Last night at Metropolis for Military Ball, Manny hit the decks like a horse out of a gate: on fire and with a blast of adrenaline that sent the floor into overdrive.  This was “Hand’s Up” music, funky-bump-and-grind Saturday night music. Packed with bare-chested sailors and camouflaged soldiers, Metropolis was an army of circuit enlistees – and none of them worried about early or dishonorable discharge.  What happens in Montreal…

Columns of lights silhouetted the boys on the boxes.  Ten columns of white light – then blue, then purple.  And Manny’s going “I don’t need you to tell me that it’s all right.” None of us do, really, because it’s how we’re feeling and who we are – and ain’t nothing wrong with that.

Earlier in the day, we’d been walking along the St. Lawrence River, listening to a friend attempt to express what the circuit did for him.  What it was he felt the circuit awakened in him.  Of course, what we each get from the circuit is not necessarily the same thing – and yet our friend seemed to hit upon a universal truth when he expressed how the circuit enables him to celebrate being gay.  Something there is about the circuit which awakens in us something we might sometimes keep under wraps.  That extra bit of joy and happiness, or the sense of freedom, the relief at being able to relax into your honey’s embrace, and the unbridled enthusiasm which comes from being able to shake your moneymaker any way you want without anyone making you self-conscious.  The freedom to be who you are. 

So that later, when we’re hearing that old chestnut, Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love”, it’s understandable how you can look at each other and say, “It sounds different here.  I haven’t heard it like this before.”  Which is equivalent to saying, “Everything sounds better in Montreal.”  Everything takes on new meaning.  As Mark Anthony explained to us the other day, “There are no musical barriers in Montreal” – and maybe there aren’t so many other barriers either.

Manny’s on his vocal pulpit now and we’re all dancing happy.  Saturday night call-and-response dance, so that “Ain’t No Other Man” is more or less a sing-along, which is adorable, really, to see so many happy boyz jumping for joy.  And then there’s “Open Up Your Heart,” another one of those songs which you hear different in Montreal.  A song which maybe that Canadian minister of finance might have considered listening to before he chose to deny the Black and Blue festival $55,000 in funding – on the grounds that we, on the circuit, are not family, and that BBCM is not a family-based organization promoting familial values.

Clearly, that minister of finance is blind.  All he would need to do is open his eyes onto this dance floor to realize how very much family we are. Brothers, sisters, lovers, fathers, sons and daughters – smiling, kissing, hugging.  A happy family.  And of course, what’s a family without a little brother-to-brother action?  What’s a Saturday night party in Montreal without a little down and dirty loving on the floor? 

Which, of course, brings us to another part of the circuit and what it offers to so many of us: the celebration of sex.  Sex as connection.  Sex as release.  Last week we saw John Cameron Mitchell’s new flick, SHORTBUS, with its unabashed enthusiasm for sex – in its many forms – and here at Military in Montreal, it would appear as if we’ve all seen the same flick.  As Mitchell’s film attests, and as many of us on the circuit know and understand, sex might not be the cure-all, but it certainly helps maintain balance.  The endorphin rush of it all, it’s no wonder we become sub-literate when the body’s doing all the talking. 

There’s a performance.  A boxing ring on the stage.  Four b-boys break-dancing.  And later a singer named Danielle who sings “Kiss The Sky.”  But nothing interrupts the flow.  The night eases from one moment to the next, an ongoing flow of sensory stimulation.  It’s overload, maybe.  But more, we want more. 

We run into Moody.  “Go, Moody, Go, Moody.”  And Adam and Dr. Mickey, each in complementary camouflage.  And our Black and Blue newbies are totally in the groove.  And we’re not family?  No.  We’re not having it.   

Later, there’s a switchover.  Some time around five a.m.  It’s smoothly orchestrated so that Manny slips into the crowd, almost unnoticed, where after Paulette takes control.  Girl knows how to work a board, and werk it happy.  She keeps the family moving. 

And then later still, we’re in a cab, heading back into Vieux Montreal – and the city of Montreal is quiet.  It’s Canadian Thanksgiving weekend.  And on the car radio, it’s Mick. Mick Jagger singing “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”  And all we know at that moment, in looking at each other across the back seat, is that you always get what you need – in Montreal.

We sleep, and then wake in the early afternoon, for breakfast, which we take in the lobby of the Gault, our Zenlike womb of recovery.  On the plasma tv, there’s a news clip: footage from last year’s Black and Blue.  We sit up a little straighter.  And now there’s Caroline Rousse interviewed about the import of Black and Blue for meeting the Canadian national AIDS budget.  For some AIDS organizations, BBCM is the primary source of funding.  And tonight, the Black and Blue family comes together, thousands-strong, for this year’s Main Event.