Dust settles...

So, I've been back in the real world and the dust has settled and I've had a bit of time to reflect on my first experience of a Bear Bash.

It may sound a bit trite, but I don't think I've had such a life-affirming experience before.  I remember coming away from the 2005 Glasgow Worldcon having had fun, but having no desire to go to such an event again.  This time I was already thinking about the November bash by Sunday afternoon and telling people I'd definitely be back!  There's a difference between chatting to Bears online and socialising time with them in the flesh and it just felt like I'd found my 'tribe'.  I've been dipping my toe in the bear scene for a while now and it was great to finally jump right in and enjoy it.  I've made some firm friends, got to know people I know from the internet better and had some great sexual encounters.  I know I'm unlikely to ever 'live the dream', which is fine, but its a good feeling to know that its there, not too far away, and full of welcoming, friendly, sexy guys.  You know what?  It made me finally *believe* in way I haven't before that I'm a pretty cool, sexy, nice guy (or as Ford Prefect might say, a hoopy frood) and you can't put a price on that kind of affirmation.

Flash Mobs and Foam Parties

After Bears at the Birdcage a few guys seemed to be lingering.  I discovered this was for a hastily arranged Bear Flash Mob and thought it would be a good opportunity to try out my recently purchased camcorder.  It was basically 60 seconds of teddy bear throwing silliness.  I would say that no bears were harmed in the making of the video - but the poor teddy lost a limb early on...

We then went for some Fajitas before I decamped back to my hotel to meet up with my wee new friend from Saturday night for a bit of fun (I have learnt from this weekend that chasers are very enthusiastic and tenacious!).  After a quick shower and change - having decided to do the foam I put my shorts on underneath my jeans (so I'd have something dry to wear coming back) and sorted my money, ticket and phone into the handily waterproof pencil case that the registration pack had come in before heading to Outpost.  After a few drinks and chat it was off to Legends for the foam party!  I was flip-flopping about if I was going to actually go in the foam or not, but after I saw the first couple of guys coming out all covered in foam I couldn't help myself!  Jeans were checked and down I went.  Basically the whole of the basement dance floor had been flooded with foam.  In an attempt to control it and stop the actual bar from being over-run there were some barriers around the dance floor which seemed to work as the foam seemed to peak at about 6' or so where the pipe bringing the foam in was, to about 4' at the barriers and only about 1' at the bar (or shallow end).  Standing/dancing/walking through a waist high pool of foam is a very peculiar feeling, but in a good way!  Of course loads of foamy,  hairy, sexy men wearing nothing but shorts makes for a rather horny situation.  Needless to say there was a fair amount of action going on under the surface and I may have had my share of it!  There were a cute cubby couple (at least I think they were a couple) that were very friendly (one of them gave me a blow job - it was very nice, but gods my cock must have tasted heavily of foam) and a really lovely beary guy who I snogged the face off before asking him back to my room!  And, like the man from Del Monte, he said yes!  As I'd been told I needed to shower before going to bed it was quite nice to have someone to 'wash my back'.  We may have flooded the bathroom of my hotel room rather...  As I was in a single room it wasn't really practical for him to stay all night, so eventually he left me to get some sleep so I could be fresh-ish for the morning.  All in all a rather satisfying end to the weekend.

Life is a cabaret.

After my late night on Saturday I didn't actually make it up in time for breakfast at the hotel on Sunday.  I'd been told at registration that I needed to get to start queueing early to make sure I got a seat for the closing event, Bears At The Birdcage (cabaret and the final of Mr Bear Bash).  At about one, after I had just about gotten my shit together, I decided to head into town for a bite to eat and aim to start queueing at about half-two.  It was a good thing I was out early - after a wander around the Arndale Centre and a restorative trip to Subway I decided to check my bearings and find the entrance to the club.  It was quickly obvious where the club was, due to the large queue of big, hairy, bearded men.  I joined the queue and after about 45 minutes of standing around in the cold (getting some rather odd looks from passers by) the doors opened and in we flooded.  I'd arranged to meet the guys I'd been hanging out with most of the weekend at the club (I'd texted them to let them know the  queue was huge - when they turned up they were a fair bit behind me) so had a scout around to see if I could find them.  By the time I did manage to find them the tables closest to the stage were all taken, so we settled for something a bit further back - a good view, but not really close enough for pictures (though I did manage to get a decent-ish one of the crowd to give you an idea of the ambience).

