Me In America

Watching the Canadian Olympics from Texas

2010-02-12T18:24:00.000-08:00

I am so very proud to be Canadian at this moment.

Yes, Canada is far from the ideal state. Yes, our history is one of oppressing marginalized peoples. Yes, racisim still exists and gender inequalities have yet to be defeated...

But at the same time, there is so much that is good and beautiful about Canada.

These Olympic opening ceremonies show just some of these qualities.

Canada, like the world, is multicultural. The ceremonies make no attempt to erase Canada's colonial history. Both French, English, and mulitple Indian languages are used in the opening ceremonies. In fact, the Indian nations, who were the original inhabitants of the land of Canada, symbolically invite the world to the Vancouer Olympic Winter Games. Leaders of the Indian nations are included amongst the offical delegation of the Olympics which include the IOC president and the Prime Minister of Canada. The ceremonies recognize Canada's colonial past, but attempt to move past the trauma and oppression of colonialism, by recognizing the Indian nations claim to the land and integral role in forming the nation of Canada.

Canada takes responsibility, and by doing so, does not erase its history of colonialism.

Canada gives voice to those on the margins.

Canada accepts and celebrates difference.

Canada accepts and celebrates the many cultural forces that influence our world and the nation of Canada itself.

The world does indeed need more Canada.

Not thick, but still very attractive

2010-01-24T17:04:00.000-08:00

Since I've been back, I've made two important realizations. Because I flew from Austin directly back to Canada, and then from Canada directly back to Austin, I think the ability to acknowledge the differences between the two much easier. As a result, here are my findings:

1) Most people here do have accents. The student population of University of Texas at Austin is mostly Texan born and raised. Something like 80% of students are from Texas. Upon my first arrival, maybe because my migration was gradual as I drove to Texas through the Midwest, I didn't notice any thick accents. Upon my return to Texas after my holiday, in which I flew directly from Regina, I do notice accents. Though not thick, a subtle southern-drawl is present.

2) The boys in the gym are hot. Much hotter than the guys at the gay YMCA in Toronto. This, of course, is not surprising. Young active men at University age are much more likely to appeal to me than older blue collar types. But still, it wasn't something I had noticed until now. Previously, I had taken the beautiful bodies around me at Gregory Gym for granted.

Back!

2010-01-19T19:06:00.000-08:00

I'm back in America.

I survived my first term. I endured aggressive criticism of my scholarship. I negotiated the egos of faculty and other graduate students. I barely made it through the administrative nightmare of immigration and social security. I battled with entitled undergraduates who thought they deserved everything in the moon for merely handing in a paper. I learned. I grew. I survived.

Now I'm back. I'm more prepared. I know what I'm in for. I've learned from my mistakes. I've acknowledged my successes.

I'm ready.

Settling In America

2009-10-26T19:33:00.000-07:00

After two and a half months living in Austin Texas, I have settled.

I have navigated through the bureaucratic nightmare of immigration and social security. I have managed two and a half months of an overload of reading academic books and scholarly journals. I have learned how to wade through pages and pages of complex arguments both with my sanity, and a better understanding of what I've read, in tact. I have found a small group of friends who I support and who support me as we endure the trials and tribulations of graduate school.

I am a resident of Austin and a student at the University of Texas.

There is always something lacking. More here than when I lived in Toronto. I lack a community outside of the one I have at school. My friends in my program are invaluable, but I need something beyond academic discourse and departmental gossip. What I lack is that community of gay men, academics, artists, and friends with whom I personal history that I had in Toronto.

But I can't have everything, can I? Graduate school and a community I am proud to call my home?

But I've settled. I've settled for Austin. For now...

The Meaning of Matthew Shephard

2009-09-28T19:38:00.000-07:00

Matthew Shepard was beat severely by two young men, tied to a fence, and left to die outside of Laramie Wyoming eleven years ago.

Tonight I heard his mother, Judy Shephard, speak about the meaning of his life and death, and how it has affected gay activism and the fight for gay rights in America.

She told this story:

"The town of Caspar, Wyoming is encourage me and my work of my cause. I have old ladies, grandmothers, stopping me in the aisle of the grocery.
"I'm so suppportive of why you're doing. I have a gay grandchild" they whisper.

I say to say "Thank you very much. But please, don't whisper, say it out loud.""

Game Day

2009-09-12T12:01:00.001-07:00

It's game day!

The stadium sits like a colliseum in the middle of the campus. Towering over the surrounding architecture, Roman in nature. It is a temple of athletics.

When I walk through campus at noon, I see the preparations for the game at 6 pm have already begun. Not just parking attendants and orange vested volunteers in charge of crowd control, but the tailgaters have also arrived.

