Hasn’t Vietnam come a long way since the Fall of Saigon? Watch and smile. Ho Chi Minh and Lyndon Johnson must be spinning in their graves.
Category: LGBT
Stonewall’s Bigot of the Year 2012
Cardinal Keith O’Brien, leader of the Catholic Church in Scotland, has been named as Stonewall’s Bigot of the Year 2012. He gets my vote. His ‘Eminence’ (these people do so love their titles and do so hate to be questioned) has declared ‘war’ on the Scottish Government’s plans to introduce marriage equality and likens gay marriage to slavery and child abuse. He should know. The Catholic Church is well-acquainted with war, slavery and child abuse.
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Five Rules for a Happy Gay Life
Our re-acquaintance, after a absence of 5 years, with the lewd, the rude and the crude of the Isle of Dogs* reminded me of a bit of a gag that Bob Senkow sent me some time ago:
- It’s important to have a man who helps at home, who cooks from time to time, cleans up and has a job.
- It’s important to have a man who can make you laugh.
- It’s important to have a man who you can trust and who doesn’t lie to you.
- It’s important to have a man who is good in bed and who likes to be with you.
- It’s very, very, very important that these four men don’t know each other.
Just a happy gay life? Discuss.
*Contrary to its name, the islands have little to nothing to do with the canary bird. Rather, it is the bird that is named after the islands, not the converse. The name Islas Canarias is likely derived from the Latin name Canariae Insulae, meaning “Island of the Dogs”, a name applied originally only to Gran Canaria. According to the historian Pliny the Elder, the Mauritanian king Juba II named the island Canaria because it contained “vast multitudes of dogs of very large size”. Source: Wikipedia.
This still applies today. Woof, woof.
Sucking on a Woo Woo
On the morning of my birthday, we awoke to the thud of wildebeest migrating across the floor of the apartment above us. It coincided with the thud of wildebeest migrating across my forehead. We dragged ourselves out of our pit and wandered into the sunny run-down wilderness in search of comfort food. We found it at Jimmy’s bar and availed ourselves of generous Jimmy’s ample portions. The rest of the afternoon was spent in a semi-coma around the cool pool. Around us, there was an excitable coach party, in from Maastricht. It turned out to be the same rowdy herd who disturbed our slumber by clog-hopping across the floor. Why didn’t I pack my elephant gun? As I nodded off in the shade, Liam slipped away and when I returned to the apartment, I found it decorated with Canarian-style birthday paraphernalia. A cartoon banner was draped across the balcony and a mini chocolate slice was topped with eight multi-coloured candles. We toasted my old age with a glass of plonk Liam had picked up at the local market, a steal at 65 cents a litre (yes, 65 cents), though I admit it could have doubled up as oven cleaner. Once Liam had put a smile on my face, he then took advantage by sitting on it.
Rested, rinsed and sporting a post-coital glow, we headed back to the brothel in our best gay-about-shopping-mall outfits. Even at our age, we scrubbed up rather well. We drank, we ate, we drank some more. Meals on the rock are more ‘hearty’ than haute cuisine. Liam’s steak was the size of the Isle of Wight and I was served up half a sow stuffed with Brie. As we sucked on our after-dinner woos-woos, we watched the congregation of happy gays weaving around us; young and old alike, same sex couples of all genders and hues holding hands, laughing and loving. The security guards looked on in amusement. They were there, not to harass, but to keep us safe. I wonder what General Franco would have made of it?
We bar-hopped the night away before agreeing on a final snifter or two at Coco Loco, a raucous dance and video dive. Everyone was in a merry mood, fuelled by the cheap duty-free triples coursing through their veins. Cabaret was provided by a lithe young thing whose skimpy gold lame shorts gave his religion away. He rode the dance pole like an old pro and shook his booty like Beyoncé. As we meandered through the exotic hubbub, Liam was being stalked by a tall dark stranger, a man whose snout was so large he could have snorted Colombia. I too had an admirer. My foreign paramour was a drunken vision in denim with a face that could grate Parmesan. Liam, ever competitive, leaned over and whispered, “Don’t think much of yours.”
