Pluto in Capricorn and in Opposition – Pandemic and Retribution.

May 11, 2021October 18, 2022 Arvin da BrghaLeave a comment

Last February as I made my way by subway to the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing arts, the season’s latest opera was on that night – of course, what I then did not know, was that the rest of the opera season would eventually be cancelled – the most jarring thing occurred. A young Amerindian male with the glossiest black mane, took two steps back on the TTC train platform and dropped his black gym bag. “Are you fucking talking to me? No bitch, I’m talking to you! Did I invite you into my country?” The rage and the booming power of his voice was arresting. The tall effete Caucasian male tried brushing him off as though he were so much raped and abandoned non-whitedom. Before I knew what next, The five-foot-nothing, proud Amerindian punched his adversary square in his girly man face. Crying out like a right candy-arsed sissy, the Caucasian weakly protested, all whilst rushing backwards. My proud Amerindian brother was just getting started. Of course, I, who have grown soft for making peace with being a black male in this racially suffocating society, cried out when the first punch landed. Bam, another punch to the face as the much shorter warrior defended his land, his people, pride and history. “Yeah you, did I fucking invite you to my country?” and another blow. Bloodied and cowering, the all-mouth, cowardly closet cocksucker was resoundingly handed his arse and put in his rightful place.

The opera, Hansel & Gretel, was beautifully staged – set in the stark isolation of Toronto condo living. I was, though, never fully engaged as I spent the next several days readjusting to having had that young warrior shaman heal my spirit by his very proud actions and the conviction of his words. The next several days, I kept returning to the incident with the proud Amerindian. My reaction at the time had stunned me and in hindsight, I kept revisiting why I chose to be so upset at the attack on the arrogant male, who was being pummelled. He had taunted and dismissed the Amerindian male – a socially aggressive behaviour from whites with which one was long familiar. I realised that so many times in situations as then, we as blacks are programmed to sublimate and ‘take it’ rather than defending oneself from the hideous ugliness of the spiritually stunted.

Then something quite remarkable happened, the murderous lynching of George Floyd in callously stark veracity that cell phone ubiquity has afforded in the modern age. The event was seismic; the raw brutality of the racial predator on the hunt was so glaring, so jarring that it set ablaze protests across the planet. Indeed, the cell phone, like the beating of Rodney King, has been able to capture the ugliness that is whiteness which prior to, meant that one could lie away and grin away with exquisite triumphant glee, fucking with the enemy – an enemy on whom one preys never having been preyed on by that enemy. Slowly, the exoskeleton with which one straitjackets oneself in order to make peace and to be a black man peacefully making it through one day to the next, began losing its grip.

Scenes like in the early days of lockdown 2020, I was in line at Pusateri’s at Yorkville Avenue and Bay Street to pick up a couple of bottles of VOSS water. Old, ugly as fuck, the woman in line ahead of me turned around and began screaming at the top of her hateful lungs in a scene that could easily have been played by her in South Africa. She demanded that I get the hell away from her because I was clearly not practising proper social distancing and remaining more than two metres apart. Of course, this had nothing to do with the coronavirus pandemic but everything to do with her seizing an opportunity to be a hate-filled racist boor. As much as I wanted to readily turn rapaciously vituperative and tell her to try 2 metres below ground; instead, I took two operatic steps back and coolly and eloquently boomed with scathing condescension, “Look at you! On your hind legs and everything! Seriously though…” With that, after having laughed a vulgar dismissive breath, I impatiently strode to the back of the line to be rid of the fugly parvenu boor. Everyone, staff and clients, froze. She, of course, squawked and grumbled as I focussed my discriminating attention to a conversation via Whatsapp video about dinner with my transitioning spouse at our art-filled home, who on the eve of Bob Marley’s birthday, two decades earlier, I wedded at Montréal’s Palais de Justice both decked in gold-threaded, crisp white linen Yoruba agbada with her a matching gele. As can be expected of cowardly fare, the anaemic-looking young couple now two metres in front of me, simply ignored the social dustup by hungrily face-fucking in their best escapist Bonobo turn. Naturally, the old harpy got from the line to kvetch to whomsofuckingever and when the cashier asked if I wanted a bag, I declined, telling her that I would rather be kind on the environment. Turning to leave the tightly spaced store, I paused and shot down her evil glare by raising both VOSS waters, one in each hand, and shouted, L’Chaim! That ought to have left her pissy knickers smelling louder on leaving the store.

Soon enough, the acts of racially predatory social aggression became more frequent and pronounced. There was the incident one cool morning where a hirsute covering of blond furred redhead stopped jogging in front of me, grabbed a hold of my bike’s handlebar and began screaming as though I were both blind and deaf as he demanded that I keep the hell off the sidewalk. It wasn’t enough that cell phones had exposed their murderous ugliness but as though to protest, whites have grown more emboldened with the affront of blacks and Black Lives Matter movement to demonstrate and demand change.

By early June last year, 2020, I had had enough, each morning on the ride to work through tony Rosedale, I was being accosted by various burghers of the beautifully tree-lined streets – then again, which Toronto residential neighbourhood street is not beautifully tree-lined. There was one Jew in particular, who caused me to go out and get the above bodycam. Each morning, as I am a creature of habit, he was in the habit of leaving the sidewalk to come into the middle of the street, approach as I bike-ride to pepper me with hideous racial slurs and demand that I keep the hell out of the neighbourhood. Good morning, Shithead! Good morning you black piece of shit. Get out of here! Finally, one morning, having quite had enough of him and his special brand of ugliness of spirit, I told him to go fuck himself to which he incredulously demanded at the top of his lungs, unlike his usually sotto voce delivered insults as he approached the bike, “Get back here! Get back here now! I’m talking to you. Come back here now!” The nerve of some people. That last incident occurred on a Friday and thank god for Jeff Bezos, by Monday, I had me a bodycam. So as my special kind of fugly, hairy back and arsed nuisance came bopping off the sidewalk, ready to be racial predatory white male asshole number 1 billion, 500 million and 99, he caught sight of my bodycam, lights on and all, and like the bipedal, über poilu Rottweiler-hybrid that he is, he readily retreated for the cover of the sidewalk. I have never seen him since and, of course, I had ignored everyone’s advice to take another route to work. What the fuck for? As I am born in the year of the Rat, I am no different to any other rat; we live firmly self-aware that rats fear no one.

