Pulished 2002, 500 copies, offset
Last Time I Checked... - Faggo
Stickin'Yer Head Out... With Nothing To Lose - Faggo
Going Down On Joey Brown - Travis Jeppesen
Gay Ground Zero - Jon Ginoli
Unwritten - r.w. gray
(untitled) - Rebecca Levi
The Red Room - Brad S.
Skinjobs - an interview with
Possession Is... Nine Points Of The Flaw (or is it?) - Tim Murphy
Hey Kim, It's Rufus Here - Rufus Poser
Tattoos Are Sexy.... Class, Race and Tatttoos - Peter Bird
Demian of Undertow - Faggo
The True Confessions of Miss Cookie LaWhore - Miss Cookie LaWhore
Thanks to the Avon Lady - Billeh Nickerson
Greetings and Salutations from the Great White North - Chris 'Punkylad'
Why Not A Rock? - C. Bard Cole
Pride? - Daryl Vocat
Mr. Customer Service - Mitch Fury
My Favourite Fag - Trish Kelly
Old Punk Ass - The New Congress
Raw Jackoff - Johnny Hardway
Cool Zines! Books! Music! - by Faggo
Hey Punk.... Make Your Own Scene! - Rufus Poser
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Last Time I Checked.... - by Faggo
....there were plenty of guys to cruise at Lee's Trail.
So why the hell haven't any of them stepping forward as witnesses to the murder of Aaron Webster? I find it hard to believe that there was no else there, or no one who saw anything. Who are they and why are they so silent?
I wanna know - how do their brains tick?
I would only have respect for them if they spoke up as witnesses. I'm sure it wouldn't be easy - they're not heroes if they speak-up, but they are a cowards if they don't. It's just one of those things. Doing the right thing isn't about ego, it's about peace of mind. And there must be a lot on their minds. I'm sure they really appreciate everything they have and everyone they love more than ever. Counting their lucky stars? I understand that - a brush with death is scary. And if they just keep their mouth shut - no one has to know that they were out late that night cruising for sex. And maybe that's what's running through their heads - maybe that is the root to all this silence.
I too have had sex with other men, strangers, in public places, and because of that, I know that I wouldn't be able to withhold the information that they have. I know it could have easily been me - and that's why I hope they speak up, because if it ever happens again, and it's me who's found gasping my last few precious breathes of life on a cruising trail, I'd like to think that someone would step up as a witness and point a finger or at least bring more light to the identity of my murderers. Rather than creep back into the world of anonymity as if nothing happened.
I can't relate to the silence because I actual knew Aaron Webster - he took some personal photos of me and of the Skinjobs and he was a really nice guy, a real person who showed me trust and respect. He didn't deserve to die a brutal death at the hands of thugs out for a fag-bash in the early morning/night. Thugs that someone saw as Aaron screamed in the parking-lot beside Vancouver's best known cruising trail in Stanley Park - the screams that interrupted someone's anonymous fuck/suck. Did the witnesses take off because they were scared for their life or because they didn't want anyone to catch them out cruising?
Anonymous sex can be fun and exciting. The people we are having sex with are real people - not fantasy figures.
Respect each other and let's remember our responsibility to look out for one another.
Aaron Webster was a real person - may he rest in peace and not be forgotten.
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Stickin'yer head out with nothing to lose - Faggo
Stickin'yer head out...with nothing to lose.
Life is full of opportunities to have your voice heard - half of the time i'm scared, most of the time i'm unprepared and once in a while - BANG! - everything falls into place. If i share my ideas I can watch them grow in the minds of others - FAGGO was just that, an idea. Nothing more, nothing less. Something I just talked about and over time became reality. Over the past 3 years I've watched it grow into something that was more than an idea and much more than just a zine. I was excited to celebrate it with others, and from the first 'Faggo Release Party' conversations grew into new concepts and new projects with more people jumping aboard at each turn. I'm constantly reminded how I once felt there was no one like me - and now, when i catch myself in a similar bitchy mood - I'm usualy talking about it with a friend who can relate. There were punk fags like myself all along, always there - we just needed an excuse to bring us together.
Faggo was the excuse.
The first issue of Faggo was primarily full of writing from people outside of Vancovuer - this issue is half written by people from Vancouver. Proof and inspiration for others to build their own 'scene' - we can all run of to San Francisco or New York - but it's when we bring ideas from those other cities back to our hometown that we truly build community.
Start a zine - organize a show - start a band - build a scene.
For me Faggo was just a start, it inspired me to help create the Queer Punk Collective with other like minded queers - and from that I was inspired to play music with the Skinjobs - Vancouver's (first?) Queer Punk band. And along the way I've witnessed the talents of other queer (punk or not) artists who step out of the mainstream - these people fueled me to keep going and to try even harder.
(read the piece 'Hey Punk... Make Your Own Scene' by Rufus Poser at the end of this issue - it' a great run-down of what's been goin' down in Vancouver)
This issue is dedicated to all my local queer heroes and alies...you all motivate me, make me laugh and speak my mind when I'm at a loss for words. thank you all.
In no order: Trish Kelly, Bryan McKinnon, John Finlay, Michael V. Smith, Denise Sheppard, Megan & Che:Chapter 127, Danita Chow, Lisa G., Mandy and Pointless Hysteria, Johnny Hardway, Laura Schultz, Mimi, Elvira, Angela, Lloyd, Darlene the Ambasador's Wife, three medicine horse, Sarah Hunt, Morgan & 30 Helens (rip), Chirs tribal dude, Lee and the Helen Pitt Galery, Frederick Cummins, Liz, Sara and the QP Collective, Rene Cherry & Sarah, Billeh Nickerson, Drew - Zdenky - Shane and the New Congress, Michael Venus - Richard and the House of Venus, Amber Dawn Upfold, Scot Ritchie, Mike Thomas - Darren - Chris - Ben - Ryan and everyone at Melriches, Jax and the Stunts, the Gaylord bois and grls, Johnny Sizzle, the Organ, Gerald - English - and everyone at Milk, Stephen - Ida and the staff at the Sugar Refinery, the folks at Out On Screen, Jamie Griffiths and Xtra West (thanks for the Queer Punk Hotline!), C.I.T.R. radio, Danny - Michelle - Jason - JP and gus. Chris Buchner - Kelly Wolfslehner and my friends at YouthCO, Phillip Banks - John Cheetam (rip) and my friends at PARC, all at Artwerks/Nettwerk, Kevin Moroso, Cam Barker, the Bent kids in Seattle and all who came to see the show, Jon and Pansy Division, Polkadot Chokealot, and everyone i forgot (sorry!)
Until next time (and don't ask me if or when)
Rockarolla Faggolla
kim 'faggo' kinakin
faggo@hotmail.com
my p.o. box address is dead - try my email to contact me
cross your fingers for... www.faggo.com
FAGGO is distributed by:
AK Press 674-A 23rd st Oakland CA 94612-1163 USA
phone 510-208-1700 - fax 510-208-1701
email akpress@akpress.org - www.akpress.org
?PS - I stole most of the photos from magazines
This one was taken by Aaron Webster (rip)
I tried to credit the rest.
All layouts and graphic fuckings by me
except 'Hey Kim, it's Rufus here' and Johnny Hardway's piece.
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Going Down On Joey Brown - by travis jeppesen
The punk rock club was so intense. Loud music hurt my ears. I love getting hurt.
Afterwards, some faggot beat me up. When I was done
getting beat, we went back to my place to have some
intellectual conversation that would never last long. I knew this better than I knew myself; I was drunk on lust.
Some things don't matter. I don't know what those things are. All I know these days is my lust, which has no limits. Fantasies come and go in opposite directions; fucking is the only language that
matters.
He had some qualities that reminded me of the naked sailor whose wife had shown me so much affection the summer I ran away from the mental hospital I had tried to kill myself at. She made me strawberry pancakes that I ended up puking out later when there was too much fucking movement the sea was dead. My skin cells fell off all over the mast and I wonder where all my selves go when I leave them laying around, all those businessmen who rimmed me for lots of money, they know my insides better than I do.
That's all I expected from this faggot fucker. We suck each other softly, it's so gentle, we die, nothing else matters when yr face is getting smashed by the constant bangings of hipbones and raw rugburn pubic hair against it and my face would turn into a pancake that he would eat with his own tortured cum as the syrup, my bloody nose
giving it character.
He turned me around and I still couldn't talk, shoved a bottle up my ass to soothe me.
In my favorite porno video, an old man foot fucks the twat of some 12-year-old who calls him grandpa. My family
disowned me before I even got born, I ran away from home and met this boy who claimed he would take care of me. His name was Joey Brown and he had no body hair for political reasons. To live forever is to die without regrets. I knew that to exist in this hollow
tunnel of shit with you would satisfy all those masochistic impulses that I had buried in the tomb of my stomach a long time ago. Morning becomes friends with awakened realities too tired to touch. He was my father and he had to take care of me, he had to punish me
as well.
Joey comes over and bangs my head against the refrigerator door and makes me suck him, since I'm finally being loved, I'm allowed to do this. We went back to my place to have an "intellectual" conversation and, quickly, pretend to love each other. Morning comes to wash all the cum stains away, you start to leave my smashed-in face here by itself, I don't know where to go. So I stay and let the walls cave in and I never had a father to begin with, the same exact shit would happen next weekend only I loved this particular fucker who taught me everything I'm worth.
The room is white. The walls are thick and made out of
plaster. The floor is dirty. Dirty condoms and cum. Blood stains the mattress. It's his blood. And he stays away.
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Gay Ground Zero - Jon Ginoli
I have felt ambivalent about the Castro from the my very first visit. It was May 1987, on tour with my first band, and San Francisco was our last stop before heading back to Illinois. I had a couple hours to hang around on my own, and the Castro was where I headed. My first reaction on arrival: I was finally there, at Gay Ground Zero. After looking around, my second reaction was: Is this all there is? And then: Where was everybody under 30?
