Welcome
Thanks
for trolling by…
About me Right here, Right Now!
It’s Cool To Be An
Artichoke spoof letter to Capital Gay
Some Of The
Things I’ve Done things
wot I wrote
Lukas Scott the smutty side of life
And On
extract from Impertinent Decorum
Ian’s Polari website history
and glossary of gay and theatrical slang
language ‘polari’
Ian’s OutRage! website chronology
of UK gay rights group OutRage
Paul Lucas my
brother, a playwright
Right Here,
Right Now
(some sort of introduction)
It’s Friday, 22 nd
February, 2002. There’s a card on my desk
with the verse She told the most wonderful stories and said it was because
she had discovered that ‘Once Upon a Time’ was really Here and Now.
This week is the anniversary
of my heart operation, to mend a leaking valve. My heart was breaking because
it was too big, which is rather a sweet thought. It seems a strange and
upsetting time, as if I'm catching up with myself for the last year. The
weather's exactly the same, cold and grey and threatening snow. And it's the
anniversary of the Foot and Mouth outbreak, which was the first piece of
news I heard after coming to from the anaesthetic. I remember builders
behind a sheet of plastic in the Intensive Care Unit, like a strange Village
People tribute band, and the lovely male nurse who offered me a bed bath, and
whose smile lightened up a really dark couple of days. It all seems like it
happened to someone else , like a play I might have been performing. It
feels like things should have dramatically changed, and I wonder what I should
really be doing now. It's strange that despite having so many people around in
hospital, how lonely it feels. I remember the man opposite me asking where
birds go when they die, as you never seem to see their bodies anywhere. And the
bloke I named Mr Birdman, who used to walk up and down the corridors and perch
one legged looking through the window into the step-down ward. And I remember
not-remembering, that awful moment I got amnesia before leaving the ward and
didn't know who or where I was, just trying to make my way back to my hospital
bed and make sure things would be alright. The constant returning to hospital
with complications, and getting my heart jump started with those electric magnet
things you see on CASUALTY.
I wait to hear footsteps in the flat
above. I like the noise, because it makes me feel part of their lives somehow.
There’s an attractive guy who visits the mother and her young girl , the
Father, who doesn’t live with them, and I’m intrigued by his relationship.
Perhaps he’s gay. Well, you never know. There’s the couple in the next block,
who I call the Dickenses because when they found out I did some writing, they
said I was just like Charles Dickens. And there’s Rob who I like because he
reminds me of my first boyfriend, a fact I only realised the other week.
There’s a young man who lives underneath them who was in the Royal Navy, and
whose mates I heard telling him he had a cute ass. I can’t disagree.
This is by way of some sort of
introduction. I can’t imagine what you’d like to know. I had a broken heart
mended with some surgery earlier this year. Ah, if only, you say. If
only it was that easy. If you’d like to know what becomes of the broken
hearted, read on.
There are some examples of what I
write here, some links to pieces, and more information about other things I’d
done. You can always contact me to find out more…
It’s Cool To Be An Artichoke
Dear Editor,
I read with growing
concern the ongoing debate over the use of the words ‘Queer’, ‘Poof’, ‘Invert’
and ‘Big Girl’s Blouse’ by militant lefty activists. Why, oh why, oh why do
these troublemakers make T-shirts with such nasty and distasteful slogans, some
of them using that naughty and impolite f-word?
I suggest that as homosexual
people who are artistic and creative, we come up with a totally new word. My
own favourite would be something tasteful and chic, such as ‘Artichoke’. After
all, like us, it’s all heart. Let’s see slogans like ‘Out, Proud and an
Artichoke’, ‘It’s Cool To Be An Artichoke’, and chants such as ‘We’re Here,
We’re Artichokes and ‘We’re Not Going Shopping’.
