The Day Larry Kramer Kissed Me

“After reading the Crucible and realising what a cunt I’d made of myself I desperately needed something to redeem my confidence. I wanted the perfect role. A solid, deep 3 minutes that showcased my range and my cast-ability for the upcoming seasons. An engaging speech that showcased my face, voice and physicality”.

Barry Church-Woods

At 17, my best friend; Gay Craig and I auditioned for drama schools together. I’d already fucked one up massively the year before; determined to get out of school as soon as I could*.

*Apparently, if you don’t read the whole script, it is possible to play a John Proctor monologue from the Crucible in a green pinstripe suit while smoking a cigar. (Add to this the fact that I had a shaved head and a quiff, I’m actually pretty impressed that the audition panel didn’t laugh in the face of the young clueless boy that looked like Ani Defranco playing at being a grown up).

Fortunately, a year makes a massive difference when you’re that young.

With a little more maturity, I was ready to throw myself to the lions again. In the spring of 93, with the hope of being afforded the rare and sought after opportunity of becoming Leroy from Fame, I started to work on my tan. And my monologues.

For those of you that are fortunate enough not to have undergone the humiliating process of auditioning to get work, you should know it’s the equivalent of giving a dog a biscuit for rolling over or giving good paw. But instead of a crunchy treat, your tricks need to be of a standard to convince a director, panel of lecturers and sometimes even your contemporaries that you are worthy of the opportunity you are chasing. Sometimes it’s a day’s work that will pay your bills for a month. At other times, it’s the opportunity to develop professionally and be in with a much better chance of getting work in the future.

We were facing the latter and were about to embark on a series of auditions to get into one of three sought after courses available to aspiring actors in Scotland.

As such, we needed the perfect monologues to convince potential course heads that we were exactly the right people to occupy their hallways, singing arias while stag leaping our way to superstardom.

After reading the Crucible and realising what a cunt I’d made of myself I desperately needed something to redeem my confidence. I wanted the perfect role. A solid, deep 3 minutes that showcased my range and my cast-ability for the upcoming seasons. An engaging speech that showcased my face, voice and physicality.

I searched libraries far and wide for the perfect character. Something about a teenager from a council estate. Someone from West Lothian.

Passing Places. The Life of Stuff. Find Me. Trainspotting. The list of opportunities was endless. I worked on four or five different performances. Night and day. Day and night. Over and over again until they were all instinctive. I was all ready to go when Craig brought me something that he said was perfect for me…

Bruce Niles, a thirty-something ex marine from New York whose boyfriend had just died of AIDS.

Perfect.

Here’s a picture of me at 17.

Regardless of how inappropriate the casting would be in the real world, the writing was so powerful that I elected to create a tailored performance around the piece.

It got me into college.

From that point in, I developed an incredible relationship with the play, it’s themes and it’s author.

In my second year at college I used WH Auden’s poem September 1st 1939 as stimuli for a street performance for World Aids Day. The Normal Heart took its name from the poem. This was the start of a long relationship with World Aids Day.

As a director and producer, my first publicly staged work was a preview of a section of the play and my first successfully written funding application was from the Health Education Board of Scotland for the full show to be produced. Incidentally, this also bred my first BBC radio interview for that production and egotistically my first ever standing-ovation.
The first cast of The Normal Heart

Revisiting the monologue in my graduation showcase at the Pleasance got me cast in my first film and when a few years later, I applied for a grown up job as a Cultural Coordinator for Fife Council, it was apparent that where I was in my life at that particular time all came back to The Normal Heart.

That job opened so many doors for me professionally that by 2007 when I restaged the Normal Heart with Civil Disobedience it was with the full support of Larry Kramer, at the National Museum of Scotland and came with an editorial in the Sunday Herald.

26 years after it was first written, the play is as powerful as ever. It’s recently been revived on Broadway and Ryan Murphy has announced that he had been given the film rights. Personally, I can’t wait to see what the creator of Glee, Nip Tuck and American Horror Story does with it.

As I sit in my beautiful Edinburgh flat contemplating my incredible job, today I’m raising a glass to Larry Kramer and all the boys from Act Up. But most importantly, I’m raising it to big gay Craig and the wonderful moment he created that set me on this track.