Moving to SF two years later, Castro Street simultaneously represented the possibilities and limitations of the gay scene. The sheer number of out gay men suggested limitless opportunity, but also the difficulty of finding the right person in the crush of the crowd. Problem was, there wasn't much to actually DO on Castro Street. There were lots of possibilities to consume things--pizza, beer, coffee, magazines, or men--but it lacked something creative, something unrelated to money. You could cruise, but I quickly learned that it helped to be a "type" to get attention. I was me, I wasn't an obvious type, and I didn't come this far and experience so much alienation to just break down and conform to it all. That's what I came here NOT to do. Some people would accept this and make adjustments, but I was stubborn. I didn't fit in the straight world, so I watched and waited to find a way to fit into this one. People had fought hard to create a safe space like the Castro, and I didn't want to take it for granted. But although I frequented the area for several years, I eventually drifted away; there just seemed little need to go there.
An errand took me back to the street recently. I realized how long it had been since I'd investigated the neighborhood, so I snooped around some. I stopped in A Different Light Bookstore, which is a shadow of its former glory. As the Castro's resident gay bookstore, it used to be crowded with books, zines and CDs. The space has now been largely denuded of product, with wide, airy aisles offering calendars, expensive coffee table books, and an overly tidy magazine rack. Having lost money the last few years, its survival strategy has led them to cater more to tourists than locals. A number of circumstances have conspired to hurt them: chain stores now carry gay-themed books and aggressively court the gay dollar; construction of new streetcar lines down Market Street deliver more non-gay tourists to the neighborhood (the line ends at Market & Castro); and insane rents make having a small business more challenging than ever, even in a boom time.
The Castro is now longer the gay ghetto, no longer a pariah neighborhood. It's more like the gay boutique, or gay theme park, upscale with its own ethnic flavor (even its own flag). Commentators have sounded the alarm that gentrification is eroding the identity of the gay neighborhood. Standing in A Different Light, I realized it didn't matter to me. Part of it is realizing that I never did fit in there, so I have less to lose; it no longer makes me angry. The changes reflect the mainstreaming of gay issues in the 90s. We wanted acceptance and respect, and in SF we have it. I was heavily involved with ACT-UP when I moved to the city in '89, when activist flyers and stickers blanketed Castro Street light poles. Some time in the early 90s, a self-appointed group of fussy older gay men called the Golden Broom went around tearing down all the signs, blunting the radical edge of the area. They made the area more respectable, safe for shopping to people from outside the neighborhood. It didn't take an influx of straights to water down Gay Ground Zero.
I was describing these feelings to an old friend who'd returned for a visit from New York. He was a Bay Area native who, as a precocious teenager, threw himself into the gay cauldron in 1981-82, that last moment before the reality of AIDS became known. I remarked that it must have been great to explore the Castro in those days of pre-AIDS innocence, to be a sweet young thang and soaking up all that attention. He disabused me of such notions. As a cute but long-haired 16-year-old, people yelled "Chicken!" at him on the street, and "Go back to your mommy!" You were not welcome unless you were a clone, with short hair and a mustache. We shrugged and bonded over our shared alienation.
Meanwhile, back in A Different Light, I did something I had never done before. I bought a coffee table book. Brushing past plastic and predictable gay male erotica, it called out to me: "California Boys" by Mel Roberts. I had seen one of the pictures in this book a few months earlier on the cover of a magazine, and it was striking; when I realized there was a whole book, I had to have it. Full of gorgeous color photography from 1959-1980, some of it is camp, but its period detail is touching; with feathered Farrah-Fawcett hair and gawky clothes (when they're wearing any), it summons nostalgia for boys I lusted after in high school in the late 70s. All of it precedes the buffed/shaven sanitization that plagues contemporary porn, and in doing so reflects the homogenization that has become gay culture (which as we have seen, trickles down to the larger overall culture), so please forgive me for seeing these images as being more innocent somehow. There is no sex in these shots (nearly all of them solo, though his more X-rated work will be included in a second volume in 2001) and is more art than porn.
Suddenly, looking at all these pictures of young men, the question begged again: where in the Castro were the under-30 men? The demographics of baby boomers, combined with unbelievable housing prices, has contributed to the graying of the Castro. A few under 30s queers still lurk, working at places like Hot Cookie, A Different Light, Crossroads Clothing, and various video stores. The difference is that most of these boys who have moved here won't stay (unless they belong to the prosperous dot-com class--if you want to be here and be queer, you'll need a career). Unlike the pre-1996 period, the thrill of being here will wear off once they realize they'll never be able to save enough money to stop struggling. My New York friend says you used to be able to move to SF and coast for awhile without severe repercussions; New York was tougher, and you couldn't slack for long. Now it's gotten that tough here. The over 30s who have their rent-controlled apartments (like me) or who own houses will endure, but the next ACT-UP/Tribe 8/Pansy Division/queercore/Queer Nation/you-name-it won't come from here. The lack of under-30s not only means a lack of new blood and new ideas, it means a lack of audience for those who manage to make it here and forge ahead. Our town is now fossilized. Pray for an earthquake.
Email: pansydivision@earthlink.net
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Unwritten - by r.w.gray
I know he was a messenger, I just don’t know who sent him. After he left, I held my arms in the air and turned round and round in the bathroom mirror like a music-box ballerina looking for bruises. Nothing yet, but maybe the necessary shadows will form tomorrow, or tonight while I’m sleeping.
The next day, nothing, and I have to think back to remember that I bit his trapesius muscle, bit his ass cheek, that I punched him in the chest, and bent his back ’till it was almost parenthetical. Not the other way around. He’s gone home with what we’ve done printed in little sickle shapes and larger bruises, some temporary palimpsest – he wanted me to do it. He wanted me to alter him that way, and now I’ve left the message on his skin for someone else to read.
Who sent this blank book of a man, and what am I left to read now?
I should have known, when he gave me the list of all the ways he had been pressed into bathroom tiles, stepped on, fucked with toes and other available objects. Somewhere in the list of times he’d enjoyed being spit on, fucked in his sleep and gagged was a permission slip written in someone else’s hand.
If that wasn’t enough, there was his smooth, white unwritten ass. Almost innocent, the lure of the open-faced page. I bit him there and wanted to bite harder, wondering between clenched teeth what design I should make and whether symmetry might be important. Later in the shower he told me he hardly felt it.
If I say his ass looked unwritten it doesn’t tell you how it sat all perky taunting me for a response. Even pages have desire. And this one couldn’t be unwritten until I wrote on it.
He speaks of the one he loved and they both fell in love with another, so now the accident has occurred and no one ended up loving anyone. He is twice the abandoned, twice lost love. His body seems full with it,
muscles like puckered lips waiting.
Should I have phoned our mutual friend and asked him for directions? I never wrote hard enough, found myself uncertain which pain was good and which unwanted. I lacked the sophisticated eye of a weathered book binder, who might know which pages should be brought up to face one another, how to anchor them to a spine, and how to cut the bound pages open in just the right fashion, not damaging, but revealing the secret pages.
All he told me was to be assertive and be a top. There was no mention of the proper way to punch him, no mention of how hard to bite. For those who will follow in my footsteps, face that nicely unwritten ass, more is more. The message is what you write to yourself, that word behind the smack, the punctuation of the first moment he cries out. And if you can’t write to yourself, write to me. Maybe he’ll deliver it.
RwGRAy@TELUS.nET
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untitled - by Rebecca Levi
I was a long haired queer for half a minute in 1991. Then I cut it all off, so I could be identified by my kind. I never thought I would see my hair grow below my ears again, just like I thought I would never leave the sexual mecca of San Francisco, but here I am in New York, with hair to my
shoulders, trying to figure out what it all means.
I wanted to write about these
photos I sent you. About how they mark a closing chapter in my life; the last photos probably where I can possibly pass as a man, dressed in the suit jacket and tie I wore countless times in the last ten years, for work, for play, for sex. At the point that these pictures were taken, I had already given up this persona, and I look pissed off to be inhabiting it again.
I've done a couple of photo shoots before, promoting Luna Sea, the underground women's theater I was involved with in San Francisco. I liked to fuck with my gender in them: as someone who strictly wore men's clothing in my day-to-day life, photography gave me an opportunity for me to express the flip side to my butch identity in a way I could write off as pure
performance.
I dressed up in wigs, corsets, straddled barbers chairs, sucked on oversized cigars. I wore thrift store lingere and hand-me-down patent leather go-go boots. I would change immediately after the shoots, wiping off the lipstick quickly and roughly, slip into my vintage gentleman's clothing and my nerdy yeshiva boy persona. I was anxious to distance myself from my feminine attributes, though I was secretly proud of my ability to inhabit both butch and femme convincingly, and in radically different ways. One time the girl who laid out the photography on a party invite didn't recognize me in it, in spite of the fact that we were fucking at the time.
It is said that men are more stimulated than women by pornographic sexual imagery, but I can get a lot of mileage out of photographs, particularly ones that convey some degree of gender-fuck or fetishism. But I find myself left cold for the most part by glossy fetish mags: they're beautiful, but to what extent are they dirty? I find myself yearning for the flaws, for what's unintentionally revealed, what accidentally displays some vulnerability in even the most threatening or distant top. I like fantasy, but I particularly like fantasy I can fathom getting a piece of.
I also appreciate the affordable fetish. I want sexual costuming to be more a statement about creativity than how much custom latex you can afford. I've seen girls wear unnecessary band-aids, eye patches, ace bandages – crazy discount pharmacy fetish gear. With these photos I went for the cheap thrill: a 99 cent pair of stockings, pulled over the face. A dime store mask. I wanted to see what I could do with my new femininity, how to make it interesting and various when it was no longer strictly an identity I could take off and discard.
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The Red Room - by Brad S.
The cab Alex my fuck of the night and I were riding in lurched around downtown like a loose canon, up and down the empty streets of Toronto. Finally we made one last dip into an unmarked back alley behind some old empty storefronts. We screeched to a stop and the cabbie announced our arrival at The Red Room. He took eight dollars from me for the fare, with a look on his face that said "You’re here, now get the fuck out".
"Which door is it?" They all looked the same to me. The Red Room was pretty much a booze-can/fuck room that was better off if it was hard to find. The cabbie motioned towards a large beat up metal door behind one of those big brown dumpsters. It opened to a creaky staircase that led to a small landing and a booth that was behind about six inches of glass and beside another imposing metal door. The cashier barked out "twenty five bucks a piece" through the round circle of his window. I paid him the money for both us begrudgingly. Then a buzz of the door later and we were in.
It took a few moments for our eyes to adjust to the dimly lit room that stood in front of us, already the ‘boom boom’ of the music echoed in out ears and the white flicker of pornos on the TVs in our eyes. The walls were painted in snaky neon stripes over solid black, which made them seem alive in my polluted state.
