Another One Bites the Dust...

Yesterday was a sad, albeit eventful day: I said farewell to two of the lovely friends I’ve made here, AT and TvH.

The morning started early, as I was scheduled to join AT and EN in Soho for some coffee at 11 AM. Since I arrived a bit early though (big shock), I was able to wander around and snag a few photos of the gaybourhood. I’m trying to take a friend from back home’s advice and take photos of all the every day things that seem common now but which I’ll appreciate seeing again in later years. One thing I noticed while doing this is that the Diamond Jubilee decorations are really starting to crop up around London, which I think is awesome! It’s amazing being a part of history!

Diamond Jubilee decorations near Leicester Square

Diamond Jubilee and Pride decorations at Village

Eventually it was time to meet up with AT and EN for real, so I made my way back to the coffee shop. We spent almost two hours, just drinking, chatting about our time abroad, and laughing. It was great fun!

Me, AT, and EN at LJ's Coffee. (Whew, that's a lot of initials!)

Following coffee, we headed over to King’s Cross Station / St Pancras International (with a brief stop at Forbidden Planet to pick-up the second Game of Thrones book) so we could find Platform 9 3/4 of Harry Potter fame. I have to say, I found the interiors of these two stations positively lovely! (Plus I’m a nerd, so I loved seeing the Harry Potter stuff!) 

Off to Hogwarts...

EN and I at St Pancras Inernational

With some time to kill still, the three of us walked next door to the British Library, which is both the UK’s national library and one of the world’s largest in terms of total number of items. Among other things, the library holds one of the only remaining copies of the Magna Carter (which I saw) and, in the middle of the building, is a four-story glass tower containing the King’s Library—65,000 printed volumes along with other pamphlets, manuscripts and maps collected by King George III between 1763 and 1820.

Alas, around 2 PM, it was time to say goodbye to AT. We walked to the Russell Square tube stop and said our farewells. It may well be that one of these days, when EN and I are back in Chicago, we will simply have to take a road-trip to Colorado to visit our friend. (What the hell, it’s only a 16 hour drive!)

EN headed out with AT, so I had about an hour to kill before meeting up for my last hang-out session with TvH, so I took that time to wander around the British Museum for a bit. I wasn’t too fussed about spending so little time there for two reasons: (1) I spent an entire afternoon there with Nic back in 2008 and, (2) I find the fact that so many of their treasures were imported (read: plundered) from other lands highly problematic. Nonetheless, I cannot deny that I enjoy being around such significant items as the Rosetta Stone—plus the Great Court within the museum is one of the most stunning museum spaces I’ve ever seen!

A flawed panoramic shot I tried to take of the Queen Elizabeth II Great Court.

What the Rosetta Stone really reveals is that I'm HOT (in the sweaty sense)!

 Around 3 PM I started heading back toward Soho Square, where I joined TvH for a bit of much-enjoyed sun-tanning, and to say goodbye.

———
 

Technically speaking, this was the second time this week I’ve said goodbye. He was originally supposed to leave the day before, and we had gone out on both Saturday and Tuesday nights to celebrate, but an airline strike of some sort delayed his actual departure. 

You can read about Saturday night here. As for Tuesday night, we went to Village for a drink or two, followed by a private karaoke place called Lucky Voice (it was awesome—the five of us in attendance had a private room for a whole hour), and then to Lupo where we met a group of lovely women from Chicago and New York (and where I had to push-off an overly aggressive Italian who was harassing one of our new female friends. That's right, I'm a bad ass—a big, queer bad ass!).

———
 

Anyway, getting back to yesterday, I feel like it’s been ages since I saw and felt the sun properly, so I loved getting out there and just relaxing under its warming glow. Plus, I had wanted to spend some proper time chillin’ in Soho Square for a while now, but just hadn’t had the opportunity.

I look tan here...but where did it go once I left?

TvH and I spent a good two hours bakin’ (the hair on my arms bleached successfully, but I don’t feel like I’m all that darker). At one point, I even dozed off for about twenty minutes—it was wonderful! Eventually, TvH’s boyfriend joined us and we headed off for a quick nosh before I had to leave for my third engagement of the day. We grabbed our food, headed into Golden Square, and enjoyed one another’s company in the open air for a bit longer.

Finally, I couldn’t delay any longer, and had to say goodbye to TvH as well. This goodbye was a bit hard for me, as TvH was one of the first new friends I made here—we started talking the first week of class, and started hanging out during the second. I have him to thank (along with his boyfriend and all of the other amazing friends I’ve met through them) for the resurgence of my late-night partying ways. I’m so very grateful for all that he and the others have done to make this hermitish soul feel welcomed!

From there I hopped on a bus and began the trek to Hackney, where I was supposed to meet one of my UEL instructors—DS—for a celebratory drink. Though it took ages to get there by bus (the National Rail system frightens me for the ridiculous reason that I’m afraid I’ll wind up trapped somewhere for over an hour while waiting for the next train), the place we met at was quite nice. 

It was called Pub on the Park, and it was just that: a pub overlooking a park.

Pub on the Park--we sat outside, around the back. [NB: This image is not mine!]

