just. give us. a minute. to set. this. up.

hey there, boys and boys. the past few weeks have been amazing astounding astonishing. in the span of a month, i’ve gone from:

that last bit is the most interesting one, and the reason why this site has and will slow down in its general updates. my new project is taking off at warp speed, and, as such, i need to go into a bit of quiet period with regards to the personal [sex, drugs, rock'n'roll] and professional [writing about sex, drugs, rock'n'roll] aspects of my life.

there are many reasons for this, and they all annoy me. i’m an exhibitionist, and live my life openly and honestly, both online and offline. but there are too many strangers and too many enemies out there [at this particular moment] looking to harm me and my plans.

i am documenting all of the drama in a private blog, which will be merged back into the public blog when the time comes, so everyone can delight in stepping through these formative moments.

if you want to learn more about qr magazine have a look at our very basic website and subscribe to our mailing lists. it’s all happening so very quickly, and i hope you enjoy our efforts as much as i’m enjoying this journey.

we haven’t actually spoken, only exchanged a flurry of text messages. well, not even a flurry… i think it took precisely 4 messages from him to convince me to come over.

hey, erm, dude. yeah, erm, dude, i’m here. uh huh. past the church, then right? okay. i sound like the jock football players at my highschool. who am i kidding?

he greets me outside his apartment building. he’s got the stereotypical middle-america skaterboy wigger look down to a tee—baggy flared jeans, tight tank top, short spikey hair and boyish sideburns. a very cocky smile.

how’s it going? how was your trip to france?

i figured some small talk would be in order, since i hadn’t seen him in a while. and, even then, i had only met this confused lad once before. bisexual? student? journalist? american? nice enough boy, but he can’t sit still. he’s showing me photos. he’s turned the football on telly on. then off again. he tells me about france.

yeah, sure i’ll have a drink.

a double shot of absinthe and… a shot of gin? what kinda cocktail is this? we slam one. then two. then a third. we’re sat on the kitchen counter, and he’s nervously talking about his boyfriend who he’s meeting up with later. and who’s going to the same club as andrew and i.

i put my hand on his hand, and his face flushes red. he jumps off the kitchen counter, and goes to play a cd—putting in my dirrrty electro mix cd. he can’t believe that it’s me singing on boys. i pop into the loo, and shout through the door,

so, don’t you think this is all a bit sketchy? i mean, i just wanted to meet for lunch or maybe a coffee, and here we are sneaking around behind your sugardaddy’s erm boyfriend’s back…

my attempts at getting to know him have been in vain… he’s deflecting pretty much any personal questions, and, at the same time, seems uncertain why he’s even invited me here. the cockiness i can deal with, the confusion i can’t.

this is just like our last rendezvous, when he phoned me drunkenly at midnight one evening after work… showed up on my doorstep an hour later, with a bottle of vodka and a need to tell me about his girlfriends.

last time, i sat there quietly as he painted himself out to be a ladies man. i listened to his love of boobs, of his many female conquests. i ignored that fact that he’s been living with his sugardaddy for a year. and, i ignored the fact that he was sitting, shirtless on my sofa at 1 in the morning.

done in the loo, i join him in the living room, where he’s crashed on the floor staring at the ceiling. we still haven’t even kissed at this point. i sit down, lean over, and smooch. he tells me my breath stinks. i punch him, jokingly, and tell him well, your feet stank! as i head back to the bathroom to brush my teeth.

he dares me to come out of the bathroom naked. i don’t. but, picking up on his not-so-subtle cue, i return to the living room, scoop him up off the floor, and take him into the bedroom. seriously, dude, what were you waiting for…

alcohol consumption is a cornerstone of traditional and modern-day british life. alcoholism, binge drinking, liver failure are all gruesome problems that are probably more prevalent in the uk than in most other civilized countries. but drinking aka going for a pint aka meeting for one aka picnic in the park is a lubrication which doesn’t necessarily just dumb the senses and blur reality… it provides an excuse for a meeting and a distraction for easier, more comfortable conversation. i probably drink too much. i probably socialize too much. i probably have too much fun in my life. i probably don’t sleep enough or exercise enough or eat well, either…

friday 5pm—pimms & lemonades at a gastropub in archway, chatting with my new colleagues after wrapping up an all-day offsite. trying to explain to them how great i feel after my first week, i tell them, see, i sorta expected everyone here to be losers… which comes out entirely wrong but sums it up perfectly.

friday 7pm—champagne at home in finsbury park with atif and the boys, celebrating atif’s promotion and my return to officespace.

friday 9pm—vodka + [diet] cokes [with lemon] as we all hoot and holler over big brother [aww, chicken!]

