Lopez Blogs

It Gets Better. It's a campaign that's swept the world, mainly through social media. There have been a rash of gay suicides recently (and certainly many more probably unreported over the years) - teens who can't picture what their lives might be like as openly gay adults. The "It Gets Better" campaign aims to do just that - celebrities and every day folk showing teens that people can be happy, people can have hope and everyone deserves to be accepted for who they are. After seeing rugby star Ben Cohen's video contribution (above) this weekend, I was seriously moved to contribute something. Will it help? I can't judge that, but I can certainly hope so...

Being a teen isn't easy for anyone. Being a gay teen, coming to terms with your feelings, sexuality and emotions isn't easy either. And being a gay teen dealing with all of this and growing up Mormon is a bit of a nightmare. Hallowe'en this weekend reminded me of similar weekends from my youth. My local Mormon church (which my family - mom, dad, four brothers and sisters attended regularly) would hold a little event called Spook Alley. On the surface, it was ingenious. you would go through the corridor of rooms, each one filled with some nasty ghost or ghoul. Nothing too insidious about that, you might think. One room would inevitably be "outer darkness" where people who had committed unforgiveable sins might end up. A man loving another man was considered one of those sins and walking into the room with my Mormon upbringing made me feel that everything about me, everything about what I felt was wrong. I kept quiet. However, it was apparently obvious to some that I was gay. Whispering and namecalling (surely the Lord's work?!) started. One Sunday School teacher very pointedly explained to me that homosexuality was a sin and pierced my palm with a needle to show me just a tiny fraction of the pain and torment gays would suffer if they didn't renounce their shameful ways. It was terrifying.

School wasn't much better. Trying to hide who I was/how I felt seemed to bring it to the surface and make it even more obvious. Being HomoPaul is senior school is no delight and the taunts, mocking and name calling seemed relentless. Even teachers would ask why I always hung out with girls (apparently this makes you gay? Inexplicable!) and why I wasn't normal and out playing football with the boys. This reinforced my internal battle with myself that I was wrong, that I must conform, that I must fundamentally change who I was. For teens nowadays going through this battle, I empathise. it's painful and soul destroying. Find comfort in those friends who accept you for who you are - either in your social network or your online community. I had a small but fiercely loyal group of friends who never questioned my sexuality and always accepted me for who I was/am. It wasn't a pleasant time but I think I was lucky because it wasn't entirely awful thanks to these people.

Getting cancer felt like a punishment for who I was. I was young, I had kept my desires secret but certainly acted upon them. God was seeking retribution. Add that guilt and fear to the terror you feel at having a potentially life threatening illness, and I felt I would collapse under the sheer weight of it all. This wasn't helping my 2 year recovery process. Something had to give. Change or accept who I was or die. it sounds dramatic but it came down to that simple choice. Illness often gives you a new lease on life and I was going to take it. This is just one reason why I am so so sad inside that some teens felt they had no choice, no support, no hope but to choose death. It truly breaks my heart and I'm so glad I had some network of support that spurred me on, that somehow made me believe it gets better...

Telling people I was gay wasn't as dramatic as I imagined. My family were far more accepting than the Mormon faith probably allows them to be. My friends already knew. once it was out in the open, it seemed to take the wind out of peoples sails and the taunts and name calling died down. It was still difficult though - I had to disassociate myself from the faith I'd been raised in. I lost some friends. But I felt better and stronger within myself. I became passionate about underrepresented groups receiving equal opportunities in life and this shaped my future career. I'm now a director in a leading national disability advice charity. I've been with my partner for over 10 years and civilly partnered for four years of those. There have been highs and lows, but I'm strangely proud of my life - it's not grand or famous or heroic or filled with celebrity, but it is a happy life filled with someone I love, a job I adore and friends who have over the years become as much of a family to me as my own. In short, I think my ordinary life is extraordinary. Keep hoping, keep strong - whatever you achieve in your life, it will be brilliant for you and you can pass on your experience to others struggling. I wish you well.

