REMEMBERING MONTREAL THEATRE LEGEND ROGER PEACE

February 12, 2017, 2:54 pm

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Chris Barillaro recording the Curtains Up theme with Roger Peace (Photo courtesy Curtains Up)

Following a lengthy battle with cancer, legendary Canadian theatre director Roger Peace died peacefully in the palliative care unit at the Montreal Jewish General Hospital on February 10.

Peace brought his love for live musical theatre to North America when he sailed from London to Montreal in 1957 aboard the ocean liner SS Columbia at the age of 21 and experienced the tail-end of Montreal’s famed and infamous golden Sin-City era.

Roger Peace

The Montreal theatre scene wasn’t quite London’s West End, where Peace had landed a bit part in the musical Call Me Madam at the London Coliseum in 1952 at the age of 16. But he spent much of his professional life as a director and producer casting larger-than-life divas in his productions, notably his longtime muse, Montreal jazz legend Ranee Lee, and another of his favourites, soul singer Michelle Sweeney.

When another glorious diva, Juno Award-winning soul singer Kim Richardson, starred in his 2013 revival of Ain’t Misbehavin’ at the Segal Centre for Performing Arts, theatre critic Pat Donnelly wrote in the Montreal Gazette that Peace “directed Montreal’s first Ain’t Misbehavin’ at Le Stage dinner theatre at La Diligence restaurant in 1986. That one ran for more than a year and did a Canadian tour. There were only four singers, Michelle Sweeney, Ranee Lee, Dorian Joe Clark and Anthony Sherwood, with musical director Ari Snyder alone on piano.”

“We couldn’t afford a fifth performer,” Peace said.

Lee also starred in Peace’s hugely successful production of Lanie Robertson’s Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill, which premiered at Club Soda at the Montreal International Jazz Festival in 1987. Lee’s performance as Billie Holiday in “Lady Day” would earn her a Dora Mavor Moore award after a lengthy run in Toronto. They would collaborate again, at the Segal in 2013, when Lee starred in The Mahalia Jackson Musical, written and directed by Peace (it was his 106^th production).

The 1986 cast of Ain't Misbehavin'

Peace also wrote Piaf: Love Conquers All for Montrealer Patsy Gallant, and the acclaimed production won the Toronto Fringe Festival Award as Most Popular Show, The New York Fringe Festival Award for Best Musical and went on to a three-month run Off-Broadway.

Peace also wrote and directed the superb Songs and Stories of Judy Garland, which premiered at the Segal in 2014, starring Denise Rose as Judy Garland, based on Garland’s smash-hit performance at the Montreal Forum on October 29, 1961 – her one and only concert in Montreal. In the musical, Garland gives an interview to a magazine reporter backstage before the show begins.

“Oh my God, every queen in Montreal will be there!” I told Roger, who smiled.

“Oh, I hope so!” he said.

The musical arrangements for the Garland show were by Montreal pianist Chris Barillaro, who also co-starred in and was musical director of the Segal’s 2015 revival (by Montreal’s Copa de Oro Productions) of the hit 1990 Stuart Ross ensemble musical Forever Plaid about four guys killed in a car accident on their way to their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show. Interestingly, Peace – who directed the musical – did a mime act as Mr. Pastry on the Sullivan show in the mid-1960s.

“I was very young and didn’t understand how important (playing the Sullivan Show) was until I started doing tours,” Peace told the Montreal Gazette. “And the signs would say “as seen on” or “directly from” the Sullivan show. I did a tour with Jimmy Durante. It was Jimmy Durante and Mr. Pastry. I had no idea how it was going to impact on my life.”

Roger Peace and Ranee Lee

Meanwhile, after his successful collaborations with Peace, Barillaro would sing the theme song for the popular Montreal arts and entertainment website Curtains Up (which I contribute to), a song written by Peace with orchestration by renowned jazz pianist Taurey Butler (watch the making-of videoclip below).  

“Roger was a consummate professional who loved and lived musical theatre,” says veteran Montreal theatre critic Sharman Yarnell, who co-founded Curtains Up. “He loved Montreal and the small but vibrant theatre community here. Tuesday and Thursday nights he usually spent at our home having wine and nibblies – and he and (my late husband, actor) Walter (Massey) would talk of nothing but Broadway of the 50s and 60s. After Walter died, Roger looked after me. It is as simple as that. He was a true and steadfast friend who was always there for me. I will miss his caring face, his laughter, and gentle ways more than can be put in words.”

Another old friend, Michelle Sweeney, says Peace was one of the most ardent supporters of her career from the very beginning.

Photo from the Roger Peace Showcase page on Facebook features three of his favourite star performers: Patsy Gallant, Ranee Lee and Geraldine Doucet

“What Roger did for me when I first came to Montreal – when we did Ain’t Misbehavin’ I was the young kid in the group, then he asked me to do Eubie with Geraldine Hunt – he started me off,” says Sweeney. “We did a lot of television together, he was my agent as well as my friend, and when I was in Kazakstan, we tried to write The Etta James Show. He was a great friend, both he and (his spouse) Pierre (Dr. Pierre-Paul Tellier), and I sang at many parties at their house. I learnt to sing Send in the Clowns because of them, for their wedding (on July 30, 2005).”

Shortly before Peace passed away, Sweeney visited her old friend in hospital and sang him Send in the Clowns one more time: “I sang a little bit to him, he heard me and he smiled, he gave me a little laugh and I told him that I loved him.”

Michelle Sweeney performing at the House of Jazz in August 2013.  Seated at the front table (L to R): Roger Peace, Sharman Yarnell, Walter Massey and Dr. Pierre-Paul Tellier (Photo by Richard Burnett)

On her Facebook page, Peace’s longtime artistic muse Ranee Lee wrote on February 12, “I am by no means alone in the grief of the dimmed light for a rare and lovely flower-being, who is Roger Peace. His quiet heroism is now the apex of his many contributions. I am one of the many beneficiaries of his generous and courageous spirit and part of the bouquet of so many flowers that he has Artistically Arranged. We will miss you Roger, but I will carry you in my heart for the rest of my journey. Thank you.”

Peace had other works in development, notably The Magic of Marlene, based on the life of Marlene Dietrich, and a show on Shirley Bassey.

The 2013 cast of Ain't Misbehavin' (Photo courtesy Segal Centre)

Peace and I had talked about his Dietrich show because an old friend of mine, Montrealer John Banks, was 15-years-old when he met Dietrich backstage during her run at Her Majesty's Theatre in Montreal back in 1960. In a memorable story, Dietrich hired Banks on Halloween night when he sassed back at her, and he became her personal assistant for the next 12 years. I offered to introduce John to Roger, but the timing was wrong.

But there was no doubting Roger's love for the great divas of song and stage.

“I do love my larger-than life divas,” Roger once told me. “I’ve always been attracted to writing for women, and directing women. I just can’t get excited about a Dean Martin or Frank Sinatra. But Piaf, Dietrich or Judy Garland? It’s so much easier and more fun writing musicals about these extraordinary women.”

Not to mention casting the likes of Ranee Lee, Michelle Sweeney and Kim Richardson.

“I’ve been extraordinarily lucky,” Roger said.

Dr. Pierre-Paul Tellier and Roger Peace at the House of Jazz, August 2013 (Photo by Richard Burnett)

Peace is survived by his beloved spouse, renowned Montreal physician Dr. Pierre-Paul Tellier, who posted on Facebook that a Celebration of Life Memorial will be held in Montreal this spring.

When Peace passed away, Tellier wrote, “This has been a rough day! Roger always said ‘You are never too poor to not have a bottle of champagne in the fridge for an emergency!’ This is an emergency! I will miss him so, but I must move on and honour his soul by adding more fun in my life.”

My heartfelt sympathies to Dr. Pierre-Paul Tellier and to Pierre and Roger’s friends and family. Thank you, Roger, for entertaining us all over many decades. Sleep well.

Visit Curtains up for news on the Roger Peace Celebration of Life Memorial, at curtainsup.tv.  

Click here to read more about Roger Peace in the Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia.

Twitter.com/bugsburnett

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LES BALLETS TROCKADERO DE MONTE CARLO KEEP ON TROCKIN'

February 19, 2017, 6:20 am

≫ Next: MALE PHYSIQUE PHOTOGRAPHER HERB KLEIN TURNS HIS LENS ON LOST GAY SOUTH AFRICA

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Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo was founded in 1974 (Photo courtesy Ballets Trockadero)

It was one of the greatest entrances of all time: Montreal drag queens Mado Lamotte and Madame Simone waited until the last possible moment to step into their private loge at Place des Arts to see Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo some years ago, just before the red curtain went up.

Then the 3,000 people in Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier turned their heads to watch Mado and Madame Simone – who resembled Marie Antoinette, Queen of France during the French Revolution – and let out a collective gasp.

It was like a command performance.

But when it comes to entrances, no one beats Les Ballets Trockadero, or "Les Trocks" as they are more affectionately known. Back in the 1980s, during a performance at UCLA, the curtain actually fell onto the stage!

"We were in the middle of a dance from Don Quixote and the curtain fell and half of us could have been killed!" says Les Trocks artistic director Tory Dobrin, who originally joined the company as a 26-year-old dancer back in 1980. "Boom! It nearly took out the front row! Dust was flying all over. It was pretty funny, actually. The crew just picked up the curtain, we dusted ourselves off and started again!"

Les Trocks selfie, circa 2017

Les Trocks were officially founded back in September 1974 when the company’s first-ever performance was held in a second storey loft theatre (filled with about 100 folding chairs) on 14th Street in NYC’s meat-packing district.

One of my fave stories about Les Trocks is about the first time the company played a prestigious outdoor festival at the Alhambra, a 14th century Moorish palace in Grenada, Spain, in the mid-1980s: No one told Grenada high society that the NYC dance company was made up of gay men who perfectly parody classical ballet in drag.

"The audience was extremely well-dressed in sequin dresses and jewels and we came out and started the performance and you could see they were all in shock!" says Dobrin. "So they just got up and left! It was a massive exodus! And it wasn’t calmly – they were running!

"It turns out they thought we were Les Ballets of Monte Carlo, not Les Ballets Trockadero! The next night – because, of course, word had gotten out about what had happened – we had the biggest audience we ever had!"

While they make headlines wherever they go, they aren’t exactly rolling in the dough. "You don’t go into the dance world thinking you’re going to make a fortune," Dobrin says. "We have a limited amount of resources. Sometimes our credit card bill reaches close to $100,000! Is that scary? Oh yeah!"

Les Trocks, as the company is affectionately known

The day after Dobrin auditioned as a dancer back in 1980, he was immediately hired and next day flew with the company for a stint in Brazil. But back then young male dancers didn’t think of Les Trocks as a dance company of choice.

"When I joined the company people asked me, ‘Why are you doing that? It will ruin your career!’ Today guys are now auditioning for the company right out of Juilliard! Les Trocks is now considered an acceptable career choice for a dancer."

That doesn’t mean straight male dancers are auditioning for Les Trocks, however. In other words, there is still some stigma attached to being a dancer for Les Trocks. After all, many folks still think they’re a bunch of dancers in drag.

But that couldn’t be further from the truth. And just because pretty much everybody in the company is gay doesn’t mean there’s a lot of drama backstage either.

"We’re all gay guys [but] there are no frayed nerves backstage, there is no drama – we don’t allow it," Dobrin insists. "We hire people who tend to be eccentric characters and when you put together a group of 15 individual personalities, you really need everyone to respect everybody else to make it work."

O

Essential buttplug Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo perform at Place des Arts’ Theatre Maisonneuve on February 18 and 19, 2017. For tickets, visit placedesarts.com or showoneproductions.ca.

MALE PHYSIQUE PHOTOGRAPHER HERB KLEIN TURNS HIS LENS ON LOST GAY SOUTH AFRICA

March 14, 2017, 4:30 pm

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Photographer Herb Klein’s new book Lost Gay South Africa

The irrepressible Herb Klein is a pioneering male physique photographer from Zimbabwe who, after moving to South Africa in the 1970s, shot the first full-colour nude gay magazine on the continent.

I discovered Klein’s work alongside his contemporaries Herb Ritts and Bruce Weber in David Leddick’s great 1998 compendium The Male Nude, then later on DVD when screening his gay adult films Here Comes Santa and Tango City, which he directed under his porn-director name, Flash Conway.

No question, the man has an eye an eye for talent and readers will enjoy his photos of beautiful men in his newly-published photo-filled book Lost Gay South Africa. I recently sat down with Klein for a candid Q&A.

Three Dollar Bill: Why did you decide to make this book?

Herb Klein: Well I have this wealth of material gathered over many decades. So I thought I would start a Facebook page to share it with friends near and far.

Why did you call your book Lost Gay South Africa?

Photographer Herb Klein

I canvassed my membership from the Facebook page asking for name suggestions. A friend in London said how about emulating Lost Gay London, a popular Facebook page in England.

You once told me, “I’ve always been a people photographer. I picked up a camera when I was six because Dad was too drunk to take a photo.” How did you decide to become a male physique photographer?

Correction: It’s true that dad was a little unsteady when taking family pictures with the Kodak Box Brownie after a whiskey or two so I took up the task.

The male physique photography came about because of the very strict laws prevailing in South Africa at the time regarding the importing of any adult books, films or magazines from abroad. The law didn’t say that one could not create materials locally. We only had the Publications Act which covered the prohibition of “obscene materials” without actually being clear on what exactly constituted obscene material.

I tested this in court once when in my own defense after having some of my “smuggled” stuff seized. I told the young lady prosecutor that as the law stood the definitions were vague and subjective. She was trying to get an admission out of me that some of the magazines were pornographic and I was not going to budge. She even pulled opened a page showing a close up of an erection and said, “Well what about this then?”

I said, “No, it’s not pornographic.”

“What is it then?” she asked.

“Well,” I said,  “it resembles medical photography. It’s not pornographic.”

The handsome young magistrate was extremely amused and kept asking to look at the materials. Finally the case was thrown out and I even got to keep some of the confiscated stuff. After that I approached anyone I wanted for a shoot and most were delighted to strip off for the camera.

You have an eye for capturing male beauty. What is it you look for in a model?

Well youth is more photogenic and I prefer the natural boy next door look. Not too buffed. No shaving of body hair. Latterly the craze for overdoing tattoos and totally shaved pubes completely destroys the subliminal sexiness inherent in the natural look.

You moved from Zimbabwe to South Africa in the 1970s and began shooting male-physique calendars and mail-order photo sets in a region where homo-erotica was not permitted. What was it like for you to shoot the first full-colour gay nude magazine on the continent, as well as launch the modeling careers of many black men in South Africa?

