Toronto Arts Review
“Mackenzie MacBride, Ottawa, is back with a new CD and her one of a kind lounge act based on storytelling and glam rock.”
- Xtra / Arts / Gordon Bowness / Toronto / April, 2006
Friday, May 12, 2006
Lounge Act Reviewed in Alterheros.com
Mackenzie MacBride, est une musicienne qui chante dans une style de lounge et glam rock.
Elle utilise un synthétiseur, les drums électroniques et la guitare pour raconter l’histoire de sa propre vie, tout en démontrant une franchise hors du commun et faisant vivre bon nombre d’émotion à son public.
Sa voix rappelle à la fois les styles opéra et blues. Avec son style excentrique, elle sera difficile à oublier. Pour la connaître d’avantage, vous pouvez visiter son site perso au www.myspace.com/mackenziemacbride
- Alterheros.com / In the Community / Montreal / April, 2006/ Translated from French
Mackenzie MacBride, est une musicienne qui chante dans une style de lounge et glam rock.
Elle utilise un synthétiseur, les drums électroniques et la guitare pour raconter l’histoire de sa propre vie, tout en démontrant une franchise hors du commun et faisant vivre bon nombre d’émotion à son public.
Sa voix rappelle à la fois les styles opéra et blues. Avec son style excentrique, elle sera difficile à oublier. Pour la connaître d’avantage, vous pouvez visiter son site perso au www.myspace.com/mackenziemacbride
- Alterheros.com / In the Community / Montreal / April, 2006/ Translated from French
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Saturday, April 22, 2006
Write It, Read It. Post It. – “Gender Privlidged Vs. Gender Peculiar”
When you’re angry at something or someone in the office the old saying is,”Write It, Read It. Rip It.” But I’m going to Post it. Because “high society” just doesn’t get it. To define my terms, “high society” is people who have access and invitation to participate in the social networks of mainstream society. A mainstream society that includes both the strait world and the queer community. But not people who are gender peculiar.
By social networks I mean the basics of meeting friends and having people actually calling us and inviting us out. How it works is: Each meeting and inviting leads to more of the same. Enurta. High society. It isn’t about money. Though that comes with it. In that people get jobs through who they know. Get music gigs and press from people they know.
Call me Jealous. Imbittered. Angry. Chip on the shoulders. Worked over. I’d for sure agree to “Worked over.” But I’m really done with being told, “Oh. Why don’t you just organize a show?” Or “You can get press – you just have to go out and get it.” Or, “if you’re good at what you do people will just hire you.” Sorry. No sale. All of those comments, however well meaning they may be, are coming from a place of “privlidge.” People who are privilidged to be main stream enough that high society will let them participate in the strait ahead ratio of “Effort = Results”. They ignore that it just aint that simple for people who are ruled “peculiar” and especially, “gender peculiar” by society.
Lets take a closer look at who is “gender privilidged” and who is “gender peculiar” - and why.
If you find yourself lost already, in order to understand what kind of “outsider” status someone who is unconvential in gender faces let’s consider Tammy and Little Billy. Tammy, is a trans gal trying to get in with some non trans people so she can read her poems at the local watering hole in town. Even though she knows most of them are a bunch of damn posers. Little Billy is a queer boy sitting out in a rural town populated by farmers and bible thumpers all lined up at the church pot luck for second helpings of strawberry shortcake of a warm July evening. Billy is often the outcast. Just not let in the club. Tammy is like Little Billy. Little Billy doesn’t have any hetro privlidge. Tammy doesn’t have any gender privlidge. They are both on the outside looking in on the rest of the town, otherwise known as – you guessed it: “high society”. But being a butchy young thing, Little Billy, with his straw hat and faded denium overalls, at least has gender privlidge. Their gonna give him a bowl of strawberry shortcake. Tammy, well she’s just out in the cold. No strawberry shortcake for her. And no saucy limric from her poetry scribbler is gonna fix that, you all.
Now that we have a better idea of what the hell I’m talking about let’s continue. There’s lots of folks, artists and otherwise, out there who are “different”, or “characters” or “unique”. People who dress larger than life to get attention, have a rare talent that they exploit to gain notority, or big personalities that command an audience wherever they go. These “characters” are sought out and revered by society for their “different” qualities. Different, as in “special”. Special, as in “appreciated”. But all of these traits are a second coat of paint over top of their base coats of being conventionally gendered. Their gender matches their body and their sex. It always has, and it always will. Conventionally gendered. This is a safe and approachable base coat of paint for most people.
This safe, conventional, and basically mass appealing gender presentation earns these “characters” two things, if not more. One, it earns them entrance into the privlidged, conventionally gendered high society. And they get into the club because they give people in mainstream society something safe to hold onto. Something called “gender” that lets mainstreamers say, “I can deal with this person – cuz underneath they are “just like me””. And once these “characters” are in the club of privilidge what do they get? : A big play ground to network, earn livings, date, become rock stars – whatever’s on their agendas.
Secondly, it earns them the right to play. Play with fashion, piercings, tattoos, looks, styles, bravado, and all other outward presentations of themselves. Play so hard with their appearances that they can make themselves into real, “freaks”. But they’re still safe. Hardly scary at all. Becauase no matter what they do they’ve still got this base coat of gender normalcy underneath to keep them in the good graces of a main stream society that’s holding the keys to privilidge.
But what about those “characters” who seem to court gender diviance but still come out on top of the heap? The chick dressed in leather and big hats and singing with a real booming voice and a drum kit and the punk boy with mascara and painted nails whining away in a high piched nasal voice above his electric guitar. Those two. And their legions of clones. Good for them, but no, this doesn’t move them from the status of “character” into, “peculiar”. This is still just playing with appearances. Putting a real shocking second coat of paint over those convential gender base coats of theirs. This is all just part of their schitck. Their gag. Their attention-getting machine.
A base coat of paint that mainstream “high society” views as safe and a second coat that main stream views as flashy– what a recipe for success. The by line reads something like, “Amazing female vocalist solid as an 18 wheeler” and “Punk frontman sings like an angel.” The prerequistite for success is gender. These artists deliver. And “high society” eats it up by consciously or unconsciously saying, “Well, I can deal with 18 wheelers and angels – I mean it’s a man and a woman I’m watching here at the end of the day.”
It’s these “characters’” choice to look like that though. It’s on them. Not in them. They could strip all of that rockabilly toughness and punk strut off for Monday morning, walk down the street without being stared and and get that job in the coffee shop on the corner without much of a problem. Not being stared at. Getting that job. Dressing it up or down whenever it’s more convenient or necessary to fit in. All of that is part of gender privilidge.
Some of these “characters” get a real buzz out of defining themselves as “outsiders”, and not a members of “high society” at all. So, ofcourse, they will fight tooth and nail to try and deny that they are in fact “prividged”. Even conventioanlly gendered privlidged. It always amuses me when these self-described “outsiders” fight so hard to be recognized as “peculiar” because they are such “insiders.” Gender insiders. And if they were to be granted the “peculiar” label, it would be a classic case of, “Be careful what you wish for” because they’d immediately see they’re convential gender fueled accesses and privlidges clawed away by main stream
“high society”.
On the other side of the line, the “peculiar” person, the person who is not conventional in gender, has the opposite paint job going on. A base coat of paint that main stream “high society” views as scary. A base that is not on them like a costume, but inside them like a feeling. A feeling that can’t be taken out, whether it turns the coffee shop owner’s crank or not. And a second coat that main stream views as boring – a schtick that’s already been done. (We’ve all seen, “TransAmerica”, “Hedwig and the Angry Inch”, and “Boys Don’t Cry”. Move on.
Stop whining.). The gender peculiar person is not likely walking down that same street without getting stared at. And isn’t likely getting that job in the coffee shop either.
It’s also worth pointing out here that plently of conventionally gendered people never amount to much in life. Just as many gender peculiar people likely wouldn’t amount to much either if gender suddenly was no longer a big deal in high society. The difference is: whatever opportunities conventionally gendered people squandered or chances they had wrentched away from them by others, one thing they didn’t face was having their potential pinned down by a glass ceiling in the form of being denied access to the goodies that come from possessing gender privilidge.
I don’t resent people who are conventionally gendered. After all, just like gender variant people – it was just how they were mentally hard wired in the womb. And not all conventially gendered people are against non-conventionally gendered people. A few have even said, “I’ll help you.” But both the conventionally gendered person and the non-conventionally gendered soon find out that this benvolent offer finds its demise in its naivity. What worked for the conventionally gendered person in terms of getting press, a job or a lover usually doesn’t work for the gender unconventional person. They can’t, don’t and won’t walk the same path. And many a conventionally gendered friend and non-conventionally gendered friend have looked at each other and said, “Why is that?” The explanation is very short. But once you find it, it is so very simple. Tammy and Little Billy, the answer is: Gender privilidge.
So while I don’t resent people who are conventionally gendered for being conventionaly gendered, I do resent conventionally gendered people telling me that I have access to just as many opportunities to go out there and mix it up with main stream high society as they do. For the more well-meaning people flogging this flawed logic, I give them a break because privlidge born out of gender is really subtle. Because almost everyone has gender privlidge. It’s easy to overlook how much of leg up being conventionally gendered gives a person until you really walk a mile with the effeminate gay boy at the “strait acting” night club, the lip stick lesbain at the stone dyke poker game or the trans gal trying to get some press for her music.
But to state it clearly and simply, once and for all, with few exceptions, people who are gender peculiar are not part of the in crowd. Not invited to the bar for drinks with the hotties. Not thought of for being added to the line up of performers for the multi-artist fund raiser. Ignored by the call outs to join the posing poets for their “reading series”.
And while it is easy to overlook, for all its subtly, I’m not going to roll over and pretend this type of gender privlidge doesn’t exist. Because to ignore it, to say that opportunities and access for conventionally gendered people (conventionally gendered “characters” included) and “peculiar” gender unconventionals are equal would be to make the the oppression that comes from going without gender privilidge even more oppressive. It would be to say, “Oh well. It’s my fault. I didn’t get that press. I must not have tried hard enough.” One more marginalized person blamed for their marginalization.
