Daniel Warner2013-05-24T13:49:46-04:00Daniel Warnerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=daniel-warnerCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Daniel WarnerGood old fashioned elbow grease.The Perils of Online Dating and Why You Should Never Believe What You Readtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.32254482013-05-06T17:46:51-04:002013-05-08T13:41:51-04:00Daniel Warnerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-warner/
When I had the initial telephone interview with the production company I must admit I was little dubious because I thought 'you want to make a documentary about online dating and you don't even know how to Skype?' But then when I really thought about it, nobody's online presence is a true depiction of their physical self anyway, so I guess the production company didn't give a damn what I looked like, as long as I gave good (talking) head.
The researcher on the other end of the telephone line said 'So Daniel, tell me all you know about online dating?' Which sent me into this weird head space of believing that I was actually an expert on all things that go on between a strangers finger and keyboard. 'But I thought you were going to ask me a series of questions and I just had to give you funny answers?' 'No, we really need you to talk about your experience of online dating and how it has affected your relationships, both physically and emotionally'.
I have no great recollection of what I said within the next hour long conversation, except to say that I made about 50% up, 40% was about friends and the secrets they have told me never to share with any other living soul, and the other 10% was discussing those 'Uniform Only' websites in which people pretend they are firemen, nurses and policeman but who actually work part time in a fancy dress shop or have access to the onesie department in Primark.
My actual experience of online dating is limited but I'd imagine it's very useful if you've been barred from every pub or nightclub in the land. I also think it's very handy if you're a prostitute, a pensioner or a pervert, and if you happen to be all three then bingo, you've hit the jackpot without ever having to remove your underwear; but as far as I'm concerned, my experience of online dating has only ever moved from the living room to the bedroom if I've picked up my laptop and taken it to bed with me.
Online dating is like a takeaway menu for the chronically obese ( and I don't mean to offend with that statement because there is most probably an online dating site for the 'chronically obese'). What I mean is that the choice and possibilities are endless. You could have Asian on a Monday, 'Suited & Booted' on a Tuesday, Naughty Nurses on a Wednesday and 'Big and Buxom' by Thursday. The Internet offers too much choice and therefore takes away the comfort of the reliable. At least if you go down to your local pub you know by the time you've had 10 pints of Guinness and a pack of 'Nobbys Nuts' you'll be able to go home and get naked with the same person you do every weekend when you're wide eyed and legless. Online dating takes away that very special moment of having someone spill their kebab down your bra on the drunken bus ride home. It also takes away that extra special walk of shame on a Sunday morning when your eyeliners smudged and you've got holes in your tights.
I have looked at online sites before but that was mostly if I was doing background checks on people I wanted to date or was preparing to blackmail. The thing is, no one tells the truth online. If they say they are 40, you can bet they are 53. If they are say they are a 'company director' it's a sure sign they are unemployed and if they say they are a 6ft 3" model called Brenda? I'll bet my life they are a 5ft 11" builder called Brian. You should never believe anything you read in an online profile. Inches are added where there are only centimetres, hair is added where there is only toupee tape and £ signs are added where there are only pennies.
Where precautions need to be taken in 'real life' dating, caution needs to be exercised when you're trying to get your rocks off online.
Every single one of us is guilty of exercising extreme vanity when choosing our profile picture on Facebook so imagine the amount of posing, plucking and airbrushing that is used if you're trying to find your next person to mate with, marry, murder or mutilate online? The Internet is a dangerous place, and not only for kids who lack parental control and who should really be sat upstairs doing their homework.
I have no advice when it comes to dating online. I don't even do my grocery shopping online because I like to personally squeeze my plums and manhandle my grapefruits before I put anything in my basket and take it to the checkout. I'm all about checking 'sell by' and 'use before' dates and with online dating and online grocery shopping, you can never be too sure that what looks ripe and appetising online, isn't actually over ripe and vomit inducing once laid out bare in front of you on your kitchen table.
I think it's safe to say that there is a huge divide between gay and straight online dating sites too. If you give a gay man a phone or a laptop he's going to try and have / find sex on it or with it. If you give a straight woman Internet access she's going to try and buy shoes with it and if you give a straight man anything he can put in his hand and download images on then he's going to try and watch porn on it.
The only real advice I can give is this, what looks gorgeous and Grecian online could turn out to be grotesque and Godzilla like in the flesh. What seems exotic and expensive online is probably cheap and nasty when it turns up at your door at 3.30am, and what promises to take you 'on the ride of your life' in it's online profile, is probably on his way over to you on a number 53 bus.
Remember, unless it's standing stark naked in front of you, it's probably coming up behind you, and if you found it on the Internet, you never know what you may be getting or where the hell it's going.Online shopping is fine but if you insist on online dating, always remember to keep your receipts and remember the return policy, If it doesn't look like a thing like it's profile picture, you mustn't let it in.
http://www.picnicdontpanic.com http://www.facebook.com/pages/picnicdontpaniccom/129295347145050]]>If Sex Sells Then Why Aren't Gay Men Getting More Credit?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.31348312013-04-22T18:01:37-04:002013-04-24T10:55:30-04:00Daniel Warnerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-warner/
Sex as a hobby is a good one. It doesn't cost that much, unless you're sleeping with someone for whom sex isn't a hobby but the only way they can pay their gym membership, phone bill or cost of a spray tan, and it's something that in all reality, practice really does make perfect. Sex is like learning to ice skate, in as much as you'll look just as ridiculous standing up or laying flat on your back, either way, you're going to end up rolling around in the wet patch. Sex is fine when it's used as an occasional distraction from the matters in hand, but if you find yourself always thinking about being post coital and always taking the matter into your own hand, then it's time to step away from fornication and find out what the fornication you should be doing with your life.
We are bombarded with sexual imagery and that doesn't mean people are flinging themselves at us indiscriminately (unless you have a really popular online profile), it's more the fact that sex sells. The advertising industry know that for an advert to work it has to be the visual equivalent of Viagra. It's always going to be the hard sell and be up in your face but with it's hands down your pants. Pretty people make a pretty profit and the shirtless will always bring home the shekels. The music industry has always used sex as a bedmate, from the days of Elvis with his thrusting hips, to Britney and her schoolgirl tricks and now Bieber with his pouting lips. Sometimes just the merest suggestion of sex is enough to make teenage girls and a sizeable proportion of gay men rush out and buy, buy, buy and in the case of gay men, it always helps if there is a suggestion that the object of their affection could be Bi, Bi, Bi.
Sexual imagery is especially prevalent when aimed at gay men, so it's no surprise when every boyband in the land or any reality show winner with even a hint of pectoral muscle is featured shirtless, hairless and airbrushed across a five page spread in the latest gay glossy. The gay pin up is now the equivalent to the 'cheesecake pinups' of the 1950's and to steal a line from a film about dead people, "they're everywhere". A hairless nipple, a come hither stare and a "I kissed a guy and I liked it" headline is enough to make a huge number of gay men put their hands in their pockets and start rummaging around for their loose change. I don't need a marketing man or record companies idea of how the newest straight guy can maybe go 'gay'. I'm over the whole "I love my gay audience" or "I saw my bandmate naked" angle that is always used to manipulate the gay masses.
It's enough to make me feel cheap, used and dirty (and not in a good way) but more than that, it bores me. It's like a line we've all heard from a boyfriend who was never any good for us, who spent all of our money, drank all of our beer and never really came up with the goods. As a culture gay men have become the sugar daddy to the pretty boys who've sprung from the loins of Simon Cowell and any talent agent with pink pound signs flashing in their eyes. At the beginning of a B list career to the final death throes of a D list career it's always off with the shirt and on with the gay friendly connotations.
Do we really need to be teased by another head of tousled hair and another pair of tight and trashy pants? Isn't there enough talent walking along the high street without us being titillated by the talentless? Surely any popstar who's constantly in need of a hairbrush and the airbrush is never going to be great boyfriend material anyway? It seems that the gay community have been categorised with the same taste level as a prepubescent girl with a 'Hello Kitty' poster on her wall.
We all feel the need to look at pretty things but we need to be aware of when they are rifling through our pockets and stealing our wallets. Sex will always be used for the hard sell, to manipulate and free us from inhibited thinking and inhibited spending. Unfortunately It's not possible for us to fornicate ourselves out of a recession, instead it's highly likely that we're going to blow our wad on a marketing mans wet dream that's been used to dirty up our minds and strip us of our assets.