Photo from Lost Gay South Africa (Herb Klein)

I left Rhodesia (now called Zimbabwe) for South Africa in the early 1970s. Hunk photography for me only began in the early 1980s. Before that I worked at many jobs and did a tremendous amount of traveling around the globe. My magazine called FLASH came out in the mid 1990s. I can’t say that I launched the careers of many black men. There certainly were a few who took my advice and got work in fashion.

My FLASHmagazine was enthusiastically embraced in South Africa. It was pioneering and so I did not get rich from that. To many who lived in small towns it was a lifeline. This was before the days of the Internet.

What was gay life like in South Africa for you in the 1980s and 1990s?

For me it was a ball. I have lots of pictures in my book and anecdotes from people who lived through it.

Was gay life segregated along colour lines back then?

Officially there were laws which kept the different groups apart but these were largely ignored in the LGBT community. I can never remember a person of colour – as the euphemism went – being thrown out of a club because they were black. In my book I do have pictures of a variety of hot people.

There are a lot of changes in the present time and I am not sure that I am qualified to evaluate. I think that it is becoming generic and interchangeable with a Western model. The Internet and all its attractions are here, and black men here are driving expensive cars and wearing designer clothing. There has been an exodus of an entire generation as opportunities for a young white male are dramatically reduced due to an aggressive affirmative-action policy and quotas in the work place. So this has bred many entrepreneurs who are doing well for the most part in spite of the challenges posed by a high crime rate and a kleptocracy in government.

Your book includes audio from Granny Lee. Who is Granny Lee and why was she important?

Granny Lee (Photo by Herb Klein)

Granny Lee was a much beloved gender bender disco icon of the 1980s. She was flamboyant, could swear like a sailor and was kind and funny and entertaining. Interestingly, she was not white. I have a huge section of her in my book including a recording of an interview I did months before she died.

Did you lose a lot of friends to HIV/AIDS?

I lost my dearest friend in 1987. Yes there were others who were lost. The old days were great. I am a different person now and have a better filter to keep the psychopaths out. I live in the moment.

What is like to have your work included alongside such other seminal photographers as Robert Mapplethorpe and Bruce Weber in the essential 800-page book The Male Nude by David Leddick?

It was flattering and really boiled down to luck. I believe there were countless other photographers who were equally deserving.

One of your adult-film / model discoveries was Jorge Schmeda – later better-known as porn star Max Schutler – in Buenos Aires in 2005 when you cast him in your movie TANGO CITY. What was he like, and what are your thoughts on his recent death?

Jorge was a sweetie and I knew the moment I met him that he had star power. I wish I had done more films with him but my Hollywood distributor “was unable to generate sufficient money from my eminently bankable star” and, despite Jorge’s entreaties for me to return to Buenos Aires to shoot more films – as he had scores of cute friends anxious to star – I was unable to. TANGO CITY’s income did not cover its costs. So Jorge with my blessing approached Raging Stallion and the rest is history. Jorge’s untimely death is a sad reminder of how drugs are claiming the lives of countless people in their prime.

Jorge Schmeda (L) starred in Tango City

Any chance Flash Conway will direct another adult film?

Definitely not. I love the work and I am a great talent but just cannot cope with the dishonesty, corruption and destruction of careers by the people in that milieu. And anyway, people nowadays want the best porn and are not willing to pay for it.

For indie filmmakers and auteurs, is the porn business viable anymore?

The porn business on its own is no longer viable.

How much do you love South Africa?

You know Africa is in some respects a tragedy. I do believe that in about 30 years from now, if the globalists are defeated, it will again be restored and be a paradise.

Will you ever return to Canada?

I can’t wait to get back to Canada and Montreal in particular.

Why is Montreal a sexy city?

You have the Quebecois. There’s your answer right there.

In a world where some 350 million photos are uploaded to Facebook every day, has the value of photography been diminished?

The digital era has brought new life to photography.

The era you captured on film in South Africa – why was it a golden era?

Not only was it a golden era in South Africa, one only has to look at the legacy of Studio 54 in Manhattan. I was in New York City in 1977 and kept meaning to go check it out but I slept through it. That was Victor Morales from Puerto Rico’s fault, but that’s another story!

Herb Klein’s Lost Gay South Africa is available as an iBook from the Apple store, and will soon be available via AMAZON.

Three Dollar Bill: Road to Cape Town

This is Herb Klein’s first Three Dollar Bill interview published in Hour magazine on December 3, 2003.

I have a soft spot for Zimbabwean photographer Herb Klein, whose work I discovered alongside his contemporaries Herb Ritts and Bruce Weber in David Leddick’s great 1998 compendium The Male Nude.

Photographer Herb Klein is featured in The Male Nude

Mostly I love Herb because the gay gaze of his best photography and pornography is a thorn in the side of Zimbabwe’s iron-fisted dictator Robert Mugabe, who has famously called gays and lesbians “worse than pigs and dogs.”

Last week Herb, based in Montreal (and my friend) the last five years, returned to his homeland where his family’s 5,000-hectare cattle farm was seized after Rhodesia became Zimbabwe in 1980. As recently as the mid-’90s Zimbabwe was the granary of Africa, but today, debilitated by AIDS, corruption, poverty and drought, the nation is teetering on the edge of ruin.

Herb’s mother now divides her time between neighbouring Botswana and the city of Bulawayo in northern Zimbabwe. (When I drove through Bulawayo years ago I was just jubilant the city had an ice cream parlour.)

“Bulawayo is Matabele for ‘A Place of Slaughter,’” Herb says without a trace of irony (he speaks Matabele fluently). “My family’s farm was stripped under Mugabe. We had to leave because all our neighbours were murdered. But basically all material things in life can be replaced. You have to move on.”

Herb, 50, no longer mourns the loss of his family’s farm. But he’s travelling and working in Zimbabwe, Botswana and South Africa through next spring because he loves the land.

“I’ve always been a people photographer. I picked up a camera when I was 6 because Dad was too drunk to take a photo.”

Photo from Lost Gay South Africa (Herb Klein)

Herb’s been snapping ever since. He moved to South Africa in the 1970s and began shooting male-physique calendars and mail-order photo sets in a region where erotica – especially homo-erotica – was ruthlessly crushed.

“I shot the first full-colour gay nude magazine on the continent, I’ve launched the modelling careers of many black men in South Africa,” says Herb, whose first-ever gay porn, Here Comes Santa, filmed in Montreal this past summer, has just been released (Herb’s porn director name is the suitably cheesy Flash Conway). “Now I’m going back to shoot films of South African guys because there’s no decent gay porn films from out of there.”

There was a time when many American outlets wouldn’t buy his photos. “I tried to sell pictures of black men to The Advocate years ago and [my contact] said the photography was beautiful but the models were too National Geographic. That was the way he put it.”

Today Herb is much in demand and expanding to film. “It’s my calling card, it’s opening doors and allowing me to travel and shoot more pictures. The problem with porn today is when people focus on volume they get a checklist: blowjobs, rimming, 15 strokes and the cum shot. There are over 1,000 porn movies produced every month. It’s a billion-dollar industry. They just churn them out. They’re okay but nothing special.”

Herb makes his real.

“You need the element of chemistry. If they wouldn’t give each other a second look in the real world, they won’t have that look – unless they’re hardened hookers. So I try to partner them up with people they want to have sex with.”

Johannesburg Pride 2015 (Photo by Herb Klein)

All said, it’s a long way since director Wakefield Poole’s pioneering 1971 gay porn Boys in the Sand (last I spoke with Poole he was a chef for Calvin Klein) and even Chi Chi LaRue, whom I met shortly after the release of his 1996 big-budget masterpiece Lost in Vegas (made for $75,000 and loosely based on Oscar-winner Leaving Las Vegas).

“If a film is well made – Chi Chi LaRue still sells films he made five or six years ago – you can sell your back catalogue,” Herb explains. “So I retain my rights. They revert back to me after a couple of years. I will have a back catalogue so one day you can download digital DVD-quality video from broadband. That’s coming.”

As for all the anti-porn moralizers, Herb says, "You’ve been to Pompeii, you’ve seen all the art in the bathhouses and brothels from two thousand years ago. It’s the same with porn today. Viewers are voyeurs. Anyone who looks at a video is to some degree. It’s human nature – we like to watch.”

Herb Klein’s Lost Gay South Africa is available as an iBook from the Apple store, and will soon be available via AMAZON.

Twitter.com/bugsburnett

THEATRE LEGEND LOUIS NEGIN: MUCH ADO ABOUT DICK

March 24, 2017, 4:28 pm

≫ Next: MARIO CANTONE TELLS BULLIED LGBTQ KIDS TO "TOUGHEN THE FUCK UP!"

≪ Previous: MALE PHYSIQUE PHOTOGRAPHER HERB KLEIN TURNS HIS LENS ON LOST GAY SOUTH AFRICA

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Bugs'interview with Louis Negin originally ran in the April 2013 edition of Fugues magazine.

There’s nothing quite like making a grand entrance. Just ask Montreal theatre legend Louis Negin, the first actor to ever appear nude on a legitimate British stage, in John Herbert’s Fortune and Men’s Eyes in London’s West End back in 1967.

But if London audiences gasped when Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe appeared nude in the West End revival of Equus in 2007, imagine the reaction to Negin 40 years earlier!

“In London at that time if you went to see a play with nudity in it, you had to join a (theatre) club which couldn’t be closed down (by the police),” Negin explains. “When Lord Chamberlain dissolved that law, Herbert’s Fortune and Men’s Eyes – with its explicit scenes of gay rape in prison – was a huge success with audiences in Canada and the West End.”

Ironically, it wasn’t Negin being buck naked on stage that made him the toast of the theatre world, but rather an incident on opening night that made sensational newspaper headlines worldwide.

“My mom came opening night and I didn’t tell her about the nudity,” Louis remembers. “The play was about boys in jail who chased me out of the shower, towel-whipped me and pulled off my towel. So there I am in the nude in the West End and my mom stands up (in the audience) and in a strong cockney accent says, ‘Louis, put your pants back on!’” 

Louis Negin (Photo via Facebook)

Louis laughs today but, he adds, “I thought I would faint on the spot. And it ran in every newspaper around the world. My mom did interviews and there were paparazzi camped outside the house!”

If there’s anybody who knows a thing or two about making an entrance, it’s Louis Negin.

Take the time Joan Collins arrived at his birthday party in Toronto, when Collins was starring in the play Legends! at the Royal Alexandra Theatre in the fall of 2006.

“Joan’s an old, old friend and she was in Toronto with her husband – he’s very nice and very young, he’s like 12 years old,” Negin says. “But I didn’t tell anyone at the party that she was coming because if she doesn’t come, then everybody’s disappointed. But there were lots of people there she knew and, of course, the doors open, every head turns and she’s Joan Collins.”

Or how about the time Negin met Marilyn Monroe.

“It was at this Howard Johnson’s in Massachusetts. She came in wearing a babushka and no make-up on. She goes into the washroom and 45 minutes later out comes the image. We all talked and I felt like I wanted to protect her. She was very vulnerable. She was really like that. It wasn’t an act.”

Then there’s Marlene Dietrich.

“A friend of mine was stage-managing her show [in Ottawa] and we were invited to a matinée. So I’m at her hotel in the magazine store and I hear this deep throaty laugh. I look over and it’s this really old lady. ‘Oh my God, it’s Dietrich!’ Then when we saw her on stage she had completely transformed. She was beautiful!” 

Louis Negin (Photo via Facebook)

The London-born Negin arrived in Montreal during its Sin-City heyday. “It was like being in a Hollywood movie – all these nightclubs were filled with gangsters and movie stars. It was like Las Vegas!”

While homosexuality was still a crime in Canada back then, Negin was always out. After all, he worked in the theatre world. Still, that same world was unable to protect his colleague, acting legend John Gielgud, who was arrested in England for cottaging in 1953.

“John and I worked together in Much Ado About Nothing at Stratford and during that time I got to know him,” Negin recalls. “At the time of his arrest he was starring in a play in London. He was petrified to go on the next night. How was the audience going to react? It could mean the end of his career. So when he went on it was an act of bravery. And the audience cheered him.”

Some of Negin’s other co-stars over the years include Anthony Quayle, with whom Louis worked on Broadway, and Dame Edna (a.k.a. Barry Humphries). “Barry’s a very funny man but when he’s dressed as Dame Edna, you must always address him as Edna. He stays in character because it’s very difficult to keep switching back and forth.”

Negin also appeared on stage as writer Truman Capote in another one-man show, Tru, as well in the film 54. In fact, Negin met Capote (“He was with Warhol”) in 1970s New York where Negin also found himself getting down at Studio 54. 

These are the kind of anecdotes that filled The Glass Eye, Negin’s critically-hailed one-man show he wrote with his old friend, Quebec playwright and Robert Lepage-protégé Marie Brassard.

Today, Negin blames rabid celebrity journalism for cheapening our movie stars. “They all look the same. Lindsay Lohan? She’s no Marlene Dietrich. The only one today who has that old glamour is Cate Blanchett.”

As for Negin, he continues to act and make movies, notably with famed director Guy Maddin. For his role in Maddin’s 2011 film Keyhole– which stars Jason Patric, Isabella Rossellini and Udo Kier – Louis stripped buck naked one more time.

“I think all actors are exhibitionist, to be honest,” says Louis. “Everybody does the same number: ‘Oh, I have to think about it.’ But really they’re overjoyed! The thing that would kill you is if someone snickered or laughed [at your body]. Then I think I would just die a million deaths. But it doesn’t happen.” 

On the Winnipeg set of Keyhole, Rossellini told Negin, “We don’t even notice that you’re in the nude!” But when filming on Keyhole wrapped up, the director of photography told the cast and crew, “Thank you for giving your all!”

Louis laughs. “Everybody was screaming and laughing and there was a big round of applause. But until then I just didn’t think about it.”

MEET A MONTREALER: LOUIS NEGIN

Originally posted on the Tourisme Montréal arts & culture blog on October 9, 2015 by Richard Burnett.

Canadian theatre legend Louis Negin was the first actor to ever appear nude on a legitimate British stage, in John Herbert’s Fortune and Men’s Eyes in London’s West End back in 1967. “In London at that time if you went to see a play with nudity in it, you had to join a theatre club which couldn’t be closed down by the police,” Negin recalls. “When Lord Chamberlain dissolved that law, Herbert’s Fortune and Men’s Eyes – with its explicit scenes of gay rape in prison – was a huge success in the West End.”

Louis Negin (Photo via Facebook)

But it was an incident on opening night made sensational headlines worldwide: “There I am in the nude onstage and my mom stands up in the audience and says, ‘Louis, put your pants back on!’ I thought I would faint on the spot. The story ran in newspapers around the world. My mom did interviews and there were paparazzi camped outside the house!”

