Hi guys!

This here's the Blog* for Fishriver, a 30-something gay guy living in London, England.

I wanted to have a space where I could put up thoughts, insights, musings, rants etc without the mallarcky (that's a London slang for hassle for all you international visitors who thought 'what the hell?", when they saw that) of updating a web page.

I also wanted a space where I could share my experiences in the hope that others would contribute to the conversation and build a forum for chatting about what's it's like being gay in the twenty second century, what it was like growing up realising you were kinda different from other people and how you went about (or are going about) coming to terms with who you are and who others are too.

Oh, by the way, if you got here from another way other than my website, you can go take a look here

I'd really like people to add comments and stuff here too. Or maybe respond to the things I'm writing about. If you do want to say something, email me here and I'll add you as a contributor. You can then post to your hearts content (It's the the only way right now, sorry, but you'll get a reply email telling you how to log in)

* if you don't know what a Blog is by the way, take a look here

"Let the games commence!"

************************

Thursday, May 23, 2002

 
OK, this is soooo cool!

It's really easy to use and it allows you to make your own music video - complete with dancing cow which you can make do what you want him to.

Brilliant!

Milko
Nick Field posted this at 11:40 AM.

 
The Paradox of Our Time

An interesting viewpoint on life today - kinda agree with a lot of the sentiment:

The Paradox of Our Time In History - The Complete Version!
Nick Field posted this at 11:23 AM.

Thursday, April 25, 2002

 
Thought for the day....COW ECONOMICS

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell one and buy a bull.
Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows.
You sell them and retire on the income.

ENRON VENTURE CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell three of them to your publicly listed company,
using letters of credit opened by your brother-in- law at the bank, then
execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get
all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows.
The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary
to a Cayman Island company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who
sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company.
The annual report says the company owns
eight cows, with an option on one more.
The public buys your bull.

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of
four cows.
You are surprised when the cow drops dead.

A FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike because you want three cows.

A JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an
ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk.
You then create clever cow cartoon images called Cowkimon and market them
World-Wide.

A GERMAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You re-engineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once
a month, and milk themselves.

A BRITISH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Both are mad.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows, but you don't know where they
are.
You break for lunch.


A RUSSIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
You count them again and learn you have 12 cows.
You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.

A SWISS CORPORATION
You have 5000 cows, none of which belong to you.
You charge others for storing them.

A HINDU CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You worship them.

A CHINESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You have 300 people milking
them.
You claim full employment, high bovine productivity, and arrest
the newsman who reported the numbers.

AN ISRAELI CORPORATION
So, there are these two Jewish cows, right?
They open a milk factory, an ice cream store, and then sell the movie rights.
They send their calves to Harvard to become doctors.
So, who needs people?

A NEW ZEALAND CORPORATION
You have two sheep.
That one on the left is kinda cute...

Fish posted this at 11:10 AM.

Saturday, April 13, 2002

 
I've been writing this short story about going out to a gay club for the first time.

Here's the first Chapter;

First Night Nerves - Chapter 1

That was the 10th time I’d walked passed and still hadn’t gone in.

What the hell? Either go in or don’t – it’s simple.

You afraid you’ll know someone in there? – well if you do, there’s a pretty big chance they’re in there for the same reasons as you are, so don’t worry.

You afraid someone will spot you going in? – well, if they do, what are they doing down that road anyway?

For God’s sake just go in – it’s not that big a deal – if you don’t like it you can leave.

I look around. There’s no-one there apart from some drunken lad taking a piss in the corner. I walk down the alley again towards the door of the club. The alley that runs behind the Astoria, where the club is, is kind of dark and stinks from all the rubbish dumped and the pisses people have taken.

But there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.

Good choice – I thought. Although it was just off the main road near Tottenham Court Rd, it was enough out of the way so that no-one would see me going in. What made me so scared about people seeing me anyway?

I can see two huge bouncers standing at the entrance in their black zipped-up bomber jackets and pierced noses – they look fierce.

I can here the ‘thump, thump’ of the music coming from inside the Astoria – some Goth concert going on.

Earlier there’d been a huge queue of boys, girls and I’m not quite sures, all dressed in black, with chains, leathers and long hair, stretching all the way round the back of the building and down the alley.

No way am I going passed them lot!

Now, it was quiet. Apart from the guy taking a piss. But he didn’t seem to know who he was, let alone where he was.

My heart was in my mouth. My throat was dry. I had that really strange feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you know something is about to happen but you’re not sure what. All you know is that you’re scared, you’re nervous but at the same time you’re just really excited.

Excited at the unknown. Excited about what might be. Excited that you’re doing it at last. And yet, you know now, your life will change after tonight. No matter how you put it or even try and hide it – it will change. Hopefully for the better. Hopefully as you’d often thought and hoped it would be. But change nevertheless.

Two guys in their twenties come out from the club and walk down the alley passed me arm in arm, chatting and smiling and saying something about whether they were going to meet so and so down at Heaven. They glance at me, smile and then carry on into their own world.

I breath deep and walk towards the light of the doorway where the two bouncers were. God, was I shaking? Don’t be fucking stupid!

