Where there’s a Wil, there’s a way.

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New York, New York: so good they named it twice. Or perhaps they were merely mentally drained and stuttering, exhausted by its overwhelming excess, as I was.

Being baggage-weight-conscious I arrived in JFK the image of a struggling Hollywood starlet: Tired, fabulous and wrapped in fur. Having almost missed the AirTrain into the city due to selfie-ing and insta-boomeranging, it started dawning on me that a huge fur coat and a big black roll-neck was not the best pairing for a day of frantic cross-continent commuting, being drenched in perspiration before we made our way to the subway. Big fabulous fur was also attracted a much-unwanted attention, with a toothless subway dweller feeling it necessary to yell-ask me “YO MAN! THAT SOME FOX FUR!?”. Having finally survived the treacherous subway journey, we finally made our way to our Williamsburg Loft. With the coat finally hanging in my wardrobe for the week, I was ready to plan my week in Manhattan.

I had settled on three must-dos. The first was the obligatory clichéd sight-seeing. The second was fulfilling by Carrie Bradshaw fantasy and dating in New York. My third and last was to get good and drunk, and party hard, like a true New Yorker.

The sight-seeing was the easiest of the three to be ticking off. Of course, we did the over-crowded Time’s Square, the ever-cheerful Ground Zero and the underwhelming Statue of Liberty. With all of that out-of-the-way, we were able to see the far more important sights of the Friends apartment and fountain and Carrie Bradshaw’s Sex and the City apartment. In fact,  I was seeing the whole city through a television camera lens. It wasn’t just the familiar street-corners and signage, but the people who inhabited the city were so enthused by their own actions, it was frightening how bad television archetypes were actually sitting next to me on the subway. The sassy black nurse, the snobbish yummy-mummy, the ass-hole businessman, all in line behind me at Starbucks. To them, everything was either amazing or truly awful, ranging from “Oh my god, this is literally the best latte I’ve had in like millennia” to “Excuse me? This is literally the worst coffee I’ve ever had like ever, I’d like to speak to your supervisor”. That, and the fact Americans seemed to function on a different decibel scale (yelling in each other’s faces), made me feel as though I’d stepped onto the set of a bad sitcom. And it was infectious. My Britishness was increased tenfold in reaction, and everything was “Excuse me darling”, “Where’s the lavatory?” and “I think we’re quite alright, thank you, dear”. I found myself going full Marry Poppins.

Having done all the sight-seeing in the first few days, Marry Poppins was now ready to dust off her carpet-bag and get herself a man. I was about to enter the mine-field that was the New York dating scene.

The first thing that struck me on Tinder-ing in a new city, was how low my standards has sunk after a year in London. Not only was I matching with the Adonis’ of New York, but they were messaging first, and eager to talk; Something that I had not experienced in London since my first month there. New York men seemed to be just that, men. Living in a city where gay has been a norm for the past four decades, there was a sense of them shedding the yolk of gay-ness and merely existing as human males. Or perhaps it was an underlying femmephobia, but to put it plainly and tritely, the men in New York were MEN.  Big, hairy, muscular, dog-loving, in-law-meeting, child-raising men. Sincere, without a shred of irony or sarcasm.

In my week in New York, I embarked on only one date. The details of which I perhaps shouldn’t share on a public platform. To those of you I know personally, I will have told you of it being 24 hours long, and resulting in me vomiting over his kitchen in Harlem. But, as I said, I do not wish to share these intimate details.

We had foolishly decided to leave my third must-do until our last night. Being only 19, my night out was to be carried out in the name of my brother. Where there’s a Wil, there’s a way. I left Williamsburg that night as Wiliam, ready to take on the lower east side. Wiliam started his night in a militant-style queer bar surrounded by men in their underwear and then witnessed a Drag Witch performing a Hex on Donald Trump, cursing him for his condemning of trans kids. Then, following the advice of famed Drag Queen Milk, we made our way to Eleven Eleven, who instructed us not to bother with upstairs and go straight to raving underground.

