Unpublished - WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE

Next Friday you have been invited to attend Double Exposure: A Two-Spirit Experience and it dawned on me, maybe you think you have no reason to come, or for whatever reason are nervous or unsure if you are going to come. I want to take a few minutes to let you know that you are welcome and we all have reasons to attend.

My boyfriend Zach and I were on the escalator coming down and away from the theatre where we had just seen Where The Wild Things Are. A young mother was a few steps behind us, her 5year old (ish) son was a step above her. She turned her body a bit to face him. They were almost at eye level, “ I wanted us to see this movie so I could talk to you about what happens when you get so upset” she said to him. The little boy wiggled in his body in reaction, sweet sounds came from him as he and his Mom hummed and talked. The boy and I made eye contact for a second and then I looked away. I got to the bottom of the escalator and by the time Zach was beside me I was near sobbing. Something about the scene between the Mother and the Son touched me, stopped me from being able to ignore the emotional pull the movie had on me. This weekend I was talking to a friend about the movie and he thought that crux of the film was that line Max says to his island friends about how everyone needs a Mom. And although after witnessing the scene on the escalator I am apt to agree with him, I think it is more than that. I think the film is about loneliness and our need to have people to look after and look after us. We don’t seem to have the language or the history to really talk about loneliness or our need for physical touch, or a variety of forms of companionship in our culture. We are too busy buying into the myth of self-reliance. In a way it is for this reason that the sleeping in a ‘real pile’ scene from Where the Wild Things Are was all the more touching. The idea of a mass-of-life-loving and breathing on top and intertwined with each other is possible- warms the heart.

I have a friend who lives in Philadelphia and part of his self-care regiment is to attend a group doggy pile once a month. He gets there early so he can be the bottom and feel the weight of all the people he loves and doesn’t know weighing down on him, impacting him. Later after he told me this I couldn’t help but think that for a man who lost so many of his friends to AIDS, the luxury of being crushed by live bodies must seem like riches. I think in a way my tears on the escalator were for my friend in Philly. And for me. And for people I know that died, and for friends who as they get older get less hugs, and for the people whose jokes I never get, and for the guy on the street who is asking for money and asking to be really truly seen and witnessed. It was a big cry because there are a lot of reasons to cry.

All of this was turning in my head today as I made my way to Richard’s house to meet up with him and the rest of the Double Exposure team to catch up and prepare the costumes for Friday. As we sat around the table talking I realized that so much of organizing is about creating small communities for a focused reason and how close during that organizing people can become. It is powerful to work on something together. Sitting in Richard’s living room cutting strip for the costumes I noticed that as the strips piled up, the softness on the fabric weighing on itself looked so cozy. It was then it dawned on me that in many ways for me, Double Exposure is a lot like Where the Wild Things Are. Double Exposure is about many things but in a small way it is really about creating a reason, a way for people to gather. There will be food, music, learnings, costumes, culture, new friends and old strangers coming together. And while we may not be piling on top of each other- we will be coming together and letting our energies meet and our experiences overlap. I hope you come, I hope you brings so clean cloth to add to the costumes and I hope you eat, dance, play all that you need to.

Invoke the Halloween spirits, get what you kindly need from community and give what you can. I look forward to seeing you. Bring friends, kids, parents, loved ones... Ted

Unpublished - High Level Michael Death

Michael Jackson (1989), Annie Leibovitz

At times the noise recedes. And it is beautiful. For the last 2 weeks I have taken up jogging. I like to say running but as my friend Marshall pointed out one has to be going a certain speed to be considered running, otherwise it is jogging. On these jogs I plug in my ipod, cross the high level bridge, go down into the river valley then come back over on the LRT foot bridge, up the hill to Eziro Ferzone park and then make it home through back allies.

At first while jogging my mind was a wall of sound, all the voices of the day, emails not sent, gossip sites read and news of the world weighing on my head and so my shoulders, my body, my legs and seeping into the ground below. These early jogs were brutal. Slowly, as I began to relax, the wall came down and my mind disappeared. I felt lighter. Sometimes it would be gone just for a moment, other times I would find myself on the final leg home and realize my mind had turned off, and I let my muscles do the work. Often times upon returning my mind would be singularly clear. One thought would be so sharp I would understand the totality of it.

