A tiny Penis-a la mode

The craziness continues in Ealing...

On Wednesday night, in celebration of Aaliyah's being with us, she, Rachel and I decided to cook a feast. Of course, we live in some sort of mad-house. So, while the three of us prepared food and helped Sabine with a bottle of wine, a small German boy ran around, a tall Kenyan man presented his sons on Trumpet, Cello, Recorder, and Saxophone and Rachel appeased the ensuing tantrums with granola bars. I didn't know, when I left the U.S. that I would be living in such a zoo but, I kinda like it. It still has that surreal feeling of "huh?!?"

Last night, after a much quieter dinner, Rach and I sat on our asses watching the telly until Elias came home about 11. At his request, we began watching a documentary on Channel 3 about a man who was uncomfortable with his horribly tiny dick; My Penis and I. Over apple pie, a la mode, with a middle-aged Kenyan father of three, two American kids learned what a horrible life a little prick can give. Education abounds in Ealing.

Quick Question Re: Unibrows

Why?

Unibrows or Monobrows if you prefer are disgusting/sinister. Please pluck a face near you.

The Real World: Ealing Broadway

Many things have occurred since last I wrote! I am now settled, with Rachel, in our new, decidedly rough yet enjoyable, home in Ealing. Just to remind you, it’s Rachel, me, Elias, a middle-aged divorcee from Kenya (soon to return to assume his tribe’s chiefdom), Sabine, a middle-aged, single, lawyer-mother from Germany, her six-year-old son Nicholaus, and now, apparently a small family from Thailand. This weekend, we welcome a 23 year-old girl from the Czech Republic. Our fridge is getting cramped.

I can’t begin to describe the culture clashes that have occurred and are bound to occur again. Elias, as ring-leader, is intense. He adores Rachel and, to a lesser extent, me and is constantly commanding that we join him to watch TV or just chat. He’s quickly picking up the key Rachel-isms which are much more hilarious when delivered with a thick Swahili accent. Yesterday, while watching Oliver, on Fagin, “He EES raff.” Merriment is had by all. Nicholaus and I have become quick pals. I think it has something to do with the fact that I’m the only one besides his mom that he can talk readily to. Although he’s learning quickly, German is still much easier for him and, surprisingly, it’s all comin’ back to me and we’re able to communicate very easily. Today, we found that it’s very fun to speak about Elias, in German, in front of him while throwing a ball back and forth. I really need a job.

On Friday, Rach and I had a wonderful day of art. We spent a while looking at the end-of-term exhibit of the students of the Motley Theatre Design School. I was very excited to see some really cool design work and they didn’t fail to impress. The British school of design has always had a particular appeal to me. I can’t really pinpoint what it is but there’s a definite difference in the way a text is approached. It was very refreshing to look at design work from a perspective divorced of the actual performance. I was able to really concentrate on the scenery and costume. Of course, the design’s relation to the text is always important, but it was very cool to focus on one aspect. I’m very envious of what sounds, from our talks with the students, like an amazing course. After the Motley exhibit, we walked toward the National but got sidetracked by a promising-looking gallery. Feliks Topolski’s Memoir of the Century, completely dominated it’s space underneath some tube track. It was an absolutely enormous piece of art that had no definite beginning or end. It snaked through it’s vault and documented the artist’s whole life. It was really a remarkable work and is highly recommended to any visitors to London. We then sat in the courtyard of the National watching some sort of Spanish juggling band until we decided that we were going to Heaven.

Heaven was, of course, completely crazy. Rachel met many very stylized drag queens, we spent some time in the VIP lounge, Rachel was questioned about a water-pouring incident in a literal interrogation room, drinks were had and we stumbled home, on our various buses at about 4 am. Ahh.

George W. Bush - World's Leading Terrorist

Today, I've learned about the White House having blocked the release of new information on the Abu Ghraib tortures. How do we continue to demand human rights progress in other countries and portray ourselves as the moral arbiters of the world when the world knows about this shit? I am thoroughly disgusted. This administration tries to portray itself as moral, religious, and value-oriented but this... American soldiers were TORTURING prisoners! Iraqi men were made to rape little boys, Iraqi women were raped by American soldiers, dead bodies were treated horribly, people were murdered....and our administration doesn't want it talked about. How can we gain safety from terrorism when this is the image the terrorists see of us? It's also come out that the White House is threatening a veto on a $442 billion dollar defense spending bill for next year if the Senate makes moves to regulate the Pentagon's treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay or if the Senate tries to set up a commission to investigate operations at Gitmo Bay or Abu Ghraib. I am so disgusted. The contempt I feel for the President and those advising him burns in the pit of my stomach.

