tag archive for scotland

4,695,000 words

in preparation for my move, i’ve scanned in some of the remaining physical, printed photos i’ve been hauling around for years, and have dumped them all into my extensive online photo album [4695 photos]. they’re all pretty ancient, and you can see me at my adolescent best… shiny forehead, crazy hairstyles, and an extensive wardrobe of depeche mode t-shirts and jean shorts. hott!

eric's first visit to london

first we have my tour of england and scotland on a highschool trip when i was 16. sherry and i got lumped together with a bunch of yokels from texas, but they ended up being a hoot. i got drunk off of baileys in scotland, and fell in love with geraldo, the sensitive piano player from san antonio. we stayed in touch for years, until he became a priest.

mom's care package from america

the most significant cache of memoribilia is the slew of pictures from my life-defining stay in brandenburg, germany as an exchange student. these pictures bring back so many memories… my first encounter with foreign culture, my world shrinking and my head exploding as i realize that the rest of the world doesn’t operate like america, and my tiny 15yo mind feeling so incredibly naive. struggling to communicate at first, camping with the boys, weird horse festivals and nude swimming up north, visits to the extended family, my first disco, and so many laughs at home. oh—and shoveling all that coal.

lars at the rostock festival

i can’t really say if i was in love with my german host brother lars, or if discovering my sexuality just happened to coincide with the summer we shared a bed. there’s really no juicy gossip or innuendo here, i promise you. just two lads sharing accommodation for a pubescent summer. the photos don’t lie!

home run

after my trip to germany, we had a different exchange student come stay with us, during my final year of highschool. his name was mike, and he was stunningly intelligent and brilliantly cute. we took him to baseball games, amusement parks and to wal*mart.

kassel river

when i visited him the following summer, his posh family took me to fancy restaurants, amsterdam, and let us have a lads-only camping holiday in zaandvoort. an awakening of my global soul.

and again

lastly, there are plenty of photos from 1998, when i got burnt out during my 3rd year at caltech, and escaped, fleeing first to paris for a few weeks, then onwards to my first residency in london, sharing a house with seven insane south africans in bethnal green. my short visit, on a student work permit was the appetizer which whet my appetite for london living.

oh, i’ve also created a few video walkthroughs of my flat in vauxhall, so that when i get nostalgic in los angeles and can dial these up and laugh. ha! look how small that washing machine is! or man, did i live in the nasty nasty ghetto! this assumes, of course, that wherever i end up in l.a. will have a huge washing machine and will be miles away from the ghetto. likely?

7 years, 11 months ago
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if destroyed true

tower bridge
125

fringe theatre is hit-or-miss, and conflicting time out reviews resulted in me begrudgingly meeting up with the two scottish davids [the teevee one, and the non-transvestite one] on wednesday. before the show, we had dinner at the restaurant where i recently broke up with #117, sat across from a few friends of #108, whom i haven’t seen since that breakup. no stabbing, shouting or painful awkwardness—just lighthearted discussions of lgb politics and scottish pish-taking. the night is turning out to be a boulevard of broken dreams.

traipsed over to the menier chocolate factory in london bridge to see if destroyed true, a brilliant, fast-moving scottish play which follows the intertwining, disenchanted lives of some souls in the fictional scottish town of new flood, which has just won a £500,000 grant for being the worst town in scotland. rather than using the grant money to improve the town, a group of 6 conspire to use the funds in a more effective way.

intimate theatre, brilliant staging, a few modern gimmicks [video montage, nouveau music] but it’s mostly the solid delivery from the 6-person cast that makes it a treat. i adored it, my companions seemed a bit more critical. afterwards, drinks with the cast, where i failed miserably to flirt with alan, the adorable actor who played the chavvy neddy youf in the show. i do adore my thespians.

after many months apart, i finally had dinner with #51 in covent garden on a sunny sneezy london evening, where we managed to catch up quickly, maturely work through our lingering breakup/holiday/eric’s-an-awful-person issues, and have a few laughs like old times. and, we both offered our own ponderings of the possibilities of love versus big-city temptations. he’s becoming quite the music journalist, which makes perfect sense, considering we met at a concert, our relationship had a soundtrack of its own, and i’ve never seen him without his trusty discman.

up to islington for wayne’s monthly urban showcase. it’s still a bit confusing for me to realize that somehow i’m in the middle of the london r’n'b / urban music scene. spent a few hours bouncing to some r’n'b and soul and garage and smoove grooves. behind mz. fontaine‘s cockiness and smile is an amazing voice, and her new tracks left me glowing and proud, to see that she’s more than just a talented rapper—grrl’s got a voice! grace orlando always manages to deliver flawless, beautiful vocals, and also cracks me up. of course marcos was stepping back in full-force, now that he’s a full-time artist dash deejay dash rapper dash writer dash singer dash dancer.