We shuffled through the thick smoky air over to the bar for a drink. Our bartender dressed in leather belts strapped around his naked chest and waist, connected with thick silver rings and heavy buckles, topped off with a large studded jock. His hair was cropped short and dyed jet black, which went well with the dark circles of make-up around his eyes. As we approached the bar I watched as he amused himself by flexing his pectoral muscles, making the rings in his nipples bounce up and down. I myself found this deliciously amusing. Alex and I grabbed a couple of drinks and made our way further inside the cavernous club.
The music was almost unbearable here, making conversation impossible. The crowd was made up of a wild collection of characters. They were anywhere from their mid teens or so all the way up to great grand dad. Tall, short. Fat, slim. Black, white. Hot and really not hot at all and everything in between. This new room was almost pitch black, except for the periodic flash of a strobe light, a couple of dim yellow bulbs and the glow from the smoky air.
We continued through the crowd entering into a maze of secret little rooms and hallways. Everyone was jammed into the halls shoulder to shoulder; forcing you to push your way through to get anywhere.
After a few minutes of wading through, we entered into our first musky little room. My eyes had to dilate even further to see what was in front of me. The walls, ceiling and floor were all painted black, with a bare red light bulb hanging in the center of the room. The humidity in the air made our clothes feel instantly damp and the accompanying smell was that of sweat and sex. Random hands grabbed at my ass and fondled my hard cock constantly, like I was an animal at a petting zoo. Near the back of the room we reached what seemed to be the main attraction.
A six foot drag queen had her dress hiked up waist high and was pissing on two naked guys rolling around naked on the sticky floor. They were grinding their crotches together and necking wildly, to the almost silent moans of the room’s other occupants. A semi-circle of front row onlookers had their cocks in their hands; only retreating back into the dark after their wad of cum flew freely across the two wrestlers.
The next room was just as raunchy and exciting. This time we stumbled upon about thirty mostly naked men in a porno’s worth of different positions. It was dark enough that you couldn’t make out the features on their faces, just the outlines of their bodies pressed and contorted around each other’s. A very
muscular stud at the center of this display was on all fours, a penis in his mouth, and one up his ass. His chest heaved as he took it all in, a third man in leather gloves spanking his neon white ass with fast deliberate strokes.
Alex eventually couldn’t take any more teasing from room’s twisted occupants. He pulled me around by my shoulder, our lips meeting in a long deep kiss. My heartbeat quickened, I pulled at his hair so that his neck stretched backwards. He broke away to lower his kiss to my neck and then under my shirt to my hardening nipples, leaving them only for my raging cock. It wasn’t long before we had our own little crowd of wackers that were only too happy to help us get off. I couldn’t tell whether Alex or one of the other eager mouths that waited in the dark was blowing me. The room inevitably erupted for us all.
We never did find a room that was painted red, but we would defiantly go back to The Red Room.
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Skinjobs - an interview with
how did the skinjobs come about?
Lee- I was complaining to Mitch about not gettin’any so we decided to start a band to get some.
Byron- Mitch & Lee = good tunes, great people; I tried out for the "bass player" title summer’2000. We’ve been musically holding hands ever since.
Mitch- With the future of all things being cast into a state of uncertainty, we decided to reclaim all things pertinent in the current consciousness of NOW. Accepting that we are exactly where we need to be, right now, precisely and without question, there is no need to spend any more time contemplating "What IF we were the SKINJOBS?" We ARE the SKINJOBS. So putting truth into action has lead to the manifestation of what is now simply the SKINJOBS – but simple, it is not.
do you think that a sexual agenda might be alienating to people who are not used to thinking about it?
Lee- Come on, everybody thinx about sex!!
Byron- That’s part of the point – people need to acknowledge things & realize that perspective & diversity are only scary because they are unfamiliar. I want to help show that the alien is actually HUMAN.
Mitch- I would have to agree, society in the past has stifled the subject of sex and in doing so has created an underworld who’s language is not unfamiliar in our thoughts only unfamiliar in some of our actions. The SKINJOB revolution shines light on the dark corners of our minds to foster and nurture a reclaimed state of being – one that is not cast is the shadows of shame, prejudice and judgement. We are bringing attention to the hypocrisy of current conservative idioms. Suggesting to "stifle the urge (it will politely go away)" while promoting "Just be yourself" is contradictory. Mind sets that are accepting ‘sex sells (as long as it fits into a quantifiable little box labeled ‘normal/family values/procreation’)’ is accepting a two-tier system of ‘normal’ and ‘anything different than normal.’ We are the different and we won’t be stifled any longer. We most definitely won’t politely go away.
what is your opinion on where we stand as queers today?
Lee- We stand on Davie St., Commercial Drive, Main St. and Stanley Park.
Byron- Oooh – toughy. "We" – I can’t speak for every wonderful & unique queer out there, it’s too great a range for me to represent. But I will say I feel movement towards acknowledgment & more understanding of every queer imaginable – I feel a diverse community can unite together for support, comfort, acknowledgement & friendship.
Mitch- We are at an excruciatingly painful and boring state as humans that requires us to label ourselves under a sexual identity in order to further the process of breaking down the societal norms of acceptable sexual interaction & acceptable gender identification. The goal is simple but the means is complicated. People want to be their unique selves. In many ways the ‘queer’ (for lack of a better word) communities seem to be fighting for greater acceptance from the rest of society while trying to quantify and define themselves. This seems to be leading us to a point were the rest of society will become open-minded, less defined sexually and more inclusive while the queer community, stuck on maintaining a separate identity, will implode upon itself as it becomes more rigid and limited. Sexual identity will be short-lived as compared to sexual-actions – which have been the same since day one, quite diverse just not well documented. It’s a long journey that isn’t over – it takes time. Documentation is the first step – re-creating a sexually diverse history that everyone owns.
why the name skinjobs?
Lee- Because LED ZEPPELIN is already taken.
Byron- It’s a term from BLADE RUNNER, replicants of human beings, kinda like super humans with short life spans. We’re super human queers walkin’around like everyone else, and no one (most) can tell.
Mitch- Our name is consciously mis-appropriated. In the movie BLADE RUNNER (as Byron pointed out) it was used as a derogatory term for Replicants who, being genetically superior to humans, were purposely created with a 4 year ‘expiry date.’ They could not be distinguished from other ‘real’ humans. We’ve chosen to use the term SKINJOBS as a parallel to queers who are as equally undistinguishable from the rest of society or at least masters of surviving under the radar. We borrow the question from Blade ‘What is human?’ and further ‘What is queer?’
how do the skinjobs fit into the punk community?
Lee- We Rock!!
Byron- I don’t know – really. I personally am not a butterfly flitting in one circle. I’ll let Mitch answer this one.
Mitch- Simply with the history of punk being a social cast for misfits, freaks and queers. Somehow, that is often forgotten. The early punk scene of the ‘70’s (not that I was around back then) was very queer (or sexually ambiguous) without labeling itself as such. Non-conformity was a strong held statement. In being so open-minded and accepting the punk scene was an easy target for mainstream appropriation. Mass marketing in the 90’s watered it down, to make it seem less threatening – and in doing so, omitting anything about punk sexuality. We’re here to bring it back.
how do the skinjobs fit into the queer community?
Lee- We’re sexy.
Byron- This is hard to answer too – the level of interaction now with band & community (except as shining individuals) has been minimal. I have XTREME HOPE for a friendly, two-way good-street-to walk down and smile at every fuckin’ person you see – type’o relationship.
Mitch- Questionably at times, on the fringe of the community if anywhere – sex sells so we give it to them. I don’t expect the queer community to embrace us as fully as an ABBA cover-band, but I believe they will embrace us more, in some ways, than the punk community. Our existense seems to threaten the calm blue water of complacency. The queer community’s strongest power as of late has been it’s money – and in a capitalist system that means something, however shallow that may be. With all the Hoopla over rainbow banners on streets in the gay ghetto’s of whatever city, it’s hard to imagine anyone taking a break from their latté to question privileges and realize that the visibly queer community is only for those who can afford the image while within the safety of a queer friendly community. Is there a parallel between high rent prices of many urban centers and the yuppy queer communities that thrive in them? – I think so. Pride has a price.
what is the queer punk scene like in vancouver?
Lee- Fucken’bleek!!
Byron- uhhh… what queer punk scene? Fuck, this is great – I feel like a pioneer.
Mitch- It’s starting to grow thanks to all the kids in the Queer Punk Collective plus Vancouver has lotsa cool zines,
spoken-word performances and the File This Cabaret. If it weren’t for the Queer Punk Collective we probably wouldn’t exist! Kisses to them all.
what are some of you influences?
Lee- Animal, beer, Sunny Day, chicks, Thirty Ought, beer, pizza…TV.
Byron- I am a latticework of influences – classical to jungle/new house to metal to folk. But a few inspirations are Tori Amos, James Brown, Dave Matthews, Pearl Jam.
Mitch- Cute boy bands that take their shirts off, BLINK 182 for mocking a cute boy band taking their shirts off, IMPERIAL TEEN for making the best queer pop punk I’ve ever heard, GREEN DAY’s Tre Cool for shoving a drumstick up his butt and telling everyone at the party he liked it (OK, maybe that’s a rumour), Grant and the SMUGGLERS, PANTY RAID, XLIMPWRISTX (for simply being), Maynard from A PERFECT CIRCLE, Rob Halford from JUDAS PRIEST, Demian from PLAYINGENEMY, Dan from the MURDER CITY DEVILS, Chi Pig from SNFU, the singer from BOYS SETS FIRE, Jon and the boys from PANSY DIVISION and don’t forget, LIL’KIM for rappin with the best of ‘em and telling them were to lick it!
the skinjobs definitely have an image - how would you explain it?
Lee- Our image reflects on how sexy we are and that with a bunch of make-up and hair accessories, anything is possible.
Byron- Imagine being honest & kind, ready to learn, ready to listen- and fuckin ready to rock and having a sweet time doing it. Surprise! It’s true! That’s us. No goopy pomp ignorance negative – just 3 awesome queers trying to do good with music > attitude that surges with good zesty & delicious queer power.
Mitch- Freak-Perv, it’s not just about us, it’s the audience – what a bunch of freaks! We’ve taken pointers from Priss – the Princess of Blade Runner – from there on, anything goes!