The White House's statement reads, "If legislation is presented that would restrict the president's authority to protect Americans effectively from terrorist attack and bring terrorists to justice,"the bill could be vetoed. How, again, is torture helping fight terrorism? If anything, this President and his administration are BREEDING terrorists.

I also want to remind everyone that Bill Clinton faced impeachment for a blow job.

“You ARE gay, right?”

-Question posed by me to the man who phoned me after I flirted with and gave him my number at a (straight) club last weekend.

“Uh, no…umm, no, no…”

-Answer given by said man.

“Hey, it’s me…umm, sorry I couldn’t talk earlier. You caught me off guard with that question. Umm, no hard feelings, though. What made you think I was uh, gay?”

-Question posed by man upon his calling me AGAIN to talk about my thinking he was gay.

Excuse me while I rage a bit…

In June 2004, President Bush promised he’d fire anyone found to have anything to do with the Valerie Plame outing. He’s now added the qualifier that it must be proven that a crime was committed. Apparently, reckless endangerment of human life and national security, wasting ten years’ worth of work and funding and, lying about it, don’t disqualify a person to serve as the President’s foremost political advisor. It’s disgusting that that sorry excuse of a person, let alone a President should not only defend Karl Rove but also keep a seat nice and cozy within whispering distance for him. I can’t even describe my contempt for these people. The question now running through my mind is what, “What does it take to incite the American people to action?” President Bush won the 04 election, by all accounts, because of 9/11. Why is it then that, seeing the evidence that this administration continues to make the country less safe, people STILL don’t demand an answer? Ugh! (Please read this article from the Seattle P-I)

So, it’s about time I mention the Supreme Court. Sandy’s retiring, Roberts has been nominated. Now the fight begins. Appointing a Supreme Court Justice is one of the most important jobs of the President. It has now become clear however that President Bush has not really spent much thought on the issue. Of the short list, only about half were interviewed before the White House announced that Roberts was their man. Originally, the President was going to announce on July 26 or 27, before leaving for a month to go to the ranch on vacation. (Who gets a month-long vacation?) Anyway, two administration sources have confirmed what we’ve all expected: Bushie announced Roberts in a desperate attempt to take the media attention off of Rove. So, rather than fully doing his job, President Moron has jumped the gun and named a man that will surely be a fight.

Roberts looks ok at first glance but once you learn a bit, you see the slime:
Excerpted from “People for the American Way”:

• Reproductive and Privacy Rights: Roberts urged the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade while arguing before the Court as Deputy Solicitor General in a case that did not even directly concern that issue. His brief plainly states that "Roe was wrongly decided and should be overruled."
• Separation of Church and State: Roberts argued against clear First Amendment protections for religious liberty and in favor of officially sponsored school prayer at graduation ceremonies before the Supreme Court, which rejected his argument.
• Environmental Protections: As a judge, Roberts suggested in a dissent that the Endangered Species Act was unconstitutional as applied to a California development case.
• Veteran Protections: Roberts argued American POWs tortured in Iraq during the Gulf War should not be able to utilize federal courts to pursue their claims.
• Excessive Arrest Procedures: Roberts ruled against a 12-year old girl who was handcuffed, arrested and taken away by police for eating a single French fry on the D.C. Metro, even though an adult would only have gotten a paper citation in that situation.

I hope everyone realizes the import of this moment in our continuing histories. Particularly, as a gay man, it frightens me that there could be a very anti-gay man, someone capable of undoing the few advances toward equality that we’ve achieved, sitting on the highest bench for a LONG time. His arguing, especially, that “Roe was wrongly decided and should be overruled”, points to his lack of regard for privacy. Surely, he would think that Lawrence v. Texas was also wrong and should be undone. That CAN NOT happen! Therefore, I urge everyone reading this to contact their Senators and demand a full and comprehensive hearing of this man. We must know how he stands on every issue. Those of you with children, consider their futures. Those of you that know me or another gay person, consider them. Those of you who enjoy privacy, think about losing it. Those of you with parents, consider their retirement and access to prescriptions. Absolutely everything hangs in the balance and our representatives must do this, their most important task, well.
Please go to this website to find your senators’ contact information. Get the word out and gear up for a fight.