If the next time you find yourself parting with your cash because of a come hither stare or a promise of "I could be gay for pay" just ask yourself these questions:
Was it really good for you? Did you feel the earth move? And are you going to keep on coming back for more?
http://www.facebook.com/pages/picnicdontpaniccom/129295347145050]]>From Fashion To Buddhism, Could You Give Up Everything That Defines You For The Sake Of Enlightenment?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.30045242013-04-03T05:07:21-04:002013-04-05T10:31:30-04:00Daniel Warnerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-warner/
He will give up the ambition that has made his fashion business start to be recognised worldwide, and he will give up the social life that sees him flit in and out of hundreds of peoples lives every day.
This week my friend will be ordained as a Buddhist monk.
As an out and proud atheist I am in awe of his willingness to step away from the very thing that drives and defines him, and also at a time and in an industry where a fickle mind is the very thing that puts money in his pockets. Fashion is fickle and immediate, of course classic brands will remain and would have us believe that style will endure, but are any of us ever really brave enough to give up our passion, our growing business, a love affair or even our favourite meal in the hope of enlightenment?
Or at the very least, for a very large portion of good karma?
I look at the things I have amassed over the years and surrounded myself with, and not just the material things (of which there are many) but also the relationships and friendships I've nurtured or walked away from. I look to the rituals and 'quirks' I have that allow me to leave the house every morning and prepare me emotionally and physically every day, and I wonder if I could ever truly give them up? I try very hard to live a simple, uncomplicated life but when I think about the minor details that make my day run smoothly, things like a perfectly timed tube arrival and then actually getting a seat, or a deadline met with time to spare, or even down to just getting my favourite shower stall at the gym and I wonder, could I ever give up the inconsequential for a months worth of meditating and quiet reflection? Are any of us willing to let go of the things we can control to gain a little more insight into the things that make us 'tick'?
The reasons for my friend taking the decision to be ordained are personal to him but after talking to him and learning what his time in the temple will consist of, it is the total opposite of how most of us live our lives now. I am not talking about spirituality or moral code but more about the way our lives are filled with details and distractions and how our minds are filled with things we will never really need or learn to use. How many of us become annoyed because the barista didn't make our coffee just how we like it or because we didn't get included in a group email? How many of us really concentrate on what we should be doing or whom we should be paying attention to? It's so difficult to focus on anything constructive and when we do focus on ourselves, it's normally on how good our hair looks, rather than 'how can I make myself a better and calmer person today?'
"I will have to eat what I am given, I cannot ask for anything at all, I will have to sleep on the floor, speak quietly, sleep little, eat little. Practice patience, self-control and self-awareness every single waking moment of the day. During the time I'm a monk the key is to be mindful of every thought and every action. Not to yearn for anything, not to acknowledge when I'm hungry, to suppress sexual desire and not even think of it. When I'm walking only focus on walking, when I'm meditating I'm only meditating."
Sounds like hell doesn't it? I seriously do not know if I could do it or if I'd even want to. I've even given it some thought that maybe it's just his perfect excuse to step away from the frivolity and inherent falseness of fashion, but fashion is my friends business and he's very good at it. The decision to become ordained is not some spur of the moment whim or a "I need a sabbatical' ego trip. This isn't an 'Eat, Love, Pray' research trip either, it's a personal decision that is also part of his culture, his upbringing and at the core of how he makes his life choices. From listening to Mark and understanding his reasons for wanting to walk away from a life that some may see as glamorous and others deem as meaningless, it makes sense for him to step back and just let life 'be', but he is very driven and his company is his (financial) lifeline.
The boss isn't just going on a holiday, he's going away to become a monk. He may not ever come back? Or maybe he'll come back forever changed?
"When I was working on my most recent range an American friend said he finds it bizarre how I can be a Buddhist and function in the fashion industry. I said to him that you can work in any industry, no matter how bitchy or catty and still be Buddhist. If you don't associate, rise to or put yourself in those negative situations, 9 times out of 10 you don't find yourself in them. Some of my friends are Atheist and say that they don't believe in Buddhism. My response to them is, even if it is all hocus pocus, and karma, reincarnation, and merit do not exist? At least I am learning a psychology of how to simplify my life and how to do every action out of kindness... Surely something good will come from that?"
I'm not a Buddhist but for me these are the simple principles I try and live my own life by, but I still do not know if I could sacrifice all of my little comforts, the things that make my day better, or the relationships that help me to be strong to truly find some peace or the ever elusive 'enlightenment' that most of us are searching for, but what is most inspiring about Marks journey is he isn't sure of what he will find either.
I've asked him what he will miss most and he told me it would be his partner. His business will be hard to let go of and hard not to focus on but he has faith it will still be there without him, and even though his business is all about appearance, he's certainly not going to miss his hair or his eyebrows or any of his expensive denim. He's not going to be aware of getting or missing 'that Friday feeling' either because he'll be sat crossed leg in 'saffron robes' and enjoying peaceful solitude.
I have no idea if saffron is in this season but I guess ultimately, in Mark Thomas Taylor's case, once you're 'in fashion' you're never really out of it, even when you're a monk.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/picnicdontpaniccom/129295347145050]]>At What Age Do We Reach Our Peak Mentally, Physically And Spiritually And Should We Even Care?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.29306752013-03-22T05:55:31-04:002013-05-22T05:12:01-04:00Daniel Warnerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-warner/
Even though I try not to take notice of these surveys and 'findings', I still read them and then purposely discard them.
I don't care if there are scientific facts that say my face is dropping, my sperm count is dwindling or my hair may soon be packing its bags and leaving my perfectly shaped follicles behind.
I know I'm not in the first flush of youth but I also know very well that I'm not scratching about in the undergrowth of old age. I'm 41 and OK, in gay years that means that I'm half past dead and will soon become invisible to all except my peers and those with ambition, empty pockets and eyes for a sugar daddy, but physically, and mentally, I'm probably in the best shape I've ever been.
It takes work (once you reach forty) to still maintain a waist size in the lower 30's and a chest size that is more muscle than moob, but it is possible and it doesn't take the extreme focus and complete abstinence from anything that feels like, looks like or tastes like fun to do it. You take away the fun after forty and you'll end up looking like Madonna, the only woman I can think of who manages to have the sinewy body of a python paired with the face of a puff adder.
I understand the pressure on all of us to look good, to remain relevant and to keep the same level of interest we have received from others. This must be magnified a thousand times if you are in the public eye, but when do we make the decision that we are finally getting old, and for want of a better term 'past it', and do we really ever have the power to make that decision ourselves or is it made for us?
The beauty industry loves to publish surveys to grab our interest with the latest figures on what the modern world deems attractive and just how long we can remain desirable for. The most recent survey carried out by Allure magazine suggests that women are at their most attractive at 30 and men at 34, and in some ways it's good news. In a culture where most pop stars / models and actresses are barely out of their teens, it's nice to know that famous female thirty something's may have a shot at some kind of career longevity, but what about the men? And I'm not talking about the famous ones or the ones with a huge bulge in their bank accounts.
34 is just a year away from the gay death that is 35. Once you reach that age your chances of finding a date online or anywhere else are pretty much over. 35 in gayland is like 25 in old time Hollywood. It's time to give up any dreams of walking the red carpet or being a headline act ever again. At 35 you're like the movie actress of the 1920's and 30's who found herself relegated to bit parts and walk ons in front of a camera lens coated in Vaseline.
We are all living longer and for most of us, our early 40's are now our middle age. It's been said that 60 is the new 40, although quite how that works I don't know. I felt that by the time I reached 40 I was like a house that was structurally sound, built upon good foundations, had had all its rooms painted but every now and again just needed the furniture moved around. Of course, with age comes experience and to some degree tolerance, but I'm also very aware that with age comes the ability and the confidence to say what I like, when I like. I'm not a 'grumpy old man' (just yet) but I'm very aware of what works for me, what I will accept and what I will in no way entertain.
I don't know if this comes with age or the strong sense of self that I've always had, but for most of us, what can be easily led at 20 is in no way going to bow down or roll over at 40.
I look at the friends I have made since my twenties and fundamentally we are all the same. I still see the flash of 'up for anything craziness' in the eyes of my best female friend, who now happens to be a school teacher and lives an idyllic middle class life in a little village by the sea. I look to one of my other friends, who was never going to settle down and who's life was a never ending string of one night stands and short lived affairs and he's now into the 18th year of a long term relationship / civil partnership. For some of us, it's no secret how life and age can calm you and make you settle for a life of quiet domesticity.
And then there's me . . . . .