London-born Negin – who first moved to Montreal during its Sin-City heyday – has also performed on Broadway; met or worked with almost every glamourous star of the 20th century, from Marlene Dietrich and Marilyn Monroe to Joan Collins and Isabella Rossellini; and co-stars (along with Roy Dupuis, Geraldine Chaplin, Marie Brassard, Udo Kier and Charlotte Rampling) in director Guy Maddin’s new movie The Forbidden Room, closing film of the 44th edition of Montreal’s famed Festival du nouveau cinema.

What is your favourite pastime?

I have spent three-quarters of my life in cafés drinking cappuccino!

How long have you been a Montrealer?

Though I once lived in Toronto for 40 years, I always kept a tiny pied-a-terre in Montréal, at Carré St-Louis. Every time I felt the pressure was too much, I would run away back to Montréal and be very happy, go to a good restaurant, make love, drink wine. I’ve always had great affection for Montréal ever since I first came here when I was very young and dreaming of Hollywood. I arrived in Montreal and, my god, I was suddenly in nightclubs with showgirls, going out with gangsters, and I must have been about 15 years old!

What is the coolest thing you’ve done so far this year?

I filmed two music videos, which I had never done before in my life. One was for Montreal-based artist and musician Daniel Isaiah for his single Heaven Is on Fire which also starred Marie Brassard.

Louis Negin (Photo via Facebook)

What is it you love most about acting?

I love that you are allowed to use your emotions.

What is it like being the muse of Guy Maddin?

It’s having a director that you love, and hope he loves you. You go through times when you think, ‘Oh, I’ll never work again. The phone isn’t ringing, they hate me, nobody wants me, go back to hairdressing!’ Sometime in life you will meet one person – a director or producer– who is on your wavelength. (Guy) says one word and I know exactly what he means and I know where to go with it.

Who is the most glamourous actress you have ever met or worked with?

I’ve worked with a lot of very famous stars, and I think one woman who had the glamour of another time was English actress Margaret Leighton.  At the time we were doing the play Much Ado About Nothing on Broadway (in 1959) with John Gielgud. I was cast because I had good legs and looked good in pink tights! Maggie always had 1920s-style make-up and hair and looked impeccable at all times. She was so together, beautiful and charming. Maggie always was a lady, just perfect.

What is your favourite Montréal memory?

It was my introduction to all the nightclubs. It was like being in a Jimmy Cagney movie, then suddenly it was all for real.

What’s your favourite Montréal restaurant?

Bistro L’Express on Rue St-Denis

I’ve gone through a million restaurants, but my favourite is L’Express on Rue St-Denis because it is very sophisticated, where you can feel like a movie star. It’s what you expect a French bistro to be. The place has memories. I also really enjoy Le Filet on Rue Mont-Royal, which is a place to go if you want to have fun. It’s noisy, glamourous, a great place to bring guests from out of town.

Where do you like to go for drinks with friends?

I go a lot to the Arts Café on Rue Fairmount. They get a lot of well-known people, like Xavier Dolan, many great French-Canadian actors, lots of artists, writers and film people. It could be the Left Bank in Paris! I miss that a lot when I’m not here. Toronto may have great big $10-million restaurants, but it just doesn’t have that kind of ambiance.

What is the next big thing you’re planning?

I did a play with Marie Brassard (2008’s critically-acclaimed The Glass Eye) which was about (my) growing up in Montreal. Now I want to write the second half of it. I’ve started writing it, but it’s weird going back in your life and sorting through all the memories because you remember very strange things!

Twitter.com/bugsburnett

MARIO CANTONE TELLS BULLIED LGBTQ KIDS TO "TOUGHEN THE FUCK UP!"

April 14, 2017, 9:09 am

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Bugs' interview with Mario Cantone originally ran in the July 23, 2012, edition of the Montreal Gazette

It should come as no surprise that fierce Sex and the City star Mario Cantone has always been pretty much out.

“I remember in the seventh, eighth and ninth grades I got a lot of shitt (for being gay),” Cantone says.

“I grew up in the 1970s when bullying was really bad. I never got beaten up, but I got a lot of threats and verbal abuse and would leave class early to make my escape. I mean, everybody’s got their fucking bullying stories. But honestly, I’m sick of it: Toughen up and let’s go!”

I tell Cantone I think when gay kids are pushed around they should push back.

“Abso-fucking-lutely!” Cantone says. “And I had a mother who would say horrible – horrible – things to me about gay people. But I was like ‘Fuck you’ in the 1970s: I never thought about killing myself or opening fire on a class. So this stuff (gay teen suicides) is mind-boggling because there are more people coming out today for young (LGBT) people to look up to! I do feel sorry for them, but I want to grab some of these kids, shake them and say, ‘Toughen the fuck up! Guess what, it doesn’t really get better!’ And I’m not talking about being gay, I’m talking about life.”

Cantone has a routine about bullying in his 2012 one-man show, It’s Funnier Live, a sequel to his hugely successful 2005 Tony-nominated one-man Broadway show, Laugh Whore.

“I’m bringing back (my) Liza and Judy (impressions), adding Bruce Springsteen and a lot more pop-culture observations and political stuff. It’s a work in progress that I’ll work on over five nights in Montreal.”

Cantone hopes to bring It’s Funnier Live to Broadway soon, especially since he “really, really honestly” doesn’t think there will be a third Sex and the City movie, and NBC turned down the pilot for his new hairdresser drama (by SATC’s Michael Patrick King) called A Mann’s World that co-starred Don Johnson.

But Cantone, a regular on The View, always knew he’d have it tougher than closeted actors ever since he starred in the New York superstation WWOR-TV’s children’s show Steampipe Alley from 1988 to 1993.

“Two gay men hired me for that show – which is not the way it is anymore. Some of the gay men in this business are the most homophobic. When I went to L.A., I met closeted actors who told me not to tell anybody I was gay. I never denied I was gay, but I was never asked by the press if I was until 1998. I knew saying that I was gay would cut my workload. I know there’s a glass ceiling. I told myself, ‘You’re gonna get what you get and it’s not going to be big and you’re not going to be rich.’ ”

Cantone, now 52, believes the alternative is worse.

“The Hollywood closet is infuriating to me though I do get it: There has not been a gay leading man in Hollywood motion pictures who’s a big star. I don’t think it’s going to happen for a long time. But now when you got the two big ones (closeted Hollywood stars being scrutinized in the media), it’s coming to bite them back in the a--. You can see it starting because you can’t get away with it anymore.”

Click here for Mario Cantone's official website.

Twitter.com/bugsburnett

PUSHING BOUNDARIES WITH SKY GILBERT: THE SKY'S THE LIMIT

April 18, 2017, 4:52 am

≫ Next: THE KILLING OF ANGLICAN PRIEST WARREN ELING: GAY MURDER OR EROTIC ASPHYXIA?

≪ Previous: MARIO CANTONE TELLS BULLIED LGBTQ KIDS TO "TOUGHEN THE FUCK UP!"

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Sky Gilbert (Photos courtesy Never Apart)

Before my pioneering LGBTQ column Three Dollar Bill went national across Canada in 1998, I approached all the syndicates and not one would touch me with a 10-foot pole (this was back in the print-journalism Jurassic era).

So I then approached every single alternative and indie publication in Canada myself, one by one, and by 2005 I was in half the alt-weeklies in the country.

One alt-weekly I pitched was Eye Weekly in Toronto, who instead went with trailblazing locals, first hiring playwright Sky Gilbert, then filmmaker Bruce LaBruce, as their queer columnists. I love it that I can (jokingly) brag I blazed a trail for both Sky and Bruce!

Soon after TDB went national, I profiled Sky—who co-founded Buddies In Bad Times Theatre in 1979—and one line from our interview has stayed with me: ‘’I am probably the most despised person in Toronto’s gay community,’’ Sky told me.

That's because Sky pushed boundaries that upset queer integrationists who still just want to blend in with straight people.

In this terrific Never Apart Q&A with author Christopher DiRaddo, Sky says, "Really, there is nothing going on gay-wise in art. Gay writers these days are very proud that they don’t feel the need to write gay plays or novels and look down on me as old-fashioned and political in a boring way because I do so... At the moment—mainly because of AIDS and the new conservatism of our culture (we talk about sex all the time but in a very prurient way, we are titillated but not really sexual in mainstream culture)—gay men think they will get approval if they write straight. Yeah, well, lo and behold they do. And no one will buy your books or come to see your plays if you write about gay characters.

"You can write gay neighbours, nonsexual gay subsidiary characters, dying gay characters, quirky black gay characters but not central gay characters that are hookers, HIV positive men, lonely old faggots, promiscuous faggots, open relationship couples, men who enjoy unsafe sex, screwed up twinks, unhappy gay married couples, hypocritical lying gay men, men victimized by the criminalization of AIDS—i.e., the real gay world. But as I say, I do my best to encourage those young writers who are still brave enough to write about the real gay experience."

Hear more from Sky live when he returns to Montreal for the Metropolis bleu / Blue Metropolis LGBTQ series, first at the Never Apart Legends Series: Sky Gilbert (Blue Metropolis) event on April 27, then at The Violet Hour (Blue Metropolis) event at Stock Bar on April 28.

Click here to read Sky Gilbert's blog.

Twitter.com/bugsburnett

THE KILLING OF ANGLICAN PRIEST WARREN ELING: GAY MURDER OR EROTIC ASPHYXIA?

April 24, 2017, 9:01 am

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The murder of Father Warren Eling made the cover of the December 18, 1997, issue of HOUR magazine

After chasing lawyers for over a year, Bugs landed an exclusive in-prison interview with Danny MacIlwaine, the male hustler who murdered Montreal's Father Warren Eling in November 1993. The interview ran in a December 1997 issue of Hour magazine. A version of the story also ran in Xtra magazine in Toronto as well as in the April 1998 issue of Queers Online.

Did Danny McIlwaine murder Father Eling or was it a case of accidental death? McIlwain talks for the first time about that fateful night in 1993. An exclusive interview with Richard Burnett.

Danny McIlwaine was sucking on a crack pipe and drinking rum punch the night Anglican priest Warren Eling asked him for a blowjob. When concerned parishioners from St. James the Apostle Church called on Father Eling the next day—Nov. 9, 1993—they found the naked cleric dead in his Montreal home, his wrists tied by his underwear to his brass bedstead and a yellow bathrobe belt wrapped around his neck five times.

McIlwaine, a crack-addicted hustler Eling had picked up in Montreal's Gay Village, was gone, as were some of Eling's computer equipment, his VCR and a CD player that McIlwaine subsequently sold for $270. McIlwaine also stole Eling's Chevette, which he later abandoned by Lake Ontario en route to Toronto.

After his arrest, McIlwaine claimed that Eling's death by erotic asphyxia—when the body is deprived of oxygen, resulting in reflexive erections and heightened ejaculations—was an accident. "Warren was a nice guy and this is the hardest part to swallow -- knowing that I never meant this man any harm," McIlwaine says now. "And it bothers me that people actually think that I [deliberately killed him]. I had no intentions of hurting him. I was just doing what he wanted to do."

A jury found McIlwaine guilty of first-degree murder barely six months after Eling's sensational sex killing made national news. The case's lurid side was also compounded by the media frenzy surrounding the Quebec Human Rights Commission's public hearings into violence against homosexuals. The hearing had begun just days after Eling's murder.

The Quebec court of appeal reversed McIlwaine's May '94 first-degree murder conviction, ruling that Quebec Superior Court Justice Jean-Guy Boilard had misdirected the jury by listing sequestration as a condition for first-degree murder, when Father Eling was not held against his will.

The appellate court then ordered a retrial. With gay activists screaming for justice following a largely unresolved string of gay murders in Montreal, and after Anglican Bishop Andrew Hutchison -- Eling's boss -- testified during the hearings that his church's teachings had given societal homophobia "moral force," the CBC and NBC's Dateline came calling. But McIlwaine refused all interviews about that night. Until now.

McIlwaine's Story

ON A HAZY EARLY DECEMBER DAY last year in Ste-Anne-des-Plaines, Archambault Prison—with its layers of barbed-wire fences and guard towers—a guard and a prison official led Danny McIlwaine, 35, into a conference room that looked more like it belongs to a blue-chip corporation. There, for the next hour—two trials and more than four years after Eling's murder—McIlwaine squarely blamed himself for the mess his life has become. "All the doors were open to do whatever I wanted to do, but I kept taking shortcuts in school," said McIlwaine, who dropped out in his senior year at LaSalle Protestant High School (now Riverside Academy) after years of hanging out with the tough "in" crowd, drinking beer and smoking grass.

Danny McIlwaine in 1993 after being apprehended at l'hôpital Saint-Luc in Montreal. Photo: P. Lalumière, courtesy La Presse.

"People who were thrown out of other high schools ended up in mine," he continues. "I was well known and well respected in school. When you're into the things I was, it came with a certain aura of toughness, and when you had to fight to defend yourself, you did."

In fact, he was charged with grievous assault as early as 1984 for beating up an old high-school buddy on downtown Ste-Catherine Street. "We exchanged words, he pulled a knife and stabbed me and so I really lost it," McIlwaine recounted. He was later fined $400.

After dropping out of high school in 1979, McIlwaine managed to hold down a steady job doing manual and clerical duties at the Royal Bank's Montreal Data Centre. But in 1988, he quit a few months after being assigned to a night shift, which interfered with his family life and nights out on the town in some of Montreal's rougher bars, notably the Annex on Bishop Street, the Warehouse in 20/20 University and the Moustache on Lambert-Closse.

"I've got one or two friends from my childhood who're still friends," McIlwaine said, but admitted most of his buddies dropped out of sight after his arrest. "I can't say they used me, because it was a two-way street. I'm no longer part of that lifestyle. No more sex and drugs and rock'n'roll. All I was doing was getting girls and getting high. I worked all week and partied all weekend. I was hanging out with the boys I knew since I was 15 and still doing the things I did when I was 15. And if there was any trouble, you never backed down."

McIlwaine's wife -- whom he'd met in 1984 and requested remain anonymous -- quickly became the only person with some measure of control over his life. Yet by the time his daughter was born in 1986, it was clear McIlwaine was caught in a downward spiral of drug and alcohol abuse.

"There were the occasional bouts of cocaine binging in the '80s, and by the time I started working at the Royal Bank the price [of coke] had dropped from roughly $200 a gram in the '70s to $80," McIlwaine explained. "It was never really a bad habit -- I'd stop for months and months. But if it was available, I'd never say no."