A few months back in between spells of too much snow, I abandoned my bike and elected to take a ride. On the way home, as I go from job A to job B, I told the unibrowed, wild-eyed driver that I was in a bit of a hurry and would show him a shortcut to my place. He again said nothing, just as he hadn’t as I got into his ride and said hello. Though, I wore a colourful silk mask over the daily disposable N-95 mask, his shitty ride I swear, smelt like what no doubt just-fucked camel pussy does. Told to take a left off Yonge onto Roxborough, finally not surprised was I when he proved a short-tempered fuck whose pointy fingers on that wheel had me dismissing him as so much forgettable small-cocked fare. He barked rather than spoke that he followed the GPS, which had called out to make a left onto Crescent so many metres ahead south down Yonge Street. Thus, we ventured, clearly grudgingly for him, along Roxborough and as we approached, I announced that I wanted him to make a right turn onto Wrentham to Crescent. Immediately, the über-poilu beast, which made me think Ursa hybrid, stepped on the gas drove east past Wrentham, down the hill and pulled onto Mount Pleasant without so much as having looked left in the process. As it was rush hour, there would be no left turns south of Bloor along Jarvis which Mount Pleasant becomes before Gerrard Street East or possibly Shuter Street East. To be sure, I was more than a little bit pissed off when telling the inbred, short-fused jackass to turn off of Mount Pleasant, onto Elm and turn right at Sherbourne North as had been intended. “You fucking idiots, who the hell are you people to talk to anybody like you own something?” Then he violently broke the car, just north of South Drive and demanded that I get out of his car. Coolly, I got out and left the door open and when he swore at me and demanded I shut his fucking door now, I told him I thought I would do him a favour and air it out, seeing as how it stunk of camel… the camel-fucker did not, of course, get the insult. Readily, I pulled out my camera and told him, ‘yeah come out here and get some of this.’ He got out of his shitty little car, cut the beady eyes at me, slammed the door shut, told me and my people to go fuck ourselves to which I replied, “happy black history month to you, too…” By the time I got onto Sherbourne North, my Samsung S20 had died. Naturally, thanks to coronavirus, I had no cash and there was no way to call a cab or Uber. In this neck of the woods, a random taxi was a nonstarter.

Foreground Bloor & Parliament in St. James Town, to right distance, Yorkville, Centre distance, One Bloor East currently tallest condo at 76 storeys, at Yonge & Bloor, Centre mid-distance Sherbourne to Church (east to west) Upper Gay Village or more pretentiously south Yorkville (ha!).

Doggedly, I decided to simply walk it home, just as I got unto the Sherbourne Street bridge, I began experiencing an anxiety attack. Years earlier, I had witnessed someone leap from the Jacques Cartier bridge that spans the St. Lawrence in Montréal. Suddenly, out of nowhere as anxiety attacks tend to function, I was in the grips of crippling fear. I knew that there was no way that I could cross the bridge, even to try and make it back seemed a feat, there was a sudden desire to start running, which I knew that I could not do. A young Amerindian couple in the city, for the first time it turned out, crossed the bridged, going south on the west side – same as me. I explained my dilemma and asked if they would call me a cab. The proud warrior-looking man, barely into his 20s insisted that I simply conquer my fear by walking beside him and his beautiful girlfriend. I tried…. I wanted to. I could not, though, as I began shaking… just the sheer weight of why I was there in the first place simply for being black and asking the driver to take a preferred route – it all seemed so absurd, yet it is an indignity that one endures at every turn in a million ways every frigging day in this society. The warmest eyes winked at me as he smiled and the Beck taxi came up the bridge made a U-turn and the young warrior closed the door on me, wishing me well. Eventually, I got home late and when I was done job B where I fundraise in the arts and remain unrivalled, I wrote a detailed account of my ride with the bigot who kicked me from his car and was summarily refunded. As if Jazz the blasted motherfuck were invented by unibrowed, camel-fucking, hairy back-and-arsed dreck.

Days later, and still black history month, I was riding my bike through the wet streets of Rosedale where the snow melted fast after the latest snowfall. As I emerged onto Crescent Road from the footpath which Scrath becomes, to cross the bridge that spans Mount Pleasant Road, a white female in a black, skin-tight, jogging suit was way in back of a group of jogging white males whom I had seen with fair regularity. She was clearly not part of their group. Jogging in the street as she was, she moved to the side as I approached and then with the arrogance of the truly somnambulant, aggressively called after me in a tone that was both accusatory and possessive as I moved past, “Excuse me, where are you going?” That morning, I happened not to be wearing my bodycam as when I got downstairs, realised that the snow had sufficiently melted such that I could actually ride my bike rather than take a cab. Without so much as missing a beat, I broke hard and stood straddling my bike when reaching into the shallow depths of her sphinctered psyche, “I’m going to your house to fuck your man!” She stood there arrested, catatonic as my use of language was both vulgar, rapacious. “That’s right, I’m gonna hog-tie that fucking cocksucker of yours and fuck him good… Yeah, you wanna come watch? Come on!” Arrested in place, her eyes welled up as mine remained unflinchingly enraged, her lizard-thin upper lip actually trembling. With that, I resumed riding my bike to job A to which I was already running late. In this the age of Trump, some whites at every chance, turn racially predatory at the drop of a hat.

Then there are the casket fugitives; these blasted tiresome, overstayed boomers, who simply will not stop showing off and just crawl the fuck in their caskets. What other generation but boomers would find a new way to show-off in their smelly diapers and drug-wasted dotage? They, these lost souls forever hurrying about way off-piste, are ever bitching and at times raising their silly poles at me, demanding that I not ride on pathways but dismount and walk. Once confronted by a turkey-necked mannish boor, I leaned in and asked near-inaudibly, “Don’t you tire of breathing? Go on, go chill the fuck out in your casket”

And then November 3, 2020 turned into January 6, 2021 as that porcine pathological compulsive liar – America’s biggest loser and racist swine, finally left the stage with crooked tail between his fat thighs with the Eurotrash escort cum parvenu snob in tow. The cold-blooded murder of George Floyd, staged or simply instinctual racially predatory behaviour, like the big fat coward that he is, having miserably failed at leading and taking command of the pandemic, Trump latched on to the murder of George Floyd to win the vote. That’s right, it was all about not haemorrhaging the white vote; thus it became all about cops and law and order – all code language for white privilege and racist white supremacy. Well, it did not fucking work! Fuck you!