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Possession Is.... Nine Points of the Flay (or is it?) - Tim Murphy
Possessiveness. An unwillingness to share. A Conservative take on monogamy. Not feelings a Marxist and sexual radical should have where his boyfriend is concerned, right?
Goodness knows I have spent years decrying marriage and other forms of 'normalization' as means of buying into a society that should have been cashed in and converted ages ago.
Of course, it was easy for the celibate, anti-social crank I was was to do so, since I had no practical base from which to examine my attitudes.
I am back to the observation I made in Faggo #2 about my real responses varying greatly from the imagined ones! Waiting until I was 31, more than 10 years after I came out, to have my first relationship of any kind, gave me time to observe others' interactions and increased the possibility that my efforts in this regard would be intense and probably embarrassing.
In retrospect, the fact that I formed close friendships with one person at a time should have been a hint as to my romantic/sexual nature. However, I don't take hints well; some friends were a couple for two months, and I saw them every day, before I realized they were together. I don't think that way - having a sex drive verging on the non-existent 'helps' in this quirk.
I met my boyfriend, Arne, in July, 1997. I liked him right away, but it was December before I realized that I had feelings for him. However, low self-esteem, and the fact that I had been told by people I was interested in that me being attracted to them was repugnant, led to me saying nothing (though I sought advice). I figured, if it was mutual, he would speak up. To me, we were dating from December on, though there was no acknowledgement or sex. To make a long story short, it was March 23, 1998 when he revealed his attraction, and confessed he had felt so since autumn.
Here is where I contend, perhaps with self-serving motives, that is it possible to argue for the RIGHT to something without wanting it oneself, and that this applies to matters of the heart/groin/whatever too. I believe that monogamy is NOT 'natural' or the best thing for all - but I wanted to be only with this fellow. It helped that he felt the same way.
I also, to my dismay, discovered that I was possessive, though some that, I delude myself, was protectiveness, since he had not been out for very long and was not perceptive of
others' motivations. The time we were at a cafe and an individual was subtly hitting on him strikes me as when I realized how proprietary I felt towards Arne. I leaned into the
conversation and used 'we' statements to make it clear to the intruder that he was dealing with a united front, and he backed off.
Later that summer, an acquaintance of ours decided he would test out his German on my guy (who is Danish and knows German). So, he said, roughly: 'Do you want to sleep with me?' to my boyfriend; unfortunately for the hapless fellow, I know a bit of German, and, since I'd seen CABARET, I definitely knew the verb he used. To this day, I insist I was (mostly) kidding when I raised a fist to the guy, but he looked scared and apologized. Sometimes, it helps to be big and tall, though I'm (mostly) harmless.
Maybe the fact that we're soon to be separated by fate accounts for how the last incident I can think of went better. We had met a leatherman at a Pride event here in town - turns out he had been declared the Canadian champion by some S/M magazine. I spoke to him for about five minutes,
introducing me and my partner. Arne basically just said 'hello', being a man of few words. He certainly remembered Arne, though, albeit mangling the
pronunciation (it's AR-nuh, not ARNIE), since he yelled out to him from the Pride Parade and then, later that evening, on one of the rare occasions we've gone to the local gay bar at night, he attempted to grab and kiss my boyfriend, with me standing right there. My boyfriend resisted - I can't do that sort of thing in public, so a stranger certainly couldn't. I remember feeling very angry, but I later went up and apologized, in a way, since it WAS Pride and the guy DID seem upset and embarrassed over what he'd tried to do.
Perhaps, now that our relationship is nearly over, I can start letting go - but I can't say it's going to be easy, or something I look forward to. Perhaps it won't be ten years before my next relationship, if any - but I almost wish it were, since this one has felt like a lifetime in twenty eight short months, and I'm gonna miss the boy (yeah, I'm getting all emo - so shoot me...).
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Hey Kim, it's Rufus here. - by Rufus Poser
Sorry I haven't got back to you lately. I've been thinking really hard about what I'm going to do for the next Faggo. But nothing seems to come easy these days.
To tell you the truth, I've mostly been lying around watching TV, or surfing the net for free porn. Drinking, smoking, hanging out. I know what you're thinking. But don't worry, I've got it under control.
You see, I've been really bored with my job lately. I just can't seem to focus on anything. Oh, listen to me whine. I always get like this when I'm working on a new Poser. Remember when we worked together on the first issue of Faggo? It's like, I hadn't thought about punk for years. Some of the happiest times of my life happened at punk shows. Finlay says I totally came alive after Faggo. He says he could see it in my eyes.
OK. That's it for me right now. I should get back to work. See ya!
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Tattoos Are Sexy... Class, Race and Tattoos - Peter Bird
Tattoos were brought to the West by sailors returning from the South Seas. They brought a tribal art to the West. Imagine if sailors to Africa were turned on by lip plates. Of course, they could never be turned on by Chinese foot binding. Well maybe they could be turned on by it, for their wives back home, an perhaps they were. But not for themselves. Tattoos, however, were a form of body manipulation they saw practiced on men that they wanted to copy. (Perhaps it was also practiced on women in these cultures, but that would certainly not be the reason these men
wanted to do it to themselves.) Men copying men. Sailors saw something attractive in the South Sea native men's bodies, inked and altered as they were. They saw it as something masculine, for sailors would certainly not emulate a practice they saw as feminine. They probably saw it as sexy, although they wouldn't be able to
articulate it consciously. They could never say there was something beautiful about these "primitive" men's
decision to mark themselves, to claim
possession of themselves, to say they owned this body, even if there was a higher power that may claim prior ownership of it. Something was decidedly hot about this very unchristian practice of claiming the body here, now, not rented in anticipation of an afterlife. There was something about muscled brown skin, scarred and colored, that turned them on, that they wanted to do to themselves, that they wished they were. That they wanted to touch. That they wanted to be touched by.
Of course, the practice altered in the West, it came to reflect the sailors' culture: Anchors, and whales, and moms back home. The sailors returned to the West, let's just say England (because there is something really sexy about the image of a British sailor in the early 19th century, ?bad teeth and all, with a thick cockney accent, and sailing tattoos on arms "thick as rope," as the saying goes). Let’s say he has sailed for a decade, he's weathered and worn, he's experienced a lot. He's pretty damn marked up, too. Not much else to do for weeks on end, with no whales in sight, except to write on your arm the name of your girl back home. Or maybe draw a picture of her, or maybe fuck your bunkmate (but this isn't an essay on Moby Dick, so we won't go there). So he's pretty marked up, our sailor, and he looks like he's been around the block, a block as big as the world. But he still needs to work, although doing what, is the question. He knows how to hunt whales on the open sea. Well, there ain't too much for our man to do. He's pretty much stuck in the class he's from. His marked body isn't very marketable. He doesn't have the skills for offices. And he can't work in retail or with the public: What would they think? He could be a longshoreman, factory worker, boxer, criminal, Marlon Brando. His white body would remain yoked to his class. Whereas most people of color were well aware of the class ties that bind as a function of their color, their bodies. Our sailor had originally possessed the ability to transcend his class as a function of his skin privilege. With a little bit of "Our Fair Lady" treatment, some lucky whites, very, very few indeed, could become richer whites on the sheer basis of their color. Not our sailor: he's marked. He's taken a practice, this marking of the body, from a primitive people, and he's emulated it. He has made his body colored. He's colored his body. Of course, only a portion of it, and if he's lucky, a portion he can hide. So he does have better "luck" than his truly colored brethren. He has his lily-white face. His crooked teeth and his weather beaten brow, and a shitty job. A job that pays enough for him to get drunk and worry if the coloreds are gonna one day take his.
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Demian of Undertow - by Faggo
I can remember just hangin’ out in Seattle for the weekend, I was at the Undertow house, Mark, Ryan, Demian and myself and a whole bunch of other hardcore kids were downstairs. I can’t remember who’s room we were in but I remember listening to Rites of Spring, talking music and touring and stuff (I was playing guitar for both Sparkmarker and Strain at the time) when all of a sudden Demian said..
"Hey, did I tell you I was
bisexual?" with a big smile on his face
Slightly stunned by the change in conversation, but quite
comfortable with the topic I replied "Really?"
Mark & Ryan just nodded
matter-of-factly
"Cool." I said
Demian continued on how he’d just decided to come out of the closet and how great it feels to just let everyone know.
"I’ve considered myself bisexual for a while too" I interjected
"Really!?" Demian enthusiastically replied
"Yeah" I continued, "I guess I just don’t really talk about it, I’m attracted to boys"
Demian was so excited, like he always was – talking about gay friends of his that he grew up with and having sex with them. I was kinda nervous because the conversation was so casual. Mark and Ryan just commented about how Demian was out to tell the world that he was bisexual in jovial and supportive manners. Sure, I’ve been discussing my sexuality with friends – but usually girls. I just didn’t trust talking about it with boys, I didn’t know any queer hardcore kids, and I assumed the conversation would be met with distaste. I was talking about it with these Undertow boys like it was no big deal, but inside I was in complete awe of how quick & easy this was happening. I didn’t even realize that I had just ‘come out’ to some friends because it was more like just having a conversation about Inside Out or some other hardcore band of the time and responding "yeah, I like them too, I have the record at home." It was almost surreal, like as if a record had just skipped to a different song but nobody noticed. We went from hardcore to sexuality and the conversation wasn’t stalled – it wasn’t supposed to me this easy. But it was.
I don’t think I realized the impact of my ‘bisexuality’ until Demian upped the anti and said
"so can I kiss you?" which I of course replied in the affirmative (he’s so damn cute, how could I say no?) but when our lips met in the fun, light-hearted way that it did, I completely lost all my fears about being judged or being laughed at for being queer.
What transpired afterwards is a colorful journey of identity and action experimentation. Strain & Undertow had booked a week long California tour and that journey included a lot of laughs and good-times between all band members, not to mention some serious making-out between Demian & myself. As confident as I pretended to be with my sexuality, it was Demian who put sexuality onto the agenda in some of the most fun and kind-hearted ways I’ve ever experienced.
I remember talking with some pals from Amenity after Strain & Undertow played a house show in San Diego with a new band at the time called Unbroken. Demian just came up from behind me while we were talking and just stuck his face to mine with a big sloppy kiss and then kept waking. I stumbled for a bit and then just yelled something like "Thanks Demian!" with a big smile on my face and continued with the conversation like nothing happened saying "Oh, Demian just came out of the close… so what were we talking about?"
