The Unorthodox Website Blog

Had two rare record playing sessions today. I have long decided I need to spend less time on this computer, and set aside some time to play some of my records, CDs and music DVDs more often.

This morning I played some Slim Whitman and vintage Little Richard from LPs, and singles by Jesse James (South’s Gonna Rise Again), Theme From Dixie by Duane Eddy (an album track)  and Ronnie Hawkins’ great long version of  Down In The Valley, which I picked up at a Memphis record sale once.

Tonight I had a great Jerry Lee CD session with three of his greatest albums – Live At The Star Club Hamburg from 1964, the extended version of the first show at Panther Hall, Fort Worth, Texas (with the outrageous full two-part X-rated version of What’d I Say; orgasmic sex live on record!) from 1966 (my penfriend Screamin’ Dee Snoble wrote me that she turned bright red with shock and embarrassment when she first heard this track!)

Of course I had to come right up to date and finish the evening off with Jerry Lee’s fantastic 2006 duets CD Last Man Standing.

Invitations are now being sent out to my friends, family and work colleagues, via email and regular post. I’ll send reminders by email about 2 weeks before the event on May 26th. Will also put the color illustrated flyers up around work: they couldn’t be emailed as they are in Microsoft Office 2007 format which most people can’t open/read.

Someone pointed out May 26th is the late May Bank Holiday Weekend, so a lot of people will be going away. This is a pity, but too late to change the date now. We have a great line-up, so I hope we get a good turnout.

After 57 years non-stop (apart from weekends, holidays and illness) I have been daily going to work, college or school, so I feel I’m now ready for retirement, plus I want to spend more time with my mother who’s 93 later this year. None of us are getting any younger.

I think of us as the four ‘widowers’. We were living with our gay partners for many years, caring for them till they died. Yet we are totally unrecognized in law, and by society as a whole.

Every time I fill in a form and have to put my marital status, I am flummoxed. What am I? Married – no, Divorced – no, Widowed – legally I’m not, Single – if I put ‘yes’ to this and ‘no’ to ‘widowed’ it is like denying my partner and our long relationship ever existed – I refuse to be so disloyal. In a Civil Partnership? No, we were never given this opportunity. I usually end up ticking the ‘widowed’ box, because that is how I feel.

The four of us, friends who went around together for years, are now ‘gay widowers’, totally unrecognized as such, with no children to show for our long gay ‘marriages’ and in most cases no ‘widower’s pensions’ either.

Very good weather for this time of year, so mum and I took advantage of it. Good Friday sat by the River in Battersea for a while. On Easter Sunday we did this again, then I took her along one of our favorite trips along the River into Battersea Park. One of my mother’s favorite parks because of the variety there – the Old English Garden, the tea house overlooking the flower beds and fountains in the center of the park, the area around the lake, parts of which could be miles from London.

 Easter Monday we spent quietly watching TV, and having an afternoon lunch.

What is Easter all about? To Christians it is about Christ’s death and resurrection, but really this is just a continuation, like Christmas, of a festival much much older than Christianity. Spring is the time of renewal, of ‘resurrection’ as the plants and trees come to life again after the Winter.

The ‘Cyprus problem’, like the ‘Irish troubles’, has been going on for as long as I can remember in some form or other. But in recent years there has been very slow progress in Cyprus, and some setbacks.

The Annan plan for reunification of the island was rejected by the Greek-Cypriots, but at least now it is possible for both communities to visit each other across the Green Line.

A few weeks ago the Greek-Cypriots demolished the Nicosia wall across Ledra Street. This forms part of the barrier between the Greek Republic of Cyprus and the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus. The barrier has been there in some form or other since 1955, before Cypriot independence. British soldiers erected barbed wire across Ledra Street to separate the two communities. Even now the border is not open at this point, as the wall was quickly replaced by a plastic barrier.

I understand a bridge across the UN buffer zone at this point, built to facilitate a new border crossing in the center of old Nicosia, was also demolished by the Greek-Cypriots.

Friday nite we had another great jam at The Caxton Arms, The Highway, East London. It was worth the effort to get to this isolated spot in the strange nether reaches between Wapping, Shadwell and The City. The great Woodie House Band consisting of the talented teenagers Jaron and Rolen on keyboards and drums (Jaron also does some great vocals), with Trevor on bass guitar and John Hills on lead guitar/vocals, plus their guest musicians on sax, drums, etc.

 These guests included Andre with his wonderful slide guitar sounds, all the way from what we must now call St Petersburg, Russia (but which I still think of as Leningrad. Why go back to the German name, and not to the Russian name Petrograd I wonder?)

 Michael T.  Clayton doing Jerry Lee-style boogie on the ivories, also vocals, and Corliss Randall giving us a taste of her raunchy New Orleans Blues and Soul. Plus Jay Chance and Rockin’ Gerry Champion.