Weblog Archives  

15/06/2005
Time to set some standards for ourselves.

I went out the other night. I was feeling lonely, and, yes, horny.
I haven't been going out much lately because, well, a) I'm skint, and b) all of the bars have turned into dingy sex clubs.
I have long known that I'm not the dingy sex club kind of guy. Sex for me has always been linked to a feeling of closeness that, and if I can't get to know someone beforehand desire just isn't there.
But, as I say, I was feeling lonely, and if truth be told also outnumbered - all of my gay friends seem to have given in and now seem go to the sex clubs.
Most of them say they don't do anything there, but that it's now the only place left to meet people, so I thought, what the hell, sitting at home isn't working, let's try this.
Fifteen years ago L'Ascenceur was my favourite bar.
It was a bit dingy, and a bit smokey, but it had a friendly barman Gilles who talked to everyone, and a magical pool table around which I met all of my previous boyfriends, and a couple of husbands.
When it became the Castro a few years ago, the pool table was replaced with a back-room - who would have thought it in the middle of an aids epidemic? I tried it (the bar!!) a couple of times, but without the pool table, and more specifically with the backroom, noone seemed to want to talk anymore. They were all just waiting in the hope that one of the under sixties would move into the dingy shagging zone.
Recently it changed hands. It has become "The Eagle"
With typical optimism, I thought, "hey, maybe it's nice again."
The first change is that you now have to pay to actually get in; one step further towards the sex club concept.
So I paid my entrance and I got my beer and propped myself up against a wall.
The people in the bar didn't look well. Now I'm full of support and admiration for people who are struggling to live with HIV, I actually lived with an HIV+ guy for 5 years, it was one of my most memorable love affairs.
But it has to be said that despite what the pharmecutical industry would have us believe, the treatments don't make people look sexy. The hump backs and the wasted cheeks bear little ressemblance to the muscle bunnies in the Glaxo ads, and the number of people in the bar who quite simply looked ill was off putting, especially in a bar with a back room and no safe sex posters.
It felt like the waiting room of an HIV clinic, except that these people weren't here for treatment or advice, they were here to drink, smoke and shag.
Still, I insisted, I will make this OK. Even if everyone is glaring at each other, I will make this OK.
A guy moved to my right and stood very close. His arm was touching mine.
I said, "Hi."
"I haven't seen you here before," he said
"No, it's the first time I've been here."
"So what do you think?"
"To be honest I was thinking how nice it was when there was a pool table," I said.
The guy wrinkled his brow. (Well, as far as I could see. It was pretty dark.) "A pool table? What for?" he asked.
I shrugged. "It was fun. We used to play pool and get drunk and dance and chat. That directly or indirectly is how I met nearly everyone I ever met in Nice."
The man shrugged. "I don't come here to meet people."
He actually said that. I was a bit flummoxed. I had presumed that even having sex in the back room fell under the vague banner of meeting people.
"Yeah," I tried. "But even if you're waiting for some action, it's much nicer to wait while you're chatting to people and having a laugh, don't you think? Everyone here looks so sad."
The guy shrugged. "I don't have the time to talk to people," he said.
This left me speechless really. How anyone can have the time to lean against a wall smoking for hours on end but not have the time to speak to people I just don't get.
"Well that's the only reason I go to bars," I said. "To meet people, and to talk to them."
The guy shrugged and turned towards the backroom.
"Why don't you come through here and meet me then," he said.
I smiled and put my beer down.
"No thanks," I said.
The guy shrugged and continued behind the curtain.
I pushed out into the night.
As I walked home, I wondered about the fact that we gay men pride ourselves on being so creative, so artistic so fabulous.
But right now, the only thing we are managing to create for ourselves is a lot of miserable, lonely leaning against walls in smoke filled bars, waiting for anonymous sex in a badly lit room. Judging by the lack of safe sex posters and condoms this is inevitably supposed to be followed by HIV infection and long slow slide into illness.
It seems to me that it's time we set some standards for what we actually want from life, and, surprise! That's not it!
I lay on my bed and as I dozed of, I thought, "This whole scene stinks. I am not like these people, I am alone."