People had shocked fades as they tried to re-adjust back to the conversation at hand. It was so great, it was like putting politics into action. The best part was that we were on tour and I was able to experiment with identity like I had never done back home in Vancouver. I was just saying that I was bisexual, hell, I don’t even know if we talked much about it, we just did it. Or more precisely, I let Demian use me as a prop in the greatest display of queer activism I’ve every personally experienced. It wasn’t talk, rant and complain. It wasn’t preaching to the coverted. It was just doing it – like we didn’t care and no one was going to stop us – and that’s just what happened.
When the tour ended, we went to our respective cities, we were still 3 hours away and we didn’t see much of each other. Which was fine, we weren’t building a relationship – I think I had only met Demian a few times months before the tour – which is what probably made it so easy and fun.
We had talked about how fun it was going to be to tour the whole summer with sparkmarker and Undertow, fantasizing about taking time out during tour to fool around. But when the tour started, Demian had gotten into a relationship with a girl who he promised that he wouldn’t cheat on. Demian was even so kind to talk to me about it – of curse the news wasn’t exciting, a skip to my step was temporarily dampered but I assured him that all was fine. Our friendship was more important to me plus I had a bunch of other things on my mind – tour responsibilities, recording preparation (for the Products & Accessories CD) and the new found knowledge that a friend of mine was killed.
It was a much longer tour than with Strain, 2 months actually and a couple of times Demian and I cuddled. Sadly, we had a miscommunication that was entirely my fault – maybe it was the building stress of the tour, I dunno – we talked a bit about it but I think it was the final chapter to our fight for queerdom. So we never kissed again – and I really, really missed that – just because it was so fun, silly and free.
We still talk form time to time when our worlds collide, usually by fluke. He currently plays guitar in Playing Enemy and doesn’t seem to actively identify as bisexual. While I’ve stepped back form music and identify a lot more as a ‘faggo.’ Kissing is a dead issue between us, but’ it’s a memory that shines bright in my mind because really, I feel blessed to have had such a fun story to share. It reminds me of how alive I can fell when I’m just being me – talking hardcore and kissing boys. Hmmmm…. Sounds like a song in the making. Maybe I will start another band.
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The True Confessions of Miss Cookie LaWhore - by Miss Cookie LaWhore
Being a sex artist, I’m often misunderstood. So let’s get a few things clear, shall we?
I write candidly about my sex life because shame is a hateful waste of time. After 17 years in the closet, who wants to hide any longer? There’s nothing I do in the privacy of my bedroom, or elsewhere, that should shame me. There’s nothing about my body that I care to be ashamed of either.
So I show it off. I embrace what terrifies me and show the world, saying, Look at me! Look how simple this is. Look how obvious my dick is, my fucking, my fears, my lust and longing and love are.
I spent a decade, ten horrible years, too humiliated by my body to take my clothes off in front of another human being. Not my boyfriend (for 4 years, count them, 4, we only fucked in the dark), not my doctor, not friends, nor family, never.
So don’t tell me you can’t do it too. You could never show off your body/lust/sexlife. Sure, it’s not easy. I don’t do it cuz it’s easy, baby,
I do it cuz it’s hard.
cruisingzine@hotmail.com
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Thanks to the Avon Lady - by Billeh Nickerson
The first time I made myself cum was with the plug-in foot massager my mother purchased from our neighbourhood Avon Lady. In retrospect, that Avon Lady could have been one of two people: the elderly woman who always freaked out whenever I took my hamster out of its cage; or the younger, replacement Avon Lady who always referred to her husband as "the husband" and whose husband always called her "the wife." Thought I can't recall which woman was the catalyst for bringing the massager into my house, I do remember I was thirteen, the massager was Kermit-the-Frog green, and that when I came I thought I would die, right there on the carpet.
The French refer to orgasms as "le petit mort," "a little death". While this may be an apt description such aptness didn't comfort my thirteen year-old self. Whether it's a little death or a super jumbo death, death is death to thirteen year-olds.Especially when you're covered in a mysterious substance. If only Sesame Street had prepared me for such a moment, instead of teaching me how to say "water" in Spanish, I wouldn't have spent the next few days thinking I was slowly deflating like a balloon. I still feel let down by Big Bird and all his friends. I have yet to use the word "Agua" in conversation.
At that point in my life I'd only heard about cum; I'd never seen it, not even in a movie or magazine. I'd used it as a verb, an action, but never experienced it as a noun. The cartoon sperm that squiggled their way across the television screen during sex education class looked nothing like the stuff that covered my hands, arms and torso, not to mention the green foot massager. I thought sperm would look like a bunch of little sperm, not a cousin to the blob. For a few days cum became the scariest noun around. It wasn't until the second time I used the trusty foot massager that I realized cum could also signifying satisfaction.
I never thought about my first cum (wet dreams don't count, okay) until it came up in conversation with a group of friends. The conversation left me with rekindled appreciation for Avon. I miss Avon. I miss the various toiletries that littered my family bathroom. I miss my sister's girly perfumes and my father's musky soap-on-a-ropes. I miss the festive soaps shaped like snowmen and angels and even Valentine's Day hearts that always made me feel cleaner than when using ordinary soaps. I miss Avon calling.
Though it's been many years since that foot massager vibrated its last vibe on one of its two speeds-- good and really good-- I want to thank Avon for such a sturdy, reliable product. And I want to thank the two Avon Ladies that served my neighbourhood so well. Whether they knew it or not, they rocked my world.
Billeh@telus.net
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Greetings and Salutations from the Great White North - by Chris 'Punkylad'
?To keep you all updated on my travels, I am sending you an excerpt from my road journal. I'm not going to bore you right now with descriptions of the Rainbow Gathering, jewel encrusted night skies witnessed over glacial lakes, or remote and serene hot springs duly visited and throughly enjoyed. Instead, I'm cutting straight to the good stuff! My entry into the Port of Canada at Waterton.
CAUTION: Adult material is contained within! Parental discretion is strongly advised! (i.e. mom, I wouldn't show this to Dad--and if you find references to the male organ of reproduction offensive, you better not proceed past the first few paragraphs!) I also
apologize in advance for any typos, S/P's or grammatical ommisions in this text, as my time on this computer is limited, and the
purported 'ergonomic' keyboard in triping my fingers on a regular basis.
NOTE: Everything in this account is TRUE except for the part about the guns & drugs...
Heading north out of Glacier Park, Montana, I approached the Canadian border with both a twinge of dread and a naive enthusiasm that crossing at this remote National Park location would be a relative breeze. The border check was actually located inside the Glacier/Waterton Internation Peace Park. I would just file in line with the other tourists and campers, state my destination and lack of prohibited items, and be on my way, as I had many times before passing into Canada. But the highly decorated Burning Van had never before set forth so much as a tenuous rubber tread into Canadian bacon territory, and alas, a smooth transition was not in the stars (however beautifully arrayed), for this traveler.
When it became my turn at the inspection booth, I sensed behind the faux-friendly professional demeanor of the youngish officer, an immediate displeasure at the prospect of my entry into Alberta; and a deep misgiving about the stare emanating from Buddha's eyes painted on the back of my van--too discerning, perhaps.
Not only was I immediately--and inexplicably--accused of being from Illinois(!?), but I was also asked to pull aside and park, and wait for instructions from more officers. They made me stand in front of the van as they proceeded to search my entire, fully-loaded van inch by inch, box by box, bag by bag, bagel by bagel for the next 2 1/2 hours. It went fairly quickly because there were THREE inspectors involved, 2 male and one female.
The delay didn't bother me much; I was on no particular time schedule. I was annoyed, however, because the van was quite tidy, in anticipation of the border crossing. Plus, at all times, every piece of gear, bicycle and Buddha is carefully placed and strapped in via a complicated bungee-cord system to prevent stuff from shaking around while on bumpy roads. Functional Feng-shui indeed! I knew I'd be spending much more time just putting everything back in order.
After a VERY long period of poking, proding and prying with nylon clad fingers; sorting searching and sniffing suspiciously at every item from the mundane to the absurd, I felt a palpable and growing frustration on the part of the inspectors. The officers were frustrated, of course, because they found nothing illegal in the van, or on my person....yet!! I also began to feel certain that some sort of bonus system, or quota must be in effect; something that could explain their diligence among my dirty clothes, some possible motivation beyond mere mindless beaurocratic drudgery.Frustrating for them perhaps; but for those of you who are familiar with some of the many and varied contents of the Buddha-mobile, it proved quite amusing for me, and shall we say, 'educational' for the officers! It was worth every minute of delay just watching them attempt to maintain a professional countenance while examing items such as Barbie, dismembered and crucified on a black cardboard cross!
They opened every bottle, every tube, every incence & candle case, every candy wrapper and gum stick, and smelled them all-- presumably to ferret out illegal substances. Or maybe they just had a dirty sock fetish! It was hard for me to tell.
Finally, out of sheer frustration and spite I am sure, the ended up seizing my...cockrings!!! (This is where you might want to bow out, Mom). One of which was strapped around my Didjerido, (NO, not THAT one!), and another around my wrist. The officer, maintaining a straight face, cited them as illegal 'weapons.' I was speechless. What did these Canadians fear, exactly? Assault with a fully erect penis?!?
All I could surmise was that sexual frustration must run rampant among Canadian customs officers. Perhaps the image of the didjerido; that long, hard organic looking tube, augmented and firmed by a leather and steel strap threw them into a fit of jealous rage!
Then, with typical British style formality, I was issued a 'receipt' -in triplicate!- for my confiscated sexual-aids-nee-jewelry. Does anyone recall certain scenes from BRAZIL or CLOCKWORK ORANGE? I was also assured that the offending items would be promptly destroyed before they could cause harm--or undue sexual excitement, no doubt.
Shortly thereafter I was also taken into a private office and grilled further by a very handsome, but clearly impotent custom's official.
Official: "What is the purpose of your trip to Canada?"
Me: "Oh, well, I was bringing up these suitcases stuffed full of cash, heroin and semi-automatic weapons...because my van and
personal appearance are so inconspicuous!"
Official: "Those 'things' on your wrist are considered an assault weapon in Canada!"
Me: "I see. And that razor-sharp, ten-inch, Heinrich & Zwillinger butcher knife I saw one of your assistants pick up in my van isn't?!"
Official: "Correct."
