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Collecting Crises on Old Compton Street and Beyond
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Tuesday, April 20, 2004
Short Intermission
I'm taking a brief blog-break. It won't be long – two weeks max, I reckon. You must surely know by now that I love the sound of my own voice far too much to stay away from that "Post & Publish" button for any longer than that. Grown-up work, from being for ever so long a sweetly compliant, and actually rather cuddly, pussycat has suddenly mutated into a voracious, man-eating sabre-tooth, and they’re not the easiest kitties to tame. So unfortunately that must take priority for the moment. There are certain Other Things which need to be Sorted Out as well, but we don't blog about those, do we? I also need to recharge the blog-batteries, and catch up with other people's web logs, something I've been neglecting recently. It'll also offer me the chance of having a go at being a comments-whore, possibly the only branch of whoredom I still haven't tried out. So see you in a couple of weeks. I might even start posting some piccies as well then, if I could only figure out how all that nonsense works. Back by Beltane, my dears, or whenever Todd and Karl get their leg over, whichever gets me most excited. Thursday, April 15, 2004
Quentin And Me
I’ve just finished reading Quentin and Philip, by Andrew Barrow, a dual biography of writer and poet Philip O’Connor, and Quentin Crisp, sexual pervert and stately homo of England (his words). I recommend it as an evocative portrait of London’s Bohemia from the twenties through to the present day, and it throws up some surprising nuggets of information. I never knew, for instance, that Lou Beale from EastEnders was part of the louche Fitzrovia scene; or that the Black Cat Café, where a young Denis Pratt (Quentin’s real name) met up with his fellow rent-boys, is now the shop where I buy my jeans on Old Compton Street, bang in the heart of London’s Queer Town. I’ve read and enjoyed much of what Quentin Crisp’s written, and also paid to see him a couple of times in his one-man show. I even collared him on the street once, as he was leaving the stage door on his solo walk home to his famously dusty room in Chelsea, to offer my congratulations. A thoroughly charming and well-mannered man he was, one of a kind, and, of course, an exquisite wit and raconteur, even if, after time, the old anecdotes started to sound rusty and weary. Yet, as a gay man myself, I’ve always had a problem with him. Or rather not with him as an individual or performer, but with him as some sort of homo icon, a burden and a status which I’m fairly certain he never welcomed. He’s on record as saying that homosexuality is a mistake, an illness even, and he paid only lip-service to the gay rights movement, and described the “obsession” with AIDS as a passing fad. The only service he performed, it seems to me, was to the shameless promotion of Quentin Crisp Inc. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with that, and he did it with grace and with style. As ever, my problem with Quentin is less political, and much more personal. Most of us became aware of him through The Naked Civil Servant, the excellent bio-pic of his life, first shown by Thames TV in the mid-seventies, and starring John Hurt. I was about sixteen at the time, and knew I was gay, although we didn’t call it “gay” back then. No, we called it being “one of them”. I was bullied at school, both verbally and physically; got called a poofter and a queer and a shirt-lifter and a nancy-boy. All the usual stuff really; it actually got quite tiresome and predictable after a while. And whenever they wanted to get rid of me, the cool kids would suggest I piss off to the girls’ loos and apply my Number 7 Velvet Peach or touch up the mascara. That’s right: the good old stereotype of a puff as a wannabe girl, dressed in frilly knickers, and playing with his Sindy rather than Action Man dolls. Then I’d never knowingly met any gay men, and certainly not what we’d now call a positive role model. As far as I was concerned, all homosexuals were effeminate sissies, and not real men (whatever that means). And some of us are. And some of us aren’t. And I’m certainly not the butchest bloke on the block. So I winced through every moment of Civil Servant on its first showing. For here, at last, was confirmation of what we suspected all along! Yes, it was true! They did wear lippie! Yes, they did mince along the King’s Road in gold stilettos and paint their toe-nails red! And yes, they were all consumed with self-loathing! And yes, so we should be! And some of them did. And some of us do. And after the programme aired, everyone at school stopped calling me “poofter” and “nancy-boy”. Now they called me “Quentin”. It was not meant as a term of affection. Of course, I now see the programme as a marvellous slice of drama, less about being gay per se, and more about one man’s trailblazing determination to stress his individuality (which just happens to be a gay one). Watching it again last night, I was also reminded that it’s also very, very funny, and moving. But back when I was an insecure teenager, Quentin, in all his heroic grotesquery, just put me right off being gay. It took me a good couple of years, before I realised that not all gay men were raving screamers (but nothing wrong with that, of course), and that some of us were actually just like everybody else. Which is why I think Todd and Karl from my previous post, are far better role models for young gay men than dear old Quentin could ever be. But the world would have been a much drearier place without him. Tuesday, April 13, 2004