W. H. Auden’s Platonic Blow

Had he lived, today would have been W. H. Auden’s 1o5th birthday.  To mark the occassion (any excuse really) we’re publishing The Platonic Blow.  Perhaps one of the filthiest poems from the prolific writer.  Probably best not to read if you’re prudish…or male and wearing thin trousers in company.  Enjoy.

220px-AudenVanVechten1939

The Platonic Blow

It was a spring day, a day for a lay, when the air
Smelled like a locker-room, a day to blow or get blown;
Returning from lunch I turned my corner and there
On a near-by stoop I saw him standing alone.

I glanced as I advanced. The clean white T-shirt outlined
A forceful torso, the light-blue denims divulged
Much. I observed the snug curves where they hugged the behind,
I watched the crotch where the cloth intriguingly bulged.

Our eyes met. I felt sick. My knees turned weak.
I couldn’t move. I didn’t know what to say.
In a blur I heard words, myself like a stranger speak
“Will you come to my room?” Then a husky voice, “O.K.”

I produced some beer and we talked. Like a little boy
He told me his story. Present address: next door.
Half Polish, half Irish. The youngest. From Illinois.
Profession: mechanic. Name: Bud. Age: twenty-four.

He put down his glass and stretched his bare arms along
The back of my sofa. The afternoon sunlight struck
The blond hairs on the wrist near my head. His chin was strong.
His mouth sucky. I could hardly believe my luck.

And here he was sitting beside me, legs apart.
I could bear it no longer. I touched the inside of his thigh.
His reply was to move closer. I trembled, my heart
Thumped and jumped as my fingers went to his fly.

I opened a gap in the flap. I went in there.
I sought for a slit in the gripper shorts that had charge
Of the basket I asked for. I came to warm flesh then to hair.
I went on. I found what I hoped. I groped. It was large.

He responded to my fondling in a charming, disarming way:
Without a word he unbuckled his belt while I felt.
And lolled back, stretching his legs. His pants fell away.
Carefully drawing it out, I beheld what I held.

The circumcised head was a work of mastercraft
With perfectly beveled rim of unusual weight
And the friendliest red. Even relaxed, the shaft
Was of noble dimensions with the wrinkles that indicate

Singular powers of extension. For a second or two,
It lay there inert, then suddenly stirred in my hand,
Then paused as if frightened or doubtful of what to do.
And then with a violent jerk began to expand.

By soundless bounds it extended and distended, by quick
Great leaps it rose, it flushed, it rushed to its full size.
Nearly nine inches long and three inches thick,
A royal column, ineffably solemn and wise.

I tested its length and strength with a manual squeeze.
I bunched my fingers and twirled them about the knob.
I stroked it from top to bottom. I got on my knees.
I lowered my head. I opened my mouth for the job.

But he pushed me gently away. He bent down. He unlaced
His shoes. He removed his socks. Stood up. Shed
His pants altogether. Muscles in arms and waist
Rippled as he whipped his T-shirt over his head.

I scanned his tan, enjoyed the contrast of brown
Trunk against white shorts taut around small
Hips. With a dig and a wriggle he peeled them down.
I tore off my clothes. He faced me, smiling. I saw all.

The gorgeous organ stood stiffly and straightly out
With a slight flare upwards. At each beat of his heart it threw
An odd little nod my way. From the slot of the spout
Exuded a drop of transparent viscous goo.

The lair of hair was fair, the grove of a young man,
A tangle of curls and whorls, luxuriant but couth.
Except for a spur of golden hairs that fan
To the neat navel, the rest of the belly was smooth.

Well hung, slung from the fork of the muscular legs,
The firm vase of his sperm, like a bulging pear,
Cradling its handsome glands, two herculean eggs,
Swung as he came towards me, shameless, bare.

We aligned mouths. We entwined. All act was clutch,
All fact contact, the attack and the interlock
Of tongues, the charms of arms. I shook at the touch
Of his fresh flesh, I rocked at the shock of his cock.

Straddling my legs a little I inserted his divine
Person between and closed on it tight as I could.
The upright warmth of his belly lay all along mine.
Nude, glued together for a minute, we stood.