Me: "Hmmm...."
Despite all this I did get my revenge in small ways. I had forgotten about a certain amber plastic jug I had long ago tossed underneath the driver's seat. (Jeff and Randy, you know where this is headed...) The female agent, whose fate it was to examine items in the cab of the van, found this; and as with all other sealed objects she encountered, removed the cap and inhaled. Her head snapped back. She quickly put the lid back on. Much later, when I had been released and was tidying up the van, she approached me and asked what was in the brown jug. My heart faltered at first, expecting some other violation being brewed up, but then I quickly and proudly answered:
"StaLe pRune JUice aND uRiNe, Ma'am!"
Her face froze as shades of green flickered across her cheeks. She mumbled something and walked away quickly.
Amazingly, for all their thoroughness, they didn't find my copy of Michael Swank's erotic male coloring book I had recently been given in San Francisco. It was placed beneath the carpeting in back as a precaution, but it was hardly well hidden.
If they had found THAT, and seen page after page of viral, well hung men with confident smiles and huge erections, God knows what consequences I might have suffered at (with) their hands! Strip search? Full body-cavity exam?? Yipee!! Well there is always U.S. customs waiting for my return!
However, as I understand United States inspectors are MUCH tougher on suspicious returning U.S. citizens, I think I will deposit my
coloring book disreetly near the rectory of the local Church of England. At least there I know it will be highly prized, if not positively worshipped!!
Ciao- Chris punkylad@yahoo.com
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Why Not a Rock? - by C. Bard Cole
When I got back to school for my senior year of college, I found out that some dumb cute boy my friend Daniel and I'd semi-lusted after together had o.d.'d in June; he'd sublet an apartment in the East Village and started messing around with heroin and got the bright idea to shoot up by himself, died, and wasn't found for two weeks. His ex-girlfriend had told someone, Daniel repeated, that she went by the building on 12th Street and found the chair he'd died in discarded on the street, some vomit and blood dried on it, caking strands of hair and maybe a bit of scalp to the stained upholstery. I didn't quite believe the whole story until Miranda showed up to get stoned in Daniel's room one night and produced a black 35 millimeter film canister from her little crocheted purse. She rattled it, then handed it to me. I opened it, dumped its contents into my hand - four shards of bone, three small and one large and thick and pointed. "That's probably from Justin's skull," she said of the bigger piece, a strange hazy smile on her face, "because it's so big. His folks divided his ashes up with everybody. I sorted mine out and mixed the ashy part up with some mushroom tea."
"You ate him?" Daniel asked incredulously.
"Well," she said, suddenly reasonable. "However much of it dissolved. The rest got washed down the sink, I guess."
"So Justin's now resting," Daniel mused, "in a Bronxville cesspool?"
"Oh no," she said, sucking on some strands of hair. "I did that at home. Besides, don't you think it's sewers up here? I mean, it is the suburbs."
She was probably right, I agreed.
"Besides, you should hear what Nayla did with her share." Nayla was the girl Justin had been dating after he broke up with Miranda. "She told me she dumped it right in the toilet and flushed it. My mother said that's bad karma but I'd guess she was only using up her extra credit. He probably comes out even because of that. What a fucker, man."
"Well, he did die," Daniel said.
Miranda shrugged. "It's practically suicide, in my book. Death by stupidity, anyhow. He'll come back as one of those underground funguses,
probably, the kind that live for a thousand years."
"Why not a rock?" Neither Daniel nor I believed in this new age crap. Miranda was just raised that way, she wasn't all that sincere about it. The child of hippies, for her it was like me talking about communion or Daniel talking about ham.
"No one gets reincarnated as a rock," she said. "We already have all the rocks."
"What about lava," Daniel said.
"What about lava," Daniel said.
"Well, you're right, of course. Th's new rock. It's still not alive, though. Justin's a fungus now, at best a worm. But wasn't he always?"
Some girls who'd only had vague crushes on Justin were sad that he'd croaked. I hoped I didn't get this shit when I died, people who barely knew me sad, all my friends joking about it.
"So when they cremate a body - " Daniel grilled Miranda about the gory details. "The skull explodes?"
"Certainly," she said. "I mean, they don't set the body on fire, it's in a metal casket, a sort of liner, and it slides into this oven; and the first thing is all the moisture in your body starts to evaporate and your bones pop, I guess sizzling but you probably can't hear that from the outside S"
I stood up and opened a window, letting that pot stench out. I didn't smoke much anymore, but Daniel was always doing bong hits; kids like Miranda were always finding his room, by the smell I presume.
"How do you know this?" I demanded finally. I mean, obviously she hadn't watched it, and I never remembered any elementary school field trips on this theme.
"It's just common sense," Miranda said, a little defensive. "If you can handle thinking about it." She put down the bong, holding in a big breath of smoke. With a snort and a laugh she blew it out in a thin stream. "Lava," she said. "Where does lava come from? Does it come from the center of the earth, has it been molten since the earth was made? Or is it made from other rocks melting? Who can tell me this?"
I felt bad for her. She looked sincerely worried for a moment. I said I bet it wasn't hard to find out, we could probably look it up in the library.
Miranda just shook her head. "I like wondering. I don't really want to know."
C. Bard Cole
cbardcole@earthlink.net
www.cbardcole.com
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Pride? - by Daryl Vocat
This year was the second time I have been involved with pride week events. The first time I was in the pride parade I wound up wandering through the streets of Toronto naked, meeting my boyfriend and having my whole world changed. At the time I lived in Regina where there was no pride parade and not a whole lot of pride week events at all. This year was my second time at the pride march in Toronto (I'm living here now) and the first year that Regina had an official pride march. In Toronto the crowds numbered somewhere near 800 000 people, in Regina estimates where at about 350.
Coming from Regina, a fairly conservative city with a population of about 220 000 people there was not a lot happening in the queer community. Most events revolved around the one gay bar there. This didn't really leave people with a lot of options and if you didn't care much for the bar you really weren't all that involved in anything queer. Things are moving around now and there are some great people working to change things for the better. All this is to say that I didn't lead a very gay lifestyle in Regina because the resources were not really there.
Now that I live in Toronto my life is very gay. We end up spending a lot of time in the gay village, going to naked dances, watching gay movies, looking at gay art and so on. It is fully possible to immerse yourself in queer culture when living in a city such as Toronto. When I came here for the first pride march I was amazed at all the options. I was amazed at the community that had been created here. I was amazed at how safe and easy it is and was to be out. I took back all of these things with me to Regina and destroyed and remnants of the closet that were left. I had become a lot more aware that yes, there are millions of queers out there and that I was not alone.
In a sense I kind of feel like I have become a bit jaded about the whole queer :"community" since I've moved here. In Toronto being queer is no big whoop. When there are pride events the whole town celebrates, and the streets are jam packed with homos. It's nice, but I tend to not care much for huge crowds. In Toronto pride strikes me as being one HUGE party. This is fine, and I do enjoy it, but I don't think this is where my agenda lies. The thing I can't get out of my mind is how corporate pride is. There are floats by Much Music, beer companies, makeup companies, and the like. I see these groups as squeezing out all the smaller, grass roots community groups and the homos being little more than another target market. When I was in Regina, this whole question of corporatization was not even an issue. There was no way some big company was going to take the chance of supporting the queer community in a smaller city, at least not publicly.
During this year's pride events I found myself wishing I was in Regina marching with those other 350 people for the first time. Here pride week is a given, it doesn't have to be political, and largely isn't. In Regina in order to have pride week there is always a struggle and some sort of opposition whether that be the "Christian Truth Activists" or city hall refusing to sign a proclamation for the week. In Regina and other small towns showing your pride cannot be separated from politics, and it is a risk. There is none of that whole "pride isn't political" attitude that seems more common in larger centres.
While I was living in Regina I kind of thought the whole queer "community" was a bit of a joke since there wasn't much of one. Now that I have a community that I can be part of I don't really feel like I want to. I miss the struggle of working to have a community. While it may be small, the people in Regina do seem to appreciate what they have. In Regina I felt much more of a sense of true community where most everyone queer knew everyone else. I suppose this can be quite stifling at times, but it doesn't feel quite as alienating to me in a sense. While I can't deny the power of having such a huge amount of resources available here there are times when I miss the strength of the community in Regina. After all of this discussion about "community" I have come to the realization that it takes a lot more than someone's sexuality to make me feel a connection to them. Just because a huge queer community exists here doesn't make me feel all that welcome a lot of the time. I miss the edginess of queer life in Regina. I suppose this explains part of my attraction to the nudists here who also face opposition. I feel like a lot of times I have to settle for a consumerist queer lifestyle and that's not what I'm about. Down with thecorporate homosexual agenda!
Take care
Daryl Vocat 241 Logan Ave. Toronto, ON. M4M 2N2. Canada.
safe23@hotmail.com
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Mr. Customer Service - by Mitch Fury
Recently, on a trip to San Francisco, I visited an S&M store called Mr. S which is sort of the Work Wear World of leather, latex, rubber and uniform clothing. A gigantic pleasure chest with an array of whipping, spanking, clamping and constraining toys and a huge cage, or as some chose to refer – playpen, to tease or please you with. Racks upon racks upon racks of fetish wear and accessories. They also happen to publish a catalogue of their items – complete with models clad in leather and latex to demonstrate the quality of their wares and to show exactly what the hell you are supposed to be doing with them. One of the models, Antonio, happens to also work in the store and quickly became the subject of my lust.
He sold me two cock-rings and after witnessing his fine cashiering skills, punching in the dollar amounts with such control – I was sold on him. I came back the next day to buy a third cock-ring – but he had called in sick so I was left to chat with his ever so friendly co-workers who seemed to be just as excited about the possibility of us two meeting up as I was. They gave me their $15 catalog, free of charge and then urged me to leave my description and email address - so I did.
On the initial first visit, I had left fantasizing what I should have said or should have done. Damn, I mean really, he smiled at me with such a coy look of intrigue, not just once but several times, and then casually uncovered the promotional catalogs that happened to be conveniently placed beside the cash register – they just so happened to coincidentally feature him on the cover. Being the dork I am, I didn’t catch it in time to realize he was inviting me to look at photos of him in bondage and leatherwear. I’m a bit slow that way I guess – innuendoes fly over my head with the wind. (It wasn’t until I had left the store that I figured it was him in the photos.) At the time I was simply in awe of the store, the toys, his hands and of course, his deep voice.