We spent about two hours outside, just hanging out and talking about everything from the state of the education system, to our mutual penchant for getting lost, to Chicago taxi drivers and the inaccessibility of London’s southside by public transport. 

Of course, conversation was slightly hindered by my annual bout of laryngitis and the fact that for some reason I turn into a gibbering idiot when I try to talk to DS. I have no idea why this is. She’s bloody brilliant, but I don’t have the same problem around my other incredible mentors from back home—just her and SM, one of my other instructors here. I think it might be because they’re bloody brilliant AND British. The combination may simply be too much amazingness for my mind to process.

So, all in all, it was both an incredibly fun and busy day, but also a very sad one. I’ve said goodbye to two good friends and I don’t know when I’ll realistically see them again, and by sharing a pint with DS I’ve quasi-officially transgressed from present- to former-London-based student.

This experience really is drawing to a close… :-(

Barbecue, Gardens, and People of Iron

What an exciting, fun week it’s been! 

In the last 7 days I have visited France, Belgium, and The Netherlands; spent two delightful evenings and one lovely afternoon with various friends; and proudly watched from afar as my sister graduated from MC to UMBC, my parents celebrated their 33rd wedding anniversary, my partner competed in and conquered his very first Iron Person race, and my Aunt Peggy celebrated her 50th birthday!
 

I’m positively exhausted!

I’ll speak more about my travels anon, but for now I want to focus on a few of the things I’ve done in the London area this week, specifically yesterday.

In addition to being my parents’ anniversary, yesterday was Nic’s big race! I knew I would go stir-crazy if I just sat there refreshing the athlete tracker all day, so I decided to try and keep myself as busy as possible. (This was a wise choice on my part since the stupid tracker stopped doing its job after the 56th mile on the bike.) 

So, after starting my morning off with a 5 mile run—don’t forget, I’m training for my own big race (and still looking for sponsors to help me raise $440 by July, which you can learn more about here)—I took my ever-generous host / flat-mate MM up on his offer to go walk around Kew Gardens, where he works. 

I had been meaning to do this for a while now, but with the recent weather it hasn’t really been an option before now. MM and I spent most of the afternoon there—it’s such a lovely park—but my camera battery was low because I forgot to charge it after I got back from my trip, so I didn’t get many pictures. 

Highlights included seeing: Kew Palace, where King George III lived for part of his reign (and which is featured in the film The Madness of King George); some wonderful sculptures hewn from dead trees and created by Kew’s artist-in-residence, David Nash; and, seeing the amazing greenhouses like Temperate House, which is the largest surviving Victorian glasshouse in the world!

The backside of Kew Palace

Temperate House

By the time MM and I returned from Kew Gardens, it was almost 6:00 PM—yet, with the time difference, I knew it would be another 9 or 10 hours before Nic was done with his race. This meant I needed to find something to pass the time last night as well.

Fortunately, my friend TvH invited me to join him, LD, and KS for a night of frivolity at my favorite London club, Heaven. Since Heaven doesn’t open until 11 PM, though, we had some time to kill and went to Lupo first.

————

I’m going to stop talking about last night for a second, and jump back to Thursday.

On Thursday afternoon, TvH and I met up for coffee at LJ’s so we could catch up on the respective trips we had both taken the previous weekend, while enjoying delicious coffee and amazing (albeit messy) caramel shortbread thingies.

Around 5 PM, we set off for Village, where we were to meet-up with LD for cocktails—and just a few at that, because I was determined to avoid a repeat of the prior Thursday’s sloppiness! Unfortunately LD was denied entrance because he forgot his ID and so, after TvH and I finished our wine, we headed someplace where LD knew he could get in: Lupo.

I had never been before, even though it was right down the street. It wasn’t bad, though most of the clientele seemed to be yuppy straights who didn’t quite know what to make of the three of us, bouncing around flamboyantly on our bar stools to the music. On the flipside, the bartender—a lovely Melbournian named Dominica (Dom, for short)—seemed to adore us, and it was in large part because of her that we wound up staying there as long as we did.

Lupo--we sat at the bar. [NB: This image is not mine!]

Eventually, our bellies reminded us that we were famished, and so we set off in search of food. We finally found this barbecue place called Bodean’s. (BTW, check out that website—it's awesome!)

It. Was. AMAZING! 

Seriously, it was some of the best barbecue I’ve had—far better than most of the stuff I’ve had in the US, even! I swear, they must have imported their sauce from the Carolinas, or Memphis, or some other similar place known for its BBQ! (My mouth is watering just thinking back on it…)

Anyway, back to last night…

————

So, I joined LD and TvH (and later KS) at Lupo. Our lovely bartender from Thursday was on-duty again, and provided us with a series of killer drinks and shots! 

Finally, around 11 PM, it was time to head over to Heaven, where the four of us spent the remainder of the night dancing our little queer asses off. We even made it into the VIP area before the night was over (though I didn’t think it was so great, personally—at least compared to the main floor).

All the while, though, I kept a close eye on the time!