Queer Up North
I’m a gay man. I realise this is hardly front-page news, and that few of you will now be choking on your coffee and wondering why you never guessed before. Yet I think this is probably the first time I’ve ever said, or written, those four little words. I’ve never properly come out, you see, not in the conventional, “hey guess what?” sort of way. That was mainly because I’ve never had anywhere to come out from. At a certain point in my life, I realised that everyone had figured it all out anyway, so there was no need for me to slip into my pink tutu and make such a big song and dance about it. And if they did get it wrong, well, it could be quite a game putting them, er, straight. Of course, I’ve been lucky. I went to University, lived in “divinely decadent” West-Berlin, before moving to homopolitan London, and I’ve always worked in liberal and arty environments, where being gay was never a big issue (and in some places almost a prerequisite for the job). Others aren’t so lucky, of course, and it must be hetero-hell growing up gay and confused in some tiny village miles away from the nearest bender bar, or copy of Boyz magazine. The tabloids and the Telegraph queer-bash us everyday, the sit-coms ridicule us with limp-wristed stereotypes, and the Church condemns us, while all the time fiddling with little boys round the back of the vestry. No wonder suicide is the biggest killer of young gay men under twenty-five. Who’d want to be queer, with all that lot stacked against you? Which brings me, believe it or not, to Coronation Street. I’m a northern boy myself, born in a two-up, two-down in a street very much like the Street used to be, and I love the show. No longer even pretending to be an accurate portrayal of life Up North, it’s turned itself into our best-written ongoing drama serial. And it might have taken it a while - forty-odd years to be precise - but it’s finally gotten round to touching on gay issues. For those of you who haven’t been down Weatherfield way recently, the current plotline concerns the coming to terms with his homosexuality of soon-to-be-teenage-dad-and-husband, Todd, played by Bruno Langley, and one of the soap’s regular and more likeable characters. It reached a peak last night when he snogged Karl, the nurse he’s been fancying for yonks, in the heart of Manchester’s gay village. This whole story arc’s been simmering along nicely for months now, ever since Todd planted a chaste kiss on the lips of his pregnant girlfriend’s heterosexual brother (pay attention at the back now); and its been handled with a sensitivity and adroitness that could teach a thing or two to the supposedly more realistic soaps, where we homos are sashayed out for an episode or two to make a politically-correct point, before being booted out again, and the gay girls have all got big tits and are there for the Loaded readers. And, at the risk of sounding like a dirty old man, what’s even more encouraging is that Corrie’s two gay characters are actually fancyable and defiantly non-camp, eminently do-able, in fact, unlike, say, Michael Cashman and his awful boyfriend Barry, or that other gay couple they had in EastEnders way back when. Gay teenagers, eh? They’ve never had it so good. Back in my day, the only queers we knew were Liberace and Quentin Crisp, and, while they never claimed to be role models, they certainly didn’t do my teenage years any favours. And if I was that confused gay boy in that village miles away from anywhere, my only contact with other gay men the ones I saw on the telly, and I was faced with a choice between Quentin and Lee, or Todd and Karl, then I know which pair I’d choose. I know which pair would make me feel better about myself. Thursday, April 08, 2004
Vatican Rag
