My Secret Soundtrack

In one of the few acting classes I endured when I was at film school, our teacher lambasted the usage of iPods and musical devices for they didn't allow us to truly appreciate the sounds that the city provided us with.

Personally when it comes to a choice between listening to music of my choice or overhearing a conversation between two girls about how Laneisha is a total slut or how Zac Efron is like the cutest thing ever, I know what I'd go for.

As much as I will often pause a song to hear a tempestuous argument or a drunken speech, I generally prefer to disappear into my own world. I hate that I've become such a yuppie but I am pretty much always attached to my earphones. Granted, it could be worse. My earphones are your standard dictionary definition of earphones. They're not 'ironic' headphones.

I enjoy soundtracking my life. Certain songs at certain moments can have an overwhelming effect on me. Whether its sinking into a pool of self-pity or actually being in one of those rare good mood things, my iPod always knows how to accompany me.

What I also like is the total secrecy of what I'm playing. There's no greater joy than being on a bus full of elderly people while Peaches sings about fucking the pain away. I sport a sly, clandestine smile as I think, damn, if they only knew...

There have been a couple of occasions when I have been called up on this. I do have this weird, irrational concern that someone is suddenly going to stop me on the street and say 'what are you listening to right now?' and I'll have to skip the currently playing Girls Aloud song to a lesser known MF Doom track to feign being remotely cool.

Clearly this has never happened as the world doesn't revolve around me. One time, however, I was on the subway back in New York with a PI (pre-iPod) discman. An older, seemingly respectable couple, probably in their late 50s, were sitting below me and the man, who was particularly crotchety was complaining about me to his wife.

It was one of those rare occasions where I gladly turned the volume down.

He was using me as a whipping boy for youth in general and lambasting my musical choice of 'rap' for glorifying guns and violence. He kept looking up, with a sneer, and his wife was trying, unsuccessfully to calm him down. It culminated in this odd line:

'He doesn't know what its like to have a gun pointed at his face though, does he?'

Quite what was happening beneath me was a total mystery. I hadn't spoken a word to these people, I was dressed inoffensively (like a white, middle-class student) plus most importantly, I wasn't even listening to hip-hop at that point. In fact, I was playing the Slow Runner album, a band who would make Coldplay seem like heavy metal giants.

The whole situation puzzled me and I took little responsibility for any of it. I was clearly the straw that broke the camel's back. Maybe he'd been mugged the week before by a kid in an Eminem t-shirt? I kinda liked that, unknowingly, I had caused so much aggression in a person without opening my mouth. This was unusual, even for me.

One time, when I was commuting into London from Hemel Hempstead, out in Hertfordshire, I had made an error in volume control. Surrounded by overweight suits, I was already outnumbered. Dressed in my usual scruffy, unimpressive ensemble, I wanted to wear a neon sign on my head saying 'No, really I am going to work too.' Typically, I chose to zone out the overblown 'I hate work' sighs and turn on my music.

I had pitched it too loud though as the next thing I knew, a fat finger was poking me and asking me to turn it down. This display of confidence was clearly a lot for the suit to muster and would probably make a great story across the dinner table later as his mousy wife was laying the table. 'I tell you Karen, I'm not gonna take that kinda crap in the mornings from punks like that.'

Embarrassingly I believe it was Rehab by Amy Winehouse that was disturbing the peace at that very moment and even though his request for a volume shift was in fact totally warranted, I still reverted to a teenager and hated his very existence.

I'm now more careful to keep my volume down low in order to maintain secrecy at all times. It does mean that I can't always block out Tanya and Alicia talking about their periods but it still allows me to remain somewhat enigmatic to those people who I fear will be questioning what I'm listening to. In reality, they probably don't exist but just in case they do, I have my finger on the dial, ready to invent the pretence that I'm actually pretty cool.

Being Picked Last at Darts

If I had to single out an embarrassing memory from my high school days, I would struggle. Not because I was the model of cool throughout but because there are so many, hundreds even, to choose from.

There is one memory which always sticks out though. Its not as obviously humiliating as many others but for some reason it still causes my palms to sweat whenever it comes into my head.

Back in school, I was ‘impaired’ when it came to sports. The title of my blog really isn’t an over-exaggeration. The other choice was ‘Being the only person left to pick at sports and having to partner up with the teacher’ but that seemed a little clunky.

