Dyke school confidential

>> Carole Pope tells all (sort of) in Anti-Diva

by MATTHEW HAYS

Celebrity autobiographies are very tricky things indeed. On the one hand, the authors want to sate readers' appetites for dirt. On the other, they want to tell their own personal stories of family strife and relationship struggle without boring everyone to death.

Carole Pope, Canadian icon of '80s pop, has now chimed in with 80,000-odd words of her own, titled Anti-Diva. And those hungry for bits and pieces of dirt won't be disappointed. Pope is a world-class namedropper (and I mean that in the best sense of the word). There's an entire chapter on the legendary Dusty Springfield, detailing the plot points of their torrential romance. And there are the lesser-known celebrity run-ins: Pope and Divine did a bizarre stage show together, which received decidedly mixed reviews. Pope's description of their performance hijinx is pretty hilarious.

Pope also recounts having an affair with SCTV's Andrea Martin, who I'd never known swings both ways. Moses Znaimer is quoted as yelling across the room at Pope on one occasion during the '80s, "Are you still gay?" Pope says Znaimer made it sound "like it was some lingering disease I had contracted." (Znaimer responded to Pope's charges last week in the Toronto-based gay mag Xtra, saying, "Desperate Carole. Trying to breathe some life into herself... I remember her as this ugly, unpleasant woman.")

The downside of the dish

Pope, on the line from her West Hollywood home, says there were two really painful parts of writing the book. First and foremost was the loss of her brother, Howard, to AIDS (she dedicates the book to him). "We learned he was positive in '89. Then it was just like this hideous waiting game. He was up on the treatments, but it was like it didn't matter what he took, his body rejected it." Pope doesn't really discuss Howard's end in detail, saying at one point it's simply too painful to go into. She does, however, recount the losses he suffered as his friends around him died throughout the late '80s and '90s.

The second most painful part for Pope was the chapter on Springfield. Pope goes into some detail about their first encounter, writing that, "I fixated on her sensual mouth and unfathomable eyes. It was an incredible turn-on to hear her come." This chapter ends sadly, as Springfield would ultimately die of cancer.

"Trying to clarify that time in my life was difficult," reports Pope. "I really cared a lot for her, though we were wrong for each other in many ways."

The fun part of the book was looking back at the decade Pope is so closely associated with, the '80s. And this is where her sardonic wit is best put to use. "The '80s didn't start out well," she notes. "John Lennon was shot and killed, and Ronald Reagan was shot and lived." There are tales of decadent drinking, coke consumption and lesbian lust galore. "It was an insane, self-indulgent time," Pope says now. "What an absurd period."

The Cancon complex

Pope doesn't spill a lot of ink pondering "High School Confidential," the risqué song she recorded with her band Rough Trade, in which she sang openly of lusting after a fellow hot femme student. She does have a funny anecdote about changing the lyrics to appease tepid Toronto radio stations (the lyric "She makes me cream my jeans when she comes my way," were replaced with "She makes me order Chinese food when she comes my way"). But there is no discussion of the inevitable resentment Pope must have felt for this song in particular, seeing as its notoriety marked her career for so long. "I did resent that song for a long time," she tells me. "But now we do a really bitter version of it. I guess that's all legacy. To me, the beauty of that song is that so many straight people didn't get it. How they didn't I don't know."

And for those not satisfied with Pope's revelations, she doesn't rule out another book. "This is just the tip of the iceberg," she says. "There are lots of stories I couldn't get into--but I can't tell you what they are."

Pope performs and signs copies of Anti-Diva (Random House, HC, 254PP, $32.95) at Chapters on Thursday, Nov. 30, 8:30pm, free