Hi. My name is David McAlmont and I blog for The Huffington Post.
I like how that reads. For someone who still harbours inane post-Carrie Bradshaw fantasies of becoming a columnist it feels like a step in the right direction, like I have what it takes. Mind you, I don't know that it actually takes that much: in this day and age where cage fighters affianced to glamour models can have columns - albeit in beleaguered tabloids - or some of the more idiotic views on gay marriage emerge from the more 'respectable' broadsheet columnists, intelligence certainly doesn't seem to be a necessity. I think, therefore, that I'm as valid a columnist as anyone.
See what I did there though? I just dubbed myself a columnist, even though that just isn't what this is. Anyway, I've been slapped in the face with a wet whale too often to take my columnist aspirations that seriously, and this Huffington blog lark seems like much more fun: like a sort of prestigious 'blog quarter,' where I've been seated at the authentically cool kids table, keeping company with the likes of Ben Drew (my appreciation of whom pretty much landed me this gig,) Bill Maher and Bishop Gene Robinson.
Incidentally, I sang for the bishop last weekend at the British Film Institute's London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, but I digress. 'Bloggard,' that's the word I like, because I feel as if I've coined it, although I'm sure it's already been coined - I'm many things but rarely original. Nevertheless, I like the idea of being a blaggard who blogs or a braggart who blags. I'm just being silly now; it's the excitement.
Before I became too smug with the engagement I thought it would be expedient to see what my friends thought: it isn't as if the golden hand of the colossus Arianna reached out from the Zeusian AOL cloud with a booming "It's you!" or anything, but it is a secret; well, it isn't now, but I kept it close because I wanted the first post to double as a 'coming out' fanfare, a reveal.
But before that could happen I needed to know my friends' take: when I told El Boyfo (my beloved) about the engagement he was delighted; he's already a bit of a starlet on my Twitter feed as I regularly refer to him, so he is quite thrilled to be coming to The Huffington Post, so to speak.
Bill, my gay dad, emitted a high-pitched "Oh!" I think he likes the idea; he even provided me with my presidential nominee style profile picture. When I mentioned 'The Huff' to my business partner Guy he typically responded with brusque hardnosed assessment "The Huffington Post is HUGE!" Still uncertain, I mentioned it to my publicist, Susie Tullett, she effused, in true publicist style, that The Huffington Post was being "insightful" and that they'd selected an "expressive and eloquent wordsmith;" no pressure then. Finally, I sent my friend Paul Burston at TimeOut London an email and he responded, "I think it's fantastic! Well done. I'm thrilled that they've had the good sense to invite such a witty, wise and dandified man as your good self. And you can quote me on that." Aw, Sweet man.
Goodness knows I should have plenty to blog about. My new year's resolution this year is to walk everyday and an immediate consequence has been a photographic obsession with Thames bridges.
I'm plugging my viewing gaps in the American and British Film Institutes' top 100 movie lists by viewing and reviewing the titles I haven't seen, I live in the south of one of the world's most persistently fascinating cities, where extraordinary encounters, people and events are a given, and the view of the world like the view from Brixton Hill is forever frenetic with traffic.
I was a little concerned about the current affairs aspect of things because I don't watch television, other than an occasional dip into the BBC i-Player, neither do I read the papers, but this is where El Boyfo is invaluable: he can be relied upon to return home after a trying day in the class room incandescent with issues, either from the staff room water cooler or the free London newspapers on the tube. He'll come home and go on and on about his bugbear du jour for an aeon, unless I take a stand, venture a view or voice an opinion, even if it is just to shut him up. I am in so much trouble when he reads this.
All in all I think this little Huffington experiment could be one of the finest reasons for blogging I've had so far. I'll file it under 'Woo Hoo' for now.