By the summer of '93, after five years going from job to menial job, McIlwaine was nearing the end of his rope. He'd driven his Mustang into a tree after a night of boozing, began skimming more and more lines from the bags of cocaine he was dealing and became addicted to crack cocaine after "a delivery one night [when] a girl showed me how to freebase. She hooked me up with someone who sold coke precooked so I could smoke it." After the crack started, his wife left with their then-seven-year-old daughter. McIlwaine was penniless.

During my interview with McIlwaine, I handed him a letter I received from a reader claiming to be a McIlwaine family friend. The letter was spurred by HOUR magazine's coverage last January 1997 of the second murder trial, and it supported McIlwaine's claim that Eling's death was accidental—stressing that McIlwaine is himself homosexual. For McIlwaine's benefit, I pointed to the highlighted passage: "[Danny's] been doing drugs on and off for years, has a few drinks, party down, hang out with similar friends, get short jobs, etc. Also, as it turned out, Danny's gay. I believe he wasn't open about that from the beginning but certainly was as time went on. So he, like hundreds of thousands of other Canadians, was leading this sort of 'irresponsible' [double] life."

But when I asked McIlwaine if the passage is accurate, he flatly denied it: "This is bullshit.

"It came down to a choice," he explained. "I needed to get some dope and I had nothing left to sell. What was I going to do? Hold up a store, or sell my ass? So I hit the street. My pride was in the toilet anyway."

Death by Asphyxiation

McILWAINE CLAIMS ELING GAVE HIM his home telephone number after the priest picked him up the first time. And on Nov. 8, 1993, the night of Eling's murder, a desperately broke McIlwaine called him. "He picked me up, we scored some crack and watched some pornographic videos at his place," McIlwaine says. "Sex was his reason for my being there and coke was my reason for being there. Then we went to the bank machine and got some more dope. Back at his place he suggested the erotic asphyxiation."

With Eling's hands tied to his brass bedstead with his underwear, McIlwaine gave the priest a blowjob as he pulled on the bathrobe entwined around Eling's neck. "He had told me he would tell me to stop or he would kick," McIlwaine says. "He would let me know if something was going on, but he never moved. And at that point he was dead or very close to dying."

Crown prosecutor Lori Weitzman maintained during both trials that McIlwaine murdered Eling because he needed the money. She charged in her closing statements that a crack-addled McIlwaine knew exactly what he was doing: "Danny McIlwaine is not a novice -- he's an addict," she told the eight-woman, four-man jury last February. "He's capable of smoking 28 rocks [of crack cocaine] in an evening and on this night he smoked six." But McIlwaine insists he fled Eling's apartment in a panic. "I didn't think anyone would believe me, and [crack addicts] are paranoid, even when nothing's happening," he says. If he'd intended to rob Eling, McIlwaine adds, he would have done so without killing him. Still, Weitzman charged during the trial that McIlwaine is a chronic and facile liar.

"Furthermore," adds veteran activist Michael Hendricks, "Mr McIlwaine was apprehended. He did not turn himself in after robbing a cadaver that he had murdered. He was arrested because of brilliant police work, and after a costly but thorough investigation he was convicted by a solid Crown preparation. "He says he didn't turn himself in because gays were crying for blood. I was there and it wasn't just gays. It was also Bishop Hutchison."

McIlwaine's lawyer, Salvatore Mascia, said last winter he's confident his client received a fair trial. As he pointed out then, however, the longer the jury deliberates, the better the odds are for the prosecution. On Feb. 21, 1997, the exhausted jury found McIlwaine guilty of second-degree murder after four days of deliberation.

McIlwaine, who's been behind bars since December 1993, was sentenced to life in prison but is eligible for day parole after seven years and full parole after 10. He's close to completing his high school studies at Archambault, where he's also learning to control his personal demons so he can one day cope on the outside. "The partying should have stopped when high school stopped," McIlwaine says. "It shoulda stopped when I met my wife. It shoulda stopped when my daughter was born. But I was living the double life, wanting the best of both worlds, and it can't be done."

Sidebar:

Saving Grace: Protecting the Reputation of Father Eling

by Richard Burnett

WITH THE QUEBEC COURT OF APPEAL'S reversal of Danny McIlwaine's May '94 first-degree murder conviction and the appellate court's order of a retrial, gay activists expected another lurid assault on Father Eling's reputation and lifestyle by the defence. Even Bishop Hutchison was concerned. "There is no question of my commitment in the name of justice for the gay community," he told me on the eve of the second trial, "and there's no question the [first] trial was a most embarrassing besmirching of a priest. I don't want to see injustice done to anyone."

Veteran activist Michael Hendricks, meanwhile, says he and fellow activist Douglas Buckley-Couvrette, until recently spokesperson for the anti-violence committee of La Table de concentration des gais et lesbiennes du Grand Montreal, wanted "to ensure Eling was not put on trial and that his behavior did not become the reason for his murder."

McIlwaine, for his part, calls Buckley-Couvrette a "clown" out to crucify him as a homophobic gaybasher. "I see this guy on the news with a coffin screaming for blood for this heinous murder," McIlwaine recalls. "Now wait a minute, it wasn't a murderÉ and don't use my situation as a soapbox about your cause."

Buckley-Couvrette is more equivocal these days. "Perhaps it may not have been a hate crime," he says. "But either he hates himself, he hates the homosexual act, or he hated Eling. And the jury found him guilty not once, but twice."

Hendricks emphasizes that he and Buckley-Couvrette were carefully watched by Justice Fraser Martin and the prosecution. "They didn't want us there [in the courtroom], fearing our presence might distract the jury from the essential facts of the murder," Hendricks explains. "The whole story about gay murders is they're always told by the murderer. Therefore, what happened in the moments that led to the murder, which is what this is all about, are always presented in terms that are socially and morally loaded. I mean, Father Eling was described as a perverted homosexual.

Twitter.com/bugsburnett

Women ROCK!

May 16, 2017, 1:01 pm

≫ Next: BRIEF HISTORY OF QUEER MONTRÉAL AND WALKING TOUR

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Cher: "I recorded Strong Enough for my gay fans."

Expanded version of Bugs' column that ran in the May 2016 issue of Fugues magazine, featuring Greatest Hits quotes from Bugs' many interviews with Cher, Patti LaBelle, Chaka Khan, Luba, kd lang, Donna Summer, Sarah McLachlan, Indigo Girls, Cyndi Lauper, Martha Wash, Idina Menzel, Carole Pope, Thelma Houston, Joan Jett, Melissa Etheridge, Bonnie Raitt, Anne Wilson of Heart and others.

My favourite rock stars are women – Tina Turner, Chaka Khan, Janis Joplin, Joan Jett, Heart and Stevie Nicks – because their narratives speak to me, while few lyrics and life experiences of straight male rockers do.

Besides, I love my divas.

And their names usually end with a vowel: Divas like Judy! Bette! Liza! Etta, Eartha and Beyoncé! Dolly and Madonna! And guess what? I’ve interviewed, met or seen almost all of them perform live, from Celine Dion in Vegas to Lady Gaga in Atlantic City. Once, at the annual Night of a Thousand Stevies drag tribute to Stevie Nicks in New York City, I saw Debbie Harry— dressed à la Stevie — sing a scorching rendition of The Chain with punk-rock outfit Goon Squad.

Carole Pope

I also remember the time a disgruntled Roberta Flack stopped her band in the middle of a song to complain about the poor acoustics in Salle Wilfred-Pelletier and demanded the tech guys fix it immediately. And once, at the old Montreal Forum in 1982, Bette Midler was so raunchy, the older Jewish retirees literally fled for the exits as the gays whooped it up!

Some 25 years later when I saw her at Caesar's Palace in Vegas, Bette walked stage left and told the screaming audience, "Where are my gays? They're always to the left of me! Thank God for the gays!"

I have witnessed Mariah Carey’s “wardrobe malfunction” at the Bell Centre in 2010 — when one of her breasts nearly flopped out — to Tina Turner at Le Spectrum de Montréal in 1984 where she learnt backstage (and it was a tiny dressing room) that What's Love Got to Do With It was going to be Number One on Billboard's Hot 100 chart.

Turner — whom I have since seen perform live some 30 times — then stormed the stage, launching her first of two scheduled concerts that night, with a torrid version of ZZ Top’s Legs. 



Just a few months later, when my friend Luba— in the 1980s no Canadian singer could touch her — when she performed at the 1985 Juno Awards at Toronto’s Harbour Castle Hilton Hotel, Tina spotted Luba from across the hotel lobby.

Luba

“She made a beeline straight for me,” Luba told me. “She had this aura, and she grabbed my hand and said, ‘You’re an amazing singer!’ She blew me away. Here was Tina Turner, who I grew up listening to on The Ed Sullivan Show, and she was paying ME a compliment?”

Luba also told me, “Many of my most devoted fans are gay and are not afraid to express their love. That is something I’m very pleased about because they always make me feel like, ‘Wow!’ The gay community also loves survivors with big voices, and I fit the bill.”

Cher pretty much told me the same thing when I interviewed her back in 1999. “I specifically recorded Strong Enough for my gay fans,” she said. “My gay fans have been so loyal and so great. Gay fans usually love you when you're in the dumps, in the toilet. They were there when other people weren’t.”

Chaka Khan also loves her gays fans back unconditionally. When she performed at Metropolis during the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal in 2007, I remember she demanded — onstage — that the technicians immediately change the spotlights because “green lighting looks terrible on Black skin.”

Over the years — even when it was considered career suicide to do so — Chaka performed at innumerable Pride concerts, festivals and celebrations. In return, the LGBTQ community lavished their love on Chaka.

Tina Turner

So I asked Chaka what it was about her that gay men most adore — The big hair? The big voice? The big heart?

“Maybe it’s the butch in me!” Chaka replied. “I dunno, I’ve been asked that question so many times. But I will say this: In a crunch, when I’ve been in need, when things weren’t going well, the gay community always bailed me out. They’re my most loyal friends and following and they have a special place in my heart.”

Another gay favourite is Cyndi Lauper. I’ll never forget the time the pop icon opened for Cher at Montreal’s Bell Centre back in 2002: Cyndi stole the show midway through her opening set when she walked centre stage draped in a massive Rainbow flag to sing True Colors with only Montreal musician Kat Dyson accompanying Cyndi on acoustic guitar.

The sold-out house of 18,000 screaming fans gave Lauper a five-minute standing ovation before she even sang one note. I was so overwhelmed I had tears in my eyes.

“So did I,” Cyndi told me afterwards.

Cyndi Lauper

“I have friends and family who are gay,” Cyndi said. “When I became a mom (in 1997) I sat down and read all the letters I got from people who said when True Colors came out (in 1986) it was the one thing that kept them going because they were suicidal, afraid of being disenfranchised by their families. I always feel that it is wrong to be that depressed about who you are. I saw my (lesbian) sister go through it. So when I stand there and sing True Colors, it's no longer my song. It’s everybody’s song.”

Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls told me in 2013 that “Cyndi Lauper is a hero. I remember being starstruck when she came up to talk to us when we played a festival at Martha’s Vineyard in Cape Cod. Then years later, to be invited on her True Colors tour — it was one of those moments, just hanging out with one of your icons.”

Amy then added, “But we don’t think of ourselves that way, as living legends. We’re just a part of this broader community where so many others have done heavy lifting in the trenches. They are the ones we should celebrate. I don’t care about any of that legend status.”

Another queer performer who crossed over to mainstream audiences is Edmonton native k.d. lang, who has won eight JUNO Awards and four Grammys. “I think being queer was an asset,” the publicity-shy lang told me in 2008. “Being very alternative was my secret weapon prior to coming out.”

With lang and the Indigo Girls, heartland rocker Melissa Etheridge blazed a trail for out performers, as well as for women and trans women.

kd lang

Following the demise of the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival after their controversial 2014 ban on trans women attending, Melissa told me, “I support trans women attending Michigan. To deny people because they were born with a male gender, that’s totally going against (what we stand for). We want to integrate the feminine in all human beings. We (also) want men to embrace it on all levels, to understand the feminine. That’s what is going to bring peace on Earth. And we got to start this with us. We have to be the ones who make the change.”

Meanwhile, the triumph of legendary dance diva Martha Wash (It’s Raining Men) over the mostly white and largely straight music establishment cemented her icon status in the LGBTQ community.

“Gay audiences love me because I began singing with Sylvester. It started there,” Martha told me the first time I interviewed her. “My philosophy is ‘Who so ever will, let him come.’ That’s scripture in the Bible. In other words, Jesus is love. He loves everybody, as I do. There is no difference to me whether you are gay or straight.”

In 2014, I asked Grammy-winning disco diva Thelma Houston — whose smash hit Don't Leave Me This Way topped the charts worldwide in 1977, and who continues to perform at AIDS benefits and Pride celebrations around the world —  I asked her, “Why do the gays love you so much?”

“Well, because they think I’m fabulous!” Houston replied, smiling. Then she added, “The 1970s was a time when the gay community was becoming more political and organized, and my song was very popular in the clubs. Because of that it remains very popular with the gay community, who have remained very loyal to me. Once they embrace you — unless you betray them — they will support you forever. They have been my most loyal audience.”

Thelma Houston

Then in the wake of the homophobic "disco sucks" movement — disco, mainstream America made very clear, is cocksucker music — the disco backlash claimed many careers.

For Donna Summer, whom I was privileged to interview before she died of cancer in 2012, the attack was double-barreled: In the early 1980s an urban myth claimed Summer made anti-gay remarks, that AIDS was divine retribution from God, and many gay clubs banned her music.

“It was awful, especially since none of it was true,” Summer told me. “But I can’t hunt these people down. In this business people write stuff about you all the time and I can’t control everything.”

Summer continued to embrace her gay fans until the very end.

The last time I saw Summer perform live was at the Fallsview Casino in 2009. But my fave Donna moment was when she sang me Love to Love You Baby on the phone during an interview. I just about died and went to disco heaven.

Donna Summer

That the music business is still very much a boys club isn’t news to Sarah McLachlan, but the Canadian pop star was stunned into silence when — just days after Donna Summer passed away — I mentioned to Sarah that Donna had yet to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

“I cannot believe she hasn’t been inducted,” McLachlan replied. “That’s absolutely shocking.”

Then she said, “You know, the world is still a boys club. Let’s be frank – no pun intended – every industry has its challenges. I’ve fought against (chauvinism and sexism) in the microcosm that I exist in. The people I choose to work with are egalitarian, we all have the same values, the same sense of equality. But out there in the world it’s very different. My big concern is that so many young women coming up out of university into the work force today think there no longer is a glass ceiling. I think it’s very dangerous for us to rest on our laurels, to crest on our mothers’ and grandmothers’ laurels.”

