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Collecting Crises on Old Compton Street and Beyond
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Thursday, July 31, 2003
You've Got Mail
Today at work, at precisely 16h57, I E-mailed my personal computer at home. As usual, the post outlined all the tasks to be completed between my arrival back in N7, and my turning-in at 23h25 this evening. At roughly 23h10 tonight (depending, of course, on what Radio 4's got scheduled), I will remind my Outlook work-account of the stuff which needs to get done between clocking-on tomorrow, and 16h57, when I will, as ever, send myself This-Weekend's-Things-That-Really-Must-Get-Done. The first person who even remotely considers using the words "anal", "retentive", "sad", "control" or "freak" in the same sentence will be shot. Trust me, my dears. It's already On The List. Wednesday, July 30, 2003
Full Frontal
I needed those drinks last night to calm my nerves. No, not the DTs; I'd just been left breathless after watching a businessman's harrowing descent into urban and personal hell at the National (yeah, yeah, Stranger, ten quid a seat, don't you think we've all got the message by now?). Or maybe it was the shock of seeing an ever-so-slightly chubby and very-half-naked Kenneth Branagh strut his on-stage stuff for a good quarter-hour, full-frontal tackle and all. Of course, it's not meant to be sexy (giggling girlies in the stalls, please note) and our Ken gives a blistering performance throughout in David Mamet's Edmond, about a New Yorker who leaves his wife, his morals, even his humanity behind, only finally to find some kind of redemption after being sodomised by his cellmate (it's that's sort of night out, my dears). In fact, Ken, baggy boxers on or off, is the best bit about the piece. It's an anti-bourgeois, anti-capitalism, anti-practically-everything play that rattles its message home with all the charming subtlety of a Kalashnikov. Anyway, back to the dangly bits. I reckon Ken showed a lot of pluck taking his kit off, but on-stage nudity has never really done it for me. Plonk me, protesting, in front of a buffed stripper, with a porn-star body, erect member in his one hand, Johnson's Baby Lotion in the other, and I'm more likely to collapse into embarrassed silence, than, shall we say, rise to the occasion. Honest. But slip me a half-smile, flash me a twinkle from brown eyes, hold my attention, rather than that, for more than ten minutes, and, well, I'll be horizontal before you know it. Tuesday, July 29, 2003
Brief Encounter
It happened in a cheap pasta place on Bleeker Street, where I was having pesto for the very first time. Outside, the midwinter weather rained down on the passers-by. Through the window, I saw someone cross the road, seeking shelter. Italian probably, a couple of years older than me; long, black curls, dark, almond eyes; lean of figure, wearing Levis and a battered yet stylish black leather jacket. Whoever he was, pre-Raphaelite minstrel, or Botticelli courtier, I recall thinking how lucky he was to be young and free and living in Manhattan. Just a five seconds' glimpse, nearly nineteen years ago. Astonishing how sometimes the fleetest of images stays with you for the rest of your life. Monday, July 28, 2003
The Mournday After The Pride Before
As I live in a rented flat, it's a legal requirement that my gas supply be checked every twelve months or so. Very understandable: the last thing I want to do is wake up just to discover I've been done in by carbon monoxide poisoning. Today, I feel rough enough already, without my death being added to my roll-call of worries. For one thing, as Mrs Parker has already said, the stuff smells bloody awful, and is hardly the glamorous Romantic end I'd always aimed for. I'd envisaged myself as the misunderstood and criminally-neglected Poet in my lonely garret with just a pot-plant for company, scrawling off one last dying, tragic line of brilliance. Or maybe the bold, dashing Hero, bravely staring Death and Destiny in the eye to protect his lady-love, blissfully unaware that, this week next century, Michael Ball will be playing me in the title role on Shaftesbury Avenue. However, as I do not have, and never have had, a gas supply, there was little opportunity for me to die either glamorously or unglamorously this time round. And, though I'd informed him weeks before, I still had to give Mr Oooh-It's-More-Than-My-Job's-Worth-Guv-Not-To-Take-A-Look a tour of my kitchen, just to show my gas supply very unglamorously not existing. And on the Mournday following the whole Birthday/ Pride/ Trade before, my head was banging and my willpower flopping so much I couldn't even dredge up one of my usual sarcastic barbs, or even a rare good-natured witticism, when he apologised for wasting my time. That's how bad I was. Next year, I'm giving up the partying. Next year, I shall stay in with a cup of Horlicks and watch it on the telly, chuckling at all the wild and crazy antics of those loveably zany youngsters. I'm getting too old for this hedonism lark. Next year, my dears, I'm going to be all grown-up, and act my age. Humph. Well. Thank you very much. At least you could pretend to believe me. Sunday, July 27, 2003