Tailgating is a perverse version of the American family picnic. Named after the tailgate of pickup trucks where these perverted picnics take place, tailgating now has spread beyond the back end of pick-up trucks. As I walk through campus, I see, in the park space available merely fifty yards away from the stadium, event tents covering televisions connected to satellite receivers, coolers filled with ice and beer, barbecques, and a collection of lawn chairs. The families who have arrived six hours early will watch other football games all afternoon, before watching the Texas Longhorn football game that will be played in the stadium across the street.

America continues to reaffirm my assumptions about its culture: An almost religious obsession with football, family activity centered around the television, and the automobile at the center of life.

I speak to a friend as I walk through campus telling him what I see around me. "Football," he says, "is just a way to distract the masses from realizing how shitty their lives and the world around them really is."

Winning is so pure, I think to myself. It is so final. A clear, unadultered positive in a world where nothing is as good or as bad as it seems. And being a fan, tailgating, cheering your team on, is like a ritual, a prayer.

Later that night, at approximately ten p.m., the Longhorns beat Louisiana 59 to 20.

The Gods are benevolent to their Texas fans today.

Social Security Office

2009-09-01T15:38:00.000-07:00

"I'm here fo my So-cal Suh-cur-iddy number," she says.

Class is alive and thriving in America.

Americans, true Americans, upper-middle class white Americans with homes in the suburbs and a car for each member of their household don't come here.

I scan the hundreds of people waiting with their number for their chance to see a social security officer. The white people are outnumbered one hunder to one.

The down and out, the poor, the old, the handicapped, the unemployed, the Black, the Mexican, the Asian, come here. These are the Americans America doesn't want.

As a student from Canada, I feel more foreign here than anywhere I've been since I arrived. The discrimination of class is palpable.

From the outside, I see those on the margins, here, to fight their way out of obscurity, to the heart of the American dream.

There is no security in the social climate of America.

Donn's Depot, Austin

2009-08-27T17:36:00.000-07:00

Maybe if I knew where I was going, I wouldn't have gone. After all, a place called "Donn's Depot", hardly sounds like my new favorite bar. But I do not yet have any friends in Austin, and the women from my department who I sat next to during Orientation has invited me to her birthday, and it's a Saturday night, so I find directions on how to get there, and I go.

The bus drops me off a half-mile away from where I'm supposed to end up: Austin does have mass transit, but it can barely cover the large spread out city-scape. I begin to walk the lengthy trek to Donn's Depot. After a quarter of a mile, the side-walk ends: Just a wide four lane, no parking, major thorough-fare lined with private property. Sometimes the private properties are stretches of strip malls with large parking lots, sometimes they are fenced in residential lots: the city planning here is haphazzard; the landscape is not fabulous. Coming for fabulous Toronto, which privileges the pedestrian and transit user, over the automobile, I realize again that I am not where I used to be.

After a very treacherous negotiation of private property and on-coming traffic, I arrive at Donns Depot. The friend who invited me is not there yet. I grab a beer at the bar and take a moment to soak the place in: Geriatrics and middle-age straight couples partner dance to a mediocre band that plays the hits of rock and country from the 60's, 70's, and early 80's. An old fashion popcorn machines serves free, not-quite-fresh move popcorn. Twenty something girls are dressed up like as if they expected Donn's Depot to be some cosmopolitan "Sex and the City"esque night club, rather than a country saloon. To send the message home, the band begins to play "American Pie": "Drovy my chevy to the levy but the levy was dry, the good old boys were drinking whisky and rye" the drunkenly groan and mumble along with the singer-pianist.

I hang around for an hour, thinking my friend ended up too drunk from birthday festivities to remember to show up. She arrives eventually, but I do not regreat a minute of that time I spent at Donn's Depot alone. Donn's Depot may not be cosmopolitan, fabulous, or even clean (popcorn remnants dot the floors and tables), but this place is authentic: It is what it is and does not try to be anything else.

I am not where I used to be. I may not like where I find myself better than where I came from. But there is something authentic about this place - and that is enough to make me stay for a while longer.

Austin, Texas: August

2009-08-25T19:03:00.000-07:00

I've arrived. The temperature outside is 105 degrees faranheit; the same temperature they set for the room during those hot yoga classes. I think they call it Bikram yoga...

Yes. It is that hot.

Kansas, Oklahoma

2009-08-22T17:19:00.001-07:00

I am sent to a small grocer down the highway to get change for the car wash. It’s scorchingly hot outside, but in the car the air conditioning is cool, so the jeans I’m wearing have been rolled up into three-quarter length shorts. Kansas, or Oklahoma (I can’t remember if this town is on one side of the state line or the other) feels like the desert.