Donna Summer was finally inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013. Too bad she wasn’t alive to enjoy the honour.

Over in Philly, Patti Labelle also adores her gay fans. “Bless them. They're my glam squad,” she told me when she headlined the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal the day after another soul legend, Luther Vandross – onetime teenaged VP of Patti’s fan club – died on July 1, 2005.

Afterwards, Patti cried onstage when she sang a song for Luther. “They are all my children,” Patti told me. “They look to me as a mother, a sister or a real good girlfriend. Because I am strong and I fight for their rights. I fight when I see a gay person denied, like I fight for my children.”

I also love girls with guitars.

Joan Jett

The amazing Joan Jett’s white Melody Maker guitar has been covered with various stickers over the years, including “Gender Fucker” and the black and blue Leather Pride flag. She may sing otherwise, but the truth is, Joan Jett does give a damn about her reputation. That’s why we know so little about her, and so much.

After she cemented her legend status with her 2006 comeback album Sinner, I remember my buddy Jamie and I were drinking beer in her tour bus at Montreal’s Parc Jean Drapeau during the Vans Warped tour that summer. Then Jett’s producer and business partner Kenny Laguna invited us to join Joan with her band The Blackhearts onstage.

So we did, with beers in hand. Baby, it was a pretty cool rock and roll moment!

“It’s very humbling that anybody will accept you at all,” Jett told me at the time. “It’s overwhelming. I tend to deflect it because I don’t know how to deal with it.”

In the 2010 film The Runaways, about Jett’s trailblazing all-female 1970s rock band whose other band members were Lita Ford, Sandy West, Jackie Fox and Cherie Currie, their famed sleazebag manager Kim Fowley drilled his teenaged protégés in his rock and roll boot camp.

“This is not about women’s liberation – it’s about women’s libido!” Fowley screamed.

What Fowley really meant, of course, is that it’s all about men’s libidos.

As Jett told me herself the summer I joined her onstage in Montreal, “I love rock and roll, but the business — it’s like any business. It definitely qualifies more and more under ‘show business’ as this ‘reality’ mentality takes over the world. It’s not great. They still don’t give girls in rock any recognition. All these years after The Runaways and the business still hasn’t changed.”

Ann Wilson of Heart told me the same thing: “There is still a pretty big boy’s club in rock and roll and it’s frustrating because we’re out there working really hard, just as deserving of an equal amount of credibility,” Wilson said. “That’s always been a problem. Look at Nancy: Journalists still ask her questions like, ‘Wow, you’re one good-looking rocking chick — is that guitar really plugged in?’ Nancy grits her teeth and says, ‘Yeah, it’s plugged in.’”

Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart

Take the ad campaign for Dreamboat Annie in 1976 by Vancouver’s now-defunct Mushroom Records. Wilson explained, “They took out this full-page ad in Rolling Stone and other magazines and laid it out like the front page of a tabloid with the byline (beneath a bare-shouldered photo of Nancy and Ann), ‘It was only our first time.’ The implication was clear. It was so gross to us — not because of the gay connotation — but because they were not going to even give us a chance to be credible.”

No record company would have dared pull the same stunt with brothers Liam or Noel Gallagher of Oasis or Ray and Dave Davies of The Kinks.

“That’s why we got so angry,” Wilson said. “They thought they could sell 500,000 more albums. I was so pissed off I wrote Barracuda.”

Another Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, Bonnie Raitt, once told me she is proud of her women rock star friends who have blazed trails in our society.

“Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris and I hung out together in L.A. in the ’70s,” Raitt said. “It was a great scene and community. Youth still matters and sex sells no matter what decade it is. But just because Chrissie Hynde and I are older doesn’t mean we’re less sexy.”

Bonnie Raitt

The last time I saw Bonnie perform live, at Théatre St-Denis in 2013, the hall was filled with many of her LGBTQ fans of all ages, and she headlined an Olivia cruise the following year.

“You know, my dad and so many jazz and blues artists played into their 60s and 70s,” Bonnie told me. “I figured if I kept my chops, maybe I’d be lucky to be an old blues broad.”

Of course, kick-ass chicks like Bonnie Raitt not only rock because they support the LGBTQ community, but because they are genuine role models for girls and boys, and not just gay boys.

“Big hair, a big voice and a nice vibrato is always good for the gay community,” Broadway diva Idina Menzel told me when she headlined Salle Wilfred-Pelletier in 2015. “I owe everything to my gay fans, ever since my Rent days. I am out there singing about empowerment and accepting who you are, and what makes you extraordinary in this world. So I make sure I do that for myself, as a 40-year-old woman. I don’t want to be hypocritical. It’s a big responsibility, not just to young girls, but also to young boys.”

This kickass-ness is a common theme among women in the world of rock and roll. When I asked Ann Wilson about it, she replied, without missing a beat, “When I’m gone, I will have broken enough rules loudly and proudly enough so that other women — and men for that matter — can say, ‘Yeah, I can do it too.’”

Twitter.com/bugsburnett

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BRIEF HISTORY OF QUEER MONTRÉAL AND WALKING TOUR

June 21, 2017, 10:36 am

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Was Oscar Wilde inspired to write The Selfish Giant by his visit to Montreal in 1882?

Updated 2017 version of Bugs' story which originally ran on the Tourisme Montréal blog on May 27, 2015.

Montreal is a top LGBTQ tourism destination, but the city wasn’t always the gay mecca it is today. Back in the 17^th century it was just a tiny outpost of the French Empire, surrounded by fields and valleys as far as the eye could see. It was here in 1648 that a gay military drummer with the French garrison stationed to protect the Sulpician Order of priests — the seigneurs of Montreal — was charged by the Order with committing “the worst of crimes” and sentenced to certain death in the galleys.

“The drummer’s life was spared after Jesuits in Québec City intervened on his behalf,” Québec Gay Archives co-founder Ross Higgins said. “He was given a choice by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Québec: die or become the colony’s first executioner.”

The unidentified drummer took the executioner job.

Champ-de-Mars in Montreal (Photo courtesy McCord Museum)

So it was in Montreal, where fewer than a thousand settlers endured grueling winters and disease for decades, and where guards stood on duty against Indians to protect workers tilling the fields outside their walled town.

During this period, military records show that a decade before the French signed a multilateral peace treaty with 38 North American native tribes at the inaugural Meeting of First Nations in Montreal in 1701, two soldiers and their lieutenant, Nicholas Daussy de Saint-Michel — likely caught having a threesome — were thrown into a bailiff’s prison and charged with sodomy. Daussy was fined and the soldiers banished from New France.

Though few records documenting gay and lesbian life anywhere in North America over the next 150 years have survived, historians agree that gays and lesbians managed to thrive in gateway cities like Montréal. Newspaper clippings from this period clearly indicate Old Montreal’s military Champs de Mars (today located directly behind Montréal City Hall) was a popular cruising ground for gay men.

The first recorded gay establishment in North America was Montrealer Moise Tellier’s “apples and cake shop” on Craig Street (now Saint-Antoine) in 1869, where men met and had sex. 

Then, during Montreal’s Sin City heyday that began with American prohibition and continued with the return of World War II Canadian military recruits (who knew they weren’t the only gays and lesbians out in the world), dozens of gay bars opened up downtown. 

Gay men were first allowed to dance together in Montréal on August 27, 1958, to celebrate the birthday of legendary female impersonator Armand Monroe — a.k.a. “La Monroe” — in the Tropical Room of the Down Beat club located at 1422 Peel Street.

"When I began managing the bar,” Armand explained, “I introduced a new policy: gay customers served by gay waiters and gay bartenders!"

Babyface outside her disco, circa 1980 (Photo by Suzanne Girard)

Meanwhile, Denise Cassidy — better known by her nickname Babyface, inherited from her brief stint as a professional wrestler — went on to manage six of Montréal’s first lesbian bars from 1968 to 1983.

"The first bars were pretty tough,” Cassidy said. “It was a hard milieu, especially when men discovered my bars were for women only."

Montreal’s queer demimonde would also endure police harassment for many decades — notably the 1977 police raid on the Truxx leather cruising bar — until patrons fought back following the July 15, 1990, early-morning police raid on the Sex Garageloft party, widely considered to be Montreal’s Stonewall.

Sex Garage lead directly to the creation of the city’s famed Black and Blue circuit party and now-defunct Divers/Cité Queer Pride Parade and Festival, which fueled Montreal’s booming Gay Village and put the city on the international gay map. Activism directly sparked by Sex Garage also lead to landmark legal victories – such as pension benefits and same-sex marriage – by the LGBTQ community. By the time Montreal hosted the inaugural World OutGames in 2006, the city was lauded as one of the most queer-positive on the planet.

Sex Garage was Montreal's Stonewall (Photo © Linda Dawn Hammond)

During Montreal’s 375^th anniversary celebrations in 2017, the city’s FiertéMontréal Pride organization will host the inaugural Fierté Canada Pride parade and festival. Modeled on EuroPride and WorldPride, Fierté Canada Pride is expected to draw 750,000 spectators.

Fierté Montréal Pride drawns hundreds of thousands of spectators each year (Photo by Allison Slattery)

While in Montreal, here are 12 stops to create your own historical walking tour of Gay Montreal:

1) 1428 Stanley Street: the former location of leather-cruising bars Truxx and Le Mystique where Montreal police raids on October 22, 1977, sparked demonstrations the next day.

Hollywood and The Lime Light

2) 1254 Stanley Street, above where Chez Parée stands today: Montréal’s famed Limelight was the biggest disco-era nightclub after Studio 54. The Limelight building also included the Le Jardin gay disco. Next door was the Hollywood Disco, a gay cruising bar, and next to the Hollywood was Bud’s Lounge, an all-male gay leather bar. 

3) 1422 Peel Street: The Down Beat nightclub became a hotspot following the debut of legendary female impersonator Armand Monroe (aka Marilyn Monroe impersonator “La Monroe”). Gay men were first allowed to dance together in Montréal on the night of Aug. 27, 1958, to mark Armand Monroe’s birthday. The Down Beat later became the gay PJ’s nightclub.

Armand Monroe at PJ's

4) 1455 Peel Street: In 1944, Liberace was being paid $350 a week to play at the now-defunct Mount Royal Hotel. A savvy publicist suggested changing he change his name from Walter Liberace (pronounced Lib-ber-ayse) to the more showbiz Liberace with a hard-c Italian pronunciation. A Las Vegas legend was born.

5) Guy Métro station, the former location of Her Majesty’s Theatre: A chance encounter backstage with Marlene Dietrich backstage in October 1960 led to Montréaler John Banks being hired as her personal secretary for the next 12 years.

Read the whole story here.

In 1979, John Banks (along with Armand Monroe) organized the first Pride march in Montreal, to mark the 10^thanniversary of Stonewall.

6) 494 De la Gauchetière Street West, the location of the now-defunct Sex Garage: This is where the police raid on the morning of July 15, 1990, sparked a movement of LGBT activism in Montréal for years to come.

7) Saint-Antoine Street (formerly Craig Street) near the corner of Saint-Laurent Boulevard: The first recorded gay establishment in North America was Montrealer Moise Tellier’s “apples and cake shop” on Craig Street.

Marlene and John Banks

8) 1230 Saint-Laurent Blvd: A showbar since 1895, the Café Cléopatra strip joint is the last remaining hold-out from Montréal’s famed and infamous Sin-City era. Historically a safe space for Montreal’s trans community, the second-floor show bar still hosts drag performances, fetish parties and burlesque shows. 

9) Saint-Laurent Boulevard from Sherbrooke to Duluth: Montréal’s first Gay Pride parade was held in June 1979 with 52 marchers. In 2017, some 750,000 people are expected to attend the inaugural Canada Pride parade, which will run west to east on René-Lévesque Boulevard.

10) 280, Notre-Dame East Street: The Château Ramezay gardens were visited by none other than Oscar Wilde during Wilde’s lecture tour of North America in 1882. While in Montreal, Wilde stayed at the Windsor Hotel. Local legend has it the walled Château Ramezay gardens inspired Wilde to write The Selfish Giant.

The Château Ramezay gardens used to spread over 4,200 square metres and include an orchard as well as vegetable and flower gardens. Today only 750 square metres remain due to urban development, and a typical New France Governor’s Garden has been recreated and can be toured for free.

Chateau Ramezay Museum, circa 2017

Also, in 1775, Benjamin Franklin stayed at the Château Ramezay – then the Canadian headquarters of the American Revolutionary Army – when he tried to persuade Montreal to join the revolution. 

11) 1235 René-Lévesque Boulevard West: Montreal nightlife pioneer Denise Cassidy – better known as Babyface from her brief wrestling career – opened Montréal’s first lesbian-only nightclubs. From 1968 to 1972 she managed La Source and La Guillotine, and from 1973 to 1983 she ran Baby Face Disco. 

Café Cléopatra, circa April 2017 (Photo by Richard Burnett)

12) Sainte-Catherine Street East between Saint-Hubert and Papineau: Montreal’s Gay Village got its name in 1984 when Priape co-founder Bernard Rousseau opened the “Cinéma du Village”, today the Théatre Le National rock-concert venue located at 1220 Sainte-Catherine Street East.

Twitter.com/bugsburnett

AN AUDIENCE WITH LAVERNE COX

July 27, 2017, 12:14 pm

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Laverne Cox is part of a new wave of transgender role models

Emmy-nominated actress and Emmy-winning producer Laverne Cox catapulted to fame as Sophia Burset in the critically-hailed Netflix original series Orange Is the New Black.

Laverne then raised eyebrows with her portrayal of the iconic Dr. Frank-N-Furter in the Fox remake of Rocky Horror Picture Show and, when she starred in the short lived CBS legal drama Doubt, she became the first transgender actor to play a regular trans-character on network television.

Her groundbreaking professional work, coupled with her trans activism, landed Cox on the cover of the June 9, 2014, issue of Time magazine for the landmark story “The Transgender Tipping Point” – as historic as Vanity Fair’s August 1993 lesbian-chic cover that pictured Cindy Crawford shaving kd lang in a barber's chair, and Ellen DeGeneres declaring, “Yep, I’m Gay” on the cover of the April 14, 1997, issue of Time.

The culture is changing, and Cox is part of a new wave of transgender role models. We sat down for a candid Q&A on the eve of her return to Montreal to host The Laverne Cox Gala at the 2017 Just For Laughs Festival International Comedy Festival.

Let’s begin with Orange Is the New Black. How did that show change your life?