So if you are gender peculiar give yourself a break. Now that we’ve named the beasts: That you are most likely oppressed by a “high society” that is obsessed with gender as a concept of two polar opposites. That this same “high society” has likely marginalized you by that doling out or holds back gender privlidge, and the trappings that go with it, on a case by case, or gender by gender basis. Now that we’ve carefully disected what’s been leaning on you, uncurl yourself from that ball. You shouldn’t compare what you are able to achieve with that of a conventionally gendered person with the accomplishments of a conventionally gendered person with all of their gender privilidge and access to high society. What the gender peculiar person and the conventionally gendered person can make happen is often going to be on a different scale, even if their talents may be basically equal. And now that this is oppression is out in the light, if you are the friend of a gender peculiar person, please - a little less on the, “Why can’t you make it to the other end of the pool – I did.” routine. It’s hurtful.
To gender peculiars and our friends - don’t quit. Break down the walls. One bricks at a time if necessary. So you can try in little and big ways to gain access to what all humans should have the right to do, participate fully in their communities and socities. There’s not much in journalism or creative writing that’s worse than people giving dogmatic pep talks to complete strangers so I’ll keep this “feel-gooder finish” to a brief personal anecdote. I’ve sent out press releases and promos about my music from everyone to queer magazines, local rags to the freaking CBC and received not a bite. But I’ve rolled up the newspapers heralding punk rock boys with mascara and women in leather and big hats, with their safe base coats and their gender insider status that attracts the press like magnets on grandma’s fridge. And I’ve thrown the whole lot of them in the recycling bin. And I’m moving on to thinking about just who in “high society” I can go up to next and point out – “Hey I exist too, wanna give me a chance?”
When you’re angry at something or someone in the office the old saying is,”Write It, Read It. Rip It.” But I’m going to Post it. Because “high society” just doesn’t get it. To define my terms, “high society” is people who have access and invitation to participate in the social networks of mainstream society. A mainstream society that includes both the strait world and the queer community. But not people who are gender peculiar.
By social networks I mean the basics of meeting friends and having people actually calling us and inviting us out. How it works is: Each meeting and inviting leads to more of the same. Enurta. High society. It isn’t about money. Though that comes with it. In that people get jobs through who they know. Get music gigs and press from people they know.
Call me Jealous. Imbittered. Angry. Chip on the shoulders. Worked over. I’d for sure agree to “Worked over.” But I’m really done with being told, “Oh. Why don’t you just organize a show?” Or “You can get press – you just have to go out and get it.” Or, “if you’re good at what you do people will just hire you.” Sorry. No sale. All of those comments, however well meaning they may be, are coming from a place of “privlidge.” People who are privilidged to be main stream enough that high society will let them participate in the strait ahead ratio of “Effort = Results”. They ignore that it just aint that simple for people who are ruled “peculiar” and especially, “gender peculiar” by society.
Lets take a closer look at who is “gender privilidged” and who is “gender peculiar” - and why.
If you find yourself lost already, in order to understand what kind of “outsider” status someone who is unconvential in gender faces let’s consider Tammy and Little Billy. Tammy, is a trans gal trying to get in with some non trans people so she can read her poems at the local watering hole in town. Even though she knows most of them are a bunch of damn posers. Little Billy is a queer boy sitting out in a rural town populated by farmers and bible thumpers all lined up at the church pot luck for second helpings of strawberry shortcake of a warm July evening. Billy is often the outcast. Just not let in the club. Tammy is like Little Billy. Little Billy doesn’t have any hetro privlidge. Tammy doesn’t have any gender privlidge. They are both on the outside looking in on the rest of the town, otherwise known as – you guessed it: “high society”. But being a butchy young thing, Little Billy, with his straw hat and faded denium overalls, at least has gender privlidge. Their gonna give him a bowl of strawberry shortcake. Tammy, well she’s just out in the cold. No strawberry shortcake for her. And no saucy limric from her poetry scribbler is gonna fix that, you all.
Now that we have a better idea of what the hell I’m talking about let’s continue. There’s lots of folks, artists and otherwise, out there who are “different”, or “characters” or “unique”. People who dress larger than life to get attention, have a rare talent that they exploit to gain notority, or big personalities that command an audience wherever they go. These “characters” are sought out and revered by society for their “different” qualities. Different, as in “special”. Special, as in “appreciated”. But all of these traits are a second coat of paint over top of their base coats of being conventionally gendered. Their gender matches their body and their sex. It always has, and it always will. Conventionally gendered. This is a safe and approachable base coat of paint for most people.
This safe, conventional, and basically mass appealing gender presentation earns these “characters” two things, if not more. One, it earns them entrance into the privlidged, conventionally gendered high society. And they get into the club because they give people in mainstream society something safe to hold onto. Something called “gender” that lets mainstreamers say, “I can deal with this person – cuz underneath they are “just like me””. And once these “characters” are in the club of privilidge what do they get? : A big play ground to network, earn livings, date, become rock stars – whatever’s on their agendas.
Secondly, it earns them the right to play. Play with fashion, piercings, tattoos, looks, styles, bravado, and all other outward presentations of themselves. Play so hard with their appearances that they can make themselves into real, “freaks”. But they’re still safe. Hardly scary at all. Becauase no matter what they do they’ve still got this base coat of gender normalcy underneath to keep them in the good graces of a main stream society that’s holding the keys to privilidge.
But what about those “characters” who seem to court gender diviance but still come out on top of the heap? The chick dressed in leather and big hats and singing with a real booming voice and a drum kit and the punk boy with mascara and painted nails whining away in a high piched nasal voice above his electric guitar. Those two. And their legions of clones. Good for them, but no, this doesn’t move them from the status of “character” into, “peculiar”. This is still just playing with appearances. Putting a real shocking second coat of paint over those convential gender base coats of theirs. This is all just part of their schitck. Their gag. Their attention-getting machine.
A base coat of paint that mainstream “high society” views as safe and a second coat that main stream views as flashy– what a recipe for success. The by line reads something like, “Amazing female vocalist solid as an 18 wheeler” and “Punk frontman sings like an angel.” The prerequistite for success is gender. These artists deliver. And “high society” eats it up by consciously or unconsciously saying, “Well, I can deal with 18 wheelers and angels – I mean it’s a man and a woman I’m watching here at the end of the day.”
It’s these “characters’” choice to look like that though. It’s on them. Not in them. They could strip all of that rockabilly toughness and punk strut off for Monday morning, walk down the street without being stared and and get that job in the coffee shop on the corner without much of a problem. Not being stared at. Getting that job. Dressing it up or down whenever it’s more convenient or necessary to fit in. All of that is part of gender privilidge.
Some of these “characters” get a real buzz out of defining themselves as “outsiders”, and not a members of “high society” at all. So, ofcourse, they will fight tooth and nail to try and deny that they are in fact “prividged”. Even conventioanlly gendered privlidged. It always amuses me when these self-described “outsiders” fight so hard to be recognized as “peculiar” because they are such “insiders.” Gender insiders. And if they were to be granted the “peculiar” label, it would be a classic case of, “Be careful what you wish for” because they’d immediately see they’re convential gender fueled accesses and privlidges clawed away by main stream
“high society”.
On the other side of the line, the “peculiar” person, the person who is not conventional in gender, has the opposite paint job going on. A base coat of paint that main stream “high society” views as scary. A base that is not on them like a costume, but inside them like a feeling. A feeling that can’t be taken out, whether it turns the coffee shop owner’s crank or not. And a second coat that main stream views as boring – a schtick that’s already been done. (We’ve all seen, “TransAmerica”, “Hedwig and the Angry Inch”, and “Boys Don’t Cry”. Move on.
Stop whining.). The gender peculiar person is not likely walking down that same street without getting stared at. And isn’t likely getting that job in the coffee shop either.
It’s also worth pointing out here that plently of conventionally gendered people never amount to much in life. Just as many gender peculiar people likely wouldn’t amount to much either if gender suddenly was no longer a big deal in high society. The difference is: whatever opportunities conventionally gendered people squandered or chances they had wrentched away from them by others, one thing they didn’t face was having their potential pinned down by a glass ceiling in the form of being denied access to the goodies that come from possessing gender privilidge.
I don’t resent people who are conventionally gendered. After all, just like gender variant people – it was just how they were mentally hard wired in the womb. And not all conventially gendered people are against non-conventionally gendered people. A few have even said, “I’ll help you.” But both the conventionally gendered person and the non-conventionally gendered soon find out that this benvolent offer finds its demise in its naivity. What worked for the conventionally gendered person in terms of getting press, a job or a lover usually doesn’t work for the gender unconventional person. They can’t, don’t and won’t walk the same path. And many a conventionally gendered friend and non-conventionally gendered friend have looked at each other and said, “Why is that?” The explanation is very short. But once you find it, it is so very simple. Tammy and Little Billy, the answer is: Gender privilidge.
So while I don’t resent people who are conventionally gendered for being conventionaly gendered, I do resent conventionally gendered people telling me that I have access to just as many opportunities to go out there and mix it up with main stream high society as they do. For the more well-meaning people flogging this flawed logic, I give them a break because privlidge born out of gender is really subtle. Because almost everyone has gender privlidge. It’s easy to overlook how much of leg up being conventionally gendered gives a person until you really walk a mile with the effeminate gay boy at the “strait acting” night club, the lip stick lesbain at the stone dyke poker game or the trans gal trying to get some press for her music.
But to state it clearly and simply, once and for all, with few exceptions, people who are gender peculiar are not part of the in crowd. Not invited to the bar for drinks with the hotties. Not thought of for being added to the line up of performers for the multi-artist fund raiser. Ignored by the call outs to join the posing poets for their “reading series”.
And while it is easy to overlook, for all its subtly, I’m not going to roll over and pretend this type of gender privlidge doesn’t exist. Because to ignore it, to say that opportunities and access for conventionally gendered people (conventionally gendered “characters” included) and “peculiar” gender unconventionals are equal would be to make the the oppression that comes from going without gender privilidge even more oppressive. It would be to say, “Oh well. It’s my fault. I didn’t get that press. I must not have tried hard enough.” One more marginalized person blamed for their marginalization.