Also, there’s this quote, just to remember what fools Americans look like in the eyes of the rest of the world. This is our international representative:

"The best place for the facts to be done is by somebody who's spending time investigating it."
-President Bush

"When your father returns from the grave a vengeful, thespian, angel of death, it makes you think a bit" -OR- Jim Broadbent is completely stylized

Rachel and I spent a wonderful evening in the National Theatre's Lyttelton last night. Theatre of Blood, starred Jim Broadbent as Lionheart. It was a campy horror show, based on a 1970's Vincent Price film, focused around an actor's revenge on theatre critics. Lionheart invited a bunch of critics to a "derelict" theatre in London and proceeded to kill them off, one by one; each murder fashioned after a different Shakespeare play. While this at first sounds gruesome, and, I guess it was, it was mostly funny. Each murder sent the audience into peals of laughter because of the absolute ridiculousness of them. The really amazing thing was how authentic the murders looked; stage illusion at its finest. One critic was revealed suspended in mid-air, impaled on a tripod of spears. Another was electrocuted to death in a salon hair dryer. A third was drowned in a barrel and then enclosed and rolled off. In Lionheart's version of Merchant of Venice, Shylock takes the pound of flesh. In full view of the audience, Broadbent climbed on top of another man and went to work slicing him up, cracking his ribs with a crowbar and removing his heart. It was really cool to see a show where I didn't know how the technical magic was achieved. Towards the end, however, the fun subsided and we were subjected to a lecture on how commercialized theatre has ruined the rawness of the art form. It was a desperate attempt at irony and didn't work. It was, I assume, exactly what the film would've done and exactly what any other work of this genre would've done so, I can't really fault them for being true, albeit annoying.

Sunday was a very full day. After sleeping off Saturday's late night, Rachel, Aaliyah and I went to Trafalgar Square for the Rathayatra festival. Sri Jagannatha Ratha Yatra is an annual festival of the Hare Krishna, celebrating the one day a year when Lord Jagannatha, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, comes outside to be among his people. What this translates to is a big parade with three giant, colorful floats. The square was packed with all sorts of people. The weather was unbelievable and all the time the sounds of the Hare Krishna chant were in the background. The three of us had a great time observing a different culture and just kinda relaxing. After wandering the square for a while, we pulled off our shoes, rolled up our pants and waded through the fountain, enjoying the sun and water and people.

After the Rathayatra festival, we wandered to Leicester Square with the intention of getting some theatre tickets at TKTS. It was not to be though, as to our surprise we walked right into the British premiere of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The square was in full drag as Wonkaland and people thronged everywhere. We calmly observed until Johnny Depp's car pulled up. Rachel had been calm until now but, couldn't restrain herself from shouting "Oh my God!" repeatedly and scrambling to get a pic. Of course Aaliyah and I also tried to take pictures but not with nearly the fervor of Roko.

Anyway, the fun subsided and we retired to my apartment for a relaxed evening of spaghetti and wine on my balcony. It's a semi-charmed life we're leading.

There’s a machine in my closet…

that takes coins. Namely, it takes £1 coins. In exchange, it gives me electricity. I had no clue such a system existed. I guess it’s rather smart but, it would’ve been nice if I’dve known earlier. As is, I summoned my landlady, at 8 pm, to complain that I had no electricity and all of the food in my refrigerator had gone bad. She asked if I had fed the meter. Excuse me?

Anyway…I am kind of buzzed. It seems that here, people go to the pub straight away after work. It seemed only fitting that I should go to a pub after work today. That’s right, I finally have a job. Today and, a few days next week, I am working for Tobias and Tobias, a web-page development firm in Hammersmith. It’s really an excellent gig. The pay is shit but, hey, income is income at this point. The people are really cool and the office is totally smart and trendy. I had an excellent interview with Source 4 Personnel on Wednesday and they called promptly to give me this job. My agent seems very keen on getting me another job straight away. Woohoo!

I’ve also found employment with the Esprit group. Esprit is the premier supplier of wait staff for catered events in London and I’m very excited to get to work with them. The pay is also shit here but, it should prove interesting. They provide waiters/waitresses for a lot of stuff involving royalty/politicians/celebrities. Many palace jobs and concerts and charity events. Hopefully I’ll get to work soon. I only went through training on Tuesday. It seems that waiting is much more intense than I thought. Did you know that wine must be served over the right hand shoulder but food over the left? Plates, however, are to be cleared over the right. Five minutes before guests arrive, an inch of champagne should be poured. This prevents unseemly bubbles when you’re in a hurry. Anyway, I’m kinda excited about it and look forward to seeing some cool stuff in London through this job.

