

It makes me heartsick when well-intentioned people like me say, “I just prefer to see the good in people.” Someone on my Facebook feed, in response to a Ferguson post said, “This whole situation is so negative! There are so many good things happening in the world, why not focus on that?” When someone says something so inane, what they’re really saying is, “It doesn’t affect me.” War in Iraq? “Doesn’t affect me.” Missing and murdered Aboriginal women? “Doesn’t affect me.” Unarmed black teenager shot dead by a police officer? “Doesn’t affect me.” It should affect you, it does affect you. To pretend otherwise is to be at best, a shitty person, and at worst, culpable in the injustices being committed.

It’s so tempting to deal in absolutes. I always do this, I never do that. I believe in this, but not that. I’m not a religious person, and I used to think that was a trait of religious people—the world is black and white, good and evil, etc. But now I think that’s true of only pious people, and the truly faithful struggle as much as the rest of us do.

In the course of proving and disproving his theories, Stephen Hawking became known as the most brilliant mind of our time. David Rakoff, in spite of his pessimistic nature, wrote some the funniest and most elegant prose I’ve ever read. I still can’t read his last book, published shortly before his death from cancer at 47, because the idea that such a writer has nothing left to be read makes me incredibly sad. The point is, neither man was content to say one thing and leave it there, they were furious and curious. Furious and curious aren’t bad things to be these days. At least that’s what I think.

Break the Internet, Volume One

Hello Friends.

Poor Kim Kardashian’s butt. Can you imagine being such a butt? A butt with so much attention? It must be so weird. I’m sure my butt has only received attention for something negative. I almost never look back there and say, “Good job, butt.”

By now you’ve seen or read about Kim Kardashian’s bare-assed cover of Paper Mag with the headline, “Break the Internet.” The suggesting being, I suppose, that this photo will be downloaded and viewed by so many people as to somehow exhaust the very medium that transmits it. We’ll wake up tomorrow internet-less thanks to this malevolent butt. Would that be so bad?

Dream: Break the internet.

Goal: Unachievable. There’s no way to shut down the non-stop garbage parade on the information superhighway (remember when we called it that?). But maybe if we thought a little more critically about what we are constantly consuming, we wouldn’t have to break the internet in order to get it fixed. This topic is a big one, so I suggest we approach the tear down and rebuild of the internet in stages, and this is my first idea.

Plan: Let’s start by revising the definition of pornography, shall we?

Is this naked photoshoot of Kim Kardashian labelled “Break the Internet” meant to evoke the nude photo hacking that occurred a few weeks ago? Classy move, magazine. Is it a commentary on the event, or just capitalizing on the trend of naked ladies? So much ink has been spilled about this, I know I’m just adding to the noise but beyond the fact that making someone’s private photos readily accessible to a public audience is a violation and a sex crime, I still think it positions a woman’s body as currency in a really gross way. The idea that women with their clothes off will somehow create chaos and corrupt us absolutely is just wrong. Again, I haven’t seen a lot of the photos, but these aren’t women having sex, these are women who are nude. Why does Vanity Fair, in their recent cover story concerning Jennifer Lawrence, print her statement in full about her feelings of violation at the release of those photos, with an accompanying pictorial of her naked in a swimming pool (albeit strategically positioned to cover her nipples)? In other words, Vanity Fair prints that accessing naked pictures of Jennifer Lawrence is a violation (which it is), while splashing sexy pics inside their magazine to sell more copies (which they did).

Famously, a member of the United States Supreme Court, when ruling on whether or not a particular film qualified as obscene, couldn’t explain exactly what made something pornography or not said, “When it comes to [porn], I know it when I see it.” Is that true? Do we really know it when we see it anymore? A woman breastfeeding her child is not pornographic, but what if the child hasn’t latched on to the breast, and someone takes a picture of a bare-breasted woman about to but not in the act of feeding her child? Such distinctions are ridiculous, at least to me.