I stroked the lobes of his ears, the back of his head
And the broad shoulders. I took bold hold of the compact
Globes of his bottom. We tottered. He fell on the bed.
Lips parted, eyes closed, he lay there, ripe for the act.

Mad to be had, to be felt and smelled. My lips
Explored the adorable masculine tits. My eyes
Assessed the chest. I caressed the athletic hips
And the slim limbs. I approved the grooves of the thighs.

I hugged, I snuggled into an armpit. I sniffed
The subtle whiff of its tuft. I lapped up the taste
Of its hot hollow. My fingers began to drift
On a trek of inspection, a leisurely tour of the waist.

Downward in narrowing circles they playfully strayed.
Encroached on his privates like poachers, approached the prick,
But teasingly swerved, retreated from meeting. It betrayed
Its pleading need by a pretty imploring kick.

“Shall I rim you?” I whispered. He shifted his limbs in assent.
Turned on his side and opened his legs, let me pass
To the dark parts behind. I kissed as I went
The great thick cord that ran back from his balls to his arse.

Prying the buttocks aside, I nosed my way in
Down the shaggy slopes. I came to the puckered goal.
It was quick to my licking. He pressed his crotch to my chin.
His thighs squirmed as my tongue wormed in his hole.

His sensations yearned for consummation. He untucked
His legs and lay panting, hot as a teen-age boy.
Naked, enlarged, charged, aching to get sucked,
Clawing the sheet, all his pores open to joy.

I inspected his erection. I surveyed his parts with a stare
From scrotum level. Sighting along the underside
Of his cock, I looked through the forest of pubic hair
To the range of the chest beyond rising lofty and wide.

I admired the texture, the delicate wrinkles and the neat
Sutures of the capacious bag. I adored the grace
Of the male genitalia. I raised the delicious meat
Up to my mouth, brought the face of its hard-on to my face.

Slipping my lips round the Byzantine dome of the head,
With the tip of my tongue I caressed the sensitive groove.
He thrilled to the trill. “That’s lovely!” he hoarsely said.
“Go on! Go on!” Very slowly I started to move.

Gently, intently, I slid to the massive base
Of his tower of power, paused there a moment down
In the warm moist thicket, then began to retrace
Inch by inch the smooth way to the throbbing crown.

Indwelling excitements swelled at delights to come
As I descended and ascended those thick distended walls.
I grasped his root between left forefinger and thumb
And with my right hand tickled his heavy voluminous balls.

I plunged with a rhythmical lunge steady and slow,
And at every stroke made a corkscrew roll with my tongue.
His soul reeled in the feeling. He whimpered “Oh!”
As I tongued and squeezed and rolled and tickled and swung.

Then I pressed on the spot where the groin is joined to the cock,
Slipped a finger into his arse and massaged him from inside.
The secret sluices of his juices began to unlock.
He melted into what he felt. “O Jesus!” he cried.

Waves of immeasurable pleasures mounted his member in quick
Spasms. I lay still in the notch of his crotch inhaling his sweat.
His ring convulsed round my finger. Into me, rich and thick,
His hot spunk spouted in gouts, spurted in jet after jet.

How To Survive A Plague Gets Oscar Nod

We were delighted this afternoon to see the David France’s documentary about ACT UP and TAG has been nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Documentary category.  This recognition is particularly poignant with the death of one of the films subjects Spencer Cox last month.  Let’s hope it gets the win, which will ensure wider international distribution.

plague3

Jane Lynch: From Carol Brady to Sue Sylvester

“If there’s anything wrong with me, it has nothing to do with my orientation. I’ve got a lot of flaws. But being gay isn’t one of them.”

Writer, actress, and comedian Jane Lynch is a slim six-feet-tall and usually wears her blonde hair cropped in a pixie cut. Born in Illinois, she went to a public university and got her M.F.A. in Theater from Cornell. Her extensive theater background involved touring with the Second City comedy troupe and playing Carol Brady in The Real Live Brady Bunch.

She also wrote and starred in the award-winning play Oh Sister, My Sister. Originally produced in 1998, the play kicked off the Lesbians in Theater program at the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center in 2004.

Lynch’s other stage credits include Tales of the Lost Formicans, Ennui, and Waiting for Iggy.