When it came to the start of a new term, we were all seated in the gym as our PE teacher read out what sports were available over the coming months. A list of students then followed for each sport. I was placed in Rugby, a hellish choice. The other options were no better – football, basketball etc. Every sport provided endless opportunities for humiliation.

But then, an oasis appeared. Darts.

Darts would be perfect for me. It did strike me as an odd choice for PE and I would still suck majorly at it but I could stay pretty stationary throughout and manage to avoid the group showers after. Perfect.

When lunchtime came around, I went to see my PE teacher and asked if I could change. He looked up at me, slightly confused. ‘You want to change to darts?’ he questioned. I nodded, totally confident in my option and surprised at his reticence to add me to the list. ‘You do realise it will be mostly girls in this group?’ he asked. ‘Its fine. I want to do darts,’ I insisted. He begrudgingly added me and I walked away.

It was at this point that I started to question what had just happened. Why would it be mostly girls doing darts? Since when was darts seen as a predominantly female sport? Come to think of it, since when was darts even considered a sport?

I found solace in my friends and told them of my decision. My friends looked at each other, confusion pervading. ‘Darts? Darts wasn’t an option Ben,’ someone stated, ‘But dance was.’

At this very moment, I craved more than ever for the earth to crumble under my feet and engulf me, erasing any memory the world ever contained of my existence. There had been a terrible, terrible misunderstanding. A misunderstanding so terrible that I wasn’t sure at that moment, I would ever recover. My reputation at school was hardly solid but the last thing it needed was another sucker punch like this.

I raced back to the PE teacher, suitably amused friends in tow. It all made sense now. The all-female group, the reticence to add my name to the list...

An image of Michelle Ferguson, an odd girl from my class, playing darts in the gym entered my head and at any other time, I would have laughed. At this point of utter, repellent despair I was concerned that I may never laugh again.

I fumbled a messy explanation to the teacher as I spoke of my confusion and he removed my name from the list. I nervously laughed to show him that it really was a misunderstanding and I hadn’t just changed my mind after discovering what social suicide dance would be for me. He was skeptical. Understandably so as well. How many other idiots would actually believe that darts was a feasible option for physical education in school?

I walked away, doing what I do in these type of situations, making jokes about it to my friends. ‘Oh Ben, he’s just so goofy, he thought dance was darts!’ would be the common line and it was a fairly ridiculous story which would be easy to laugh off.

But still, it haunted me for an unnecessary amount of time. What replays in my head even now, is the reaction of my teacher to my bizarre request. He must have known that this was a terrible, life-destroying choice of mine but had to comply out of some worry that he might see his name splattered across the local paper: LOCAL BOY REFUSED DANCE CLASS SUES SCHOOL FOR SEXISM, coupled with a picture of me holding up a pair of ballet shoes and sporting a concerned face.

And in those 10 minutes between my name being added and my sudden retraction, he would have genuinely believed that I was willing to sacrifice everything to pursue my love for dance. Even now it makes me shudder.

Although now I am able to laugh at it. When I’m in need of a smile I’ll think of a group of 14 year old girls lining up to throw darts while they were taught about positioning and aim.

My Life as an Actor

In my younger years, like many, I nursed a desire to become an actor when I became of age.

Daydreams would have me insisting that ‘being nominated was all that mattered’ to Parkinson or calmly telling paparazzi to ‘just give it a rest today.’ When it came to reality, my ambitions resulted in the combination of after-school drama classes and spending my Tuesday night with an ageless woman called Miss Brown, who would teach me the rules of pronunciation above all else.

What I soon discovered, however, was that as I aged, the less comfortable I was performing in front of others. Something which was somewhat detrimental to my acting dreams. It was reminiscent of my urge to collect clocks at a young age. After arranging them all in my room, I found that I was a terribly light sleeper and couldn’t rest with the sound of ticking.

So as I became more aware of myself, I could no longer mime being on a water-ski without worrying how I looked or what others thought of me.

The dream had died.

Years later, I enrolled at the New York Film Academy (something I wouldn’t recommend others to do) for a year’s course in screenwriting. A writer’s life was much more suited to me. I could nestle in the shadows, watching others perform my words. Admittedly, I still wanted to be at the forefront of the shadows. Like William Goldman or Joe Eszterhas.

