Tag: LGBTQ

FEELS

Now Kids, Put Down Your Guns and Let Me Tell You A Story

X. Jupiter Hart

If you grew up in Canada and are of a certain age, The Hilarious House of Frightenstein was part of a complete childhood. I learned a few weeks ago that it is currently available for binge-watching on Tubi. Originally produced by CHCH-TV in Hamilton, Ontario in 1971, it aired for only one season. Yet that one season would be shown in syndication for nearly two decades thereafter, where it would find its way into the cockles of the collective heart of Gen X Canada. A sketch-comedy/sitcom hybrid for the whole family with a regular cast of oddball characters (most of which were played by the same actor), set in a medieval castle where Halloween never ended. A diminutive vampire character on this show (specifically the one who was always talking on the phone in Count Frightenstein’s coffin) allegedly served as the inspiration for Mini-Me of Austin Powers fame. Vincent Price was a regular contributor to boot…

Vincent Price was a god who walked among men.

One of the recurring segments on Frightenstein was Grizelda the Ghastly Gourmet, which was a take on TV cooking shows featuring a witch as the star chef. Since a picture’s worth a thousand words, I’ll just post a clip of one of those segments here…

Whilst watching Frightenstein at 4:20 the other night, I was suddenly reminded of how convincingly female Grizelda seemed to the sensibilities of my eight-year-old self. The fact that she was actually portrayed by a man in drag never dawned on me until junior high school. It might shock some people to hear this, but my young impressionable mind found nothing traumatizing or world-crushing about that revelation at all, and was even somewhat amused by it. You see, drag performers have been entertaining audiences young and old for literally centuries, and for most of our history it was actually possible to have a man in drag entertaining a group of kids without a permanently enraged mob of cultists throwing a violent temper tantrum.

I totally get that these cultists are out to avenge their dogmas. But it has to be said that the rest of us are not at fault for their own costly public relations failures, and their actions are thus unwarranted. Decades of sleaze, corruption, pointless scapegoating and trying to attract flies with vinegar (to say nothing of coöptation by a political party) arguably contributed way more to the recent spate of ecclesiastical bankruptcies than any drag queen. Drag queens don’t text dick pics to fifteen-year-old girls. Pastors do.

May you be touched by His Noodly Appendage, and Happy Festivus.
FEELS

A Posthumous Kick in the Crotch

X. Jupiter Hart

My grandfather was one of those angry Baptists. You probably know the type. The kind whose dogmas were concocted long ago in a cauldron of accumulated rage, secreted by a people bitterly resentful over the fact that they lost the war and can no longer legally own Black people as slaves. A brain seemingly composed of Chick Tract papier-mâché. With the characteristic (and obligatory) personal shitlist longer than the King James Bible, and a Jesus of unsullied Germanic European descent who spoke with rural Tennessee drawl and carried a Glock in one hand and a Chick-fil-A sandwich in the other.

In other words, he was one of these.

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, I learned that his former home and property on Vancouver Island had recently been purchased by some Catholic religious order, to be repurposed as a monastery. Catholics were not número uno on Grandpa’s shitlist (it doesn’t take much imagination to correctly guess who was), but they were definitely in the top ten somewhere. I found something instantly gratifying about the fact that a demographic he denounced as the Spawn of Satan are soon going to living at his old house and praying there. Serves him right for his lifetime of shameless over-the-top bigotry. The only thing that would top that was if the building was going to be converted to a Turkish bathhouse, or if the Catholic order that purchased it was this one…

SIGHTS

Pride in the Sticks

X. Jupiter Hart

During this time of war and pestilence, I’ve been hiding away from the major population centres deep in the ancient sticks. Haven’t come down with The Rona yet, and a large part of that is due to my being in a sparsely populated area that is completely devoid of culture and attractions save those related to fishing, shunned by the majority of non-fishing tourists pandemic or not. While those qualities make it an ideal spot to wait out a global pandemic, I sure do miss those days when I used to be exposed to actual culture. This year’s Pride has been a boon from the gods thus far, for it has brought culture to those of us who have none. A power trio playing Stones covers doesn’t have quite the same level of über-festive badassitude as some of the shit I’ve seen in Toronto, but I certainly appreciate the sight and sound of a company of live street performers that isn’t a twangy country band. Haven’t seen anything like that in a while.

I was originally going to TikTok this but the damn sun was so bright that I couldn’t see what the hell I was tapping on. Ended up with still shots and no video.