My Once-A-Year Day
Over the past weekend, I have: worn far too many silly and colourful clothes than is appropriate for a gentleman my age; been very, very loud, and not just with whistles either; and, most definitely for this weekend only, referred to members of my own gender with the feminine pronoun. I have also: ingested far too many things which I shouldn't have in a certain place I should have stopped going to when I turned forty; got through my recommended weekly alcohol intake in just one day; and pulled a strop in Comptons, a beer in Bar Code, and absolutely nobody in the Edward in Islington. And in terms of personal relationships, I have: totally blanked out for an entire night on the dancefloor one of my dearest friends because he forgot my birthday again; arranged to go out for dinner next week with a stranger, whose name, and indeed sex, I now can't recall; gave a back massage to a cowboy; kissed far too many people; and turned up at another dear friend's oh-so-very-genteel 50th birthday bash the following day, having had no sleep, where I merely succeeded in making all the children run away from the nasty man with the wide, staring eyes. And I also wore glitter. Lots of it. London Pride, eh? Thank f**k it’s only once a year. Thursday, July 24, 2003
Forever Young
My birthday today. Apparently, I look much younger than my actual age (portrait commissions by Basil Hallward), and I definitely don't act it. But after last night's Polish vodka, this morning I'm beginning to feel every single year. . . Vaughan of Wherever You Are was born one day before me and many years after, and has been compiling a list of all his birthday Number Ones. The day I was born the Everley Brothers were at the top with "All I Have To Do Is Dream". Dreaming's arguably what I've been doing ever since. Tuesday, July 22, 2003
You Gotta Have Friends?
I'm taking a couple of days off for my birthday this Thursday, and already it's putting years on me. The dreaded Age Thing doesn't worry me, it's just the obligation to have a good time which is depressing. That's why I normally keep quiet about the whole sorry affair, but this year the old Stellas made me let it slip, and now everyone's expecting me to "Do Something". Perhaps I should remind them what happened the last time I "Did Something". End of one long-term relationship. Piece of serious queeniness over the bar bill, which still hasn't been amicably resolved. Inappropriate use of the ladies' loo, which nearly got us chucked out. And someone's slapper-girlfriend making a drunken pass at a halfway-famous kids' TV presenter. Did I also mention I failed to get off with the person I'd invited along solely for that purpose? And that it rained all the way home? Oh, but this year, my dears, we are going to be sensible. We are going to have a pleasantly grown-up and civilised meal in one of my favourite restaurants, sexual tension shall not rear its unwelcome little head, and we shall all be home in time for Graham Norton. Who am I kidding? On past experience, it will run something like this: Friend A has simply got to be there, which means we'll unsuccessfully try and keep it from Friend B, who's certain to sulk if he isn’t invited. Friend B is also jealous of Friend C, who I don't know that well, but have already promised could come as a favour to Friend D (who really looks down his nose at Friend B because Friend B doesn't know which knife and fork to use). Friend E can't get there till after her cello lesson, but will expect everyone to wait for her, but at least she'll miss Friend F who has to leave early, which is probably just as well, as Friend G will no doubt be drunk on vodka-colas long before the hors d'oeuvres, and will have already reminded Friend F that Friend E used to shag her dad. By this time, Friend A will have become tired of being ignored, and will have pulled a particularly impressive strop, so Friend C will kindly offer to take him home, which, of course, will annoy possessive Friend B who will then pick a fight with Friends A, C and me, before being bundled off to the ladies' loo by Friend G for some inappropriate behaviour, whence they both return with runny noses and no appetite for the rest of the meal. Meanwhile. . . Oh, sod it, I'm going out on my own on Thursday night to get me a whole new bunch of friends who actually get on with each other, and then we'll start all over again. Monday, July 21, 2003
Dead People
