GO WEST

Well, I've been pretty negligent lately about keeping up with my blog.

As some of you know I'm in the middle of changing jobs.

I do have a lot to catch up on, and it's funny how with blogging, you have all this stuff to put down, but then you put it off, then you get backed up, then it's all just too much to deal with. So, voila, you just dump all the baggage and start fresh.

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I did go to see the PET SHOP BOYS at the Tabernacle. Made for a nice evening, I even drove over to the station and took the train into town. It was a nice night for walking around.

Now First let me explain a special connection I have with a special connection with the PSBs and their music. I think most any gay boy around my age probably did. It's music we all kinda grew up and came out with.

But above and beyond that, I have a special connection with "GO WEST". Some years ago my partner David passed away, from a very long lingering fight with AIDS. It was one of those particularly dramatic movie-of-the-week deals. Drama with the family (Jehovah's Witnesses), home care (IVs and inhome nursing), etc.

Now this was very early on in the crisis, before anyone even knew what it was exactly or how to deal with it. We found out he had it when he kept getting sick and no one could figure out what it was. He got test and yeah, he was pretty far along. He got sick pretty quickly, and then was sick for a long time. Now I was also positive, but not as far along as he was. Naturally, most of the early focus was on his immediate need.

When he did pass away, suddenly I'm finding myself also with HIV, and now alone, having lost my partner of 10 years. It was a lot to handle, and things didn't look very promising.

So when I got his insurance money in hand, I was also charting my t-cell count and projecting to hit below 200 before too long. (That was sort of the magic number back then when you started getting sick.) Okay, now looking back the smart thing to have done would have been to invest the money or pay down on house. However, at the time, the standard speech for people diagnosed with HIV was "Well go ahead and write your will and get things in order." I really thought maybe realistically I only had a year or two to live, and probably 6 months of good health - if I was lucky.

Being from a small town in NC, and with my parents have died when I was young. I had never really traveled much. So when people suggested "well maybe you should do something you always wanted to do" (implying - while you can). The thing that came to mind was some travel. Particularly this romantic notion of the "Grand Tour" through all the European capitals. I got a three-month leave of absence from Coca-Cola, got me a Eurail pass, a plane ticket, and some travel guides and with only a rough notion of how and where to go, took off to Europe.

I could go on and on about that, It's a whole book in itself. In short though - it's probably been one of the best things I've ever done. It was a life-changing event, and I couldn't think of a better way to "go out in style."

But back to topic - GO WEST.

You could imagine I was in quite a mental state. Having just lost my partner after a long illness, and facing a dire future myself, everything took on larger-than-life meaning. I had to see every museum, go to ever city, every church. After two weeks I almost collapsed before I settled into a more reasonable routine of leisurely travel, with a day off here and there.

There were two big cultural touchstones for me that Summer. First, the movie "Philadelphia" it had already been in the states but was now being shown across Europe. Before the end of the trip I would see it SEVEN times, in various languages, sometimes in English with foreign subtitles, sometimes just dubbed in whatever language was local. I came to know that movie by heart. In many respects, it represented to me my recent past and what presumably would be my future; wasting syndrome, KS sores, a long lingering sickness that would surely end in a slow painful death. (How Cheery!)

But there was something else that was big that summer. "GO WEST" not just the song but the video (Video Bars were all the rage in Europe at the time). You couldn't go into a gay bar without hearing it. It was the anthem for that summer.

I'd started my journey in Manchester been there a couple of days, then moved on to the little resort of Blackpool. Interesting city Blackpool, it is to London, what Coney Island is to New York. Historically, the place the working class Brits would go to spend a family vacation, go to the amusement parks, the piers, and block after block of carnival attractions. The centerpiece is a 1/2 scale replica of the Eiffel Tower that sits on top of the worlds largest ballroom. (You see it on TV sometimes in competitions.) Another cool thing about Blackpool is that they don't allow hotels, the whole town for block after block is solid B&Bs. I stayed at this place called the "Crooked House" which was full of these 20-something secretaries (think big-haired Melanie Griffin in "Working Girl" but with a thick street British accent.)

Blackpool also has a very thriving gay scene. Where people come out for the weekend from London on the train. There was this one bar everyone said I HAD to go to. I forget the name, but just remember it was HUGE. Think Backstreet, but with a bigger dancefloor and more bars all around it, then stack three of those on top of each other, each with a different theme. It was on par with anything in NYC. But I got there WAY too early, and ended up sitting by myself at one of the bars watching the videos and making small talk with the bartender in the mostly empty cavernous disco.

Well so "GO WEST" comes on the screen. It was the first of MANY times I'd see it on this long trip. Now put in context all the previous stuff; lover dying from aids, doctors saying I probably only had a year or two tops, the "Philadelphia" mindset, etc.

Well then here's this video. That's all about looking forward, coming together, moving on, belonging to a community. I was overwhelmed. Something clicked. After YEARS of bad news, surpressed anger and grief, general frustration, I just lost it. I started just crying at the bar, and I don't mean just a few tears, I was howling, sobbing uncontrollably, the bartender just kinda stood by with his mouth open but was afraid to even say anything. I probably cried for a good 20 minutes (then the bartender bought me a drink after I explained - then he shed a couple of tears as well).

But what triggered all this?

Somehow in watching this song/video, something clicked. I allowed myself a chance of hope, a chance that there could be a brighter future. Mind you, I'm just talking about allowing or daring a "Chance of Hope". That in itself was a big breakthrough for me. I was allowing myself something other than this movie-of-the-week scenario, that was still fresh in my mind from David's death.

Now I know all that was knocking around inside my head to begin with, but seeing that song just brought it all into focus. Everytime I saw the video after that I would get a tear or two, but it was much more because of an optimism and hope that continued to come to the forefront throughout the trip.

So needless to say - when THE PET SHOP boys closed with GO WEST as their final song, there were again, a couple of tears.