The most reoccurring of thoughts when my mind would return was of death. One time specifically, then subsequently many times after, I thought about how of the 6 funerals I have attended in my adult life 3 have been for grown queer men who have taken their own lives. How is this happening? Why are arguably the least oppressed and most supported group among the LGBT community the ones who are leaping to their death while others stay and solider on? What is missing in these men, in our communities and in our culture that these men, for whom life could be and should be easier than for most, cannot make it?

These thoughts and questions on death would follow me into my non-jogging day but not always cut through. Instead the memory of three men and the countless others like them, would simply become part of the noise-a frustrating fury echoing the state of things. In between cutting vegetables or while sitting on a bus, while reading a book or locking up my bike I would find myself getting upset at what I perceived to be the lack of coping skills of the 3 men and those like them born into relative privilege. I would think about how in the face of transphobia, racism and misogyny within the gay community, the growing number of queer homeless youth in Edmonton, and countless other issues, it was hard to focus on the needs or white middle class gay guys (my own needs included). Other times I would find myself getting mad at the world around that failed them and at my own assumptions that they should have been able to take care of themselves. I would wonder where my grace was.

And then from a pop symphony of discordant noises a clarifying beat took over, an aching yell called out, a chorus created a new unified wall of sound that cut through even the receding noise. Michael Jackson died and death was everywhere. His white, privileged, sexually ambiguous body was lifeless and I was beside myself. I was awash in possibly misplaced grief and the hypocrisy of my false hierarchy of needs.

Not a week earlier, I was trying to intellectualize the death of 3 men, while in the wake of Jackson’s death I was letting my emotions rule, mourning a man I never even knew. Again I had to ask- where was my grace? As much as my simple mind would like to insert race, class and privilege in to the conversation around suicide and the needs of others, there is a time to look past these things. Living is a complex web of relations and reasons, desires and direction, hope and happenstance- all of which is often troubled by, among other factors, sexual orientation.

As queer people, regardless of what makes us different from each other, we have unique challenges we all share in staying alive, ones that are not as easy to articulate in an era of rights and freedoms on paper and often token tolerance. Regardless of the work we do, the communities we serve, the people we march for, the things we stand for, we need to look out for each other, put agendas aside and connect as people.

Maybe for people reading this column, this is stuff that they already knew, grace as something that comes second nature. For me as I continue my journey of letting the sun warm my face, my heart beat faster and my feet pound the pavement grace is something renewed inside of me, something I hope helps not only me but anyone else that needs it. On both the north and south side of the High Level Bridge facing west someone has affixed a key lock. Sometimes when running my eye catches the gleam off the metal and I smile. I need to believe that the simple marker of a lock, something suppose to keep valuables safe, is a message to those who are feeling lost to hold on to not let go. Cue Michael Jackson: You Are Not Alone.

Edmonton Journal (Opinion) - AUGUST 28, 2010

Forty-six years ago today, more than 200,000 people participated in the March on Washington, where Rev. Martin Luther King deliver the iconic I Have a Dream speech. It was a watershed moment that marked a tipping point in the growing awareness and action needed in the civil rights movement.

Thirty-eight years ago, the We Demand demonstration was held on Parliament Hill--the first large-scale lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans-gender (LGBT) demonstration in Canada. Activists gathered on the Hill to support a brief that had been submitted to the federal government by Toronto Gay Action, which called for equal and full rights for homosexuals in Canada.

As we can see today when we pull back the camera of history, these events built upon each other and events that came before. We can also see with an African-American president in the White House and sexual orientation protected in human-rights legislation across Canada, these events had a positive impact on the future, helping to shape leaders and the world we live in now. I suggest we build upon these milestones by rethinking how elections in our country happen and broaden our definition of voting.

With a civic election 13 months away and a federal election possible at any moment, now is the time that we need to start shaping the discourse that will make up the debates and dialogues in the next election cycle.