Well, you probably wouldn’t be talking to me! The show really introduced me to the world in a way I had not been introduced before. I mean, gosh, it got me the cover of Time, that was a first for trans people, and I was nominated for an Emmy (for “Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series”), which was another first for trans people. People know who I am now, so that show changed everything. I think the reason is because people were able to connect with and relate to this wonderful character (Sophia Burset) on a human level, and I was able to take that and go into a media space and claim space I did not have an opportunity to do before the show.

How surreal is it to see yourself staring back at you from the cover of a magazine?

It’s happened a few times now, and I love it! I love being on the cover of magazines. It feels like a certain kind of validation, but it’s bigger than me. I am a transgender woman of colour, and as a black transgender woman on the cover of Time, Entertainment Weekly, Variety or whatever, that is a very powerful message to the communities that I belong to.

Has dating become more difficult for you since Orange Is the New Black?

Dating has not been easier for me. In some ways because I’m so-called “famous” it is somewhat more difficult. But dating while trans is really hard anyway.

I assume it has been especially difficult for you over the years, even dangerous.

Trans women are murdered more than any other groups of folks in the LGBTQ community. Often the violence that trans women experience is from their partner. There are a lot of straight-identified men who seek out transgender women to date or have sex with, knowing that we are trans, and their own internalized shame can sometimes cause them to be violent towards us.

How much do you disclose when you go out on a date with someone?

If I meet a guy in a club or on the street, sometimes I would tell them right away. I would give them my number, and when they would call or text me, I would tell them on the phone. I would be sure he knew. I had an experience years ago where I thought a guy knew (I was a trans) and he didn’t know, and since then I always tell (my date). Even if I disclose it on my online dating profile that I am transgender, men often do not read the profile, they just look at the picture. So I always tell them, “Did you read that I am transgender?” I make it casual, not a big deal. I want them to know because I don’t want us to waste my time or theirs. And I don’t want to be rejected after I’ve invested my time.

You have visited Montreal before …

It was a long time ago, I love the city, it’s beautiful. I tried speaking French but they knew from my accent that I was American. I love Montreal. And I’m really excited about hosting my gala. I am thrilled that Just For Laughs – which I watch in airplanes when I’m flying around the world – invited me! I think laughter heals, and our world is really troubled right now and we need more laughter.

How cool is it to have a Madame Tussauds wax mannequin of yourself?

Very! We did a sitting for about three hours, they measured every part of my body! They put dots on your face, it’s all very precise. And, it’s funny, I asked them if they could make me thinner and they said, “No, because when you stand next to it you won’t look the same.” So I said okay, and lost a little weight! (Laughs) It is surreal and wild and I love that my wax figure also travels, it was on display at DC Pride (in June).

Do you think the queer community could be more supportive of trans civil rights?

Absolutely. I don’t know much about the LGBTQ community in Canada, but LGBTQ organizations in the United States have become more inclusive the last few years, more critical of racism and classism as well. But there still needs to be more work. Trans people and people of colour need to be at the table, but not just as a token. We want our perspectives and points of view bought into too. Historically our stories have focused on gay and lesbian narratives. But what does love look like for trans people? I often quote Dr. Cornel West who said, “Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public.” So what does love look like in our LGBTQ activism, in a truly intersectional way?

About growing up, interviewer David Frost once asked James Baldwin, "You were black, homosexual and poor. Didn’t you think you had everything going against you?" To which Baldwin replied, "To the contrary, I thought I’d hit the jackpot." Has Laverne Cox hit the jackpot?

I certainly believe I have hit the jackpot. With all of these identity categories, especially in the United States, if you’re black, if you’re transgender, if you’re a woman, there is all kinds of discrimination. I think I hit the jackpot when I was able to stand in the truth of all of these experiences, when I was able to take full ownership. Being able to own all that I am makes my testimony all that more powerful.

I think the jackpot comes when you’re an artist. I think of James Baldwin and the incredible body of work he wrote, and the perspective that he had, it really was the jackpot. He was one of America’s greatest thinkers, and that was informed by the jackpot of intersecting identities that he embodied. So, yes, Laverne Cox has hit the jackpot, though I don’t always feel that way. There are still days when I have a rough time.

How amazingly supportive are your mother Gloria and your twin brother M. Lamar?

You need somebody in your life to tell you the truth, no matter what. And my brother is the person who tells me the truth, no matter what. When I studied classical ballet, after my brother saw me dance and do a monologue afterwards, he said, “You’re an actor, this is what you should be doing.” This was years before I fully believed I was an actor. He has been a huge influence, as is my mother who always made sure I had all that I needed for school. I am privileged to have gotten an education. My mother also supported me in all my artistic endeavors. They are both crucial in my life.

You sound like you’re in a pretty good place these days, Laverne.

There are still struggles. I still have to work really hard because I still have demons, the shame gremlins that come up every single day. There are many things to be grateful for, but there still are many challenges. But today is a good day.

Bugs' interview with Laverne Cox originally ran in the July 2017 issue of Fugues magazine.

Twitter.com/bugsburnett

JOHN CAMERON MITCHELL NARRATES SHORTBUS SCREENING IN MONTREAL

August 2, 2017, 4:17 pm

≫ Next: CANADA PRIDE IDEAL TIME TO APOLOGIZE FOR ANTI-GAY MONTREAL POLICE RAIDS

≪ Previous: AN AUDIENCE WITH LAVERNE COX

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John Cameron Mitchell (screenshot)

When I was a young man I tried to give myself a blowjob when I discovered the trick to fellating yourself is not to put a pillow beneath your head, but beneath your neck.

I did as instructed, lifted my legs up against a wall, threw them over my shoulders, then promptly threw out my back.

I lay cussing in agony for about 20 minutes, later wrote a column about it and made a fortune for every acupuncturist in the city.

So you can imagine my amazement at the flexibility of New York actor Paul Dawson, who gives himself a lip-smacking blowjob in the first 10 minutes of John Cameron Mitchell’s 2006 film Shortbus, which just about every mainstream movie critic in America at the time compared to hard-core porn.

Now, I’ve known a few great pornographers in my life – Wakefield Poole, Toby Ross, Chi Chi LaRue and Flash Conway, to name but a few – and John Cameron Mitchell ain’t no pornographer.

But I will say that Paul Dawson has a pretty nice dick.

I also remember that before I stepped into the cinema for a media screening of Shortbus, I didn’t really want to sit next to anybody (I ended up sitting next to my fab drinking buddy John Griffin, then movie critic for The Montreal Gazette) just in case I got a hard-on (Ex-Centris wasn’t exactly the place for a quick tug-and-poke and, besides, John had to leave early).

I told that to my buddy Paul DeBoy – who co-stars in Shortbus and became Paul Dawson’s real-life boyfriend – when I caught up with him in October 2006 at the Hôtel de l’Abbaye in Paris where John Cameron Mitchell and the cast premiered Shortbus.

"I was worried about pulling a hard-on in front of everybody!" I cried.

"That’s my Bugs!" Paul laughed.

The thing about watching real sex on the big screen in a theatre full of people is that I’m a product of the video age. I admit I had never seen real porn in a theatre – and that’s why Shortbus was somewhat radical, in a Warhol Factory/Paul Morrissey Flesh kinda way.

That’s because I grew up on a steady diet of VHS and DVD porn screened in the private confines of my living room. Now we all watch it on the web.

Mitchell, DeBoy and Dawson  at a NYC Mattachine Party

Which is why it should be a lot of fun to watch Shortbus at Montreal’s last-remaining porn theatre, the historic Cinéma L’Amour, on August 12 at the 11th annual Pervers/Cité Festival. The cinema alone is worth the price of admission, and be sure to visit the toilets downstairs.

But wait, it gets better: No less than John Cameron Mitchell will appear in-person to provide live 'director's notes' throughout the screening.

"The sex in Shortbus isn’t meant to titillate," Paul told me.

Clearly Paul didn’t have a problem showing off his own dick and ass, which for the record look pretty good.

I stuttered, "You’re, well, you know, you’re – "

"Extroverted!" Paul chimed in.

"Yeah – extroverted!"

It takes one to know one, I guess.

Join John Cameron Mitchell for a Pervers/Cité midnight screening of Shortbus at Cinéma L’Amour on August 12. Mitchell will appear in-person to provide live 'director's notes' throughout the screening. Click herefor tickets.

The screening is the first of two events at which Mitchell will appear. The second is a Mattachine MTL for Pervers/cité with John Cameron Mitchell, a Montreal edition of the monthly queer NYC dance party Mitchell established with Shortbus co-stars Paul Dawson and PJ Deboy. Mattachine MTL takes place on August 16 at Sala Rossa. Mitchell will be joined in the DJ booth by Amber Martin, a longtime co-DJ of the New York Mattachine parties, and Montreal's own J. Ellise Barbara. Special guest performances by Alexis O'Hara and BiG SiSSY.

Check out the official Mattachine Party website at mattachineparty.com.

GET HED: JOHN CAMERON MITCHELL UNCENSORED

From the archives: Actor and director John Cameron Mitchell gave me a memorable HOUR magazine cover story in July 2001 when his cult film Hedwig and the Angry Inch screened at Montreal’s Just For Laughs International Comedy Festival.

We talked about how Hedwig really began back in 1994 at NYC’s famed drag-punk nightclub Squeezebox, where Stephen Trask – who would write the music and lyrics for Hedwig (John Cameron Mitchell wrote the text) – headed the house band and Mitchell’s boyfriend, Jack Steeb, played bass.

Mitchell worshipped the rock’n'roll singing drag queens at Squeezebox. So he began to rewrite covers of such songs as Fleetwood Mac’s Oh Well, Cher’s Half Breed, David Bowie’s Boys Keep Swinging and All the Young Dudes by Mott The Hoople, incorporating them into Hedwig‘s original concerts.

In fact, Mitchell’s second gig at Squeezebox also featured singer Debbie Harry on the bill, and Hedwig’s trademark wig was famously created that night with toilet paper rolls wrapped in synthetic blond hair!

By 1998, Hedwig and the Angry Inch debuted at the gloriously rundown Jane Street Theatre in NYC’s West Village as a fully-fledged original punk/glam rock musical about a lonely girly-boy named Hansel from Communist East Germany who, after a botched sex change (which leaves him with the titular angry inch), flees Germany before the Wall comes down. Hansel morphs into Hedwig, who is neither completely male nor female, but a glam rock’n'roll queen reduced to playing dives while her former protégé and lover Tommy Gnosis performs in stadiums across America.

After Hedwig won a Village Voice Obie Award and the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Off-Broadway Musical, the film adaptation won an award for best direction and the Audience Award for Best Drama at the Sundance Film Festival in 2001, Mitchell told me about the time he took a piss during one performance at the Jane Street Theatre: In the middle of the show he walked into the men’s john – in character, of course.

"I kept talking into the mic while I was urinating," Mitchell said. "Generally there was complete shock as I’d interview people in the toilet. But this old Irish drunk was both delighted and outraged and followed me on stage. So I let him regale his wife – it was her birthday – and sat down. Then when it was time, I gave him a big hug and sent him off on his merry way."

I also really like John because he also genuinely prefers diverse, mixed audiences.

"It just makes for a more interesting party," Mitchell told me. "You know, I think I needed to be more with gay people when I came out, in a more monolithic way. But then you grow up and realize you want a little variety. A lot of gay people only hang out with people who listen to the same music and have the same body and same gender. That’s boring and quite annoying. I feel like a freak among a majority."

Mattachine MTL for Pervers/cité with John Cameron Mitchell takes place on August 16 at Sala Rossa. Mitchell will be joined in the DJ booth by Amber Martin, a longtime co-DJ of the New York Mattachine parties, and Montreal's own J. Ellise Barbara. Performances by Alexis O'Hara and BiG SiSSY. Cover: $5 - $10 (Sliding scale, no one turned away for inability to pay).

Check out the official Mattachine Party website here: mattachineparty.com.

The 2017 edition of Pervers/Cité runs from August 10 to 20. Click here for all of their events.

Twitter.com/bugsburnett

CANADA PRIDE IDEAL TIME TO APOLOGIZE FOR ANTI-GAY MONTREAL POLICE RAIDS

August 12, 2017, 6:46 am

≫ Next: CANDID MINI-DOC CELBRATES DRAG ICON MADO LAMOTTE'S 30th ANNIVERSARY

≪ Previous: JOHN CAMERON MITCHELL NARRATES SHORTBUS SCREENING IN MONTREAL

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Montreal police raided Sex Garage in the early morning hours of Sunday, July 15, 1990

All Sex Garage photos © Linda Dawn Hammond / IndyFoto.com

I have been publicly screaming for an official apology for years: Projet Montréal city councillor Richard Ryan this week said he too wants the City of Montreal and the SPVM to apologize for their violent police raids of LGBTQ establishments over the course of decades that resulted in “more than 800 people” being arrested — at Truxx in 1977, at Bud’s bar in 1984, the Sex Garage loft party in 1990 (now widely considered to be Montreal’s Stonewall), and at the Katacombes bar in 1994.

This does not include, among other raids, the 36 people arrested at Montreal’s Sauna Aquarius on Crescent Street in February 1975 (the bathhouse was later firebombed and two unclaimed corpses were buried in "Pauper's Field" in Notre-Dame-des-Neiges cemetery atop Mount Royal); the 13 people charged as found-ins after police raided Montreal’s Club Baths in January 1975 (another 26 were arrested there in May 1975); the 61 men arrested at Sauna David in April 1980; and the October 1975 raids on 7 queer bars, including Baby Face, the legendary lesbian bar.

Violent Montreal police raid on Sex Garage © Linda Dawn Hammond / IndyFoto.com

Then there is the Neptune Sauna, opened in 1973 by Andre Laflamme and Lorne Holiday. At the time Laflamme and Holiday also owned the Aquarius Sauna when Montreal’s Gay Village was still downtown, before the exodus east after the 1976 Montreal summer Olympic games — an exodus precipitated by the systemic police raids.

The Neptune was raided by Montreal police on May 14, 1976. A friend of mine, Henri Labelle, was working as the cashier at the Neptune that night. Henri told me, “They yanked off people’s towels and threw everybody together and took pictures and charged them all with being in a common bawdy house.”

Henri noted, “There was a former mayor’s son there, a government minister, a secretary to the Catholic Archbishop and a couple of cops, but they were ushered out the back door while everyone else was thrown in paddy wagons.”

Eighty-nine patrons were arrested and police confiscated The Neptune’s 7,000-name membership list.

(In 1979 The Neptune on Rue de la Gauchetiere became Le Sauna 456,  just a couple of buildings over from where police raided Sex Garage in July 1990.)

In 2011, author and award-winning historian Ross Higgins, who also co-founded the Archives gaies du Québec, told me, “The police were mad about collecting people’s names during that period. I was part of the group that called for a meeting at the student centre at McGill University after The Neptune raid. There were over 100 people there and they were very angry. That was the beginning of modern gay organizing in Montreal and lead to the creation of the Association pour les droits des gais du Québec (ADGQ).”