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Gran Canaria, Sex Emporium
Eight hours after leaving Norwich, we turned the key on our digs at Playa Del Inglés. Aside from a few up-market hotels, Canarian apartments tend to be standard fare – concrete boxes with a small dark bedroom, an enclosed shower-room with barely enough light to fix your face, a stark balcony with nasty plastic seats, an ill-equipped kitchenette and a wipe-down living space decorated with lopsided Athena prints. We were pleasantly surprised to find that our concrete box was a comfortable cut above, with laminate flooring, trendy fittings and a flat screen TV. Liam flicked through the channels. The only one in English was CNN. They were showing an interview with Mitt Romney’s sons – all Hollywood teeth and apple pie. I wanted to throw up. At least the Osmonds could sing. I swept open the balcony door and the first thing to catch my eye was a sign for the ‘Garage Sex Shop – Cabins, Cinema and Video.’ It does exactly what it says on the tin, a metaphor for the entire mid-Atlantic rock. We’d arrived.
When it comes to a turn around the dance floor, location is more important than lodgings. Happily, we were spitting distance from the Yumbo Center, the throbbing epicentre of gay Canarian low-life. The Yumbo is a naff treat for all the senses, a crumbling multi-layered open air shopping and sex emporium. It started to fall apart as soon as it was built (some twenty five years ago). By day, it’s an over-sized pound shop patronised by ancient slow-lane Germans in busy shirts and socked sandals. But, at the stroke of midnight, the racks of tat are wheeled away, the garish bars throw open their doors and the entire place is transformed into a gaudy cacophonous neon-lit cess-pit of drunken debauchery. After four years of tranquilising sexual ambiguity in Turkey, the no nonsense in-yer-face, up-for-anything style was right up our alley.
Our photos couldn’t possible do justice to the wonder that is the Yumbo Center (we must get ourselves a better camera) but this certainly does:
Next Holiday Post: Sucking on a Woo Woo
No to Hate
Liam and I attended the No to Hate candle-lit vigil in Norwich’s Chapelfield Gardens on Saturday evening which commemorated the savage homophobic murder of Ian Baynham in Trafalgar Square in September 2009. He was set upon by a feral trio of two drunken girls and a lashed-up boy, all minors at the time. They kicked him unconscious and stamped on him, screaming homophobic abuse as he lay defenceless on the ground. He died of his injuries 18 days later. This was not a case of the dispossessed hitting out at a callous society (not that this is a valid excuse). One of thugs had been to public school. Depressingly, queer bashing is nothing new and used to be quite de rigeur back in the day. We may live in more enlightened times, with the likes of the Daily Mail being slightly less incendiary and a Tory Government (of all things) struggling to introduce marriage equality against the bitter opposition of the bigots of the Right and the Cloth. But, the times are not enlightened enough to prevent vicious bullying in our schools and hate crime on our streets (total recorded crime may be down but reported hate crime is up).
The vigil was organised by Norwich Pride and coincided with events held up and down the realm and the mother of all tributes in Trafalgar Square with a cast of thousands. Our event was a little more modest with about 100 or so huddled around one side of the bandstand. Small is beautiful. The scene was lit by dozens of tea lights flickering away in hand-painted rainbow-coloured holders. There were a few speeches, a tuneful set by the Sing With Pride Choir and a two minute silence heralded by the striking of the City Hall clock. For me, the most tender moment was the last speaker, a young man call Kai (I hope I have spelt this correctly), who told us of his struggle as a man born in a woman’s body. I’m a cynical old queen these days but it brought a tear to my eye. Of course, that could just have been the pain from the hot wax dripping down my fingers.
The remembrance was particularly poignant for me as I knew Ian Baynham. We had a brief fling way, way back in 1980. I still have a photograph of him in a dusty old album that’s miraculously survived being dragged across country and foreign field. Ian’s murder has come to represent the campaign against all hate crimes of whatever hue. Perhaps his untimely demise was not in vain. I can only hope for the best. I can’t help wondering, though, where were the trendy young things? It was a Saturday night and there was plenty of time to swing by before heading to the bars for a bit of boozing and cruising. It’s not that much to ask.
I checked out the coverage of the event in the local press. Norwich Evening News Online did a nice piece. However, I was rather incensed by the comment from Noah Vale who wrote:
“It’s a shame that the constabulary doesn’t have the same attitude to ALL reported crime – not just trendy “right-on” minority group PC crime. How about clearing the streets of aggressive beggars , unlicenced buskers with various animals , illegally riding dangerous cyclists & other assorted drunks & litter louts.”
I was moved to register and reply. I wrote:
“Is this for real? No one ever died from excessive litter. There’s nothing trendy or right-on about being kicked to death by a baying mob or blown to pieces by a nail bomb.”