We need to actively be voting with our lives. This means gathering for community discussions, keeping up to date on current events, researching and teaching others about what has happened in the past, organizing and holding rallies to build momentum, running for elections, working with politicians to help shape platforms, and working with political parties to help mobilize communities to get involved.

From immigration to human rights to the environment, there are so many issues facing Canadians that we can ensure the coming elections are about more than just the economy. Gone can be the days when spin-doctors tell politicians what voters care about.

Starting on this anniversary of two historic moments--of movements calling governments to task for their failings--we need to ensure that our concerns are part of local and national conversations on election day.

Locus Suspectus. Follow that Phallus: Is Dimitre Andonov’s The Erection Series a Call for a Revolution?

“I am a grown man,” starts the letter to the sex advice columnist in the December 06 issue of GQ Magazine, “I shouldn’t be getting erections in public anymore”. The grown man in question writes hoping for possible reasons as to why he experiences erections on airplanes. While reading the question, I assumed the response would include something about the effects of air pressure or maybe something about sitting for a long time; instead, the columnist takes the opportunity to make fun of him. She accuses him of bragging about his “brawn”. The closest she comes to providing an answer is offering: “You are hot for planes.” She consults Professor Eli Coleman who states that it is “normal for adult men to get random daytime erections” but goes on to discredit the professor and the grown man, “this I believe is a lie.” She jokingly suggests that he send her more information so that she may compile it “and have a really good laugh.”

I agree erections are funny but c’mon! -When did men lose the right to have erections for reasons other than sexual? Erections are nothing more than a swelled appendage caused by the pressure of blood flow. Erections are not solely an act of desire. They are not always attemptive insurgents hoping to overthrow the governing body to partake in acts of sexual terrorism. An erection is just (on average) 7inches of response to stimuli. Nothing in the penis handbook stipulates that stimuli must be sexual. Wind, pant material, tiredness, a good feeling are all plausible possibilities for getting a hard-on.

As children, guys have erections all the time for no reason and with arguably little attention. It is only as they get older through direct and indirect methods that they begin to understand that erections are something private and should be kept to themselves.

Getting caught in public with a stiff bulge in your pants is a rite of passage for most young men. Almost every Jr. High has their own legend about a guy having to walk up to the front of class with a book in front of their tented pants. One Edmonton-based teacher, (who wishes to remain anonymous as not to become the go-to teacher source for all erection questions) notices that as boys get older, and become more conscious of their bodies they switch from comfortable and roomy sweatpants to more constrictive pants like jeans. “We know why they switch” she says, “they become aware of the possible public embarrassment that would be caused from others seeing their erections.”

In his ongoing photographic work called The Erection Series (January 06-ongoing), Toronto based photographer Dimitre Andonov “addresses the awkwardness and shame felt by men in the instance of a public erection.” In the photos he poses as various teenage boys sportin woods in the most banal, common and therefore inappropriate of situations. Birthday is of a young man and his grandmother. His hopefully inconspicuous erection and her noisemaker are the only thing between them.

Taken with a typical, easy to use, point and shoot camera from the perspective predominantly of a family member, Andonov achieves the effect he was after: the photos come across as snapshots. Moments of mortification caught on film forever.

The most compelling portrait from The Erection Series is also the most close up. Congratulations is of a young man cut off, his face stiff in a perceived attempt to mask his vulnerability, his erection pointing in the opposite direction of a “congratulations” sign that is in partial view, his body slacks in resignation. Does he even realize he has an erection?

In Andonov’s work there is a possibility for erections to transcend the common view as metaphors for dominance. His work, unlike American photographer Anthony Goicolea, who uses himself as a subject to explore the adolescent male experience. is void of sexuality. Although influenced by Goicolea, Andonov takes a different more honest route, after all he says, “What is more honest than an erection?”

Goicolea produces slick almost commercial photographs that are thick with sexual suspense. The photos are often of young men in vulnerable situations in near nakedness with evolving musculature who’s future is unknown and compelling. In comparison, the young men in Andonov’s work are forgettable. They are not even gawky or kitsch enough to be objectified by the fringe. They are plain. Because there is no obvious sexual stimuli to cause the erection and the boys themselves are too boring to be sexualized the erections are rendered harmless. He has eliminated sexuality from the erection.