The major downside of this course however was the once weekly ‘Acting for Screenwriters’ class which dominated my Friday nights in New York. Fresh off the boat and knowing no one in the country but myself, I was ill-equipped for such displays of naked confidence.

The first day of lessons culminated in the dreaded acting class. Still unfamiliar with each other, my fellow classmates and I were all nervously quipping about how we were ‘writers’ not actors as we made our way up the stairs to face our fears.

Our teacher was a woman in her 40s who’s career highlight was a whore in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. A film you’d have to re-watch to remember when a whore would even fit into the story.

She was typically egregious and keen to strip us of our inhibitions. This meant I hated her from the very beginning.

Our first task was an ‘overall body sensation,’ a term which seemed more suited to a shampoo commercial than an acting class. It involved us closing our eyes, seated, and making a humming noise as we ‘searched’ our bodies for tension. We would move our heads from side to side, lift our arms up and down and most embarrassingly, thrust our pelvises in a circular motion. It would then climax in a loud grunting sound.

Being the immature child that I am, I was unable to keep a straight face through most of this. She spotted it immediately and told me it was ‘okay’ to laugh as it meant that I was expressing myself. This somehow made it less amusing.

The body sensation soon turned into a ridiculous repetition exercise which had two of us sitting in opposing chairs and stating ‘searing’ observations back and forth. A sample interrogation would sound like this:

‘You are tapping your foot’
‘I’m tapping my foot’
‘You are tapping your foot’
‘I’m tapping my foot’
‘You are tapping your foot’
‘I am tapping my foot’

In other words it was an utter waste of anyone’s time. When my turn came in front of the class, my partner didn’t ‘delve deep enough’ so the teacher decided to take her place. She said there was something in me she needed to unlock. I wanted to punch her in the face for doing this to me.

She managed to ‘uncover’ that I was nervous. Something a blind, deaf mute could ascertain.

As the classes progressed and as my classmates and I became more at ease with each other, the boundaries started to disintegrate. Although in reality this meant that we were more willing to mess around than shy away from the spotlight. Each week we competed with our grunting to see who could make the loudest noise. Our repetitive observations became deliberately more inane.

‘You are wearing a blue t-shirt’
‘I am wearing a blue t-shirt’

The purpose of the class was to put us in the mindset of the actors we could be writing for to help us to better understand their process. If this was the case then we were sure that actors had it easy. While we toiled away at our laptops, carefully constructing plots and nurturing characters, the actors were having a whale of a time, grunting competitively and generally pissing around.

We moved onto the art of performance and I was forced into acting out a scene set in a strip club from Bachelor Party (Paddy Chayefsky not Tom Hanks) with a fellow Englishman from my class. Our teacher once complained that I wasn’t acting as if I was believably in a strip club. ‘Imagine my finger is a stripper and watch her dance,’ she said at the height of her stupidity as she waved her hand around.

The acting classes, as deeply embarrassing as they often were, helped me in one important way. While my childhood dreams of acting had dissipated, I still, deep down, told myself that maybe they would surface again one day and I would rightfully take my place at the top of the A-List.

What I discovered was that my desire to act was nothing more than a childish whim, based on my youthful need for attention and love of film, but nothing else. I could finally store it away alongside my dream of talking to animals or my ambition to become a different race for a day.

So these days, while in the thick of a daydream the interview still goes on but this time it's less Leno and more DVD special features.

The Blind Date

For the first time in my life, I allowed a friend to become involved with my 'love' life.

A few weeks back I received an excitable call from my housemate. She was Christmas shopping at Spitalfields Market and the following, hugely unlikely, set of events had taken place...

She was buying a gift for me and discussing the decision with her boyfriend by the stall which housed the potential gift. The guy working behind the stall asked her if she was buying it for a gay guy to which she said yes. He then asked if this guy was also single - another yes. A series of questions followed - looks, education, interests etc.

It culminated in my housemate taking the number from the inquisitive stall runner and passing it onto me. This whole situation unsettled but intrigued me. While the thought that my crippling 'single' status had proved too important to ignore even during a friend's festive shopping trip was slightly alarming, I thought that this could prove a great story for dinner parties when people asked how 'we' met.