I'm 41 years old and still in the midst of a tumultuous relationship with nobody but myself. I'm still questioning what's important, what else there is for me to learn and what else there is for me to do and so I'm scared of just 'settling'. The very word 'settle' disturbs me. It reminds me of court cases and negating yourself to accept an offer, even if the offer is a good one. So this brings me to question the survey that says that 'a man is at his peak at 34'.
When I was 34 I was travelling the world and surviving on a diet of cocaine and spray tans. I didn't need to fill my life with love because I filled it with nightclubs and Man Bags. I was living the high life and I didn't even know it. I certainly didn't feel like I was at my peak, although I was definitely high and had my head in the clouds. Physically I was molded and sculpted by a trainer three times a week but mentally I was as lost and insecure as a Liberal Democrat in a Parliament full of Tories. I was on life's treadmill and I was running as fast as I could both physically and mentally. I was high maintenance and I was a high consumer, but I was in no way at my peak. The same way as I wasn't at my peak mentally or physically in my twenties.
I like what age has brought to my face, body and mind. The skimpy arms and insecurities of my early twenties have left the building and have been replaced with a thicker and more sturdy exterior, and the eagerness to please ran off as soon as my 'please yourself' turned up.
I don't buy into or subscribe to the point of view that we 'peak' at a certain age and it most certainly cannot be a standard age for everyone. I like my grey hair and I like the fact that I've grown into my masculinity. I've become so much more comfortable with how I look as I've got older. I'm more responsible for myself and less responsible for others. I have a healthy disregard for authority and I try to keep my life as simple as I can. Age has taught me that the only way I can be happy is to listen to myself and do what feels right for me. You can't do that when you're younger without being thought of as being irresponsible or selfish, and that's the great thing about being 40+, it's not irresponsibility that drives you, it's your life experience.
I have no idea when my peak will be? If I've already had it physically I can cope with that. If I've had it and spent it financially I will learn to cope with that, but what I can't cope with and what I won't accept is that I've already 'peaked' as a person, in my relationships or in my creativity.
I may be long past 34 but with regards to the most important aspects of my life I'm still wide eyed and excited because I've still got so much more that I want to learn and do. I have no idea who they ask to take these surveys. A woman being regarded at her most beautiful at 30 and a man his most desirable at 34 can only be judged by a group of 30 something's living in a Western and commercial world. I'm sure there are places in the world that by the time you've reached 30 or 34 you've already become world weary, jaded and cynical and for all we know even 'downright ugly'. Youth, middle age and old age have nothing to do with how we should measure our life's 'peak'. It's a shallow and ultimately detrimental way to think and to judge ourselves. I haven't reached my full potential yet and if there is ever a moment that I feel I truly have, I don't think I'll even be very happy about it.
I'm not ready to peak just yet, even if a survey says I did seven years ago. 34 was not the age for me to reach my peak physically, mentally or spiritually. I'll think I'll give it a few more years to see if the rest of me can catch up, and in the meantime just enjoy being 41, not yet at my peak, but still in my prime and certainly nowhere near 'past it'.]]>Dreams Of A Life - The Story of Joyce Vincenttag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.28322262013-03-07T17:50:30-05:002013-05-07T05:12:01-04:00Daniel Warnerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-warner/
A couple of weeks ago I saw that 'Dreams of a Life' was being shown on Channel 4. Directed by Carol Morley it tells the story of Joyce Vincent, a woman who died alone and lay undiscovered for three years. When her skeletal remains were found, she was was surrounded by the Christmas gifts she had wrapped, and in the corner, still switched on and 'alive', was her television set.
I had some memory of Joyce Vincent from what was reported in the press at the time of her discovery in 2006 but I wasn't aware of the life that she had lived, or the choices she had made that had taken her to being the 'woman who died in front of her TV'. Thousands of people die alone watching TV, so the story of Joyce had lost it's relevance to me. I was aware of her, but like some kind of urban myth, I hadn't really given her much serious thought. In fact, I couldn't ever even remember there being a photograph attached to any report of her death. She wasn't 'front page news', so in essence, her story died with her.
It's taken me a while to bring myself to sit down and write this. I was afraid of where having to really think about Joyce Vincent was going to take me because Joyce's story did not die with her. Carol Morley made a film and a testament to a woman who was beautiful, intelligent and gifted but somehow damaged and disconnected, and the story of Joyce Vincent made me look at myself and how I connect with my friends, my family and acquaintances. It made me question my own choices, and it made me aware of just how easy it is for any of us to disconnect, to lose touch or to make decisions that can leave us vulnerable and alone.
Joyce Vincent was young, vibrant and beautiful, and young,vibrant and beautiful people are not supposed to lay dead for three years without anyone questioning where or how they are. Vibrant, beautiful people are the ones we all think are having a much better time than we are. They are the ones that can flit in and out of our lives on a whim and we never really worry about them because they are most probably off doing something glamorous and having the fun we want to be having. We bet they are falling in and out of love or building the amazing career that's going to buy them an upwardly mobile lifestyle and a dishwasher. The one thing that seems to indicate success in a material and reality show obsessed world is the size of your flat screen, so it's as relevant as it is heartbreaking that Joyce Vincent died alone and lay undiscovered in front of a flickering TV screen for three years.
I don't want to quote Carol Morley's film or do an in depth analysis of it but it changed me. Joyce Vincent was the girl that all the guys wanted to be with and all the girls wanted to be, and I think when you have that much impact on people but you're inherently lost yourself, you become extremely vulnerable. Not many people ask how you really are or how you are feeling because it's taken for granted that you're always going to be fine and that your life is going exactly to plan. We all have our 'demons' and we all have reasons for hiding our true character behind a series of fake smiles or feigned bravado, and I think what the story of Joyce Vincent truly represented for me was that for all the opportunities that come our way, for all the people that fall in love with us or the friends that want to be with us, we are all only a couple of bad decisions away from being alone.
When a persons confidence is built upon the way they look, how much charm they have or how many people like them it's very easy to make the decision to walk away from a relationship or a friendship. It's easy to keep friendships and relationships on a shallow level and never really give all of yourself when you are afraid to show who you really are. Sometimes it's even better to just be alone when you decide you don't want to be the object of attention or affection anymore, and this can even carry over to career choices.
How many of us have walked out of a job because we didn't like how we'd been talked to or treated? I've done it more than a few times because I have always felt, 'oh well, something else will come along and I don't deserve to be treated like that' but something better doesn't always come along and a series of disappointments will break even the strongest of wills. Sometimes the lifestyle we have defines us and when it's taken away, we can lose sight of our identity.
I may be wrong but I took that away from Joyce Vincent's story. Her sense of self was conflicted by what she felt she deserved, what she should have achieved and maybe where she had finally found herself. Youth brings us confidence, especially when our beauty, vitality and personality is affirmed by others but what happens when we get a little older and somehow we've wasted some amazing opportunities? There isn't much sadder than a person still chasing dreams that should have come true ten years before.
For me, Joyce represented so much of myself. I try so hard to be happy, to be strong and to be independent but at what cost? Joyce Vincent's back ground is much different to my own, her mother died when she was only 11 and there is a suggestion of childhood abuse so her vulnerability and isolation is easy to comprehend. She made bad choices and turned away people that truly loved her, and found herself in relationships that would never be any good for her. A damaged childhood will make you do that, but from watching the film it is obvious of the affect she had on people and the woman she had always tried to be.
The film features conversations with the people who loved and knew her and yet somehow became estranged from her, and it is obvious that she was a woman who tried so hard to love life and to achieve some happiness and a level of success. How a woman who was loved and yet lay dead for three years without ever being found is hard to comprehend, but what I ultimately took from the story of Joyce Vincent is that she is missed, and Carol Morley's insight into her life made me change some of the decisions on how I will carry on living my own life.
Joyce Carol Vincent was 38 years old when she died, alone and in front of her television. She lived in a bedsit above a busy shopping centre and lay undiscovered for three years. Carol Morley brought her back to life in 'Dreams of a Life' and I'd advise anyone to see it. It will change how you look at your own life, your opportunities and your relationships and it has also made the life of Joyce Vincent an incredibly important and valid one.]]>Why Crazy and Deranged Will Always Be My Favourite Double Acttag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.27722632013-02-27T06:22:20-05:002013-04-29T05:12:01-04:00Daniel Warnerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-warner/
It goes a lot like this:
'Insanity doesn't run in my family, it practically gallops!'
