i feel like i’m about to die. since around midnight last night, my two flatmates and i have been incredibly ill, we’re not sure if it’s food poisoning or the plague or perhaps an anthrax attack by the muslim fundamentalists [the hook!] here in finsbury park.

puking, and then puking again, and then, even though your insides are completely empty, puking one more time. then, going to sleep, only to wake up needing to puke some more. gross, i know. i stopped puking around 9am, and finally started to doze off, but was woken up by the builders outside my window.

i live on the 3rd storey of a 4-storey apartment block, so you might be asking how/why there are builders outside my window. well, for the past two weeks builders have been setting up scaffolding all around the block, so that they can replace everyone’s windows. of course today was the day that they precisely reached my part of the 3rd storey, so from 9-to-5 all i heard was moronic builder chit-chat, clanging of heavy metal scaffolding and kerplumps of floorboards being pulleyed up and down. incredibly loud bangs and clangs, roughly about every 3 minutes.

i just managed to eat a banana and drink some water, but every muscle in my body hurts. i wanna take a steamy hot bubble bath but can’t be bothered. i’ll probably crawl into bed, since that’s what my two [similarly ill] flatmates have chosen to do.

the new the streets album [a grand don't come for free] is absolutely wicked. delicious poetry with bouncey garage beats,the tracks tell the story of a few twisted days in the life of mike skinner, who’s misplaced £1000, is having big troubles with his girlfriend and best mate—even his telly is on the blink.

the standout track, in my opinion, is blinded by the lights, where mike describes heading to a club, hoping to meet up with his girlfriend and best mate, but instead ends up on a joyless drug trip. i’ve transcribed the lyrics the best i can, but even i couldn’t translate some of his colloquialisms.
Continue reading ‘blinded by the lights’

…no, the other jake

moving to london three years ago was a pleasant kick to the head. arriving fresh off the boat, not knowing anyone, i had to deliberately [scientifically, almost] grow my network of friends. the four avenues i explored were work, sex [and dating], hobby [london gay men's writing group], flatmates. eventually i met my flatmate’s friends and colleague’s girlfriends and so on.

it worked very well, and just after a few months i had more friends, acquaintences and in-betweens than i could’ve ever had hoped for. i miss those days, because recently i’ve become a bit anti-social. while it’s easy for me to chat up randoms for the sake of pulling, i seem to be unmotivated when it comes to chatting for the sake of chatting. this might also explain why i have precisely zero female/straight friends in london.

last wednesday, i dragged .gregiño to a gay mafia meeting gay professionals networking session. i’d been enrolled in jake for about a year now, but had never attended one of their events.

entering the .heaven vip room at 6pm was pleasantly surreal, and we did our best to fit in with the pretentious champagne-swilling suits. i planted us firmly in the middle of the room, and for the next hour or so we sipped our white wine whilst the hungry 45yo suits eyed us up, throwing their self-important self-parodying conversations across the room into my ears.

part of me wanted to say hi to ivan, the attractive-for-40 founder of jake, since he seems to be a fascinating character, and, interestingly, worked on phase magazine, the precursor to xy magazine. but, as is always the case, .gregiño and i just stood awkwardly by ourselves until we got bored and left.

not failure per se, but progress. it’s not like i have a severe phobia of meeting people, it’s just i’ve become a bit lazy/apathetic in social situations. i blame the lame/pretentious jake crowd as much as anything.

onward, ho! went to the infamous cxr 79 which, really, isn’t so bad and has the cheapest drinks around—£1.80 for a double. freaky crowd, of course, but sometimes it’s nice to visit a freak show. then, next door to ku bar for some delicious twink viewing. then, over to g-a-y bar, where it’s jam-packed, but we manage to run into andrew and blythe.

as i’m catching up with blythe, i see a stunningly cute lad walk by. dark spiky hair, chiseled mediterranean features and the brightest smile i’ve seen in london [ooh, that doesn't say a lot, does it!]. i catch his eye as he walks by. i keep staring, queer as folk-style as he walks upstairs.