Rachel finally gets here tomorrow and we even have an apartment to move into. A house actually, with roommates…The coming experience should be entertaining in a ruff sort of way. Rach an I will be living in West Ealing with Elias, a lawyer from Nairobi, Kenya, Sabine from SW Germany and her 6-year-old son, Nikolaus. Here’s hoping it’s everything it can be. I’m sure many an update on this theme will follow.

That’s all for now. I hope you’ve all sent a pink slip to Karl Rove and are rabidly watching how that story develops. Lots of love, good night!

Fire Rove

Photo Updates

To all interested, I've added pictures from my time at Herstmonceux and Brighton to the page at Winkflash. You can also find pictures at the British Museum and at London Gay Pride 05.
Username: seethepics
Password: showme

No folks, that’s not a comic book…it’s actually the American government…

It seems the slimiest slime bag of them all, which is really saying something considering the administration, has finally been caught. Newsweek magazine reported Sunday that Karl Rove, Deputy White House Chief of Staff, and the President’s number 1 political advisor, was responsible for leaking the identity of Valerie Plame. For those of you not familiar with the topic, I’ll summarize:

Valerie Plame was a CIA operative working on stopping the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. In 2002, Joe Wilson, a former Ambassador, was sent by the CIA to investigate charges that Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium from Niger. Mr. Wilson found nothing to substantiate the charges and wrote about it in the New York Times because the threat of WMD was part of the justification for the war in Iraq. Shortly after the op-ed, which angered the administration, the identity of Valerie Plame, Wilson’s wife, was revealed through an anonymous “senior administration official” to conservative writer, Robert Novak. He then wrote about it in this article.

The outing of an operative did absolutely nothing good for the country but it did severely endanger our national security and Ms. Plame’s life. It also destroyed a decade’s worth of undercover relationship building and put other covert ops in danger. It is believed that her name was leaked as a way of getting back at Joe Wilson for not following the administration.

It is absolutely malicious to have outed an undercover operative like this. Mr. Rove’s lawyer has already confirmed that he had something to do with the leak but the White House’s official stance is that it won’t comment on it while there is an ongoing investigation. They have commented in the past however, to say that Karl Rove had nothing to do with it. They of course made that comment before the evidence was public knowledge.

Considering the delicate balance of the world right now and the extreme nature of this crime, I think this should be cause for impeachment, if we find that the President knew about this leak. How the Republican Party can continue to endorse Karl Rove is beyond me. Indeed, how they can continue to hold their collective heads up in the face of the nonstop revelations of their gross misconduct is also beyond my grasp. If we were simply reading a story-book and read that the people that were doing this sort of thing got re-elected, we would dismiss the book as being too far from reality and yet, here we are. Let’s remember though that Adolf Hitler was also elected democratically.

Anyway, I hope that some of you are now more informed than you were before. If you want to read more about the filthiness of Karl Rove, just do a Google search for his name.

In other news, the July approval/disapproval ratings for the nation’s governors is out and has a few surprises (well, if not surprises, then things worth point out):
-Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Pubs’ golden child is suffering in CA, 36% approve to 61% disapproving and, he’s ranked 46th in the country. Hasta la Vista Schwarzie!
-Wyoming’s Dave Freudenthal, a Democrat is getting high marks: 62% approve/26% disapprove. This is surprising for Wyoming which is usually very conservative.
-Rick Perry, of Texas, a HUGE republican, pulls in tied for 41st place with 53% disapproving.
-Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle, is of course, about even at 43/48. No surprises there since he kinda sucks but not enough and he’s kinda good but not quite. He’s bland.

A weekend in the country...

I’m sitting, now, on the grounds of Herstmonceux Castle in the south of England. It’s been the best weekend! I’m surrounded by fairytale land. Herstmonceux is a breathtaking, moated castle, originally built in the 1400s. It is surrounded by endless parkland and tended Elizabethan gardens. I’ve just been for a hike through some of the marshland and forests and I’m in awe. After walking about half an hour, I discovered a beautifully decrepit folly on the edge of a small lake. The doors of the folly have fallen off; from one side, you can look through the door frame, the building and the opposite door frame to see the gardens on the other side; superb. In addition to being unbelievably gorgeous, Herstmonceux is also the home of the International Study Center of Queens College, Kingston, Ontario. I’ve been lucky enough to be able to stay on the castle grounds all weekend, while visiting Aaliyah, who’s going to school here.