Following on from yesterday's post (sort of), I've never been able to get my head around the iconic status accorded to John Lennon, or Diana Spencer, both before or after their premature deaths. I was too young to get the point of the Beatles first time round, and later found much of Lennon's solo stuff safe and soul-less. Anyway, ever the rebel, I always preferred Yoko. For me, her wonderfully-titled "I Felt Like Smashing My Face in a Clear Glass Window" rates as one of the best punk songs ever, written back when the only use little John Lydon had for a safety-pin was to fasten his nappies. As for Di, I was possibly the only person - and the only queen, apart from the one on the stamps - to be unmoved by her death. It's something which says less about her and a whole load more about me. Notwithstanding her bloody fantastic and enduring work for AIDS awareness, I found her poor-little-me public persona, and her adroit and doe-eyed manipulation of the media and her soap-show in-laws, increasingly tiresome. This is not an invention on my part: my instinctive first thought when I heard of her death was that it was just one more stage-managed publicity stunt. I didn't line the streets for the funeral, nor join the queues to sign the book of condolences as many of my friends did, but I did wander on down, not to Kensington Palace, but to Buck House to see the flowers. And to my surprise, the people bringing their tributes along with their tears, weren't the hysterical housewives with sad gin-bottle lives, or the keening and dysfunctional Hello! readers I'd imagined, but normal people, male and female, young and old, people just like you and me. So she obviously had something to move so many people like that. But sadly I'm a cold-hearted and cynical old Stranger, and I still don't know what it was. Sunday, July 20, 2003
Dead Giveaway
Everyone remembers where they were when JFK was killed, or, more recently, when Lennon was shot, or Lady Di met up with Pillar Thirteen at the Pont de l'Alma, right? Not necessarily. This particular Stranger has difficulties remembering to set his VHS for this week's Six Feet Under. What I do recall, however, is one June evening in 1969. I was doodling on a piece of paper, when the BBC news-flashed the announcement that Judy Garland had just been found dead. On the loo. In London. I was only a kid at the time, had but a dim idea of who she was, but I remember crying my little baby-blues out. I think it was from that precise moment on that my mother somehow knew she would never have any grandchildren. Friday, July 18, 2003
Getting Ready For Love
For the past few days, my gym has been surprisingly busy and especially sweaty. It took me a while to work out why. It's Pride in the Park in a week's time, isn't it? There's nothing like the prospect of nabbing some naïve out-of-town totty to drag even the most lethargic and lard-assed gym queen out of bed in the mornings to get himself all toned and buffed. What do you think I'm doing down there? I don't do this for the good of my health, you know. Thursday, July 17, 2003
Over My Shoulder
I wisely skipped the Y today, since last night I unwisely didn't skip the local till closing. When I turned up at work this morning, after missing the usual gym 'n' swim, I attracted puzzled looks from a colleague trying to figure out what was different about me. Turned out she wasn't used to seeing me with the particular bag I'd slung over my shoulder. Normally, she catches me stomping manfully into the office, weighed down by a butcher-than-thou gym bag, that's bulging with sweaty trainers and towel stinky with testosterone. This time, however, I was carrying a slightly camp canvas little number, the ideal size and shape for my note-pad and pen, tester of Chanel, Madonna CD, and this month's Vanity Fair, or some similar silliness. It's the kind of bag which makes you, well, swish much more than you normally would. Sadly all her illusions have now been shattered, for apparently she always had me down as a "well, you know, a backpack sort of guy". I'm not too sure I want to know what one of those is, but I think she meant it as a compliment. Wednesday, July 16, 2003
Finally Facing My Waterloo
I've tons by Kylie and every Trade CD they tossed out, plus a couple they didn't. I've got so many Pet Shop Boys I don't know where to put them, and some choicely predictable old-time Hi-NRG as well. Stand me enough Stellas, and I might even own up to the odd diva or four. And I think you've probably all guessed about the show-tunes by now. But it was only today I realised I do not own one single bloody thing by Abba. That's right. No Abba Gold (this year's or any other's); nor a VHS of Abba: The Movie, or a crackly 45 of "Dancing Queen", not even the Royal Philharmonic does Abba CD. And my prized off-air C90 of 1974's Eurovision in Brighton has long since been mangled by the old Hitachi. In fact, apart from a decidedly iffy cover of "The Winner