Throwback Thursday, magazine edition: 4/22/21

Throwback Thursday, Magazine Edition: In 2007, The Advocate flew me to San Antonio, to interview Marine Staff Sgt. Eric Alva, the first U.S. serviceman casualty of the Iraq war. Alva lost his leg when his unit parked in a minefield for lunch on the first day of the war—a tragic metaphor for the duration, as it would turn out. It was my first time in Texas, and I was struck by the tattered, sun-faded "W" stickers on the backs of pickup trucks. Interviewing Eric Alva about his new war—against "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"—was a profound honour, and it was the cover story of that issue. Later, during the writing, I got into a very, very heated discussion with a senior Pentagon press official regarding the condescending boilerplate statement about the non-role of LGBT servicemen and women in the U.S. military they handed out to every press venue asking them for a comment on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." It ended with me telling the official that unless they addressed the callous travesty of their official response to "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" in light of the literal first sacrifice of the Iraq war having been made by a gay Marine, I would frame the article harshly in that light, and take it as far as we could go in a magazine that was, at that point, generally accepted as the queer newsmagazine of record, quoted by Time and Newsweek, and elsewhere. As diplomatically as possible under the circumstances, an editor at the magazine suggested that I had perhaps gone too far in that interaction, and that my threat might possibly impact future access. The next day, the Servicemen's Legal Defence Network (SLDN) emailed the magazine that the Pentagon had inexplicably released its first-ever revised version of the boilerplate media response, adding a "promising" sentence stating that gay and lesbian service members "have the opportunity to continue to serve their nation and national security by putting their abilities to use by way of civilian employment with other federal agencies, the Department of Defence, or in the private sector, such as with contractors." In 2007, that passed for compassion. The piece was eventually a co-finalist for a GLAAD Media Award, and 2007 feels like several centuries ago at this point. Eric Alva remains one of my favourite and most memorable interview subjects—and I loved San Antonio.

Magnolias

 

A sudden gust of spring wind blew down the street, scattering magnolia blossoms, and a momentary burst of unearthly fragrance literally stopped me in my tracks. I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply. It was a momentary bulwark against plague, lockdowns, involuntary solitude, a culture of cruelty and suspicion, and the creeping winter-of-the-soul in which so many of us have been engulfed for more than a year. For a moment, it smelled like love, friendship, hope, possibility, and miraculous renewal. The scent feathered away, but the brightness remained like a warm handprint.

A gift in today's mail

 

In today's mail, a gifted 8-year old artist of my acquaintance sent me this beautiful rendering of Beckett. It's a given that I will treasure it always, and get it properly framed in due course. One of the truest things about homemade gifts from children is how much of the heart they put into things is on display. They haven't yet learned the social artifice of adulthood, so when the love is there—like it is here—it's a bolt of light, straight to the heart.

Ramadan Mubarak

 Alhamdulillah. 

A melodic sort of twitter, for a change

My brilliant godson Michael, who is 16, was born with an instinctive eye for beauty. He is as deft and skilled with a camera as he is with a football. An embarrassment of riches. He sent this to me this morning, and it was exactly the palate cleanser I needed.

For shame

 

Over and over, I've meditated upon the specific connection between anti-mask entitlement, and the sort of xenophobic, anti-Arab tirade displayed in this horrifying video from Florida—both of which are on display here—(complete with central-casting white female victimhood, and ending with a weepy "Please don't do this to me!" plea to the cops when they arrest her for terrorizing an Egyptian woman and her husband, who were just trying to shop.) The best I can come up with, regarding the connection, is a sense of nearly sociopathic entitlement, an expectation that literally everything occurring in their personal space should be pleasing to them—what they see, what they hear, what other people expect of them, where other people are from, what colour those people are, what they wear, what they say, who they are. When it's not pleasing to them, they've been taught, by politicians and churches, that their "rights" are being infringed upon, and they're entitled to act out in any way they see fit, and that doing so is wholesome and patriotic, even noble. And if it comes down to it, that they'll be acclaimed as justified for this obscene behaviour, and/or forgiven, whether it's murdering an unarmed person of colour in the street, or terrorizing one in a Walgreens. If that's "overthinking" on my part, so be it. It's a way of counting down from 100 until the craving for retributive violence eventually dissipates, because that's no way to be in the world either.

Throwback Thursday, magazine edition: 4/8/21

Interviewing 1984 Olympic gold medallist Alex Baumann in Sudbury, Ontario, in 1985, for Close-Up magazine. It was an almost-five-mile drive each way, and the pool area at Laurentian University was so steamy that day that the photographer's flash barely worked. Still, he got this gorgeous portrait for magazine, and I got my interview. A very long winter day, ultimately counted as win.

Throwback Thursday, web edition 4/1/21

"For his part, Harper’s age was a massive, inescapable truth told through the lens of the Nikon. The perfect coffee-colored eyes were filmy, set deep beneath heavy lids. His coat looked white in the sun. Still, Harper never looked more beautiful to me than he did at that moment. The entire history of eleven summers was there in his face, a face of vast kindness and dignity, and the pure essential sweetness that is peculiar to very old dogs.

"In one frame in particular, my favourite in fact, he’s standing on the edge of the dock with his back to me, staring out across the lake, caught between the water and the sky. Harper body is slightly bent, but still proud and upright. In that photograph, he resembles a very old lighthouse keeper on his final rounds, the last watch of the night."