I got to Herstmonceux, by train, in the early afternoon on Saturday. Aaliyah and I toured the castle and ran around in the formal gardens for a while before dinner. The gardens are vast and the picture of what one would expect. There was a hedge wall which divided the gardens into various “rooms”. The largest room had many varieties of rose and a bunch of working sundials in tribute to the estate’s history as the former seat of the Royal Greenwich Observatory. Surrounding the castle and the grounds are many sixties-looking astronomy buildings with their characteristic green domes, covering the telescopes within. Also within the gardens, perfectly, are a couple pairs of peacocks and peahens which put on a bit of a show for us. There are also, shockingly to me, more rabbits than I’ve ever seen. It’s almost Hitchcockian. At night especially, you can turn your head in front of the residential hall and see no less than 150 rabbits grazing. I’ve never seen anything like it.

After dinner in the castle’s cafeteria, Aaliyah, a bunch of her friends and I hopped a train to Brighton for Alia’s birthday. Brighton is a place that I’ve wanted to experience for some time. It wasn’t really as gaudy as I was hoping it’d be though. It did have the expected neon pier however, complete with carnival. It was really a great, touristy atmosphere. After some extremely mediocre Thai food, we went to the Funky Fish Club. We should have known just from the name… The Funky Fish was much more fishy than funky but we managed to have a good time. The music was pretty great, mostly confined to big Motown and funk classics. A very old, white man in a zoot suit provided entertainment with some killer dance moves and by dancing crazily with whoever could keep up. After about an hour and a half though, the power went out, repeatedly. To combat the situation, they turned the fans off. Does this sound like a bad idea to everyone? It got so disgustingly hot that we had to leave even having paid a cover. We were pretty disgruntled but didn’t let it spoil the evening. The rest of the night was spent frolicking on the beach and just kinda walking around the boardwalk area. Despite the Funky Fish fiasco we managed to have a great time and got home, ready for bed.

For all interested, you can keep track of my life, in pictures, by going to http://www.winkflash.com/ Username: seethepics Password: showme

Some things...

London is beginning to feel like home. The newness has worn and the anxiety associated with moving has waned. Right now, I’m enjoying a very comfortable night, typing away on my balcony in South Kensington. I met some people the other night at the Coleherne (my new, somewhat nicer Shamrock) and I finally have some interviews. I have an interview-type thing on Tuesday with a catering firm and an interview on Wednesday with a temp service. They’re not the most glamorous jobs in the world but, I don’t really care. Any job is better than none and I intend to keep looking while I have one. I’m also looking at another apartment on Monday. This one sounds much more promising than the last. Things are really coming together.

I’ve been thinking more about the terrorist attacks and I have a few things to say:
After 9/11, Bush’s approval ratings went way up, just because people felt unsafe; not because he was doing a good job. It’s refreshing to know that Blair’s numbers won’t do that here. They may go up because of the Olympics but, the British people actually question their leaders and the attacks are going to really put Blair in the hot seat. He’s gonna have a lot of shit to take for being in Bush’s back pocket on Afghanistan and Iraq. The British people hate the President almost as much as I do and they don’t take kindly to hearing that these bombs were to reciprocate for British backing of the US-led campaigns. People will see these attacks as proof that being a US ally endangers the country. The political play-out of this should be a very interesting counterpoint to the post-9/11 response.
Authorities are now saying that the attacks are looking more and more like an amateur action. It’s still too early to tell but some of the hallmarks of previous terrorist attacks make this look a little like a copy-cat, homegrown thing. That has truly scary connotations. If this was carried out by people that the authorities didn’t even know about, what else could be in store?
Thankfully, the Transit Authority really swung into action and many security improvements have been made. Apparently, scanners that read heat and anything interfering with it have been installed in all entry ways to the tube stations to catch suicide bombers wearing their explosives. It’s all very intense and scary but life goes on and things get better, right?

If ya’ll haven’t taken a look at my links list, please do. In particular, I want to highlight DailyKos. This is really a very informative, truthful but left-leaning blog. It reaches thousands of people daily and is one of the more influential blogs around. If you haven’t already, please check it out (daily if possibleJ) In particular, please see this article.

In other news, I’ve heard our Jeremy is stealing the show and “seems born for the role of the Major General”…he is the very model after all. Well done, wish I could see it.

I'm ok!