I quizzed her when she returned home and found out the following. He was called Peter (fine), he was 29 (fine), he was good-looking (fine) and he lived in Essex (hmmmm). I jumped in and later that evening sent an ice-breaker text. The day after he replied and the ensuing back-and-forth resulted in a drink being organised for the Tuesday.

You can tell a lot about a person from the way they construct a text message. Peter's texts were, well, disappointing. The to's were replaced with 2's and there was a heavy reliance on smiley faces. But I tried to quell my judgment and hope for the best.

This wasn't helped by a further interrogation of my housemate the night before the date. I asked her how 'gay' he was. She told me that her boyfriend said out of 10 for gayness (10 being Alan Carr gay) before he spoke he was a 5 whereas I would be a 3. Then after he spoke he was an 8 while I would go down to a 1. This did give me a personal sense of satisfaction but worried me about Peter. Was he going to be wearing man-scara and would his conversation consist of making crude sex jokes all night? Again, I tried my very best to stay positive.

The following night I waited, nervously, for him to arrive. I had organised a get-out text to be sent about an hour in, just in case I really needed to leave asap. I would tell Peter that my friend had fallen down a well and needed me to rush to their aid immediately.

As Peter approached me, there was only one thing on my mind. How I would manage to get away with the murder of my housemate without spending my life in prison.

He was wearing a Ushanka, aka those stupid furry Russian hats with flaps on the side. I knew from this very hat choice that we would probably have little in common. He was also incredibly posh. Not a massive problem of course but it was the sort of 'holidaying with the royals' posh that had a domino effect on the rest of his personality traits.

We made worthless small talk as we looked for a suitable bar. My main criteria being a place that was dark and where no one would recognise me.

He was originally Slovakian and had spent most of his life travelling from country to country. I could tell that he had never had a real job as he referred to working in 'retail' for 2 years there or in 'airline' for 2 years. I loved that - it was his way of masking menial jobs by referring to the industry as a whole instead. He was clearly from a great deal of money so never needed to search for a real career.

We sat down and ordered our drinks. Glumly he wanted to sit by the bar. This meant others could see and hear our awkward date. I would rather have no witnesses.

He spoke for 99% of the time about how his mother was a 'very famous' artist in Slovakia and about the book he was writing on Champagne. I drank faster than usual as a way to cope with the inanity of the conversation and also the disappointment that I had wasted a valuable weeknight with this idiot. I could have been at home watching The World's Fattest Dog, eating an entire bag of mini poppadoms.

I received the get-out text and depressingly he said 'oh is that your get-out text?' to which I nervously laughed a 'no' in reply. I knew I couldn't get out easy.

The date reached an all-time low when the following words emerged from his mouth: 'Do you get horny?'

Okay so I can be a bit too old-fashioned at times but still, I wouldn't put that down as a standard first date question. I told him that I didn't shag about and preferred to keep that sort of thing within the boundaries of a relationship. He told me I was very 'un-gay' and then proceeded to tell me how much he loved 'shagging' and that there was a 6 month period when he 'shagged everything he saw.'

I'm not a dating expert but I would put that line down as one of the worst things to reveal on a first date. I also wanted to ask what the limitations were in this 6 month period. Did he literally shag everything? Animals? Household objects? Family?

Instead, I told him I should probably stop drinking and get something to eat as a fourth pint would make me go 'crazy' to which he replied 'I'd like to see that.' I held back the vomit engulfing my throat and insisted I should go home and eat and we left.

We walked to my bus-stop and he asked if I would like him to wait with me. I politely declined and he said 'we should do this again' which caused me to bemoan how busy the Christmas period was so maybe in the new year. He then left and I dropped my fake smile and picked up my phone.

I berated my housemate for setting me up with such a tool and also berated myself. After all, I should have known better. I also swore to never let someone set me up on a blind date again. Or at least not one with some stranger who had a gay voice and who intruded on a conversation at a market stall. After all, I do need to be open to these things.

Just a Small Town Boy

Despite having a lawyer and a journalist for parents, I hate lying.

I suck at it and will avoid a lie at all costs. I might as well be Catholic for all of the ensuing guilt a lie will cause me. As a result, I often tell a half-truth instead. A few of them I use regularly when confronted by a similar situation. The most annoying of which is that I’m ‘just a small town boy’.