As i mentioned yesterday, I had a lovely weekend away with Darren - the highlight of which (after seeing Simon and Mark of course) was catching the preview show of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (The Musical). It opened on Tuesday 10th March and thus is still in it's infancy, but is bloody marvelosity from start to blooming euphoric finish. We had great seats, front and centre. In fact the only annoying thing about the seats was the far too up herself woman behind who kept loudly proclaiming things like:

"Oh i love the gay homosexuals. Aren't they just so much fun" (Um, as a species?)
"Oh these seats are absolutely super aren't they? Oh well done me" (!!)
"Oh i saw Bros in a limo once when I lived in Olympia - or Limps as I called it - and I shouted 'oh f*** off Bros, I love Jason Donovan' No I did. I really did" (Oh great. one of those who thinks telling you where she lives makes her a more interesting person. Fact - it does not!)
"Oh remember when i saw a drag queen in Fiji. Super people" (Shoots self in ear)

!! Speechless!! Anyway, the musical is super fun (sorry!) and obviously based on the 1994 film of the same name and clearly the 2006 Sydney musical. The story features around 3 drag queens who journey across Australia to perform in a casino in Alice Springs and to be reunited with one of the characters (Tick) son. The musical is marginally more fleshed out with a clear outline of the loneliness their lives have bought and while it is generally hilarious from start to finish (it's jam packed with innuendo and visual gags), there are some moments of great pathos. I won't spoil it too much in case you are off to see it, but needless to say Jason Donovan as Tick did an outstanding job and the entire cast is excellent. Here are my highlights:

• The choreography in the show is brilliant from the start. The perky Downtown is played while punks, drug addicts, thugs and prostitutes menacingly walk around Jason Donovan's Tick. Also brilliantly menacing are the unfriendly pub regulars during Hot Stuff.
• Jason Donovan quite rightly strips down to his undies within about 2 minutes of being on stage. He is quite buff. As are the majority of the cast. Oliver Thornton (from theatre boyband Teatro fact fans) plays Felicia and has a stomach you could bounce lovewee of. He also looks disturbingly like Austin Drage at various parts of the play.
• While the 3 main characters mime along to various disco classics (see my cd review here), the Divas sing the real versions above their heads bestowing our heroines with music and song like gaydian angels. One of them is Zoe Birkett - back from pop purgatory after Treat Me Like A Lady! She is rather good.
• Tony Sheldon who plays Bernadette (both here and in Oz) is literally flawless from start to finish. Bought a real dignity and warmth to the character.
• The funeral scene during Don't Leave Me This Way is both amusing and sad. Plus you get to learn the real reason that Bernadette's boyfriend was called Trumpet (he has an enormous foreskin! So large he could fit it around a ginger biscuit! Oh my lord)
• The bus is a marvel - and as the cast sing Go West the audience are showered with ticker tape for a ridiculously long amount of time. They, quite rightly, go bonkers. Later the audience are showered with ping pong balls during the lovely Cynthia's artistic performance of Pop Muzik.
• It's not hard to go from humour to heartbreak without it feeling forced (surprisingly I think that Xena Warrior Princess was very skilled at accomplishing this - really!), but after a night on the town (to I love the nightlife), the gang get back to see their bus vandalised. Their gloriously harmonised rendition of Both Sides Now was haunting and lovely. It really made me want to smooth down the bed covers and dab my eyes :( (bonus points if you guess that reference)
• The story is changed a little to have Felicia want to sing a kylie medley in full drag on Ayre's Rock (prompting huge cheers for the famous line "a cock in a frock on a rock") and during one of the early 'on the bus' moments, Felica and Tick (JD) sing various Kylie songs and Tick confesses to fancying Scott from Neighbours. It gave me a certain thrill to have Jase singing The Locomotion :)
• The double whammy of Colour My World (where the bus gets painted pink right before your eyes) and I Will Survive (complete with aboriginal remix) are both deliciously endorphin making. Colour My World sees the ensemble come out dressed as paintbrushes while I Will Survive turns into a tourist romp with every stereotype under the sun (I was just waiting for an inuit to be perched over a blowhole waiting for some fish).
• Talking of "colour" my world, Jase the face wears an increasingly colourful array of jeans when he is out of drag that James Leon and his burgandy slacks would be jealous of. And a nifty line of footwear that Simon Curtis would kill for :)
• Because of the above bullet point, you often don't know where to look on the stage. There is so much going on alongside the little in jokes, the innuendos, the road signs, the dancers, the costumes, the teletubbies (really!) et al. Perhaps that is to force people like myself who are easily distracted by one thing to go again?!
• There is a lovely father son moment for Tick and um, the little boy (who is freaking adorable) whose name i forget right now. They do quite a nice medley of Always On My Mind and I Say A Little Prayer.
• The finale is party time. The theatre will make an absolute fortune on all those pink feather boas they were selling!! The ladies-who-go-with-gays -to-things loved them! And a medley of Finally, I love The Nightlife and I Will Survive (all with iconic costumes from the film) literally (and by literally i mean figuratively) bought the house down. I haven't felt that uplifted for ages. Must go again!