So if you are gender peculiar give yourself a break. Now that we’ve named the beasts: That you are most likely oppressed by a “high society” that is obsessed with gender as a concept of two polar opposites. That this same “high society” has likely marginalized you by that doling out or holds back gender privlidge, and the trappings that go with it, on a case by case, or gender by gender basis. Now that we’ve carefully disected what’s been leaning on you, uncurl yourself from that ball. You shouldn’t compare what you are able to achieve with that of a conventionally gendered person with the accomplishments of a conventionally gendered person with all of their gender privilidge and access to high society. What the gender peculiar person and the conventionally gendered person can make happen is often going to be on a different scale, even if their talents may be basically equal. And now that this is oppression is out in the light, if you are the friend of a gender peculiar person, please - a little less on the, “Why can’t you make it to the other end of the pool – I did.” routine. It’s hurtful.
To gender peculiars and our friends - don’t quit. Break down the walls. One bricks at a time if necessary. So you can try in little and big ways to gain access to what all humans should have the right to do, participate fully in their communities and socities. There’s not much in journalism or creative writing that’s worse than people giving dogmatic pep talks to complete strangers so I’ll keep this “feel-gooder finish” to a brief personal anecdote. I’ve sent out press releases and promos about my music from everyone to queer magazines, local rags to the freaking CBC and received not a bite. But I’ve rolled up the newspapers heralding punk rock boys with mascara and women in leather and big hats, with their safe base coats and their gender insider status that attracts the press like magnets on grandma’s fridge. And I’ve thrown the whole lot of them in the recycling bin. And I’m moving on to thinking about just who in “high society” I can go up to next and point out – “Hey I exist too, wanna give me a chance?”
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Being Trans Is “Stylish” - at least so says the CBC
The CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Company) Ottawa bureua website ran a story by Alec Scott in which he described being trans as being very, “Stylish” and very “Now” . What a way to degrade and dismiss all of the years of suffering most trans people have gone through to find a home for their souls in their own bodies!
Being trans is not a style or a fad. Or a bit of campy fun. It is an identity. A true self. This true self is not chosen by the trans person like a pair of cutsey barettes to match a $100.00 haircut. It is a true self that is there whether the trans person or the people around them like it or not.
Right wing conservative Preachers, Ethicists and, “People who have found God” berate trans people by saying they should choose to “correct” themselves. But these right wing bigots stand corrected. The only choice involved in being trans is to choose to accept your true self as is, or to reject your true self.
Here is the link to the article:
http://www.cbc.ca/arts/media/trans.html
I wrote the following Feedback article and sent it to the CBC. It details just how, “Stylish” it is to be a musician who people label as trans.
To Alec Scott,
I thought that since you went on record in your Feb 13th, 2006 article, “Trans Mania” as saying that, “trans is very stylish, very now” that you might be interested to know just exactly how “Stylish” being trans in Ottawa REALLY is. The best way I can think to do this is to tell you about “a day in the life”.
First let me introduce myself. I am an Ottawa based songwriter/ singer who does a one of a kind lounge act based on story telling and glam rock. I am a true tortured artist and underdog in every sense of the words.
Now for an account of my day. This account isn’t designed to be a sympathy ploy. I don’t want anyone’s charity. Just their understanding of the facts of what it’s like to be a trans musician in Canada.
Today I decided to venture out into the world in search of some social contact. I had been sequestered all weekend working on songs for my new album. Not that I had a lot of choice. A trans person often has very limited social networks. People who literally are cast to the fringe of society can literally live in almost constant social isolation. Just like a shut in senior citizen who is just waiting for the telemarketer to call or her once a week visit from her daughter from out of town. Except young, so the mind is still sharp and the loneliness felt especially poignantly. Just one of the many styling aspects of being trans.
I was extra motivated to find positive social contacts today because I had viewed a show on Global TV which was extolling right wing anti gay and anti trans views. The show even featured real life success stories who had `corrected` themselves from `deviant sexual lifestyles`. Nothing like another positive reinforcement from the media about how much self worth a person should have.
My default venue was a trip into the Dusty Owl Reading series, a monthly “I have no friends” club for a bunch of amateur poets to get up any revel in the sounds of their own voices set to the back drop of a seedy queer bar in a basement of downtown Ottawa.
On a trip into the washroom to throw out some orange peels a woman could be heard in the stall calling out,
“Just a minute. You can use this washroom. I just wiped the seat.”
I said, “I’m just here to throw out orange peels”
She emerged from the can. A stocky dyke decked out in an orange ball hat and a fleece Mountain Gear vest and looks at me and says,
“Oh well if it had been a woman well she would have appreciated me wiping the seat. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
I exit the washroom telling myself for about the 5000 th time in my life that perhaps I had misunderstood or misheard what was obviously blatant transphobia.
Later I returned to the washroom and the woman – who must have been some sort of crapper urchin – was back in there again. From the next stall over she said,
“ I didn’t catch you name. What’s you male name? ”
“I am not a male! ”
“I thought I knew you from the scene from years ago. ”
“No. ”
“I thought you were Scott. Are you Scott? ”
“No.”
“I didn’t mean to offend you. I know what it’s like to be trapped. I’ve done a lot of reading on that. ”
“I am not sure why you would associate any man or any Scott with me. ”
“It’s just that when you came in the bar, everyone started saying, “Look at the transvestite.”
(She, like you in your article, was using really archaic language from the 1970’s that is a derogatory term used for men who get sexual pleasure from dressing up as women. If you wanted to appear more savvy on social issues, I’d suggest dropping that word from your lexicon. It really is what the word “nigger” is to a black person. It’s a slur. Almost too contemptible to even use as an example of a slur.)
“Why were people saying that? ”
“Well the sun glasses. ”
“Women don’t wear sun glasses on their heads?
“Well who was saying it. ”
“Never you mind. Why do you care what people are saying about you?”
“Well since you are telling me this I thought I should pursue it. ”
“Well now that I look at you, I can tell you are a beautiful woman and they were wrong.
So don’t mind that people call you names. ”
So either through my indignation or my beauty I convinced her that she was “wrong” and that I was not a “transvestite”. As a result, she was basically letting me know that she was letting me off the hook: excusing me from being associated with this category of people, this obvious insult. An insult, which only minutes before, she was saying was not an insult as she tried to label me with it. So from either side of the coin I was once again having someone map out all of their transphobia all over my body. How stylish.
Meanwhile back out at the bar, some 60 year old bald librarian look a like had slipped a business card inside my poetry book with the message, “Please call”. And he’d borrowed my own pen to write me the note!
And remember this was the social experience that I was counting on to be my social contact for the entire weekend.
I decided that, as usual this crowd of scenesters and pretend friends did not deserve me. I announced I was leaving and that my name should be removed from the reading list. Oni, the Haitian Sensation, who was the hostess for the evening, recognizing my authentic artist status from previous interactions, immediately put my name to the top of the list and I decided this gesture of support was grounds for doing my poetry reading after all. I took to the stage and immediately let the crowd know,
“I’m not going to lie to you – this night is a rough one. Some old dude gave me his business card which just says , “By appointment only. Please call” on it. What sort of business do you think he’s in? Hair?” Everyone laughed.
I went on to read the following poem,
Road Less than Less Traveled
Our living room plans were as storied as the streets of Nashville
I can almost see Neil Young and Emmy Lou Harris in a big old Lincoln.
But we’ll have to find a less cliché way to make it in music
Cuz they don’t want the lies of us at the Grand Old Opre
This poem was written to illustrate the heroic challenge a trans person faces trying to make it in the music business. When we think of the music business – it is thought of as the road less traveled. Shania Twain and Terri Clarke are considered “trail blazers” for leaving small town Canada behind and going down to Nashville. They took “the road less traveled.” But they had pretty faces, pretty voices, were conventional in gender and looked the part. Through no special effort of their own. They were just born into their underlying conventionalness.
Soon enough producers and studio players were lining up to write songs with them and even marry these gals. But imagine if a trans country singer arrived in Nashville. She might as well have stayed home and kept washing dishes at the Manx on Elgin St. She’d be laughed off the stage. Or worse. The “Remembering Our Dead” Trans Day of Remembrance vigil that is marked around the world in cities including Ottawa named trans people that were killed in such states as Tennessee and Kentucky. Just in the last year. Just for being trans. How trendy. I can almost see them accepting their Grammy in the sky…
Being a shunned woman has held me back in all sorts of ways in the music business and in life in general. For example, living in Halifax in the 1990s, when I finally decided I would reach out to other musicians to try and make a CD, I called every musician in, “Play” (the Atlantic Canadian Music Industry Index), and not one of these musicians - not one - would work with me. The book was over 150 pages thick.
That set me on a lonely road to try and learn to do everything myself. With my money exhausted from paying for 3 demos songs in a professional studio with engineers who could hardly see me below their curled lips, I fell into a trap that many people fall into. I tried to get into “home recording”. I saved up the money to buy computer recording equipment and software. Saving the money took years of toil at degrading minimal wage jobs – at one point I dissected garbage contents to figure out what percentage of it would have been recyclable. Another perk of being a trans is that employment is difficult if not impossible. Through sheer determination and smarts I was able to get a job a government job some years back. But I know if I lost this government job tomorrow and I applied to McDonalds on Bank St. or Starbucks in the Chapters on Rideau St. (Ottawa, ON), I would not be hired.
All of the computerized recording equipment turned into a huge 3 year night mare of computer crashes, technical problems and results that could only be described as computerized. It’s only been in the last year that I found an organic way to record my lounge act on a no budget basis. It only took 15 years to be acquire gear a lot of kids are given for Christmas.
Meanwhile lots of low talent and conventionally gendered people are making it big in music. Around Ottawa and around Canada. Why? Because they were not on the fringe. They were out at bars. Making friends. Making connections. Starting bands. Not being laughed at and asked their “male names” just by showing up. Not having to do it all themselves. Meanwhile I was, despite my efforts, in musical and social isolation battling computers.
