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The Murder Of Matthew Shepard - 20 Years On

Bag of Bones - Stephen King

This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours

Living Witness (Star Trek Voyager)

20 Years A Gay

20 years ago this week (possibly today, 80% certain it's today and not the 24th which is the other option...) I saw the Sixth Former.

I've told the story of my coming out story which started with the first time I saw the Sixth Former, the object of my unrequited love for a long, long time after. I think the fact my memory of the George Michael thing, which happened AFTER the Sixth Former, suggests my memories are not to be trusted too much and that, if that's true, I was still in denial about my sexuality for a few more months.

But I think this post, written closer to the time and thus a bit more reliable, gives you a taste of the power of my unrequited love. I'd totally forgotten this incident. At that time I was... emotionally unstable. It may not have happened. But... I was working when I wrote the post so I very much doubt I made it up.

Reading it certainly suddenly made me remember that first half term after my crush on him had appeared. It was literally painful. I can't imagine feeling emotions that strong nowadays. Teenage hormones certainly have a huge effect.

I don't know his name. There's no way he knows what an influence he had on my life, my tastes in men and, for a long time until I gave it all up, my religious beliefs. He passed through my life never knowing me and I never actually knowing him. But he left a large wake behind him and I surfed that wake all the way to Jim.

I hope he is well, living a happy life. I'm not as crazy as I was then. No "OMG I LOVE HIM!" stuff. Yet I do wish him every happiness possible for he was more influential on me than almost any person outside my Mum.

That quiet, beautiful boy. This poem always reminds me of him.

Ray of Light

Catatonia's International Velvet may have been the main stay on my Walkman as I went about delivering papers in early 1998, but Madonna's Ray of Light album was equally important on my boombox (yes, I had a boombox). Frozen and the Ray of Light single were always on the radio too and remind me of driving around with my Mum to Snodland and Tunbridge Wells.


Frozen was there in the cold winter months of 1998, when depression was rising and my first crush was blooming. Ray of Light came along when the first crush was over and summer had arrived, playing on the radio during my work experience at Saga that year.



Two songs that practically defined my 1998 (and cemented my love for Madonna which was first born in the 1980s when I LOVED Holiday when I was Tiny Jae).

Plus the other songs on this album like Candy Perfume Girl, Nothing Really Matters and the Power of Goodbye are epically good.

Lost In Space

1) I loved Lost in Space when I was a kid.
2) Lost in Space came out as a movie in 1998, that fabled year. Despite it being pretty bad, I liked it and it came out during my peak geek period.
3) I'm pretty excited for the latest version which had a teaser released today
4) I'm really just not in the mood to blog properly today so... this is sort of cheating but it's still content so it totally counts!

Brimful of Asha

There was one song that you could not escape in 1998. Brimful of Asha.



This was my soundtrack for that summer. It was EVERYWHERE. Definitely mixed up with my emerging crushes on guys at school at the time, hearing it now gives me a sense of warmth and happiness. It also reminds me of solitude as my thoughts were very much turned inward at the time even as I was laying the foundations for friendships that'd soon come to dominate the next few years of my life.

Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

1998 was when my Buffy obsession went from "This is good" to "THIS IS EVERYTHING I'VE EVER WANTED!".

The best 1998 episode was of course a Xander centred one. Whilst everyone else was drooling over Angel, my heart belong to Xander.

And in typical Xander fashion (we all remember what havoc he caused in Once More With Feeling!) he misused a spell to try to win the heart of Cordelia but ended up causing every woman in Sunnydale to fall in love with him... except the cold-hearted Cordelia. 

It's got the best mix of madcap comedy and emotional kick that helped make some of Buffy's greatest episodes.

I wouldn't be the man I am today without Buffy. And my love for Xander will never die...

Mulder and Scully

Catatonia would end up becoming one of my top ten music acts. I was a HUGE X-Files fan in the 90s so anything even remotely related was always going to find a warm place in y heart.

This song is very closely linked in my mind to my paper round, cold February mornings and my first crush. I used to play it, often unsuccessfully, on my Sony CD Walkman as I cycled/raced around my paper route. It's got a dark, melancholic feel to it that really tied up well with my depressive teenage angst motif.