I knew I wanted to be home by around 3:30 AM, as that was Nic’s ‘best case’ finish time, and with the inevitable drama that plays out on London’s night buses travel frequently takes longer than expected. Sadly, despite my careful attention to the time, the buses nearly thwarted my plans last night. 

The bus that would have had me home in plenty of time was too full so I wasn’t allowed on, and the next one—20 minutes later, which would have been cutting it close but still an option—never showed. (I can only assume there was drama aboard and it stopped somewhere until the situation resolved itself, as the drivers are wont to do.) 

Finally, I managed to get on a bus at about 3:13 AM. Since there weren’t many passengers, the trip took a lot less time than expected, and I found myself walking in the door at about 4 AM—happily, I returned just in time to learn of Nic’s successful completion of his race as it was happening!

Whew! What a day, not to mention week—but more on the rest later!

Thirty Days Left...

Thirty days. 

As of today—6 May 2012—that’s all I have left of my time in London. As usual, I’m behind with this thing, but didn’t want this milestone to pass by without saying a little something about it.

All in all, this timeframe marks the beginning of a period of transition—things here draw to a close, as I begin the trek back to my own weird version of ‘normality.’ And it’s not just the big things that are concluding, like my semester as a University of East London student. It’s also the little things, like the huge canister of coffee I’ve used throughout most of my stay finally drying up (the day after classes ended, ironically). Let’s ignore the coffee for a second, though, and look at my time as a student instead. 

UEL Docklands Campus

 Because the US Olympic team will be staying in UEL’s dorms, the entire semester calendar was out of whack. Basically, we turned in midterms, had two weeks of Easter Break, one week of classes, and then our finals were due. 

It was a whirlwind, crazy experience—and if you’ve been following me on Facebook, you know the experience was both taxing and moody-making. Nonetheless, I persevered, and in the end I think I handed in three strong final works.

Most likely, I won’t know how I did on those final projects until I’m back home, but I can talk about how I did on my midterms, as well as offer some final feedback on my experiences in the corresponding modules:

‘Cultural Politics: Power & Contemporary Social Change’ (CC1202; you can find the module description here): Though it served as mostly a refresher course for me, I did enjoy this course quite a bit. The instructors, SM and DS, were my favorites, and really knew what they were talking about. Also, I walked away feeling like I had a much better understanding of Marx—though I still prefer Foucault for his focus on questions of identity.

My CW1 (midterm) assignment was, literally, just the first draft of my final piece. A reflexive work, it explored gay men’s participation in the act of marthoning/triathloning as a form of body-modification and self-surveillance (in the Foucauldian sense) rooted in the discourse of HIV/AIDS and the idealized (gay) male form. On CW1 I scored First-Class marks (the equivalent of an ‘A’), and the assessor’s feedback listed my work as 'a very substantial and scholarly case study that uses excellent examples.’ Based on the early feedback I received on CW2, I’m fairly confident that I’ll receive First-Class marks on the completed work as well.

‘Realism, Fantasy & Utopia’ (CC2202; you can find the module description here): Whereas DS was the co-instructor in the aforementioned class, this module was solely hers. And it was amazing—by far, it was the most brilliant of the courses I took at UEL. My love of this class was not solely based on our phenomenal guide, however—equal credit goes to the amazing friends I’ve made therein, amongst them TvH, RAS, SV, and AR! 

As far as my midterm goes, I also received First-Class marks on this one. It was a rather easy assignment, wherein we merely had to explain the concepts of realism, fantasy, and utopia. As a funny aside, one of the critiques DS offered of my work was that she felt I was too quick to privilege the perspective of the artist/author—she and I have subsequently agreed to discuss this further, as this is an argument I tend to get into with everyone. I strongly feel that too much credit is already given to the reader, and that rather than privileging either the author or the reader, one needs to pay equal lip-service to both perspectives. After all, to overlook the author’s intent de-historicizes and depoliticizes the work. 

Based on the early feedback I received on my final essay—a critique of American Horror Story as a heteronorm-affirming Gothic text—I think DS and I are much more in-sync this time around. This second piece was approached from a Feminist and Queer theory perspective, and DS seemed really excited when she read the draft version. I’m hoping for First-Class marks on this essay and, with her help, I’m hoping to submit it to the Watercool Journal for publication—if accepted, that would be the second piece I’ve had electronically published in a peer-reviewed journal!

‘Culture, Power & Resistance in the 21st Century’ (CC3202; you can find the module description here): By far—by leaps and bounds, and fathoms and light-years—this was my least favorite of the three classes. The instructor was highly disorganized, often came across as condescending toward me, and lacked time-management skills. I highly recommend that Columbia students do not take this class. 

As a result of myriad problems I had in this class—which, to be completely fair, included the resistance I developed after one too many failures to meet what I consider good teaching practices—my CW1 assignment from this class only garnered a 68 (i.e., ‘B’ / 2.I classification). I don’t hold out hopes for a higher score from my CW2 assignment, as the instructor replied with his feedback right before the deadline—5 full days after the date he agreed to. Fortunately, I suspected something like that might happen, and so I asked DS for feedback as well. With her help, I was able to turn my work into something that should at least enable me to pass the class.