Not only did Trump fail to steal the vote by declaring Marshall law and leading an insurrection on the Capitol, he and his racist ilk’s poster boy for racially predatory murderous scum was convicted on all three counts. George Floyd’s murder occurred at the Pluto opposition in Capricorn and thus the past four hundred years of murderous racially predatory blood sport of blacks finally led to George being anointed as the One. That’s right, for the first time in 400 years, a cop has been found guilty of the murder of a black male. For blacks, America the past 400 years has been nothing but a giant game reserve where they are hunted with the arrogant impunity of police getting off time and again when murdering blacks. Let that sink in for a moment. America the land where whites can murder whilst dressed up in the hunting gear of the police uniform – all the while, other whites the world over perpetually on holiday having predatory sex with minors whilst everyone looks the other way. Thanks to his murder, and trophy-hunting racial predator Chauvin having been found guilty of murder, George Floyd became a martyr who has broken the long 400 year tradition of the justice system in America condoning the racially predatory murder of blacks at the hands of police. Pluto in Capricorn indeed. The hijacked American justice system where blacks are corralled to spike the profit margins for BlackRock shareholders… talk about genius, indeed.

Always… with every breath… it is quintessentially Jazz!

Recent ride through Rosedale because of whose venal classist/racist aggression, I have taken to wearing the bodycam. As ever, Jazz permeates my every breath; how could it not when my father’s first cousin, the recently deceased actor Cicely Tyson was wife of Jazz genius Miles Davis? A new friend with lots of past-life history, asked why I am always singing the same Jazz tune when cycling; it is a form of meditation, I shared, as I move from job A to job B. By vocalesing and singing a favourite Jazz tune, I am getting refocussed to the task next in hand – fundraising in the arts… at which I am damn good. In the above clip, at the 06:24 mark, one can clearly see the septuagenarian white female with bags in hand, walking north in the southbound bike lane. Likely she chose to do so to avoid being too close to persons on the kerb. Either way, her choice and no business of mine. Minutes as I got further down Sherbourne Street, at which point, I had stopped recording, as I was now going south in the northbound bike lane a total of 3 white female passing, violently yelled and called me every kind of asshole imaginable. White females are ten times more likely than white males to be verbally abusive in such situations; however, non-white, non-black males and females almost never engage in such predatory social aggression. The idea that I am going to time-waste by yelling at someone for simply going in the opposite direction of the usual flow of bike traffic in a given lane is beyond absurd. So fucking what? Last winter before getting the bodycam, there was a white male in early forties with about 4% body fat running north in the northbound bike lane along the Sherbourne Street bridge. As I approached at a leisurely pace, I could tell that he was wearing air buds and not wanting to surprise him simply rode pass saying and doing nothing. Shocked, though not surprised, was I when he upped his jogging pace and began running alongside on my right. Yelling as though a drill sergeant, he began calling me an asshole and demanded to know why I had not used my fucking bell when passing him. Not jogging on the kerb was he, nor was he jogging towards oncoming bike and vehicular traffic; yet, he and his perceptions had perceived me as being at fault for riding alongside and passing him without having given him warning of my approach. This world is overrun by truly blind assholes, very well-armed, truly blind assholes.

A few days ago as I hopped off my bike with time to kill between jobs A & B, I slipped into the reconstituted shrine to Canadian ice hockey which became the flagship store of Loblaws, another of the Weston family’s retail gems. On entering, there was a police officer just inside – a new pandemic feature. Tall, handsome and of South Pacific heritage, the male officer engagingly greeted me, willingly, I ambled over and he commended me on the bodycam. Said he, every person of colour ought to be wearing one; indeed, I agreed, it amazingly affords one peace of mind and a harassment free ride about town. He laughed when told of how hostile the burghers of Rosedale can be, adding that he was not surprised in the least at the account of in-your-face open bigotry.

With nimble vivacity me and my paniers whisked through the place, emerging minutes later with organic ginger, beautifully pungent organic turmeric, Ocean Spray’s Cran-Grape drink – this drink screams sugar is the drug y’all – and of course, the most exquisite cheddar cheese. Whether at tea, with pâté or dark chocolate, the President’s Choice (Loblaws house brand) aged 5 years crumbly cheddar cheese is as musky and satisfying as a full Moon night spent indulging rugged mansex in the moss-saturated bois of Vancouver’s Stanley Park. Slipping outside, as I loaded up my paniers on my trusty brown Schwinn Gateway, the four bottles of VOSS water made the paniers hard to close shut – larger than the VOSS available in Yorkville, who needs Pusateri’s and Yorkville’s parvenu pretentious bullshit anyway?

As ever, life is like a flying dream; if you look down, you’re fucked. Enjoy the ride and fear no one!

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Otello: Race and the Arts.

May 7, 2019November 13, 2022 Arvin da BrghaLeave a comment

After having pored through an interesting OperaCanada article that featured the opera Otello’s lead, Russell Thomas, and a predictably snide review in The Star – look there is no black lobby in Canada, so one can always be expected to be as curt and dismissive of blacks at every turn; this is after all the culture where the obsession with Jazz is almost as fever-pitched as the predatory late-night runs of Klansmen with nooses at the ready – I comfortably settled into my usual ring three seat, next to trusty Lucian Mann-Chomedy and warmly awaited the magic that is theatre to unfold.

After a month that was not soon revisited, my mind was at times distracted by the dreck that one must at times endure in order to get by. I thought of the heaviness in the air that the subject matter of the opera addressed; the quartet of retired ladies who usually chat about who has taken ill, moved to hospice or died since last they gathered, did a lot of coughing, sniffing and whispering. And as these things are as predictable as flies on shit, sure enough, I heard one of them whisper, “Meghan Markle.” Will these people ever just leave the damn woman alone and stop hunting her at every opportunity?

Otello, Verdi’s take on Shakespeare’s take on race relations did also from the row of retired and widowed ladies spirit the whisper of O. J. Simpson’s name. Some things just never change… alas. Indeed, at some moments as I looked at Otello onstage, I began to realise how we as a people are stigmatised and stereotypically projected onto. I soon got greater insight to why Meghan, HRH Duchess of Sussex is so reviled. Objectified, she as a black woman was only ever to have been nothing more than a bit of rough, a tryst.

Naturally, HRH Prince Henry, Duke of Sussex with his double sixness is seen as being readily taken advantage of and needed to be protected against the lascivious bit of rough who clearly conned her way into the royal family. Born September 15, 1984, Henry born in the year of the rat has quite beautifully empathetic, compassionate numbers and with his double sixness is given to OCD behaviour as displayed by his need to fidget with his clothing – right hand inside his jacket et al. Six people are awesome beings and Henry, a double six, is no exception. 15.9.1984 = 6.6.1 = 4.

With Otello, this projection of the black male as emotionally volatile, violent, easily manipulated has certainly proven an archetype that fits blind fools like Tiger Woods and O. J. Simpson to the letter. Either way, it was uncomfortable to watch this production in places as it so mirrored the warped perception of a people by persons who question our humanity and who never seem able to perceive us beyond their generationally custodial perception of a people.

