music




	Previously, on "GAYS OF OUR LIVES"...

	Our hero, Gattino, an emerald eyed love muffin of the first order, last saw Andy and James at the social event of the season when he introduced them to the Chester Cheesecakes (as that particular chapter of the Hells Angels likes to be known). It was an unmitigated success and both sides left with a deep love and admiration for each other, according to the wholey fictitious accounts I've given them. Subsequent attempts to do things involving A & J , have been thwarted by their not giving a shit. But Andy's guilty conscience and his boyfriend's withholding of conjugal rights until he redeemed himself with me led to an unexpected phone call...


	RESISTING TEMPTATION


	I'd only spoken to him the night before and made my usual fruitless and, more to the point, shameless observation that I was available for all social functions - and he responded, as ever, with a bitter, cynical, throw your head back, derisive "Oh the poor deluded fool!" laugh. Or perhaps I read too much into it. But anyway I thought, being bored stuck in the house, I'd have to resort to calling Phil ("my forever friend") in Chester and arrange to go out at the weekend with "Unkool and the gang". So it was to my amazement that Andy called me again the next day at teatime to inform me I was invited to join him and James along with 2 others on an evening in Manchester. Gosh I thought, I'll have to get washed. I don't know why - he didn't....


	In fact I was instructed to time my arrival to avoid seeing him get dirty. Sadly I managed to succede. Which is pretty much what he and James had been doing before I got there. But we'll move on. I'd hate to be thought of as indiscrete. We were joined by Andy's friend Colin (a pleasant enough architect with a disturbing knowledge of Rolf Harris song lyrics. He was also, as I recall, the architect of our visit to the Curzon that time. But despite this I turned up.) and his new boyfriend. Where we were going was certain enough - Andy's girl friend Arlene was events manager at Manchester's newest venue, the Life cafe - and had supplied x number of complimentary tickets to see ..well..that's where there was some confusion. He told me over the phone it was "either Haircut 100 or Heaven 17". I swear to God I thought he meant we had a choice. I was going to vote for the former, since though I have no recollection of any of their music, back in the early 80s the lead singer Nick Heywood was a bit of a dish. The other "group" was of the same period (I'm too young to recall....) and had one familiar song, we thought. There was some confusion over exactly who they were in the pantheon of rock gods. But "Temptation" was their biggest (read: "only") hit. Three guesses...? Oh, you only needed one? Yes, it was them.


	Now the Life cafe, a branch of the place of the same name here in Liverpool, is not, I'm assured, gay. But that certainly didn't stop them. Why, I felt right at home. In other words I didn't "pull" there either, but that's besides the point. The place had more fags than a cigarette factory. And quite a few cuties too. Which is nice. That young man in the toilets stood unnecessarily but generously close and then opened the door for me (NOT a euphemism) when I left. Oo-er. I felt like a real Lady. But in this place I was unlikely to find one....


	Having established who we were there to see, we stood perilously close to the stage - which wasn't difficult since this was a cafe-bar, not Wembly Stadium. Which kind of summed it up. The poster in the toilets for forthcoming acts revealed a distinct pattern. They were all big names. The emphasis on the word "were". Stars of Yester year, so to speak. They didn't quite go as far as digging up Dorothy Squires (All rush to your Boys Bumper Book of Facts..), but they came pretty close with king of skiffle, Lonnie Donogan. To those not in the know (i.e under 35 and born outside Cricklewood) Lonnie's biggest hit, in the 1950's, was his self-penned classic "My Old Man's A Dustman". If you're still none the wiser, get on your knees and thank Jesus. After Mr. Donogan - if he lives that long - would be Tony Hadley of Spandau Ballet. You get the drift. This place was the ladder going down that stars going up are warned to keep in mind. I don't mean it was anything but a lovely place, just that the necessarily small audience it provides must be a bitter reminder, to those booked to appear, of what they'd lost. As we waited with Drunken excitment for Heaven17 , Andy offered with some degree of sarcasm "I can't think why we didn't invite the Chester gang". "The German (Alex) would have liked it" I responded, for no apparent reason. "No - it would have to be Stalag 17!" he replied. I mean really, this constant, racially motivated stream of anti-German remarks is getting out of hand. And I can't encourage it enough....


	And on they came. They being he. If the title ever referred to a "group" it seemed to have disipated and consisted now only of the still familiar, but now middle-aged, lead singer and two new girl backing singers plus a bloke behind operating his hammond electric organ. Or something. I expected to see the singer flogging home made tapes of himself from a suitcase on the way out. It was all perfectly fine, and I didn't dislike anything especially, it's just that it's hard to get an hour and a half out of one hit. So he resorted to pretending he had more. "Remember this one, Manchester?!" No. "Crushed By The Wheels of Industry (Oo - oo!)" I'd tell you the lyrics, but you now know them. I gave up waiting for a Jerome Kern medly when he started singing some "New Heaven 17 songs - I hope you like them!" It was the Alcohol, of course it was, but I just stood there giggling to myself . Every song seemed to request of the audience to raise their hands in the air. The audience must have thought he was talking to someone else. "All the people move as one!" he sang repeatedly, and each time he did all the people, as one, moved their cigarettes to their lips and took a puff. Another song was "I'm going to make you fall in love with me". I had to admire his confidence in the face of such overwhelming odds.


	Now it would be unfair to suggest the audience didn't warm to him, and after each song the applause got more enthusiastic. But let's face it, there's bound to be some correlation between this and the fact that more alcohol had been consumed by the end than at the begining. I made my way through the throng to a place of rest before the end, just in time to hear him finally get to the only song of theirs anyone had ever heard of. "I can resist anything but Temptation" said the Mr. Wilde. Well I'm feeling smug, because I'm one up on Oscar.....


	After, and below, there is a separate late night bar area playing "some cool Jazz" (I'm quoting, not promising). This is where we retired to, and was at least a little more to my taste. Especially when the black girl backing singer from upstairs made an appearance and gave a seemingly endless and highly enjoyable rendition of Summertime, which brought the house down. Well ok - I mean two faggots on the front table gave a standing ovation. But no-one failed to enjoy it.


	The journey home was marked by the most bizarre conversations - so much so that I failed to take any of it in. Except that all appeared to be "invited" to the next great event in the Society Calendar - please bear with me, this is a difficult enough concept for me never mind you - "Miss Gay Wirral". Yes. The Wirral, I should explain, is the peninsula across the river from Liverpool and home to most of it's satellite towns like Birkenhead. (Chester just misses being in it.) That there should be any gay population of note is, itself, amazing. That there is a Miss Gay Wirral pageant staggers belief. It's apparently a beauty contest for hairy arsed dockers in drag. I'm told I must go. (Or was I the one doing the telling? Never mind. I will be.) If it happens it could be the perfect opportunity to introduce a new character to our Cast - someone with relatives in that part of the world. Troy is a boy whose biography is the most engrossingly depressing melodrama I've ever heard - a tale that encompasses death, rejection, alcoholism, violence, homosexuality, a search for long lost relatives, nipple piercings and , gulp!, living in Milton Keynes. As tragic tales go it ranks up there with that of David Copperfield. (And you know how it affected us all when he split from Claudia Schiffer....). We shall see.


	Being late I was offered the chance to sleep over in Andy's, between him and James. Sadly on their current diet regime there ain't a bed large enough to accomplish this feat. I slept on the sofa in a room alone with his pet hamster, Pikachu. The little rat wouldn't fucking keep still all night. So eventually I gave up and put him back in his cage............


	Hey Ho. Such is Life.