There’s a guy in this town that I fucking hate and I don’t even know his name. This guy, who goes by a ridiculous pseudonym and Twitter handle, is a bigot who couches his vitriol in the guise of right wing ideology. The only reason I know he exists is because his stupid blog is widely read (much more so than this one, I can assure you) and, in his review of a Fringe show called a particular performer, “A flaming Fringe faggot” (referring to the fact that this performer has been in several Fringe shows that are queer-positive, some are drag cabarets, etc.) Somebody got ahold of it, told local media, they ran with the story, there was requisite outrage, blah blah blah. I don’t know why, after reading some article about it, I was compelled to look further (the cyber equivalent of picking a scab), but I went to the writer’s blog and Twitter page. The rest of his Fringe Festival coverage was other play reviews, and then each “day” of the festival featured several pictures of women who were attending. Their heads were cut off in the pictures, so it was just the (fully-clothed) bodies of women walking around the Fringe grounds! This guy takes pictures of women clearly unaware they are being photographed covertly on his phone, then uploads them as “scenery.” As in, “There were many other great sights to see at the Fringe this year, heh heh heh!” followed by pictures of these women! From the “I know it when I see it” file, that’s ABSOLUTELY obscene to me. This disgusting man who doesn’t put his real name on anything is the type of person who the internet ought to break down on.

I guess we’re no closer to breaking the internet. Women’s bodies, the male gaze, and what constitutes pornography can’t be solved in a thinkpiece (even one as scattershot as this one). All I can control is what I watch which, for the moment, won’t be the famous butt that seems to be everywhere. I guess we can’t break something that’s already broken.

Old Yeller...

Hello Friends.

Dr. Jon teaches a class on Thursday nights, so I usually use those nights to cook the dinners only I like and watch the shows Jon has no interest in. I’m embarrassed to report that those shows include a program I will call by its Spanish name, Escandalo!

Escandalo! is a soapy, melodramatic program that centres around Kerry Washington and her impossible cheekbones, and together they fix what’s wrong in Washington (the place), and the presidency. Kerry is having an affair with the President (Escandalo!), but has also uncovered a secret government organization that exists beyond the powers of the White House (Escandalo!) and she’s having another affair with the interim leader of that organization (Escandalo!) who holds the position previously held by Kerry Washington’s father (Muey Escandalo!). While the show purports to be about corruption and intrigue in the highest office in the land, it’s basically House of Cards for stupid people. In spite of myself, I am hooked.

One thing the show likes to do (with the subtlety of a freight train, btw) is examine the effects of power. Who has it, who wants it, what will they do to get it and keep it, etc. Kerry Washington is especially good at playing this dynamic as every subtle shift reads on her stunningly beautiful face. She’s a great actress, but lately her job has been to simply react to horrifying things, and you couldn’t find a better canvas. But I digress. Because it’s all about power, and because the show is a little ham-fisted in delivering emotional punches, everyone on Escandalo! is always yelling at each other. As much as I enjoy the escapism of a night time soap, I couldn’t last in that world for two seconds because I can’t handle being yelled at.

Dream: Handle being yelled at.

Goal: Achievable. When I say, “Being yelled at”, I’m defining things very loosely. I don’t mean someone screaming obscenities in my face, which nobody should put up with, I mean when someone belittles me, or chastises me like a child for some perceived transgression. I don’t understand this practice at all.

When I was a child, I stupidly thought that kids yell at each other, sometimes grown-ups yelled at kids, but grown-ups don’t yell at each other (and yes, that naiveté is the incredible privilege of growing up in the stable, happy home that 1/10 of 1 percent of all kids get, my brother and me among them). Consequently, as an adult, I don’t know how to respond when someone starts yelling. My stomach churns, my heart drops, and I am immediately cowed and subservient, even when I know that I’m not in the wrong and have nothing to be chastened for.

Plan: Shake it off.

How does Taylor Swift do it? With all the haters, and the fakers, and the liars and the dirty, dirty cheats of the world?

Sometimes I wonder if I have one of those easy-to-yell-at faces. Like a droopy, “duh-duh” face. During one job I held, I caught my reflection in a window once after I was yelled at from a supervisor who had actually gathered other coworkers around for some kind of public shaming. My posture was defensive, my hands were shaking, and I had the stupidest look my face.

