Life As Performance Art 183

I'm going to subtitle this essay, "Peeing With Elvis", and for one simple reason: I want to write a few words here about a local coffee shop where one of the customer washrooms contains a painting of the eponymous pop legend. There he is, the King, his visage peering from the wall perpendicular to the toilet, serenely watching over our most basic bodily functions. It is a very good, very well-rendered portrait interpretation of Elvis Presley, by the way (I'm including his family name because I just don't wish to hear from the lawyers of the other famous musician named Elvis, who is still alive and quite well and likely richer than Croesus, so you had better believe I am not going to piss him off!) So, on my way out of the coffee shop I mentioned glibly to the manager and one of the baristas that it is a lovely portrait, and I just needed a little time for my bladder to unfreeze. (they are very kind to me there, by the way, and don't seem to mind my off-the-cuff remarks, Gentle Reader!) So, I call the washroom the Elvis Room. I suppose the other water closet could be dubbed the "Kremlin", given the red Coca-Cola sign in Cyrillic script. They have also freshly painted the bathroom doors, rather in the style of a toddler writing crayon graffiti on the dining room wall (remember dining rooms, Gentle Reader? Back in the days when most homes were actually houses and they had more than three rooms? Ah, nostalgia ain't what it used to be!) So painted on the door of the Kremlin are the bright coloured letters of the words "Wash your Hands! Whoever, Whatever!") The door to the Elvis Room is scrawled with big letter words, WASHROOM, repeated four or five times. I love this fun unselfconsciously silly kind of ambience. The staff are all decidedly young, rather neatly fitting the useless demographic of younger Millennials. But even if, in my early sixties, I am young enough to be their grandfather, I don't feel a lot older than they, nor do they seem that much younger than me. Perhaps this says more about the legendary Germaine Greer's quotation "you're young only once, but you can be immature forever." (if you haven't read her famous book the Female Eunuch, then go out and buy a copy. You'll also find it in the public library). It could be that I have never really grown up, and in a way, I haven't. I have none of the signposts of adult success or maturity: I have never married and raised kids, I do not own my home, I don't have a car. But these lovely, knd and humorous people who staff and operate this cafe all remind me of how I remember myself forty years ago. When I was in my early twenties, during the late seventies, I was already navigating issues of gender identity and sexual orientation and questions of diversity and inclusion and protecting the environment and eating less meat if not no meat at all (I have been vegetarian for going on almost thirty years), as well as treating others with kindness and respect. I suppose it could be said that I was many years ahead of my time, though I was certainly treated like a weirdo back in those days. I think some of them are vegans. When I mentioned to one of the staff about my confrontation with a super self-righteous and intolerant vegan, she, a vegan herself, seemed sympathetic (to me, not the other vegan), and mentioned the importance of treating one another with kindness. And the manager, whom I don't believe to be vegan (I have caught him eating eggs on the sly) smiles good-naturedly whenever I order their vegan scone, heated, with...butter. They play so much music of ABBA sometimes, that I seem to have lost my sense of embarrassment and have sometimes caught myself enjoying their music without irony. I have also, by spending time in this coffee shop come to get habituated to the music of Lana Del Rey, whose name in Spanish means the King's wool. She sounds rather like Kate Bush on Valium. There are two rather comfy chairs in the back where I usually enjoy sitting and I have spent many enjoyable hours with my sketchbook, occasionally exchanging commentary with staff. It is a very relaxed, very safe place, with enough rainbow signalling to assure queer people that they can be safe and comfortable here. I hope this coffee shop, which has been through a few changes of management and ambience already, manages to stay this way for a while. I have also thanked the manager for the way he runs the place, for this has also become like a local sanctuary, where my priest and I have also been able to fight and thrash out some issues that have since been resolved, or at least are being resolved. Even though I usually don't do endorsements, I will for this cafe. It is called Bean Around the World, and they are located on Granville Street, between W. 13th and W. 14th Avenues and this is my shout out to thank them for being here. Thanks, you guys!