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Jack and Liam Go To Gran Canaria
Perking the Pansies will be off the air for a few days. Liam and I are taking a well-deserved mini-break to Gran Canaria, that scurrilous mid-Atlantic duty free rock to catch some rays, stock up on Clarins essentials and celebrate my 52nd birthday in dipsomaniac style. I’ve been many, many times before for a little winter warmer and furtive fun in the sun. Now I’m older, wiser and firmly married, I’m content to observe the boozin’ and cruisin’ from the safety of a bar stool and shady sun bed. Notes will be taken and reports will be written. No doubt, the odd geriatric German will wave his crumpled old do-da at us on the beach, flopping out from a well-clipped grey bush. My wrinkly old British do-da will remain safely under wraps. I like to keep the boys guessing (or from throwing up). Normal transmission will be resumed shortly. Salud!
Julian’s Vacant Position
I’ve always had a soft spot for Julian Clary. Britain has a glorious tradition of camp comedians tripping out bawdy innuendos with mincing aplomb – Larry Grayson, John Inman and Frankie Howerd to name but three – but Julian was the first to place his sexuality at the very heart of his act. Sexual ambiguity and suggestive salvos from the back of the closet are not Julian’s style. He slaps it on with a shovel, love it or hate it. The verdict from the predominately straight, middle class, middle aged audience at Norwich’s Theatre Royal was unanimous. They loved it. I’m glad to report that Blighty’s continued pre-occupation with the lewd, the rude and the crude is alive and giggling. We loved it too. Julian provided an unexpected bonus, a marriage proposal live on stage from audience member Samantha to her partner Bonny. A ‘yes’ from Bonny was rewarded with a lively ovation all round. Julian ended his glittering passage with a nod to his more thoughtful side by speak-singing “It’s not yet cool to be queer,” a moving political broadcast for those poor souls living in less tolerant parts of our rainbow world. Julian’s show does exactly what it says on the glittery tin. He may be a one-joke comic but, blimey, what a joke.
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The Scene Of My Undoing
A few weeks ago I wrote a little piece on the etymology of Norwich’s River Wensum (old English wandsum). I got quite excited at the prospect of a poetic connection between my current digs and Wandsworth, in South London, where I spent my late childhood and most of my teens. I saw a link between ‘wandsum’ and ‘Wandle’, the Thames tributary that runs through the heart of the London borough. It was not to be. Ye Olde Wandsworth was known as Wandesorde or Wendelesorde at the time of the Domesday Book which means ‘enclosure of (a man called) Waendel’. Shame, but it did take me on a gentle mince down memory lane.
After my father was discharged from the army, he took the tenancy of an off licence cum general grocers. It was called a ‘Bottle and Basket’ for those who may remember the chain, part of the Watney Mann brewery company. We lived above the shop and it surely must have been the start of my love affair with the Devil’s sauce. I used to pilfer bottles of Bulmer’s cider from the shelves to share with my spotty pubescent pals. The liquor trade provided a decent living and kept me in booty hugging florescent loon pants and five inch platform shoes. My canny Dad made a killing during the Queen’s Silver Jubilee in 1977. We had a booze, bench and bunting beano in the street and Geordie Jack wisely kept the tills ringing for the duration. For my sins, I earned an honest crust as a Clark’s shoe shop Saturday boy in the Arndale Shopping Centre. It was the scene of my undoing and a slippery slope from which I was never to recover (thank the Peter Lord). I had a torrid fling with one of the maintenance men. His name was Dave. Dave was married, of course; it was always the way back in the day. My midday breaks were misspent sampling his greasy cut lunch in a lift shaft machine room on the roof, giving a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘Going down?’
Clip Joint
I used the phrase ‘clip joint’ on a post a little while ago and the words brought back distant memories of an old flame long since extinguished. He crimped for his supper. A bit of a gay cliché I know but he did have his own salon. He called it ‘Clip Joint’ and it was a good little earner down Wandsworth Town way. We stepped out for about 18 months and had some naughty fun until my fickle crimper discovered line dancing and a South African clone. They wore matching tight-cropped beards and dosey doe’d down the aisle. I moved on to lusher pastures and Clip Joint moved up to Nob Hill, rebranded as Alan Foster Hair Design. I heard he bought a detached gaff with en-suite swimming pool. Alan deserves his success. He has talented hands and there’s money to be made in curly perms.
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Perking the Pansies 