" That will be $12.86," he said, staring straight into my eyes, smiling devilishly.
Like a blubbering idiot, I just fumbled "Umm… oh… ah, yeah" as I pulled out a 10 and a 5.
As he managed my change with his stern precision, I anxiously thought of a quick question to engage a conversation – I realized my nervousness and tried to keep it cool.
"So, uh, what times are you guys open’til?"
"Seven" he replied, as he handed me my change.
"Cool, thanks" I said, like a geek.
Damn, I fucked up, and I knew it – not only did I ask a bland question but I cam across uninterested and boring. Why didn’t I ask him what time HE was getting off? At least then he would have known my intention. At least then he would have been able to say something fantasy like – something sexy like…
"With who?"
Where I could have responded…
"With me." My arms reaching over the counter towards his blue mechanic workshop overalls, where my hand slides between the buttons, finding one of his firm nipples while my mouth invites his deep wet kiss. He responds and greets me with his five o’clock shadow that scratches and burns my face as he tastes my tongue and presses into my mouth forcefully. His arms reaching across to me and under my armpits, quickly pulling me up and over the counter with rapid display of brute force. The catalogs, pens and inter-act thingy are innocent by-standers that fall to the floor with a clatter and a few bangs. I pull apart the buttons of his over-alls exposing his trimmed chest-hairs, sexy tummy and cleft between his chest muscles and stomach. His co-workers instantly take notice so he whispers into my mouth.
"Would you like to try on some of the merchandise?"
"Of course" I reply through a kiss.
Quickly, he forces me up and pushes me back to the other side of the counter where I had been standing. Instructing me to "get into the change room" I obey and within minutes I’m tearing off my clothes in an excited panic as customer service fits me into PVC chaps, rubber leg and arm restraints and ball stretchers with tugs, pulls and yanks as he does so. I am rock hard, and building with pressure – my head is a purple crimson and every vein is expanding. The want and need to touch myself grows at an exponential rate – I am forced to deny my pleasure as my arms are tied behind me. The torture and tease becomes an addicting mind-fuck. Each second - better than the last.
He forces me up against one of the walls from behind, my neck is crocked to the side, tightening the tension on the arm restraints he spits into the crack of my ass and tells me
"You… are… mine."
Pushing up against me, I can feel the bulge in his over-alls grinding into my ass, he chews on my ear as his hands pinch my nipples and then push slowly down and into my groin. My breath quickens as he grabs the ball stretcher and pulls downward in a slow but strong motion; he bites my neck as I moan.
I’m all his – excited, scared and exposed – wondering if there are hidden cameras in the change room to get "real live action photos" for the next catalog. Antonio lets go of my balls and steps back. Unable to move from my position in the change room and caught off guard by the sudden silence I simply ask
"What?" with wonderment and excitement, my heart beating a hundred miles per second, hoping he’ll respond with something much better than words.
"Nothing" he replies "I get off at 7, until then, keep your mouth shut or I’ll gag you"
"What if someone comes in?" I ask in astonishment
"What if?" he replies.
I almost blow my load right then.
This man has me in his control; I’m trapped and left to wait for my next command. Maybe a patron of the store will come in to try n some merchandise and take advantage of my situation. Maybe Antonio will invite his co-workers to take a fuck break – my head fills with fantasies of unknown hands, mouths and tongues exploring me bound body as I’m forced to endure the torture and teasing of my predicament. This is exactly where I want to be – except for one thing – it’s just a fantasy.
I fantasized this after my initial meeting with Mr. Customer Service, right up to the point of my return to buy the third cock-ring. I wanted it so bad – but as I mentioned earlier, he called in sick and I left him my description and my email address.
-Mitch Fury
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My Favourite Fag - Trish Kelly
I think I was going to write something about how Michael V. Smith asks about my tits like other people ask about your children. Or maybe I was going to write about my favorite fags at my place of work and how they’ve promised to let me be their houseboy when they decide they need one.
No, I was definitely going to write something about when me and MVS were on our way to Comox, BC to do a reading. We were sitting at the bus stop on the corner of Georgia and Granville waiting for the West Van bus and at first it was a little weird because we’d never been out together before, and here were going out of town for a whole weekend. As we were chatting, this woman approached us with an offer of free publications of a biblical sort, and we politely declined. She offered again, and MVS informed her that we were probably the worst people for her to talk to, and she asked why. I started laughing in a squeaky way, like the springs of an old mattress, and the woman stared at me while Michael explained that we were very cultured, non-religious and very homosexual. She unglued her eyes from my squeaky face long enough to make eye contact with my impeccably dressed bald fag friend and say, “Together?” And while I began to choke, Michael explained that we homosexuals usually do pair off, strength in numbers etc. And the poor woman stood there, so fascinated by our fascinatingness, that she could not see she was being dismissed. Michael had to tell her it was time for her to run along.
That was when I decided I wanted to marry him. Like a Bebo Brinker novel, except that we wouldn’t live in the Village, we’d live in a small BC town, scandalizing people on a regular basis with our cheeky perverted ways. Because I don’t really believe in holy unions, but I am terribly excited by alliances and wars against normalcy, and I’m even willing to sacrifice happily ever after if it means I can fuck with people’s heads on a daily basis. I would be willing to marry a totally great fag with fashion sense and a big mouth, even though he’s as terrified of my tits as he is respectful of my wicked mind just to be able to say that my union actually does something besides consolidate finances.
Because I will never forget the day that I described MVS as a sex radical and his eyes got so big and he said “You think I’m a sex radical?” like I’d just told him he’d won the Miss America pageant. And I nodded enthusiastically because I’m one too, and sometimes it messes with our dating possibilities, but we have each other and this shared identity is worth more than a girlfriend’s wardrobe, or a kitchen full of wedding presents. And even though neither of us gets as much action as our public thinks, yes, we are radical. Radical in the eighties sense of the word because we are fantastic, and radical in the present definition because we are never middle about anything, but scream so loud from the periphery that people have to remember there is more than a center. We may be ambiguous, but we are not muddled; and sometimes when you mix up all the colors you get brown, but sometimes you get a hologram.
Trish Kelly
trishkellyex@yahoo.com
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Old Punk Ass - by The New Congress
I was taking a shower when Morris came into the can, then right away backed out. He is a balding guy in his early forties who is a nellie friend of my flat mates and he was kinda crashing on our couch. Morris has been on the punk scene for a very long time, and it really shows. Late nights, drugs, booze, you get the picture. His face looks like it’s been ran over by life and his heavily tattooed and pierced body; well it isn’t what it may have once been either. Not ugly, but his best before date had passed quite a while ago.
I had been soaping my cock, and I wondered if it gave him a thrill to see someone as young as me appearing to be whanking his dick. I also thought about his thin lips and wondered if he ever sucked cock.
As I walked down the hall from the bathroom I could hear the Pansy Division playing real loud in the living room. That’s where I found him; he was half bent over the cheste rfield .His eyes were closed, and he was spanking his monkey with one hand, while two fingers of his other hand jabbed in and out of his ass. I really love ass-fucking and got real hard real fast.
Suddenly, he opened his eyes. He got real nervous seeing me standing there, hiding his surprisingly small prick for someone his size. Morris
sputtered “Never let anyone know what you just saw me doing”.
I boldly walked up to him dropping my towel and said “ I’m not going to tell anyone nothing, but doesn’t this look better than those fingers?”
He stared at my cock, then quickly bent over the arm of the couch. I spread his cheeks to have a look at his hair covered crack with his rosy hole.
It was real easy to work my cock in, and it was snug and smooth. I took possession of that old asshole with long, hard strokes. He just murmured under his breath, shit I couldn’t make out. He was lost in his own world.
His buns were soft and flabby, and spread with every deep plunge my cock made. I ran my free hand under his body to grab at his sagging pecs, and found he had a pair of tits a lot of women would want.
He kept pushing back on it, wanting every inch of my big cock. “Shoot your load into me kid” he panted. He began wriggling his ass frantically.
I really gave it to him hard now, pinching his nipples to make him jump and jerk on my prick. He let out a series of deep moans and I knew he was cumming as his chute tightened on my shaft. I began to shoot my jizz. I jammed in deep, and he quivered in short back and forth strokes, milking me dry.
His flabby ass made a rude sound as I pulled out. After washing-up the mess all over me I returned to the room only to find him rubbing the corns on his stinking feet with Ben Gay to dull the pain. Morris then put on his size 14, worn out high-heeled women’s shoes. He was just so happy about what had happened that he had to dance around the room shakin' his thing. Outwardly, I urged him on but inside I was laughing so very hard, I was afraid it would show.
The whole experience was just one of those strangely pleasurable, utterly spontaneous, yet totally depraved sort of things I like to do every now and then, like the night I fucked a baby seal. But that my friends is another story...
nt@thenewcongress.com
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Raw Jack Off - Johnny Hardway
still to be transcribed
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Reviews - by Faggo
Cotton Mouth Kisses - Clint Catalyst
It's not often that a book hits you upside the head - and leaves you with a smile on your face. Harsh, twisted and tweaked - delinquency, drugs, and sex. A small town USA goth/industrial kid writing from the edges and barely surviving. The language is real, the scenerios are vivid - a collection of short stories and poems about the darker side of life. Honest and real, funny and gripping. Refreshing in its chaos. - Manic D Press Box 410804 SF, CA 94141 USA www.manicdpress.com info@manicdpress.com
Briefly Told Lives - C. Bard Cole
A collection of short love & loss stories with diverse characters in real rough-around-the-edges circumstances. Intriguing & engaging, I was drawn into each character - most of which have delightfult non-mainstream personalities and backgrounds (punkers, druggies, artists, mixed race, physically-challenged, poor). This book is like a great zine that you read again and again and then lend to your friends - which is why I'm glad it's a book, i would want it to get lost in a box of zine from yester-year. A definate stand-out! Highly recommended.
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Hey Punk.... Make Your Own Scene - by Rufus Poser
“There’s absolutely nothing going on where I live – what can I do to get a scene happening?”
- posting to the queerpunk@egroups.com list
It’s hard to believe that a mere two years have passed since a group of people sitting in a circle on the floor decided they were going to create a queer punk alliance. Since that time Vancouver’s Queer Punk Collective has shaken the city up with two festivals, ten zines, a
listserve, a phone-line, a video, a band, road-shows and some of the best parties going in this sleepy town. In hindsight it doesn’t seem like it was that hard to pull off, but before the collective came together I had just about given up on the city.