#23 buys me just enough drinks to convince me to head to .discotec with him. my hair’s newly bleached, and at a club like .discotec filled with brazilians and miscellaneous latin types, i feel like the bloody chum in a tankful of sharks. gross analogy. really, gross. don’t try to visualize. i’m just sayin’…

on the way down the stairs, i clock #73, the tall lanky punk-rawk brazilian boy whom i think i’m on bad terms with, but i can’t quite recall why. something involving me forgetting to set an alarm and him missing work and getting fired. or something. i don’t really remember.

ordering drinks at the bar, i spy #92 leaning up against the wall, giving me the smirkiest, fakest smile imaginable for someone who took me on one of the worst dates of my life [when he talked on his mobile throughout dinner, in german to his sugardaddy, thinking that i wouldn't understand him]. yet every time we meet, he flirts and toys with me all over again.

#23 spends just enough time in the r’n'b room to hear hollaback girl twice, which is fine for us, as we have our choreographed routine down pat. it’s amazing how easy it is to invent moves for poetic lyrics like this shit is bananas, b-a-n-a-n-a-s or, even better, ooh, this my shit, this my shit.

waiting for him outside the toilets, i’m in the no-man’s land between the two rooms, precisely where the unsynchronized basslines merge, resonating through my skull, causing the left and right sides of my body to uncontrollably dance independently. i vaguely recognize #28, who moved to wales years ago. he invites me to his birthday party next week, where i complimentarily joke [like i always do with anyone who's having a birthday], aha, so you’re turning 21 at last! #28 smiles, wow, you have a good memory! i must have been… 17 when we first met? he’s not joking. eek.

i do an incredibly great job of avoiding #94, for my own sanity, which is tough in a place so cruisy and so drug-fuelled as .discotec. i turn my back for one minute to see #23 riverdancing [yes, riverdancing] in order to court some freaky irish bloke. i turn the other way and a girl jumps into my arms, saying i sure hope you’re straight!. i turn the other way to run into an old old old friend, who becomes #125. on 05/05/05. you do the math.

8 years ago
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haggis and black pudding are the least of my worries

glasgow statue with traffic pylon cone
it’s art, you ned

my first visit to scotland was on a surreal school trip when i was 15. it was surreal because only cheri and i signed up from my school, forcing us to get lumped in with a group of 12 from lubbock, texas. i learned a lot about scotland as well as the country of texas during our two-week bus tour of britain.

scotland acts like an older brother to england. a slightly condescending older brother. an older brother that’s a little bit less successful than its younger brother, but condescending nonetheless. an older brother that is a bit more worldly, a bit more european, and that is a bit more relaxed.

i look to the scottish friends i’ve made over the last few years, and i see several common threads. fluffer ian, murray, the two davids… first, they all seem to be incredibly conversational. not quite in an irish craic sort of way, but still significantly more easygoing, friendly and laid back than the stereotypically uptight english person.

second, i find the scottish to be bigger partiers than the english, but a helluva lot more controlled. when i think back to the many late night drinking sessions [where everyone's talking pish] and also to a few weekend-long clubbing excursions, it’s my scottish friends who are still going strong, whilst my english mates are vomiting in the street, urinating on the dancefloor, or worse. the 11 o’clock drinking up time in england creates a pressurized atmosphere for the 20-something generation who don’t understand the dangers of binge drinking or alcoholism generally.

third, the scottish seem to be rightfully proud of their heritage. not in a novel haggis, bagpipes, kilts and black pudding, aye! sort of way, but in a more subdued, we’re more european than england sort of way. the centuries of anti-english sentiment are still there, but i find that [in glasgow in particular] there’s a more worldly, more independent mindset.

i reckon this is my fourth trip to scotland, and probably my last for a while. i doubled my mass earlier this morning with a hearty scottish breakfast, replete with haggis and black pudding for old time’s sake. unfortunately, the breakfast was nauseating, and i had to leave before i could finish.

no, it wasn’t because the food was dodgy. nor was it because i’m hungover from last night. no, what put me off my breakfast were the pockets of american tourists throughout the breakfast room, whose booming, obnoxious, self-important accents dominated the pleasant, quiet sounds of chit-chat and clinking silverware at the other tables.

i need to get over my anti-american sentiment. please tell me not everyone’s a loudmouth tourist. please?

