|
|
|
 |
|
|
| Gays of Our Lives proper began with the meeting with Ben of Chester (as recorded in the episode "Niles Crane") but was in fact the third in a series of emails sent en masse to friends at home and abroad. It was the apparent amusement found in these that lead to the ever longer and more stylised accounts which took the name "G.O.O.L". There were also non-regular mass emails that simply don't belong under the same heading. Here are relevant passages from most of these missing "episodes": |
|
| The first embryonic Gays of Our Lives, "The Leaving of Liverpool", was a description to a friend of the visit - after several years and much anymosity - of Attila (Hunk Rockly!) to LiverpooL. |
|
| Well, he came - if not literally. // |
|
| Well he did in fact arrive at Glasgow train station in plenty of time and called me from there an hour before he was due to depart. We can't say the same about his arrival in Liverpool. He was due in at 8.24. At 8.30 I turned to find my sister-in-law and her little girl standing behind me. Attila had called our house at about 5 past 8 to say he'd missed his connection. This man operates on people. I was given a lift home and half an hour or so after I got there set off again to meet him at the revised time of 9.45. It was the same bus and the same driver. He must have thought I was one of those sad bastards who ride up and down all day pretending they've got somewhere to go. // |
|
|
|
| Anyhow, next day we did the entire route I outlined to you and even managed to accidentally spot the things I thought I'd have to leave out - namely the huge new Chinese arch in ChinaTown and SuperLambBanana, which they keep moving about. His impression of Liverpool was favourable. He thought it was all very "pretty" and, at first glance that the population was also an instant improvement on the deformities of Glasgow. // |
|
|
|
| We met in the Lisbon pub at 10 o'clock and after it closed went to the G-Bar till 2am (well, that's when Attila and I left anyway). The 3 Bristolians may well have been from Glasgow, though were very nice people// |
|
|
|
| I give a damned good impression of being utterly pissed. Staggering and giggling and at least affecting to be losing concentration in the middle of sentences, I also found myself suddenly realising I had my arm around whoever I was talking to at the time with no recollection as to how it got there. Real or imagined, the appearance of drunkeness let's you get away with a lot more. Attila was up dancing - with his vest off. He would, you can imagine, stand out! I spent the whole of the time in the nightclub lounging on this sofa affair in a dark corner, with James mostly, and was told by him and others of their "Oh my God!" reactions to Attila's looks. This is not what I wanted to hear, as you know. So when he had his torso on display they were even more awed - but I couldn't see this display thru the haze, darkness and flashing lights. So Lee, the sweet but bald leader of the Bristol delegation actually went and fetched Attila from the dance floor and brought him back for me!!! In all honesty he remained in silhouette, but like I say the appearance of being pissed is a great licence - I pawed at his chest and stomach!!! However not knowing when to stop, as he left to return to his arm-flailing display, I wrapped myself around his leg to hold him back....Yes, I think maybe I really was drunk.// |
|
| |
|
| Meantime I was a magnet for Lesbians. One fat utterly plastered bird came and sat on Lee's lap with her legs over mine, stroking my face like in that Lionel Richie video. "Are YOU gay?" she kept asking. "I am now" I said. "Ah, he's nice looking isn't he? It's such a waste!" she said to Lee. (I threw that in just because it was the only compliment I got - apart from very fem and sweet lesbian called Chris, a P.E. teacher of course, who wondered why I didn't have a boyfriend when I was such a nice looking fella. Thanks Chris!) I needed it. James, a propos of Attila's activities, said something which included the clauses "At our age...But at his age..." Twat! Attila's the same age as me!!! He seemed to think I was an older generation!! // |
|
|
| Attila, despite no luck, apparently enjoyed his night but decided that he'd only ever go/want to live in London or Manchester (which he's never been to), having presumably passed as swift and sweeping a judgement on the population of Liverpool as he did on the Glaswegians. Every negative opinion you now have of him, Steve, is perfectly justified// |
|
|
| (I also asked him what he thought I thought about him, given all my lustful/insulting comments. He replied "I don't think you want to have sex with me.." "No!" I said. "Oh?" I thought...) |
|
|
|
| The next group email concerned meeting the several new friends I'd made at one time and taking the opportunity to try and meet a couple of others who'd responded to a personal ad - in particular someone who turned out to be a presenter on local Radio! "A good Face for Radio": |
|
|
| Right then, the conclusion of the tale of the filthy DJ: you'll recall that ("Mr.X") was the startlingly frank and unsubtley smutty breakfast show presenter who answered my ad, and who - despite at first sounding ideal - rather put me off by his overpowering personality, including inviting me to call him at the station during the newsbreak! Well yesterday I met Andy for coffee in town. Before meeting Andy though I also got to check out/say hello to one of the other respondents to my ad, Keith, who was in the city centre at exactly the same time leading a team promoting chocolates (i.e handing them out). Nothing to tell you about that. Except maybe I shouldn't have told him I'm gorgeous. His confused and blank expression said more than I cared to hear...// |
|
|