Takes It All" by some German bird, alone amongst friends I'm a totally Abba-free zone. Their pop is almost painfully perfect of course, but I hear too much of it everywhere already, for me to want go and spend a tenner on my own copy. And that got me thinking about other vital things setting me apart, especially from the rest of the Old Compton Street brigade. I don't buy CK One, for starters; I've never even considered a tattoo, or a piercing anywhere other than in my ear; open relationships are a no-no, as are designer-combats, AIDS-complacency, and bottled Dutch lagers; I'm not duped by what I read in the fag-mags; and Absolutely Fabulous never once made me laugh. Huh! Call myself a Compton Cliché? I should be ashamed to walk the streets of Soho with that sort of attitude. I wouldn't be at all surprised if tonight I'm placed under immediate house-arrest for knowingly impersonating a Metro Queen with intent to deceive. It's starting to look like those glory- days of being a card-carrying member of the faggeratti might finally be numbered. . . Monday, July 14, 2003
Under Attack
It was the screaming I heard first. An ear-splitting squeal of fright. Then the clip-clip-clopping of retreating high-heels on city pavement. As I got closer, I saw panicking city traders scurry across the road, dodging oncoming traffic, as they frantically searched for cover. Others cowered in doorways, trying to hide, faces turned away, hands instinctively covering their eyes. One man, more foolhardy than most, attempted a lone stand against the attacker. Tried to beat him off with his briefcase. That just made things worse. His assailant screeched angrily and lashed back, diving in for the kill. The man turned and ran. And me? What did I do? Hell, I legged it too. And so, I venture, would you, if you were being repeatedly dive-bombed on Chancery Lane by four pounds of extremely narked and savage seagull at eight o'clock on a Monday morning. Tippi Hedren I most certainly am not. Sunday, July 13, 2003
Ooh, those Germans
I spent most of this morning translating an actor-friend's audition piece into German. Later, I went into Comptons in Soho where I happened to have a brief chat to a passing tourist from Frankfurt-am-Main. And now I've returned home, having just bought a DVD of Leni Riefenstahl's odious, but expertly crafted, and frighteningly compelling, Triumph of the Will, her propaganda film of the 1934 Nuremberg Rallies. Sometimes, I think I take this German thing of mine a little too far. Saturday, July 12, 2003
Can't You Tell By The Way I Walk?
Hurrah! Just got called a "batty boy" on the street. Surprisingly, it's my very first piece of homophobic abuse this year, which means either that London N7 is getting much more tolerant of Marys like me, or that I really should get out a lot more. Hurler of said insult was one of the local, barely-legal crack-whores, who seemed to be quite put-out when I told her, in no uncertain four-letter terms, that no, I wasn't even vaguely tempted to invest in the business proposition she had to offer. Hopefully, she'll now inform her fellow prozzies that the man with the funny walk and the even funnier clothes, who's always singing show-tunes as he minces his way to the gym, is a no-hoper. Somehow, I doubt it. Friday, July 11, 2003
(Mister) Big In Japan
If you get the chance, grab a production, any production, at the Donmar. It's a gem of a theatre, with a reputation for top-notch drama most of the West End would kill for. Nicole Kidman memorably took her kit off here for The Blue Room, Martin Sheen did a great Caligula, and Sam Mendes put on what's probably the definitive theatrical version of Cabaret with Alan Cumming. Its intimate theatre-in-the-round is also ideal for any piece by Stephen Sondheim, arch peddler of knowing tunes for thoughtful grown-ups. Over the years, they've given us his Company (a song-by-song dissection of thirtysomething Angst), Into The Woods (Little-Red-Riding-Hood and fairy-tale Angst), and Assassins (US Presidential Angst). Does a nice line in Angst, does our Stephen. This year, it's the turn of Pacific Overtures (samurai Angst), a show first seen in the eighties. Set exactly 150 years ago, when a long-isolationist Japan was shot-gunned into accepting the West's "pacific overtures" of trade and détente, it's a wry critique of American global imperialism. As Japanese values kow-tow one by one to the all-conquering greenback, the samurai and lords of old Nippon vow to beat Uncle Sam at his own game. And, by embracing so completely the American Wet Dream, they take just a century to transform an ages-old culture of honour, serenity and tradition into one of money-grabbing, micro-chipped, Yankee-aping capitalism. Hardly your razzle-dazzle, tits-and-ass kind of show, Overtures is played on a bare stage, by an all-male cast wearing sombre black kimonos, and gives more than a few passing nods to kabuki theatre. With a range of musical styles from east to west, and a theme too uncomfortably close to our own Starbucked and regime-changing world, I reckon it could just be that rare thing: musical theatre for people who can’t stand musical theatre. Thursday, July 10, 2003