Only we booked to go and see Sister Act The Musical in May instead, but I'm sure that will be lovely too :)

OTHER THEATRE REVIEWS:

• Chess (May 2008)
• The Sound of Music (June 2007)
• Little Shop of Horrors (March 2007)
• Joseph and His Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat (Mar 2007)
• Beauty and The Beast (Oct 2006)
• Dirty Dancing The Musical (Oct 2006)
• The History Boys (Sept 2006)
• Wicked (Sept 2006)

Somehow Digital Spy has recently surpassed Popjustice and Zap2it as my favourite not really a blog type website. Sometimes it's because they have Lee Pace on their gayspy feature. Sometimes it's because they show how stupid movie stars sometimes and probably often are. But today it's because despite being signed to a mailing list to alert me to this momentous event, digitalspy was the first place that I heard that Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (The Musical) tickets were finally on sale in the UK!!!!! AND!!!!! Jason "neighbours/shagged kylie/got new albums of classics out soon/rip your clothes off and stick a bottle of poppers up your nose" Donovan is starring in it! As a gay! Screw broadway cos all the best party atmosphere musicals are originating from Australia. First Dirty Dancing, and now this!! Marvelous....

I could write about how magnificent the film is, but actually I'm going to focus on the soundtrack to the musical which has actually been an obsession of mine for most of this year. I kept meaning to write about it, but criminally never got around to it. Criminally because it's actually a musical romp through some of the catchiest and potentially gayest songs in pop history. And even if you just listen to the soundtrack without any prior knowledge of the film, you are aware of one of those life stories unfolding that you don't realise is happening until after the event. And it's so hard not to smile while listening to the album - each song is imbued with a joie de vivre as various misfits and outcasts of the story sing and dance their way through life. Opener Downtown is presented in finger clicking glory, Go West outcamps even the Pet Shop Boys version and I Love The Nightlife starts off with a drunk bartender berating her lack of bedroom success before leaping into a positively glittering disco epic fizzing over with muted horns and and a strangely alluring bongo drum beat. There is tenderness and sadness in both the upbeat and slow songs. Don't Leave Me This Way is an ode to a deceased lover, while Both Sides Now can't fail to be almost as heartbreaking as it is when Emma Thompson is wronged in Love, Actually...

Colour My World (which, I could be wrong, but I suspect opens the second half?) is a song I'm not familiar with but is so ridiculously perky and upbeat and pop chart worthy that I'm surprised Same Difference haven't already picked up on it. And as the show comes to a close there are some intruiging medleys of pop songs such as Sos-Morning After (perfectly matched when you think about it) and Always On My Mind-Confide In Me which pitches the former as a gentle ballad and the latter as an operatic masterpiece. And strangely it works very well. Then of course there is a final happy perky song, that again could be a Same Difference track - We Belong, a song about acceptance and harmony. With harmonies in it! How postmodern is that. So even if the musical isn't playing in a city near you, just pick up the soundtrack and spend a delicious hour and a bit immersed in musicalised pop history. And while we are on the subject of Australia, which is the most pathetic segueway ever, I'm not a huge fan of boxer shorts but these are pretty splendiferous!!

Random related musicals links:

• My review of Chess
• My review of Half A Sixpence
• My review of Sound of Music
• My review of Joseph....
• My review of Little Shop of Horrors
• My review of Dirty Dancing on stage

Now if someone would just recognise the genius of my musical set to the music of Madonna (Like A Prayer - Erotica period) about a nun who becomes a popstar...

• Big Brother 2008 (UK)
• The London Boys!
• New songs from Sophie Ellis Bextor and McFly
• Flashback with Alanis and new album review...