“Hi mate. You alright? It’s 6 quid and we don’t close till 3. Just pay down the stairs there.”

A smile. A friendly smile. Definitely not the pit bull I’d seen earlier.

“Er, thanks.”

“Enjoy yourself. It’s busy in there tonight.”

I smiled back at him. Phew, he made that easier than I thought it’d be - thanks mate. I walk down the stairs to the booth and give the guy behind the window £10. He passes over the change and stamps my wrist with an ink stamp.

I look down at my hand – I now had ‘Substation’ branded across my wrist. ‘Shit.’

Confirmation.

Will it come off? Will my flatmates see it? They’ll know. Oh well, I can scrub it later.

No turning back now.

Here goes.

I can sense the life behind the doors I was about to go through. I can here the music pounding away and the voices and laughs. I can smell the excitement, the anticipation, the lust.

It felt weird. It felt scary like I’d never felt before. It felt good.

The whole night ahead.

What was this night, this big, big night in my life going to bring.


I instantly see in my mind all the things that will happen later tonight.

People meeting people. Guys having a good time. A Friday night out. Smiles, laughs, music, lights, smoke, dancing, furtive glances, drink, eyes staring into eyes, whispers, kisses, more drink, who knows what. Partners arguing, shouts, storming off, tears, hugs, drink and then short memories, back to normal. Guys meeting, hitting it off and going home to shag all night. Guys doing it all over London. Guys doing it all over England in clubs just like this. Hell, guys doing it all over the world. Why not me!

What will I do?

How do you begin to talk to someone? How do you meet people you like? What if they see you looking at them? I’ll see someone I know. Everyone’s going to look round when I walk in. They’ll know I’ve not been here before. They’ll know it’s my first time. They’ll know I’m nervous. My God, they’ll know I’m gay!

Runaway!

No! Don’t give in now.

I push the doors open and walk into my new life.



you can read;

Chapter 2 here

Chapter 3 here
Fish posted this at 2:41 PM.

 
OK, OK. Not been here for a while. Work and going away and stuff has kind taken over a bit but heh, back now.

So what can we do today then?

Well, first off I thought I'd share with you some of my earlier ramblings - stuff I've put up on my website about various things, being gay, coming out, a couple of short stories - you know the stuff. I kinda get to putting this stuff in writing when I get in the mood and thought I'd share them with anyone that's passing by.

here goes... click on these links to take a look at the first couple:

being gay

coming out

I find I've got all these thoughts in my head that I just want to try and get out and the only way i know is to put it in writing.

And yet, I still find it hard to do that sometimes - sometimes it just flows without me even thinking much and sometimes I just can't seem to get it down.

I'd love to be able to easily express all that I feel, that I want to say, but you know it can be hard sometimes - don't you think?




Fish posted this at 8:55 AM.

Wednesday, February 13, 2002

 
Well, the weekend went *really* well. Mum had a great time and we all got on like a hous on fire. She's met my partner a few times but hadn't ever stayed with us so it was kind of a new experience for us all, but from the moment she arrived it was all pretty relaxed and we had a cool time.

Meal in on Friday, bit of retail therapy on Saturday and on Saturday night we actually ended up staying up drinking and talking till 4.30am!!

I mean, my mum's normally nodding off in front of the TV by about 10.00 so God knows what happened there - must have been the champagne we'd had earlier!

I think we've moved to the next level now. Considering that when I told my mother I was gay, she thought she'd lost me and felt ashamed and embarassed etc (thought it was as a result of being influenced by the people I moxed with in the big city and that it was a phase that I 'chose' to participate in!), she's come round in a big way.

I'm actually really please that it happened as quickly as it did. Her first reactions made me pretty upset and mademe think that this was going to be a long haul, if not a permanent situation and that things wouldn't ever quite be the same again, but after the initial shock, she's been absolutely amazing. Can't say that it's probably been easy for her - especially as I'm her only and so the big thing about no grandchildren was probably a major deal (one of the reasons why it took me so long to tell her, I knew that this would be one thing she'd find really hard), but I think we've both learnt a lot during the process and I think it's opened up her life to a whole new way of thinking.



Fish posted this at 9:09 AM.

Friday, February 08, 2002

 
OK, I've got my mum coming up to London this weekend - the first time she's stayting with us in 2 years! (since I came out to her).
So should be an interesting weekend.
Actually, I'm really looking forward to it.
She took me coming out and saying I was living with my partner, quite badly at first and things were pretty hairy to start with, but she came around last year and although hasn't quite been able to come and stay so far, made a pretty remarkable turn around in terms of feeling a lot better about it.

This weekend is the first time she actually asked if she could come up to visit us, so pretty big step on her part but major leap forward in acceptance.

I'll let you know how it goes.....
Fish posted this at 11:16 AM.

Tuesday, February 05, 2002

 
Quick interlude before we get stuck in.

Pics from the new Abercrombie & Fitch catalogue - HMMMMMMMMM!!!!

abercrombie boys

wonder who they're targetting then?


Fish posted this at 7:43 PM.