And when it came to gigs for these afor mentioned main steamers? People wanted to see their bands. It was about music. But if I had managed to get myself out there and make a show. Well it would be “the tranny show”. It wouldn’t be about music. It would be seen as a gimmick. And if there was an audience? No straight bar would have it. Off to the queer bar with you. (Where as you can see from the above anecdote, “The dog did come from my own kennel”. )
Drawing from your own articles examples, the creator of the movie “Trans America” Duncan Tucker is quoted in the Ottawa Express (a free local entertainment rag) as saying of his movie, “I only hope that people won’t think, “It’s a transsexual movie. It’s strange and inaccessible.” The creator of the very film that supposedly portrays trans people with such honesty prefers to take the good of the gimmick of being trans and leave the bad of the taboo of being trans. His basic pitch can be paraphrased with, “Come to the freak show. You can see freaks. But we won’t scare you too much. And noone will think you’re a freak for going to the movie either.
I promise.”
The Ottawa Express even got it wrong. The title read, “Felicity Huffman makes like a man in Tranny Tale”. Makes like a man? Tranny Tale? She’s not a man. That’s the point! Or so the movie might have told a few people if the stupid title of the Express article hadn’t told them the reverse and confirmed the negative misconceptions people had about trans people going into the movie experience. And won’t it be tragically ironic that when Felicity Huffman wins an Oscar, it will be for playing a role based on my real life experience. Except instead of being celebrated for my experiences- people have used them to systematically keep me out of the music business.
An example from my own life now. When I was promoting my CD at the 2004 CanZine festival of DIY and Independent Arts festival in Toronto, some dude from the York University newspaper just waltzes up to my table and says he wants to include me in a supplement his paper is doing on trans people.
The guy has never met me. He doesn’t know me. Doesn’t know what I’m about. He does not know how I identify. He decides for me. In his self rightousness he thinks he is the appointed person to define me. He knows me better than I know myself. So he thinks. So he gets to label me. With labels he is comfortable with. Labels that help him maintain his view that the world or sex and gender is binary (one or the other). He tries to make me an unwilling participant in his binary world. He completely disregards that I’m promoting a musical creation – not my crotch. For him, it’s all about my crotch, my status, my freakishness. All of which were sandblasted onto me by his presumptions, without my permission or invitation.
Ofcourse, as much as I need the PR, I didn’t accept his offer. When I was little I saw myself as a girl, and I saw myself as wanting to become a woman when I grew up. I sure didn’t think about the day when I could grow up and be a TS or and transgender or even a TS woman. Just a woman. All those other labels are just jargon for uninformed people to keep people “not like them” in neat little categories and moreover, devices to keep people “not like them” down. To deny people “not like them” the validation that society is ready to agree with us that we are who we say we are. An Asterisk on Woman* or Man*, as the case may be, that says: * - Not quite. And no PR is worth that for me.
So I’ve had to learn not to compare myself to the accomplishments of others. I face more obstacles than other musicians. Both in connecting with other musicians and with getting audiences and shows. The average main stream person just “gets the goodies” from life – just by being them. By virtue of fitting in. If they start at 0 every morning, then ofcourse they can get to 7, 8 or even 9 out of 10 everyday. The trans person starts out at like – 10 every morning and is lucky if they see beyond zero on a good day. Those are the odds. Not to mention that over 60% of trans youth commit suicide before they are 30. Well, I’m not 30 yet. But I intend to make it there. But while I’m on route, I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t align my life of struggle and torture to escape rural Nova Scota to become a veritable -yet to be discovered-Canadian lounge act with being “Stylish” and vogue.
The CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Company) Ottawa bureua website ran a story by Alec Scott in which he described being trans as being very, “Stylish” and very “Now” . What a way to degrade and dismiss all of the years of suffering most trans people have gone through to find a home for their souls in their own bodies!
Being trans is not a style or a fad. Or a bit of campy fun. It is an identity. A true self. This true self is not chosen by the trans person like a pair of cutsey barettes to match a $100.00 haircut. It is a true self that is there whether the trans person or the people around them like it or not.
Right wing conservative Preachers, Ethicists and, “People who have found God” berate trans people by saying they should choose to “correct” themselves. But these right wing bigots stand corrected. The only choice involved in being trans is to choose to accept your true self as is, or to reject your true self.
Here is the link to the article:
http://www.cbc.ca/arts/media/trans.html
I wrote the following Feedback article and sent it to the CBC. It details just how, “Stylish” it is to be a musician who people label as trans.
To Alec Scott,
I thought that since you went on record in your Feb 13th, 2006 article, “Trans Mania” as saying that, “trans is very stylish, very now” that you might be interested to know just exactly how “Stylish” being trans in Ottawa REALLY is. The best way I can think to do this is to tell you about “a day in the life”.
First let me introduce myself. I am an Ottawa based songwriter/ singer who does a one of a kind lounge act based on story telling and glam rock. I am a true tortured artist and underdog in every sense of the words.
Now for an account of my day. This account isn’t designed to be a sympathy ploy. I don’t want anyone’s charity. Just their understanding of the facts of what it’s like to be a trans musician in Canada.
Today I decided to venture out into the world in search of some social contact. I had been sequestered all weekend working on songs for my new album. Not that I had a lot of choice. A trans person often has very limited social networks. People who literally are cast to the fringe of society can literally live in almost constant social isolation. Just like a shut in senior citizen who is just waiting for the telemarketer to call or her once a week visit from her daughter from out of town. Except young, so the mind is still sharp and the loneliness felt especially poignantly. Just one of the many styling aspects of being trans.
I was extra motivated to find positive social contacts today because I had viewed a show on Global TV which was extolling right wing anti gay and anti trans views. The show even featured real life success stories who had `corrected` themselves from `deviant sexual lifestyles`. Nothing like another positive reinforcement from the media about how much self worth a person should have.
My default venue was a trip into the Dusty Owl Reading series, a monthly “I have no friends” club for a bunch of amateur poets to get up any revel in the sounds of their own voices set to the back drop of a seedy queer bar in a basement of downtown Ottawa.
On a trip into the washroom to throw out some orange peels a woman could be heard in the stall calling out,
“Just a minute. You can use this washroom. I just wiped the seat.”
I said, “I’m just here to throw out orange peels”
She emerged from the can. A stocky dyke decked out in an orange ball hat and a fleece Mountain Gear vest and looks at me and says,
“Oh well if it had been a woman well she would have appreciated me wiping the seat. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
I exit the washroom telling myself for about the 5000 th time in my life that perhaps I had misunderstood or misheard what was obviously blatant transphobia.
Later I returned to the washroom and the woman – who must have been some sort of crapper urchin – was back in there again. From the next stall over she said,
“ I didn’t catch you name. What’s you male name? ”
“I am not a male! ”
“I thought I knew you from the scene from years ago. ”
“No. ”
“I thought you were Scott. Are you Scott? ”
“No.”
“I didn’t mean to offend you. I know what it’s like to be trapped. I’ve done a lot of reading on that. ”
“I am not sure why you would associate any man or any Scott with me. ”
“It’s just that when you came in the bar, everyone started saying, “Look at the transvestite.”
(She, like you in your article, was using really archaic language from the 1970’s that is a derogatory term used for men who get sexual pleasure from dressing up as women. If you wanted to appear more savvy on social issues, I’d suggest dropping that word from your lexicon. It really is what the word “nigger” is to a black person. It’s a slur. Almost too contemptible to even use as an example of a slur.)
“Why were people saying that? ”
“Well the sun glasses. ”
“Women don’t wear sun glasses on their heads?
“Well who was saying it. ”
“Never you mind. Why do you care what people are saying about you?”
“Well since you are telling me this I thought I should pursue it. ”
“Well now that I look at you, I can tell you are a beautiful woman and they were wrong.
So don’t mind that people call you names. ”
So either through my indignation or my beauty I convinced her that she was “wrong” and that I was not a “transvestite”. As a result, she was basically letting me know that she was letting me off the hook: excusing me from being associated with this category of people, this obvious insult. An insult, which only minutes before, she was saying was not an insult as she tried to label me with it. So from either side of the coin I was once again having someone map out all of their transphobia all over my body. How stylish.
Meanwhile back out at the bar, some 60 year old bald librarian look a like had slipped a business card inside my poetry book with the message, “Please call”. And he’d borrowed my own pen to write me the note!
And remember this was the social experience that I was counting on to be my social contact for the entire weekend.
I decided that, as usual this crowd of scenesters and pretend friends did not deserve me. I announced I was leaving and that my name should be removed from the reading list. Oni, the Haitian Sensation, who was the hostess for the evening, recognizing my authentic artist status from previous interactions, immediately put my name to the top of the list and I decided this gesture of support was grounds for doing my poetry reading after all. I took to the stage and immediately let the crowd know,
“I’m not going to lie to you – this night is a rough one. Some old dude gave me his business card which just says , “By appointment only. Please call” on it. What sort of business do you think he’s in? Hair?” Everyone laughed.
I went on to read the following poem,
Road Less than Less Traveled
Our living room plans were as storied as the streets of Nashville
I can almost see Neil Young and Emmy Lou Harris in a big old Lincoln.
But we’ll have to find a less cliché way to make it in music
Cuz they don’t want the lies of us at the Grand Old Opre
This poem was written to illustrate the heroic challenge a trans person faces trying to make it in the music business. When we think of the music business – it is thought of as the road less traveled. Shania Twain and Terri Clarke are considered “trail blazers” for leaving small town Canada behind and going down to Nashville. They took “the road less traveled.” But they had pretty faces, pretty voices, were conventional in gender and looked the part. Through no special effort of their own. They were just born into their underlying conventionalness.
Soon enough producers and studio players were lining up to write songs with them and even marry these gals. But imagine if a trans country singer arrived in Nashville. She might as well have stayed home and kept washing dishes at the Manx on Elgin St. She’d be laughed off the stage. Or worse. The “Remembering Our Dead” Trans Day of Remembrance vigil that is marked around the world in cities including Ottawa named trans people that were killed in such states as Tennessee and Kentucky. Just in the last year. Just for being trans. How trendy. I can almost see them accepting their Grammy in the sky…
Being a shunned woman has held me back in all sorts of ways in the music business and in life in general. For example, living in Halifax in the 1990s, when I finally decided I would reach out to other musicians to try and make a CD, I called every musician in, “Play” (the Atlantic Canadian Music Industry Index), and not one of these musicians - not one - would work with me. The book was over 150 pages thick.