There was a director I have worked with who is notorious for his verbal tear-downs. Years of doing it had given him a lot of practice and he could, without warning, really decimate someone he was displeased with. People will always work with him, though, and I’m certain his tenure as a great director will continue because he gets great results. Loathe as I am to admit it, he knows that intimidation works. After a particularly blistering rebuke of someone on a rehearsal day, he sputtered, “I care about putting on a good show. I don’t care about everyone having a good time” or something to that effect. What bothers me is that both things are possible.

I can think of bosses, supervisors, directors, teachers, and other people of authority who get stuff done willingly by a happy crew. I have stayed in lousy jobs and worked really hard to please people like that. I might put forth extra effort into something if I don’t want to get yelled at, but I’m going to give my truly greatest effort when I’m helping someone that I respect. If you want to find stressed out people, go to a retail store or a restaurant. If you want to find calm people deftly handling stressful situations, go to the some of the stores where I have worked. I’ve seen managers on the floor all day getting shit from customers, then get a call from some head office and get shit from corporate when the day is done, and those managers then take their shit out on nobody. People don’t get yelled at, people get treated with respect, and the work gets done.

There are always going to be people that behave badly, who believe that threats of catastrophe is greater motivation than positive feedback. There’s no point in trying to change people who exhibit that behavior because often it gets results from chumps like me. But chumps like me can change how we respond to bad behavior, even if it means faking the shake off until we can successfully make the shake off.

Dr. Jon never yells at me, nor do my work colleagues, nor friends, nor family, and I don’t yell at anyone myself (at least I don’t think I do). Still, I think it’s important to remind myself that yelling itself is inevitable, but valueless. The more import I give to this lousy method of communication, the more likely I am to internalize it the next time someone yells at me. If yelling at James gets results, James better stop producing results to reinforce the behavior. It is then that I am the worst version of myself and likely to treat someone badly in turn, and that would be truly scandalous.

Sexy Man Costume...

Hello Friends.

Halloween falls on a Friday night this year, it’s not uncomfortably cold, I don’t have any children, and I’m not deathly ill. For all of those reasons, I really should go out and have fun. I’ve complained in the past about adults celebrating Halloween is juvenile and just a chance to get skanky, but really, who am I to deprive my contemporaries of the privilege? Plus, I am told that Halloween is truly the gay man’s holiday. It’s an event where outlandish behavior and dress is not only tolerated, but encouraged. Actually, considering the ceremony and pageantry associated with Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, I’m fairly certain that any holiday is the gay man’s holiday, but anyway.

This ghoultide season (ha HA!), I’m stymied as to what to dress up as, particularly since the practice is encouraged around the office. My only idea (and therefore the strongest contender) is Business Cat. This costume will involve wearing my normal work clothes, plus maybe some cat ears, and going about my day.

If we do go out on Friday night, I’m not convinced Business Cat will play well at the bar. As much as a truly original costume like Business Cat is appreciated, funny’s no money when it comes winning the prizes offered at the night spot we might visit. There will be some women dressed in sexy lady gear and, because it’s a gay bar, there will also be men dressed in sexy lady gear. Since the only lady I’m comfortable dressing as is Diane Keaton, I need to find a Sexy Man’s Costume.

Dream: Design or discover a Sexy Man Halloween costume.

Goal: Achievable. My feeling is those sad Halloween stores really miss the mark when it comes to costumes for men. One I saw recently was lumberjack. I don’t know any actual lumberjacks, but I think if I met one, I wouldn’t be turned on by virtue of his profession:

ME: What’s your job?
LUMBERJACK: Lumberjack.
ME: Oh! So you… chop down trees?
LUMBERJACK: Basically.
ME: Huh! Don’t they have machines that do that now?
LUMBERJACK: Do they?
ME: I think so.
LUMBERJACK: I’ll be along now. Exuent LUMBERJACK

Plan: Design prototypes for Sexy Man Costumes based on the following ideas:

Sexy Single Dad. This one is for you, ladies. I’m not sure why, but many straight ladies I know turns all jello-kneed at the sight of a handsome single father. This costume is simple, fellas. Dress somewhat conservatively and walk around the party calling out modern names. “Makenna? Zaden?” People will be like, “Awww, those must be his kids!” Although I suppose they would think you were calling for your kids because they were missing at a large party, I don’t know how you dig yourself out of that hole. Okay, wear a t-shirt obviously made by children. So it has paint handprints on it and says “WE LOVE YOU DADDY” in crude font and then something like, “PS OUR MOMMY IS DEAD” so that everyone knows you’re a single parent, down to clown.