I don’t know what to say about today’s events. Almost everything has been said. I have no interesting insights to impart as one close to the action. What happened today was an horrific tragedy that will be remembered through history but was it inevitable? Was it unexpected? I personally hope that this was the long-anticipated attack on London that we’ve been waiting for since September 11, 2001. I say “hope” because I want to believe that the worst is over and that there is not more to come. What amazes and indeed, shocks me even more than such atrocities is the amazing calm that the city has maintained. London has been waiting for this for quite some time and when it finally happened, people were prepared. Almost all accounts from people on the tube say that after some initial shock, everyone regained their cool and took control of the situation. Even with a bomb exploding 20 feet away, these people composed themselves and, in a (somewhat) orderly fashion, led themselves to safety. For the most part, people have stayed-put today. There was no bank rush, no stampede for canned goods, no wailing people in the streets. People stuck in enormous traffic jams didn’t bat an eye and didn’t sweat missing a day of work. It’s really very surreal to be faced on one side by such unbelievable disaster and on the other by such resolute calm. Of course, we must remember that these people (the Brits and Londoners especially) have been dealing with this sort of thing for almost the whole of their existence. War happens here and has for all of Britain’s recorded history. New York was, on the whole, a much larger incident with a much crazier aftermath, due in no small part to the fact that Americans aren’t used to occurrences such as these. The British faced the German bombs in WWII, IRA bombs throughout the 70s and 90s and even the missile that landed in Downing Street in 1991. Dealing with horrible events seems almost to be part of the national psyche. Unlike the American post-terrorist response, led by our inimitable president, the atmosphere here doesn’t show any signs of giving over to crazed nationalism and patriotic sentiment. People aren’t looking differently at Muslim people in the streets. I’m sure there will be a memorial service and much singing of God Save the Queen and the like but then it will be done and these people won’t then become totally xenophobic.

I believe, in his remarks today, President Bush said something along the lines of “our ideology will win over their ideology.” I hope I’m not the only one that sees something wrong here. How the most powerful nation on Earth could elect a religious extremist like George W. is beyond me. He makes me ashamed. Of course, ideology doesn’t immediately mean “religious ideology” but, given his past record, I’m sure that is how it will be taken by many of the terrorists. Why does it not occur to anyone in our government that the way to win is not to give the impression that we’re fighting a holy crusade? When up against a wall, the animal instinct says fight harder. The U.S. rhetoric lends itself very well to an interpretation of this fight as between Christianity and Islam. The terrorist cells will only continue to grow it they feel they are being persecuted on a religious ground. Naturally, their political-ideological belief system is ALSO at fault but I for one would sleep better if we had an intelligent leader who saw things on many levels and not just “good vs. evil”.

I apologize for the “stream-of-consciousness” way this post came out. I hope you’re all safe and have a fantastic evening. Do not let the events of today destroy your resolve for a better tomorrow. I will keep you posted, of course, on the way this all plays out here.
Good night!

A play, when done well...

A play, when done well, has the power to inhale it’s audience, chew on it a bit and then spit it into the lobby changed. It’s an exhilarating experience when one gets to view such a play. Elmina’s Kitchen, which I saw tonight, had that sort of power. While there were a few things that I didn’t like wholly, it definitely succeeded in altering/alerting the audience. It was one of those plays where, when curtain call finally happens, it’s a relief because you are just completely destroyed but in a good way. Like Fix Up, another piece written by Kwame Kwei-Armah, Elmina’s Kitchen showed a sub-culture not readily understood except by those living it. The play focused on the London (though it translates to American perfectly) “thug” culture but didn’t concentrate on the street side of things but rather on the societal conditions and consequences of such a life, through the eyes of a family living within it. There was no forced empathy for anyone and emotions achieved were organic. Through the course of the play, I began to really see why such a seemingly dangerous culture exists and the inevitability of its continuance in the fragmented, half-digested world that we live in. We are all products of our environments and histories. The relics of slavery and institutionalized/ingrained racism are constantly informing how our current society ticks even as we (as a community) try to correct our mistakes. It will take a very long time for us to come to full equality, understanding and trust. Thankfully, plays like the one I’ve just seen, help to speed us toward that eventual healing and to foster an understanding.