| Anyhow, Andy and I went along to the Radio station to see if we couldn't find a photo of this mysterious ("Mr.X"). It was an idea I'd had for 2 weeks but I chickened out for fear of looking like a fan. Andy came up with the rather bizarre idea of explaining our interest in his photo as a Mother's day present!!! We don't even know what music he plays or what kind of show he does! So when we go there I pushed him forward and told him it was his mother, not mine. He asked the Middle aged woman at the desk in the lobby for the required item, and sadly she said there were no photos of ("X") since he was relatively new to the station etc. And as we turn to leave she says "You'll be surprised when you see him" Stop dead in our tracks. "Surprised? Why surprised??" She paused for a moment, adopted a slightly pained expression and finally settled on the following: "Well,....he has a gorgeous voice......" // |
|
|
|
| The Third such email used the jokey title "Gays of our Lives", and nearly all subsequent "episodes" are on this website. However I didn't start off with the intention of carrying that title on week after week, and after the second occasion wrote a group email under the heading of "GAttino's Book Club" in which to tie up loose ends and also to describe to the people on the recieving end who the other people in the list of recipients at the top of each email then were: |
|
|
| As many of you know Gays of our Lives has been taken off air pending an official inquiry by the broadcasting authorities, and because I haven't left the house. However there is still much to impart to a mass audience simultaneously to save me straining my wrists any more than I already do through masturbation. That's more than you needed to know, but not as much as I feel compelled to share. // |
|
|
| But first it's time I introduced you all, as some of the recipients of my group emails are finding their names popping up in the text,and others must be bewildered. |
| Ben, you all know - the dashing concert pianist; you're also familiar with Attila - the nearest thing I've ever had to an enemy, though in my wilder fantasies he's the nearest thing I've had to an enema. Apart, that is, from the enema I once had. He's an aneasthetist by profession and proctologist by vocation. Rennie is another Australian, but we forgive him for that. He's my number one original kitten, since he has child-bearing lips - and some of you may remember him from his days as a lounge club act. He was known as "Rennie D'amor - the latin swing sensation". But the law changed and he took up singing instead. Darrell James, whose credits you'll recall include the choreography for Gays of Our Lives, is - apart from being breathtakingly cute to look at, talented, charming and lovely - an actor of world renown. He picked up a TONY on Broadway, a Frank in Central Park, a Dave, a Mike and a Steve in some Leather bar and an Oscar in his dreams. Stephen is the world's laziest Social Worker, who happily dumps screaming orphans with the nearest satanic cult still open on Sundays so he can swan off around the world with his French sugar daddy. For this we honour and admire him. TDH, aka Tim is the funniest blasphemor not yet struck by lightning. He lives in Raccoon-shit, Texas and has managed even less sodomy than me, which he refuses to be a bar to him going to hell. He's changed his name to "Fucken Jesus" by deed-poll, and is currently hoping to become a mother. That's not a joke. // |
|
|
| He says it's a very good likeness. I know what you're thinking - if Michael Jackson had married Porky Pig...(The less charitable among you are thinking "But I thought he did?", but since Ms. Presley has never done us any harm that would be uncalled for).// |
|
|
| And so GOOL grew and developed - and got stale. Only one regular episode is not included on this site. This is mainly because I took to forcing myself, for the sake of extracting humour from boredom, to be incredibly and undeservedly insulting about the appearance of one or more individuals who I don't know but who might one day read this stuff and be justifiably hurt by my unfair decriptions. Here's some of the rest: |
|
|
| I made another, subtler attempt to meet anyone who could be bothered to turn up this last Saturday night, having been given assurances by my protector and shield, Andy, that that particular date was burnt into his memory, his soul and his diary. I regret not burning it into his face. // |
|
|
| I had my hopes set on his friend Stevie, who had contacted me separately, of whom I'd not seen even a photo, and who promised to be gorgeous. Given his other details I allowed myself a moment of fantasy that I was going to meet Mr. Maybe. I quickly discovered that Stevie's idea of a joke is to say something which isn't so. He lies. He lied. He brought one overwhelming impression to mind.....You know how in every American movie or sitcom, or whatever, set in the army (or occassionally high school), there is always a stock character - the wisecracking short-arse Italian sidekick, usually called Pepperrelli or the like? Well there he was before me, large as life and twice as big in the nose. // |
|
|
| I was standing chatting to one or other of the throng when something round and dough-like scuttled across the floor and grinned at me through the gap in the crowd. Draped in a shirt to hide his singularly pudding shaped body, he was designed by the Disney studios as a stand-in for every comedy mouse to appear in one of their cartoons. He played Gus in Cinderella . He didn't look well on it.// |
|
|
| No, the only value of the evening came, inevitably, from Ben who - in the absence of his German overseer - had returned to his normal self, which is to say sly, snobby, extremly blunt about his sexual activities, blunter still about his friends' failings, eyes twinkling with sarcasm and no compliment ever well intended. In short everything I admire and the most amusing person I know. The boy simply tickles me like no other. Not that I remember anything he said, mind you - I was too busy being impressed by myself. He failed to hide his lack of disappointment at the absence of Andy and James, in particular, on the basis that they didn't like him. "Who told you that?" I protested. Mark, he claimed. "They DO like you! It's just you're boyfriend they can't bleedin' stand..." Goodness, I just don't know where to draw the line. He said he couldn't buy a drink because "I'm saving my money for Germany". "What, for the war effort?" Like I say, I hold on to a succesful joke with verocity and unbreakable resilience....// |