friday 11pm—vodka + cokes at .popstarz with atif… make ‘em doubles before the drinks offer ends. drenched with sweat after 5 minutes of dancing in the r’n'b room with a tall asian lad. how old are you? he asks me. 39, i reply. he doesn’t flich—i’m 27, mind! he teases, guess how old i am! hmm… i’m thinking 22, but i offer a very flattering erm, i’d guess, maybe 20? 21? he squeals with glee, nope, i’m just 16! my jaw drops as i drag atif away.

friday midnight—smirnoff ices in the beat bar, as i catch up with the regulars. peter excitedly shares with me that they’ve been playing my single earlier in the main room. i’m not convinced, but excited nonetheless.

saturday 1am—switch back to vodka + cokes to provide some clean-burning fuel for some sweaty indie-room pogoing. my drink sloshes all over as i get simultaneously slam-danced and groped whilst i dance and navigate across the heaving masses of punk rawk boys and glammed up gals.

saturday 2am—on our way to the bar for a refill, run into long-lost stuart, back from his year-long trip to australia. hugs, kisses, smiles, and fair amount of both of us awkwardly looking down at our shoes. it’s great to see him, but i’m hurt that i didn’t know about his return back to old blighty. i feel guilty myself for a variety of reasons, hopefully time will heal all.

saturday 3am—up on the balcony, looking down upon my kingdom, a notice a fair maiden dashing prince in white, tall dark and handsome. maintaining my carefully-crafted air of innocence, i deliberately meander towards his section of the dancefloor, with a facial expression clearly saying to others, i am looking for my friend. where is that friend of mine. hmm, that friend of mine should be here. i wonder what that friend of mine might be? he dances my way, i feign surprise/shock/surprise, and i explain to him i was just looking for my friend. moments later he invites me to join him upstairs for just one more cocktail…

saturday 2pm—meet up with the boys at hampstead heath for an afternoon of sunny lounging at the pergola [see below]. the bottles-to-boys ratio is 1:1, and we tickle our palates with some crisp white wine and some not-so-crisp faux champagne sparkling wine which makes it all seem a bit studenty, but, hey, i’m not one to complain.

saturday 6pm—a few pints at the king william iv pub in hampstead. being a gay pub, ~`pints‘~ of course means alcopops and cocktails. karl, who earlier was explaing to one and all why he loves ronald reagan and america generally, was now, very loudly offering his comments on old gay couples, leather daddies and people living with hiv to one-and-all. we drag him out of the pub and push him in the direction of home.

saturday 8pm—disco nap, disco snack, disco drinks at andrew and karl’s, where i watch in horror as karl pours us all lopsided vodka + cokes. it tastes like paint thinner, but, combined with some pizza, banging tunes and my hayfever medicine overdose, it does the trick.

saturday 10pm—cross paths with teacher james and ash as well as playtime grant at retro bar, where we prime our dancin’ engines with my own special rocketfuel—vodka + red bull + cokes. we stand outside in the rain, watching the sun disappear down the thames.

saturday midnight—swim into .heaven, like we have hundreds or thousands of times before. it’s andrew’s final brouhaha here, and we laugh at how familiar and how small this 2000-person nightclub has become to us. the vip room’s not open yet, so i go to get us drinks [tequila + lemonades] from the ice bar, where, as is always the case, the bartender shoots me evils and serves me after eeeeeveryone else. he has no reason to hate me, but he’s been evil to me for years. perhaps he’s mistaken me for his ex?

sunday 1am—for once, i find myself in the vip room actually conversing with interesting people. sipping a vodka + lemonade, i find myself chatting with a charming and rather handsome 40yo bloke, quite the conversationalist and very witty. telling him that i hadn’t seen him before, he explains, oh, that’s because i’ve just come out of the closet 2 weeks ago. without preaching, i subtly offer some guidance and, more importantly, acceptance.

sunday 2am—still in the vip. on nights like tonight, i’m like a magnet for americans. any yanks who are fabulous [or pretentious or connected] enough to sneak into the vip room usually bump into me, and excitedly offer their praise/criticism/disgust/gossip regarding the magazine. in the blink of an eye i’m transported to hollywood, and this sortacute teevee producer boy is blagging to me about all of the shows he’s worked on. he mentions the words medical drama and within seconds atif is regaling him with his own hospital stories and of all the teevee doctors he and i have met. i make my escape.

sunday 3am—i find myself once again looking down upon a heaving sea of bodies. i take a swig from my smirnoff ice black, and confidently nod to the music as i scan all 873 faces on the dancefloor below. this process takes under 60 seconds, and then i know it’s time for eric to go home. andrew was hoping for a wild final night at .heaven, but perhaps going out with a whimper is better than going out with a bang…

sunday 3pm—against my better judgement, i quickly agree to meet up with jonny, the cute sassy art director lad from last weekend. we plop down in soho square, in between all the baldies and circuit boys and tweaked-out latin lads… the sun is beating down and it sounds and smells like bacon on a hot griddle, but with more nipples.