We arrived, a fancy downtown bar. Nice enough, but we headed downstairs. It appeared we had been given sour milk. Downstairs there was nothing but the toilets, a vending machine and a coat-check. Having paid an entry fee we decided not to cry over spilt advice, we danced and socialized upstairs. Nearing 2am, whispers started spreading of people making their way downstairs. We smugly made our way downstairs with the best friends we’d made a few minutes before, ready to utter the sweetest of words: I told you so. The vending machine had opened to reveal a dark low-ceilinged room, filled with topless men and strobe lights.

The rest of that night is a big black smudge with dashes of green laser lights, crawling back into bed at dawn.

A last day of panic-packing, holding back the booze from the night before and grieving our week of splendour. Caught between melancholia and euphoria (as one often is mid-hangover) we boarded our plane home. Although mentally drained and stuttering, exhausted by Manhattan’s overwhelming excess, I could not wait to return to New York, New York.

Ifan NYC
A Basic Whit(n)e(y) Girl.

Down and Out in Cardiff and London

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‘It is a feeling of relief, almost of pleasure, at knowing yourself at last genuinely down and out.’

When scrawling these words into a manuscript in 1933, I very much doubt that George Orwell meant it to permeate so deeply with a young flame-haired fresher, ready to take on London’s gay scene by the horns. About to embark on my first Soho night out, I was very much out, and very much itching to get down.

My first few nights seem to blur into one as I try to recollect them, perhaps as a result of there being so many of them, or as a result of my alcohol intake on those nights. Presumably the latter. They began, like most London-based friends of Dorothy would know, with weekday £1.80 single vodka and cokes. Sticky, dark with the worst of today’s top forties being the soundtrack to my night. I was far from the underground gentlemen’s clubs of the 1930s Paris that I had envisioned. The freaks were no longer on podiums performing their oddities to the pleasure of the roaring crowd, but rather concealing their freakdom and socialising amongst us. Yet there was the odd hunk here and there, and the nights where I could drink the odd-looking into hunks, so I was content. After a few nights though, I finally felt ready to make my gay-pilgrimage to London’s gay mecca. I finally felt ready to ascend to Heaven.

Contrary to what Led Zeppelin would have us believe, it is not a stairway that leads you to heaven, but rather an hour-long queue, in which you are forced to stand crotch-to-ass with strangers, whilst trying to stay in the party mood and nod to the whispers of Beyonce that you can almost hear from inside. Having reached the door of Heaven, you are greeted not by Saint Paul, but rather a middle-aged, chubby black man who gropes your ass and calls you ‘delicious’. It is clear that I wasn’t concealing a weapon, or an ounce of self-worth, I was allowed to enter.

Inside, elbowing through middle-aged men in Super-dry t-shirts, I reached the centre of the herd. It was mating season. The rest of that night exists in my memory as an abstract expressionist painting. Large colourful smudges and blurred faces. In the year that has followed, I have now become a Heaven regular, and the nights move into less abstract post-expressionism. Still, no matter how often I went, a familiar face was still rather a rare sight.

Unable to fund a London summer, I took my debaucherous acts to the streets of Cardiff. There, the gay landscape was condensed to two establishments. I had gone from drinking a large pint of orange squash to sipping its sickly cordial. A night out in Cardiff is like those episodes of Friends where they don’t leave Monica’s apartment. The same ensemble cast, ridiculous situation, and an all too familiar setting. I would appear as the guest star in ‘The One with the 7 am McBreakfast in Bute Park’ followed by ‘The One with the Vomiting in the River Taff’. Not to say that these nights weren’t fun. They were, in fact, the best nights I’d had in a while, yet they did produce the worst ‘ morning-afters’ of my life. My last night in Cardiff had my parents seeing me back through the front door at 8am in a bright pink fur jacket and jumping into bed with them.

My main grievance with Cardiff was its incestuous nature, and there one club making the social-scape unavoidably intricately intermingled. Never before had I walked into a smoking area where all my recent tinder-matches were all standing neatly in a row. In Cardiff, one really did have to be ‘scene’ to be seen.

In returning to London after my summer, I was excited to rejoin the queue to Heaven and writhe in the sweaty crowd, yet a part of me still longed for the familiar faces that the raise of pulse Cardiff provided. I could not be as pessimistic as George Orwell in 1948, of the year 1984, which only held horror in George Michael, telling you to wake him up before you go-go.