At about half-three or so the show started.  The compere was Jonathan Mayor, someone I hadn't heard of before and from what little I could find on Google I wasn't expecting much.  He turned out to be hysterically funny.  He didn't feel the need to drag up for the Bear audience and he came over like the bastard love child of Victoria Wood, Graham Norton and Eddie Izzard (now there's a mental threesome image you didn't need).  His routine before the first of the acts was very good (I think he likes the gay audiences as he can be filthier, more explicit and the gags don't go over their heads on top of the fact that there is a lot of shared experience as he talks about his life a lot) and he was very much the charming arsehole when it came to the actual comparing.   As for the acts - The Dream Bears were deeply silly, but lots of fun.  The Manbears guys video parodies were well produced, but weren't as funny as they thought they were.  There were two singers, one of which was cute but terribly croonery and the other was a bit of a knob who responded to the shouts of 'get it off' (shirt) with 'I will if you will' - mistake!  Bears *so* don't need an excuse to take their shirts off - and it was very amusing when a shirtless bear got up on stage and forcibly removed his shirt!  The Mr Bear Bash finals were fun (shirts were not allowed and there was a certain amount of gratuitous nudity in a mainly sucessfull attempt to influence the crowd) and kudos to all the guys who entered for getting up there!  There was also Mr & Mr - which was rather sweet (especially the older couple where one of them had just turned 69).

The grand finale was a 'tribute' to Disney - which literally had me in tears it was so funny and silly.  Rather than try and describe it I'll just link to the video on YouTube...

Of steam, flumes and dancing

So, I've got a bit behind on my updates.  Basically Sunday morning (and I normally update after breakfast) was a bit of a write-off for reasons that will shortly come clear.  I'm writing this on the train home and will post when I get back.

As I said in my last entry, Saturday was a busy day.  After I posted I went into town to get some lunch and then went to the event arranged at the Basement sauna.  I'm not entirely convinced by the layout of Basement.  It has some good bits (the changing rooms, showers and hot sauna are all very nice looking and there's a lounge type area with TV and comfy sofas) but the downstairs cruising area was a bit grotty, even for a sauna, the cabins were a bit small and you have to pay for drinks and stuff as you go rather than settling up at the end (and a sauna isn't the handiest place for carrying cash).  That said it was quite nice and mazelike downstairs and there were lots of cute furry fellas around - so I'm not complaining really!  I found what I guess was the 'orgy' room (small enough to be intimate, but with porn on and large enough for a fair few guys) and had some interesting encounters,  a couple of nice thick cocks to suck and one guy who could only be described as a 'Daddy Bear' type who gave incredibly good head!  I then took a bit of a wander around and got pounced on!  We went off to a cabin and had some fun and a bit of a chat.  He claims he doesn't normally snog random blokes (isn't that kinda the point when you're in a sauna?).  Funny moment was when we both pulled out poppers at the same time (I don't usually take poppers to saunas as its yet another thing to lug around, but they are actually really good in that environment, maybe its just enhancing the inherent sleaziness of the situation and who doesn't want a bit of sleaze every now and then?).  So, I had a good time with this guy and he suggested going for a drink, so we walked back down to canal street and had a couple of drinks and a chat.  Turns out he was planning on going to the pool party later that afternoon but had forgotten to bring any swimming gear, so we took a trip into town so he could buy some.  The pool party was fun.  Lots of wet furry blokes larking about - lots of beach ball lobbing, ducking people under the water, splashing and generally being silly.  The flumes were open and I, foolishly, got talked into going on the fast one by one of the Manbears guys.  It was very deceptive - you get it and its really gentle and you think 'this isn't too bad' then you hit a near vertical drop and all you can think is 'fffuuuuuuuccccckkkkk'.  While the pool party was fun, and it was nice to have someone to go with, I think I would have enjoyed more if I'd been with a group of mates, so I may not go next year. 

After the pool party I was completely knackered, so decided to just get pizza at the hotel and have a sleep before going out.  This was a good plan.  I slept for about two hours before getting up to take a shower and then head straight for the Outpost/Legends as it was about midnight by that point and I assumed that everyone would have moved off canal street.  I was correct.  Saturday night was by far and away the busiest night - you couldn't move around Outpost and then Legends without having to force your way through.  The plus side of this is that there were many opportunities to cop a feel and get felt up - all in the nicest possible way of course!  By this point I was feeling more confident and was quite the social butterfly and chatted with most of the guys I knew from Gaydar, snogged a few bears and even got dragged into the darkroom (room is pushing it a little, it more of a tent) for a bit (the bloke gave me his number later when I was taking another wander - more on that when I write up yesterday).  The problem of how to introduce myself to the guy I spotted on Friday night that I'd met in Gran Canaria was resolved by my t-shirt.  He spotted me and said 'I have a t-shirt like that!', to which my reply was 'I know, I met you in Gran Canaria about six weeks ago!'.  I was going to head off at around three or so, but one of the guys I'd been chatting to suggested going to Company (another bar, just behind canal street) - which of course sounded like a good idea at the time!  Several drinks, chat and bear snogging later I came to the conclusion that I was ready to drop and headed home.  Finally got in at 5am!  To my credit I did actually manage to get undressed, send a text to the guy that gave me his number and clean my teeth before falling into bed!  I think this should explain why I didn't write this post on Sunday morning!