Suing For Dummies
Destruction for Dummies, or D4D, which I've only just discovered, so thank-you-very-much, has nothing to do with the "Dummies" series of books. It's obvious, isn't it? For starters, there's been a disclaimer to that effect from Day One. Anyway, I reckon it's funnier. And more lucidly written. Oh, and more attractively laid-out too. And it doesn't carry incomplete bits of code which screwed up my Access programming for days either. (Go to Lyle's blog or here for a succinct and Fun And Easy Way ™ to discover what I'm talking about.) However, Wiley Books, who publish "Dummies", think differently and, my, have they come over all serious and uppity. So naughty Lyle must take it down, or Wiley's, well, they'll stamp their feet up and down! And they'll huff! And they'll puff! And they'll pout! Oooh, and they'll flounce too! And, of course, get their way in the end. The big boys with the dosh usually do. And while, in England at least, there's no copyright in a title, I suspect the law regarding trademarks and such like might be different. However, by being so humourless and litigiously American, Wiley's are shooting themselves in the foot. It's not exactly going to do much good for their rep as a set of fun and laid-back reference books for the Rest of Us® , is it? F**k 'em if they can't take a joke. Wednesday, July 09, 2003
Better Make Way For The Homo Superior
It's taken a bit over fourteen hundred million years to heave ourselves up from out of the primeval gunk and onto our own two feet. You'd have thought, by this time, we'd all have worked out how to walk in a straight line. Not in Zone One, they haven't, if this morning's rush-hour worker-drones exiting the tube were anything to go by. Frantically ducking and dodging, wheeling and weaving, eschewing any right-angles or parallel lines entirely (and, of course getting in my way), they might as well have been following the bloody Yellow Brick Road. Not me, of course. Instead, with one firm foot in front of the other, I sailed my usual sure and speedy, straight and steady course through the madding crowd, reading my Time Out, and superiorly refusing to look where I was going. Which is probably why I missed seeing the roadworks on the pavement's edge, tripped over, landed flat on my face, and am now typing this with one sprained wrist and one very bruised ego indeed. Tuesday, July 08, 2003
This Month's Theatre Rant
Regular readers may have gathered I'm into theatre in a medium- to big-time way. I go to the cinema only three or four times a year, but have often caught more than that number of plays in just one month. And while I can ooh and aah with the rest of them at the latest X-Men or Hulk premiere, for me nothing beats the immediacy and unpredictability of a live event. Since I'm lucky and deluded enough to live just inside Zone Two and work in central London, I usually buy in person from the box-office. That way, there's no middle-man commission, I can check exactly where I'm sitting in the auditorium, and (best of all) I get the chance to flirt with the theatre staff. Last month, however, I'd no alternative but to go through an agency. Let's call them Floggit, Grabbit & Run, although I reckon you all know who I'm talking about. No problem, Sir, we here at FGR have exactly the tickets you want in precisely that part of the theatre I'm sure Sir will enjoy, and we are also equally sure that Sir will not mind in the slightest the whopping 28% service charge which FGR will slap on the face-value of Sir's ticket. Well, Sir actually did mind, and quite a bit, but Sir didn't have a choice in the matter. And no, Sir's seat wasn't in his favoured part of the theatre, because that part of the theatre isn't within the agency's allocation. When I asked what I got for the (dis)service charge, I was fed the usual spiel: it covers a handling charge, the cost of first-class postal delivery (which, last time I looked, was 28p), and ensures a booking service that is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Sorry, my loves, it doesn't wash. You see, one summer, along with other resting actors, artists manqués and the beautifully useless, I manned the phones at FGR too, and - guess what? - yes, I came out with exactly the same old crap, not a word of which any of us believed. But when you live outside London, unable to get to the box-office, your average punter has no other choice. I realise it's an old rant of mine, but it’s agency fees like this that are ruining the West End theatre, and not the druggies and litter and knackered transport system which the Cameron Macintoshs and Lloyd-Webbers on Shaftesbury Avenue are always so fond of blaming. With the price of a vanishing-up-its-own-backside programme, a glass of bilge-water red wine, and maybe a cheapo pizza on top of the agency fee, you're looking at a night knocking you back fifty-quid-plus – and that's just for one person. What's making me even grumpier than usual is that I'm due to see the show I booked for tomorrow – and, after three weeks, my ticket still hasn't arrived by first-class mail. I rang FGR last night to discover they'd posted it to the wrong address. In fact, to an address that doesn't even exist. Now that's service for you. Sunday, July 06, 2003
