Vancouver, Where Lively and Balanced Are Words to Describe Coffee

Photo by Bruce LaBruce
Just got back from a weekend in Bland-couver, and since I promised I’d give you a scene report, I will, even though it’s two o’clock in the morning and I would much rather go to bed. It’s one of the occupational hazards of writing a regular column that I knew would come back to haunt me. Deadlines can be deadly.

First off, I really have to point out how bad airplane movies have become. It’s gotten to the point where I can’t even find a single one I want to watch (which really defeats the purpose of VOD) even while strapped into a cramped seat in economy without being able to turn my head away, kind of like Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange (although at least he got to watch porn mixed with extreme violence). I’ve tried to peruse some of the latest Hollywood fare, if only to kill time, but the problem is, no matter how desperately you may want to, once you’ve watched Unknown with Liam Neeson, you will never, ever be able to unwatch it.

I hadn’t been to Vancouver for about five years, and the frightening thing is that it’s become very much like Toronto, except it’s much more green and sustainable, has clear views of the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Ocean, has more temperate weather, contains an old-growth forest in the middle of the city (the gorgeous Stanley Park), and has a photogenic mayor who isn’t trying to destroy social and community services, eliminate art and culture, curtail street life, and terminate cyclists. East Van is still the crazy, lively home of the homeless, crawling with a cast of characters straight out of “The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade.”

The government-sponsored free needle exchange (the only one of its kind in North America, because as you know, Vancouver is the heroin capital of the continent), where junkies can shoot up in a cozy and friendly setting with clean junk and equipment, is still bustling away on Hastings Street. One note of caution, though: On my last night we dropped into a bar in the same neighborhood called Cobalt that used to be right dodgy and deliciously homophobic, but which now hosts a night that was suspiciously populated by gay hipsters, and although the drag performers were extremely entertaining (one smashed dishes on the floor in a kimono while lip-synching to Adele’s “Rolling In The Dark”; the other, bravely following that act barefoot, did a Pocahontas number), we all know that once the gays get their dainty feet in the door, creepy gentrification cannot be far behind.

The unfortunate thing that is starting to unify Bland-couver and Bore-onto is the homogeneity of the city skylines, dominated as they now are by those hideous, pale-green-tinged glass tower condos. As it turns out, there’s a reason the cities became so sisterly. A Hong Kong-controlled company called Concord Pacific is responsible for the condo developments of both the former Expo 86 site in Vancouver and of Cityplace, the former railway lands near Lake Ontario in Toronto. Too bad they aren’t attempting something a little more adventurous and Hong Kong-y, architecturally speaking, because these cookie-cutter glass high rises are really just blocking out the scenery and breaking my mind. It’s the sheer, unapologetic upscaliness of these enterprises, particularly in such economically depressed times, which makes one long for the era of the Dufferin Tavern and Hookers on Davie in sleazy old Vancouver. But what can you expect from a city that now describes its coffee with words such as “lively” and “balanced”?

What else can I say about Vancouver? I attended a nice dinner at Douglas “Generation X” Coupland’s digs in West Van, a funhouse that gives PeeWee’s Playhouse a run for its money; I had breakfast at the Waldorf with novelist and man-about-town Michael Turner; I DJed in the toilet of a big club called Five Sixty, promoted by local impresario Michael Venus; I attended a double-bill screening of the documentary about me, The Advocate for Fagdom, and my movie Hustler White at the Vancouver Queer Film Festival; and I participated in a group show at VIVO called Red 8 Cumball, curated by my old friend Fwedewick Cummings, who performed in drag as Medusa channeling Mahalia Jackson, with a fright wig of 16mm film in lieu of snakes on his head.

I have to admit, though, that it wasn’t quite as exciting as my previous visit in 2002 when Fwed and I, high on crystal meth, visited the Port Coquitlam farm of pig farmer serial killer Robert Pickton, who confessed to the murder of 49 women, mostly prostitutes and drug users from East Van, and who reputedly made sausages out of them and sold them to the local police. As Fwed is from a First Nations background, he wanted to do a ritual to honor the souls of the victims, many of whom were also First Nations. But I suppose it would be difficult to top that experience.

BRUCE LABRUCE

Previously - Paranoia Runs Deep/Into Your Bacon It Will Creep