Which is great, actually. It has him creating beautiful new music.
Words by Caspar Pisters, photos and styling by Giovanni Maisto Ferreira
“Once again I had to sit there and hear a guy spelling it out: ‘I think you are so beautiful and special, but a relationship is not going to happen’. Why do I keep arriving back at this point?”
Otion (33 years old, Amsterdam born, real name Guillermo Blinker) has a problem. He regularly falls for men who are not into men but find him ‘very special and nice’.
Otion: “I think I’ve secretly projected love onto straight guys for so long that I’m stuck now in some sort of pattern. I attract guys who like a certain kind of attention from another man but do not necessarily…” He announces the double entendre coming up with a burst of laughter: “… want to make it solid.”
It had just happened again, two days before our last live meeting, now a bit over a year ago. He talks about it while we’re having cappuccinos at a massive Amsterdam coffee bar in the west part of town. The place was nearly deserted, just days before lockdown was announced – a gloomy tension already hovering over the city. Simple things such as greeting each other had become weird little assessments.
Otion – the name “came to him” – hasn’t been quiet in the meantime. He is debuting this month in Tijd Zal Ons Leren, a production for Dutch theatre group Het Nationale Theater, joining renowned actress Romana Vrede on stage. He is to provide music and dance in a goose bumps provoking telling of almost forgotten hero stories, 127 fighters that rose up against the oppression of Dutch colonialists.
I always allow myself one day to be a total victim. Full on rolling on the floor, everything sucks and everyone is to blame”
Before lockdown Otion was making a name for himself in the Amsterdam stage circuit, with poetic and highly personal musical performances that bring together his talents as a musician, dancer and performer.
He builds his compositions on the spot, using a loop station to provide his R&B vocals with harmonies and beats that are at once elusive and captivating. Rather than providing his audience with a finished up and polished story, he invites you into the process of creating them.
The romantic rejection of a straight friend, as harsh as it may be, does provide wonderful input for his music. ‘Don’t bother me with the truth’, he sings about the incident in a one-minute clip, decorated with digital butterflies. He posted it on his Insta stories, where it has long disappeared.
Otion: “Yes, fuck reality. I’m chasing butterflies. I can completely immerse myself in worlds that I create myself. I tend to romanticize things to the extent that…”
He doesn’t finish his sentence. Then: “I think it’s how I survived being in the closet. By withdrawing into those self-created worlds. In there I can let my creativity run free. It’s a great mindset for the stage and for my writing. But in real life it gets in my way.”
In real life you got rejected, again, by a straight guy?
“It keeps happening over and over. In the past six years some six or seven times. Though I acted more quickly this time around. If I feel that someone is triggering a certain intimacy while claiming he isn’t into men, I address it: ‘Hey, listen, you are stirring up feelings. If you continu down this path… I have a boner, so if you don’t want to go there, we should leave it at this’. It’s important to set boundaries.”
I didn’t want to be gay. The only access I thought I had to the realm of men was my straightness. I didn’t want to give that up”
Do they flirt with you?
With some hesitation: “That’s my interpretation. They are just very…” Then, resolutely: “Yes, I think so.”
Can you describe such a boner-triggering situation?
“Well, my boner is triggered pretty quickly. It’s attention that is placed in a certain way, or a physical caress. It’s difficult to determine exactly what’s real and which part is to be attributed to my interpretation.”
You mentioned surviving being in the closet: how hard was it?
“It was pretty much my own chosen prison.” He laughs: “Because otherwise no one was really bothered, my environment was quite gay friendly. It wasn’t that my world would collapse if I told anyone, or that I would get kicked out of the house.”
“I wish I had that to put forward as a justification of why it took me 26 years to come out, haha. Being gay didn’t fit with the survival strategy I had developed for myself. I was walking around with this big secret that I kept to myself. I felt like looking at the world from behind a glass wall. Since the age of 19 I wanted to smash it but I couldn’t. Like in one of those dreams in which you want to say something but nothing comes out.”
Why didn’t being gay fit your picture?
“It’s related to what I call the failed relationship with my father. As a child I never had any male role models or love from a man. The only access I had to the realm of men – that’s how I looked at it – was my straightness. I didn’t want to give that up.”
Where was your father?
“With his other family, mainly. He was kind of a sporadic passerby who every once in a while made a promise that he then didn’t keep. I didn’t know what this world of my father and his other children looked like, so I got creative in coming up with a version of it myself. Which felt good, I could sink away in it really deep. Sometimes I would wake up from a trip and genuinely feel a shock: wow, this is not true at all…”
I’ve experienced firsthand what having secrets does to you. I don’t want to hide anything anymore. It’s so liberating”
The kind of father who fails to keep his promises time and again. I might get a bit vague here but…
“Oh, please, vague is my territory.”
It is similar to the psychology behind Facebook, Grindr, Instagram where…
Without skipping a beat: “The validation feedback loop, yes. It’s exactly that. The desire is triggered, but you never quite get what you’re looking for. So you are never fully satisfied and keep coming back for more.”
Now, project this mechanism onto the men you are attracted to.
“I know, I know. At this point really I just laugh about it. Hours and hours of therapy, reading books on psychology, philosophy, shamanism, spirituality – I’ve approached it from all angles. A friend gave me a compliment though. She said: ‘Stepping in like you did this time, you haven’t done that before’.”
“Maybe I should appreciate the small bits of improvement. Besides, I have found a way through it all to shape it into a story. The next day I turn it into a song.” With enthusiasm: “That makes me genuinely happy. Like: oh, yes, this is actually quite cool.”
It makes you switch out of self-pity mode?