Sexy Vet (like veterinarian, not war veteran, let’s not make fun of that). One of the loveliest thing about Dr. Jon is how much he cares for animals. There’s something so appealing about that quality in a fella. So a Sexy Vet could wear a stethoscope, but have scrubs with puppies on them. Or he could carry around a bandaged bunny rabbit. No, that’s weird, that’s weird.

Brendan Fraser. Just dress like Brendan Fraser. Where is that guy? I miss that guy. Or rather, I miss him from 20 years ago. I remember seeing Encino Man when I was 11 or 12, where this dude finds a prehistoric naked and vulnerable Brendan Fraser and thinking to myself, “This shall be my life’s work.”

Sexy Apologizing Bastard. You know how there’s that person in your life, from work, or high school, or college who was/is a bastard? And there’s something about him that could potentially be attractive if he wasn’t a bastard? This costume is that guy, but he spends the whole night apologizing for being a bastard.

Sexy “What About You?” Guy. This one will be an even bigger hit than the Apologizer. This guy’s costume could be a mirror, or a t shirt with a big question mark on it. All he does is ask about your life and seem genuinely interested. Yeah, that would get annoying and suspicious after a while, but it could be sexy over the course of a party.

Sexy “Strong Without Effort” Guy. I don’t mean muscle-y juiceheads, or the guys at the gym lifting insane amounts and screaming with each movement like they’re making Sophie’s choice. I can’t explain it, but to me there’s something incredibly attractive about a man (a woman too, come to think of it), doing something taxing without obvious strain. Again, I don’t know why, but when a guy competently helps to move a couch or does pushups because he’s bored, that’s insanely hot.

Guy in a suit. Gentleman, just buy a basic suit that is TAILORED TO YOUR BODY and wear it around. This is so easy, especially because the resourceful guy can wear many combinations of one suit and a well-made suit lasts forever. Just wear a suit. Just wear a suit!

It says a lot about our culture that a sexy lady costume requires wearing some variation of a skimpy garment and who cares about the context, and a sexy man costume just asks that guys not be dicks for a night. I’m not the one to solve this quandary, but in general, I do think the sexiest thing anyone can be is an open, honest version of themselves. Or a Business Cat.

Do Not Not Disturb

Hello Friends.

I had to give up my little office last week to make room for a new guy. Now I work in a more communal area alongside my colleagues. Not really a cube farm, just a corner of a much larger room with three other people and a bit of foot traffic. Higher-ups broke this news to me as gently as possible, as if I might burst into tears, or cling possessively to the inspirational picture mounted to my wall. “No! I need my solitary space! How else will I LIVE?”

The answer is, quite comfortably. Though it was cool, when I got this job, to have my own office, it quickly became weirdly isolating. I found myself wandering over to the common area that now includes my desk to ask innocuous questions about a task, find out if I could help anyone out, or just chat. Turns out, unless I’m deep in the throes of a complicated assignment, I’d rather have some activity around me than none at all. Though I still would consider working from home the gold standard, but only because I imagine it the way Homer does, where Jon brings me a lemonade and a beer and we dance while I wear my fat guy muumuu.

There have been times in my life when I’ve really wanted to be alone. When I was a kid, I wanted my own room and when I finally got one, I guarded it fiercely (although it wasn’t as if anyone was desperate to gain access to the inner sanctum of a disgusting teenaged me). When I moved out on my own, I dismissed the idea of roommates entirely. At the time, my rent was so low I could easily afford a one bedroom apartment while working a crap job (something all but impossible now). Even after I met Jon, we kept separate residences for four years, and then have lived apart for long stretches since due to his work and mine.

The thing that surprised me about getting the solitude I thought that I wanted was that I became the worst version of myself. I’m not a depressive, but I am incredibly neurotic, and left unchecked by the presence of others, I become a literal and figurative mess.