Overall, my experience with UEL was a good one. I definitely miss my home-uni, despite it’s countless problems—and I definitely miss CCC’s technology infrastructure, ‘cause UEL’s is atrocious—but the University of East London has been a nice classroom-away-from-home, and I will be eternally grateful for this amazing opportunity! 

So, what now?

Well, as I noted earlier, it’s a time of transition. The biggest thing on the horizon once I return to Chicago is my participation in the Chicago Marathon (26 miles). Given that I’ve never run that distance before—in addition to triathlons, I’ve only ever done a half-marathon—I’ve had to start training here. Yesterday I went for my first 3 mile run of the season. It wasn’t bad, but it was a bit chilly—9˚C/48˚F, with a cold drizzle—and a bit slower than I wanted. Ah, well. By the time I return to Chicago on 5 June, I’m supposed to be running 7 miles.

Speaking of the marathon, I should probably take a brief second to tell/remind folks why I’m doing it. You see, for the third year in a row, I am part of the amazing Team to End AIDS (T2) but, this year I’m putting my bike and wetsuit aside, and solely workin’ the running shoes! (Get it? ‘solely’ and ‘running shoes’? It’s a shoe-joke.)

Take a moment to watch this short video, as it tells you a little more about the journey I'm about to embark upon:

However, in order to train with T2 I have to raise (a minimum) of $1200 by July 1st for the AIDS Foundation of Chicago (AFC). HIV/AIDS continues to be a very real problem today, even though it’s not always talked about in the US. In fact, every 9 1/2 minutes someone in the United States is infected with HIV, and each year people grieve for loved ones whose lives have been claimed by the disease. Fortunately, AFC—which was founded in 1985 by community activists and physicians—is leading the fight against HIV/AIDS, and striving to improve the lives of people in the Chicago area who are affected by this pandemic. By funding prevention programs and vital services such as medical care, food and housing, AFC works to stop new infections while helping to keep people with HIV/AIDS alive until the day there’s a cure.

So here’s the skinny:

On top of wanting to overcome a new physical challenge (and achieve a fit-in-the-British-sense body), I desperately need help in raising $1200 for the AIDS Foundation of Chicago this year. As of right now, I only have $540 to go! Not only will sponsors be joining me in the fight against HIV/AIDS, but they will also be supporting me in the pursual of a personal goal that—even a year ago—I never considered possible.

All one has to do is visit my fundraising page and click on the ‘Sponsor Me’ button in the upper left-hand corner (or, if interested in making alternative payment arrangements—which includes sponsorship by volunteerism—just let me know). Any and all donations are appreciated, including those from people living outside of the U.S., and they’re tax deductible to boot!

AC, JD, AT, Nic, and Me after completing the 2011 Chicago Triathlon with T2.

Other than that, the plan is simply to make the most of my remaining 30 days abroad. 

I’ve certainly already started in regards to celebrating my time here—a certain less than stellar photo of me drinking a Mojito out of a suitcase attests to that (thanks, TvH and LD). But I’ve got some other things planned too. For instance, on Wednesday I’m going to go watch as The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh make their way to Westminster for the State Opening of Parliament. Also, I’m meeting my friend BC—she and I met during my trip to Morocco—for coffee tomorrow morning. And, finally, I’ve officially scheduled my final international sojourn during this trip: I’ll be going to the Netherlands (Amsterdam) from 13-16 May, and since I’m going by bus(!) I’ll have a chance to see the northern part of France and Belgium as well!

Amsterdam's Red Light District. [NB: This photo is not mine!]

Oh, yes, the next few weeks will be very exciting!

"Is it Drunk, Ye Are?"

[Yes, that title's a reference to Darby O'Gill and the Little People. It's still practically St Patricks' Day, so bite me if you disapprove of my obscure 'Irish' references.]

I have definitely been paying homage to my Irish roots this weekend, and I know my liver will be quite happy to return to a state of normality over the next few days. But, an awesome time was had throughout, and I was able to engage in some much-needed catching up with friends…

Friday (16 March) found me meeting up with my friend EN—the other student from Columbia who’s attending UEL—for a late dinner. And I mean late! Initially we had difficulty finding anyplace that was still serving dinner because it was after 10 PM. Finally, on the verge of absolute starvation, we stumbled into a place called Maxwell’s in Covent Garden...what we didn’t catch was the blub about it being the “best American restaurant in London.”

Seriously.

After we caught on—somewhere between seeing the large portrait of ‘Aunt Jemima’ that loomed over my shoulder, and the giant, golden Presidential Seal that was visible over EN’s shoulder—I was forced to ask her why it was that we kept winding up in American cafes? (You may remember from this post that the first time we toured around London together we also wound up in such a setting—quite by accident, I assure you!) We never did come up with an answer.

You can actually catch a glimpse of the 'Aunt Jemima' poster on their website! *SMDH*

At any rate, the food was both okay and reasonably priced. Sadly, the waiter sucked—he was so busy schmoozing with the table behind us about his time in Italy that it took almost 20 minutes (I was timing it) to get his attention so that we could request the check. In the end, we didn’t leave Maxwell’s until about 12:15 AM. That’s right: A.M. Suffice to say, I won’t be rushing back to dine there anytime soon.