I believe former Montreal police chief Jacques Duchesneau (1994-1998) apologized for the 1994 raid on Katacombes, but the cops and the city have not apologized for any of the rest of it.

Violent Montreal police raid on Sex Garage © Linda Dawn Hammond / IndyFoto.com

So I am happy to hear two of my great friends speak out about the city's conspicuous silence: legendary LGBTQ activist Michael Hendricks, now 75, and Fierté Canada / Canada Pride Montréal 2017 Grand Marshal Puelo Deir.

“I felt the oppression when I was in a club when the police came in with their machine guns and billy clubs and I’ll tell you, it was terrifying,” Puelo told CTV Montreal. “It ruined lives. People committed suicide over this, people were brought into court and were criminalized. Times have changed and they owe us an apology.”

Deir believes the City of Montreal and the police should both officially apologize.

"The people who suffered during those times, the people who are still alive it will be such a great weight off their shoulders and it will buoy our community," Deir added.

Click hereto watch CTV Montreal’s video report with Deir.

Meanwhile, Michael Hendricks told The Montreal Gazette that the night of the infamous 1977 police raid on Truxx, he felt tired and went home early. But his partner (now husband) René Leboeuf felt like dancing and went to Truxx instead. Leboeuf arrived as police were raiding the bar, arresting 146 men who were charged with being found in a common bawdy house. 

“He said it was brutal, mean and homophobic,” Hendricks, whose 2004 Quebec Superior Court victory legalized same-sex marriage in Quebec, told The Gazette. “The people who were being dragged out were innocent people.”

Violent Montreal police raid on Sex Garage © Linda Dawn Hammond / IndyFoto.com

Hendricks welcomed opposition party Projet Montréal’s calls for the City of Montreal and its police force to apologize to the LGBTQ community for past abusive police raids like Truxx and Sex Garage, two pivotal moments in Montreal LGBTQ and policing history.

“It would certainly help the police department’s current management remember that we haven’t forgotten,” Hendricks said. “How could we forget?”

Meanwhile, in Toronto, police chief Mark Saunders on June, 2016, apologized for its infamous 1981 raid on bathhouses that resulted in the arrest of 300 gay men. 

Employees, owners and patrons all faced a variety of charges, 90 per cent of which were later dropped.

"Montreal was worse than Toronto in terms of how the LGBTQ community was treated by the police — Montreal was far harsher," photographer Linda Dawn Hammond toldCBC News.

Hammond’s crucial historical photos captured the violent police raid on Sex Garage in July 1990 and were published on the front pages of both La Presse and Montreal Gazette daily newspapers.

"If there's going to be an apology, I would like to see them address the fact that they removed their police identification just before attacking us at Sex Garage with their [truncheons]," Hammond said. "They've denied it, and they've never addressed the fact that it is illegal for them to cover up their identification."

Violent Montreal police raid on Sex Garage © Linda Dawn Hammond / IndyFoto.com

An official apology from Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre and the Montreal police force during Fierté Canada / Canada Pride Montréal 2017 would be a welcome gesture during Canada Pride, a landmark moment in the ongoing reconciliation process between Montreal and the city's resilient LGBTQ communities.

“We will work together to reconcile and to apologize for what happened in the past,” Coderre saidat the Fierté Canada / Canada Pride Montréal 2017 Rainbow-flag-raising ceremony in Parc des Faubourgs on August 11. 

Meanwhile, Projet Montréal city councillor Richard Ryan said in a news release, "The struggle against homophobia and transphobia has made giant steps in recent years, including within the police force, but it would be wrong to believe that the issues are all settled.

“These raids contributed to the marginalization of the LGBTQ community and created a climate of tension between the community and police.”

Twitter.com/bugsburnett

CANDID MINI-DOC CELBRATES DRAG ICON MADO LAMOTTE'S 30th ANNIVERSARY

August 25, 2017, 10:00 am

≫ Next: SOPRANO MELODY MOORE ON BEING A DIVA, HER GAY FANS AND TOSCA

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Bugs interviews drag icon Mado Lamotte backstage at Cabaret Mado (Photo by Eva Blue)

I am proud of this terrific mini-documentary celebrating the 30th anniversary of Montreal drag icon Mado Lamotte, who famously got her start at Poodles nightclub on the Main in 1987.👠Hats off to uber-talented videographer Guillaume Langlois who put together this really entertaining 10-minute doc—we got some very funny and candid interview footage with Mado backstage at Cabaret Mado, plus classic clips of Mado entertaining the throngs at the Divers/Cite queers arts festival , Fierté Montréal Pride and at Mado's 17th annual Drag Race at the Festival St-Ambroise Fringe de Montréal this summer. Merci, Mado! Long Live Mado! 

Twitter.com/bugsburnett

SOPRANO MELODY MOORE ON BEING A DIVA, HER GAY FANS AND TOSCA

September 16, 2017, 9:24 am

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American soprano Melody Moore embraces divahood, her gay fans and her 
signature role Tosca (Photo via melodymooresoprano.com)

American soprano Melody Moore has appeared on many of the leading opera stages of the world, including as Mimi in La Bohème at the English National Opera, and as Regine St. Laurent in Rufus Wainwright’s Prima Donna at the New York City Opera.

One of the finest opera singers of her generation, Moore is probably best-known for her signature role, as Floria Tosca in Puccini’s masterpiece Tosca, a role she will reprise to open the 2017-2018 season of L’Opéra de Montréal.

Tosca is Moore’s first role at the OdeM since her company debut as Cio-Cio San in Madama Butterfly in 2015. When I met her recently at an OdeM rehearsal, I discovered she recently married her life partner Nicole Wagner.

So when I told Moore that I had planned for this to be the “gay interview,” she happily replied, “Yes! Let’s queen it up!”

What does it feel like to be back in Montreal?

Better. This time I come here married, happy, have a puppy (named Floria), I want to walk around the city. The last time I was here my foot was injured, so I couldn’t do anything. I went to the gym – maybe! ­– and the grocery store. So when my wife gets here, we are definitely visiting the city, and we want to go see the drag queens at Cabaret Mado!

Melody Moore as Floria Tosca in the OdeM production of Tosca (Photo by Yves Renaud)

Congratulations on getting married to Nicole. Was it love at first sight?

Nicole’s sister is an opera singer and we were supposed to have met during a Thanksgiving feast with friends and other singers and coaches, but things fell apart and we were unable to make it happen. I apologized to everyone and said we’ll have to make this happen again. And (Nicole) and I were the only ones who made it happen again. Then we just kept making it happen again!

What was it like to play Regine St. Laurent in Montrealer Rufus Wainwright’s opera Prima Donna, and what is it like to work with Rufus?

It’s a shame to me that young, vibrant writers of new music often get panned for trying to write opera, as if it is some kind of unattainable, unapproachable, paradigm, when Puccini at the time he wrote Tosca was panned as well. So was Verdi at times for writing things that were too human,  that were too approachable, that weren’t high art. And I think to myself we are just repeating that over again when we don’t listen to these young voices. Rufus is incredibly talented. The writing, the scoring – although thick – is stunning to listen to and it was one of the most fun experiences working with him and we still remain friends today.

How invested in Regine were you?

To me, it was like reliving Maria Callas, Régine Crespin, all of these singers that have gone before me who potentially had suffered from the aging process that people never talk about in the singing world. People never talk about what it means to lose a little bit of grip in your later years and what that might do to a person who has lived a very unrealistic lifestyle of an opera singer. For me I felt like I could touch for a moment those singers of the past.

Do you see yourself in Regine?

I did. I saw exactly how this could happen.

Does your own future scare you?

No, because I know very well how to say good-bye.

Tosca is one of your signature roles.

It is. I could do it forever until I can’t. I don’t think I will tire of it and that is something odd for me because I do need a lot of diversity in my life. I read all kinds of things, I listen to all kinds of music, I’m never satisfied with living one life, I need my fingers in many pies. For me Tosca is endlessly challenging as a character.

Gay men love their divas. Is Melody Moore a diva?

Yes. I think the word diva is fabulous. If you can embody what a diva is – it is a powerful word, it doesn,t mean bitch to me – and it doesn’t mean somebody who is incorrigible, hard to deal with and is demanding – it means you know who you are, what you want and what you’re good at, and you show up and deliver the very best product that you can on any given day.

Do you have a huge ego? I mean, you must have had a big ego to get this far.

You know what? I think I got this far on ego. Then I killed it. I think I took the ego and said, ‘What are you doing for me, and what are you doing against me?’ And I saw it was more against than it was for. So I did a lot of work on myself and now I really believe that is not what is running the ship anymore.

It’s pure talent!

(Smiles broadly) Thank you.

Melody Moore stars as Floria Tosca in the new Opéra de Montréal production of Puccini’s Tosca which runs at Salle Wilfred-Pelletier from September 16 to 23. Running time: 2 hours, 40 minutes, including two intermissions. For more info and tickets, visit www.operademontreal.com.

Visit Melody Moore’s official website at melodymooresoprano.com.

Click herefor my most recent 2016 interview with Rufus Wainwright.

Twitter.com/bugsburnett

HOMAGE TO QUEER ICON JEWEL'S CATCH ONE DISCO

September 30, 2017, 10:31 am

≫ Next: THE SWEET SOUL MUSIC OF WAYNE TENNANT

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Lesbian pioneer Jewel Thais-Williams opened her iconic Catch One disco in Los Angeles in 1973 (Photo courtesy MIBFF)

American film director C. Fitz's superb 2016 documentary film Jewel's Catch One is about one of America’s first Black discos, Catch One, which lesbian pioneer Jewel Thais-Williams opened in Los Angeles in 1973. The legendary disco was a longtime sanctuary for LGBTQ people until it closed in July 2015 after 42 years.

This film explores the iconic disco's golden years — when everybody from Sylvester to Madonna used to hang out at "The Catch"— and the legacy of Jewel the pioneering businesswoman and activist who fought hate and discrimination for decades.

Talking heads in the film include Evelyn “Champagne” King, Bonnie Pointer, Thelma Houston and Sharon Stone.

Three Dollar Bill sat down with C. Fitz on the eve of her award-winning film’s October 1 screening at the Montreal International Black Film Festival.

You followed Jewel Thais-Williams around for some six years to make this film. Why were you compelled to make this movie?

The first day I met Jewel I was directing a much shorter piece (two-to-three minutes long) for a charity as she was being honoured by the LA LGBT Center, for her service to the community. As I researched Jewel leading up to that first day I met her, I was shocked that so little was documented on her.

When I met her and learned even more about her life and service to others over four decades, I said to her, “I have no idea how I will fit ALL that you have done into a few minutes — we need to do a documentary on you.” 

She said yes that first day and we began our journey.

I think it was important to include the closing (of her disco) in 2015 as the first bookend in order to highlight her healing and clinic which she still works at today (villagehealthfoundation.org). It was my way of telling the world about this amazing woman and show how one person can do so much for so many. I wanted to save history for generations to come and inspire people by her story.

Jewel stood up against racism, homophobia and hatred for those that needed a leader and a healer. It took six years to make the right film that could show people a life, the history of the legendary Catch One from its beginning in 1973 to its end in 2015, and the threads of love, music and service to others that make up Jewel’s Catch One documentary. 

You have many high-profile talking heads in your film. How did you get them to come on board?

The wonderful celebrities that came on board to be interviewed all have unique stories to tell about Catch One – from fashion to music to dance to charity involvement in the many fundraisers that were held there to help the community, especially during the AIDS Crisis. I had a list of celebrities that was created over years of meeting with Jewel. Each time we met it seemed another few celebrity names popped out and was added to this list of VIPs that went through Catch One’s doors over the years.

Our wonderful cast of interviews includes Sharon Stone – who talks about dancing at The Catch undercover AND supporting its important community fundraisers – and Thelma Houston, whose Grammy award-winning song Don’t Leave Me This Way I heard for the first time at Catch before Motown even heard it!

Bonnie Pointer and Thea Austin both sing live in the film, and Evelyn “Champagne” King and (U.S. politician) Maxine Waters each (share) powerful stories relating back to the 80’s during the AIDS Crisis.

Thea Austin has even sung live during screenings (of the film). Her song Colour of Love is in the credits and her powerful message – singing it to Jewel in the film – has only made this film’s journey more powerful as an audience take-away. 

What do you think is the legacy of Jewel? Why is she a genuine queer icon?

Jewel Thais-Williams is a living legend. She has dedicated her life to serve others and to heal in any way she can. Queer people, women and people of color were shunned even by gay clubs — even in West Hollywood. They were harassed and had no place to go. Jewel fought for over four decades to keep Catch One open. To give them a place they knew they could always count on.

Jewel opened those doors even though the police harassed her and — as stated in the film — sometimes with rifles drawn. She opened the doors when she had little money and wasn’t making a profit because she knew her community counted on her and needed Catch One to be there for them. It was a home that the LGBT and Black community needed.

But she didn’t stop there.

When the AIDS Crisis hit, Jewel assessed what her community needed, as many of her patrons were dying. She raised funds for them, their loved ones, helped plan funerals and, with her wife Rue, even opened a shelter for women with AIDS and their children.

Jewel has never stopped serving her community. She created the legendary Catch One and she should be celebrated as a national hero. 

Jewel's Catch Onescreens at the Montreal International Black Fim Festival on October 1. Visit montrealblackfilm.com for more details and tickets.

Twitter.com/bugsburnett 

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THE SWEET SOUL MUSIC OF WAYNE TENNANT

October 21, 2017, 1:47 pm

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Soul man Wayne Tennant sets fire to the showbiz closet (Photo by Germán Moreno)

Montreal soul singer Wayne Tennant has been out to his close friends and associates for a long time, but this year Tennant decided to take it a step further: Publicly come out as a proud gay man in song and in interviews. In our candid Q&A, the gifted entertainer – who grew up on a diet of Prince, Michael Jackson, Terrence Trent D'arby, David Bowie and Stevie Wonder – looks back on his music career, the showbiz closet and his upcoming new album.

Three Dollar Bill: Since the release of your debut album Life in a Minor Keyin 2015, you have released a pair of singles that embrace queer sexuality – the video for your June 2017 single Crashfeatures same-sex couples dancing and sharing their love, and in your new single Bend, you sing, “I keep on bending/ always for you/ I keep on bending/ always/ for you / Cissy boy wearing a skirt.” In the song it also sounds like you are asserting your own gay sexuality.