8 years, 1 month ago
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mine eyes

my eyes seem to be misting up more than usual the past few days. last night, sat in the audience of the brit awards, i got watery-eyed several times… surrounding myself with the best of british music, feeling part of it all, cheering on jamelia and booing the reality teevee wankers and understanding the nuances between uk garage and uk r’n'b and us r’n'b and us hip-hop. it just felt really good to part of something so fresh and amazing and [relatively] radical as the uk music scene. even if i was sat at home on my couch.

it could just be a usual case of suicide tuesday, but sat there i felt joy laughing at the darkness and raising an eyebrow at daniel beddingfield‘s win and watching justin big-up lemar and cringe as busted destroyed another .popstarz anthem. as i continue my months of unemployment/soul-searching/plotting-and-scheming/drinking, it’s becoming so obviously obvious that london is my home, and will be home for a while. this i know.

tears of joy have been popping up each and every time i read about the gay weddings in san francisco. what a pleasant shocker—the new mayor gavin newsom, 2 weeks into office, ignores governator arnie and bush co.‘s conservative bible-thumping agenda, and begins issuing marriage licenses to [as of midday wednesday] some 3,000 same-sex couples. there are so many ways to look at this event, and the significance of these past few days:

  • many of the couples who drove cross-country [or further], queued up for hours and hours [or longer], were… well… plain. chubby 50yo lesbians wearing american flag sweatshirts. 35yo office workers with bad supercuts haircuts. couples that had been together for 11 years. or 28 years. with a kid. or 2 dogs. or 2 kids and a kitty. please, please, please explain to me how validating these couples’ relationships [with a marriage certificate, some tax benefits and a few other bits of legalese] will destroy the sanctity of marriage or promote homosexuality? it doesn’t—all it does is improve their lives, their families’ livs, and doesn’t affect you one. single. bit.

    and, don’t you dare start quoting the bible, cuz i’ll smack you right back for sowing a field with mixed seed or eating rabbit or wearing cotton/poly blends or working on saturday.

  • that a civil servant like mayor newsom would have the cojones to circumvent and challenge california state law so dramatically is shocking, considering the patriotic/scaredycat attitude which seems to be overwhelming the bush co. nation-state. this, combined with the astounding massachusetts ruling are the first few pushes towards true equality.

    equality, like they have in the netherlands and canada, for chrissakes. it’s momentum. unstoppable momentum. bigotry around sexuality is going to seem as inhumane and barbaric as sexism and racism, it’s just a question of who stands up, when, and fixes the preposterous situation.

  • hearing about the dozens of volunteers who helped perform the ceremonies, who gave up their weekends, who brought over food, who made signs of support, who threw rose petals, who played chamber music, it all just warms my heart. hearing about street parties in my old neighborhood the castro, of jewelry stores running out of rings and champagne flying of the shelves, connects this week with other victories like the age of consent and the sodomy ruling and section 17 and the stonewall riots.

it looks like this year’s american presidential debates and election will bring it all out into the open. let’s talk about why civil partnerships [separate-but-equal] won’t cut it. let’s clarify that marriage is a governmental institution, not a religious one. let’s quote the bible. let’s talk about how horrible an idea it would be to permanently amend the constitution. let’s bring up, again, for the millionth time that gays are child molesters [most child molesters are straight men] or how homosexualit is not a disease, nor is it contagious. or how maybe, just maybe, instilling in young children that being gay is acceptable, and that, yes, you can live happily ever after with a boy or a girl, how instilling this in children will prevent suicides and horrible bullying and horrible adolescences.

i have a dream. a dream that one day, this won’t fucking be a defining characteristic of people’s personalities, that it won’t be a monkey on 10% 20% of the population’s back, and that modern america won’t be dragged around like a brain-dead pet monkey on a leash by a brain-dead bible-thumping hypocrite like dubya. phew!

or maybe i’ll just ignore america, listen to my brit-pop and my brit-rock and my uk-garage and celebrate living in a place like london, where things smell a helluva lot more intelligent.

sure, the uk may have its conservative areas, but it’s nowhere near as bad as those states colored red on the last presedential election’s map. remember matthew limon. remember matthew shepherd. think about fred phelps. no thanks—even in wales they like will young, even in scotland they watch graham norton, and even in finsbury park, when i walk home at 425am, the roving bands of teenage hoodlums, when they yell hey, puffta!, they mean it affectionately.

9 years, 3 months ago
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i hate cod with skin


what did you call me?

my apologies for the lack of updates… it’s been a madcap weekend [starting last wednesday], and, for some unknown reason my left hand is sorta paralyzed, presumbably a pinched nerve of some sort, making typing a bit difficult. bring out da gimp!

wednesday i found myself having a sober and innocent night out with flatmate mitch to .heaven. grooved for a few hours to some sweaty r’n'b [as per usual], but no seducing of breakdancers, snogging of bartenders, or pulling of brazilians.