Be that as it may, I so hungered to be removed from the morass through which I recently waded at the end of which, I dismissively remarked of yet another power-mad woman in the work place: “She certainly doesn’t look like a fucking horse for no good reason… Oh please, it’s just a matter of time before she rots the fuck in hell, eating every pope’s arse!” If you cannot take offence then don’t damn well give offence… Honest to god, some women in the work place are nothing but dickless faggots addicted to creating drama for the sheer sport of it and simply because they are just so drunk with power… to say nothing of being bored out of their frigging minds. Well, like a bowel movement, it did not take too long for me to sniff, flush and walk the fuck away from the BS,

This Desdemona was an earthy, warm, beautifully soulful portrayal of a wronged woman, a woman dominated by an insecure and deceived man. This production was a beautiful sweeping affair; I especially loved the dark broody look of the sets that captured the essence of the human condition portrayed. Indeed, it proved a good elixir after all the dross that I had recently endured in the work place.

During Otello’s intermission, I received a forwarded Instagram post from an old dancer friend, which he labelled #everythingwasbeautifulattheballet. Of course, it was a direct response to my last blog, which highlighted the intense isolation and racial animus that I experienced for two god fuck-all maudlin years in Winnipeg. Yes, indeed, the world of art is saturated with lisping, bottom-feeding, small ‘b’ bigoted boors who see positively nothing remotely gauche about this sort of fare well into the 21st century.

On yet another too cold, rainy day, which proved all too reminiscent of Vancouver, I abandoned my art-filled lair in search of more inspiration the day after the opera. I cannot quite recall a season in recent memory that has proven both so cold and rainy as this protracted winter.

That’s right, the day before attending Otello, there was a break in the perpetual rains that gave way to snow and hail… truly, the dog days of summer cannot get here fast enough. As more of the city’s 19th century streetcar tracks were being ripped up and replaced so that the racket that is the TTC outdoor workers and the local constabulary can make a killing in overtime, it took close to 40 minutes on a bus for me and my fuck du jour to get from Yonge and Dundas to Dundas and McCaul.

My date, a lissom twenty-something with smoky hazel eyes, which were vaguely reminiscent of Merlin’s, was good company. I had for the past several hours pummelled his prostate as his daddy issues were satisfied and my angst from work place tensions were nicely dispensed with. We men when in our 20s can be so alarmingly insecure; I have often wondered how Merlin managed to stay with me during those angst-ridden and redundantly solipsistic years.

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My date on exiting the Yayoi Kusama Infinity Room expressed chagrin at not having done magic mushrooms before leaving my place where incense and Jazz magically perfumed the air, intoxicating our spirits as we riotously fucked our way out of winter’s gnawing frigidity.

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Without question, no trip to the AGO is completely inspiring without a visit to the galleries where the stellar art of Inuit artists are housed. There are some real masterpieces in the AGO collection.

As it was the tail end of this exhibition and I still had not visited, I simply had to make it there. Whilst walking along the long corridor to the start of the exhibition my fey-eyed beauty suggested that we take a break and go make out in a stall in the washrooms. Fingers interlaced, I assured him that there was better intimacy to be had the sooner we got through the exhibition and hightailed it back to my place by Uber.

To my very discriminating eye, the moment I saw this verbose title, I fully expected to observe a show that was curated by too much extraneous fare and not enough impressionist art. Tumescent and impatient, I had no time for reading, reading and reading more yada yada, all of which was to compensate for the lack of genuine, to say nothing of quality, impressionist art. Just as well, I was growing achingly moist by the minute as both my energetic ectomorph and I hungered to be carnally consumed with each other… yet again.

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This marvellous bronze fully captivated me; it would prove my favourite piece in the shoddily curated exhibition.

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Highlights from a rather underwhelming show.

Detail featuring two of the most beautiful creatures. Their depiction is not the most masterfully executed but there is something rapturous about the look of the dogs as they ambled with their human companions on a journey which they had taken countless times before that made me stop and gaze overlong whilst being truly inspired.

Detail of what for me proved sheer magnificence… the lighting is phenomenally executed.

A masterpiece to be sure; however, where it was hung and the palette of the salon were decidedly inappropriate. This was all I needed to see to finally wink the left eye at my horny power bottom and to speed home by Uber in the rain for noisy, exhausting, passionate play.

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As ever, for your ongoing support I am both deeply grateful and indebted. Sweet dreams and don’t you ever forget to push off and start flying because life is a most beautiful drink. Cheers!

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#BestDespinaEver!

February 8, 2019November 13, 2022 Arvin da BrghaLeave a comment

Opening nights are always such fun… Tuesday night past, I was reminded of all the opening nights that I would attend with a slightly neurotic Merlin as some show or other that he had directed was being presented to the world… As ever, it was great to see my plus one, Lucian Mann-Chomedy as the ideal partner for these occasions. Always reserved, pleasant and just the right amount of chatter and wit.

Whilst Lucian enjoyed the pre-show lecture in the Four Seasons Centre Amphitheatre, I slipped next door into the warmth of the Sheraton Centre Hotel and warmed myself on a glass of sherry whilst finishing off 2018’s Scotiabank Giller Prize winner on my KOBO.

What an utterly stunning tour de force. It was a moment to reflect, this Black History Month on just where we blacks are in the scheme of things. God only knows, it has been bruising to watch Meghan, HRH Duchess of Sussex become the print media’s most reviled and hunted fugitive from justice of that most vile creature, the racial predator.

I was still smarting at the events of a week earlier during the winter season’s first major snowstorm. I had been recalling to friends how strange it now was, compared to my first winter in Canada. December 1, 1974 and it snowed that day more than 8 inches. Back then it generally was guaranteed to snow once if not twice weekly. Now at end of January, 2019 and we were finally having our first major snow. This was not like snow from years past… Now it was a dirty, sooty-looking hard mess that lingered, largely in part because the city has contracted out its snow removal services.

As there are no windows in my apartment – Sol’s too damn bright by far and besides, boarded up windows afford me more art-hanging space – I got down in the early afternoon that Monday with my bike, only to be met by falling snow and several accumulated inches. Back up I went, retired the trusty chrome steed and returned and hopped into a snazzy Audi A6 Uber ride with a Macedonian whose spirit was as smooth and elegant as matchingly was his car. The mood set the tone for my day. As I am known to work 16-hr days, I called another Uber at the end of gig one whilst hoping to get to gig 2 in good time. The snow was still coming down; it was also bitterly cold and windy.

