The best way to describe this site it by tracing it back to its roots. Essentially its the bastard offspring of my first blog
www.insidethegaygate.com, which served as my creative outlet and platform to vent for the past 3 years, and whilst it was some what questionable at times there were, hidden deep in my archives, many posts of which I was very proud, and more for which I should be deeply ashamed. But the ability to conceed was never one of my strong points.
At the time of death, just short of 470,000 individuals had a glimpse of my life, if only for a second, and I thank you for time, friendship, love and hate. And for the comments which have ranged from the supporting, objectionable, profound and obscene, to the somewhat absurd.
The highlight of my blogging journey to date was discovering that this here site had been banned in China and a number of Middle Eastern countries(18months ago aprox). Exactly why the Chinese government (and the others) chose to censor
me, a 20 something nobody with nothing but dreams, angst and a couple key pieces from Dolce to his name (a ban which to my knowledge has since been lifted), I will never know.
At the time all I could think was that my message, thats assuming I even had one (which I didnt to the best of my knowledge, (although I did give that site my drunkest years, to date) was lost in translation. Looking back, the reason is now clear to me, they weren't censoring me for what ever I may or may not have been saying or sluring they were purely protecting them selves from anything and everything, just to be on the safe side, as Joseph Heller says inhis novel Catch 22
"There was no telling what people might find out once they felt free to ask whatever questions they wanted to."
What that episode did teach me, which I feel is a valuable lesson we all should learn is that no matter how much of a progressive, accepting and connected society we think we live in, there is still much work to be done. And I think deep down all it takes for the world to move forward, rather that back is a little empathy, a smile, and a chat with some one from a differnt world from your own, for its only when we do that we realise that we are not all that different afterall, and it is only when we waken to this realisation that the real and drastic alterations can be made to our ever changing global tappestry.
Now, of course I'm not ready to thrown down my gloves, but my old, faithful site had reached the end of its often colourful but more often dark journey. What I thought before, whilst valid at the time has changed. I have changed, I’ve grown up, or at least I trying to. I no longer believe that salvation comes in a Harvey Nichols carrier bag, or that my dentists can whiten away my sins.
I do still believe however, that we have to make our own destiny. That if we find ourselves deeply unhappy, we must make great strides to challenge that.
And so now I find my self three months into a new life in the southern most part of Spain, taking one step at a time, trying to carve a new path in the stone. Trying to find a place to call home. Just trying, because at the end of the day that’s all we can do.