even in a crowded bar with 100’s of people, 7 minutes later i’m immediately aware that he’s come down the stairs, and, as he walks by to leave, i catch his eye and smile. it takes him a few minutes for he and his friend to make it all the way to the exit, but every few steps he nervously looks over his shoulder to see me confidentely, knowingly, staring. still.

he exits the bar, and i’m shocked that my direct approach didn’t do the trick. i shrug it off, and go back to blythe and andrew. about 10 minutes later, there’s a tap on my shoulder. it’s him, of course. hi, my name is patrick, he starts. i couldn’t help but notice your beautiful smile he tells me. turns out he’s from switzerland. i’ve never come across anyone from switzerland, i say. he gets my double-entendre and moves in for a cheeky kiss on the… cheek.

very rarely do i hate myself. last night i hated myself.

i was stood there, snogging him up against the wall, the sweaty smokey haze of 1,000 clubbers clubbing sort of just thickening the air. it was pretty early, just past 1am, and i was snogging this boy, at the same time telling .gregiño [via some very subtle and complicated hand signals] that i’d be ready to leave .heaven in just one more minute. he, of course, was rolling his eyes at me, admonishing me for i keep getting into these ridiculously complicated and stupid dating conundrums.

it all started with a lovely afternoon movie date with aleberto, the cute 23-but-looks-17 italian lad that i had shared an entirely too-innocent evening with a few weeks ago. we had been texting each other sporadically over the past few weeks, me being indecisive and him beeing luvvy-duvvy.

yesterday, though, i allowed myself to ignore the language barrier, the 1+ hour commute between us, he being relatively young and innocent and naïve, and the awkward non-sex that we attempted during our first date, and agreed to meet up at his place. i brought over beautiful thing, since 1. it’s important for every gay boy to see, 2. it’s a fun look at london life, and 3. i figured it would put us both in a romantic mood.

i also brought over some wine, and he bought stuff to cook me a nice italian dinner. so, the plan was 1. gushy romantic movie + cuddling, 2. hot sex, 3. drinks, 4. hot sex, 5. dinner, 6. hot sex.

i’m not a sex fiend, i swear. it’s just, last time we had an awkward pajama party, so i assumed this time we might actually seal the deal. we pop in the dvd, and he strips down to his underwear, to ~`get comfortable to watch the film’~. we watch the film. cuddling and sighing and ooohing and awwwing and me explaining some of the british slang, like slapper and bubble and squeak and so on.

the film finishes, and we lie and chat and laugh until the sun goes down. and i go down. and then, he giggles, and says, hey, let’s skip dinner and go to .heaven.

so there’s me, horny as can be, with obvious unfinished business, with a cute [at this point nekkid] italian lad mopping up next to me. i grimace. is he innocent and clueless, or is he in fact the ultimate player—a player so good at playing that he played me?

we go to .heaven, my stomach grumbling uncontrollably. the romantic in me [as well as the ultimate seducer], was really hoping for a nice evening in, with a nice home-cooked meal and lots of home-cooked sex. instead, i found myself carefully navigating the cavernous dancefloors of .heaven, doing my best to not run off and ditch alberto, as much as i’d like to.

i showed him off to my friends, most of whom approved of his dashing good looks and delicious body. but, the boy wouldn’t really dance, rather opting to just watch me from the side. eric lives on the dancefloor, and it’s incredibly difficult for me turn off my mojo. but, i was on best behavior, shunning away bartender adrian [shooting him major evils, and heavily tipping his bartender colleague], as well as that french waiter boy, vivian/pierre, as well as an entire gaggle of brazilians.

but, in the end, i just had to cut my losses. i didn’t cut my losses properly, maturely, by ending things with alberto then and there. i only wimpily cut my losses for the evening, telling alberto that i wasn’t feeling well [partially because my stomach was empty] and that i just needed to sleep in my own bed tonight. it pained me to realize that he actually was hurt by this… from his point-of-view, our date had been going perfectly, and we were on the road to being husbands.

he was shocked that i wanted to leave, without him, and was clearly sad at how the evening had played out. for five minutes, he kept sweettalking me, apologizing for earlier, explaining how much he likes me, even offering to buy me some late-night mcdonalds. but, eventually .gregiño dragged me away and onto a nightbus, and i’m hoping that alberto reads the writing on the wall…