When finally, Uber #2 arrived, cold and dark with icy pellets mixed in with the snow, the driver rolled down his passenger side window and declared, “Sorry Buddy but I am going to have to cancel this ride…” Already running late, with my wheeled suitcase at the ready, he edged along as I tried to open the door and raised his voice, his eyes almost feral-looking beneath his turbanned, narrow skull. “I said I am cancelling you. One: I never take people like you in my car. Two: you have a shitty rating… Sorry, not sorry. Fuck you Buddy.” With that, he stepped on the gas and I had to swiftly haul me and suitcase out of the way as the rear of his red older model car whose interior did have that blasted malodorous melange of curry, dirty armpit, dirty arse, smegma and whatever the fuck else that passes for immigrants of choice these days. Finally, after having struggled out onto a still-not-ploughed Bay Street, I managed to hail the fourth cab whose West African driver insisted that I call Uber and report him… Days later, I was afforded assurances that the racist Dravidian was no longer part of Uber’s fleet. Similarly, when calling a Beck Taxi with a fairly generic name as Arvin, on coming downstairs the Indo-Canadian drivers on several occasions as though staying on script would feign obsequiousness and state that they were deeply sorry but owing to a family emergency, they were having to take the cab out of service. No sooner than having refused me a ride, they would then be observed heading out to Wellesley, turning on their unoccupied light and picking up a fare off the road. As if the blasted motherfuck, the likes of your overbred arse invented Jazz.

Each and every time that one experiences racial animus, is preyed on racially, it always harks back to that first winter in Toronto. My best mate from two summers earlier, when I would come to Canada to visit with my dad during school break, had been sick. After Sunday church service at Knox Presbyterian at Harbord and Spadina before returning to our beautiful home at 122 Mortimer Avenue, I would visit – my dad and I – with Tommy who was holding up at Toronto Sick Kids Hospital on University Avenue. My father explained that Tommy was sick with the winter flu, which sometimes could last for months and well beyond winter. I was a scrawny little fourteen-year-old who looked like most ten-year-old Canadian kids as I crawled the halls at Harbord Collegiate where among my mostly Italian-Canadian chums was future lawyer, Rocco Galati. As Tommy, who was a couple of years older than me, had gladly shared books with me the two summers prior that I would take to Knox summer camp and read then have a good stroke off, lusting after my inamorato, Tommy, I readily agreed to do his newspaper route for him until he came home. My first Saturday, the cart was overflowing with the thick Toronto Star newspaper and there was a good foot of snow everywhere. It was hellish but for Tommy, I was game to go the distance – who knows what hot frottage, docking and more was in the offing for having done his route for him! When I got to the northeast corner of Floyd and Bater Avenues that first Saturday to collect the funds, the door opened to a woman whose response to me was the most hideous display of the displaced madness that is white bigotry. Screaming at the top of her lungs, the woman in her upper seventies, vituperatively cursed my black bugger arse off and laid down the law. Never again, “you dirty little nigger” was I to set foot on her verandah.., I was to put the paper between her screen and front doors, knock then return to the top of her steps and wait for her to pay the bill. That first Saturday, she ripped the paper from my hand, flung the money at me. She was terrifying, in her faded blue A-line dress, black spectacles that had those upturned pointed edges at the sides; she wore faux pearls. Most of all, she wore the most hideously terrifying eyes. I remember how much they looked like eyes of a rooster, especially so for being such puffy eyes. Like the evolved, winged and feathered reptilians that roosters are, her eyes truly did look not the least bit human. She was so consumed with racial animus that it was truly frightening. By the time I made it home, I found myself regurgitating. Thereafter, every Saturday, I would take my spot at the top of the steps and consistently she would hurl out pennies mostly at me rather than the verandah where that first winter I had to suffer the indignity of picking through inches of snow on the verandah, steps and lawn to collect my money. Naturally, without fail she called most Saturdays to the Toronto Star, complaining of either not having received her paper on time or that it was missing altogether. This would mean having to buy her a replacement at the corner store, take it and only to be fed on by the hideous-of-spirit racial predator. Like a true cockhound many an indignity I suffered in hopes of my spectacled, full-lipped and scholarly inamorato, Tommy hooking up with me for having been so loyal to him. The summer prior, I had ventured to the public pool on Broadview at Riverdale Park with him and a couple of others and thrilled beyond belief was I to spy his large pendulous balls and that hammer-headed girthsome salami that pummelled his bikinis. Indeed, for Tommy I would suffer much indignity. There was a low-rise apartment building at 1111 Broadview where on the ground floor, there was another predator, this one equally septuagenarian who lived alone, smoked incessantly and always answered the door in various stages of undress, mostly ever only wearing a soiled merino. He was always a generous tipper; a whole 2$ bill in 1974/75 was serious cash. Naturally, in the pre-Ciaslis epoch old anorexic, drunken paunched predator would sometimes tug on the old bulbous semi-flaccid/semi-tumescent, though, pendulous but perfectly useless appendage, trying to lure me in. Sitting there in all that squalor and acting as though he was sugar daddy material… indeed. He was always keen on trying to grab me when giving me the “tip” and I was ever sly and crafty enough to get away from him each time. He, too, lead me to regurgitate, which I had not done since age nine and suffering my first racial attack. Of course, to this day, neither academia nor medicine will concede that there is any such a thing as the racial predator and the effects it has on those preyed on – mostly blacks – and the psyche/mental illness of those who prey on others chiefly non-blacks in varying degrees of severity based on otherness.

Finally, the house lights went down and I was met by the whimsical vista of the COC’s production of W. A. Mozart’s glorious opera, Cosi Fan Tutte. Previously, I had caught productions of this Mozart gem in Chicago, Montréal and New York City. I was not expecting much at this rate. The Frida Kahlo connection was a bit of a stretch but the butterflies fast won me over.

From the moment that she stepped onto stage, my spirit soared aloft higher than Mozart’s glorious music to that point had spirited me. Never before had there been so captivating a Despina. My eyes teared up and I was ever on the cusp of explosive giggles. Then what made me truly come undone was the moment Tracy Dahl took to the stage as the notary… by now, I was losing tears and beginning to emit choked snorted chuckles. Each Saturday back in 1974/75 when doing Tommy’s newspaper route, I would end off taking the Saturday Star to Giovanna an octogenarian Italian, who was plump, charming and more adorable than any mere mortal ought to be. Soon, we were fast lovers and she loved fussing over me, baking me each Saturday nice, warm, oven-fresh biscotti washed down with a glass of ice-cold “gingah raleh”… her thick Italian accent was part of her charm. Hers was a large black and white cat, simply known as pussy gatto, who always sat nesting on the armchair. Each week, Giovanna sat transfixed as I read her the newspaper; her vision was to that point fairly deteriorated. As a way of better forging our bond and because most of my mates at Harbord were Italian, for three years, I studied Italian and that really impressed Giovanna, who was simply known as “Mama Mia.”

