Thursday, July 31, 2003
I'm sick and I feel like shit. Made the mistake of coming to work but I ain't lasting much longer. Last night I watched a DVD from the library called The Mind Benders. A sci-fi tinged British drama from 1963 starring Dirk Bogarde as a scientist experimenting with isolation tanks and the effect it has on his love for his wife. Basically, it's a stiff upper lip Altered States without the psychedelia. The extras on the DVD included a bio and selected filmography of Dirk Bogarde who has long been one of my favorite actors. He started out as a matinee idol, England's answer to Rock Hudson, and gradully moved into more serious and challenging work.
Although the bio went into detail about his most famous films, shockingly neither it nor the filmography mentioned Victim, made two years before Mind Benders by the same director. A truly groundbreaking film that starred Dirk as a gay lawyer fighting a blackmail ring, it was made at a time when homosexuality was still a criminal offense in England. Watched now it's pretty dated but still worth a look, and no one in their right mind would leave it off of a list of Bogarde's film highlights -- it would be like ignoring In the Heat of the Night in Sidney Poitier's career.
Bogarde never came out during his lifetime but it wasn't a very big secret that he was gay. Apparently he had a longterm relationship -- spanning some 50 years -- with his manager. Given this, the exclusion of Victim from his list of credits seems undoubtedly intentional -- covering up one of his big "gay" roles to avoid the subject of his gayness altogether. I wonder who it was who decided on this whitewash. Did his estate insist on it? Was it Anchor Bay, the company that released the DVD? Were they afraid of -- what? Controversy? Backlash from the religious right who, as we all know, just love to watch obscure '60s English dramas? It doesn't make much sense to me. Just another reminder that the struggle for equality for all is ever ongoing.
Wednesday, July 30, 2003
The picture below was taken sometime in 1987, apparently. That would have been the second semester of my first year at York University. This was Le Toit, our floor in Vanier residence. I think we were on the 13th floor but I could be wrong. There's Pete and me, who met as roommates that year, and James behind us. Meredith, right in front of me, was about to become my ex-girlfriend I think, or maybe she already was. Trish is in front of her. I'm not sure why Pete looks dressed for Karate; I don't remember him being particularly martial arty.
Speaking of Marshall, he's the guy under the I of Pigpen, next to Glen the bearded writer guy. Marshall was a punk rocker and he sort of took me under his wing until I wised up and squirmed out from under. He's now an assistant prof at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. Sometime around this photo I borrowed his ID to go drinking downtown with a friend. We got stopped by the cops after smashing beer bottles in an alley. They put us in the back of their car and sat in the front, examining our IDs. This cop asked me the color of my eyes, I guess he was testing that it was really me. I didn't know the right answer so I said brown. He asked me how tall he was. I knew Marshal was 5'11, which is quite a bit taller than me. My goose was cooked. I sat as upright as possible and told him I was 5'11. They must have been feeling lazy coz they let us go. I never did tell Marshall I'd gotten busted pretending to be him.
I haven't thought about most of these people in, oh, 15 years. The guy in the front row second from the left with glasses was named Rich. Like me and Pete, he was in the film program. He had these audiotapes he'd made with his friends in high school where they acted out the scripts to movies like Back to the Future. He had a lot of them I think. Needless to say, he wasn't the kind of would-be filmmaker we were interested in hanging around.
Immediately behind him is Amy who showed up in early 1987 and started leading a fundamentalist bible discussion group in her room. This freaky cult preacher dude named Mike would come by and proselytize to us. I got him mad when I told him that the notion of Christ resurrecting seemed less probable to me than the idea that aliens had come and raised him up with their advanced technological methods. He eventually got banned from our rez, I think, and Amy took up with the amoral Tim (left of her in white shirt), leaving her bible ways for an oh-so-public sexually charged relationship. Sometime after this picture she seduced me but that's another story.
James and Lisa were the first people I befriended in Le Toit, coz Pete didn't show up until I'd been there a day or two. Lisa is in front of the guy in the back towards the left with the funny hat on. He had some kinda Swedish name, Hella or Olaf or something. I think they were together at this point but I don't remember. I do remember me and her and James, the first or second night after I arrived in September '86, drinking outside and standing on some jungle gym sculpture type thing. She was the first girl at university that I made out with. Wait, did we make out? It's all such a blur.
Speaking of Marshall, he's the guy under the I of Pigpen, next to Glen the bearded writer guy. Marshall was a punk rocker and he sort of took me under his wing until I wised up and squirmed out from under. He's now an assistant prof at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. Sometime around this photo I borrowed his ID to go drinking downtown with a friend. We got stopped by the cops after smashing beer bottles in an alley. They put us in the back of their car and sat in the front, examining our IDs. This cop asked me the color of my eyes, I guess he was testing that it was really me. I didn't know the right answer so I said brown. He asked me how tall he was. I knew Marshal was 5'11, which is quite a bit taller than me. My goose was cooked. I sat as upright as possible and told him I was 5'11. They must have been feeling lazy coz they let us go. I never did tell Marshall I'd gotten busted pretending to be him.
I haven't thought about most of these people in, oh, 15 years. The guy in the front row second from the left with glasses was named Rich. Like me and Pete, he was in the film program. He had these audiotapes he'd made with his friends in high school where they acted out the scripts to movies like Back to the Future. He had a lot of them I think. Needless to say, he wasn't the kind of would-be filmmaker we were interested in hanging around.
Immediately behind him is Amy who showed up in early 1987 and started leading a fundamentalist bible discussion group in her room. This freaky cult preacher dude named Mike would come by and proselytize to us. I got him mad when I told him that the notion of Christ resurrecting seemed less probable to me than the idea that aliens had come and raised him up with their advanced technological methods. He eventually got banned from our rez, I think, and Amy took up with the amoral Tim (left of her in white shirt), leaving her bible ways for an oh-so-public sexually charged relationship. Sometime after this picture she seduced me but that's another story.
James and Lisa were the first people I befriended in Le Toit, coz Pete didn't show up until I'd been there a day or two. Lisa is in front of the guy in the back towards the left with the funny hat on. He had some kinda Swedish name, Hella or Olaf or something. I think they were together at this point but I don't remember. I do remember me and her and James, the first or second night after I arrived in September '86, drinking outside and standing on some jungle gym sculpture type thing. She was the first girl at university that I made out with. Wait, did we make out? It's all such a blur.
Tuesday, July 29, 2003
Gambler I may be, but I've never been particularly interested in playing the financial markets. But I'd definitely lay a bet down on a government-sponsored assassination lottery.
"The payoff if he's assassinated is $1 per future. So if it comes to pass, and those who bought at 5 cents make 95 cents. Those who bought at 50 cents make 50 cents.''
"The payoff if he's assassinated is $1 per future. So if it comes to pass, and those who bought at 5 cents make 95 cents. Those who bought at 50 cents make 50 cents.''
Monday, July 28, 2003
I drove Melle Mel to the airport yesterday morning then came back and curled up with the NY Times. It wasn't quite as warm and cuddly as MM. The other Mike G. showed up unannounced to wake me up and reclaim his vacuum cleaner. This means we have to buy one. Where's the door-to-door vacuum salesmen when you need 'em? I managed to wile away the day doing bugger all which is the correct way to spend a lazy hot Sunday. I turned on the TV at 10pm and there was a Buffy rerun, albeit from a season that we haven't seen yet so watching it was kind of a retro-futuristic experience if you get me. It passed the time nicely until I was ready for bed but it wasn't the same without MM.
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