I hate the exclamation mark at the end of that statement. In fact, I have a terrible aversion to exclamation marks when they are used in an effort to show humour! Or Fun! Or excitement! But when they are used to underline and underscore insanity?
Well that just makes me insane.
Insanity does run in my family. We've tried every mental illness we could think of. We've tried them on like a pair of shiny new shoes and walked around in them until the soles wore down and the heels fell off. Depression & delusion, paranoia and panic disorders, Anorexia and Bulimia, anxiety and OCD have all been worn over the socks of addiction and obsession. I wouldn't be exaggerating if at any given time and at any given dinner table, you get us all together and you'll have a giant smorgasbord of mental illness, and if you don't know what a smorgasbord of mental illness is?
Well it's just like a cheese board with an extra portion of crackers.
As a family we accept our mental incapacities, and we wear them like a badge or trade them like playing cards. I'll raise you a dose of my anxiety for a day of your anorexia or I'll give you two weeks of my depression for a month of your addiction.
Crazy is what crazy does and when you get a room full of self diagnosed lunatics and certifiable sociopaths together, you just know it's going to be one hell of a party. Even without the cheese board.
I'm proud of my inherited crankiness, I'm not ashamed of my infected craziness but I am in no way trying to undermine mental illness. It's in the bloodline of my family and has been passed down from generation to generation. Some people inherit country estates and royal titles, I inherited a mind full of thoughts and questionable behaviour. I was brought up not to conform. I never wanted to be 'normal' or accept the mundane but I can't say it's always served me well. It's the fear of being restricted or told what to do that has made me walk out of jobs & a career and walk away from relationships and a life of domesticity. I don't want to live a mundane life and I have never been fearful of change. It's always been the standing still that scares me, but as I've got older, and especially lately, I've began to realise that sometimes it might be wise to reign in my eccentricities and dampen the flame that always wants to burn the brightest.
I'm not twenty anymore and what is easily discarded with youth is not as easy to pick back up again when you've lost your wide-eyed innocence. The cloak of youth and ambition is a fine one but I'm starting to find out it's not weather proof any longer, and it's definitely dry clean only. I think there may even be a few split seems where the moth of reality has eaten its way through.
Youth doesn't age well if you don't pay attention to it and you don't know what to wear it with.
It's obvious that as we age we become more aware of our own mortality and those around us, so it scares me to watch my parents grow old and I see it in the faces of my friends too. I think for a lot of people age brings fear. It makes those who were once the ones we looked to for excitement and encouragement quietly roll over and 'settle' but I still believe I can do and achieve all the things I want, I'm just aware that they need to be done a lot quicker. I never thought the stopwatch of youth would be replaced with the ticking clock of middle age.
And what do we get given to measure our old age with?
An egg timer?
I've always been drawn to those people who have misbehaved or were deemed not to be 'normal', from my school days to building a career, from school discos to nightclubs, and all through my teens, twenties, thirties and now my early forties. It's the carefree and the 'crazy' ones that inspire me and excite me, but what happens when the ones who were always burning the candle at both ends and living La Vida Loca suddenly want to switch on the nightlight and grow organic vegetables? What happens when the ones who shared and reveled in your outlandish behaviour suddenly get all grown up and want to be in bed by 11? Do you change or temper your behaviour to suit them or do you leave them to their quiet life of domesticity and carry on looking for things that excite you and make you feel alive and inspired? I think this is the decision that everyone has to make, when do we give up our eccentricities and quirks and realize we've just got to 'knuckle down' and get on with it?
Do we 'settle' and grow old gracefully or do we refuse to settle and just grow old, all alone and 'crazy'?
I feel at the moment that I'm torn between the two. Do I follow what my whole being tells me to do and always search for the unexpected and exciting or do I do what everyone else is doing and realise that I should search for a gentle calmness and settle down?
I think for the answer I'll have to look to both my parents, follow their lead and example and remember what they've always taught me:
"Crazy is what crazy does" and learn to accept that I'm probably just going to grow old and all alone, with only my multiple personalities for company.]]>St Valentine's Day And Not A Cupid In Sight?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.26813652013-02-13T18:41:39-05:002013-04-15T05:12:01-04:00Daniel Warnerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-warner/
It's like the drunken lull when you're in a taxi on the way home after a really good night or like the mid afternoon hangover that suddenly comes and hits you over the head after a really amazing night.
In fact, it's like any thing that reminds you that life isn't all nightclubs full with tequila shots and short skirts, or pubs stacked with bottles of beer and football shirts. Sometimes life gets in the way of us having fun and the only way we can break the monotony of dull and grey, day to day February, is by dressing it up in red ribbon, throwing chocolate covered hearts at it and imagining fat little half naked cherubs firing arrows of love at us.
St Valentine has come to get us, and this time he's not taking no for an answer.
I've researched St Valentine, (and there are a few of the loved up Lotharios) and like anyone who supersedes others and sticks in our consciousness, the one we celebrate and get down on one knee for on February 14th has a rather sketchy past. Not much is known about him except for where he is buried and that he was born on April 16th, so quite why we celebrate him two months before his birth date and then say it with flowers, cheap perfume and condoms is anyone's guess?
St Valentine is supposed to signify love, romance, passion and post coital cuddling but in reality he represents the prose on a Hallmark greetings card, over priced and uninspired set menus and maybe a little extra foreplay (if you're lucky). How many of us truly believe in a little thing called love when we've been forced to sleep in the wet spot or turn a blind eye to someone's drunken flirting? Valentine's day for many represents a day of masking a seething anger and trying desperately not to turn a romantic meal into the Valentines Day Massacre.
A fistful of roses can be just as useful as a bouquet of barbed wire, it just depends on what vase you stick them in.
I can imagine that for some, Valentine's Day offers hope. I think the last time I was full of hope on Valentines day I was about fourteen years old and waiting for the postman to authenticate my belief that I was the third best looking boy in the school by delivering a sack full of cards through my door. As it turns out, I only received two and my ranking dropped down to the late teens. As you can tell, my school was low on academia but high on personal appearance. It was also an all-boys school and I received two cards, you don't have to be a genius to figure out why my admirers didn't reach double digits.
I don't know what Valentines means to me now. It's been two years since my last relationship and the only cards I will send will be to my ex and his dog. I bought the cards from a quaint little card shop in an upmarket enclave of South East London (there are such places, you don't have to go North for posh frocks and fine dining) and when the sweet woman behind the counter said 'are they for your wife or your girlfriend' and I replied 'no, they are for my ex boyfriend and his dog', let's just say she looked like Cupid had shot her between the eyes with a flaming devils horn.
Romance is alive and kicking in South East London, it's just only available in card form for a very select few.
I'm not expecting any cards, champagne, roses or even frantic, passionate sex this year. I'll probably spend the evening alone and cook myself a meal for one and then open a case of wine for twenty. I have no great hopes or faith that cupid has an arrow with my name on it and I don't think I'll be cuddling up to anything more than my lap top and a giant Toblerone, but I'm actually fine and I'm at peace with it.
This year I shall think that like puppies are at Christmas time, a Valentine is for a life time.
So I'll just wait for the right one to come along.]]>The Gays Are Getting Married? Let Them Eat Cake!tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.26494592013-02-08T19:00:54-05:002013-04-10T05:12:01-04:00Daniel Warnerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-warner/
I've lost wallets, gloves, sweaters and once even a shoe in a nightclub so if I did lose my potential to be a husband / lifelong partner or "significant other" along the way then it wouldn't surprise me. I just hope who ever found my credit card for a lifetime of marital bliss enjoys it. I've cancelled all my compatibility pin numbers anyway and now the only credit I give myself is for being alone.
I have always subscribed to the point of view that anything two can do, I can do better.
In the modern gay world and now that it's (almost) legal to be gay and married, it takes a huge amount of courage to be gay and single. The homos want what the heteros have always had, and that's the divine right to get shacked up legally, in front of family, a choir, a stained glass window with a cacophony of colour and a man in a long white dress. Who knew that getting married could ever sound so gay? And who, in the deepest recesses of their filthy little minds, ever thought that two men could get down on their knees in front of god and be betrothed in holy matrimony?
There was a time when "bachelors" of a certain age were automatically deemed to be gay but now with civil partnerships and our continuing fight for equality we can actually do the Beyonce song and dance and REALLY mean it. We can't claim the reason we are growing old without a ring on our finger is because we're out, proud and loving our gay life when everyone else knows it's because we've been left on the shelf, dumped at the alter and never even had a whiff of a bridal bouquet. Being gay and single is now as rare as finding 100% beef in your beef burger. Your hunk of beef is now hung like a horse and the best thing is, you can have him for life, he doesn't even come with a sell by date.