Things get a bit hairy...

Yesterday was another good day. Met a friend that I haven't seen for ages for lunch and then joined up with the guys I'd been chatting to on Thursday to watch X-Men Origins: Wolverine (not bad, but not good either, surprisingly Liev Schreiber is actually more of a draw than Jackman) and get some food. After going back to the hotel to freshen up I met up with them again on Canal St, which was *heaving*. While there was a pretty good crowd around on Thursday on Friday the place was chock-a-block with woofable fellas - life can be hard some times! After a few drinks at The Rembrant we wandered down to The Outpost, which is the bar attached to the club where all the night events were taking place. Last night was the 'school disco' - so there were lots of guys in school uniform (and some who had a rather radical interpretation thereof - I don't remember nowt but leather shorts and a tie being the uniform at my school!). I saw quite a few guys I know from Gaydar and actually said hello to some of them! The nightclub, Legends, is a bit of a maze, with three dance floors (last night they were normally clubby stuff, 80s and harder dance) and a good four or so bar areas. The guys that I was with have been to bear bashes before - so did a quick tour around the place, needless to say I completely lost my barings straight away and it took me much of the night to figure out where everything was! Amusing event of the night was seeing someone I met on holiday who I didn't speak to because I wasn't sure if 'did I suck your cock last month in Gran Canaria?' was a good opener or not... I was a good boy and only snogged one guy, stopped drinking at about 0130 and went home alone! I had a very good time nonetheless :-)

Today is pretty full, Bears Sauna in an hour so (must get some lunch beforehand) and the pool party in the evening, before another night of drunken debauchery! I popped onto Gaydar this morning to see if anyone was awake and got messaged by some guy that acused me of not being as tall as I said I was on my profile and linking to some YouTube footage from last night. I think it must have been a case of mistaken identity as a) I didn't recognise the bloke and b) the footage wasn't of me! I think I'm going to be very watchful for people with camcorders tonight - I have no desire to be on YouTube!

Manchester, so much to answer for...

So, I'm up in Manchester for the Great British Bear Bash. Things don't kick off properly until this evening, but I decided to come up the day before so I was rushing headlong into it after a long train journey. This seems to have been a good plan, I checked into my room (and got a free upgrade from economy to standard - I have a window! - only slight problem is lack of power points, I can only find one and my wee netbook doesn't have enough bus power to run a mouse, my USB HDD and charge the iPhone at the same time!), took a nap and had some dinner (carvery at the hotel - it was not bad, and very cheap) before heading out to View on Canal Street (which is just around the corner from my hotel - its a really good location) for the Early Bird registration.

Those that know me will totally not believe this statement, but I'm actually quite shy, especially around sexy guys so it was quite fortunate that the guys from Manbears that were managing the registrations were so friendly. After I'd picked up my registration pack (the theme is School Reunion - so all the registration stuff was in a pencil case) and a drink one of the guys ran me through the events (also gave me some tips for the foam party - I'm still not sure if I'm going to actually get wet or just keep to the dry bits). He asked if I was with anyone and when I replied no, but that I saw some faces I recognised but didn't actually know he then proceeded to introduce me to someone I thought I knew from Gaydar (who in fact I didn't, but I have definitely seen them around before somewhere). Anyway - I got chatting with these guys and they were cool (and fairly geeky too - iPhones and Star Wars were hot topics of conversation). The bar got quite busy - more people around on than I'd expected - mainly the early bird bears, but also the twinks and fag hags that I assume are the bar's more regular clientele. Amusing highlights was the guy with tattooed sleeves that were actually fake (I wanted to take a hankie to his arm and wipe it off!), the scary drag queen that turned out to be an actual woman (or they had the best fake tits I've ever seen) and the way all the twinks separated themselves off from the bears by congregating on the downstairs dance floor. All in all a good start to the weekend.