—From "Life, Measured Out in Labradors," first published on 𝑆𝑎𝑙𝑡 𝑊𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑁𝑒𝑤 𝐸𝑛𝑔𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑑 in January, 2017

Throwback Thursday, magazine edition 3/25/21

My 2006 on-set interview with SAW III director Darren Lynn Bousman—the cover story of Fangoria #258. What I most remember about that assignment, besides how much I liked Bousman, was that it was around this time that I started to realize that the directors I was now interviewing were, as likely as not, younger than I was. After 17-odd years of interviews with the likes of John Carpenter, David Cronenberg, George A. Romero, Craig R. Baxley, 𝑒𝑡 𝑎𝑙, it was an odd feeling. I can't say I was fond of it. 

Rewatching The Devil's Advocate

 

I alway forget what a masterpiece of social commentary is Taylor Hackford's The Devil's Advocate (1997) on top of everything else that makes it a first-tier Satanic thriller that deftly skewers the "me-first" greed and conspicuous consumption that defined the 1980s, and the fetishization of lawyers, in the same way that Wall Street levelled the cult of insider trading. There are some tour-de-force performances, most notably by Judith Ivey as Keanu Reeves' fundamentalist Christian mother (the only person who seems to understand what's going on) and a heartbreaking one by Charlize Theron as his unsuspecting wife, slowly being driven insane by the supernatural happenings targeting her. There is a chillingly prescient turn by Craig T. Nelson as a Donald Trump figure accused of murder (ever the egotist, Trump allowed the production to film inside his Trump Tower penthouse.) I am not universally a fan of Al Pacino, who's occasionally struck me as a bit of a scenery chewer, but aside from Robert De Niro in Angel Heart, it was difficult for me to imagine any other actor as Satan after The Devil's Advocate. The film is also judiciously—and elegantly—sprinkled with Biblical imagery ("Walk with me," Pacino's Milton invites Reeves' rawboned Florida lawyer, just before offering him Manhattan, literally laid out at his feet) but never in any proselytizing way. It never, ever forgets that it's a blue-chip horror film. In my mind, it's the natural successor to Rosemary's Baby as the perfect New York demonicum.

My father would have been ninety today

 “At sixteen, you still think you can escape from your father. You aren't listening to his voice speaking through your mouth, you don't see how your gestures already mirror his; you don't see him in the way you hold your body, in the way you sign your name. You don't hear his whisper in your blood.”

― Salman Rushdie, East, West

Today would have been my father's 90th birthday. It's not a day for sympathy, or "thoughts and prayers," or "birthday in heaven" platitudes. As memories mellow and deepen, and as they run to amber, it becomes easier and easier to see the totality of the people we've loved lost and to measure their triumphs and failures as human beings, knowing that we are also human beings with our own flaws, and to leaven those memories with that very love. He's everywhere. His portrait by the Cornish artist John Cabell hangs in the dining room. I have his Italian burled walnut valet stand in my bedroom. I wear his old Omega watch with the faded burgundy and navy grosgrain band, and it's warm on my wrist. As both a veteran journalist and a veteran diplomat, my father was well-versed in the vagaries of human nature. While there were several exceptionally cruel moments in the last fifteen months—moments when every fibre of my being ached for his wise counsel, and comfort—I already knew what he'd say about strength, integrity, decency, being true to yourself, and doing the right thing, even when that's the most uncomfortable, even painful, option. There was, and is, comfort in that. The best of him is with me always, and the rest fades away. Like Rushdie wrote, I hear his whisper in my blood.

Throwback Thursday, magazine edition 3/18/21

I flew to L.A. in 2001, a few weeks after 9/11, to meet Clive Barker and talk to him about his then-forthcoming sexy, creepy haunted Hollywood novel, Coldheart Canyon, for The Advocate. The airports in Toronto and L.A. were like ghost towns, with everyone vigilant and on their best behaviour. I read the galleys on the plane. The next day was warm and soft, a Southern California fall day like something out of a movie about Southern California in the fall. I met Barker at his house that afternoon, and we spoke for two and a half hours, about books, films, life, and Coldheart Canyon. Throughout, he couldn't have been more generous and forthcoming—a true gentleman, on and off tape, then and now.

Throwback Thursday, magazine edition 3/11/21

 

My 1985 interview with Michael Damian, the Y&R star who had just then released his first album, in Close-Up magazine. This may have been my third, or fourth professional interview ever. Editors Angie Colgoni and Libby Starke of Close-Up did more to kick start my magazine writing career in those days than anyone else, and I'm grateful to this day for the kindness and patience they showed a 23-year old keener with more ambition than restraint.

As for Mr. Damian himself—he was fun and unpretentious, and had the best 1985 hair of anyone I'd ever met.

Goodbye, HuffPo Canada

On Sunday October 11th, 2015, my essay "Giving Thanks For New-Stock Canadians"—a reply to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper's dogwhistle appeal for unity and primacy among "old-stock" Canadians (read: white; Protestant/Catholic; English/Scottish/Irish), in an attempt to pit them against immigrants, at the ballot box—made the front page of Huffington Post Canada.

It ran on Canadian Thanksgiving weekend, and was an exceptionally proud moment for me as a culture critc. 

Plus, we got Justin Trudeau, who ran on a pro-diversity platform, on top of everything, else as Prime Minister that year, so the whole thing was a win-win.

I was saddened today, though not remotely surprised, to hear that the site was ceasing publication. 

As one of the early writers for the original American Huffington Post, it's been a bit painful to remember those glory days (the one and only time I was ever invited to appear on CNN was because of something I wrote for them) while simultaneously observing how the current climate of online "news" and "culture" has devolved.

We had some good times, HuffPo Canada.  Thanks for the memories.

Safari chairs

"Both boys have safari chairs, presents from Aunt Nuzah and Uncle Fouad Hamzeh. Mike can use his easily, but we still have to help E. get out of his. He climbs up just fine, but goes head-first when climbing down." 

—Mum writing to Great-Aunt Treva Quinn, Beirut, October, 1964