What a lovely mauve
world it would be if we could all come out as Artichokes and put our hearts
first.
from Impertinent
Decorum, © Ian Lucas,1994, 2001
Some of the things I’ve done
Publications
‘Virtual
Rainbows’ – article on internet counselling for young gay men
BACP Counselling Journal, February 2002
'My
Heart was A Cauliflower'
BACP
Counselling Journal, August 2001, article on my experiences of heart
surgery
(Cassell,
2000) charts the early history of gay rights group OutRage! – as told by those
involved
'The
Color Of His Eyes'
essay
in Queerly Phrased ed Anna Livia
& Kira Hall, (OUP 1997) non-fiction essay on gay/theatre slang ‘polari’
Growing
Up Positive: Stories from a generation of young people affected by AIDS
(Cassell,
1996) non-fiction interviews/oral history with young people affected by AIDS
(Cassell,
1994) academic non-fiction examining gay identity and performance
Writing as Lukas Scott
(upcoming)
‘The Clone Zone’ @ http://www.mindcaviar.com/
(ADULT MATERIAL) - Narcissus in the 21st century
(upcoming)
‘Chasing The Egg’ in Full Body Contact ed. G Herren(Alyson, December
2002) – a homoerotic Rugby story
‘Scar’ (ADULT
material) – a bitter-sweet love story
'Moon'
in Buttmen
ed. A Bell (West Beach Books, 2001) short story based on a real life event
'There's More To Love’
(ADULT material) - Mind Caviar.com, February 2001 a queer short
story
Hot
On The Trail (Virgin, 2000) fiction – homoerotic novel putting Wild into
the Wild West
In Collaboration
with
photographer Denis Doran and the Sisters
Of Perpetual Indulgence; Get The Rubber Habit! postcard book
(Cassell, 1994) innovative safer sex project
with
Neti Neti Theatre Company; GRIEF - The play, writings & workshops
(David Fulton, 1992) theatre/video script and research
Plays & other projects
Sex-
Identity - Arts Council Internet arts residency with photographer Denis
Doran, Channel Arts, Brighton 1995 collaborative creative arts
project
The
Memory Box - Arts Council commission with Tony Newton, Neti Neti Theatre
Company 1994 co-written theatre piece in English, sign language and Bengali
Dolphins
Can Swim - Homo Promos Theatre
Company, Chelsea Centre theatre,
London 1992 drama
Triptych - Homo Promos
Theatre Company, Castlehaven Community Centre, London 1990 drama/monologues
Triptych – Colour Us Beautiful (extract)
(The Vietnam War. An American soldier holds the body of his dead lover, a fallen comrade)
Chris, Chris,
They’ll make a film of us,
They will,
They’ll colour us beautiful,
Years hence,
And they’ll forget everything
About spilled brains
And torn guts,
And they’ll say
“Look, look,
There was BEAUTY
In that war,
Worship it.”
And,
At the same FUCKING time,
They’ll say
“What pals!
They cared for each other,
They supported each other,
That’s what loyalty’s about,
Rough with the smooth,”
They’ll forget the REAL NATURE of it
They’d take the beat out of
Rock n Roll,
They would,
And call it
‘Music’
So it happened that Sister Belladonna was in his rubber habit and I was wearing my mini with fishnets, and we were having a pint with the regulars at the Coleherne in Earl’s Court, London. Exactly a year ago, we had first worn our habits at the same pub, to join a demonstration against the local police who’d raided the Coleherne and harassed customers. While we were supping our bevies, a leather queen started chatting to us. All of a sudden, he burst into tears. ‘Why me?’ he asked. ‘I must deserve it.’ ‘Bullshit,’ we replied, bought him a drink and discussed the effects of moralising, guilt and stigma surrounding HIV. After drying the tears and a drink or two, like a phoenix he clambered up onto a pool table, which had been used for a stage by a stripper earlier that evening. Once upon a time, the leather queen had been a drag performer, and he started to dance one of his routines. Salome could not have been more beautiful. So there were two gay male nuns and an ex-drag queen, surrounded by butch leather clones. It may not have been Kansas, but it was some kind of home. Dolphins can swim, drag queens can dance, but we can all be heroes.