Now because they are neither threatening nor intimidating, the erections serve as a starting point in a possible paradigm shift regarding erections.

Over the past few decades everything from cranes, office towers and peppermills have become phallic symbols that point to the patriarchal leadership of the western world. It can be argued that many of the social ills we currently suffer through, namely war, are products of a man-centric world. To create a more balanced world order we could start by re-imagining the erection.

For Andonov “pants are symbols for culture and society, the penis is a symbol for nature” so erections in pants are symbolic for “ nature peeking through.” By having to control and suppress their nature men are in effect, asked to become insensitive to their own bodies and so to the outside world. As Andonov puts it, “men are taught to hide their true lives.”

Instead of maintaining the view that erections are meat thermometers letting men know when they are hot enough for a sexual encounter, erections should be seen as swords of sensitivity informing men when life in general is arousing them.

To me The Erection Series is a call for revolution- at least a suggestion for one. Andonov’s work blows the lid off the ridiculous practice of men suppressing their “nature” behind the confines, distractions and adornments of “society”. By exploring men’s shame and attempt to conceal their nature, Andonov is exploring the role of the masculine psyche in today’s society.

Skyscrapers, war, peppermills, are all attempts for men to express their nature that they are suppressing on a regular basis. Maybe if, as a society, we are able to reduce the stigma attached to erections, and become more comfortable with random public erections, we could reduce the desire in men to express/expend their nature on a grand scale.

Flex your dink not your might!
Pitch a tent, not another skyscraper!

Taking the photos, says Andonov, has allowed him to become more sympathetic towards men, made it easier to befriend men and forgive them for their “supposed cold ways.” He hopes for the same response from others.

Right now the world’s tallest building is being erected, continued penetration of the earth for non-renewable resources continues and wars are rage in almost every corner of the planet. An erection revolution is worth a try.

Viva la erection!
Long Live the Sword of Sensitivity!

Lifelube.org - I Hear What You Are Saying Reflecting on how we as gay men converse together...August 31, 2009

Who gets to disagree with perceived progress within gay communities?

Sitting in a workshop entitled Bringing Sexy Back at the recent National LGBTI Health Summit in the US, the room was engaged largely in a sexy conversation on the semantics on how much they agreed that polyamory should be re-welcomed back into queer culture until one young man swam against the verbal current of the room and stood up for monogamy. The 30 or so people gathered at the session were respectful of him but you could feel even the air in the room seemed to pity him after he spoke.

We live in an age still influenced by homophobia, AIDS phobia and intolerance of difference that leaves gay men to explain to society including the medical profession, the government and the media what they do with their bodies. This tension to report adds stress to conversations within gay communities regarding topics such as barebacking, and polyamory relations. These internal conversations are further troubled by what a friend pointed out to me during the summit, there has been the intellectualization of queer (ness) and AIDS that has emerged in the last 20 years. In light of this I think there is a sense of surveillance within these conversations people are careful to be credible, wanting to be able to justify and validate what they are saying.

In a way, gone is discussion steeped in first person experiences and feelings, in place are theories, and stats. In a way this move towards intellectualizing queer (ness) has benefited progressive thinkers who can reach for academia and queer theory to help back up what they are saying. What I am noticing during many discussion is that largely it is conservative voices that are at a disadvantage since many of them are basing their positions in the personal- their values, their experiences, and their fears. In the face of cool, calm, backed-up, liberal voices, conservative voices often come across as misguided and/or ineffectual. This has got me thinking about the question; who gets to disagree with perceived progress within gay communities?

In theory the answer is everyone is able to disagree. But I think that this is not entirely true. I think that it takes a large amount of social and supportive capital to disagree or share conservative values within the gay/queer context. This capital I mention is what provides someone with the confidence to stand up for what they believe in and know they will be supported if they are ostracized within the discussion. Capital is also the confidence of knowing that you could be right.