thursday was marky’s twenty-seven-teenth birthday, and we glammed it up as only marky knows how. by the time we exchanged prezzies, finished dinner, and hit up friendly society, all of the usual crew were in attendence—.gregiño, atif, andrew, karl, darian—with the notable exception of mark the birthday boy. he disappeared around 9pm as maria was preparing him a special birthday cocktail…

ignoring his mobile as we searched around soho for him, eventually the rest of us decided to head over to .discotec, where we all got a little bit too wild, several of us getting chucked out, and yours truly being naughty naughty naughty in ways i’d never been before. mark resurfaced in the early morning in vauxhall, sans mobile, sans wallet, sans birthday gifts. this was after he had his car stolen last saturday and got the sack last friday. i’ve done my best to convince my friend that a fresh start at london life is in order.

friday i woke up without the use of my left hand… it’s same sensation as when one falls asleep on one’s arm… tingling numbness. and, no, it’s not what you’re thinking—i use my right hand for that. had a productive day at the office, and after work i took a nap at the cinema before meeting atif for drinkies at friendly which was teeming with cute laddies… it was if the runways of fashion week had trapdoors dropping models into the damp back-alley dungeon of friendly.

entering .popstarz, it was like tiptoeing through a landmine… exes left, right and center. i carefully navigated the cloakroom queue to avoid french sid, the lovely lad whose heart i apprently broke last autumn, then hid in the r’n'b room from grand theft auto gerry the cocky scally lad who i’d last romanced on the beach at brighton pride. i spent most of the evening juggling several scottish lads… the first was jamie, a shy moppy floppy student with an overprotective fag hag. working every angle, i eventually made it past her defenses and dragged him onto the dance floor. as we pogoed around to ladytron, he says, ooh, look, it’s that actor, that cute one from holby city! i feign ignorance as i glance over to see the two davids, one the lovely star-trek-loving, pet-shop-boys-admiring, gay-politico blogger, the other the lovely tinseltown-starring, holby-city-midwife, freshly-back-from-brazil actor. actor david sees me, runs over and mounts me, shocking not only me but of course my pull jamie. actor david and i swing around in drunken slow-motion, and i think he was trying to climb onto my shoulders when we toppled to the [sticky, red stripe-covered] floor.

we snogged for a good few minutes [fireworks! wedding bells!] before i remembered that jamie was still there. well, his fag hag came over and beat me up, jamie stormed off, and i resumed catching up with actor david. i proposed marriage to him [or maybe just a honeymoon] as blogger david looked on with mock horror. i think actor david and i make a lovely couple, and our grandkids would be amused with the story of how grandpa and grandpa first met.

saturday met up with flatmate mitch & chris, darian & duncan, .gregiño and atif at ku bar, where we started off valentines day with blowjobs from the twinkalicious cast of the eurocreme porn spy boy. the boys were even friendlier than during the premiere, and we sat and flirted and chatted. some of the porn boys were very much up-their-own-asses, some were surprisingly down-to-earth and intelligent. it was most amusing to watch the usual 16yo bulgarian/spanish/brazilian/polish bar staff getting angry at the porn boys for stealing their limelight.

afterwards we swam over to the very swank great eastern hotel for a very posh cocktail party with marky. we entered the giant marble-floored aurora bar, picked up some rose-petal martinis and settled into a plush valentine-heart-shaped-pillow-adorned corner table, we sat in silence, the lovely rumble of 100 cocktail conversations echoing around with some sultry house music licking underneath—each of us beaming with glee at this sex in the city moment. the party was intended as a gay professionals networking event, but it was more of a gay mafia cruising event. there was new money, old money, £85 haircuts, freshly dry-cleaned tee-shirts, proper handling of martini glasses and lots of expensive snorting in the toilets.

i wish we stayed longer, but, after shmoozing with just a handful of wealthy interesting cuties, alas we decided we needed to dance with some unemployed non-english-speaking students. we swam into .heaven, once again convincing .heaven-hating .gregiño to join the mayhem. quite trolleyed at this point, i spent most of the evening toying with the rent boys, catching up with manchester rory and having 430-in-the-morning conversations with student ian snuggled up in the r’n'b room. it went something like this, what’s your name again? when did i meet you tonight? where are you from again? are you a student? followed by a half-hour snog. lather, rinse, repeat.

tonight i had a menage et trois dinner party with the two scottish davids. oh, such wit, such humor, such good cooking. even with my gimp hand i gobbled up lots of good eatin’. we enjoyed some brazian desserts and caipirinhas as we overanalyzed some pet shop boys videos and gossiped about neil and chris. it seems i saw more of the davids when they lived back in scotland than now that they’re just down the road. typical big city living, i suppose.

i’ve become addicted to socializing—not the drinking, the clubbing, the pulling, the gossip—the blissful combination of it all. staying in for just one night in london means missing out on a possibly amazing night—meeting amazing people, sharing conversations with friends, finding romance, absorbing a very unique slice of culture and society. and blogging it all is one of the only ways i can ensure that i remember this wicked week.

9 years, 3 months ago
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