Freed from Maxwell’s, we headed to Soho—turns out EN had never been to a gay club before, and I was determined to rectify this grave oversight in funness. (Yeah, I know that's not a real word.) Though EN and I had wristbands to get into G-A-Y Bar from earlier in the night, they were already closed, and so we headed to Village instead. We had enough time for exactly one drink, accompanied by a bartop performance of Aretha Franklin’s ‘Think’ (the 'Blues Brothers' version, one of my favorite songs) as rendered by a queen and some scantily clad men, before Village too shut down. Le sigh. A bit disgusted, we called it a night.

Whereas Friday wound up being an early night (relatively speaking), last night was anything but…but I’ll get to that in a moment.

First things first: my Saturday night started off with a trip to Leicester Square Theatre in order to catch the divine (and problematic) Joan Collins in her one-woman show ‘One Night with Joan.’

Two Sexy Bitches?

It was everything I expected it to be, and more! 

Basically, the gist is that you have an auditorium filled with middle-aged gay men who are hootin’ and hollerin’ as Collins sits back and tells them (us) about her sordid life—everything form her childhood, to first-husband Maxwell Reed’s attempt at selling her to “an Arab sheik for £10,000”, to Marilyn Monroe’s advice about the Casting Couch. In all, no big shocks there, and pretty much what you would expect from such a performance.

But it really was funny in that uber-campy way! Her stories about run-ins with the likes of Joan Crawford (her namesake) and Bette Davis were riotous, and she never once hesitated to make fun of her own acting abilities and/or the roles that she's accepted during her career! (And yes, she did make a dig at Linda Evans/Krystle, and joked about the shoulder pads being so large that the women had to enter rooms sideways.) There were so many names dropped during the show that I was tripping over them as I left. Also, putting her ‘bitch’ reputation on display for the audience, Ms. Collins started heckling a drunken guy in the audience during the second act for the way he laughed—that's right, she heckled an audience member. Fortunately he didn’t seem to mind. 

And how could I talk about the actress behind Alexis Morell-Carrington-Colby-Dexter-Rowan-Colby without addressing her ensemble? Ms. Collins spent the first act in a heavily sequined, black, off-the-shoulders number that was highly reminiscent of the Catwoman costumes from the Adam West era. (NB: This is different from the costume seen in the video and picture above.) And then, for the second act, she switched into a white-and-gold gown that could have come from the Dynasty costume department. Awesome!

As for the theatre itself, it was super-small! My ticket—though it was billed as being off to the side and near the back—was practically in the center and only twelve rows back, owing to the size of the place. I could see everything perfectly, including the little puff of smoke (vapor) coming from Ms. Collins’ cigarette. Also related to the performance space, I have to give major props to the Leicester Square Theatre staff for getting in on the fun: the announcer's voice at the beginning—the one that tells the younger people to silence their cell phones and the older people to unwrap their Wearther’s Candies—concluded with, “[If we catch you taking pictures] our staff has been trained to go the 'full Alexis' on you!” HA!

In the midst of my night with Joan I received a text from TvH asking me if I wanted to “drink like the Irish do?” For some reason, at the time this struck me as a challenge to my Irishness by my German friend, so I replied that I would meet him and his friends at Village following the show. Thus began my St Patricks’ Day shenanigans in earnest…

In total, the seven of us went from Village, to another place with overpriced drinks that we never caught the name of (and which  might have been a club for straights), back to Village, to G-A-Y Late (circa 1:00 AM), and, finally, Heaven (around 3:00 AM). By the time I left Heaven and made it to my bus, the sun was coming up.

Shockingly, I got up before noon and didn’t really feel any negative side-effects. Mind you, I also didn’t try to do anything mentally or physically challenging, opting instead to spend most of the day in bed, watching old episodes of ‘Come Dine with Me.’

Then, a little before 5 PM, I made my way back down to central London for the third time in as many days, this time to meet K&M at a pub called The George. The pub’s roots date back to (at least) the mid-16th-Century, and it has been connected to Shakespeare, Dickens, and even Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. Of course, I simply had to celebrate the history surrounding The George with a couple of Guinnesses (Guinni?)—it would have been rude of me not to. In all seriousness, though, it was great to finally have a chance to catch-up with K&M—they’re such wonderful people, and have been so kind to this lonely American abroad in so many ways.

The George [NB: This is not my photo!]

So, yeah: crazy-long weekend, but one filled with good times and great friends! 

How Meeting Patrick Stewart Sent Me to (Gay) Heaven

As soon as Nic ‘heard’ that I was in a funk a couple of days ago, he dropped what he was doing and insisted that I call him right away—he’s so wonderful! We spent some time chatting, and while we were doing so he was determined to find something that might cheer me up: he succeeded.

Nic found out that the incomparable Sir Patrick Stewart—favored by me particularly for his portrayal of Captain Jean-Luc Picard—was starring in a play called Bingo not far from me! And, doubly fortunate, there was one open seat available for last night’s (3 March) performance. Within moments, I had a ticket for said-seat.