over a few pimms + lemonades, we chat and flirt and catch up and flirt and shock and flirt and smile and flirt and continue down this meandering path of getting to know each other. heavy yet frivolous topics come up, such as my high-school quarterback, his boyband shag, my foursome, his boyfriend, my pull, his magazine, my magazine, his boyfriend, my job.

maybe i should just send part of my wages directly to smirnoff, maybe i should enter rehab, maybe i should employ moderation. nope. i think as is the case with any vice, as long as one understands the risks and the rewards, then one should be able to make up their own personal rules—or ignore the rules altogether.

there was, and still is, a very obvious ~`us and them’~ mentality in politics. there are stories, anecdotes, insanity, disagreements on both sides. there are inane, unfathomable events and examples and quotes and legislation and speeches across the whole political spectrum.

here’s my biased summary of ronald reagan’s presidency: his ~`reaganomics’~ fucked up the economy, he ushered in a new era of conservatism which is still negatively impacting my life, he helped end the cold war whilst still building up the world’s nuclear arsenal, there was the contra arms scandal, and, lastly, his ostrich-like behavior during the hiv/aids crisis, which was born during his presidency, where his continuing ignorance and hatred of gays conservatism no doubt has killed 10,000s of people, gay and straight.

aids was first made aware to the public in 1981, but reagan refused to even acknowledge it until 1987, which is the first time he mentioned the word in any public speech or statement. many experts feel that the lack of federal funding in those crucial early days of hiv/aids was a major factor of the spread of the disease across all sexuality/race/socioeconomic divides.

the excellent dogpoet was very personally impacted my reagan’s blunders, and highlights an excellent excerpt from forward:

oh, hey, ronnie, wanna hear another joke?

knock knock. who’s there? not you, you homophobic criminal.

in retrospect, i was entirely too excited about the quarterly meeting of the london gay mafia. last time, on valentine’s day, i felt a little bit underdressed, in a lovely marble-floored marble-columned ballroom, sipping rose petal martinis with media moguls, financial planners, yacht owners and the like, many of whom had shoes costing more than my yearly wardrobe and haircuts costing more than my rent.

this time around, atif and i definitely looked the part. strolling into the five-star great eastern hotel, we had the whole ~`z-list celebrity look’~ down pat… me with a lovely pinstriped grey jacket over a miama vice-ish white and pink tee i picked up in sydney, hair coiffed just so, even some proper shoes for once. pretending to be a teenager comes so easily to me—pretending to be an adult is a much greater challenge.

in theory, it should’ve been an amazing event. a few hundred of london’s finest, crammed into a pleasantly dim, somewhat elegant private bar, free cocktails and just enough space to sit, stand, mingle and gossip. around 11pm or so, once the bar filled up with a few hundred of ~`de gays’~, a whole wing of the hotel was opened up to us, with 10 or so suites now at our disposal.

the rooms were all pretty much the same, nice big beds with throw pillows, plenty of chairs, pleasant lighting, a deejay down at one end of the corrider and a full bar at the other. the boys and i took over room 162, got a few bottles of bubbly and accosted anyone who strolled by. after a few minutes of enduring boring conversations with ugly people, i wandered around the other rooms, champagne flute in tow, pinky finger extended.

pausing momentarily outside most rooms you could easily surmise who was inside… either [1] bitter old queens trying to out-brag one another, [2] balding wealthy bankers/businessmen/suits who can’t talk about anything besides their gruesome professions, or [3] moronic scene queens who were treating this relatively swanky environment like a trashy gay club, stumbling around drunk and cruising furiously.

most of the evening was spent catching up with friends [.gregiño, ronald, ben, chris], laughing with the incredibly chatty bartenders, the giggly eastern-european cloakroom girl and the few interesting, entertaining boys that were there… all of whom, interestingly enough were wearing cowboy shirts and probably younger than me.

i knew it was time to escape when i found myself rapidly slaloming from room to room, desparate for stimulation, and i noticed that someone else was doing the opposite route as me. we kept passing each other in the hallway is i jumped from room to room, i was rolling my eyes in mock annoyance, whereas he seemed truly pissed off. he was, of course, julian from queer eye for the straight guy, or, rather, the uk’s confusingly unfunny, uninspiring, uneducating and generally disappointing version of the show.

atif and i quickly dived in head-first to the sweaty, heaving, already-past-midnight masses at a packed-to-the-rafters .heaven, occasionally seeking refuge in the vip room, the only place where any self-loathing z-list celebrity would be on a saturday night. if i meet one more actor who plays a medical professional on teevee, they’re gonna end up in casualty.