Wayne Tennant: I wasn't necessarily asserting my sexuality in Bend but more so embracing it.  The chorus “I keep on bending / always for you” was basically expressing that for a long time I was the one always trying to please family or society rather than embracing my own individuality to the point of my own ultimate happiness. The opening line to the second verse – “Cissy boy wearing a skirt” – was a clap back at an insult that was made to me long ago when I embraced my sexuality.

In regards to me coming out, I’ve always known who I was and the people closest to me knew. But in terms of merging my sexuality with my music, this is a coming out in a certain respect.  I thought it was important to do so as songwriting for me is an art. It also means that if I was going to grow as a songwriter and stand out as one, I would also have to go to some places that were uncomfortable.  I believe that music is a powerful and healing tool that can make a positive difference in this world and often times it’s used to shed light on dark issues. It’s an educational tool in my mind.

You have been in the music business for a long time. Why do you think gay performers are encouraged to stay in the closet, and – while your closest friends always knew your truth – why did you wait to publicly come out until now?

I often think the music business is built on the machismo idea that it is always about the straights. Anything else outside of that is deemed as not normal and ultimately not acceptable. (Being gay is) viewed as weird and simply not cool and that brings on a lot of pressure to either pretend and be silent on the issue. For me, though, I decided to be more forthcoming on issue when I realized how lucky I am to be in a country where I can be free. I also saw that I could inspire people who are living in fear of prosecution both in and outside the music business. Life is short and I’m not here to live for other people – I’m here to discover who I am and live my best life. Some people don’t get the chance to do that.

Have you had moments as a performer in less tolerant countries where you have had to be careful about being openly gay?

I've had moments where I had to be really careful, like in my native country of Jamaica. It’s commonly known that Jamaica is one the most intolerant countries when it comes to homosexuality. I had not been home for a long time when I got the opportunity to back up Snow who was a pop dancehall sensation back in the 90s. I found myself under extreme pressure to be extra macho in front of his whole crew and it was exhausting and scary at times. I got through it and bowed out of backing him up any further.

You cite so many influences – from Bowie to Van Hunt. What is it you look and listen for in a performer?

Passion and vulnerability.  My favorite performers always kept me out of my seat, so to speak. It could be just where they were embodying a lyric to the point where their voice was about to break or just hearing the tenderness in their voice that could make me cry. That for me is what makes some of best artists out there. I also love good-old-fashion songwriting where you have beautiful chord changes with dramatic climaxes, and people like Babyface and Prince did that for me.

Wayne Tennant (Photo by Germán Moreno)

There is that wonderful movie 20 Feet From Stardom about some of the world’s great back-up singers. You have performed with the likes of Divine Brown and Ivana Santilli, though I don’t consider you a back-up singer. But similarly, at the age of 42, I feel you are asserting yourself more strongly today. 

I learned a lot from working with Divine Brown and Ivana Santilli years ago. They provided me with the tools to become what I am now.  Right now, I feel my time is now because I am not getting any younger and the music industry is changing ever so quickly and I must seize as many opportunities as I can get because the competition out there is fierce. There are many things I want to do with my career. Ultimately I want to leave an indelible mark on the industry like the greats of yesteryear. 

What new projects do you have on the horizon?

The focus in the next few months will be to tie up all the songs for my next album tentatively titled Bend which will come out late Spring 2018. I would also love to tour (the new album) next year and keep growing my fan base.

You launch your new single Bend with a hometown concert at Petit Campus on October 23. What can concert-goers expect to see and hear at your show?

You will hear me with a full band, and there will be a raw acoustic breakdown of songs I penned earlier on in my career. It will be emotionally charged, vulnerable, with no lack of passion. I plan on performing like my life depended on it.

Wayne Tennant headlines Petit Campus (57 Rue Prince Arthur E.) on October 23 at 7 pm. 

For more Wayne Tennant, visit waynetennant.com

Twitter.com/bugsburnett

TRAILBLAZING COMEDIAN BOB SMITH'S LIFE WITH ALS

March 12, 2018, 3:51 pm

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Bob Smith: “I’m Still Cracking Jokes And Sharing Laughs”

In 1994 pioneering stand-up comic Bob Smith became the first openly-gay comic to appear on The Tonight Show. Bob died on January 20, 2018, after a 12-year battle against ALS. He was 59. A Celebration of Life Memorial was held at Carolines comedy club in New York on March 5. This is my final interview with Bob (it originally ran in Fugues magazine and NewNowNext in December 2016) when he answered my email Q&A with the help of his devoted life partner, screenwriter Michael Zam and their great friend, comedian Eddie Sarfaty, by pointing out letters on a board with his feet. Bob exemplified sheer courage right until the end. Thanks for the laughs, Bob. RIP.

Comedy legend Bob Smith is perhaps best-known for opening closet doors as the first out gay comic to appear on The Tonight Show. But today Smith is blazing a new trail as he confronts the degenerative affects of ALS, in his life and on the pages of his candid new memoir Treehab: Tales From My Natural, Wild Life.

Diagnosed with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease) a decade ago, Smith has fought a good fight against the progressive neurodegenerative disease, which attacks the nerve cells responsible for controlling voluntary muscles, such as those in the arms, legs and face.

When he agreed to do our email interview, Smith answered my questions—with the help of his devoted life partner, screenwriter Michael Zam, and their great friend, comedian Eddie Sarfaty—by pointing out letters on a board with his feet.


“I don’t have the hereditary form of ALS, so that’s a huge relief for my family, knowing I haven’t passed the disease on to my children, Maddie and Xander,” says Smith. 

“ALS is tough and there’s a limit to what I can do to comfort them, but here, too, humor’s proved essential. Luckily, (comedian) Elvira (Kurt) and Chloe (Brushwood Rose), my kids’ moms, and my partner Michael are all funny and understand the power of comedy. A lot of my closest friends are comedians and writers as well and aren’t afraid to make fun of my illness and all the horrible/hilarious day-to-day aspects of it. And, even though I’m now spelling things out by pointing with my foot to letters on a board, I’m still cracking jokes and sharing laughs with people. I have no doubt that’s why I’ve survived so long.”

I first interviewed Smith in 1997 when I was part of the studio audience in Montreal for the taping of the ground-breaking LGBTQ television sketch-comedy show In Thru The Out Door, which was far, far ahead of its time. In addition to Smith, cast members were Elvira Kurt, Jonathan Wilson, Lea Delaria, Robin Greenspan, Maggie Cassella, Suzanne Westenhoefer, Craig Francis and Jaffe Cohen (whose Best Actress script co-written with Michael Zam is the basis for the upcoming F/X miniseries Feud which stars Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon as Joan Crawford and Bette Davis). In Thru The Out Door was created by Montrealer Andy Nulman, who also co-founded the Just for Laughs comedy festival.

“When I started the project, Bob was my first hire,” says Nulman. “I did this not only because of Bob’s iconic stature in both the gay and comedy communities, but because I knew that as the show’s “straight producer” I would need someone calm, respected and even-handed to be my bridge to a world that I only could pretend to understand. Bob was like King Solomon at times, calming the waters with the rest of the cast when I made some sort of loopy, ignorant comment or mistake, and helping ease the radical show’s politics and subject matter—such as a gameshow for AIDS patients—to an assembled group of increasingly nervous American and Canadian TV execs. The guy was so even-keeled I would call him ’Jesus.'”

“Even when he was furious, he was calm,” says Nulman. “He talked with his eyes and his pace, not his words. Even now, when I watch the show, I’m amazed not just at his performance, but at how the others performed because of him. As they say in sports, he was one of those quiet leaders “in the room.” Would have never been able to pull the show off without him.”

Smith recalls In Thru The Out Door as a fun experience and that “the lesbian Honeymooners with Lea DeLaria as the Ralph Kramden character killed!”

Seven years later, in 2004, I interviewed Smith again when he performed at Maggie Cassella’s queer comedy festival We’re Funny That Way, which returns to Toronto in May 2017 and inspired Cassella’s upcoming We’re Funny That Way Queer Entertainment Channel. Smith told me a great story about the time comedy icon Joan Rivers welcomed him on her television talk show when he was breaking into showbiz.

“I still had a catering job and one day we catered a party at her house,” Smith told me. “I wore my glasses so no one would recognize me and when I walked out with a tray of hors d’oeuvres, guests asked me, ‘Weren’t you on Joan’s show?’ So Joan comes right over to me, grabs my arm and announces, ‘This man was on my show!’ She looks at me and says, ‘Isn’t this the most embarrassing moment of your life?’ Then she told me the same thing happened to her when she met Jack Lemmon. She’d been waiting on him when she started out.”

Like Rivers, Smith has also been very generous to up-and-coming comics: He not only performed at the inaugural We’re Funny That Way in 1997, but appeared in the festival’s 1998 documentary film.
“I don’t just love Bob Smith—I revere him for his courage,” says Cassella. “Bob has always been courageous and pioneering. From being at the forefront of the queer rights movement as an out queer comic to his amazingly prolific writing career to the sharing of his family stories to his unrelenting fight against ALS. He’s also one of the kindest colleagues I’ve ever met. In a business that is set up to pit people against each other Bob is a true and loyal friend.”

Adds Cassella, “Of course my favorite thing about Bob is that he always makes me laugh when I think I probably shouldn’t be laughing. And not just from the stage. The privilege of knowing Bob affords access to what I like to call his “other funny side.” Underneath that unassuming, wholesome, handsome bastard onstage is a dry, sharp-tonged, gay who can let it fly in a dark and beautiful way that literally bends me over. Yes, I heard that and I’ll proudly say it again: Bob Smith has bent me over too many times to count.” 

 Smith stopped performing live stand-up in 2010.

“Making people laugh has been one of the greatest privileges in my life,” Smith says. “I know some people think humor isn’t as important as other things, but it’s a vital component of everything! It allows us to connect with each other, lessen our fears, lighten our work, and bear the unbearable. Doing stand-up, each successful joke generates a spark of intimacy between you and the audience. It nourishes you like nothing else. I kept performing as long as I could, until ALS stole my speech. It broke my heart when I had to stop. I’m so grateful to have my writing, to still be able to touch people with my humor. I love hearing that a book or essay of mine has made someone laugh. It’s been a gift to me in fighting my illness.”

Smith has written many books since his 1997 collection of comic essays, Openly Bob, won a Lambda Literary Award. His latest, Treehab, is candid and poignant and, Smith says, “the most personal book I’ve written. It’s all of the most meaningful things in my life in one volume—my love for my partner Michael, my family and friends, what I’ve learned through living with ALS, my career as a comedian, and the essential role of laughter in the world. It was urgently important for me to share my love of nature and hopefully inspire readers to go out and discover for themselves how amazing the natural world truly is. Once you’ve spent time in an unspoiled place and witness all its wonders, it’s a lot harder to stand by when it’s threatened. I hope Treehab serves as a call-to-arms to save our planet.”

 The reviews and sales for Treehab have been awesome. When asked how that makes him feel, Smith cracks, “Relieved. ALS is expensive.”

One thing about Bob Smith, who is one of my personal heroes, he hasn’t lost his sense of humor. If anything, it has saved his life and today, at age 55, he is proud he blazed a trail as an out comic.

“For any comic, doing The Tonight Show is huge,” Smith recalls. “For me, it was a delicious way of proving people wrong. I was urged by different managers to drop the gay content of my act. They said it would prevent me from having a career. I knew other comedians who were gay but afraid to come out due to homophobia in the industry and in general. I’m proud that I was brave, and when I learn I’ve inspired someone else to be brave, I pat myself on the back.”

As for the future, Smith says, “I hope that my writing continues to make people laugh and that Treehab sparks them to stand up for the planet. I want my kids to grow up in a world where greed is the rare exception and not the accepted motivation for progress. Of course, I’d like a cure for ALS, preferably by next week.” 

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NFB DOC LOVE, SCOTT FOLLOWS GAY MAN'S JOURNEY AFTER VIOLENT ATTACK

September 18, 2018, 1:51 pm

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Canadian musician Scott Jones tells his story in the 2018 NFB documentary film Love, Scott (Photo by Laura Marie Wayne)

Nova Scotia gay musician and choral conductor Scott Jones was stabbed in the back and throat slashed outside a New Glasgow club in October 2013. Nineteen-year-old Shane Edward Matheson was charged with attempted murder, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

The stabbing severed Jones’ spinal cord, leaving Jones paralyzed from the waist down. Yet when he read his victim impact statement in Nova Scotia Supreme Court during sentencing, Jones told Matheson, “Shane, nothing can justify what you've done to me, but I forgive you for what you have done." 

The road to recovery has been a difficult one for Jones who launched his Don’t Be Afraid campaign in 2013 to battle homophobia and transphobia, and he is the subject of the NFB documentary Love, Scott, filmed by his best friend, director Laura Wayne, and which is currently earning rave reviews on the film festival circuit.

The film is pensive and elegiac. As the NFB describes it, “From the first raw moments in the hospital to a disquieting trip back to the place he was attacked, Scott is constantly faced with the choice of losing himself in waves of grief or embracing love over fear. Filmed over three years by Scott’s close friend, Love, Scott is an intimate and visually evocative window into queer experience, set against a stunning score by Sigur Rós.”

I interviewed both Laura Wayne and Scott Jones when Love, Scott screened at the 2018 FIN Atlantic International Film Festival in Halifax.

Why did you feel compelled to make this movie?

Laura Wayne:  A really important part of making this film for me was Scott knew from the beginning that he was targetted for being a gay man. But no hate crimes charges were pressed and it was not a topic in the courtroom. But it was important to Scott and I felt this needed to be explored.

What do you hope to accomplish with this film?

Scott Jones: As Laura said, the attack was not labelled as a hate crime. I hope this film shines on a light on hate crimes in Canada. I also hope that the queer community feels like they are being represented onscreen. We just don’t see enough stories about queer disabled people on the big screen, so this is a big accomplishment.

Movie still of scene where Scott Jones stands up in theatre

My favourite scene in the film is when Scott stands up onstage in the theatre. What was it like to film that scene?

Scott Jones: At that point I wasn’t really thinking about being filmed. I remember saying how vulnerable I felt. But that moment was powerful. It was an incredible afternoon.

Laura Wayne:  Yes, I was deeply moved when we filmed that scene, as well as the scene at the Pride parade. I had to juggle this dual role – half professional filmmaker, the other as Scott’s best friend. During those two scenes, it was really emotional and a privilege to be there.

Scott, was making this film a cathartic experience for you, and has it contributed to your healing in any way?

Scott Jones: I could spend hours answering this question. The short answer is yes! I think that is thanks to my relationship with Laura and the love she has given me on this journey. It is something I desperately needed. The film has changed my life and contributed to my healing.

For more about Love, Scott, click here.

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(Illustration by Gray Fraser)

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