She made her film debut in 1988 with a small role in the body-switching comedy Vice Versa. On television, she was in the Lifetime movie In the Best Interest of the Children and made numerous guest appearances on sitcoms. After some meager roles in Straight Talk, The Fugitive, and Fatal Instinct, she had the good fortune to join Christopher Guest’s gang of improvisational comic actors. Her breakthrough role was butch Christy Cummings, the personal dog handler to trophy wife Sheri Ann Cabot (Jennifer Coolidge) in the 2000 mockumentary Best in Show.

Over the next two years, she played a government agent in the action movie Collateral Damage, a sarcastic nurse in the ABC medical comedy MDs, and a 1940s-style receptionist in the TNT movie The Big Time. In 2003, she reunited with the cast from Best in Show for the musical spoof A Mighty Wind. She performed her own music in the role of Laurie Bohner, the former porn star and member of the New Main Street Singers.

In 2004, Lynch appeared in Sleepover, Little Black Boot, and The Californians. Over the course of the next few years, Lynch remained one of the comedy world’s best kept secrets while getting steady work in film and television. But that secret wouldn’t be kept for long, because in 2009, after essaying a recurring role on the hit Showtime series The L Word, Lynch madea major impression on television viewers as villainous cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester on the hit musical series Glee — a role for which she was awarded both an Emmy and a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress.

Real People, Real Faces, Real Love in Vietnam

“When I take these photos, the most important thing is I have to believe in that moment. If it doesn’t give me that feeling, then I don’t take the photo.”

20130104-lens-elan-slide-IFLM-custom1

Maika Elan didn’t know what to expect two years ago when she knocked on doors at a popular hotel for gay and lesbian couples in Siem Riep, Cambodia. She was surprised when most of the guests — many of whom were foreigners — told her she was welcome to take their portraits.

Ms. Elan, a young Vietnamese photographer, had traveled there for the Angkor Photo Festival to take a workshop with the Magnum photographer Antoine D’Agata. Needing a subject, she found Pink Choice, a Web site catering to same-sex couples traveling together — “kind of a Lonely Planet for gay and lesbian people,” she said.

Read more

Footsteps and Witnesses: Ripples in a Pool of Visibility

“These characters are too ‘tidy’ in other ways… there are no transvestites, paedophiles, bisexuals. It is not surprising that a ‘sense of pride emerges”.

8235_1094244890031_6019341_n

Me modelling Madonna’s moves and Celine Dion’s teeth

in 1992.

Barry Church-Woods

Early yesterday morning I received an email from an old work-chum.  It announced that Bob Cant, the editor of the book Footsteps and Witnesses would be speaking at the National Library of Scotland at the start of February to mark the 20th anniversary of this trail blazing publication.

The publication in question is a verbatim record of 23 different gay and lesbian people living in Scotland in 1992.  The book was published in 1993.  It got me thinking about what I was doing at the time and that process brought me back to my letter to my 16 year old self (inspired by the Joseph Galliano collection Dear Me).  Here it is.

Dear Barry

I’m writing to you from 20 years in the future, the day after NASA announced the discovery of a new planet that looks likely to be able to sustain some form of life. It’s in the goldilocks galaxy and has a surface temperature of 22C, is twice the size of earth and has a sun about 25% cooler than ours.

As a 16 year old, you are prone to exaggeration and your need for approval will see you concoct some wonderfully naive lies. Fortunately for you, you are telling them to people who will have little impact on your life within the next few months and it’s something you will grow out of very soon.

The weird thing is, the first statement about the new planet is true. And in 2011, we’re using the word amazeballs a lot to refence stuff like this. Start saying it now, you’ll be seen as a trendsetter.

There’s really no point in being able to communicate with your 16 year old self unless you at least attempt a few interventions or words of encouragement, so here they are. Sorry if it sounds preachy.

First off, you are a bummer. I know you are already fairly liberal and carefree about this stuff, but I do also know that at 16 you are pretty terrified of what your future is going to be like. You don’t have to worry too much. Society is about to shift in a few years. It will be gradual and there will always be bigots and homophobes around you. The good news is; you won’t feel the need to invite them to your wedding. To your husband. Who is half Swedish and half Kiwi. Picture that in your head. Now picture the opposite. That’s what he looks like.