I also think that for the most part conservative voices within the gay/queer context come from marginalized communities from within and so are further disadvantaged. The politics of oppression come into play and conservative voices are labeled, judged as being reactionary or to a degree homophobic. Because gay men are being attacked en mass for issues concerning what they do with their body if voices within the gay community then also question what other gay men do with their bodies they are seen as being a voice of the oppressed and are seen to be homophobic and oppressive themselves.

If we step back we can see that there is a thin line between what the majority may be judging gay men for and what gay men may be questioning themselves. But there is a line and as gay men we have the opportunity to question and converse among ourselves about what we do.

I think again about the young man in the Sexy Back session. Sitting there it was obvious that he was overwhelmed by what he was hearing. You could see that notions of sexual liberation 2.0 were bruising the very foundations he had built his gay identity on. In a way coming up and out as gay is for some a series of negotiations of self-acceptance as well as hand picking which lies, myths and truths about the gay experience you are willing to deal with.

For the most part these lies, myths and truths center on promiscuity. In the shadow of AIDS-as-a-crisis there is a mainstream judgment of gay men who have many sexual partners as irresponsible and at the same time there is a fetishization of perceived slutdom both within the gay community and from the straight community. There is a sense for some gay men that having many sexual partners is expected. The young man in the Sexy Back session mentioned this pressure and alluded to the internal work he has had to do to find the truth of the matter for himself along with finding his own personal comfort around articulating that monogamy is important to him. He did not have intellectually rigorous arguments to back himself up. He had his morals and his upbringing to guide him.

I return to the thin line and suggest that for the young man sitting in the Sexy Back room the act of a gay man sleeping around because he feels that society expects it of him and a gay man sleeping around because he wants to looks the same- and maybe it is. The room although respectful of difference was also obviously frustrated with him and his point of view.

I couldn’t help but think that we often confuse localized, internal, focused, conversations about ourselves with larger issues around defying or craving legitimacy from society at large. So engrained in some queer men’s minds are their desires to either oppose or accept mainstream legitimacy that all issues funnel into their relationship with society. Sometimes when we are talking about monogamy or barebacking that is all we are taking about. Maybe we do a disservice by always bringing in a holistic worldview. Sometimes smaller is better.

In the end, in an era where many men bemoan the lack of ‘community’ it is incumbent on us to hear out diverse and opposing voices. While community is built on people coming together it is congealed by diversity and opposing dynamics. Tension creates bonds if respected. As gay men we do not need to justify our actions. We do have an opportunity to silence the surveillance and have conversations among ourselves and be there for each other to see other points of view.

XTRA.ca Hundreds rally against censorship Smithsonian pulls work in face of funding threat December 20, 2010

About 500 people took to the streets of New York City on Dec 19 as part of an intensifying global response to the decision by administrators of the Smithsonian Institute to censor a video installation by queer icon David Wojnarowicz.

The work, Fire in My Belly, was part of an exhibition called Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture at the National Portrait Gallery (NGP) in Washington, DC.

Smithsonian secretary G Wayne Clough ordered Fire in My Belly pulled on Dec 1. Neither the curators of the show nor the director of the NPG – a division of the Smithsonian, consented to the removal. The decision came after a group calling itself the Catholic League referred to Fire in My Belly as anti-Christian because of an 11-second clip in which ants crawl over a depiction of Jesus on the cross. In response, US congressmen John Boehner and Eric Cantor threatened to call for hearings on the NPG's future funding.

Outcry over the Smithsonian's decision to censor was swift and far-reaching. The American Civil Liberties Union, the Association of Art Museum Directors and media such as The New York Times and Art Info spoke out against the move. Galleries and museums around the world are showing Fire in My Belly free for the general public. Representatives from the Warhol Foundation and the Mapplethorpe foundation have said that they will make no future donations to the Smithsonian until the video is reinstated.

Canadian-born artist AA Bronson requested in protest that his work, Felix, June 5, 1994, be removed from Hide/Seek. Bronson's work is on loan to the Smithsonian from the National Gallery of Canada. As reported in The Globe and Mail, the National Gallery of Canada CEO Marc Mayer has asked NPG director Martin Sullivan to “please consider [Bronson’s] request to withdraw” because “AA Bronson perceives the continued presence of his work in the exhibition makes him an accessory to censorship.”