Am I Blue
For reasons too personal and trivial to mention, I've been seriously down this entire weekend with the bad-dog blues. So seriously down, in fact, that my usual tried and trusted cure-all remedy of repeated listenings and lip-synching (with Mister Hairbrush) to Mack and Mabel, Hello, Dolly, and Miss Spectacular didn't help one bit. So, to cheer myself up, I went out this morning and treated myself to a DVD player, and the disks to go with it. And I would love to tell you that my purchases consisted of terribly intellectual and demanding art-house movies, every single one in grainy, sub-titled black-and-white, with an accompanying and definitive critique by some long-haired Frenchman, whose name I wouldn't even dare to pronounce until I've had at least five Ricards. Instead, I arrived home with three Doctor Whos, two Avengers, the entire run of Stingray, and four Hollywood musicals. Before, I might have been glamorously depressed. Now, I'm just plain sad. Friday, July 04, 2003
Hanging On The Telephone
Notwithstanding those warbling-warbling-all-the-bloody-warbling-time Nokias, my greatest public-transport hate is still reserved for people who play their personal stereos too loud. The off-West-End production which is this Stranger's life, is too much of an out-of-key musical already, my dears, without it being forced to tap-dance to someone else's sodding soundtrack. Which is why, tonight, I Wicked-Witched my way on down towards the girl three rows in front of me to announce to her (and, of course, to the rest of the Number 19) that yes, I really did adore David Bowie, and Rebel, Rebel is one of my favourite tracks ever, but not at eight o'clock in the evening on my way home (pub), and not on someone else's Walkman. Whereupon she frostily informed me (and, of course, the rest of the Number 19) that she was actually on her hands-free mobile, and the Bowie I could hear was, in fact, coming from the stereo system of the BMW behind us, which was also stuck in the Rosebery Avenue/ City Road traffic jam. It was then I slinked shame-facedly off the Number 19 bus, three stops before my destination, hoping, for once, I really was just an Invisible Stranger, and that no-one had noticed or heard me, and I could escape with at least a tiny bit of dignity intact. Which is just when my own (bastard) mobile decided to warble-warble-bloody-warble. Loudly. Very loudly, in fact. I hate it when that happens. Thursday, July 03, 2003
Mad World
It was astronauts and academics, show-tunes and tortoises down the National last night for a revival of Tom Stoppard's Jumpers. Set in a gone-gaga academia at the time of the Moon landings, the play's all about philosopher George's attempt to prove God's existence, and to establish a famous paradox by setting up a race between a tortoise and a hare. At the same time, he also has to deal with his nympho cabaret-singer wife and the amoral vice-chancellor, as well as the murder of a fellow professor. Honest, it's heaps more fun than it sounds. In fact, it's classic early Stoppard, with a nod to Joe Orton and even Brian Rix, Tom as mental gymnast, flexing his linguistic, satirical and intellectual muscles. It comes from the time (1972) when Stoppard was actually funny, way before he discovered lurrve and Felicity Kendall; or explored the ploddingly political Big Ideas in his recent Coast of Utopia trilogy, adored by Joe Critic, but for me the theatrical equivalent of a drip-feed of mogadon. Although Jumpers isn't part of the National's ten-quid-a-show scheme, you can still get decent seats for a tenner. Go and see it if you can: it's worth it just for Simon Russell-Beale as the bumbling, spluttering George, a national treasure of an actor if ever there was one. Epistemology has never before been such a laugh. Wednesday, July 02, 2003
Men Behaving Badly