Not conforming and living a life that was different to what was deemed 'normal' is what all of our great gay ancestors fought for, the right to be free from the constraints of society, to live a bohemian life, to sleep with people indiscriminately and to have fun. This may now seem old fashioned, decadent and not in keeping with our triple dip, down in the doldrums and recession weary lives but even the spectre of HIV/AIDS didn't stop the disco ball from spinning.
However, it now seems for many of the eternally engaged amongst us, that the only time the mirror ball will twinkle again is if there is a wedding cake and an expensive reception directly underneath it.
When did equality suddenly become the byword for conforming and becoming boring? Yes, we all want what they've got but at what price? Are we marrying for love, for a laugh or just because we can?
I come from a 'broken' family and I live in 'Broken Britain' so I've never really succumbed to the whole idea of meeting someone, falling in love, getting married and staying together no matter what. In fact, I was interviewed almost a decade ago for an article on gay marriage when it was something that seemed so ridiculous and far fetched that my comments were 'If I had to do it for legal reasons, taxes, death duty and for keeping what was rightfully mine then yes I would, but as for love, I don't need to be married' and I still feel the same way.
I would hate to think that there are 18 or 19 year olds who are just starting to explore their sexuality and are already thinking of settling down and getting married. Life is for exploring and I equate being gay with freedom, the freedom to live and love whomever you choose and not have the pressure of having to settle down and conform.
I have heard so many times that the 'sanctity of marriage' is the moral fibre that holds Britain and the church together and it always makes me laugh. No wonder so many Tory politicians, sanctimonious church goers and Daily Mail readers have gotten so irate and hot under the collar about letting the gays through the church doors. Only god knows what we'd be getting up to behind the pulpit and around the back of the organist. Love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage so the clichéd image of two lesbians roaring up to church in a motorbike and sidecar is hardly going to warm conservative middle England to the idea of the love that dare not speak it's name.
And what if the trade off for letting gays get married in church is that straight people starting having sex in public toilets?
I believe in a thing called love and it is all encompassing. I don't need my relationships validated by the church, the government or anyone else for that matter but I do understand that for others to have their union recognized in the eyes of the law and their religion is majorly important. I just think for me, gay marriage has never really been about equality, it's always been more about the cake, and like the most upstanding and honest of politicians, I believe the sanctity of marriage is not always about love, truth and honesty, it's more about who will take the blame for my speeding points.
I have been invited to a 'gay wedding' later this year and I have already thought of my plan to catch the bridal bouquet.
I shall lay back, close my eyes and think of England, because ultimately, isn't that what all married couples do?
Gay / Straight or whatever they may be?]]>How to Make Fake Friends, Have a Fabulous Career and Fool Peopletag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.25853012013-01-30T17:49:16-05:002013-04-01T05:12:01-04:00Daniel Warnerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-warner/
A recent study (please don't nail me down to facts and figures, I've already forgotten them) shows that everyone fakes some form of behavior every day, whether it be a smile, a cheery 'hello', a disinterested 'how are you?' or a screaming, earth shattering orgasm. We are all, in one way or another, guilty of putting ourselves aside to make someone else feel better or to make ourselves look better.
I have lost count of the times I've felt like smashing things in the aisle of a supermarket only to then smile sweetly at the cashier and answer her enquiry as to how I am with a 'I'm great thank you'. There may have even been a couple of times when I've bit my tongue and not told someone what I really thought about them, but these times are rare and rarer still are the times when I've laid back and thought of England, whilst someone I have no interest in at all busies themselves down south. Being nice to someone I have no time for takes up too much time, and 'putting out' for someone I'd never put up with is far beyond my realm of understanding, but for many, the only way to get ahead is to lose sight of themselves and quickly morph into someone else.
In my experience, anyone who spends far too much time pretending to be someone else, will normally end up drinking, eating or taking enough pharmaceuticals for two, but only ever have themselves to go home to.
I've never really been a 'faking it' kind of person. I understand the need to sometimes temper our behaviour and adapt to certain situations to 'fit in' but it doesn't take a genius to find out when someone's being disingenuous. Social chameleons and social butterflies are experts in the fake smile, the group hug and the 'I'm so interested' look but I've found that as I've got older, my tolerance for people I have no interest in has been pretty much worn down to the wire.
It's hard for me to smile when I'm stifling a yawn and even harder to look wide-eyed and excited when I'm feeling narrow eyed and furious. Botox was useful to mask a thousand looks of horror, indignation or boredom but when it also started to mask genuine emotions and looks of real happiness, I decided to step away from the needle and let people see my real face (both of them).
The workplace is the hub of fakery and amongst all the movers & shakers there will always be a glut of sycophants and fakers. Every office has a brown nose just like every Rudolph has a red nose. It comes with the territory, be it on a shop floor or the trading floor, that there will always be someone who so desperately wants to get ahead that their whole persona is molded to fit in with what the company vision is. The corporate world allows those with ambition but the personality of a setting jelly to get ahead, whereas the creative world allows those with no real direction to flip flop from one idea to another until they finally go completely off their head.
The creative industry is no place for a border line schizophrenic or those with a multiple personality disorder, and if you work in the fashion industry, you'll find trends come and go quicker than your mood swings.
We have all faked it within the working environment, even if it's going to lunch with the colleague that we secretly hate or completely embellishing our resume, but if you find that every day at work you're having to bow down, curtail and tow the company line, rather than being yourself and doing what you really want to do, I'd advise you to stop faking it for money and go and do something you really love.
Someone famous once said 'a career is wonderful, but it doesn't keep you warm at night' and thinking about that statement, it is, of course, incredibly fake, because they were rich & famous and could afford an incredibly expensive duvet.
I can tell you to leave your job, but I'm not going to pay your heating bills.
Although I couldn't imagine doing it now, I learned many years ago that sometimes the easiest way to appease a partner in a relationship was to smile and quietly go ahead with their wishes however unreasonable or ridiculous their behavior may have been. It was easier at the time to let them think they may have won the argument and got their way, knowing I would then run them a scalding hot bath that they would happily step into. It was also incredibly easy to serve them their dinner knowing I'd just rubbed their steak around the kitchen floor and let the dog lick it. 'Faking it' in a relationship will only ever lead to a broken heart or at the very least, broken limbs. If you find yourself smiling sweetly and playing the perfect spouse when really the only thing on your mind is murder, I suggest you stop faking it and leave, because revenge is not always a dish best served cold, even when you've wiped it around the kitchen floor and let the dog chew on it.
I've probably been guilty of faking an illness, especially when I worked for someone else. The good thing about being self -employed is that I never have to lie to myself. If I'm hungover I don't have to phone in with the flu, and if I really cannot be bothered to get up out of bed one morning, I don't have to say I'm late because someone jumped in front of my train. It is amazing the lies you can make up when you're desperate for a day off work. Illness, famine, and a death in the family will all work and the more ridiculous the fakery the more you'll be inclined to get away with it. I had a friend who said they were borderline asthmatic only to blow their cover when they jumped from their chair and chased the sandwich lady the whole length of the office to see if she had a spare pack of cheese and onion. I once said I was at an aunt's funeral when I was sat on a beach in Sardinia.
The lapping of the waves was excused as the gentle sobbing of my distant cousins.
No matter how many lies you tell and how many truths that lay untold you will always get found out in the end. The biggest star with the biggest smile can switch that off in an instant once the camera has turned away, the most down to earth 'cockney geezer' can soon become the most arrogant (Country) of Squires and the most god fearing of pop stars will eventually be found face down in her bathtub with a nose full of cocaine.
It is never good to live a life of fakery, however big the paycheck or however tempting it may be. It's best to always keep life simple. Say what you mean, say what you want and be yourself. Don't hide your light under a bushel and never compromise who you are for another. There is no excuse for lies, fake accents, false emoting or floods of crocodile tears and there is never a reason to embellish, fabricate or down right lie about your background.
Unless you've taken a call from a cold calling salesman, you're sat next to someone on a long haul flight or you're on a blind date with someone you never want to see again.
In those instances you have free reign to be anyone you want to be, just make sure that they never know your real name and if you're on the blind date, make sure that they pick up the bill.
A little fakery is fine, as long as you don't get caught.]]>Life is to Short to Be Shy And The Rise of The Nobodytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.25224562013-01-21T17:54:10-05:002013-03-23T05:12:01-04:00Daniel Warnerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-warner/
Surely, the glut of TV talent shows, reality TV and the publics thirst for horror stories like 'Keeping up with the Kardashians', prove that it's a spill out of your bra and then spill your guts world that we live in.