That set me on a lonely road to try and learn to do everything myself. With my money exhausted from paying for 3 demos songs in a professional studio with engineers who could hardly see me below their curled lips, I fell into a trap that many people fall into. I tried to get into “home recording”. I saved up the money to buy computer recording equipment and software. Saving the money took years of toil at degrading minimal wage jobs – at one point I dissected garbage contents to figure out what percentage of it would have been recyclable. Another perk of being a trans is that employment is difficult if not impossible. Through sheer determination and smarts I was able to get a job a government job some years back. But I know if I lost this government job tomorrow and I applied to McDonalds on Bank St. or Starbucks in the Chapters on Rideau St. (Ottawa, ON), I would not be hired.
All of the computerized recording equipment turned into a huge 3 year night mare of computer crashes, technical problems and results that could only be described as computerized. It’s only been in the last year that I found an organic way to record my lounge act on a no budget basis. It only took 15 years to be acquire gear a lot of kids are given for Christmas.
Meanwhile lots of low talent and conventionally gendered people are making it big in music. Around Ottawa and around Canada. Why? Because they were not on the fringe. They were out at bars. Making friends. Making connections. Starting bands. Not being laughed at and asked their “male names” just by showing up. Not having to do it all themselves. Meanwhile I was, despite my efforts, in musical and social isolation battling computers.
And when it came to gigs for these afor mentioned main steamers? People wanted to see their bands. It was about music. But if I had managed to get myself out there and make a show. Well it would be “the tranny show”. It wouldn’t be about music. It would be seen as a gimmick. And if there was an audience? No straight bar would have it. Off to the queer bar with you. (Where as you can see from the above anecdote, “The dog did come from my own kennel”. )
Drawing from your own articles examples, the creator of the movie “Trans America” Duncan Tucker is quoted in the Ottawa Express (a free local entertainment rag) as saying of his movie, “I only hope that people won’t think, “It’s a transsexual movie. It’s strange and inaccessible.” The creator of the very film that supposedly portrays trans people with such honesty prefers to take the good of the gimmick of being trans and leave the bad of the taboo of being trans. His basic pitch can be paraphrased with, “Come to the freak show. You can see freaks. But we won’t scare you too much. And noone will think you’re a freak for going to the movie either.
I promise.”
The Ottawa Express even got it wrong. The title read, “Felicity Huffman makes like a man in Tranny Tale”. Makes like a man? Tranny Tale? She’s not a man. That’s the point! Or so the movie might have told a few people if the stupid title of the Express article hadn’t told them the reverse and confirmed the negative misconceptions people had about trans people going into the movie experience. And won’t it be tragically ironic that when Felicity Huffman wins an Oscar, it will be for playing a role based on my real life experience. Except instead of being celebrated for my experiences- people have used them to systematically keep me out of the music business.
An example from my own life now. When I was promoting my CD at the 2004 CanZine festival of DIY and Independent Arts festival in Toronto, some dude from the York University newspaper just waltzes up to my table and says he wants to include me in a supplement his paper is doing on trans people.
The guy has never met me. He doesn’t know me. Doesn’t know what I’m about. He does not know how I identify. He decides for me. In his self rightousness he thinks he is the appointed person to define me. He knows me better than I know myself. So he thinks. So he gets to label me. With labels he is comfortable with. Labels that help him maintain his view that the world or sex and gender is binary (one or the other). He tries to make me an unwilling participant in his binary world. He completely disregards that I’m promoting a musical creation – not my crotch. For him, it’s all about my crotch, my status, my freakishness. All of which were sandblasted onto me by his presumptions, without my permission or invitation.
Ofcourse, as much as I need the PR, I didn’t accept his offer. When I was little I saw myself as a girl, and I saw myself as wanting to become a woman when I grew up. I sure didn’t think about the day when I could grow up and be a TS or and transgender or even a TS woman. Just a woman. All those other labels are just jargon for uninformed people to keep people “not like them” in neat little categories and moreover, devices to keep people “not like them” down. To deny people “not like them” the validation that society is ready to agree with us that we are who we say we are. An Asterisk on Woman* or Man*, as the case may be, that says: * - Not quite. And no PR is worth that for me.
So I’ve had to learn not to compare myself to the accomplishments of others. I face more obstacles than other musicians. Both in connecting with other musicians and with getting audiences and shows. The average main stream person just “gets the goodies” from life – just by being them. By virtue of fitting in. If they start at 0 every morning, then ofcourse they can get to 7, 8 or even 9 out of 10 everyday. The trans person starts out at like – 10 every morning and is lucky if they see beyond zero on a good day. Those are the odds. Not to mention that over 60% of trans youth commit suicide before they are 30. Well, I’m not 30 yet. But I intend to make it there. But while I’m on route, I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t align my life of struggle and torture to escape rural Nova Scota to become a veritable -yet to be discovered-Canadian lounge act with being “Stylish” and vogue.
Saturday, December 17, 2005
Reviewed:
"Poems Even Your Boyfriend Will Understand" the chapbook has been reviewed by Xtra, which is Canada's # 1 Queer monthy newpaper magazine. A big thank you to Sandra and Gordon who took an interest in independent writers and followed through on their plan to review my chapbook. More action than talk. These are my kind of people.
Arty giftsZINES / Indie stocking
Sandra Alland / Xtra / Thursday, December 08, 2005
There's more than one cool artist in Ottawa. Mackenzie MacBride's Poems Even Your Boyfriend Will Understand: Uniquely Painful Poems And Desperate Accounts is full of soul-searching romantic longing. MacBride manages to undercut the clichéd confessional style of much journalling. I have no patience for love-whining, but this is a page-turner ($5; mackenziemacbride.com).
Entire article:
http://www.xtra.ca/public/viewstory.aspx?SessionId=32867794-315a-44b0-b3a0-4f94d5e11aef&AFF_TYPE=3&STORY_ID=1187&PUB_TEMPLATE_ID=2
"Poems Even Your Boyfriend Will Understand" the chapbook has been reviewed by Xtra, which is Canada's # 1 Queer monthy newpaper magazine. A big thank you to Sandra and Gordon who took an interest in independent writers and followed through on their plan to review my chapbook. More action than talk. These are my kind of people.
Arty giftsZINES / Indie stocking
Sandra Alland / Xtra / Thursday, December 08, 2005
There's more than one cool artist in Ottawa. Mackenzie MacBride's Poems Even Your Boyfriend Will Understand: Uniquely Painful Poems And Desperate Accounts is full of soul-searching romantic longing. MacBride manages to undercut the clichéd confessional style of much journalling. I have no patience for love-whining, but this is a page-turner ($5; mackenziemacbride.com).
Entire article:
http://www.xtra.ca/public/viewstory.aspx?SessionId=32867794-315a-44b0-b3a0-4f94d5e11aef&AFF_TYPE=3&STORY_ID=1187&PUB_TEMPLATE_ID=2
Monday, November 28, 2005
Falsetto on the CBC
*
Excerpts from, “The Sunday Edition” # 422 (Nov. 27, 2005) with Micheal Enright and guest Rob Harris aired on CBC Radio FM Dial. (CBC is the Canadian Broadcasting Company which is Canada’s Public Broadcaster. Think BBC in Britain and PBS in the USA.)
*
On the show they discussed Falsetto. I thought this was an interesting topic because a recent review of my music described my voice as "falsetto". (Read the review on the Music page of this site.)
*
The commentators asserted that the meaning of falsetto was more than just gender and sexual ambiguity. They said falsetto is also an indicator of social class.
*
“Singers like Sintra didn’t use falsetto. Why not? Because they are mainstream. They are in the center of society. And that sound that falsetto gives us – of dispossession, of outside-ness is not part of their world. So it is only used by people who want to create that sense of outside-ness. It’s maybe instinctive. So to me falsetto is not about gender. It’s about class. Falsetto is a sound that disposed people use to create power through dispossession.”
*
“It seems dispossession. It’s a way of becoming powerful by being outside the norm. These singers express themselves in an otherworldly sound.”
*
They delved into the early black groups that used falsetto such as The Ink Spots in the 1930’s, The Ravens and the Cadillacs from the 1950’s and went right up the years to Al Greene, Marvin Gaye and the BeeGee’s in the 1970’s and Price singing “Kiss” off his album “Parade” in the 1980’s.
*
It was interesting that when they introduced the example of Prince the commentators had to come full circle and say that falsetto was also about ambiguity, effemininity, being sexy and being away from the “center” of society’s gender rules.
*
All the other examples were just ordinary “dudes”. They looked and acted like men. But sang like women. Then there’s Boy George who looked like a woman but sang like a man. I think the music industry and the general public needs more artists who don’t use either conventional voices or conventional appearances. Artists who don’t try to be “safe” enough for mainstream by giving their public at least a conventional voice or appearance. Artists who break out of both appearance and sound boxes.
*
I’m glad to hear people talking about flashy, unique, non- conformist singing and pointing out that it can still be commercial, successful and red hot. I’m happy to count myself as one of these artists. Where else would I like to be but on the limits of everything – including singing. I hope you enjoy. I can't do anything else. I've got to be me.
Zine Warriors
Montreal. November, 2005. There was pushing a grocery basket on wheels full of merchandise from city street #s 1000 to 5500 (that's a long way) - especially when it's up hill and the streets are covered with snow and the shopping cart wheels aint spinning. And you've had one hour of sleep and a 2. 5 hour bus ride that started with the quote, "I'm not even 30 and all of my gradparents are dead. I'm already one generation away from the grave."
Since life is apparently so short it's good I made this hard trip to Montreal. There was no time for heels. There was no time for skirts. There was no time for lunch - unless you count a burnt black tim Horton's sandwich. But I made it. And it was worth it.
