Homophobia in London

AOG, London

I have been in London for less than 24 hours and already a story has hit the news that makes me loose my faith in humanity.

It appears that last week, right in Trafalgar Square, Ian Bayham, a 62 year old man, was assaulted outside the South African High Comission by three people.

Three teenagers, two of them girls of 17, and a boy of 19, named Joel Alexander, were arrested and will be tried in Court for the assault.

I cannot begin to understand what would make three young kids attack an older man because he was gay. According to the press, the motive of the assault is homophobia.

The Times writes that:

"Ian Baynham, 62, was walking through Trafalgar Square in Central London with a 30-year-old friend when a woman began shouting homophobic abuse at him.

He went to talk to her but she attacked him and a man with her is said to have punched him to the floor and then kicked him. A second young woman was also involved in the incident.

Mr Baynham, from Beckenham, southeast London, was taken to hospital after the attack two weeks ago suffering from severe brain damage."

Mr. Bayham died of a severe brain damage, according to the police, when doctors switched off his life support machine.

A vigil will take place this Friday in Trafalgar Square from 8 to 10 PM.

I have spent the afternoon with a good friend, and we were handed an invitation to the candle vigil.

Although I wish I could go, I won't be in London then, but I will be thinking about the incident.

Why?

Because with any luck, I might be 62 years old one day.

I would hate to be attacked by three teenagers so badly that I too would die from severe brain damage. And all because I was gay, like Ian Bayham.

I am sure that the kid's families are in shock as to the events and about what might happen to them. They have been charged, I think, with manslaughter.

There never is a reason as to why these things happen. How could there be? This is a hate crime, and like all hate crimes, it makes no sense. Ignorance is the motive. Also probably anger, and frustration. Alienation. It saddens me to read that these things still happen. It saddens me even more when I think that they will probably continue to happen when I turn 62.

For all our beauty, what a horrible species we really are.

Homo homini lupus .... indeed

MIchael Jackson

AOG, Madrid

In 1977 Elvis passed away. My family were living in Mexico. I still remember watching the news and not knowing who the "King" was.

I remember waiting for my mother to come home to tell her about it. She knew who he was. She was sad and surprised.

Yesterday, another king passed away.

His music has been in my life for as long as I can remember.

Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough

Rock With You

These songs populated my childhood before I even knew who he was.

I remember the event that was Thriller. We were in Houston then. Everyone was talking about it. I remember thinking that the song was ok, but the video was something else. Here was a different scale.

A different magnitude associated with music and a performer.

And even more hits:

Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'
The Girl Is Mine
Beat It
Billie Jean
P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)

These songs stood out in my mind. Their sound, their feel. I don’t know. Magic?

When Bad came out, we were living in San Antonio. More great sounds.

The Way You Make Me Feel

Another Part Of Me

Man In The Mirror

I Just Can't Stop Loving You

Dirty Diana

In 1991 my family had moved to London. Another great album- Dangerous -, yet my interest had begun to wane slightly. Obviously other things occupied my mind.

But there were still good songs to play as background music to my life:

Remember The Time

Heal The World

Black Or White

It was in London when the press first started to pick on him. Or at least it was there where I first became aware of it.

From then on, the albums just seemed to re-release old stuff. I don’t know what happened.

He became more farce than real. His life, his skin, his children, he himself grew out of all proportion.

Finally yesterday he passed away. I was not aware of it, but a small part of me passed away with him. I guess it is true what they say, you don’t know what you’ve got until its gone.

Wherever he is, I hope he is happy. He left a great legacy behind.

Young at heart (old at flesh)

AOG, London

It would appear that every time I go to London I have an ok time.  Just.

Unfortunately, given the pressures of modern life, I have not long ago realised, that a weekend in London, though very glamorous sounding, is actually 2 evenings, and one and a half (or a third), days in the British capital.

I normally fly out on Friday night after work, arrive in Gatwick at some ungodly hour, then rush to Victoria Station on the next-to-last Gatwick Express (almost ₤15.00 these days!).

 

Once there, I normally enjoy all day Saturday, which I spend visiting galleries, museums, and try to catch a show on the evening. 

Not always, but normally I achieve some sort of cultural hiatus during the visit.

 

Amongst all of this cultural froth, I have to pencil in meeting with Madame Mère at some point, as well as the odd friend here and there for coffee in Soho somewhere (somewhere means Costa Café on Compton street).

 

This last time I was there, something I had not seen in ages reared its ugly head. 

As I waited for a couple of friends, next to me I noticed a very handsome guy in his 40s who was dressed -at first sight- youthfully. As I waited for my tardy friends, some of his friends showed up.

 

It was the usual “hey”, “kiss”, and recap on the weekend’s events. I began to notice, slowly, that this man, in his 40s, was verbally cavorting with guys in their 20s. 

Nothing wrong there, half of my improv class in Madrid is in their 20s and I feel like their father sometimes. 

But it was not as innocent as all that.

 

It soon occurred to me that, upon closer inspection, this man was not dressed “youthfully”, he was dressed like a male Britney Spears. I noticed this when he got up to air kiss one of his friends. There it was, a mid 40s bare navel. 

He also acted very like la Spears: Bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch; non stop.

 

Nothing wrong there, except that not only was he trying to look like a teenager, he was trying to talk like one too. But I was ok with that too (I from the “let and let live” school of life).

 

The thing that most ruffled my feathers was that the content of his whole conversation was drugs; and partying; and going to this club or that club and being off his face. 

I thought to myself that this is the kind of conversation best reserved to real guys in their 20s, not 40 year olds attempting to hold on to their youth, ça n’importe quoie! (no matter what).

 

He was handsome enough to pull off looking like a teenager, albeit only just and then only because Halloween is nigh, but he was not young enough to pull off teenage speak. 

That is where he blew it. He sounded ridiculous. And this made him, in turn, look ridiculous.

 

And, invariably, I began to think about myself and my friends (all in our mid to late 30s). 

About how we speak, what we say, how we dress, how we sound and look.

 

When my friends arrived, I inspected their clothes. 

Youthful, but more like trendy (Yes, A&F but subdued). I listened to their (our) speech, (no talk about drugs, but the occasional fashion rebuff and odd bit of trivia). 

And I figured that we were about average within our age group and generation.

 

So, of course, I wasted no time in pointing out our "young" neighbour but before I could explain what was his ‘biscuit’, one of my friends looked at me and said in a low tone “Does he think he’s 15?”

I was vindicated. 

I was not alone in being slightly, and gayly, outraged.

Given that the trip was so short, I had no time to introspectively discover, or excuse, why that guy was so out of touch with himself.