The last people I really remember being described as 'shy' were Princess Diana and Michael Jackson. Doe eyes, milky white skin, the over use of a kohl pencil and a fondness for military style jackets with Dynasty style shoulder pads made them both the embodiment of the perfect pop culture Princess. It was only a penchant for crotch grabbing and baby dangling that sullied Jackson's reputation and the tragic, high speed death of Diana that finally snuffed out our last sniff of her Royal shyness.
Shy Di and baby voiced Jackson seem like an eternity ago. We now have a new generation of blonde's with ambition and the latest incarnation of those who fiddle with their faces can be found on the high street. Star power and the 'IT' factor got watered down and sucked up by anyone with access to a spray tan gun and a Botox needle. Now our only superstars are soap stars and our Princesses are lowly pop stars.
Nobody has to suffer the drudgery of being just a nobody anymore. It's the right time to be a YouTube sensation and the perfect moment to kiss and tell. Sex has never stopped selling and that's why it's a viable option to record it and then flog it, or flog it and then record it. Whatever floats your boat when you're busy getting your rocks off can be used to make you a quick buck. Careers can be built on the back of a tape of you laying flat on your back, and it even works for the boys too. Ray J hitched his wagon on Kim Kardashian and ended up riding on the coat tails of Whitney Houston.
What you do with your privates no longer stays private when there is money to be earned, and a reputation to be gained. The downside of building a career based purely on sex? Eventually the bottom is going to fall out of your business and you'll be left on your knees.
In a buy now and pay later culture children are fair game to be exploited, made up, made over and overfed. The old cliche of the 'showbiz mother' is alive and well and her ambition is growing faster than her child's self esteem ever will. Babies are no longer thrust into the arms of a politician for a photo opportunity, there is a far bigger catch in the fame pool and his name is Simon Cowell. Like Jesus washed the feet of his disciples, Mr Cowell will accept any cash cow (child) thrust into his arms and parade them on a stage for us to vote on how talented we think they are.
'Britain's Got Talent' is like a breeding ground for nervous breakdowns and shattered dreams and even our pets want to get in on the act. Our 'oohs and ahhs' are no longer reserved for someone with five teeth and pigtails, we now save them for puppy dogs in fishtails.
At least a furry thing with four legs will incur a lot less vets bills than a human 'finalist' will in therapy, and the best thing is? A dog can't answer back.
But what becomes of the talent show finalist once the dream is over and the cover versions are dried up? Big Brother will always be watching even after you've turned the public off. The only price you pay for trying to win them back will be by allowing us to watch your every move, witness your every emotion (real or fake) and then show our appreciation by voting you in or throwing you out. Tears will always work, tantrums not so much. A Queen with a flair for drama is a lot more user friendly than someone who's just a drama queen, and a 'fly on the wall' documentary about your relationship / engagement / wedding can be just enough to get you a photo shoot in 'Hello'. Flashing some flesh will always work, as will buying a baby or contracting some awful disease, because death has never been so lucrative. Just make sure you live long enough to enjoy it.
It seems all of us are searching for an audience. If the first thing you reach for in the morning is your phone to check your Facebook page then you're just as much a part of the fame game as a late thirties housewife who used to be a Spice Girl. We all need a little recognition and social media has created a hunger for as many 'Likes' and friend requests as we can muster. I read recently that anyone with other 1000 Facebook friends is borderline narcissistic and most probably very shallow. And there was me thinking they had really met, touched or slept with those people?
Luckily, I'm only half way to narcissism and I'm still splashing around in the deep end.
Our celebrity-obsessed culture has left too many people obsessed with becoming a celebrity. Why finish school when there's an audition to be attended? 'A Levels' and Degrees are no match for high kicks and low life's.
So you think you can dance? Sing? Be a top model or even stalk a celebrity? The fame game is now being played on an open playing field and you can bring whatever talents you have or even think you have and give it a go. You can wear what you like, say what you like, do what you like and then post your photographs on twitter. You can even become an Internet 'troll' and become a celebrity. You've gained 5000 followers at the same time as a criminal record but at least people know who you are.
So you see, there really is no time for shyness, for being coy or not chasing after your dreams. We can all build ourselves an audience, flirt with fame and try to achieve some form of recognition.
And if all else fails, there's only one thing for it.
I suggest you start writing a blog.]]>Jodie Foster and the Silence of the Gaystag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.24744952013-01-14T16:54:33-05:002013-03-16T05:12:02-04:00Daniel Warnerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-warner/
So she didn't mention the 'L' word. She decided instead to eloquently 'out' herself by speaking of the great love of her life and the 'modern family' they had together. Who in a liberated and free-thinking world is going to be offended by that? Who, in a time when gays can get married, adopt and walk down the street hand in hand is going to feel slighted, let down and downright furious about an extremely successful, beautiful and seemingly well adjusted movie star expressing the love she has and has had for the last twenty years for another woman?
Well, apparently, a huge part of the gay community feels slighted, let down and more furious than Hannibal Lecter when faced with a census taker, some Fava beans and a bottle of Chianti. I didn't need to have the wits of Clarice Starling to realize that the usual suspects were going to take to Facebook and Twitter and strip, dissect and rake through the bones of her Golden Globes acceptance speech.
So what if it took her twenty years to stand up in front of the camera's and out her self?
Surely, she's been doing that in her career choices for the last ten years anyway. OK, her films do not feature full on, lesbian lip locks but most of them are like cat nip to every lesbian friend I have. She didn't need to scream it from the rooftops because lesbians are not gay men, and not every person's experience of coming out is akin to a Diana Ross lyric. I don't automatically connect Jodie Foster to being 'a lesbian movie star'. I automatically think of her as being Tallulah in Bugsy Malone, and you can't get more gay friendly than a 1920's flapper called Tallulah.
My life and self worth is not dependant on whom Jodie Foster decides to share her life or sleep with. It's not measured by anybody particularly rich, famous and gay. I understand that there will be others that say someone in a position of influence, of extreme wealth and in the public eye owes it every person struggling with their sexuality to come out, but I really don't agree.
Just because a persons life is in the public domain it doesn't mean they owe it to every young, confused or bullied teenager to fling open their closet doors and assure them that life is fine and everything will be OK, because it won't. I wouldn't think it healthy either for a bullied teenager to place all their hopes and dreams in someone who lives high in the Hollywood Hills and gets paid $20 million per movie when they are living on a council estate and struggling to find bus fare.
We all make choices in life and I truly believe that the choice to come out and identify yourself as being gay is such a personal affirmation that it's nobodies business but your own. A movie star or the girl next door can come from bigoted parents, just the same as they can face an intolerant boss or find an understanding friend. Role models are an essential part of growing up and of course, it helps if they are someone you can relate to but placing too much emphasis on sexuality is going to turn you into someone with a one track mind, and the track that you'll find yourself on is one with hardly any humor and militant tendencies.
Oh god, someone's got your gay goat and you're angry again?
Give yourself and everybody else a break please and be an activist about something more than an acceptance speech.
Who cares if Jodie, John, Tom or Portia are gay? Let them get on with their free living, high rolling, self-loathing lives and worry about your own.
I have a real problem with gay people who are determined to claim any effete or super butch personality (male or female) as 'one of us'. I don't need to know whom a star is sleeping with to want to watch their movie, read their book or go and download their record and I definitely do not need to look to them for any positive affirmations as to who I am and where I am going. I'm not living on gay street and I'm not living in a gay world so it's not the only thing that defines me. I am more interested in the gay men / women who go about their day to day life, hold down a job, speak to their elderly neighbor and are a part of their community (which is probably what any gay movie star is doing).
A movie star who has no financial worries, can pay their mortgage, fly first class and stay in a suite at Claridges is not going to help me pay my rent and put food on my table (even if they are uber gay or just gay friendly), so I have better and more pressing things to worry about than if Jodie Foster forgot to drop the L bomb on Hollywood for twenty years.
I like Jodie Foster. She comes across as a focused, successful, beautiful and loving woman, who just happens to be gay, and maybe by concentrating on her family and career, rather than her identifying herself publicly as a lesbian for the last twenty years, that's exactly what people should accept her for.