Wojnarowicz died from AIDS in 1997. A prolific artist and writer, his work explores issues of queerness, sexuality, HIV/AIDS, power and the erotic. In 1989 Donald Wildmon, founder of the American Family Association, used Wojnarowicz's work to question the funding of the US National Endowment of the Arts.

At the New York protest, people chanted, “Ho, ho! Censorship has got to go!” and “Ants in our pants! Fire in our bellies,” as they marched down Fifth Avenue from the Metropolitan Museum to the Cooper – Hewitt Museum, a New York division of the Smithsonian.

The direct action in New York City was organized by ART + (art positive), a new activist group that includes many members of New York’s large art community. At the rally, organizers asked that people go to artpositive.org, sign up and be part of the ongoing protest to reinstate the video and stop the censorship.

THE NEW GAY : Revisiting the Foul! Visual AIDS broadside-13 SEPTEMBER 2010

A few months ago I wrote a lengthy piece about Visual AIDS’s latest broadside PLAY SMART. After some feedback  from a friend  I edited it down to be a more suitable, shorter, blog length. What was published was a focused critique regarding issues of representation within PLAY SMART. What I edited out was nuances, and questions about context, the complexity of creating a campaign for unknown audiences and praise for  past Visual AIDS broadsides which I compared to PLAY SMART.

I made a mistake in editing the piece. Too much was lost, the piece came across as confrontational rather than promoting conversation, gone was the opportunity to discuss the difficulty in making and disseminating  gay men’s health promotion to an interested and under-served global audience and missing was a chance to consider the need for context when judging a campaign.

Upon reading the first draft I realize I edited out an important section where Amy Sadao, Executive Director of Visual AIDS speaks at greater length about the impetus of the PLAY SAFE campaign beyond what I included in the shorter piece. She mentions the impact of eight years of Bush and states that PLAY SAFE was one of Visual AIDS’ first explicitly sexy campaigns – a point I failed to fully grasp. What does it mean to be able to do a sexy campaign after years of feeling  oppressed?

Related, Nelson Santos in a conversation I had with him regarding PLAY SAFE, felt as though it was also the first campaign in a long time to target gay men that may have been left out in the past decade due to the need to focus on specific under-served communities. For me I take this now to mean – what about the Chelsea boys? The gym bunnies and middle class gay men well served by the market place and culture in general but perhaps because of their privilege are forgotten by health and real wellness providers.  What about the gay men who are now entering a new stage of life and maybe need to be reminded of safer sex messages and learn about new developments? What about the gay men who have left the AIDS community because a place they once felt so at home at – now seems to have no room for them? PLAY SMART falls in the tradition of Visual AIDS reaching out, commissioning and creating work to speak to a specific community. It just so happens that the community is one that is very dominate, often at the cost of other communities. One of the obstacles in all community work is to remember the diversity within diversity.

By not fully including Sadao and Santos’ points I replicated the problem of the Internet – removing context. It is impossible to think that Visual AIDS should be able to create a broadside that responds to all the diverse and possibly conflicting needs of gay men everywhere. Nor were they trying to.  The Internet , and maybe even Visual AIDS’s warranted excitement, made what I can now see as a community specific broadside into a campaign with international reach, stretched beyond the broadside’s capabilities. I did the campaign no favours by failing to see the scope while focusing on only one important- yet ultimately singular-  aspect of the campaign.

Issues of representation are important. The tyranny of the white fit body in gay male culture is a real factor in gay men’s health and undermines a lot of the good we may be trying to do. It is something that should be discussed and considered in our work. I did not fail by bringing up the subject. I failed when I did not include as much context to the PLAY SMART broadside as I could have. Visual AIDS is a small, hard working arts organization that is committed to using art to create awareness and opportunities around HIV and AIDS. While we should hold people and organizations within our communities responsible for their actions – and I say this to myself – it is also wise to view their choices within larger contexts and provide those bigger pictures to each other so that we can grow and evaluate and grow some more together.

What do you think of the PLAY SMART campaign?

Does it work for you?

Where do you think I missed the point? Or have I still?

To read the original unedited draft of the piece, please click here.