As the opera progressed, Ms. Dahl as the notary, dashed and took cover beneath the table at which point, I buried my face in the program with explosive laughter. Straight away, I was reminded of each Saturday when the ever silent pussy gatto would bolt from the armchair and take cover beneath the sofa where I sat as Giovanna began an explosion of long-winded farts. Even the singer’s voice sounded much like Giovanna’s as she sang the role of notary. Remarkably, it was as though she was channelling Giovanna. In that moment, I was healed of the bile, which the recent Uber incident had caused to surface, bile that dated as far back as 1974.

In the end, Tommy’s parents sold their house and it was not until a couple years later that I discovered from the neighbour next-door that Tommy, who had never returned to their Mortimer and Logan home, had died of Leukaemia. Indeed, the winter flu was my dad’s way of protecting me from the callousness of having to lose a friend so early in life.

Apart from the catharsis that Tracy Dahl’s performance personally effected, I don’t think that it would be biased of me to state that hers was the runaway performance in the COC’s fantastic, and fast-paced I might add, production of Cosi Fan Tutte.

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As ever, mischievously push down and melt with laughter in celebration of the joy that is life and start having yourselves a most glorious of flying dreams. Thanks for your ongoing support of this happening astral joint on this side of the astral plane. I love you more.

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Now There Was A Night In the Theatre.

November 1, 2018November 13, 2022 Arvin da BrghaLeave a comment

Whilst Lucian Mann-Chomedy took in the pre-opera lecture, I sat on a bench in the middle of University Avenue, enjoying a rather exquisite four-cheese macaroni and cheese baked to perfection as I read a very good biography of Tudor matriarch, Margaret Beaufort. Before me was the glass palace to the city’s high arts, beautifully lit. There were no doubt in my mind that I was shortly going to be enjoying a beautiful night at the theatre.

Once inside, I got situated next to Lucian who chatted away in that way that scholar souls tend to drone on about all manner of data that others may find tedious at best but, for having a scholar task companion (Merlin), I have grown comfortably accustomed. Close by, a tall silver-haired man kept on admiring me, even none too discreetly making bodily contact as legs relaxed and splayed open wide; in years past, I would gladly have explored and indulged.

After having made the obligatory Instagram post, I turned off the phone as the house lights faded into nothingness and the magic was begun. Tchaikovsky, you say, how could one go wrong there. The curtain ascended and the most glorious lucid dream this side of the dreamtime then unfolded. The sparse set design courtesy of Michel Levin’s creative genius was both stark and beautiful. Just the right lighting and the desired mood readily effected.

Leaves leaves leaves everywhere, the lighting of which matched the set and costumes. Last week’s production lacked melody, apart from the fact that Tchaikovsky’s music was well-known, there was nothing to that soulless, dissonant affair that drew you in or proved memorable – save it was really god-awfully bad.

During intermission, I stepped outdoors into the cool autumn air to return a couple of calls and pre-order an Uber meal. On my return, Lucian rightly so remarked on what a changed vibe there was in the house to the week prior. Indeed, there was stillness that hung in the air after each aria before the house would break into applause.

The prince’s aria was especially sublime a performance. The familiarity of glorious Tchaikovsky music, melodies long associated with the world of dance were welcome in the world of opera as Alexander Pushkin’s vision was handsomely realised.

After intermission the stark scene was beautifully animated as chairs, costumes and dancing ruled during the ball scene. The ball scene was dominated by classic Tchaikovsky music that choreographers the past century have relished celebrating in dance.

In the final act, one of things that struck me was how void of emotion the opera, Hadrian, the week prior was. Watching Onegin’s love finally profess her love for him after all these years, yet, insisting that she had to carry on with her life, her comfortable life and not leave it all for the man who pined for her was truly captivating. Ahead of me, two rows, were a couple of ladies who during that duet looked at each other, one even wiped her eyes.

This duet totally captured the human condition; it was about love, passion, longing, loss and dashed dreams. We could all relate to it. The passion and emotion tugged at your heart centre. Last week, not only was the music the most irritatingly banal but there was emperor Hadrian seemingly love struck, yet there was never any passion and emotion in scenes between him and Antinous. If you had no clue that this was one of the greatest love stories in gay history, you could be forgiven in assuming that it was an emperor bereft at the loss of his only son and heir, leaving him without the will to carry on. There simply was no connection, between them and by extension the audience… no passion whatsoever. Regardless their homoerotic love, the opera failed to have aroused emotion, passion and thereby causing you to lose yourself and identify completely with Hadrian, Antinous… or both.

That’s what one goes to the theatre for. At curtain call, rather than jump up and flee the theatre horrified as last week, I shot to my feet, clapped and howled my face off. Everyone leaving the theatre was enrobed in warmth and had been inspired to believe anew in love… that’s what great art does. What a truly memorable night in the theatre, this beautiful, passionate opera is with great melodies to spirit you along, long after you headed out into the world in the cool autumnal night air.

As ever, dream with the greatest passion for it is a true love affair indulged with self each and every day. Love yourself with new abandon and push off and start flying because you really are a truly spectacular work of art. As ever, thanks for your ongoing support. I love you more than you know.

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Two Weddings, A Baby, A Gaggle of Racial Predators and Hadrian’s frightful ghost.

October 24, 2018November 13, 2022 Arvin da BrghaLeave a comment

The recent wedding of the Duke of Huescar to his handsome bride was a stunning bit of theatre. He is, of course, the future Duke of Alba, grandson of one of the grandest nobles of the last century, the inimitable Duchess of Alba.

The cut and design of the bridge’s dress is truly elegant; apparently, it was designed by her creatively gifted mother herself. They make a truly handsome couple.

At this juncture, I have not yet found any video of their nuptials on the Internet; perhaps, it will surface at a later date. The sublime elegance of her dress deftly reflects the undeniable harmony between this couple. So good it is to see a couple of souls who after having suffered lost through death in recent times, return to find each other anew, to further explore their loving bond.

Whilst awaiting the second royal wedding, I passed much time reviewing the coverage of the royal wedding of TRH Duke & Duchess of Sussex last May. I was ever intrigued at the notion of an even larger guest list for the marriage of Jack Brooksbank and HRH Princess Eugenie of York.

A simple wedding, I was moved by how vastly different it was to that of TRH Duke & Duchess of Sussex’s months earlier. The most obvious difference in both ceremonies being the latter’s carriage ride; a rather simple affair. This, of course, was an affair filled with aristocrats – some of whom had attended the earlier wedding last May.

Along with Tom & Lara Inskip and Guy Pelly with a wife more noticeably pregnant, there was the ever stylish Sofia Wellesley, this time equally stunning in a Dolce & Gabbana dress.