I would say that the Montreal arts scene people are some of the most friendly, open and definately sexy that I've seen in a while. Definately my kind of people. Someone told me I had "such beautiful skin" she had to come over and meet me. I was reall touched when a girl told me she'd bought one of my books in Toronto and it inspired her to write a Zine - which she then gave to me. And some of the guys had smiles that -to be honest- could melt butter.
Thanks to everyone who bought one of my Chap Books and/ or took a fridge magnet/ or Glam Rock fashion pin. Send me an email. Let's meet again.
Montreal. November, 2005. There was pushing a grocery basket on wheels full of merchandise from city street #s 1000 to 5500 (that's a long way) - especially when it's up hill and the streets are covered with snow and the shopping cart wheels aint spinning. And you've had one hour of sleep and a 2. 5 hour bus ride that started with the quote, "I'm not even 30 and all of my gradparents are dead. I'm already one generation away from the grave."
Since life is apparently so short it's good I made this hard trip to Montreal. There was no time for heels. There was no time for skirts. There was no time for lunch - unless you count a burnt black tim Horton's sandwich. But I made it. And it was worth it.
I would say that the Montreal arts scene people are some of the most friendly, open and definately sexy that I've seen in a while. Definately my kind of people. Someone told me I had "such beautiful skin" she had to come over and meet me. I was reall touched when a girl told me she'd bought one of my books in Toronto and it inspired her to write a Zine - which she then gave to me. And some of the guys had smiles that -to be honest- could melt butter.
Thanks to everyone who bought one of my Chap Books and/ or took a fridge magnet/ or Glam Rock fashion pin. Send me an email. Let's meet again.
Saturday, November 19, 2005
What Can You Do?
Bills need to be paid. So in November and December, 2005 I'm having to put a lot of time into studying (in vain) my French books and attending evening and weekend French classes.
All for a slim chance of getting a new job - a job that requires more fluency in French. Any imporvment would be so good for me, as my current day job is a really toxic, office, file slinging, grind.
So often the only way out of hell seems to be through the head of a pin.
At least the red "Little Devil" boots are hot.
Bills need to be paid. So in November and December, 2005 I'm having to put a lot of time into studying (in vain) my French books and attending evening and weekend French classes.
All for a slim chance of getting a new job - a job that requires more fluency in French. Any imporvment would be so good for me, as my current day job is a really toxic, office, file slinging, grind.
So often the only way out of hell seems to be through the head of a pin.
At least the red "Little Devil" boots are hot.
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
CD Review
Mackenzie MacBride
Glam Rock Revelations, CD
Normally I distribute all the music that arrives in the BP mailbox to my crack team of killer music reviewers. They are genetically modified to possess open ears and bullshit detectors. They can love like no other and hate, berate and express distaste for that which they deem inferior. They know their shit, but sometimes there is music that is beyond even their capabilities. Mackenzie MacBride is just that type of singer a jaded writer might easily dismiss, unable to appreciate her left field rock-opera ditties because they just don't fit any mould we're familiar with. That would be unfortunate because "Glam Rock Revelations" is a revelation. MacBride's synth-folk music and music teacher falsetto are original enough. Add ambiguous sexual politics expressed in smart and funny lyrics and you have something that still doesn't make sense after a dozen listens. That kind of confusion is a rare pleasure, and for now I'm keeping it to myself, but once you've read this, the secret is out. - Terence Dick, Broken Pencil Magazine, Issue 29, 2005.
____________________________________________________________________
I know better than a lot of people that one shouldn't quit, or continue being a musician just because of what reviewers say. Still, I sincerely thank Terrence Dick for the perceptiveness and professionalism he displayed when he wrote this review that refused to buy into the whole, "Duh, I've never heard this before! So, I must not like it!" reaction to unique music.
Mackenzie MacBride
Glam Rock Revelations, CD
Normally I distribute all the music that arrives in the BP mailbox to my crack team of killer music reviewers. They are genetically modified to possess open ears and bullshit detectors. They can love like no other and hate, berate and express distaste for that which they deem inferior. They know their shit, but sometimes there is music that is beyond even their capabilities. Mackenzie MacBride is just that type of singer a jaded writer might easily dismiss, unable to appreciate her left field rock-opera ditties because they just don't fit any mould we're familiar with. That would be unfortunate because "Glam Rock Revelations" is a revelation. MacBride's synth-folk music and music teacher falsetto are original enough. Add ambiguous sexual politics expressed in smart and funny lyrics and you have something that still doesn't make sense after a dozen listens. That kind of confusion is a rare pleasure, and for now I'm keeping it to myself, but once you've read this, the secret is out. - Terence Dick, Broken Pencil Magazine, Issue 29, 2005.
____________________________________________________________________
I know better than a lot of people that one shouldn't quit, or continue being a musician just because of what reviewers say. Still, I sincerely thank Terrence Dick for the perceptiveness and professionalism he displayed when he wrote this review that refused to buy into the whole, "Duh, I've never heard this before! So, I must not like it!" reaction to unique music.
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
Toronto Art and Culture Zine Fair 2005 - see photo below
I was in Toronto for the debut of my two new Chap Books, "Poems Even Your Boyfriend Would Understand" and "Tales Of A Half Caste Woman". I'm looking damn good considering I slept on someone's kitchen floor the night before and then showed up to the event 4 hours early after not remembering the time changed back. Angie and I used our "in advance" status to go check out a diner for what Angie called a "dirty breakfast". Otherwise known as a dirt cheap breakfast. Somehow I ended up with chili with chicken in it.
At the zine fair, aside from a few creeps, there was a lot of fun to be had and several hot people I hope to see again. I gave them Elle!She!Her! pins and hoped they would remember me.
All of the first prints of my chap books sold out. I'm going to do a second run of them. Hope you can get your copy soon. If you want one email me. Since each book is approximately $3.00 to print and postage is about $2.00 you're getting a bargain for the price of $6.00 a book. Or $10.00 for both. Canadian currency for Canada. US currency for International.
I was in Toronto for the debut of my two new Chap Books, "Poems Even Your Boyfriend Would Understand" and "Tales Of A Half Caste Woman". I'm looking damn good considering I slept on someone's kitchen floor the night before and then showed up to the event 4 hours early after not remembering the time changed back. Angie and I used our "in advance" status to go check out a diner for what Angie called a "dirty breakfast". Otherwise known as a dirt cheap breakfast. Somehow I ended up with chili with chicken in it.
At the zine fair, aside from a few creeps, there was a lot of fun to be had and several hot people I hope to see again. I gave them Elle!She!Her! pins and hoped they would remember me.
All of the first prints of my chap books sold out. I'm going to do a second run of them. Hope you can get your copy soon. If you want one email me. Since each book is approximately $3.00 to print and postage is about $2.00 you're getting a bargain for the price of $6.00 a book. Or $10.00 for both. Canadian currency for Canada. US currency for International.
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
"Red Hot Luv"
- Photo Shoot for www.RattRestorations.com
One of a kind Rock And Roll furniture as modeled by a one of a kind Glam rocker.
- Photo Shoot for www.RattRestorations.com
One of a kind Rock And Roll furniture as modeled by a one of a kind Glam rocker.
Saturday, September 03, 2005
Elle! She! Her! website is getting its update in September, 2005.
Featuring some new cauterwauling synthed Glam Rock music from Mackenzie MacBride.
Elle! She! Her! pins. Celebrate femme self affirmation. Make a statement. Pins are a great gift.
Red Hot Elle! She! Her! Pins are available for free at:
Downtown Montreal, QC, Canada:
Centre 2110 of Concordia University
2110 Rue Mackay, Montreal Quebec
Information: 514-848-2424 x 7431
Verify the hours of operation before making the trip.
Downtown Ottawa, ON, Canada:
Venus Envy
613-789-4646
320 Lisgar Street,
Ottawa, ON, Canada
Downtown Toronto, ON, Canada:
Glad Day Bookshop
416-961-4161
598A Yonge Street,
Toronto, ON, Canada
Note:
Pins may be out of stock from time to time at certain locations. If you can't find yourself a pin at one of these locations please email mackenzie@mackenziemacbride.com
Thursday, September 01, 2005
Photos of 2004-2005.
Aug. 2005; Provincetown, Cape Cod, MA, USA; A bit of sun. A few song ideas.
Aug., 2005. Lake Champlain, Burlington, VT, USA. "You're A Big Girl Now" - Bob Dylan
Aug., 2005; Punk Rock Yard Sale, Ottawa, ON, Canada; Pin and CD Distribution
June, 2005 Pride, Toronto, ON, Canada. Pinning Elle! She! Her! .com pins on sexy people.
June, 2005. Kayak, Gatineau, QC, Canada. Around the time I was writing, "Do The Impossible".
June, 2005; Birthday, Mont Royal, Montreal, QC, Canada. Back to show Montreal a new me.
April, 2005. Fierte Conference, Montreal, QC, Canada. CD Giveaway.
March, 2005; Cabaret Night, Montreal, QC, Canada. CD Giveaway.
March, 2005; Dusty Owl Poetry Reading Series, Ottawa, ON, Canada. Reading bits and pieces.
More photos to be added when they are found in their hiding spots on the computer.
Aug. 2005; Provincetown, Cape Cod, MA, USA; A bit of sun. A few song ideas.
Aug., 2005. Lake Champlain, Burlington, VT, USA. "You're A Big Girl Now" - Bob Dylan
Aug., 2005; Punk Rock Yard Sale, Ottawa, ON, Canada; Pin and CD Distribution
June, 2005 Pride, Toronto, ON, Canada. Pinning Elle! She! Her! .com pins on sexy people.
June, 2005. Kayak, Gatineau, QC, Canada. Around the time I was writing, "Do The Impossible".
June, 2005; Birthday, Mont Royal, Montreal, QC, Canada. Back to show Montreal a new me.
April, 2005. Fierte Conference, Montreal, QC, Canada. CD Giveaway.
March, 2005; Cabaret Night, Montreal, QC, Canada. CD Giveaway.
March, 2005; Dusty Owl Poetry Reading Series, Ottawa, ON, Canada. Reading bits and pieces.
More photos to be added when they are found in their hiding spots on the computer.