NB: This is not my photo!

 So, last night I found myself headed to the Young Vic, sister-theatre to the famous Old Vic. Not surprisingly, I got there about an hour early (I prefer to be early rather than late), leaving me a bit of time to wander around and enjoy a glass of wine, since the theatre itself is attached to a pub. 

That’s when it happened…

I had just received my wine and was standing off to the side of the bar (people-watching), when a door to my right whispered open and out stepped a bald man, sporting a thick but well-manicured white beard, in blue jeans and a casual yellow-and-green-checked shirt.

No way, I thought, that can’t be him!

The man moved to the bar and proceeded to order two drinks: ‘Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.’ (By the way, can I just note how amused I am that there's a YouTube compilation of that?)

At any rate, I didn’t actually hear the man order ala Picard—and at this point I still wasn’t sure that it was even really him, because no one else in the entire place seemed to notice him except for me—but the man was given two carry-out cups of some hot liquid, which he paid for out of his own pocket just like an ordinary customer (and not like a knighted star-performer who surely has minions for dealing with such tasks). 

Having paid, the man took his two cups of (hopefully) Earl Grey tea and turned once more toward the door from whence he had first emerged. As he walked by me, our eyes met—for the briefest flicker of a moment—and I knew in an instant that it really was Patrick Stewart standing less than three feet away from me! 

Holy Lwaxana Troi! 

Fortunately, I had enough of my wits about me in that moment that I didn’t just fall to the floor and start begging him to do the ‘Engage’-flick-of-the-wrist-gesture, or ask him if I could polish either the Enterprise or his sexy-ass 71 year-old dome. 

Instead, I offered him a coy smile that simply said, ‘Yes, I know who you are—I recognized you at once—and I’ll be right here after the show if you’re looking for someone who’ll do all of those things that Beverly refuses to.

Alas, he did not smile back—he’s probably already got an army of equally sexy Will Wheaton-types making that offer on a daily basis—but, damn it, our eyes met and in that moment we were soulmates (even if he doesn’t know it).

But enough about my ‘encounter at farpoint’ with the sexiest (male) septuagenarian I can think of. Let’s get on with the show itself…

NB: This is not my photo!

 [NB: I’m going to talk about the show in three parts: the story, the set, and the acting—I think this is the easiest way for me to describe the whys and hows some aspects of the show were wonderful and others were decidedly less-so.]

Bingo was written in the 1970s by a playwright with Marxist leanings named Edward Bond. As such, on top of being a tale about William Shakespeare’s later years and death, Bingo also contains a cautionary—or, at the very least, a disapproving—note about the wickedness of greed and class disparity. 

Sadly, Bingo could have been so much more than what it actually turned out to be. (This is especially true when viewed in the context of our current, global socioeconomic situation, and especially when paired with something like the Occupy movement.) Instead, it seems as if Bond doesn’t know what he wanted the show to really be about: is it a play about the frustrations of a popular artist? is it about greed? is it about mental illness? is it all of these things and, if so, wasn’t there a better way to weave them all together? 

In fact, the Shakespeare character himself—though onstage for almost every moment—is given so little to do and say that it wasn’t until halfway through the second act that I realized Bond was portraying him as a villain, and not someone (as I had been led to believe through earlier words, gestures, and staging) who was trying to thwart ‘the man’ from within.

As regards the set and staging, they did a really good job. Like Les Mis, Bingo uses a revolving stage. Throughout the course of the show, the stage goes from being a garden, to a public square, to a pub, to a snow-covered hilltop, and finally to Shakespeare’s bedroom. 

The usage of color and simple signifier props was very aesthetically pleasing in the outdoor scenes (e.g., in the hilltop scene, the only decoration(?) is the freshly fallen ‘snow’ and an all-black background—and I don’t know what they used to make the snow, but Patrick Stewart and another actor were able to pack it into something that looked and eventually ‘exploded’ like a legitimate snowball). 

Shakespeare with his daughter. [NB: This photo is not mine!]

 On the other hand, the interior sets were all heavily paneled, and had that air of controlled clutter that we tend to think of when we imagine interiors from the Elizabethan era. They were equally appealing in their lack of simplicity!

As wonderful as all of the sets were—the hilltop and the pub being especially well-executed (I swear I’ve been in that exact pub before!)—my favorite setting was the public square.

Before I can say why, however, it is necessary to provide a bit of exposition. In the first scene we are introduced to the character of a nameless young woman whose family has just died, and who is in search of food or money. She’s trying to make her way to another town where, she explains, she has an aunt who will take her in. Shakespeare immediately agrees to give the young woman both food and money—this is one of the first things that confused me about his ‘true’ feelings—but before he can help her, a series of events leads to her capture by Combe, the town magistrate (and the most clear-cut villain of the piece). Combe has the woman brutally whipped and beaten—to the point where she is left physically and mentally handicapped. In revenge, she begins setting fire to buildings around the town. Eventually, Combe recaptures her (after Shakespeare once again tries—and fails, thanks to his obnoxious daughter—to help), and she is publicly executed.

