The White Horse

I don’t read as much as I’d like to, or as much as I should to keep me with the times, and to lubricate my brain enough to feel kind of smart. I guess I spend too much time on the computer, sewing in a basement, and dancing like a freak in my living room. These things are nice, they keep me relatively happy, I don’t dance enough for my body to feel fully satisfied, but I dance when I can. So I was just in London staying with England’s finest stash of queer folk. Amazing ladies and gentlemen from London and Spain. The house where we stayed is kind of the hub of Murcian queerbies living in London. SO NICE. These people were fun. We went to a gay bar together in a section of East London…I can’t recall the name of this place, but from the moment I walked in I knew it was a good place, at first I didn’t notice it, but eventually I started to wonder: hmm…that’s interesting, all of the men in here have shaved heads and are wearing polos. The entire bar was filled with skin head gay men. And the performer was a super quick and talentented black drag queen. She was the finest of the fine, mean as hell, but fast enough with the jabs and the reactions to take the edge off of the cruelty of it all. I saw on the stage she had just captured our cohorts from the Spanish/English immersion palace we called “home”. It was Ros’s girlfriend Ochi, and their friend Paco on stage, and the queen had her hand on Paco’s package. Making fun of their accents to boot! So Ros immediately was hailed on stage to confirm the length of their relationship, apparently Ochi said one year and Ros had answered three years, so that discrepancy was brought to our attention by the lovely queen, held up for inspection, and ridiculed. “HEHEHEHE honey, you better check with your lover here what she was doin’ during the first 2 years!” OOOOHHHHHHH you say, you’ve been LIVING together for the last year and going out for the last 3 years. HUH, okay, well maybe you ladies better talk about this.” hahaha the audience was cracking up. But the funniest part of her act to me was when she would put her hand inside the pants of a few brave souls who got up there with her. A handsome gent from Australia was called to the stage, only after she confirmed he wasn’t Afganistani, and had his dong totally felt, described, and then complimented. She proceeded to find out where he was living, for how long would he be staying in London, where he worked, and when exactly his cigarette break was so she could come on by and say hello. SO good. After a few pints, some pool, and some heavy conversation about language with Adrien, a nice fellow who was the boyfriend of Paco, we danced off to the White Horse. I was warned that the people inside this bar might not be accustomed to women, in fact they might not even know what a woman was, so don’t be suprised if I get a few strange looks or even a cold stare. SO, we get in there and to my relief I see a very straight looking girl talking with her buddies right at the bar, then I look to my left and I see a packed dance floor, crew cuts, polos, and happy sweaty faces. 98 percent of whom male. I get out there with Paco, we’re ripping it up out there – I feel like a fag hag and it feels good. Then Melanie comes out there and we start dancing like the gay friend from My So Called Life. What was his name, Andy or Andrew or something. I’m lifting my arms and pumping them up and down, zipping my head from side to side, WORKING it so to say. Paco takes my hand and leads me off the dance floor into another part of the bar. This part has men in tiny jocks dancing up and down poles with American dollars stuffed in there panties. YEAH. So we kick it there for a while, Adrien and I pole dance during one of the guys’ cig breaks, then eventually we make it home after an hour or so of pint drinking staring and pole dancing.

The next day was wonderful. Jill and Naz took us all around East London, past the Muslim neighborhoods, the Jewish neighborhoods, the Bengali restaurants and Indian saari shops, through the markets, the garment district, until we got to Brick Lane. Brick Lane is one of the more famous streets in London, the sound of bumping funk music mingled with the smell of cooking sausages, the shouts of hot girls on bicycles waving to their friends wearing colorful scarves, very cool shoes, and sporting asymetrical hair cuts. There were people selling amazing junk lining the edges of Brick Lane, and then I heard it. Clack a clickity clack clack. Tap shoes. I walked over to the Japanese guys straight out of a Fruits magazine tapping with some cool rasta guys with djembes. It RULED. Made me feel alive. I thought “fuck, I am so much better than these dudes, and they’re making money doing this, and the money is pounds so it’s actually like 3 times as much money as I’m seeing right now”. So it inspired me to tap dance at home. Maybe I’ll do it on the street like these dudes, but I’d have to get some cooler clothes and some back up musicians and people to just hang around and look cool with me. Or maybe I could just do it by myself, with my boom box or whatever, and take my raw naked soul in my fist and dance dance dance with abandon.

After the cool street, we saw a cool market. Full of hand made stuff and indie designer wares. The coolest semi outdoor market I’ve ever been to. And that was where I saw the tiny pink guitar, only 29 pounds, not too expensive right? Hell no. But I was so damn hungry for an English breakfast that we didn’t stop to buy the thing we just walked on by saying, “let’s get it after breakfast” it would still be there. Of course. Then we ate and that’s when I realized I was hanging out with vegetarians, I asked Jill if she minded me eating meat in front of her, she said she was a vegetarian, not a nazi. That made me laugh, but it was still a little uncomfortable when Naz said she made her roommate buy her new pans after cooking pork in them, yummm this bacon was sure tasty. Gulp.

After breakfast we re-found Brick Lane, awe Brick Lane, you mecca of hot stylish girls and not too bad looking guys all wearing amazing clothes that were a mix between fun Portland fashion, and Brooklyn big city urban wear. Jill wasn’t having it, she thought they were TOO attractive and couldn’t appreciate the shallowness we were enjoying. BUT who knows what those people are actually like, I hadn’t been in London long enough to judge it’s citizens and that’s the beauty of travelling. You can’t pigeon hole people, you can’t feel like you KNOW what it’s like. Because it’s new. So, we flew into a bookstore and Gaylord, I mean Jill just happened to be an English literature lecturer for 2 different universities in London, lucky me! So I asked her “Okay, just off the top of your head, name a book that you love and think I should read”. So she took me to the fiction section and picked out an author, they didn’t have the book she was thinking of, but they had another one by the same guy so I bought it, along with another vague suggestion she handed to me. I was eating it up, the books, the suggestions, the pure English language of it all. I needed some stimulation, I needed words that could pentrate me and make me think. I was sick of speaking French half heartedly to people that really didn’t understand me too well, talking about language and oh isn’t it funny how this meaning can be obscured blah blah blah. I was surrounded by people and books all brimming with ENGLISH. I love this language. SO I bought the books, walked around a bit more with Naz and Jill and Melanie, drank some more hot beverages, met up with the rest of the Spanish/English immersion crew, then sadly headed for the bus to catch the 6:30 plane back to Bergerac. Back to the land of calm civil interactions, heady conversations in French of course, nice smelling ladies, cute children who didn’t scream and act autistic or hyper manic all the time. Back to where I don’t really fit in, but it’s so obvious that I just stopped caring, back to where beauty rules the beast, where civil disobedience is practiced frequently and works. FRANCE. My home for now. But at least after this trip I have some nice memories, some fucking complicated fiction, and a stamp on my passport that will allow me to live in cheese and wine country for another 3 months.