The next day I was in a depressed fug and nearly didn't bother going to gay pride.
"What's to be proud about," I figured.
But chance intervened; I bumped into Ben, the barman of a local pub who I like but have never really had a chance to speak to properly. In a gesture of mutual support we made a pact to go.
Well guess what. I haven't had such a laugh for years.
We met up with Ben's mate Wayne, and with a straight friend of mine we danced, (a bit drunk,a bit stoned) through the streets with 2000 other people.
It was only Nice's second gay pride and there were only 200 participants last year, so 2000 is quite a result.
The Klub nightclub had a throbbing mobile sound system to dance behind, and the DJ was playing some great vibes, so we grooved and shouted and waved our Union Jacks from 4pm to 4am.
And an amazing thing happened.
Ben and Wayne and I found that we quite liked each other. We each gained two new friends.
And that night, or rather, the next morning as I went to bed, I thought about the 2000 gay men who had been dancing in the center of Nice and I thought, "I am like these people, and we are fabulous."
Which, after all is what gay pride is supposed to be about.
Have a look at the pics here!!

12/03/2005
American Psycho x 60,608,582

Well, I've finally managed to get down to writing something about the US elections.
It's been hard. I'm still trying to work out how to adjust my world view to the fact that the most powerful richest nation in the world has reelected the most morally bankrupt obscenely violent government imaginable.
The question is, how to look at the world without becoming suicidal. How to see things without coming to hate the 60,608,582 voters who requested another 4 years of war and murder, another four years of unbridled capitalist exploitation of the world's poorest people, another 4 years of erosion of civil liberties at home and around the world.
Are the voters of America not murderers themselves by proxy?
In Australia voters have reelected Michael Howard. Are they not murderers too?
Knowing that 100,00 people have died in Iraq SINCE the invasion, is not anyone who votes to keep the people who did this in power not a war criminal?
Even the British are wavering in their indignation against Blair.
Immediately following the invasion everyone was furious. As a whole we had trusted Blair and when he of all people decided against all precedent, and against the advice of most of his party to support Bush we collectively thought, "There must be something we don't know."
Well, the thing we didn't know was that he was a lying cheating immoral psychopath who would do anything, including bombing a country into the middle ages, and killing 100,000 people.

And the one thing we still don't know, is why did he behave in this way? What has this brought to Britain other than ill-repute? What has this brought to Tony Blair other than universal hatred? How on earth did we get here?
And will that fury translate into votes at the next election? Nothing is less sure.

Now faced with a choice of three parties, Labour, who lied and led our citizens to participate in the mass slaughter of 100,000 citizens of a sovereign nation, another, who not only backed the war but was even more enthusiastic about it than Labour, and a third, the Liberal Democrats who consistently opposed it, people amazingly, still aren't sure who they will vote for.
The US and Australian elections showed that the majority of voting Americans and Australians are either morally bankrupt murderers or are simply too stupid to be allowed to vote.
Harsh words, but I am very angry. Doesn't the death of 100,000 people, 100,000 men, women and children, lovers and mothers and fathers merit a few harsh words?
I hope the UK election will prove that we British are made of better stuff, I really hope so.
But is it likely?

Listen to the author Arundhati Roy's inspiring speech about all of this here. (Thanks for that link greg).

12/05/2005
Lies, Damned Lies and Politics.

So the British have reelected Tony Blair for another 4 years...
A friend of mine said before the election, that it was like reelecting a nanny. That in itself speaks reams about how we see our politicians, and the relationship we feel we have to them. But she went on to explain.
The choice, she said, was between the old nanny (The Conservatives) who you had to get rid of because she beat the children, a New Nanny (The Libdems) who seems really nice, but has never been a nanny before and doesn't seem very sure if she wants the job, and the current nanny, who is the best nanny you've ever had, only she murdered the next door neighbours.
Well the Brits have spoken, and their message to the political classes of the future is clear. Go rampaging, kill, bomb, murder whoever you want. As long as you look after the kids OK, your job is assured.
It would seem that a hundred lives in Iraq truly isn't worth one life back home.