“Fag!”, young guy yells from the window of his out of place low-end sports car.

The bigotry and hate that is stereotypically associated with the ‘redneck’ states of Kansas and Oklahoma proves accurately placed.

I tell my friends about this episode when I return with the change for the car wash.

“How dare they insult you!”

“It’s not really an insult,” I respond (cause after all – I am a fag), “but it’s full of hate.”

Back in the car driving down the highway, the local radio station plays an ad for a healthcare provider. “The enemy wants you to be weak”, it says, but such-and-such healthcare provided will keep you strong.

The ads are followed by a twangy country tune, with inane, but ironically apt lyrics: “God is great. Beer is good. People are crazy.”

Denver, Colorado

2009-08-22T17:03:00.001-07:00

Laramie, Wyoming

2009-08-22T16:59:00.000-07:00

There is no monument, or any evidence at all, concerning the brutal murder of Matthew Shepphard.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Shepard

South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming

2009-08-17T07:10:00.000-07:00

Grand. Vast. Monumental.

America moulds nature for the purposes of Civilization

From the Great Plains that stretch across North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, all the way through Kansas and Oklahoma - vast stretches of natural land tilled by large threshing machines harvesting crop - to an immense sculpture etched out of the side of a mountain...

The natural landscape is dotted with monuments marking the site of historical battles and figures. From Mt. Rushmore, to the Homestead National Monument in Nebraska, the landscape and history meet to build a great civilization.

The land itself, the shere size of a country that stretches sea to sea, is embedded in the national consciousness:

America is a great geography. America is a great civilzation.

From America's National Park Services webstie commerorating the Homestead National Monument in Nebraska:

The cry was FREE LAND!! The Homestead Act of 1862 was one of the most significant and enduring events in the westward expansion of the United States. By granting 160 acres (0.65 km2) of free land to claimants, it allowed nearly any man or woman a chance to live the "American dream". The park helps visitors gain an understanding on how the Act changed the lives of all Americans and the land.

2009-08-17T06:57:00.001-07:00

North and South Dakota

2009-08-17T06:53:00.000-07:00

Empty. An immense space so large and beautiful only nature could make it possible.

Here space itself is not an absence but a presence. Space has features, characteristics, adjectives: large, beautiful, profound, meaningful, almost even philosophical. Nothing is missing here, because everything is space.

Being in such space, so huge and limitless, I feel so small and finite. I am more my body, and my mind and thoughts somehow carried within, now than I ever have been. The car I sit in as I hurtle through space at 65 miles an hour feels like such a foreign and concrete object, a bubble with hard and solid edges, as it travels through something that is seemingly infinite and vast.

We drive. And drive and drive. Hurtling through space. For hours.

We travel through the geographic center of North America: Butte County. There is nothing here, but space. The heart of America: both empty and full at the same time. America: void pregnant with meaning.

Night falls. We pull over in the dark to watch a meteor shower. Heated rock pieces from space do as we do, millions of miles overhead: Penetrate space travelling to something, somewhere new.

I am, and can only be, the physical. It has taken space, larger than anything I can possibly know, to divert my attention from a busy city-life, to me, to myself, to my body

The Great American Adventure Begins

2009-08-13T21:50:00.001-07:00

She hardly seems a guard; more like a host with administrative duties.

She calmly attends to my immigration paperwork. Her pleasant, almost unofficial demeanour contrasts the sense of urgency and anxiety that accompanies the fear I feel. I am constantly haunted by previous bureaucratic mishaps which resulted in administrative nightmares and inconvenient delays. But after a moment of silence, which was probably serene for the border agent as she habitually fills out forms and photocopies passports, but was cold and nervous as I imagine being denied entrance to the United States under my student visa, she approached the long reception counter where I have been standing, waiting, biting my nails.

She politely instructs me regarding the proceedures required when leaving and returning to the United States under my student visa. The she sends me on my way with an earnest "Good Luck!".

Unlike being one of thousands who cross the border from Canada into the United States at the various crossings in Ontario, I feel like a person, not a threat, as I enter from Saskatchewan into North Dakota.

She welcomes me with sincere warmth into the heartland of America.

America!

2009-08-13T21:44:00.000-07:00

First, I travel from Regina, Saskatchewan, through the heart of America to Austin, Texas.

Then, I attend the University of Texas at Austin purusing my PhD in Performance as Public Practice.

A Canadian in America.

Stephen in Texas.

The Great Work Begins...