Tom & Lara Inskip processing towards the Lower Ward and St. George’s Chapel.

Guy Pelly attending the second royal wedding of the year.

Guy’s expectant wife, Elizabeth Pelly accompanied by Astrid Harbord.

Also, attending their second royal wedding for the year, Zoe & Jake Warren.

Back for more, Pippa Matthews with her younger brother James Middleton with that Tsar Nicholas thing going on with his look. For me, a woman is most beautiful when expectant – fecund, voluptuous, primal she is then most powerful; she is then truly the creator of life. How beautiful is that Kelly green?

Perennial favourite Chelsy Davy with Melissa Percy, who wasted little time in saying, this mum don’t babysit and there went Tom van Straubenzee. Gorgeous periwinkle dress.

Cressida Bonas radiating the light magical essence of artisan souls everywhere.

Franz Albrecht & Cleopatra zu Oettingen-Spielberg, young Bavarian royals attending their second royal wedding at Windsor Chapel this year.

Holly Candy – hands down, the best dressed lady at this royal wedding. Those matching pink bow gloves took her outfit stratospherically to the next level of |über soignée. I really did not think that Amal Clooney deserved that honour at the royal wedding of TRH Duke & Duchess; for one thing, her hat was worn on the wrong side of the head – always on the right side!

Coming on strong in second place, like Secretariat was phenomenon, Naomi Campbell. Readily, so many people were carping on about what is she doing at the royal wedding; hello, how many times has Sarah, Duchess of York not been a guest of Ms. Campbell’s whilst holidaying on some yacht or other in the Mediterranean. I love the way that Ms. Campbell feigned disbelief when asked by an attendant to leave the seat in the front row of the royals’ side of the quire where she sat speaking with Crown Prince Pavlos of Greece and his family.

Made in Chelsea star, Oliver Proudlock and his fiancée Emma proved among a couple of the best-dressed men.

Admittedly, though, not the best photograph, the urbane Alexander Gilkes, Paddle8 CEO, arrived in the company of artist Tracey Emin.

Cara Delevigne – another dead-ringer for magical artisan soul with the planet’s most ubiquitous plus-one, Derek Blasberg.

Kate & Lila Moss bringing the glamour.

Poppy Delevigne sporting one of the best fascinators at the royal wedding of Jack Brooksbank and HRH Princess Eugenie of York.

Other notable royals in attendance, Princess Marie-Chantal, Crown Prince Pavlos and their daughter, Princess Maria-Olympia of Greece. Also, the Crown Prince’s younger brother, Prince Philippos of Greece attended.

Lady Gabriella Windsor and her fiancé Timothy Kingston; yet another royal wedding is on the horizon. By far, the most statuesque of the Windsor ladies.

Lady Helen & Timothy Taylor; the minor royals whom we never see enough of. Love her dress.

Ricky Martin and his artist husband.

The always witty thespian, Stephen Fry and his husband, Elliott Smith.

Holly Branson coming through.

And her brother Sam Branson

The irrepressible mother of the bride, Sarah, Duchess of York and her firstborn who seems resigned to the fact that there is always an opening for spinster lady-in-waiting. Back in the 80s when Merlin was then incarnate, I shared with him a dream had that night of ‘Fergie’. Set somewhere in east Africa, she was riding atop the roof of a Land-Rover with several others… it was a dusty, tree-lined road and they were loud, happy persons all – her husband, Lord Porchester’s offspring was not present in the dream. As the vehicle hit a bump in the road, Fergie went flying from atop the vehicle’s roof and landed on her head; it was the most startling affair – we all screamed.

There was deathly silence as her khaki-clad body remained motionless for what seemed an eternity. Suddenly, as though jolted by lightning, much as a ginger cat with a few lives yet, Fergie shot to her feet, ramrod straight then began rushing about from one side to the other of the parked Land-Rover, mugging and waving to the perfectly immobile and non-human trees. I awoke from the dream laughing, the image was so bizarre. Seated across the Cabbagetown breakfast table from me, Merlin casually declared whilst remaining focussed on the Globe and Mail in hand, “So that’s how she became unhinged…” Yet again, I was reminded of that dream as Sarah, Duchess of York bounded from the Rolls Royce and made a mad dash, mouth ajar, mugging and waving to god-only-knows whom at the foot of St. George’s Chapel’s west door the day her daughter took possession of her man. This eccentric behaviour, much as in that dream, was on display as she entered the quire at St. George Chapel at the wedding of TRH Duke & Duchess of Sussex on seeing Misha Nonoo and her date, oil heir Michael Hess. These days, she always seems only too happy that she has not ended up like Diana, Princess of Wales.

Another soul who seemed spooked to be at the ball was the groom’s gin-blossomed father whose daft expression throughout was more than a tad distracting. One was reminded of how odd Thomas Markle would have looked, had he been allowed to attend the Sussexes’ nuptials.

Here’s to the lovely young couple; here’s to life indeed. Happy for them that they have found each other anew in this life experience. To paraphrase Prince Seeiso of Lesotho when speaking of the Sussexes, I wish them buckets and buckets of healthy, happy children.

Even more glorious than their beautiful wedding was the recent announcement of the pregnancy of Meghan, HRH Duchess of Sussex. You cannot begin to fully fathom how excited this makes me for HRH Prince Henry, Duke of Sussex. He has always seemed so alone, so vulnerable and emotionally fragile for having suffered the tragic, violent and sudden loss of his fantastic mum at age 12. So happy to know that they will be parents, and so quickly, and am fully confident that they will make the most fantastic parents. What more than two parents truly in love does a child need on coming into this world… again.

In all of this, what has not been cool, has been watching her racially predatory white relatives act as though she is nothing but a runaway slave. There is no doubt in my mind that were the Markles a wealthy family with a net worth of more than 200$m, would any of this acrimonious dreck be taking place. How dare she, the otiose, racially impure step-sibling, Meghan, end up doing better than them in life? Not only had this runaway slave managed to have escaped capture but she had gone and married the scion at an even more wealthy plantation.

Alas, nothing was more abhorrent than having to watch the most venal racial predator interject herself into the Sussexes/Markles’ “drama” as she opined on the ABC TV documentary, The Story of the Royals. So what if a twelve-year-old Meghan Markle wrote to you about a dish detergent ad; she also did same to then First Lady, Hillary Clinton. Straight away, the puppet-master orchestrating the Markle step-family’s media campaign of slander, grudge and none-too-succinct racial predation became fully focussed. Who else but this vile racial predator, who uses the U. S. justice system to wage personal racially predatory campaigns, against blacks with heretofore impeccably clean public personae, seated there in its invisible grand wizard Klansman’s hooded costume, could be directing this media putsch to sabotage the Sussexes’ marriage? Well near the end of the 9th decade of racially obsessing over blacks, you would think that having finished off Michael Jackson, made a joke of Tiger Woods and a jailbird of Bill Cosby would be enough; no thank you, there is bigger game to prey on. Clearly, the clown knows nothing of the BRF.

