Project Create 2013: Day 2 - Blog: Vince Kidd, a great gig and a homophobic tube passenger

Hello! Welcome to day 2. Firstly, a huge thank you to everyone who commented or tweeted me saying they enjoyed yesterday's poem. I was really rather proud of my creation; so much so, that a part of me was worried if I would spectacularly fail to follow it with today's entry. Luckily, I think I've come up with an idea which should at least be interesting enough for this not to be my equivalent of Son of the Mask.

Today's creation will be...a blog.

I know some of you will be thinking "but wait...won't all of your creations be supplemented by a blog? So wouldn't you be doing this anyway?" While this is true - and thanks for your questions, General Smarty-Pants - a blog in itself is a creative medium, and choosing to write something I wouldn't have otherwise written is what makes this count as it's own creation in the project.

For this blog, I am going to write about identity. I was inspired to write about this topic after seeing Vince Kidd perform a gig last Thursday (27th June 2013). It was at Camden Barfly, London; Camden, of course, a place with something of a reputation for housing hipsters, trendy kids, and general fashionistas.

For those unaware of Vince Kidd, I'd summarise his music as a blend of soul, urban genres such as rap/r'n'b, and pop - with a few club songs, too. There are some songs which are earnest, beautiful, soulful ballads; others are purely driven by lust and catchy beats. But there's something that I respect about a man who is not only open to exploring so many different genres, but also manages to - in my opinion - do them all very well.

His style is similarly mish-mash; he typically has bleached blonde hair (though he has dyed it other colours numerous times), tattoos, facial and ear piercings, wears eye-liner, chain necklaces, rings, tie-dye clothing...I'll post one of his music videos below.

Ignore the weird thumbnail...or maybe not? Even the thumbnail shows a man who is wearing a crazy-eyed wolf sticker on his tongue, and numerous other stickers on his face. Also in the above music video, he wears a purple tie-dye jacket, a bright and colourful feather boa, a shiny red leather jacket...but that is just the start.

I was very excited to see Vince Kidd live; for the best part of the past 10 months, he has been my most-listened to artist by a long way. I spent a lot of time looking forward to it, but I never came close to predicting what happened at the gig.

Vince Kidd came out as a remix of his song Sick Love was playing, turned his back to the crowd before he started singing...HE WAS WEARING A MEOWTH BACKPACK. Unpredictable? Definitely. He went on to sing about wanting someone to give him "dirty, twisted, crazy, nasty" sex, singing "ride me, bite me, cut me, and infect me with your Sick Love". It was, quite frankly, an incredible juxtaposition. When I told two friends after the gig about the backpack, one replied with "absolutely no idea what/who Meowth is/means..." - only after I said "Meowth is a Pokémon" did he say "Oh! Well I do know Meowth!"; the second friend replied with "what, Meowth as in the Pokémon?" - it was such a strange thing to do, that two of my friends' instant reactions were to think "it can't possibly be the Pokémon!" - the former friend even saying to me "I was expecting it to be something cool".

Look at the size of those shoes he's wearing. Amazing.

He proceeded to wear the Meowth backpack for the entirety of the first half of the show. He didn't reference it. He didn't mention it. I have followed him on Twitter for over a year, and I don't recall him once previously mentioning Pokémon. So why did he do this? The gig allowed people who were 14+, so I think it is a safe presumption that there would be quite a few in the audience who would just see "a cat". I am not sure if this would make if more or less confusing for them, to be honest. 

Despite that, I think I know why he did it; because it is a fucking awesome thing to do. Me and my friend Matt noticed it at the same time, turned to each-other, our mouths wide with surprise, amazement and joy, and both agreed it was just brilliant. He did it, quite simply because he wanted to. He knew that some of the audience would think "why has he got a cat backpack?", that some would think "...that's weird", but he also knew that there would be people in the audience who - like me and Matt - would think it was an utterly brilliant thing to do. I have evidence to back this up; after the gig, I posted this tweet mentioning Vince: 

"Vince Kidd was nothing short of brilliance. He sang a song about dirty sex while wearing a Meowth backpack. You can't top that."

Vince proceeded to retweet it, and it went on to get 10 retweets and 9 favourites. Clearly, others agree with our opinion that it is brilliant.

I think this shows what really is "cool" when it comes to identity; just being you. It sounds cliché, but damn, it's true. Fashion magazine editors wouldn't sit around thinking "a man wearing eye-liner, piercings and a Pokémon backpack is so cool", but in my opinion, Vince being utterly happy and confident wearing that is one of the coolest things I've ever seen. At one point in the gig, he told the audience to just be happy "being whoever the fuck you want", and it really is as simple as that.