This and Road Rage really were part of the soundtrack to 1998 and 1999 for me. I'm pretty sure my much missed Auntie Melly was the one to buy me International Velvet so, again, it's important to me in a big way.

Whenever I need a comfort blanket, something dark but warm, to see me through a terrible day... this is that comfort blanket. When I listen to this I can almost feel the weight of my paper bag on my shoulder and smell the damp gardens of Lynwood. It's like a sort of time travel.

Some Of My Favourite Scenes From Gay Movies

Jeffrey 1995

Patrick Stewart stole the show in this AIDS era comedy with a heart. Full of memorable lines, but this was the best exchange in the whole movie between his character and his nice but dim partner Darius.

Darius: Who's Martha Stewart?  

Sterling: She writes picture books about gracious living. Martha says that nothing else matters if you can do a nice dried floral arrangement. I worship her.  

Darius: And, um, who's Ann Miller?  

Sterling: Leave this house. 

Trick 1999

Coco Peru's monologue in Trick is something to behold (she actually runs her own Youtube channel which is PURE DELIGHT. Watch it. Now). IT BURRRRNNNNNSSSS.



Beautiful Thing 1996

Another movie that has loads of quotable moments. Jim and I often quote endlessly from this movie especially:

Jamie: You know who Claude Monet is?  

Sandra: Jamie, don't make me out to be thick. 

Jamie: Who was he then? 

Sandra: He painted the Sixteenth Chapel.

But, obviously, there's nothing quite like it's closing scene...



The Love of Siam 2007

I mean... this is one of my most beloved movies. The soundtrack is just as awesome as the story itself. Just plain perfection.



Get Real 1998 

A proper coming of age film this one... and from the BEST YEAR EVER. Ahem.




Jongens 2014

Recently gay movies have become... hmm... a little soulless. Jongens is a rare and welcome exception.

2000AD Prog 1078

It's been 20 years today since I bought my first ever edition of 2000AD. It was good timing.

I'd grown up reading comics. First the Beano, Dandy and a variety of old-fashioned British fare (plus Disney comics... Mmm...). Then, easily led by my mates at school, I got into a lifelong love affair with Marvel comics. Especially those God damn muties.

That was all pretty lame though, I discovered, compared to the breezy, modern and slightly naughty tone of 2000AD.

My first prog was a good one, one of those "All new stories" progs that give new readers a way in. Obviously there was Judge Dredd but my main excitement came from Durham Red, a character I immediately loved with such unique (for me) art and a great story. I remembered it so well that I ended up picking it up as a graphic novel too.

Soon enough Wednesday was a day I looked forward to. My Uncle gave me all his old 2000ADs including Prog 1. Joyous times. And, whilst staying with another Uncle, I read some amazing Judge Dredd graphic novels (Judgement on Gotham... awesome!). So I was hooked, this great British comic anthology stole my heart.

So what was I doing this fateful moment that 2000AD became my new favourite thing? Well I was standing at the counter in Roger's little shop in my "village" (a Folkestone housing estate) doing my "Head Paperboy" routine of sorting the magazines. I laid eyes on 2000AD and was in love immediately. It rested at the back of my paper bag for my round until I could devour it quickly before school that day.

1998

1998 has a special place in my heart. My memories of that year are full of warmth.

This is a clear sign of misplaced nostalgia. I spent the summer in detention at school. I wrote a suicide note and seriously considered acting upon it. I had very few friends. My Mum broke up with my stepdad which was a source of anguish for her and thus for me.

Sounds like a fairly crappy year, right? I've almost convinced myself. However I consider it the year that I truly came of age.

It is the year I finally got a real sense of myself as an individual. It is the year I accepted my sexuality. This is the year my tastes in music, movies and books coalesced into something recognisably similar to my current tastes.

In 1998 I still believed magic was possible and hope could still win over cynicism. And it was the year men really became super hot.

So, in order to help me find things to post about every day and to mark off the 20 years since then, there will be regular 1998 themed posts to take you, Dear Constant Reader, on a little trip through time and see the events, music and films that made me... me.

Now men with longish dark hair like this were highly important to my development and this picture isn't exploitative objectification but totally relevant to the post above...