Thursday, June 30, 2005
Much Music Is The Stooge of Trash Pop Culture -
and Killer of the Canadian Independent Music Scene
Much Music, or MuchMusic or Much or whatever it calls itself exactly, does not support the Canadian Independent Music scene (CIMS). That’s well known. They play loads of terrible and disposable pop trash generated in the inner cities of America by people who are not trying to be talented but instead are just trying to turn a quick buck. Much Music thus turns a quick buck by playing it. And the youth of Canada grow up thinking terrible hack jobs are art. Worse, it subconsciously gives them the idea that art is made exclusively in the USA and that Canadian art and music is not done, or if it is done it is second rate.
But Much Music does worse than not support the CIMS. It pretends to be supportive of Canadian artists. Instead of being honest that it doesn’t. It gives the false impression that it does offer air play coverage and promotion to Canadian artists. Instead of being honest that it doesn’t. Thus Much Music creates false expectations for artists. And when artists do finally snap out of it and realize that Much Music is not supporting us, it is even harder to get the Canadian government and it’s arts and music initiatives to step in and provide more support to the CIMS. Because Much Music has convinced government that it is supporting Indie Canadian acts. So why would we need more support from government?
So Much Music is even less supportive than “not supportive” of the CIMS because through its pretending to be supportive, it creates the illusion that CIMS doesn’t need additional support. Which costs us support from government arts and music programs.
So Much Music. Just be honest. You are not supporting CIMS. Maybe then we could get on with scrapping away the illusion that the CIMS is supported. Once that illusion is exposed perhaps the Canadian government would realize the CIMS needs more support and programming for development of records and more regulations compelling Much Music to play more CIMS content. Instead of letting it be the stooge to disposable trash pop imports of the USA that pretends to support CIMS.
Case in point. At Toronto Pride 2005, while distributing the “Elle! She Her!” pins to promote my music and my take on femme self affirmation I encountered two post 20 junky VJs employed by Much Music to go through the streets looking snooty, young and disposable. (They do this well.) They also had a short pushy retired VJ turned behind the scenes sergeant directing their dim-witted selves from mindless sound byte to sound byte against the backdrop of Toronto Pride.
I made the mistake of asking the little sergeant woman if she and her VJ would wear my pins. They rudely refused saying that if they wore my pin, they’d have to wear everyone’s. This is such faulty logic. Who’s “everybody?” There was no line up of people behind me trying to stick Canadian Indie Music pins on them. Everybody was at home zoning out in front of the tv watching them being pretentious and creatively defeatist because the Much Music programming had brainwashed the viewers into thinking that they couldn’t or shouldn’t do anything creative in their own country. And if they did do something creative noone would care –especially Much Music. So why bother?
I persisted in a polite way. Asking if they could help in anyway. So the little sergeant decides to employ the strategy that her employer uses on the entire CIMS. Pretend to be supportive to get rid of them. She agreed to take a pin for her VJ. The VJ took the pin unenthusiastically and looked at it like it was a slug. I was told she’d where it “tomorrow.” Then I was banished form the set of mindless sound byte collecting.
So “tommorow” came. It was the Pride Parade day. There the snooty VJs and the little sergeant were. Collecting the sound bytes again. Spraying water guns and inciting the crowds to chant some lame Pride message into their lenses. And guess what. The trashy post 20 junky snooty VJ was not wearing my pin. They’d just pretended to be supportive. What a surprise.
So I stood as close to them as I could with an Elle! Pin in my outstretched hand. The camera man quickly zoomed away. As if the message “Elle! She! Her! .com was suddenly the most evil cult classic script that could ever be put on a pin. In the end I just decided it was too negative to pursue these VJ liars and phonies any further. Especially since getting in their face and calling them on their fuckery would probably have been grounds for the Toronto police to arrest me for being “crazy”. Since the VJ’s are celebrities. Entitled to all the preferential treatment and protection from their own social crimes that being a celebrity brings in this celebrity as god trash pop culture obsessed society in which we live. An obsession further fueled by the perpetrators themselves – Much Music.
So what’s the solution? What would I like to see? I’d like to see Much Music feature CIMS talent, including openly queer and diversity CIMS talent more prominently in it’s programming. And I’d like to see them get rid of those three lying, snide, snooty two –faced VJs. I don’t know their names nor do I want to. But I’ve included a picture of the smug trio. As you can see their real pieces of pop trash that don’t belong on anyone’s tv. Even on the tvs of someone who’s watching Much Music.
The Much Music Post 20 Junkies are in in the distant centre. They are (L to R): One of two snide metro-sexual blonde twin guys, fake trash who pretended she'd wear the pin holding mic, with afro and shades (she sees me and smiles innocently knowing full well she's a liar) and finally the short sergeant in pink tube top who lied to my face about getting Ms. Microphone beside her to wear my pin.
These pins cost money. If you're not going to wear them - don't lie by saying you'll wear pins, take pins from me and then not wear them. Your fakery costs me money.
and Killer of the Canadian Independent Music Scene
Much Music, or MuchMusic or Much or whatever it calls itself exactly, does not support the Canadian Independent Music scene (CIMS). That’s well known. They play loads of terrible and disposable pop trash generated in the inner cities of America by people who are not trying to be talented but instead are just trying to turn a quick buck. Much Music thus turns a quick buck by playing it. And the youth of Canada grow up thinking terrible hack jobs are art. Worse, it subconsciously gives them the idea that art is made exclusively in the USA and that Canadian art and music is not done, or if it is done it is second rate.
But Much Music does worse than not support the CIMS. It pretends to be supportive of Canadian artists. Instead of being honest that it doesn’t. It gives the false impression that it does offer air play coverage and promotion to Canadian artists. Instead of being honest that it doesn’t. Thus Much Music creates false expectations for artists. And when artists do finally snap out of it and realize that Much Music is not supporting us, it is even harder to get the Canadian government and it’s arts and music initiatives to step in and provide more support to the CIMS. Because Much Music has convinced government that it is supporting Indie Canadian acts. So why would we need more support from government?
So Much Music is even less supportive than “not supportive” of the CIMS because through its pretending to be supportive, it creates the illusion that CIMS doesn’t need additional support. Which costs us support from government arts and music programs.
So Much Music. Just be honest. You are not supporting CIMS. Maybe then we could get on with scrapping away the illusion that the CIMS is supported. Once that illusion is exposed perhaps the Canadian government would realize the CIMS needs more support and programming for development of records and more regulations compelling Much Music to play more CIMS content. Instead of letting it be the stooge to disposable trash pop imports of the USA that pretends to support CIMS.
Case in point. At Toronto Pride 2005, while distributing the “Elle! She Her!” pins to promote my music and my take on femme self affirmation I encountered two post 20 junky VJs employed by Much Music to go through the streets looking snooty, young and disposable. (They do this well.) They also had a short pushy retired VJ turned behind the scenes sergeant directing their dim-witted selves from mindless sound byte to sound byte against the backdrop of Toronto Pride.
I made the mistake of asking the little sergeant woman if she and her VJ would wear my pins. They rudely refused saying that if they wore my pin, they’d have to wear everyone’s. This is such faulty logic. Who’s “everybody?” There was no line up of people behind me trying to stick Canadian Indie Music pins on them. Everybody was at home zoning out in front of the tv watching them being pretentious and creatively defeatist because the Much Music programming had brainwashed the viewers into thinking that they couldn’t or shouldn’t do anything creative in their own country. And if they did do something creative noone would care –especially Much Music. So why bother?
I persisted in a polite way. Asking if they could help in anyway. So the little sergeant decides to employ the strategy that her employer uses on the entire CIMS. Pretend to be supportive to get rid of them. She agreed to take a pin for her VJ. The VJ took the pin unenthusiastically and looked at it like it was a slug. I was told she’d where it “tomorrow.” Then I was banished form the set of mindless sound byte collecting.
So “tommorow” came. It was the Pride Parade day. There the snooty VJs and the little sergeant were. Collecting the sound bytes again. Spraying water guns and inciting the crowds to chant some lame Pride message into their lenses. And guess what. The trashy post 20 junky snooty VJ was not wearing my pin. They’d just pretended to be supportive. What a surprise.
So I stood as close to them as I could with an Elle! Pin in my outstretched hand. The camera man quickly zoomed away. As if the message “Elle! She! Her! .com was suddenly the most evil cult classic script that could ever be put on a pin. In the end I just decided it was too negative to pursue these VJ liars and phonies any further. Especially since getting in their face and calling them on their fuckery would probably have been grounds for the Toronto police to arrest me for being “crazy”. Since the VJ’s are celebrities. Entitled to all the preferential treatment and protection from their own social crimes that being a celebrity brings in this celebrity as god trash pop culture obsessed society in which we live. An obsession further fueled by the perpetrators themselves – Much Music.
So what’s the solution? What would I like to see? I’d like to see Much Music feature CIMS talent, including openly queer and diversity CIMS talent more prominently in it’s programming. And I’d like to see them get rid of those three lying, snide, snooty two –faced VJs. I don’t know their names nor do I want to. But I’ve included a picture of the smug trio. As you can see their real pieces of pop trash that don’t belong on anyone’s tv. Even on the tvs of someone who’s watching Much Music.
The Much Music Post 20 Junkies are in in the distant centre. They are (L to R): One of two snide metro-sexual blonde twin guys, fake trash who pretended she'd wear the pin holding mic, with afro and shades (she sees me and smiles innocently knowing full well she's a liar) and finally the short sergeant in pink tube top who lied to my face about getting Ms. Microphone beside her to wear my pin.
These pins cost money. If you're not going to wear them - don't lie by saying you'll wear pins, take pins from me and then not wear them. Your fakery costs me money.
Thursday, June 23, 2005
Personality Over Perfection Anyday
After reading a biography on Madonna recently I learned she started with a single. A single song. So I stopped what I was working on and said, "I need a single." I was standing in an office building at the time of this revelation. So I wasn't exactly in a very creativly inspiring environment to begin the project. But I started working away over the weeks. The result is a single called "Do The Impossible". Sure the song is aboout a boy, as these things often go. But the title could very well apply to the larger project of getting any type of buzz started for oneself in the music industry.