Gays included.]]>Keep a Diary? Start a Blog? Or Just Read Someone Else's?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.24159932013-01-05T13:07:49-05:002013-03-07T05:12:01-05:00Daniel Warnerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-warner/
I have never really understood the meaning of the quote attributed to Mae West. Did she mean that if you religiously write down everything that has happened to you, what you have felt and every dirty little secret that you've managed to keep 'secret', it will one day fill your pockets and let you live in relative comfort; or did she mean that if you keep a record of every resolution and achievement, failed affair and disappointment, then one day you'll be bound to it?
If you keep a diary, your life is right there before you in pen and ink, and there is no running away from it. The mind can sometimes cloud, paint and blur the edges but if you've got it all written down in front of you and in your own fair hand, then the rosiest of rose tinted spectacles are not going to make anything bad seem better, or anything grand seem grander.
I have just started to keep a diary again.
I wrote my first diary at seventeen, my next at eighteen and then apart from a weeks worth of angst, romanticism and self-medicating prose at the age of thirty six, I stopped. I obviously didn't deem anything I was doing interesting enough to write down, or maybe I was just too busy to actually spend the time writing down whatever I was doing? It's another question I've been asking myself about my latest foray into the world of Bridget Jones.
If I'm going to keep a diary then I first better make sure I have a life to write about, but then if I'm living such an eventful, fulfilling life, how the hell am I going to find the time to write about it?
Do we truly write a diary just for ourselves or is our eye always on the reader? My teenage diaries are in turns hilarious, unforgiving, naive and surprisingly upsetting. I never knew I was that confused. I always thought my teens were full of laughs and bad haircuts, instead, it turns out they were full of tears and bad haircuts. I have friends who kept diaries of what they wore, where they went, what they had eaten and whom they had slept with whereas my diary was full of how I was feeling and an intense desire to make things better for myself. The only consolation I take from those diaries is that I've become more shallow as I've grown older and all that teenage angst went flying straight out of the window as soon as I discovered pharmaceuticals and a disco ball.
There is nothing better to rid yourself of wanting a life, then leaving your bedroom and going and getting yourself a life.
I don't think any diary should be discreet. If you are writing for yourself then let it be unmediated. Why would anyone keep a diary without writing down the explicit and sometimes the exquisite truth? I recently started to read the Richard Burton diaries in which he chronicles his relationship with Elizabeth Taylor. I'm about a hundred pages deep into the life of those two madly passionate icons and even the humdrum and benign entries seem exciting because he writes exactly what he feels about her, and she in turn, reads his diary and then scrawls her own thoughts and feelings over the top. I don't know if writing a diary in the knowledge that your nearest and dearest is going to read it is a ridiculous or an incredibly smart thing to do? In many ways it would save on therapy bills and couples counseling but at the same time surely it would be playing to an audience and a way of using your written words to aggravate or alleviate? My diary is strictly for my eyes only. But then again, I live alone and it's extremely well hidden, so nobody is ever going to see it anyway.
A diary can give you a true depiction of yourself, as long as you are honest when writing it. It's no use to anyone if you only write an exercise in vanity, if that's what you feel you need to do, then you best start writing a blog (please note, I am a blogger, before anyone decides to start throwing insults). My diary is myself laid bare, it's never going to play for laughs, dress things up or be used to get a reaction. It's not going to be record of recipes, haircuts or outfits either, unless, they happen to be particularly bad and I have no idea if it will be a record of sexual conquests, career achievements or ridiculously bad faux pas. It may be a record of insane highs and desperate lows or it maybe just the thoughts and feelings of a mad but sometimes sane man? I have no idea. A diary allows you to ramble, the only editor you have is yourself.
I did a search of famous diarists and Wikipedia has a comprehensive list, from Pepys to Warhol to the Marquis de Sade and to Anne Frank and back again. A diary can be used to tell the tale of an era in history that would never have been recorded otherwise. It can be used to tell the secrets of superstars and all the glitter that surrounds them or it can be used to show the depravity and inhumanity of and against a race of people. Sometimes a diary can be fictional and yet a whole swathe of the female population will buy into it or it will speak to every schoolboy aged 13 3/4.
Call girls, politicians, newspaper editors and rock stars have all at sometime sat down, opened the page and wrote about what was important that day. At the time, it may have only been important to them but their diary somehow ended up being published and now it's important to you and I, which just goes to prove Mae West's point (whatever it was).
"Keep a diary and someday it'll keep you."]]>Reasons to Stay Home Alone on New Year's Evetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.23882982012-12-31T10:24:01-05:002013-03-02T05:12:02-05:00Daniel Warnerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-warner/
Gym memberships are purchased, diets are started, alcohol is given up and new leaves are turned over. New Year for many means it's the kick start that they need to try for a new career, to study, to travel or even to just sit back and reevaluate all that they have. Some make the decision to leave their partner, others make the decision to finally settle down and accept each other for what they are, and for others, it's time to give up on all things romantic and fall head over heels in love with themselves. I've tried all of these things at New Year and to be truthful, none of them seem that new to me anymore.
It can be difficult to not succumb to the lure of the pub and the nightclub on New Year's Eve. The lull of those 'in between' days from Christmas Eve to NYE can be hard to take, it's the awful anti-climax after the tinsel, turkey and all it's trimmings which makes us want to have one last blow out before the chimes of Big Ben, but I have always found it a time of enforced hilarity and celebration. It's akin to turning up at your favorite store on the opening day of its sale only to find you've left your wallet on the kitchen table. You rush through the door, start elbowing people out of the way, tearing things from the rails and digging through piles of cashmere sweaters like a dog digging for a bone, only to find you never had the cash to pay for what you wanted in the first place. You find yourself getting hot and sweaty, chewing your tongue and gritting your teeth whilst in the company of people you normally wouldn't be seen dead with, and there you stand at the end of it all, wild eyed and fighting with a complete stranger over the same winter coat.
The only difference is in a nightclub on NYE you'll probably be fighting with the cloakroom attendant over a coat that is rightfully yours, but you've drunkenly lost the cloakroom ticket for.
I've realized that the start of a new year is more a time for reflection rather than going out, downing shots, being sick on my favourite shoes and then trying desperately to find a cab home. Spending the newest day of the newest year with my head down a toilet bowl is hardly the best way to ring in the changes and embrace the more user friendly me, and the last thing I want to be doing when I embark on my mission to start a new life, is trying to find some loose change on the walk of shame home.
Also, New Years Eve was traditionally the time when complete strangers took the opportunity to kiss you on the lips and put their arms around you, nowadays it's the perfect time of year for complete strangers to kiss you on the lips, give you a cold sore or the norovirus and then steal your handbag.
It's no fun when you look to your wrist on the stroke of midnight only to realize someone's made off with your Rolex, and that really handsome stranger who whispered "Happy New Year" to you after your sixth Champagne cocktail? He's just stolen your earrings. So it's "Happy New Year" to you and some lovely new ear candy for him.
I'm trying not to be jaded about New Years Eve and I truly believe it's healthy to let go of the old and be open to new experiences, new people and new beginnings but this year I don't think I'll find them in a bottle of tequila or on the edges of a dance floor. I'll probably find them sitting quietly at home, alone and reading a book. I'm not being wistful or enforcing some kind of solitary confinement upon myself, I just find that as I've got older that the beginning of a new year is a time when I really do have to take the time to say goodbye to actions or feelings that have held me back, and to reevaluate what I need and where I want to be in the future.
Youth and ambition can make it easy to discard anything that has served it's purpose but age and experience have softened me, so now instead of being cut-throat and cynical, I'm trying more and more to be soft tongued and lyrical. I'm not saying that every day is going to be like a Disney movie, I'm just going to try to live life a bit more like Snow White, rather than always pretending to be the big bad wolf.
After all, Snow White is a rather good role model for tolerance and acceptance isn't she? She lived with seven tiny little men of questionable appearance, some with bad manners and suspect lifestyle choices and she was also very open to talking to the elderly and vulnerable.
I think what I'll do is spend this new year's alone, rereading the story of Snow White and trying to learn some life lessons from her tale. Although from what I remember she was hardly a paragon of upwardly mobile ambition was she? This girl was hardly a 'go-getter.' In fact, she took advantage of every situation she was in and if anything she used her looks and charm to manipulate people to get what she wanted.
Which is exactly the type of person who'd steal your handbag and your earrings in a nightclub on New Years Eve...]]>So You're Single at Christmas? So What?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.23168212012-12-17T13:34:02-05:002013-02-16T05:12:01-05:00Daniel Warnerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-warner/
I'm trying to get jolly, I'm trying to get in the Christmas spirit, I've decked the halls and I'm just about a mood swing away from decking Santa.