|
|
| The singular development of the evening was the Phil Nightmare coming to it's inevitable crescendo. You'll recall he's the one who keeps staring at me like he wants to be my friend, whether I like it or not. He tells me twenty times in an evening that I need a man. A bodyguard perhaps? Well I was standing with the side of my face toward Phil as I was trying to make eye contact with a rather dishy young man, when he starts talking into my ear. "I don't want you to worry.." O shit, I'm worried "..but I want to say.." O Christ don't say it "..thank you. You've opened up for me..." No I fucking haven't! "..all of this.." He was refering to his crowded social circle and frequent evenings out . It wasn't my intention. "..And you know something?.." O, christ "..we're going to be mates forever, you and me." Ooooo, mummy..help me! And then he kissed me on the cheek. |
| "AAAAAAGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!" I screamed in horror, wiped my cheek and flung the kiss to the floor. It took all my restraint not to stomp on it. Then and only then did I realise the full nature of the rod I've made for my own back. I've so immunised those around me to the idea that every comment is an insult and every insult a joke that no matter how blunt I am, no matter how heartless or cruel or insulting it's met with an understanding, conspiring smile or understated laugh. The more I protest a negative the more it's taken as just me being me. And at once I felt like that poor little cat being pursued by Pepe Le Pew, the skunk. She could never convey to him the words "Fuck off and leave me alone!" without it being interpreted as a charming gambit in the game of love. I don't want a special forever friend - least of all one who stares at me all the time and thinks he owes me his life.// |
|
|
|
| This was followed by the trip to Newcastle and a return, I hope, to form. However, after the Weakest Link episode and the discovery that "Gays of Our Lives" is in fact an existing and succesful online soap in the US (!) The next episode changed it's title to Sunset Bitch. It was so poor, strained and repetetive - and recieved so little response that I thought it was time to call it a day and cancel the "show". Here however are some passages: |
|
|
| Travelling into town in the still of the evening was the most depressing moment of my short life. For the first time that I can remember, every stop along the journey the bus was flooded with hoardes of young men in their black shirted uniform of youth, all heading into the city to go "clubbing". What was depressing was the realisation, when looking at them, that every last one could stand in an ID parade alongside a foetus and no-one would think it unfair. // |
|
|
| Ever since I discovered Ben's shameful little secret I wanted to quiz him more about it, and hopefully work some public embarrassment into the process. You see it turns out he was born with 6 toes on each foot. And his father has webbed feet, like Marge Simpson. Now that's Class!! You don't get freaky defects like that amongst your Nouveau Riche like James. Oh no. Ben's a proper Aristo and only needs to contract haemophilia and sleep with his sister to be considered royalty. He's already married to a German so he obviously has pretensions.// |
|
|
| He also made a point of reassuring me that he wouldn't kiss my cheek like he did last time in a fit of drunken emotion when he declared we'd be friends forever. I explained to Mark and Simon what he was referring to, and Mark observed helpfully "Maybe you WILL be friends forever" . Phil's steady and sincere gaze is all that stopped me asking if someone else could be his friend while I just watched. // |
|
|
| James had obviously been expecting German Alex to turn up, as he himself came in the guise of a member of the Kaiser's imperial Staff. His latest disguise, having abandoned the role of "Prof. Daemon Van Homo, Vampire-Slayer", consisted of a moustache with the ends tweaked up, handle-bar fashion. I was Kaiser Bill's Fat Man, so to speak. Sorry, I mean Bat Man. Slip of the tongue.. I'm sure he lives in a world of private fantasy. Next week it'll be Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. But he'll need a bigger moustache. // |
|
|
| As for his conquest, I can't honestly say I took notice of his appearance except for his conspicuous shiner. I wondered if someone had poked him in the eye. It can happen when you tie your laces in the toilets there, I believe.// |
|
|
| Victor, who had been staring at me maternally all evening, started to get up and asked if I still wanted to go to the toilet. (Hold your horses! This story is NOT going where you think it is! I mean, really...) Since he was going himself and the cubicle might now be empty I thought "why not?" and lead the way to the field of dreams. You'll be happy to know that after some delay I did what I set out to do. But when I emerged, I was amazed to see that my towering companion had not been there for his own benefit as I assumed, but was waiting at the door the whole time, apparently there soley to give me..er..moral support. Charm and body waste rarely go together like that. I've never had a tall bald Netherlander help me take a piss before. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. But, by God, it's certainly a thing. // |
|
|
| I went home when the evening was over and reflected, as I so often do, that I really ought to stay in more |
|
|
|
| After this the show was cancelled with a Special Announcement tying up the loose ends. It didn't stay down for long however and was soon resurrected with the episode "How Green is my Liver", before it petered out again with half-hearted attempts to keep it going. "Oi Polloi" is the latest comeback. I doubt it will be the last! |
|