In other news, the talk of the town today was of course London’s winning the bid to host the Olympics in 2012. Thank God they’ve won because I don’t know what these people would’ve done had it gone to Paris or New York. You can’t spit here without hitting a “Back the Bid” ad. They’re everywhere; on newspapers, tube windows, billboards, t-shirts, tv. Britain was going crazy for the chance to host and everything that happened was big news. Apparently, earlier this week, Jacques Chirac of France made a comment about the poor quality of British food. I thought this was common knowledge and even a joke to the Brits. It seems I was wrong…it caused a huge furor in all the papers and looked like it might seriously hurt Franco-British relations. Thankfully, at least on this side of the channel; crisis averted. We’ll see how G8 plays out now. It’s kind of ridiculous how much they wanted to host. Tony Blair’s full time job for the last two weeks it seems has been trying to secure this bid. Britons can sleep well tonight knowing that the games will be here in seven years.

Along an Olympic theme, I went to the British museum today to get a look at the Elgin Marbles which were of course a hot-button topic for the Athens summer games. I’ve always felt that the marbles really belong in Athens and, in today’s world, I’m sure they’d be safe there. They’re really pretty cool even in ruins. I also got to see some mummies and various Egyptian sculptures and artifacts and stuff from every other area of the globe. Ya know, almost everything in the British museum is not British. It’s a treasure trove of the world’s art and culture, procured when Great Britain was THE world power and ethics hadn’t advanced to the point of allowing a people to keep their own art. Of course, there’s always the argument that at the time, the Brits were pretty much the only people that could protect these artifacts and that the British museum had (has?) all the world’s best restorative scientists. At any rate, it’s cool to see the stuff even if I don’t like how it came to be here.
I’ve been looking for an apartment for Rachel and I. Right now, I have a room in South Kensington that I’m paying way too much for. It’s a great area though. Yesterday I saw a place in Harlesden which is a horrible area. I wasn’t prepared for such squalor in London. Maybe it’s my American sort-of rose-colored glasses but….c’mon. It was like a stylized set of what a ghetto is. It was an overgrown “yards”, broken glass, fat men in A-Shirts sitting outside drinking a Foster’s 40 in a crooked lawn chair, barking dogs in parked cars kinda place. Too bad the flat was actually really cool. Hopefully I’ll have better luck tomorrow in Ealing which is rumored to be a “really cute” area. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Sorry to those of you trying to read this page when you just have a couple of minutes…

A friend of mine recently had a break-in

A friend of mine recently had a break-in in her apartment. Sad, I know. The amazing thing is that almost nothing got stolen. The robbery was aborted mid-ransack by an intrepid roommate. Unfortunetly, one item was taken. My friend is sadly, recently, without her vibrator. So, if anyone has seen a mysterious short man shaking strangely, please report him.

Speaking of friends, how does one obtain them? As I make this transition to London, the thing most noticeably missing is friendship. I really miss my friends every day and I’m not sure how to overtly go about getting some new ones. I’m one that doesn’t really like to go to a pub by themselves. I did, however, do so tonight. Next step: smalltalk. I was feeling kinda lonely and needed some sort of entertainment. I went to the neighborhood gay bar and observed the local color but, apparently, if I don’t talk first, no one will. We gays are the same wherever one goes I guess. We tend to travel in packs and noone likes to break the ice. Perhaps when I get a job or when Rachel gets here, I’ll have some new means to get friends. In the meantime however, I guess it’s just me, testing my wings which is actually great in a way.

Anyway…in other news. I have an actual apartment now or at least I have one for the next three weeks. I couldn’t be happier about this. Living out of a suitcase just isn’t for me. I also sent my C.V. to bunch of temp services today and am hoping to hear back soon. I’m fairly confident…if I do say so, myself, I have a pretty great resume and cover letter (thanks Pam!). So, hopefully I’ll hear something soon. In the meantime, I plan to apply for something (whatever they got) at the BBC and some local theatre companies. Although I had been feeling burned out by the arts recently, the movie really did something to spark it. I feel that distant possibility of creating something great again. It’s nice to have a reinvigoration like that. The movie, although stressful was a perfect reminder of why I studied what I did; with dedication and commitment, art is possible, even in the face of commercial interests.

I know this is a very meandering post…sorry. Until next time-goodnight!

Some thoughts on London, life, making poverty history, gay pride and Independence Day

Some thoughts on London, life, making poverty history, gay pride and Independence Day;

I landed (finally) around 10:30 pm on Thursday night at Heathrow. The flight and preceding agenda were some of the most trying moments of my life. Not only was I leaving the country but, I was doing so after a truly fatiguing couple of days work on the film. We wrapped on Wednesday night around 9:30. Of course, once filming is done, it’s time for a wrap party and, against my better judgment I decided to go. I stayed until 12:30 and then went home, semi-buzzed to clean my apartment. Clean, clean, clean till 4:30 and then off to the airport. Naturally, my emotions were all over the place because I hadn’t slept in over 24 hours and I was moving far away; extreme excitement, sadness and fear all at once. However, nothing was as challenging as what I faced at the airport: staying awake long enough to get on the plane to Chicago.