“Yes. I always allow myself this one day to be a total victim. Full on rolling on the floor, everything sucks and everyone is to blame. I get it all out and when I’m done I start thinking: what can I get out of this that will make me stronger?”
“This drive to turn it into art is how I process. I get started with it right away, so I can involve my audience. I want to be open and honest about my love life, something I’ve been hiding for so long.”
You no longer do secrets?
“I don’t want to hide anything anymore. It’s so liberating. I’ve experienced firsthand what having secrets does to you… Not telling the truth and not being honest about your experiences is, I think, the source of most of the stress and illness in people.”
Did you have a breakthrough in that regard?
“It actually coincided with the birth of Otion. I arrived at this point where I realized: I’m a Surinamese guy from Amsterdam-Noord who’s into guys. I’m just going to use all that content, my outlook on life and my way of expressing myself.”
“From that moment on everything fell into place. All of a sudden I was visible and I got invited to all kinds of queer stages. Wow! It was a victory, ten years prior this had been unthinkable to me. I like that there are people now who know me and address me as Otion, a new entity that people love and relate to.”
You talk about Otion in third person.
“Yes, by the time I’m 40 I want to have at least ten aliases. A whole bunch of elaborate personalities still live in my head. But I don’t let them out until they have a function.”
My father has been present in my life through his absence. How I relate to being a man is shaped by him not being there”
I saw you perform at Podium Mozaïek where you introduced the hilarious figure Big Wing, with her blonde wig.
“Funny that everyone is talking about ‘her’, I did not gender the character myself. For me it was just me wearing a wig.”
“The performance started out quite heavy. The function of this figure was to provide some relief, a solid spiritual message delivered in a comical way. How we deal with ourselves here on earth is quite funny when you look at it from a distance. Big Wing offers that distance, ridiculing my own drama.”
What was the performance about?
“It’s actually about my relationship with my dad, though not too explicitly. The bizarre thing was: on the night of the premiere there was an after talk, so the light comes on and I see my dad sitting there. At the top of the tribune, all by himself.”
“Oh motherfucker!” He laughs. “You were here all this time? Then someone in the audience asks a question: ‘What was the core of your pain?’ I replied: ‘Well, the failed relationship with my father’.”
“I spoke those words with so much ease that I realized I’m probably over it. There was no resentment in there. Instead my thoughts went out to my dad: ‘You’re here to hear this. It’s great that you entered this space, it must be a moment that is both weird and proud. How do you feel?’
He’s not very good at putting these things in words. He gave me a really big hug and he said: ‘I’ll talk to you soon’. That’s been months ago. Which is fine. Him not reaching out to me doesn’t say anything about me.”
“The core and essence of the performance is that I want to forgive my dad. Recently I learned from Brad Blanton’s book Radical Honesty that forgiveness is a physical thing. It has to take place in your body for it to be real. My performance is the epitome of forgiveness. After this it should be done. I don’t want to make many more performances about it.”
Are you at a point where can almost put it behind you?
“My father has been present in my life through his absence. How I relate to being a man is shaped by him not being there. It’s time I start dealing with how that impacts my essence. Why is it that when a guy isn’t into guys, it triggers me to go for him? The more inaccessible, the more attractive he is to me.”
Plenty of new music to be sourced there?
“I am working on an EP entitled Secrets, a bunch of R&B songs. R&B has men singing about relationships with women and vice versa. For the longest time I’ve been singing along to music that doesn’t tell my story. I want to make music about my own reality with the same ease. No whining about how I am so different.”
“A while back I performed for an audience that was not specifically there to see me. In the front row there were a few young guys. I was kind of rapping and I could see them vibing along when suddenly I dropped that gay bomb in a text. I could see them shrink.”
I used my skills to tell the same mainstream stories over and over again, until I started to dislike it”
He laughs: “’Okay guys, so now what? Because you already liked me!’ It was a victory over all these times in my adolescence when I felt awkward thinking: ‘If only nobody realizes I’m gay’. Now it’s them feeling awkward and having to deal with it, yes! Me no longer! That is taking the power back.”
What in the song gives it away?
“It starts with a piece of text, a poem:
To the honest finder of this butterfly
That escaped from its cocoon
after dealing with his fear of flying
Let him
Get him to dance to the breath of his unspoken words
that become whirlwinds
and transform space
I want to transform space
and create space
for my being a man
To be the man who has risen with consciousness
that his being a man
rests best
on another man
Laughing out loud: “Ooooh! I nicely slow down towards the end: ‘On another… man’. That’s where I had them cornered: ‘Yes, I love cock. You thought I was cool, so you found someone cool who likes cock!’ Hahaha. That is kind of a revenge feeling, a victory.”
Then: “Yes, it will continue to be a theme for me for a while. I said something really shitty when I told my friend that I have feelings for him. I said, and I felt it like that in the moment: ‘Fuck, it’s so fucked up to be gay. How many times will I form a friendship while I risk it becoming more to me than to you?’”
Did you say it in anger?
“No, rather in a sad childish kind of way, me not getting what I want. I take those words back. It has nothing to do with being gay, something like that can always happen. If my best friend suddenly declared love to me, I would also tell her: ‘Oops, no. I love you to moon and back, but not like that’. That’s life.”
“The cool thing is: I have learned all kinds of disciplines since I was eleven years old. I sing, act, write and make music, I have a bachelor’s degree in choreography. When I lived in New York for a few years, I added spoken word to my skills.”
“I used them to tell the same mainstream stories over and over again, until I started to dislike it. There is so much more out there. I transform myself from one world to another and as I continue, I take something with me every time. What remains is Otion. I will tell my own story from now on.”
Stay up to date with all things Otion
Watch Otion perfom in Tijd Zal Ons Leren
///////////////////////////////