Here in France, the lying cheating political classes continue to get away with murder as well.
The right wing government, its hands filthy from repeated stealing, is too weak to threaten to take the tea-break away from an unemployed donkey. The unions still think they're fighting a 1940's class war, and the socialists are rubbing their hands with glee, waiting for their next round of tax-rises to punish the evil Employer capitalist pigs.

Everyone you speak to says that France "va droit dans le mur", is driving straight into a wall. Rising unemployment, crippling taxes, paralysing strikes... it all reminds me a little of 1970's Britain. Maybe we need a new nanny to beat some sense into the children?

In the meantime, no one is doing anything, and lacking any big new idea, for communism and liberalism apparently have been consigned to the political dustbins of history, noone is even suggesting that they might know what to do.

Of course, the incapable, thieving, lying, political classes are shocked and horrified by the rise of the fascist right. They rub their hands in sadness at the prospect of another horrific rise of the Evil Le Pen. And if the bastard Front Nationale win the next election, of course it won't be because every other party conspired to drive the country bang into a wall. Will it?

27/09/2004
A funny Business


What a funny business the book business is.
Once upon a time I thought the biggest hurdle would be to actually write the damned thing, then a little later I realised that the difficult bit was finding a publisher.
Once I found a publisher, I found out that the difficulty was to find a decent distributor. Two very good distributors later (one in the UK and one in the US), I found out that without decent reviews no one would ever stock the book.
Ten excellent reviews later it seemed that once the book hit the shops all would be well.
Well what do you know? I now have a written, corrected, published, distributed book.
Nearly every day I find out that a store somewhere has decided to stock it, or that this or that newspaper has given it an excellent review.
So what I want to know is? When do I make some money out of it??????
Actually what I’m really wondering is does anyone ever make any money out of writing books these days, or are the few cases we hear of media inventions?
Does Jeffrey Archer really make loads of money from writing the most boring prison diary ever to have existed, or does he secretly share a shabby caravan somewhere with Isabel AIllende and Armistead Maupin?
And if they do all have some solution for cheap living, is there any room for me?


Please note that the book is now available, yes, whether you live in France, the UK, or the US, you can now buy it!
xxx Nick

07/04
Avalon, EC
Article Previously Published in Refresh Magazine

As Gregory Flood pointed out in his fabulous book "Looking for Mr Right", humanity has long been obsessed by the idea of fulfilment as a geographical location; from Avalon to Atlantis, humans have long dreamt that happiness is somewhere else.
For gay men, the capital city is often thought to hold the key to happiness; if you’ve grown up in an intolerant tiny town in Northern England, then the cities certainly offer anonymity and social opportunities, which at 20 are the stuff of dreams.
Since 1973 our options about where to live and work have multiplied beyond our grandparents’ wildest imaginings. Today’s twenty-something from Kerby has the choice of living and working not only in Manchester, London or Brighton, but in Amsterdam, Mykonos, Prague or Budapest.
You want sun and snow? Move to the French Alps. Your want great pasta too? Move to the Italian Alps.
This panorama of lifestyle options would strike us as mind-blowing if it hadn’t crept up on us so slowly; but with limitless choice comes the responsibility of choosing; when you can have it all, you have to decide what’s important. Will you go for sunshine and lifestyle or friends and family? Career opportunities or leather-bars?
I myself realized at the age of 18, that my moods depended on the weather. By my mid twenties I’d travelled enough to understand that seasonal depression syndrome was optional, so I moved and for 13 years I’ve been living in Nice, where the sun shines for 300 days a year. But there are costs too; every few months, I am overcome by an inexplicable need for a pint of beer or a greasy English breakfast in Brighton with my mates.
Sometimes, when I’m going through one of those rough patches that life throws up, I need to return for months while I get myself together, for though I’ve made some great amitiés in France, it seems that the friendships made in my twenties can never quite be replaced or equalled. Whether that’s because I’m not chez moi or because one just doesn’t make friends like that in ones thirties is a constant question, but in the end, the pull of the sun and the sea is always too much, I always end up coming back to Nice.
Other Euro ex-pats tell a similar story; whatever their reasons for moving, to avoid homophobia, to get more sunshine, or simply to join a partner, most people are happy to have made the switch. It has brought them the happiness they were looking for, and yet something is always missing; some kind of umbilical whiplash always drags them back home, and regularly.
The Swedes miss the sea and the countryside; the Italians, the food and the family meals, the Brits, proper pubs and British TV, and these needs are strangely more profound than they seem; for they aren’t just preferences, but more symbols of a lost life. A cup of PG tips in Barcelona will never taste the same as a mug of tea in front of Eastenders, and a wander in the forests of the Alps will never bring back the familiarity of the dank woods where you picnicked as a kid.
And so it seems that Avalon, that wonderful place which has it all, which has gay bars and sun-baked beaches; which has fjords, palm trees, and double decker buses… Well it just doesn’t exist, unless…
Unless it’s called Europe.


