Normalisation

The application of a constant amount of gain to an audio recording in order to bring the average or peak amplitude to a target level (the norm)

At secondary school I wanted nothing more than to be normal; average in every way, unnoticed and invisible. But instead I had been made rotund, indifferent to sports and desperate to be lined up straight alongside the other pencils. If there had been a ‘normalisation’ tool to rid my waveform of tiresome lusts, doubts and anxieties I’d have been queuing for it.

Excerpt from a memoir – ‘Bob, it was really nothing...’

I wanted to be pencil thin, flame haired and swap my collection of chins for cheek bones. Some things never change. But my greatest desire was to wake up one day and fancy girls as effortlessly as other boys my age. To understand and feel their lust as they slobbered over the merits of Jane’s bum over Gill’s, but instead I thought of jock straps. I needed the support; it felt like I’d been created to suffer an acute loneliness and desperation I wouldn’t wish on any living creature. If there was a God, then it was clearly bitter and twisted.

 Outside of my secret raunchy thoughts I avoided the issue of sex completely. It also helped that no one wanted me as I was short, round and fair haired, which in my view wasn’t fair at all. It’s ironic perhaps that during this same period Bowie also dreamt of waking up to a ‘normal’ life and had swapped his LA diet of cocaine, milk, green peppers and cigarettes for a loft apartment and washing his own smalls in West Berlin with Iggy for company.

Larry Grayson had just taken over ‘The Generation Game’ and instantly become Britain’s favourite homo. The rank and file loved queers as long as they stayed on TV or in the pop charts and didn’t live on your street. I wasn’t one for rocking the boat but my real problem was that I couldn’t find any reference to me in the world. There was no secret society or homo coven I could find and I seemed no different to other men my age. The trouble was that I wanted to blow more than their minds.

What’s interesting to me now is that no one told me or anyone else that the ‘love that dare not speak its name’ was wrong. They didn’t need to really. The expressions and grimaces on the face of my father made it clear to me that to be queer was to be despised and isolated. ‘He should be strung up’ was one of his more friendly observations. Why the object of his derision should be hung was never explained, but the remark always followed seeing someone I felt an unconscious empathy with. It was clear that being different in that way was bad.

Nobody knew my secret lust for men because to share it was a notion too frightening to contemplate. It simply wasn’t safe to talk to anyone about the subject and there wasn’t a guide book in the local library. No ‘How to be a Gay’ by J.R Hartley was thrust into my hand by a reassuring and spectacled assistant.

Something flame haired for you...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qttXgkbRppc

Don't you want to be free?
Do you like girls or boys?
It's confusing these days

My solace was music and escape into a sonic world. Headphones would block out mundanity as spinning black vinyl replaced the Earth’s. There were so many discoveries to make and I would be absorbed for hours and transported to a heavenly place.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZES_mkPAHfE

Why did you give me
So much desire?
When there is nowhere I can go
To offload this desire
And why did you give me
So much love
In a loveless world
When there's no one I can turn to
To unlock all this love

My week has been uneventful with nothing salacious to hint at, save a flirtatious Skype conversation with an Egyptian living in Dubai. It started quite saucily but soon drifted into a discussion about writing as our shared interests became apparent. It’s amazing how technology has shrunk the world and enabled new alliances. My new friend also honoured me by sending his work to read and comment upon. One day I will venture out to meet him and climb the tallest building in the world - Burj Khalifa.

Until the next time, I’ll leave you with my favourite Pet Shop Boys song alongside the blatant homoeroticism of the video J It says it all really...

http://vimeo.com/27877751

When I went I left from the station
With a haversack and some trepidation
Someone said: "If you're not careful
You'll have nothing left and nothing to care for
In the nineteen-seventies"
But I sat back and looking forward
My shoes were high and I had spots
I'd bolted through a closing door
I would never find myself feeling bored

Picture by the Portuguese Wind x