So, the public square set consists of the actress—whose appearance has been made-up to look like someone who’s been dead for some time—hung upon a gibbet near the back of the stage, approximately 12’ above the other actors. Though the actress never speaks—her character’s already dead—she is the undeniable focal point of the set. Even from the balcony (where I was sitting) one cannot help but escape her lifeless gaze, and the impact of its attendant commentary on issues of class, gender, and societal controls.

Finally, we come to my thoughts on the acting...

In some cases—such as with the men who portrayed Combe and Son—I’ve borne witness to better acting in high school plays. They were awful! That being said, Patrick Stewart and JohnMcEnery were phenomenal!

McEnery—who also played Mercutio in the famous 1968 film-version of Romeo & Juliet (among other things)—plays the role of Shakespeare’s gardener. His wife speaks highly of their time together before he was abducted by a press gang. At some point during that period, the gardener tried to help someone who was about to be executed, and was struck in the head with the blunt end of an ax. As a result, he has been left with (what his wife describes repeatedly as) ‘the needs of a man and mind of a child.’ The effect is a character that is often portrayed as mischievous and fun. 

In fact, one of the funniest scenes within Bingo takes place as a drunken Shakespeare is crossing the snow-covered hilltop described earlier, delivering the start of a heavy monologue, when suddenly a snowball thrown by the gardener pelts him hard in the back. What ensues is a ‘snowball fight’ between the show’s best actors—which Shakespeare inevitably loses because (much like Nic) the gardener’s ‘score’ is increased exponentially every time he announces it.

Sadly, however, McEnery’s character doesn’t fare any better in Bingo than he did in Romeo & Juliet, and by the end of the hilltop scene he is dead.

The Gardener and Unnamed Woman [NB: This is not my photo!]

Finally we come to Sir Stewart’s performance. In some ways, this is like me trying to describe my longing to be with Nic again—it seems a ‘futile’ endeavor.

He’s Patrick Stewart, and he’s amazing as always. The only problem is that he is so severely underutilized. True, he’s onstage at almost every moment, and through his gesturing and facial expressions he ensures that the audience never forgets him despite those long moments wherein we don’t hear him speak—but he nonetheless seemed constrained by a convoluted script.

But when he is allowed to speak, it’s phenomenal! During the third scene (the one in the public square), he yells at the gardener’s wife about people’s seemingly limitless ability to inflict pain upon others. As part of this powerful monologue, he describes the vile ‘sport’ of bear-baiting that was so popular at the time. For almost five minutes, Stewart rails in highly descriptive detail about the bears being blinded, chained down, stabbed, and set-upon by vicious dogs that tore at their throats—all the while throwing in approximations of the sound a whip makes (‘lash! lash!’) and violent gestures for emphasis—all of this going on, Stewart's Shakespeare laments, whilst the crowd cheered and ‘The Virgin [Queen Elizabeth I] cheered them on in shrill Latin!’ 

The Patrick Stewart in this scene—and in the hilltop scene, once the gardener leaves and he’s allowed to finish the monologue he started—is the one that I am so in love with. This is the Patrick Stewart that agonizingly refused to see five lights when there were only four!

Shakespeare in the Snow [NB: This is not my photo!]

 And so, after 2 ½ hours in this legendary man’s presence, it was time to go. I waited by the stage door for a bit after the show (hoping for an autograph), and though I saw everyone else come out, apparently Patrick left by means of a different back door. Oh, well—that doesn’t change in the least what an awesome experience it was to see him performing live!

One final note before I go: since I was already in the Soho area, and since I was still feeling the need to be around people, I went out again last night. The original plan was to meet TvH et al., but they wound up not being able to make it at the last minute. So, it was just me. At any rate, I went to Heaven, where I spent a few hours just dancing and enjoying being around so many other people.

[NB: This is not my photo!]

Nonetheless, being the shy, self-conscious introvert and crowd-phobic that I am, I never made it too far on to the dancefloor, preferring instead to stand near an escape route at all times. However, in terms of what I was talking about the other day about desiring benign human contact, it worked out perfectly! I kept getting (politely) jostled and bumped aside by people going to and from the bar, and instead of being annoyed in the slightest, it was wonderful! I left feeling quite recharged!

Oh, also: this place is even more like my old stomping grounds than KuBar (which is the comparison I made here)! 

Okay, this one wound up being quite a bit longer than expected, so I’ll close now. Ciao for now!

PS: I'm now quasi-officially 'one' degree away from Her Majesty! YES!

NB: This is not my photo!

‘You'll Have a Gay Ol’ Time...’

It’s taking me a bit longer to blog about my Paris experience than I thought it would and, in the meantime, I don’t want to miss out on referencing things that are happening in the here and now. To that end, I’m going to set aside Paris for just a moment, and tell you about the start of my weekend…

But first, a bit of set-up: my sleeping habits are totally out of whack, and have been for the duration of my time in London (even before I moved in to Club Lithuanian Frat Guys—who, by the way, I’m more convinced than ever might actually work for the bratva because none of them ever seem go to work of any kind!). Most nights, I am unable to fall asleep before about 2:00 AM.