10/11/2004
Guilt and Desire

It’s funny how random conversations and words link and mix up as one falls asleep.
As I was dozing off the other day two distinct conversations came together in my mind and linked. The revelation was so powerful that I had to get up and jot it down to ponder the next day. Now often these dream realisations don’t make any sense in the cold light of morning, but this one just might…

The first conversation I came across on a web site. Yep, I admit it I was porn-surfing, linking from site to site from an initial site by a very cute guy (trucker-jeff.com).
Anyway, eventually I found myself reading some pretty excruciating yet sexy bits of text people had written about their attitudes to sex, SM and bondage. The phrase that lodged in my brain was from a man called Brian, who said “The reason I love to bottom so much is that once I’m tied up and powerless all guilt for whatever happens to me is removed, there is, after all, nothing I can do.”
Now this intrigued me because, although it has always rested at the fantasy stage, this idea of being a powerless sex-toy has always been a great fantasy of mine, and I know of many other gay men. I wondered whether the fantasy attraction of being powerless isn’t simply the lack of guilt which lack of control implies.

The second building block was a conversation with a friend about why the gay scene is so obsessed with physical perfection.
The number of hours we gay men spend in the gym, buying clothes, rubbing in skin creams and generally being perfect consumers must surely reveal something about us. And the terrifying requirements that so many place on their partners or potential partners, to be thin and toned and well groomed must surely be connected.
My friend’s comment was that often a simple detail about a partner will be enough to make him refuse or dump him. “It could be a hair growing in the wrong place, or the colour of his teeth… It might just be a lousy choice of socks, but once I’ve noticed it, it makes me feel sick every time I think about it, and in the end I have to end the relationship.”

Now this is pretty extreme, but my guess is that it’s not that different to the reasons that many gay relationships mysteriously end. At times it seems that to keep a partner you must look like him, dress like him, think like him, in fact there should be no disagreement about anything. Very often relationships break in the first few days, as soon as the sparring partners gain the courage to announce the things that are going to require changing about the other person.

Now the thought that popped into my mind is that isn’t this too really just about guilt? Isn’t this requiring complete perfection in a partner an attempt at alleviating a deeply ingrained sense of guilt and dirtiness, which the sin of having sex with someone of the sxame sex implies?
It’s almost as if we gay men are saying, look, I know this is dirty and naughty, and society wouldn’t approve, but look how perfect the men I pick up are, and look how perfect and sexy I am myself… How could something that looks so good really be bad?
To test the theory on yourself simply imagine yourself introducing a gay partner to your family… Think how much easier it is if you can imagine them all thinking, “Wow! I can see the attraction…”
Maybe it’s time to deal with the guilt…

xxx Nick

Older Stuff Here