While getting to Toronto and introducing myself and my music to people at the annual Pride weekend festivities had seemed like a geographical and emotional "impossibility" I decided that I would do it. It was a last minute decision. Which made the project even harder to realize. Since none of the marketing infastructure was in place.
Throwing some passion, time, creativity and money - ug - at the project I am emerging with a new website called www.ellesheher.com and an Elle! She Her! red hot pin campaign. I'll be distributing the pins at Toronto Pride.
The single won't be fully recorded until July, but I've put up an audio snipet of the Live version in the meantime. After all, perfectionism is for people at my old university music school that sat in locked practice rooms in the basement all day playing music noone ever heard. All in the quest for perfection. What good did it do them? They might as well just opened the door and played for someone's enjoyment.
While I've done countless takes, I know my performances aren't perfect. But if even 1 person likes the music I sent out into the world, then showing my flaws is not only worth it, it's magic.
After reading a biography on Madonna recently I learned she started with a single. A single song. So I stopped what I was working on and said, "I need a single." I was standing in an office building at the time of this revelation. So I wasn't exactly in a very creativly inspiring environment to begin the project. But I started working away over the weeks. The result is a single called "Do The Impossible". Sure the song is aboout a boy, as these things often go. But the title could very well apply to the larger project of getting any type of buzz started for oneself in the music industry.
While getting to Toronto and introducing myself and my music to people at the annual Pride weekend festivities had seemed like a geographical and emotional "impossibility" I decided that I would do it. It was a last minute decision. Which made the project even harder to realize. Since none of the marketing infastructure was in place.
Throwing some passion, time, creativity and money - ug - at the project I am emerging with a new website called www.ellesheher.com and an Elle! She Her! red hot pin campaign. I'll be distributing the pins at Toronto Pride.
The single won't be fully recorded until July, but I've put up an audio snipet of the Live version in the meantime. After all, perfectionism is for people at my old university music school that sat in locked practice rooms in the basement all day playing music noone ever heard. All in the quest for perfection. What good did it do them? They might as well just opened the door and played for someone's enjoyment.
While I've done countless takes, I know my performances aren't perfect. But if even 1 person likes the music I sent out into the world, then showing my flaws is not only worth it, it's magic.
Sunday, June 19, 2005
Honour Where You Started and Go From There
It is my birthday this week. Another year older. It is hard to turn another year older. A lot of people don't get to live into their 20's and 30's. Whether they starve to death in Africa or commit suicide in a wave of dispair and lonliness brought on by experiencing homophobia in their small town. Whatever the varied reasons may be, they just don't make it through the years. So I should be grateful I'm still alive. Despite the odds.
But I'm not where I want to be. In terms of sucess. I'm sure a lot of people can relate. I just finished a biography on Madonna. And it is amzing how much she had acomplished creatively and in terms of commercial success by the time she was 30. Sure she had a lot of help in the form of a different musical starevery year, such as Prince, working behind the scenes to prop her up. But she was involved. A grate motivator of herself and others.
So on my birthday it becomes a necessary task to remind myself that for every 1 Madonna who went to NYC and became a star, thousands of others set out with the same dreams of success in the music business and ended up working in restaurants.
For myself, I've realized I can't compare myself to people who are born into conventional social and phyical-body realities and therefore live "mainstream" lives that by definition prevent them from experiencing obstacles many oppressed people face. Obstacles they don't know they don't know they face. Because they've never had to face them. So they are therefore not aware of these obstacles. Or that they aren't facing them.
Obstacles like systemic discrimination, lonliness, isolation, lack of resources and the impending depression and immobilization that all of these ills bring.
If I compare myself to these privlidged folks who havn't had to endure all of these obstacles just to survive, let alone to do anything creative, ofcourse I'm always going to come out looking like the loser. Because it isn't a fair comparison or a "level" playing field" as the cliche says.
Someone who starts out at 0 out of 10 everyday, 0 being a mainstream existance where society is not only not against you, but is for the most part for you and your success, will get from 0 to say 8, 9 or 10 out of 10 in their day's goals quite easily. But someone who is marginalized and oppressed starts out at like, negative (-) 5 out of 10 and then has to start clawing their way up past the obstacles to let's say +3 in any given day. And it's a hard fight to get to that + 3. Much harder, with much more sweat and energy expended, than the mainstreamer who's got to 8, 9 or 10 out of 10.
But anyone, including those of us who start out in the negative numbers every day, who looks at the +3 we got compared to the others' + 8 can easily start to feel down onourselves and our abilities if we don't make that important distinction between where marginalized people start our days on the numbers chart of -10 to + 10 compared to where mainstreamers start.
And forgetting this important distinction does us a further disservice because by getting down on ourselves we are more likely than ever to give up, say "I can't", not try, become depressed or curl up in bed. Then ofcourse we won't even get to the +3.
So I encourage everyone, including myself, to avoid trying to keep up with the Jones' or the Madonnas. Set your goals in terms of challenging yourself, not comparing yourself to others. Comparsions with others only leads to jealousy. Which is toxic to your system.
Recognize where you started on the numbers chart of - 10 to + 10 in your day, week, even life. We didn't all start at 0. If you started out in the negative numbers, or "in the red" as they say, then own that and give yourself permission to start from where you are. This way you'll be celebrating getting to +3 out of 10 in any given day. Instead of beating yourself up, getting discouraged and creating a cycle of negative self-fulfilling prophesy. And I bet by looking at our +3s as successes will only help us get to +4s out of 10 tomorrow.
It is my birthday this week. Another year older. It is hard to turn another year older. A lot of people don't get to live into their 20's and 30's. Whether they starve to death in Africa or commit suicide in a wave of dispair and lonliness brought on by experiencing homophobia in their small town. Whatever the varied reasons may be, they just don't make it through the years. So I should be grateful I'm still alive. Despite the odds.
But I'm not where I want to be. In terms of sucess. I'm sure a lot of people can relate. I just finished a biography on Madonna. And it is amzing how much she had acomplished creatively and in terms of commercial success by the time she was 30. Sure she had a lot of help in the form of a different musical starevery year, such as Prince, working behind the scenes to prop her up. But she was involved. A grate motivator of herself and others.
So on my birthday it becomes a necessary task to remind myself that for every 1 Madonna who went to NYC and became a star, thousands of others set out with the same dreams of success in the music business and ended up working in restaurants.
For myself, I've realized I can't compare myself to people who are born into conventional social and phyical-body realities and therefore live "mainstream" lives that by definition prevent them from experiencing obstacles many oppressed people face. Obstacles they don't know they don't know they face. Because they've never had to face them. So they are therefore not aware of these obstacles. Or that they aren't facing them.
Obstacles like systemic discrimination, lonliness, isolation, lack of resources and the impending depression and immobilization that all of these ills bring.
If I compare myself to these privlidged folks who havn't had to endure all of these obstacles just to survive, let alone to do anything creative, ofcourse I'm always going to come out looking like the loser. Because it isn't a fair comparison or a "level" playing field" as the cliche says.
Someone who starts out at 0 out of 10 everyday, 0 being a mainstream existance where society is not only not against you, but is for the most part for you and your success, will get from 0 to say 8, 9 or 10 out of 10 in their day's goals quite easily. But someone who is marginalized and oppressed starts out at like, negative (-) 5 out of 10 and then has to start clawing their way up past the obstacles to let's say +3 in any given day. And it's a hard fight to get to that + 3. Much harder, with much more sweat and energy expended, than the mainstreamer who's got to 8, 9 or 10 out of 10.
But anyone, including those of us who start out in the negative numbers every day, who looks at the +3 we got compared to the others' + 8 can easily start to feel down onourselves and our abilities if we don't make that important distinction between where marginalized people start our days on the numbers chart of -10 to + 10 compared to where mainstreamers start.
And forgetting this important distinction does us a further disservice because by getting down on ourselves we are more likely than ever to give up, say "I can't", not try, become depressed or curl up in bed. Then ofcourse we won't even get to the +3.
So I encourage everyone, including myself, to avoid trying to keep up with the Jones' or the Madonnas. Set your goals in terms of challenging yourself, not comparing yourself to others. Comparsions with others only leads to jealousy. Which is toxic to your system.
Recognize where you started on the numbers chart of - 10 to + 10 in your day, week, even life. We didn't all start at 0. If you started out in the negative numbers, or "in the red" as they say, then own that and give yourself permission to start from where you are. This way you'll be celebrating getting to +3 out of 10 in any given day. Instead of beating yourself up, getting discouraged and creating a cycle of negative self-fulfilling prophesy. And I bet by looking at our +3s as successes will only help us get to +4s out of 10 tomorrow.
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
Disco Era Heat Wave
I’m always happy when the month of June arrives. In a frigid northern Canadian climate where it is face- scrunchingly cold, dead to greenery and blisteringly winded for 8 months of the year, June marks the 1st of 4 months of the year, that I’ve never had to endure snow stingling my face or wear a winter scarf. All the other months of the year I’ve had to. Yes whether it’s watching a blizzard in Halifax, NS in May or bundling up in mittens in Ottawa, On during the 1st week in October I’ve had to.
So June is a real oasis for the body and soul from the long-lasting icy, clawing grip of winter. I was born in June. Apparently it was so hot the June I was born my mother slept outside under the deck for the 2 weeks prior to my birth. My father recently declared that this heat wave must have been responsible for me being, in his estimation, what he calls “touched in the head”.
I’m always happy when the month of June arrives. In a frigid northern Canadian climate where it is face- scrunchingly cold, dead to greenery and blisteringly winded for 8 months of the year, June marks the 1st of 4 months of the year, that I’ve never had to endure snow stingling my face or wear a winter scarf. All the other months of the year I’ve had to. Yes whether it’s watching a blizzard in Halifax, NS in May or bundling up in mittens in Ottawa, On during the 1st week in October I’ve had to.
So June is a real oasis for the body and soul from the long-lasting icy, clawing grip of winter. I was born in June. Apparently it was so hot the June I was born my mother slept outside under the deck for the 2 weeks prior to my birth. My father recently declared that this heat wave must have been responsible for me being, in his estimation, what he calls “touched in the head”.
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