London is as I remembered but noticeably more busy. This weekend brought not only my arrival but also the huge Live 8 concert, Wimbledon, Canada Day, and Gay Pride. This place is overrun but it’s fun.

Yesterday, I went to the London Pride 2005 rally in Trafalgar square. This was one of the best gay experiences I’ve ever had. Thousands of people gathered to celebrate equality and justice. The really wonderful thing was that we weren’t just celebrating the local equality and justice but, rather, the whole world. Of course, with a celebration of our society’s advances there must also be a reminder of the work still to do. Many brave men and women got on stage to speak about their experiences with institutionalized homophobia in their home countries. These speeches were incredibly personal and moving and it’s difficult for me to convey the emotion felt, I assume, by the entire crowd. Attention was paid, applause was given, work must be done.

Outrage, a group dedicated to providing asylum to those seeking it on a homophobic/misogynistic stance, spoke on the need for Western nations to recognize how wrong it is to return these people to their native country when, it is common knowledge that they face rape, imprisonment, forced labor and death because of who they are. A man from JFLAG, a group dedicated to providing help to LGBT persons in Jamaica was forced to speak with a mask on because of the Pride organizers’ fears that he would be arrested on his return to Jamaica. The summation of these feelings for me was embodied by a Pakistani man who declared, “I’m Muslim, I’m Asian, I’m gay, and I am Proud!”

It’s shocking to me how aware the people of London must be. Everywhere, from every newspaper and window display, I see ads for the “Make Poverty History” campaign. I’m pleased to say that I knew of the campaign but only because I have a friend in Canada who used to work on it. Why is it that the US isn’t picking up on this amazing campaign with the full force displayed by other nations? Something must be done and, hopefully, by the end of the G-8 Summit, something will be. The outpouring of support here, if only in word, is truly astounding. The advancement of peace in our world, the eradication of homophobia, the development of democracy does not depend on a war but rather on the education of all the world’s people and the push by the haves, to really help the have-nots. Poverty in Africa is destroying the continent and really providing a breeding ground for the “enemies of freedom”. The US-led war in Iraq is creating poverty for more people and doing nothing to foster peace or create freedom. Instead, we’re creating terrorists and ensuring that for the foreseeable future, large groups of people will continue to hate America and the so-called “values” that it has shown it stands for. It makes me sad.

229 years ago, Thomas Jefferson delivered his declaration to the 2nd Continental Congress, declaring our freedom from an oppressor. 229 years after that historic event, the United States of America is the oppressor. We’ve been occupying Iraq for a long time now under the guise of peace and the destruction of a corrupt government. Sadly, however, every day brings more news of the corruption of our own government. It’s truly ironic to celebrate our independence as we occupy a foreign, sovereign nation which shows, ever-increasingly its disdain for us. I’m not saying we should just abandon a country that we’ve decimated but, let’s remember the revolution and how our forefathers threw off our oppressors. Let’s not be surprised by the insurrection when, it was the American insurrection that has secured for us, the life that we now know. Spare a moment on our most patriotic day to reflect on what it really means and the strange flip/flop of circumstances in which we find ourselves. Happy 4th of July!

And now, as summary of my new adventure, the desire I feel for long-awaited equality for the LGBT community, the upcoming G8 Summit and everything else: the words that Sondheim taught us:

‘Something is stirring,
Shifting ground,
It’s just begun.
Edges are blurring all around
And yesterday is done.

Feel the flow,
Hear what’s happening,
-We’re what’s happening.
Don’t you know?
We’re the movers and we’re the shapers,
We’re the names in tomorrow’s papers,
Up to us man, to show ‘em.

It’s our time,
Breathe it in-
Worlds to change and worlds to win.
Our turn, coming through,
Me and you, man, me and you.

Fell how it quivers, on the brink –
Everything
Gives you the shivers, makes you think,
There’s so much stuff to see.
And you and me, we’ll be singing it,
Like the birds,
Me with music and you the words.
Tell ‘em things they don’t know.
Up to us, pal, to show ‘em.

Our time,
Breathe it in-
Worlds to change and worlds to win.
Our turn, we’re what’s new,
Me and you, pal, me and you.’