Enough about those who truly do not matter.

Hier soir, as I live an almost exclusively nocturnal existence, I got into a compensatorily parfumé Uber, driven by a recent Dravidian arrival with rather pleasant overleaves. I was stunned by how much traffic gridlock there was at pushing six in an already dark, autumnal and cool, too, evening. The driver could not figure out why traffic was so bad in Toronto and as I have always been a most vocal backseat driver, I soon began educating him on why Hogtown is the only major North American city without exclusive one-way streets in the downtown core. Back in the 60s through 70s when streetcars were being removed from streets like Avenue Road, Bloor Street, Sherbourne, Parliament, the city’s old WASP guard decided that for nostalgia’s sake some streetcar lines ought to be maintained a little while longer.

Well in excess of 40 years, the city still only has the two subway lines, two million more citizens and what seems like the fungal viral growth of condos. Naturally, the city’s constabulary and the TTC (Toronto Transit Commmission) made an unwritten alliance to keep themselves gainfully profitable by maintaining the streetcar lines that were left. Hence, each summer, kilometres of tracks are ripped up and replaced with the necessity for TTC outdoor workers and police staff on hand to maintain traffic. Well into the 21st century, a woefully inadequate 19th century technology clanks away, holding up traffic and as recently was the case this past monsoon season – climate change is truly upon us – the new streetcars were caught in feet of flooded water with faecal matter afloat their flooded interiors. All this so we never end up with new subway lines, one way streets with the discontinuation of streetcars. At least, Montréal can be commended for having owned up to the crippling corruption at the municipal level of government.

Finally, after directing him along streets that he didn’t even know existed, I got to the southwest corner of University and Queen Street West, hopped out, crossed the city’s widest boulevard and made it into the lobby of the Four Season’s Centre for the Performing Arts at 1831. Lucian Mann-Chomedy who happens to be a scholar in my entity and a professor emeritus at University of Toronto, who also happens to be an unrivalled Voltaire scholar glowed as I dashed inside. We hugged and kissed and it was good to see his eyes light up; he does have more than a passing resemblance to Merlin… vibrationally. Gave him his ticket to the first opera of the season that we’ll be seeing, Hadrian. Whilst he took to the amphitheatre for the pre-opera lecture, I swiftly made it west along Queen Street West and got myself some very deliciously spiced beef teriyaki washed down with a dash of prosecco.

Returned to the theatre, Lucian shared that he found the lecture rather stimulating; heaven only knows what that meant, I was though too busy creating a post of the evening for my Instagram. What then unfolded was the most god-awful unmitigated bullshit conceivable. Look this was nothing more than effete poseurs of Toronto’s gay mafia, throwing government money around to keep their friends afloat. Watching this bit of bold-faced arts larceny was at times cruelly embarrassing. Of course, it was staged by consummate professionals, thus there were truly sublime moments when the production was marvellously realised. However, I was reminded of all those downright dogfests at Toronto Dance Theatre in the 80s – do they even exist anymore – where god-awful retro-Neanderthal movement was set to, of all things, J. S. Bach.

Act I opened with vaguely lissom dancers upstage posing overlong as Roman statuary. Naturally, they were lit such that when they finally began moving downstage on the diagonal, in movement that had been first realised by Vaslav Nijinsky (he is a mature sage, in my entity and currently reincarnated and an actor on the Portuguese stage) a century earlier, you really had to squint and try to make out if they were truly nude. Naturally, there was no such luck. That was just as lame as the opening of Act III after an intermission where there was much cruel laughter at what a dog’s breakfast we were having to slug our way through. There was the none-too-fey/verile or lissom-looking Antinous cavorting on a bed that was reminiscent of a couch I frequented in the late 70s where the city’s only queer psychiatrist and I had an ongoing affair. This bit of uninspired staging in the post-AIDS paradigm was as lame as having to watch two bored manatees going at it. Goddamn, where is the frottage! They seemed to be sleepy hobos, trying to make out which side of the bed they wanted to sleep on rather than obsessed lovers engaging in the gay world’s paedophiliacal obsession – let’s not go there just now.

Well, if you can’t hack a pop career in these parts, the next best thing is, go compose an opera. Lord Jesus… why? I am only too grateful that he didn’t set his sights on appropriating black high art and opting for a Jazz career. Last evening, Tuesday, October 23, 2018 proved without doubt that the kinder of minor Canadian celebrity should never be indulged when they elect to pursue whatever line of work mama or papa pursued. I am reminded of “Bathhouse Pierrette” as he is charitably dismissed, playing party leader in these parts and forever looking gripped by stage fright. I was much humoured this past summer as he followed the future Duke of Sussex about Buckingham Palace at the Commonwealth banquet desperately trying to score an invite to the royal wedding and being clearly snubbed by HRH Prince Henry of Wales who was gruffly dismissive of his attempts to score a pair of tickets – in the 11th hour – for him and his insufferable fag hag wife.

There were points where persons in back of Lucian and me were laughing at how embarrassingly bad the opera was. Small-time, one guy to my rear readily dismissed. Goodness, if there was one more unpleasant reference to “the Jews” in this horrid farce, I was ready to get up and walk out. The opera was frankly a reflection of the archly conservative and frankly sphinctered worldview of Toronto’s incestuous gay elites – many of whom I went through in the 70s through early 80s and who then were just as smegmaed as a can of freshly opened corned beef – those, indeed, were the pre-plague years.

Getting on the elevator to make it to the basement where I collected my pea coat, I remarked, to one woman who asked my verdict, “You know, it would truly have been great theatre if that strobe light in Act IV had suddenly flashed brighter and erased this entire madness from memory. Trust me, dreams are never this bad!” You can fool those of your tightly incestuous social crowd all of the time but never those too shrewd to give a damn about you and your BS.

As ever my darlings, dream like you’ve never dreamt before and by all means, push off and start flying for at least there, you can readily escape the madness that’s got this paradigm saturated to the gills with BS. Thanks so much for your ongoing support, I love you more!

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Dreams are the poetic expression of the soul.

Tag: COC

Pluto in Capricorn and in Opposition – Pandemic and Retribution.

Otello: Race and the Arts.

#BestDespinaEver!

Now There Was A Night In the Theatre.

Two Weddings, A Baby, A Gaggle of Racial Predators and Hadrian’s frightful ghost.