At this time of year, I always feel a bit of a fraud, taking time off for a major Christian festival, when I stopped believing all that Roll-Away-The-Stone nonsense years ago. I think I started to stop believing when, as an infuriatingly precocious kid, I asked Father McCann why we couldn't do something for the poor people by selling all the pretty pictures in the Vatican, and he couldn't come up with a convincing answer. I can't quite understand what stuffing yourself sick with Terry's Chocolate Orange has to do with the supposed Resurrection of You-Know-Who. In fact, the only thing making this weekend special to Joe Public seems to be the fact there are more Judy Garland movies on telly than is heterosexually healthy, and the shops are full of hot cross buns. It wasn't always so. I was raised in a religious family and received much of my education from nuns and Jesuit priests. We even used to have the local Father round for tea and Chorley cakes every other Friday. And my Communion and Confirmation photos show that, even back then, young Master Stranger was ever so cute, a good, well-scrubbed Catholic boy, who always remembered to wash behind his ears. In spite of all this, I turned down the offer of becoming an altar boy, reasoning all of them were nancies, and I was sure my mother wouldn't approve of me mixing with that sort. Thirty-odd Maundy Thursdays ago today, however, I did make it to the altar, when I had my feet washed in front of an adoring congregation by the local Bishop. It's a traditional thing, recalling Christ's washing the feet of his disciples: the twelve cutest boys in the class are chosen as stand-ins for Peter, Paul and Mary, and whatever the other nine apostles were called, and a fat bloke in a frock gets down on his knees in front of each one of them in turn. All that adulation must have put ideas into the head of an impressionable young boy, for shortly afterwards I announced to anyone who was interested that, when I grew up, I wanted to be the next Pope. To be fair, one had just died, and it seemed a good career move at the time. To this day, my mother won't let me forget this early life choice, and I think that, secretly, she still harbours Hopes. I'd make a good Pope, as long as I stayed off the incense: I certainly couldn't be any worse than the current one. And, what's more, I'd probably enjoy it, what with its smells and bells, glitz and glamour, skulduggery and infallibility, and more Swiss Guards than you can wiggle your crosier at. There'll be a job going pretty soon. I reckon I might send in my CV. Just to please my mum, of course. Tuesday, April 06, 2004
Drive My Car
While waiting for Godot this morning, or rather the 390, which is more or less the same thing, as neither of them turn up when they're meant to, I decided it was about time I got myself a car. It made good sense. I'd no longer be dependent on public transport, or forced to play sardines with the tube's huddled masses of terminally unwashed. And it would give me the opportunity to star in my own latter-day production of Grease, burning up the quarter mile in my open-top pink Cadillac, wind in my slicked-back hair, Californian totty at my side, and Chuck Berry on the radio. What’s more, there'd be weekend excursions to olde-worlde country pubs, booze-cruises over to France, and my number of friends would increase dramatically as word got round you could always rely on the kindness of Stranger for a lift home in a flash new motor. Of course, there remains the slight problem that I can't drive. I took a course of lessons back as a student, but after pranging into the back of a stationary Volvo on my first day out, I came to the conclusion it wasn't such a great idea, and I'd much prefer to be chauffeured everywhere from now on, if that's all the same to you. People express surprise that someone my age can't legally be put behind the wheel, but they're not Londoners, and are mostly from wide-open spaces like South Africa, where you need a four-wheeler just to drive twenty kilometres across the veldt to the nearest Nando's. Anyway, I wouldn't be safe put in charge of who knows how many tons of metal and rubber. As someone who turns into the Witch of the West whenever anyone cuts across him on the pavement, the thought of rush hour at Hyde Park Corner is too horrible to contemplate. And what's the point of olde-worlde country pubs when you can't knock back so much real ale that you fall over? And any parked pink Cadillac round these parts gets keyed faster than you can say "London North Seven". What's more as an elegant, sophisticated and decidedly choosy homo about town, there's only one car in which I'd ever like to be seen. Unfortunately I don't think it’s for sale. And if I did learn to drive, it would have to be a bike. Motorcycles and the men who ride them are far sexier, you know. When was the last time you ever fantasised over a man behind the wheel of a white Vauxhall Estate? Friday, April 02, 2004
April Shower
At my gym, a new sign has just been attached to the tiled walls in the men's changing room. There may be a similar one in the ladies', but I'll bet my last Molton Brown against your Radox multi-pack there isn't. It reads something along the lines of: We expect all members of our club, which is a wide and a diverse community, to respect at all times the rights and considerations of all other members. Suppose that means no more shagging the straight boys in the showers then? |