But this is only half of the reason I have decided to write about the night in question; on the tube home, a few feet away from where me and Matt were sitting, I noticed a tall man with blonde hair, wearing denim dungarees, straightened blonde hair, thigh-length denim shorts, and lots of bracelets. As I looked at him, I thought "ah, those bracelets are pretty cool. He looks like a fellow Vince Kidd fan, I wonder if he was at the gig as well?" - it turns out that he was, as he was one of the people who RT'd my earlier tweet. But this isn't the reason I mentioned him. Unbeknownst to this fellow Vince Kidd fan, the man opposite me was complaining to his friend, saying:

"Look at that. I don't mind people being gay, but you don't have to dress so gay, that's what really pisses me off. Seriously. They can do what they want, but they don't have to be that gay. It's fucking ridiculous."

As I am sure you would guess, this offended me. The juxtaposition between a gig where a happily flamboyant man spread the message that people should express themselves in whatever way they wanted, to this event where a man called someone expressing himself "fucking ridiculous", and genuinely got angry about it; not only that, but the fact that the gig venue was a mere 5 minutes from the tube stop where this was said. The fact that two polar opposites could exist in such close proximity was disconcerting, to say the least.

Firstly, the way someone dresses/presents themselves has nothing to do with their sexuality; I've since asked the Vince Kidd fan in question, and he has told me he is gay, but the way he was dressed has no impact on that fact. He just as easily could have been wearing those clothes and been straight; so not only was the man being homophobic, he was re-enforcing homophobic stereotypes, as well as being offended not just by the idea of homosexuality, but also by the idea of someone expressing themselves freely, which is a very depressing thing to witness.

However, there is one big reason - rightly or wrongly - that this shocked me: the man who made these comments only had one arm. Perhaps it is naive of me to think that a man who is disabled in such an obvious visual way wouldn't judge others on appearance? Perhaps it is an idealist view of the world that I expected someone from a historically (and currently, quite frankly) judged, derided, mis-understood and hidden group of society would understand and respect someone of a similarly historically (and, as proven by his comments, currently) mis-treated group? Regardless of his disability, it was an unpleasant thing to say; but if an able-bodied person were to complain or disrespect him on his account of his disability, he'd be furious - does he really have a right to expect other people to understand and respect his differences, if he doesn't do so himself? I guess that is what this boils down to.

I didn't say anything to the man in question; was it because I am socially awkward, and don't like starting conversations, nevermind confrontations? Partly. Was is also because he was with 2 friends, and I was scared they'd all beat me up if I dared to question him? This influenced my decision, sure. I think the main reason, however, was that it would have been near-impossible to explain to him the concept of identity, how it differs from sexuality, and why he shouldn't be so judgmental of a fellow human-being in the 3 minutes until our tube stop.

I guess this experience reminded me that even people from marginalised groups can be horrible to members of other marginalised groups; heck, even members of the same group can attack each-other unfairly. That doesn't mean we shouldn't keep pressing for equality for all, of course; it is just evidence that society in general still has a lot to learn. Still, it is getting better week-by-week, and at least in Britain it is legal to love who you want and express yourself more or less however you want, despite the fact some people can't respect it.

I'm going to end this blog with a video of Vince Kidd singing Our World; it was a song that moved me to tears when I watched him sing it live. I would also say that it is probably his most accessible song; it's well-written, soulful, and just really nice - so those who were put-off by the sound of the sex-driven lyrics above shouldn't let that stop them listening to this. It's a song about a couple who "broke the mould", and the lyrics sum up the notion of just being who you want, regardless of what other people may think:

"I'mma do my best for you, And we'll abide by different rules, We know what they gon' say, Same shit different day, 

Those haters gonna hate."

I was going to go on and explore my own identity; how I feel it has changed over the past year, why I think this is, and where I think this may lead, but this blog has already gone on long enough. Thank you very much if you managed to make it this far.

Project Create 2013 creations by my good friends will be posted here: http://projectcreate2013.tumblr.com/; alternatively, follow them on Twitter using the below links:

www.twitter.com/HayleyC8D

www.twitter.com/DanielKempster

www.twitter.com/wecrashcopters

www.twitter.com/thegeekycomic

See you tomorrow for day 3!

Tom.