Back in Brighton...

Exams in two weeks, and what do I do on my first day back? Go out drinking. And stay out until 7am. This is simply NOT on. I've got work to do!

Over Christmas I had ordered the DVD of 'Bear Cub', a film that first came out over a year ago but, thanks to the fact that it wasn't shown over here at the time and I missed subsequent screenings of it, one that I hadn't got around to seeing. This was wrecking my head verily, as my interest had been seriously piqued by the trailer, or more accurately, the men in the trailer. Watch it and I think you'll agree. I tried to do a screen capture of one of the scenes on the DVD and include it here, but it keeps fucking up, so no joy.

Anyway, I came back to Brighton on Sunday night (Boy, was getting a train from Gatwick at 11:20pm a barrel of laughs. Especially when the train timetable display changed the platform number of interest TWO MINUTES before the train came in) and found the DVD in my letterbox, much to my delight. A quick rendez-vous with Phil and it was decided that we would watch it on the plasma screen at his place to do it justice. With two bags of Nachos, dip, buttered popcorn, chocolate and alcohol in hand, we settled down.

Set in Madrid, the film tells the story of how a gay dentist, whose life is one big party, ends up looking after his 9-year old nephew after the mother is detained indefinitely in a different country. Add to this the fact that the boy's paternal grandmother wants custody of the child as she believes, surprise surprise, a gay man does not for a fit parent make.

The difference between this and almost every other film I've seen of gay interest is how it resonated in so many ways with me at an everyday level. Right from the opening slightly comedic sex scene, I was going 'Lord, I know what that's like.' A scene where the lead character is in the sauna having his nipples played with brought back to me how many times I've already had to tell guys that tit torture has never been my thing (I must be the only gay man on the planet who feels like this, from what I can see), a part where they are all mangled on cocaine made me laugh out loud, it brought back so many memories, and the prowling of the cruising areas reminded me of what I could avail of later, if I felt like it.

Other than that, the standard themes of HIV, homophobia etc. were dealt with in a very straight-up no-nonsense way. As a piece of art, the film didn't break a huge amount of ground, but it was probably the most realistic representation of the gay lifestyle I've seen in some time. And the men rocked. Loads of big hairy eye-candy everywhere. The only fly in the ointment was that I missed a thing about Richard Dawkins on BBC something, and also a programme about linguistics (they were doing a thing on the mauling of the English language by management-speak, a pet peeve of mine) but hey.

Anyway, it was kickin'. Get it out, and make sure you get the directors cut, with all the sex scenes left intact, so you can see it at its artistic best, har har.

So after that, we went out drinking, went back to the house, drank some more, watched some porn, and drank some more again. I then left, mystifyingly refusing the offer of a bed, at half-past bloody four in the morning and went cruising in The Bushes. There, I got entangled with a guy, and walked all the way home afterwards, thanks to the dearth of taxis around at the time. Bloody cabbies! What do they think they're doing, knocking off before 6am!

Today, I rose rather late. Lectures tomorrow. No more debauchery. There's a new man in town.

Oh déjà vu...