Dream: Live in less privacy.

Goal: Achievable. I know that doesn’t make sense on the face of it. Who wants less privacy? Especially when one considers, beyond the tinfoil hat sort of way, that we lack so much privacy as citizens. Surely our emails are monitored, our money tracked, and suspicious movements subject to surveillance, and we’re not even important people. I wouldn’t mind if that scrutiny was lessened a bit; it creeps me out to think that none of us has any autonomy as a citizen of the world, I’m just saying I want people around.

Plan: Find ways to make myself more accessible and less imprisoned by my impulse to isolate. Such as:

Secrets. I don’t mean that I’m going to spill anyone’s secrets, anything I’ve put in the vault stays in the vault. I mean that I’m going to try to keep less secrets about myself, not that I have many anyway, but you get the picture. Anything I’ve held inside, for whatever reason, eventually festers and feels gross. Whether it’s times I’ve been bad with money, bailed on a commitment, treated somebody like shit, I have to own that stuff.

Relationship criteria. In my case, I’m not talking about criteria for a romantic relationship, as I’ve already got a good one of those; I’m talking about developing more connections and friendships with people. To generalize with wild abandon, I feel like straight women and gay men feel this need to have an inner circle, or maybe one or two confidantes, or one bff, and nobody else gets in. I look at the Facebook walls of my straight women/gay men friends and they’re filled with self-centered platitudes like, “I’m officially done with apologizing to people!” Or, “This is me, deal with it!” Or my personal favourite, “If you can’t handle me at my worst, you don’t deserve me at my best!” Did you ever notice that people who say that actually have no best and are always the worst?

I’m not saying don’t be who you are, but never apologizing? Really? Isn’t life full of the mistakes we make and how we choose to correct them? Shouldn’t we be pliable as people, willing to accept different points of view, especially if it means changing our own? Isn’t that growth? If you’re going to summarily dismiss the people in your life who occasionally rankle or upset you, be prepared for the loneliest life! Ironically, these are the same people whose social media platforms are filled with Oprah quotes about “Living in the moment” and “Practicing gratitude”, but they can’t seem to do much of either.

Every body (even mine, even yours) is fine. The older I get and the more my body changes, the less I understand our collective insistence on privately (or publicly) tormenting ourselves about how we look. I don’t mean to be all free love and creepy, but they’re just bodies, man. Who gives a shit? It was awful and a huge breach of privacy when some person (or persons) hacked into the phones/computers of a bunch of female celebrities and posted their nude photos. A terrible violation, to be sure. But as I understand it, these aren’t pictures of people engaged in sex acts; they’re just naked selfies. The more we clutch our pearls and ready our fainting couches over nude photos that don’t depict anything sexual, the more we send the message that there’s something inherently wrong with our bodies.

I know taking this view is a little gross, it sounds like I’m defending the people that stole and leaked these photos, of course I’m not, but I read this article about teenagers and sexting recently that gave me a lot to think about. Because teens are perpetually horny and disgusting, and the dangers of sexual activity are hammered into them at every opportunity, a titillating but physically safe option seems to be sending each other naked pictures. I was surprised to learn that, at least among the teenagers surveyed for the article, there is rarely, if ever, a fallout as a result. It is only when parents find out and involve schools who in turn involve law enforcement, that it gets truly awful. Senders and sendees are interviewed, monitored, and in some cases, charged and arrested. The subjects of questionable photos have scarlet A’s permanently affixed to themselves as they walk the halls. Remember that this is not the result of explicit imagery of people engaging in sex with each other (though those do exist among teens and ought to be handled quite differently), these are kids standing there with their clothes off. Granted, if a naked picture of me was circulated among my classmates when I was a teen, I would be horrified and embarrassed. If cops showed up to interview me about it alongside my parents, I’d actually want to die.  

Again, I’m speaking only for myself here. And I think perhaps I’m confusing privacy with secrecy, or being alone with loneliness. There are private parts of my life that I keep close to the vest, and I wouldn’t want that to be violated, but I also know that I want people around that really know me, warts and all. I like how nobody has to awkwardly knock on an open door to get my attention at work now. Nobody needs to be invited into my space; you’re already here.