It takes a while to get there and I’m not going to lecture you about all the frogs you will need to fuck before you find him, but you should know right now, that what you are doing with that skater is not love. It’s barely even sex. He’s actually just wanking inside you and he will never ever treat you well in public. Ditch him and move on. There are a lot of great people to meet that aren’t ashamed of who they are and they will all contribute to you becoming a fairly well adjusted, compassionate and giving person.

Spend more time with your sisters. They will always love you and make you a better version of yourself.
Enjoy having hair and a flat stomach.
Smoke less grass.

Professionally, I don’t know what to tell you. You’ll study acting and be very good at auditions. You’ll get a lot of work but will rarely be booked again. It’s really not your forte and actually, deep down you already know that you are not cut out for the monotony of doing the same thing day after day. The reality is, you’ll have some wonderful experiences and end up working with people that you currently idolise. You are a much better producer than artist but don’t give up on being creative. Sometimes you’ll surprise yourself.

Try not to get caught up in the glamour of it all. It will make you drop your guard and you’ll end up in some fairly dangerous situations that will haunt you to this day.

Oh, and when you are faced with the choice of doing a play with Richard Demarco or a wee part in a film called Mrs Brown, choose the film.

Now that’s over, I know this is what my 16 year old self really wants to know…

At 53, Madonna is still pretty cool although she did steal some African children and become Jewish for a while. The media persecute her for not being daring enough now or being too old or too female or both. She’s had some work done and sometimes looks like Zelda from the Terrahawkes, though mostly she’s still pretty good at what she does.

And finally, and most importantly of all. You are loved for who you are and YOU WILL ESCAPE LIVINGSTON.

When I first wrote the letter last year I remember being full of hope and optimism.  I’m married to the love of my life, have a great job, home and social circle.  I remember sitting back and thinking “Was it really so bad?” I’m sure I had a tough time, but didn’t everyone?  Wasn’t that just part of being a teenager?  Maybe I was overreacting and the times I grew up in were a lot more liberal and understanding.  Maybe the real problem was me and paranoia about being different.  Maybe those Jim Davidson jokes were funny.

Then I started researching the book.  And found a review by David Evans in Scottish Affairs.  It stated:

“These characters are too ‘tidy’ in other ways… there are no transvestites, paedophiles, bisexuals. It is not surprising that a ‘sense of pride emerges”.

Yes. In 1993, it was still ok for some academics to compare homosexuality to paedophilia and not be called out on it. It was a flippant phrase in a somewhat poorly structured review, but it was there.  Right in front of me in black and white.  Could this really be acceptable at any time?

It got me thinking just how far we’ve come in the past 20 years.  The 16 year old me would never have dreamed of being able to walk down the street holding hands with my husband, kissing him goodbye as he goes to work.  On a daily basis, the 16 year old me was still spat at and called a faggot or bender whenever I went to the shops.  The 16 year old me still had to deal with a wanker of a PE teacher that thought it was acceptable to use ‘mincing fairy’ as a motivational phrase.  I’m not saying that the majority of people thought like this, but noone can deny that these attitudes were prevalent in 1993 Scots society.

So this book.  A collection of stories told by real people.  Real people who allowed the editor to use their real names and hometowns.  Real people who spoke about things that we consider fairly mainstream today, was a great little piece of history for the Scottish gay community.  The bravery of the subjects will never be compared to that of Rosa Parks or Emmeline Pankhurst,  it doesn’t even dent the surface of the progress made by Harvey Milk or the Stonewall Riots, but this was Scotland, and about as far removed from San Francisco and New York as the moon and here it definitely formed some of the first ripples in a pool of visibility that allowed people to come out.  To live their lives the way they wanted.  And for that, I am extremely grateful.  Grateful for the progress we’ve made over the past 20 years.  And grateful for all the sex I got to have with FULLY GROWN MEN because of it.

Bob Cant will talk about Footsteps and witnesses at the National Library of Scotland on George IV Bridge, Edinburgh on 4 February at 6pm.  Tickets are free. Book online or phone 0131 623 3734.