Christmas is the time when we sprinkle glitter on our troubles, cover all of our tears in tinsel and put fairy lights upon the fear of never paying off that overdraft or making next months rent.
I found my inspiration for my Christmas tree this year was eclectic but Gothic and it looks like I let Wednesday Adams, Miss Havisham and the Bride of Frankenstein loose with a glitter gun, some black tinsel, some midget mirror balls and eight little wooden Sumo wrestlers. Who needs reindeer's and pretty bows when you can have fat, half naked men hanging from your tree? I also did away with the fairy and instead have an uncomfortable looking Santa straddling a sturdy branch.
He looks happy, if a little shocked.
My tree looks like something Tim Burton would make an animated movie about and Helena Bonham Carter would consider wearing to an awards ceremony. Personally, I love it because it looks like Bob Cratchit swallowed a whole lot of Christmas angst and got sick on it, which is exactly how I feel this year.
They say Christmas is about giving, about sharing and about being with the ones you love, which is a load of sentimental old tosh. It's about getting drunk, receiving underwear you wouldn't be caught dead in and tolerating behavior from people you normally wouldn't be seen dead with. It's about pulling the wishbone from the turkey and wishing you'd had the finances to go and lay on a beach somewhere instead of wearing a stupid hat and playing endless games of Jenga with your spoiled eight year old cousin. The only thing that could make Jenga more interesting? Tequila shots and then watching your eight year old cousin take a drunken dive head first into the Christmas tree.
I am the gay gooseberry every Christmas. All of the smug married, the siblings, the civil unionists and the recently betrothed sit around the table and then there's me, the one that throws the table plan into disarray, the odd one out, the one of whom they do not speak or the one my grandmother once called "the gay version of Elizabeth Taylor". I actually loved that she said that at the dinner table one Christmas, it was the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.
Admittedly my grandmother was talking about how proud she was of all of her grandchildren, how they had all settled, had families and were living lives of contented bliss and then there was me, probably drunk, possibly self medicating, most certainly coming out of a broken relationship or on the cusp of a short lived affair and stuffing my face with mashed potato. The only thing missing was a glut of diamonds and a wheelchair because otherwise I was a green eyed Liz Taylor doppelganger.
I'm dreading who I'm going to be compared to this year but I have a feeling it's going to be Lindsay Lohan.
I don't know why I always end up being single at Christmas? I think it may be because I ask for the most ridiculous things as gifts and it's hard for any person, however much they may be in love, to come up with world peace, an end to world hunger, a new government, an end to Kate Middleton's morning sickness and a white pony with wings, so I normally end up with a pair of mittens, an exercise DVD, a bottle of cheap whisky and a scented pillow.
The whisky I'll keep, the rest will all be re gifted.
Last year at Christmas I was lucky enough to be having some minor surgery the day before Christmas Eve so the whole festive period was spent in a haze of painkillers and mulled wine and Christmas Day became such a blur that I couldn't tell the difference between a turkey leg and the TV channel changer. Christmas can be stressful when you're single because not only do you have to contend with a mixture of looks of pity, puzzlement, disdain and downright terror from members of your family, you also have to politely refuse invitations from those who mean well but think that because you're all alone, you're just a single mince pie away from a suicide attempt.
I don't mind being on my own at Christmas. I actually look at everyone else around the dinner table and think thank god I haven't got to wake up next to you on Christmas morning. Being single at Christmas means never having to pass the cranberry sauce when all you really want to do is throw a punch. I don't have to "ooh and ahh" falsely about a gift I didn't really want and doesn't even fit me and I never have to apologize to anyone for embarrassing them with my drunken behavior. If there is going to be some Christmas spirit passed around then I'm damn well going to drink it and no one can stop me. I don't have to worry about overeating because I can choose the next time I want to get naked in front of another person and I certainly don't have to feel obliged to "put out" because my spouse bought me a new pullover.
Being single at Christmas also means you're never really going to be bought gifts for the home. No one with a heart is going to buy you a set of wine glasses because they probably think you drink far too much anyway, sets of cutlery are a big no no because everyone knows single people eat out of cartons and use their fingers and any type of scatter cushion is going to be useless because you're never home to scatter them.
A present for the home when you're single is tantamount to saying "we know you can't get a boyfriend but here's a toaster and a set of serving spoons".
I always ask for cash at Christmas and then I go and pay my rent with it and any gifts I receive get recycled on eBay. I always think eBay the day after Christmas is like a singles bar the night before Christmas. It's rammed full of things that not one wants being given away for far below their asking price.
So if you do happen to find yourself single this year and it's not of your own choosing, don't be
downhearted or depressed. Look at it as a positive, and if you just can't look at it as a positive, just wait until Boxing Day and then start shopping on eBay.]]>They Screw You Up, Your Mum and Dad, But Only if You Let Themtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.22362842012-12-04T05:17:46-05:002013-02-03T05:12:01-05:00Daniel Warnerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-warner/
So what? You may think. It's hardly the most auspicious start to a piece of writing, but if I tell you I didn't speak to him for 15 years, then I did and we went some way to fixing the father / son relationship, but then we crashed and burned again, maybe you'll read on?
I was never close to my father, from the age of 13 up until I was 21 I had no respect for him and from 21 onwards I had no need or want of a relationship with him. It had a lot to do with the break up of my parents marriage and myself taking on the mantle of being my mothers protector, but as I've grown older, and I've lived and had relationships of my own, I've realized that there was no villain of the piece, that they were both to blame and they both (and there is only one word that is suitable) "f***ed up" - BIG TIME.
I've always thought, that unless you were abused by your parents, there cannot be a reason to blame them for your behavior as an adult. I've been down the therapy road and I'm used to all the terms and words used about "learned behavior", "repressed memories" or repeating the patterns of your parents. You don't need therapy to know when something's wrong or bad for you and you don't need to do that much soul searching or self analysis to realize what didn't work for them, is never going to work for you. Children who grow up in a house full of screams / shouts / tears and tantrums are either going to become withdrawn and frightened of the world or they grow strong and soon realize that's not going to be the way they live their life. I have two brothers and we all turned out extremely different. I'm not saying we came out of that house unscathed, but the three of us seem to fight against repeating the example we grew up with.
I love my dad but it's taken me a long time to get to the point where I can sit down with him and we can talk. He wasn't an ogre and I didn't grow up in a house full of fear, in fact the opposite is true,but I did grow up in a house that was always full of tension. I never once saw my parents show any affection to each other. I think the nicest thing I ever saw my mother do was set my dads newspaper on fire whilst he was still reading it and the nicest thing he did for her was not to prefix a four letter insult with an eight letter insult. When you grow up in a war zone you learn quickly, and my in depth knowledge of profanity and dirty words went down a storm in the school playground. What I hated at home became endlessly entertaining at school. My mother and father should probably never have got married, they didn't ever seem to grasp that the endless arguing, smashing things and screaming wasn't doing either of them any good, in the end it made both of them ill and it left the whole family fractured and emotionally cold.
I had breakfast with my dad this morning.
We talked about the weather, his breakfast, my breakfast and then we finally TALKED. We talked about everything. My mum, their relationship, my relationship with both of them, both of my brothers, how my dad feels, how I feel and the exact reason why we haven't spoken for so long; and I told him that it's my fault, it was my choice and it's something I have to deal with. My reasons for not talking to him are because I wanted a quiet life and I had thought that after almost twenty years of not having a relationship with him, that I didn't need one anyway. I didn't think I missed him and I thought I wouldn't have anything to say to him but it's not the truth. I do need my dad and I have lots to say to him.
I will talk to anyone. I say hello to strangers, and I strike up conversations with people in supermarkets, on the street, on the Internet and on tube trains but I didn't even bother to take the time to talk to my own dad. I was wrong. Relationships need to be nurtured to grow, or revived and restored to keep growing, and the older I get the more aware I am that those I love are not going to be around forever. It's never clever to throw anyone out, to give up or just walk away from your family, even if that isn't the way you grew up or how you were taught to behave. We are all products of our parents and our life experience be it good or bad, and in hindsight, it really wasn't that bad. I wasn't abused physically or sexually, I just grew up witnessing two people abusing each other verbally and emotionally.
The funniest thing about today? My dad picked me up in an old transit van, full of newspaper, rubbish and dust from his working week and he said to me "You don't mind me picking you up in the van do you son? You must remember us always driving around like this when you were a boy?"
And the nicest thing is, I didn't mind, and I do remember.]]>