When confronted by something such as two guys holding hands or a man wearing a dress, I will blame my stare on being ‘just a small town boy’. The stare isn’t manufactured however. I do still tend to gawp at open displays of affection between two men or two women, despite being gay myself. It doesn’t make any sense, I realise, but I still find it surprising to see in public.

I am however not strictly a small town boy, at all. I was born in a city, moved to a posh village and then was finally transplanted to a small town at the age of 8 or 9, where I had to take the plum out of my voice and turn glarss into glass. After finishing school I moved to university in Nottingham, after which I moved to New York for a couple of years, only to return to England where I promptly moved to London.

Not the simple boy raised on a pig-farm that I might pretend to be. I’m not totally sure why I do it. I think it might be a way of me trying to explain away my often overly traditional values. When it comes to relationships for example, I'm the modern-day equivalent of a 50s prom date.

Having returned home for the festive period, I can definitely attest that I'm really not such a small town boy. Okay so I did scour the empty shelves on the final day of Woolworths but I did so without my three illegitimate kids in tow and all of my teeth still pretty much in place.

My knowledge of this half-truth won't prevent me from still using it however. When I return to Sin City on Monday I will keep it prepped for the next sighting of a transsexual lesbian stripper kissing an elderly gay midget. 'We certainly don't get that in Kidderminster!', I might add for effect. Deep down though, I fear that may not be true.

Being Propositioned by Whores

Whores fascinate me, they always have. Oh and yes, I'm going to use the word whore. Not prostitute or escort or lady of the night or even hooker. Nothing else fits quite as well as whore.

I once got told by a co-worker that I must hate loose women as I used the word whore. This is untrue. For one, whores aren't loose women. Loose women don't get paid to have unsatisfying sex with ugly men named Darren or Kevin. Whores do. Secondly, I think even whores themselves would appreciate a word which has a little bit more of an auditory impact. For example, I'd rather get described as a fag than a homosexual.

Anyway, I'm off-topic here.

I'm interested in whores. Purely in the same way that I'm interested in sharks. If there was some sort of aquarium where they were all kept, I would have a season ticket.

The first time I got propositioned by one was when I was living back in New York. I was walking around the village and it was dark and relatively quiet. I saw a woman, dressed in what I practically deemed to be unsuitable for such harsh weather. She stumbled my way and asked if I would 'like to party.'

I reacted in the way I would have reacted had someone offered me a marshmallow at the point where my stomach just couldn't let me say yes. A simple 'no thanks', coupled with a thin, courteous smile. Inside, of course, I was booming. I felt flattered. A woman who makes it her business to have sex with men, asked ME if I wanted to be her next client.

This initial jubilation soon gave way as my mind picked apart exactly what it was which caused her to approach me. Firstly it was a cold, quiet night. Apart from the pimps and drug dealers, I was probably the only dick around. Secondly it was an area populated by students. I was wearing my preppiest Abercrombie shirt and looking whiter than white. She was safe to assume I had money (If only she had known that I was a gay journalist). Finally, I realised there may not be any grand planning behind her simple request to 'party' - she was after all at work and needed to fulfill her quota for the night.

Regardless, I walked home proud that night. I was a real man, turning down whores left, right and centre.

The second occasion happened just a few weeks ago.

I was walking down 'sex alley' in London (a small stretch of sex shops and strip shows located in Soho which also serves as a useful shortcut) when I spotted what looked to be a lost housewife at the end. It is worth noting that my eyesight is piss-poor at the best of times.

She was in her 40s, had a long purple coat on and looked as if she had been shown the wrong way to John Lewis. I was positive that she needed someone to help her find her way back to the safety of the olive counter. As I approached, I could see her saunter closer and just as I expected to hear a kind request for directions, the words 'do you wanna cum?' emerged and fell on the pavement between us.

Again, I resumed the marshmallow defence and kindly declined, walking away.

I was pleased to think that I looked like someone who had the sort of disposable income that would allow for the occasional whore here or there but in 'sex alley' that wasn't a tough image to portray.

My fascination continues but from afar it will remain. Sharks and whores will forever remain enigmatic creatures to me. Soho can at least be my Sea World for now. Looking but most definitely not touching.