Ruthiepoos and Darren getting boozed up at the Bar-be-cue

• The holiday home was lovely. Right across from the beach, lovely little terrace. Darren and I played the "manniversary" card to ensure that we got the only room with the rumpy pumpy double bed. Hurrah, etc.
• We all played the board game version of Goldenballs on the friday night. I am mortified at how quickly a tightknit group of friends will turn on each other for fake money!!
• Saturday morning was gorgeous - Darren and I went to the indoor water park. The Saturday Dads in Wales are well buff. So many six packs! Shame about the faces, etc.
• The wave pool there was vicious. I was bruised and scraped (though might have been from the double bed usage the night before) - and then it rained over the wave pool. Darren pretended he was in Perfect Storm. I booted some little fat boy out the way in order to get out of the pounding rain. I don't always enjoy a good pounding you know...
• I got very "sun-kissed" in the walk along the beach. I never tan, the redness just fades to white. So now i have a reddish face and big white panda eyes where my sunglasses were. Why Darren finds this hysterical is beyond me.
• There were far too many seagulls hovering greedily as I ate my fish and chips on the pier. One was eyeing me up so ferociously that I was pretty sure it was coming on to me and (to quote Phoebe from Friends) please, that is never going to happen. I'm scared of birds.
• The four of us went to look round some of the new holiday homes. The saleslady automatically assumed that Ruth was my sister. Not my wife. How presumptious of her.
• She then said that "the entertainment staff would love you" (meaning me, not you the person reading this) and asked was I in entertainment?! What can she mean?!
• Finally, she felt the need to confide that she loved the gays. She always felt so "safe" in their presence. I nearly ruined that belief by headbutting her, but then I decided that she was probably totally safe in the company of "straights" also. Hers was an inner beauty.
• I got a bit tipsy on wine waiting for the BBQ to be done and spent the whole time dancing around the terrace to the Priscilla Queen Of The Desert - The Musical Soundtrack. You could see the neighbours looking over and thinking either "Oh god there goes the neighbourhood" or more likely "Hurrah. The neighbourhood has arrived. The pink pound is here!"
• Priscilla Queen Of The Desert - The Musical Soundtrack is very good indeed. I do enjoy a nice operatic version of Confide in Me.
• Talking of Kylie, the freemason's radio edit of The One is too delish for words.
• Finally, the four of us spent far too long drunkenly playing Balderdash. Below, for your viewing "pleasure" is a youtube video of one of the rounds. It's probably only funny if you were there though. Darren nearly wet himself. Note my quick looks of bewilderment - i was somewhat sober by this point...
  
  

Back tomorrow little dudes! With something angelic...

It's been a ridiculously busy week and I was going to write about lots of things but never really got around to it, so I am going to chuck them all together in a nice little casserole for you all here. Eat up, it's tasty goodness...

London and I fell out this week. I've always viewed London as the slightly hoity toity brother I don't really get on with and quite honestly only go there for the musicals and a little S&M (Simon and Mark you pervs). Weds there were too many people, walking too slowly, the tubes were too hot, i had a headache etc, etc. However, I have made peace with The Feeling picking Without You as the second single over the title track of their album. It's a lovely chilled little number where they are missing "london town" (oh dear) and Dan and Richard look perfectly adorable in the video. I still want Join With Us as a single though - there is this incredible moment at around 4 minutes where it launches into this guitar riff that reminds me Phantom of the Opera before going all Uninvited piano solo. Gives me chills every time (check out XO's and TBFKADT's views)...

I'm almost too gay to function right now... After watching Connie and Carla (AGAIN!) with the increasingly svelte and buff Dazpanteloons last night, and deciding once again that I would totally turn it into an international hit stage musical, I finally got to listen to the stage version of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert soundtrack on the way to work. And it's a fucking marvel. All 70s and 80s classics disco'd up and done broadway style. It's too amazing to write about fully here but expect to hear more on it from me soon...

There are three acts that will restore the balance to my pop group world very shortly. One I have already written about will be massive international girl group pop, one I mentioned before very briefly under their original name SoundFactory (but now have a new name) will bring back poptastic boyband music, and there is a very ace new Steps-lite group floating around too. Expect full revelations next week....

Jonathan Rhys Meyers and ace writing are two reasons i'm excited about The Tudors returning on Monday, but then again there is also Henry Cavill. Rar indeed....