What’s worse, is that for the last two weeks in a row, I have not been able to fall asleep on Wednesday nights at all! The first time this happened, I assumed it was because of the pounding music coming from Olik’s room, and that I was wound-up following a midnight confrontation with him about it. (I hate conflict, you see, and it makes me feel incredible anxious before/during /after.) But then, again this week, this whole lack-of-sleep on Wednesday night happened, and I’m not sure why.

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(Mostly) Unrelated Segue

I’m sorry, I need to interrupt the flow of this entry for a moment. I just went downstairs to check on my laundry while in the midst of composing this entry, and ran into Olik, who is completely pissed (in the British, drunken sense).

He cornered me in the hallway, put his arm around me—which, by the way, is the size of a small tree trunk—and asked if I was bothered by the music he’s blaring at this moment. Not wanting to get into it with him again, I said that it was fine because I wasn’t doing homework, but that if I started later I might ask him to turn it down. 

At that point he nodded his head and smiled and said, ‘You’re a good person—I like you. You’re like family now.’ 

Good Lord, does this mean that I’m now part of the bratva, too? I swear, if anyone tries to kiss me on the cheek while I’m staying here, I will be getting right-the-fuck-out!

End Segue

_____

Back to the Wednesday sleeplessness issue, the reason this is problematic is that my school week begins early on Thursday morning, meaning that said-lack-of-sleep makes me feel like I’m in a fog for the next two days’ worth of classes (because, as most people know, the second day is almost worst than the first). Then, by the time Friday afternoon rolls around—and I’m finished with my classes for the week—I’m exhausted, jumpy, and feeling overall weird.

So, now that you have this understanding of my mental-, emotional-, and physical-states in mind, we can proceed to Friday (24 February)…

When I got home on Friday afternoon (circa 2:00 PM), my upstairs flatmates were already going full-force with their music and drinking. Mind you, all I wanted to do was sleep for a bit. But, that wasn’t going to happen—even after asking them to turn it down, they didn’t. This just added to my agitation. 

In short, my only option was to get out of the flat before I put my fists through a wall. That’s when I ultimately decided to accept my friend TvH’s offer to go out with him and his friends to Soho that night.

A facefull of Purple Steel before goin' out...

Fast-forward to 10:30 PM, and I was making my way from the Tottenham Court Road tube stop toward The Edge. Now, although The Edge consists of multiple stories, we never left the ground floor. This is mostly for three reasons: 

(1) TvH, L. (his boyfriend), and I were waiting for the rest of the group to show up;

(2) the bar—complete with hot, shirtless bartenders—was within easy reach; and,

(3) there were hot go-go boys dancing on the stage (which is tucked back behind the disco ball seen in the upper-right of the photo below).

The Edge, ground floor. (NB: This is not my photo!)

Owing to some stereotypical gay drama, the last two members of our group didn’t arrive until around 1:30 AM. But that was okay, because the music was good (I was shocked by how much ‘new’ music I actually recognized), and the remix the DJ played of Adele’s ‘Rolling in the Deep’ was amazaballs!

Eventually, four hours after arriving, the group decided that it was time to check out someplace else. So, en masse, we made our way into the gaybourhood streets. After a stumbling stroll, we finally arrived at G-A-Y Late.

Now, unfortunately, after standing in line for about 15 minutes, the bouncer allowed four of us to enter but arbitrarily blocked the fifth, saying he was too drunk. Mind you, we were all at the same level of sobriety—in fairness, we should all have been blocked.

Well, not to be thwarted, we once again staggered into the streets (pausing briefly at one of those port-a-urinals—using that was a bizarre experience to be sure, but better than being caught on CCTV doing something you shouldn’t, I guess!)

NB: This is not my photo, nor is it the one I used. Just for the record.

Next stop: Ku Bar. My recollection of Ku Bar basically consists of another hot, shirtless bartender with pecs like boulders and nipples like diamonds, a bit of dancing—which, I’m sure to the non-drunkards in the room looked something along the lines of the Elaine Benes dance—and a marine layer of that artificial club-fog that smells like a cross between artificial sweetener, armpits, and ball-sweat. But, there must have been a bit more to it than just those three things, because I also have a distinct recollection of feeling like it was reminiscent of my once-favorite stomping ground, Velvet Nation.

Finally, at around 3:30 AM, it was time to head home…

Except, I was a bit turned around, as were TvH and L. As an acquaintance of mine of Facebook just wrote about his similar experience this weekend, ‘after 3 hours of traveling back and forth like a homecoming hooker’s walk of shame, we said fuck it and tried to hail a cab. Tried. None of those bitches would pick us up.’ That pretty much sums up our attempt at leaving.

 

Eventually, after walking in circles—Piccadilly Circus, to be exact—for a bit, we found a bus that would take us to Canning Town station, from whence we could all catch trains to our respective flats. (Of course, this decision also necessitated that we wait until 5:30 AM for the trains to start running again…with all of us dressed for going out, and not necessarily dressed for warmth.)

But, I made it home safely (albeit not until after sunrise), and without being part of a mugging scenario this time. YAY!