It was only today, when I felt bound to be butch and lug some too-heavy boxes for one of my work-colleagues, that I realised I'm now the last remaining bloke in our work-place. That's right, we are now working in an all-girlie environment. The office is oozing with oestrogen. At first, I thought I wouldn't mind being the sole male focus of their giggly attentions, the head of my very own troop of admiring fag-hags. After all, they've been letting me in on their boyfriend-problems, and I've been dishing out free fashion advice, and nicking their Beauty Flash, for years. A little more of the same wouldn't hurt, would it? But I've surprised myself by missing the company of the boys (and that's the boys, not the boyz). I miss bloke-ish things like cracking seriously offensive jokes, and pretending to know tons about football; drinking too many Stellas too quickly in the huddled corners of run-down boozers, and talking tripe about seventies TV series; and, especially, and unlike on Old Compton Street, never being obliged to turn your head each time the door opens to size up the next bit of (male) totty. Who'd ever have thought it, my dears? A closet straight-acting nellie queen after all. Tuesday, July 01, 2003
Only A Cabaret, Old Chum
Kaiserwetter, they call it round these parts, when the temperature hits twenty-nine, the sun shines on the linden trees from a sky bluer than the teal hankie in your back-pocket, and you strip off as much Calvin Klein as you dare. King's weather? Queens' Weather, more like, if the number (six hundred thousand) of gay men, lesbians and homo-friendly straights on Berlin's boulevards was anything to go by. Last Saturday, along with over half-a-million other queens, dykes, and Normalos as they're known (affectionately) around here, I minced on a march for God-knows-how-many-kilometres through Berlin's city streets, en route to a free party held in what also just happens to be one of the largest outdoor cruising areas in Europe. In the rest of the world, we boringly know this sort of Showing-Off-And-Flaunting-It as Pride (or, if we're really, really bold, and it won't upset our sponsors too much, as Gay Pride), but more and more frequently as poncey Mardi Gras. In Berlin it's your actual in-yer-face and political Christopher Street Day. The name's a reminder of the riots on that New York street in 1969. Way back then, on the day they buried Judy Garland, the patrons of the gay Stonewall bar finally had enough of NYPD intimidation and, for the first time, fought back. That day's now commonly regarded as the beginning of what was then called Gay Pride. Just by virtue of its name alone, the CSD march through Berlin, ending in the free music and dance festival in the Tiergarten park, has always been classed as a political demonstration. (There are financial advantages too. As a demo, it’s not the CSD organisers, but the Berlin government, which is liable for the clean-up bill - something the organisers of the city's rapidly-ailing Love Parade techno-fest have discovered way too late.) I had an empowering time in the city I love, celebrating not just my sexuality and my propensity to party till I get far too embarrassing, but, most importantly, comradeship with gay - and especially, straight - friends, new and old. I suppose I really should tell you about the fantastic costumes, and the sixty-plus floats which lined the four-hour-long and sun-scorched route. Or the golden-skinned angels with twenty-feet wings on corporate-sponsored trucks (Burger King, I ask you!). Or the 70s queens in full leather when the temperature was pushing thirty (two of whom I unwisely gave my number to, after twelve too many vodkas, and who are still texting me now I'm back in London). Or the mermaids; or the guy with the vines and red roses who was a dead-ringer for Dionysus; or the straight boy I kissed (for a giggle) and who kissed me back (definitely not for a giggle); or the guys from Dusseldorf who wanted to take my picture; or the Hilda Baker look-a-like and her girlfriend who did the entire route naked; or the open-topped float where everyone was shagging each other. Or the after-demo party, when Jimmy Sommerville and Boy George were the only acts I recognised, but they were all fantastisch, Mensch; and the rustling in the bushes (don't ask); and the comatose party-goers I fell over even before the 3 a.m. fireworks went off. Instead, I'll tell you that "Wowi" - Klaus Wowereit, the gay superstar mayor of Berlin - led the march with his boyfriend, and later demanded of the German government equal partnership, and adoption, rights for both gay and straight couples. And that more money be poured into AIDS research, and also treatment for breast cancer. That grannies and granddads bussed themselves into Berlin to support their grand-kids (and to have a cracking good time as well). And that the stores on the Ku-damm main shopping drag stayed open till midnight. And that a special law was passed, allowing all Berlin's local councils to fly - in addition to the national, and their own municipal, flag - the gay and lesbian Rainbow Flag. And that every single one of them did. (This blog is not sponsored by the Berlin tourist board. I am, however, open to offers.) |