In the summer of 1999 I was endlessly bitching to Kim about how much I hated Vancouver nightlife. When I first arrived in town I couldn’t believe it was even a city. The streets are deserted after 8:00 pm, the cheesy gay bars are the cheesiest I’ve ever been to, and the liquor laws are so backward it’s amazing there are any bars at all. Worse, just about the time I showed up many of the places that let bands put on shows started packing up their stages. And so I would complain to anyone who would listen.
Kim in the meantime was trying to figure out what his next project would be. The band he had been in for a good part of the 1990’s had been put to rest and he was working over the details of Faggo in his mind. My constant bitching about the city must have triggered something (or else he just wanted me to shut up) because one day while I was in mid rant he smiled and like a true punk rock guru said: “Be the scene, Rufus. Be the scene.”
Kim and I had had long conversations about how we were both longing for a gathering where all the queer punk boys would come out and play. We’d see the cute queer punk boys all over town (we’d even follow them sometimes) and maybe once a year at Out On Screen there’d be a theatre full of them, but as soon as the lights came on everyone would hightail it out of there and disappear.
It was better for dykes. Vancouver has a long tradition of kick ass lesbians in the underground (and now also a burgeoning trannie-boi scene) that puts on amazing nights like Rock For Choice and the File This Cabarets. People like Trish Kelly (Make Out Club zine), Jonah and Denise would bridge the queer world with the broader punk community through shows and spoken word nights. There was also the boys from The New Congress who were starting to put out their zines, and The House of Venus had just started their first club night. But we wanted something specifically for the punk fags.
So Kim started working on Faggo as a boy thing and to launch it at a party tagged onto a Bruce La Bruce premiere as a way of luring them out to a fun filled evening. It worked, we packed the Sugar Refinery with cute boys and punk dykes, sold all our zines while Stephen Kent Jusick shot an impromptu porno right in the middle of the dance floor. We were a hit and we’d scored a hundred email addresses and phone numbers of people who were interested in doing more. Our little experiment worked, we knew we could get the boys out so the next thing to do was to ride the hype and build a bridge between the various scenes. Kim put out the call.
Lee at the Helen Pitt said we could use the gallery space and about twenty people showed up to the first meeting. It was a diverse group, agewise, politicalwise, with slightly more dykes than fags. It was so cute, we were all shy talking about what kind of scene we’d like to have and by the end of the night, sitting in a big circle on the floor we had named ourselves the Queer Punk Collective and were already working on our first festival, “Taking The Piss…”
In hindsight, it’s amazing how productive and easy going those meetings were. We were all really respectful of one another. Each time we had a meeting new people would show up and we would take turns reciting our mission: “Anyone can be part of the qp collective. We exist merely to take back the nightlife. Anyone who has an idea and who is willing to see it through can get help to make it happen. Collectively we can get spaces donated, printing costs reduced, posters created and distributed, press coverage, word of mouth,
volunteers to work the night, etc all in a loving punk environment.”
We began meeting at the end of 1999 and on Valentines day 2000 Taking The Piss… took Vancouver by storm opening at the Sugar Refinery with the HEART ATTACK cabaret hosted by Lee. Pure bliss. For two weeks we had people calling the info line, emailing the list serve, going all over town for low or no cost events that included cabaret, readings, gallery showings, video nights, house parties and bands. Every event was hosted by different people while the rest of us took turns at the door or the bar. I was blown away by the energy and creativity of Denise, Lisa, Mandy, Danita, Lalani, Frederick, Blain, Laura, Trish, Sarah, Shelby, Max, shit a ton a people whose names I forget. Out of towners helped out like Louis Jacob (who brought the JDs show from Toronto and let us tag him on as an event) and SKJ who sent down a whole stack of videos from New York. It was
exciting. I was no longer complaining about Vancouver being lame.
Lots of great memories. The Skate Joust on the friggin Molson Indie Track. The crew that put the event together went all out with a
barbecue and tunes and prizes. I found myself pedaling a bmx with some kid strangling me from behind in order to stay on while he took out our opponent with a blast from a giant water gun. Another great moment was watching Lisa G’s first Barbie video that she’d put together for her event. Or the Freaky Perv Zine Launch where we showcased new issues of four QPC produced zines: The Make Out Club, Sarah Hunt’s Homo’s Halfbreeds & other Heroes, Faggo and Poser, and I got to perform my poser-porno-philosophy to a packed house.
Two weeks of bliss that went by so quickly. When it was over we barely wasted any time and soon we were back on the floor at the Pitt planning an event for the summer. We had successfully mobilized a scene and there were now regular parties happening and shows where over the list serve or word of mouth you could count on a couple of hundred queer punks showing up. There were lots of new faces at the meetings. We decided it was time to take our special blend of diy madness to a wider audience and set about planning an all out queer underground assault onto the increasingly mainstream and mundane Pride and Out On Screen festivals a mere five months away.
The new festival, Perv Kamp 2000 (PK2K), started out as ambitious as Taking The Piss… , but as the summer progressed it became more and more difficult to sustain people’s enthusiasm for putting on events. What we did manage to pull off was major – for good and bad.
For me PK2K really started out at the post Pride parade festival in the park at the Freaky Perv Zine Table. Thousands of people casually shopping for rainbow everything and there is Miss Cookie LaWhore and I screaming “Support yer local pornographers!” Miss Cookie had had so much fun coming out to Taking The Piss… that she joined up and put together her filthy zine Cruising just for the festival. Five tables away from the Premier of the province and we’re yelling things like “the only zine that comes with a sex toy, drive your auto-fellatio home today,” and “get your definitive guide to park sex here!”
There were a few parties, most memorable being the half baked Male Blonding Party that turned into a giant game of multigendered spin-the-bottle.
Probably the hardest thing we’ve ever done as a group was put together the Punk As Fuck Video Fanzine. I’d never shot video before and had a camera for all of 12 hours, nothing prepared and had to edit as I shot. It was a gas and everything came together fabulously at Video In one night when we mixed in sound. The video is one of the most enduring artifacts of the collective which you can still get yer hands on. We’d managed to pull off an 11th hour deadline to get the fanzine submitted to Out On Screen. Our plan was to premiere the Punk As Fuck Video Fanzine at the Punk As Fuck screening we were hosting (with other queer punk offerings generously donated by SKJ) and then cut loose at the Punk As Fuck Afterparty at the Sugar Refinery or “dancing on the wet spot of last years FAGGO PARTY” as one flyer put it.
Punk As Fuck didn’t exactly go off smoothly. For one thing Kim was away in New York and I’d never attempted anything so public without him. One thing after another started to go wrong. Sound problems in the middle of the screening, an impromptu dominatrix floor show which caused a public rift within the collective, and a scary drag queen, Sister Fuck, who’s way more punk than I’ll ever hope to be, hijacking the screen with self-shot super 8 porn. It was PUNK AS FUCK! and I was starting to lose it.
But things just got worse. We piled 20 people into a VW Van and scraped our way over the Granville Street bridge to the Sugar Refinery. There was already a line up of our friends down the stairs and out the door. Climbing through the crowds at the top of the stairs was a door person who informed me that they’d recently been busted by the fire department and so were strictly enforcing the number of people they would let into the club. There were 300 people waiting outside and they were only going to let in 43. The place was already full with a bunch of metal heads who were refusing to leave. I started drinking. I started smoking. But then Sister Fuck stood up in the middle of the room and let herself get fucked silly by the dominatrix with a glass dildo and spray cheese while singing at the top of her lungs, “Mercy Fuck! Mercy Fuck!” She then offered the metal heads a chance to taste the spray cheese from her soiled fingers and they raced for the doors, emptying the club in a flash so our friends could start coming in. I started laughing and didn’t stop till five in the morning. Punk As Fuck, ho-ly-shit.
The last event in PK2K was Skank, strippers and poets in the seedy back bar of the Dufferin hosted by Miss Cookie, Billeh and myself, and featuring performers from across the underground. Skank was a magically dirty night, a great tribute to the Dufferin the skankiest bar in town.
After PK2K the collective regrouped and shied away from festivals for awhile and instead began working on different single evening events and parties. Many of the original qp collective members have branched out onto bigger projects of their own.
Lisa spent the last year working on her feature, She’s So Gay, with many cameos from the QPC, Frederick aka Sister Fuck continues to make videos, gets his art shown regularly and makes the odd appearance in Bruce La Bruce’s column, Trish organizes bigger and better spoken word events, Denise and Meegan continue to put on Rock For Choice, Mandy and the Church of Pointless Hysteria keep coming back etc, everyone who came together under the QPC banner continue to make the underground thrive.
Cookie and Billeh have gone on to recreate Skank twice since PK2K, and they signed a book anthology deal of the same name and are taking the show on the road.
Kim found another musical outlet with the Skinjobs which headlined at a QPC event Edge Of Human at the old Chuck’s Pub. The band honed their skills over the past year playing some local shows, getting on a queer punk compilation and putting out a three song cd.
Two years after the first Faggo Party, members of the Queer Punk Collective got together for their latest event by storming the US border with the Skinjobs to play the queer punk fest Bent in Seattle. I’d sent an email out to the queerpunk @ egroups list that they would recognize QPC members because we’d be the ones running all over Seattle with our eyes blacked out like Darryl Hannah in Blade Runner. The band (and the go-go drag dancers) played a legendary set and people were coming up to us all night long saying they’d read our zines and heard about the collective over the internet.
Will the Queer Punk Collective ever do another festival. Who cares? The underground nightlife in Vancouver is thriving and the various people and scenes are working together and trying to outdo one another, and lots of new people in town are putting on shows and being validated with enthusiastic crowds eager to push limits, get down and dirty and have fun. Vancouver has turned it on so much bigger than I ever imagined. Amazing. Because all it took was saying “fuck it” and suddenly everyone started diving in with their own ideas and energy.
And it’s still happening. Let me close with this email from a newcomer to the qpcollective @ egroups listserve:
“Hey Y’all, The sleaze ball (House of Venus) was a blast!!! It was nice to see people out there having a great time and making Vancouver only that much cooler. Maybe some o y'all would like to throw a party of sorts along the same line. I have some ideas.”
- By Rufus Poser
rufusposer@hotmail.com
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