I could only hope that in 2061, being 64 that I’m not still traipsing through some sticky gay club, still looking for mister ‘right-now’.

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Ifan Llewelyn- Truly down and out.

 

This is the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius

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Hair, the 1967 musical celebrating all that was the drum-roll to that Summer of Love that has taken its place in our collective history as the days that allowed us to ditch our business ties or aprons, and take to the fields clad in flowing florals to quite literally let our hair down. Being a Pisces this age of Aquarius is not something I would have been all that ecstatic for, but a hair revolution: sign me up.

My hair has always been my crowning glory since it places me among the lucky few of us able to declare ourselves as ginger. Screw being one of the 1%, we are the 2%. My copper rills do tent to set me out from a typical crowd, and the lack of soul does tend to lower the risk of deals with the devil. No soul, no sale. Other ginger stereotypes include bad tempers, increased libido and freckles, none of which I can argue with in all honesty.

Tasked with this auburn pogonotrophy, as a chubby, buck-toothed preteen I chose to grow it down to my shoulders in a time in my history that I refer to as the ‘Hanson no Handsome’ years. Evidence of these years still exists (despite my best efforts) in school pictures to which my poor parents were obliged to give pride of place to, on our mantelpiece. It was later revealed that it was merely an efficient way to scare young children away from a burning fire. Ouch dad, burn.

Moving on, a self-hating teenager thought dying my hair would make me far more attractive. Not one to do anything half-heartily, I decided to turn up to a large family function sporting the latest in Nazi Youth chic. My mother who was meeting us there was greeted by a peroxide mess, who was relishing in the scandal of his new do. Pictures of this time exist all over my online profiles since my family’s disapproval wasn’t enough for my teenage self. This recent act of self-inflicted hideousness needed to go nation-wide, apparently.  It soon grew out and faded thank heavens, and was soon resembling the very popular ice-tips sported by many a ’90s boy bands, which (at the time) I didn’t hate. Yet, much like a crack-whore, once I smelt those chemicals, I was hooked. Dying my hair was going to be my new thing. The new multi-shaded me.

This all came suddenly crashing down around me one fateful night in the April of 2014. Here is an exclusive look into that night. A night that will live on in infamy. A night that changed the fabric of reality itself. Here, my friends is the real story behind that night. Here is the story of how I… was balded.

It was night, with my bright room being reflected harshly on my bedroom window against the darkness outside. This was the night that I was to re-brunette myself, as I did some months before to great success and many a compliment. I cloaked myself in the finest of Matalan towels and proceeded to the bathroom; Hair dye in hand. As I did those months ago, I mixed the chemical concoction in the all too familiar polythene bottle and proceeded to lather my scalp. There was nothing to do now but wait. I passed my 20-40 minutes with a meal of ready salted crisps and chocolate bourbons, and an episode of Friends. Finally, the moment of truth had arrived. The time… to rinse. Instantly, I could feel it hadn’t gone according to plan. The strands of hair which dangled before my eyes were strangely vibrant, with shades of a deep magenta. Denial is a powerful thing. I was certain once the hair was dry, all would be well. Back in my room, post-blow-dry, I approached my mirror. Staring back at me was a dark purple haired emo who one would presume had a passion for bad electronic music and self-harming. It was all too much to bear. The Friends episode continued to play, ironic now since with this look I was certain never to have any. There was but one resolution: THE GUILLOTINE. Well, not quite… the hair trimmer. As each cluster of hair fell, much like Samson, my strength fell with it.

I wore hats for a solid week, hiding my head as one might hide the attached remnants of a twin one absorbed in the womb. After an empowering Instagram post, declaring my baldness and my Britney-esque breakdown, I was once again ready to go out in public. I swore never again to tamper with my gingerness, it was here to stay. I was once again ready to embrace my copper locks.

This was The Dawning of the Age of Auburnius, and in the words of that 1967 naked, hairy Off-Broadway chorus: Let the Sunshine in!

 

hair-daffodils
Blodeuwedd- A welsh maiden formed of flower/A very drunk, patriotic Welshman on St David’s Day