Down, Down, Deeper and Down

Ending the year on a low. Down (depressed possibly). The only way is up for 2008!

Pre-Hibernation

Whenever I come to write this blog, I always think to myself, "nothing has happened"...

I guess the main thing in November was the pre-hibernation event run by Manbears. It was fun to catch up with old mates. I had my MOT on the Saturday morning, so couldn't go too mad on Friday - probably a good thing.

The highlight of the event should have been Saturday afternoon's entertainment. Unfortunately New York New York wasn't a good enough venue - too small by far and no real stage to speak of. However, it did provide an opportunity for the 'premiere' of BSI Episode 2, which did seem to go down particularly well - surf on over to www.funfur.tv to take a look.

Otherwise, the weekend was just 2 more nights in the pub - albeit very very busy nights! However I know that the Manbears team worked very hard to make the weekend a good one, so thanks to them all.

Another Childish Rant!

Can I just ask: if you're not interested in what's happening in my life, why have you come here?

Sounds like I'm being really rude there... so let me explain... I recently had a message from someone ranting about my 'me me me' website. Um, yes. That's what a blog is for, moron!

It's amazing how people you've spoken to once online think they know you, and can sum up your life in a sentence...

But anyway, enough ranting. The purpose of my blog is to let friends know what I've been up to. If you don't want to read it, no-one's forcing you to stay!

Life Sucks?

Prepare yourself for some self-indulgent rambling. I'm not prone to depression, navel-gazing or generally feeling sorry for myself, but recently it seems that's all I've been able to do.

It's easy to pinpoint the source of this - work - but somewhat less easy to do something about it. I should be grateful - I've a well-paid steady job, which is more than many people have. But the thought of staying in this job for a year, let alone for the next 30+ years till retirement, is abhorrent.

So get a new job, you say. Like, DUH! Unfortunately, the Education sector hasn't been throwing up a lot of opportunities. Nor has there been much chance of changing my role in the company. And actually, I'm not sure I want to stay in the sort of roles I've had until now. I'm left with the prospect of retraining. To do what, I don't yet know. But something's gotta give...

And anyway, I've a great partner, a nice home, good friends and I'm finally out of debt. Life doesn't suck. It just seems like it sometimes!

San Francisco

I've been to San Francisco a couple of times before, but I'd never really done the 'tourist' thing, and having Phil with me seemed like the perfect opportunity to do so.

So we spent our days on the beach, at the bridge, at Fisherman's Wharf, and on the multitude of transport options - ferries, buses, subway trains, streetcars and cable cars.

The gay stuff hasn't changed all that much... the Lone Star and Eagle seem much as I remember them. Daddy's has had a name change, but again seems the same, if a little more overcrowded. The Powerhouse was new to me, and is probably OK when you're in the mood for loud dance music! We didn't seem to be able to find anywhere to drink after 2am though!

Highlight of the week for me was a trip to the Six Flags Discovery Kingdom theme park. I got to go on several rollercoasters, and they had special seats for fatties too :-). Phil hates rides, but the wildlife and dolphin and whale shows kept us both entertained.

Auckland

What can be said about Auckland?

In some ways, it's like stepping back to the 70s... yet it is a modern city with all the usual things. I must admit it all seemed a bit smaller than I imagined, and we did struggle a bit for things to do...

The day before we left, we spent a day on a tour to Waitomo and Rotorua. Waitomo is home to some spectacular caves, including one filled with glow worms, who give off a weird green-blue light. In Rotorua, we stopped off at a wildlife park, where we managed to see kiwis (amongst other things), before spending some time at the foul smelling geysers.

Must admit though, it was odd when we left New Zealand, flew for 12 hours and still landed in America several hours before we took off from NZ...

Sydney

After 27 hours of travelling, we arrived at our hotel in Sydney at 7am. Unfortunately, the check in time was from 2pm... so we got some breakfast and wandered around the city and harbour areas. By 11am we were knackered, so we chanced it and went back to the hotel... Hurrah! They had a room ready!

What have we done here? Well, aside from the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge (no climb, unfortunately... Phil's vertigo put paid to that!), we had a couple of great days out down at Bondi Beach and up in the Blue Mountains, where we stopped en route at a wildlife park. The 'winter' weather was brilliant too :-)

For a city this size, we were surprised to find how little 'bear-life' there is... bears only seem to come out on a Friday night. Maybe the Sydneysiders prefer houseparties...

Disappointment and Elation

Today should have been a pretty exciting one. For my 33rd birthday in 2006, my friends clubbed together to buy me a helicopter flight. (OK, so it's taken me a while to get round to taking it!)

As you can see from my previous post, I tried to take it last month. This involved a drive up to Preston, where I had to hang around a hotel lobby for about an hour before finally someone from the company told us we would not be able to fly that day, due to the wrong helicopter turning up on the day. Because of the inconvenience, they allowed me to rebook for another date, and said they'd throw in a free ride as a passenger around a 4x4 track as well as my flight next time. Fair enough, these things happen.

So today, I drove down to Stafford for my rescheduled flight. Again, I waited around for over an hour before they told us the flight was cancelled due to the helicopter being unable to get permission to take off from Sheffield (the mind boggles!). this time they're offering to double the flight time if I rebook, plus get the 4x4 ride.

So after two wasted half-days, over 200 miles of driving and several phone calls, I've still got both feet firmly on the ground. Forgive my cynicism, but I'm a wee bit dubious about this company now, so I'll be aiming to get the cash out of them so I can book with someone else. And they better not mess me about when I phone them next week!

To name and shame, in the hope that no-one else gets taken for a ride (not literally, more's the pity!), the experience was booked through Adventure 001 via Buyagift.com.

Thank goodness Amazon.co.uk are able to keep their promises and delivered the last Harry Potter book this morning, or the whole day would have been a washout!

Dull June

It's been too long since I last updated... though it seems very little has happened before this weekend!

I spent yesterday filming the next episode of BSI: Manchester for the Manbears video team. It was a fun day, but very exhausting. We didn't manage to film everything we needed, so we'll have to do some more shooting at another date. There was some sort of tranny festival happening, so the filming of scenes involving me running down Canal Street were a bit weird!

I was supposed to be taking a helicopter flight today - a gift my friends bought me for my birthday last year that I've only just got around to taking. Unfortunately the company providing the flights had hugely overbooked, so I opted to reschedule for another date...

Oh and I've updated my acting website, just to add in my showreel. It's at www.seamusmcateer.co.uk

Scooched!

Cheesy pop music again... sometimes I think I might be gay!

Some very good friends gave us tickets to the Cruz 101 15th birthday party on Saturday (thanks!). We were out in Legends anyway, and went round there sometime after 2am to catch the highlight of the night - a live performance by Scooch! They performed all 5 of their UK hits, closing (of course) with 'Flying the Flag'.

Sad? Yes. Camp? Also Yes! Bovvered? Nah!

DANZING!

It's Eurovision day - YAY!

I know it's frowned upon by the bear community to like Eurovision, but I've always liked cheesy pop music, and always liked Eurovision. And judging by the sheer numbers of bears coming to our Euro-party tonight, I'm certainly not on my own!

The semi-final on Thursday was a real eye-opener... pretty much all the songs I liked have been knocked out - Denmark's drag queen DQ, Belgium's Love Power, Israel's anti-war song (alright, that was crap, but kinda catchy after a few listens!), the Cypriots singing entirely in French (bizarre!), Poland's party song (the word party was used 35 times in 3 minutes!) and Switzerland's version of Aqua singing about vampires. The final result was 8 qualifiers that were ex-Soviet or ex-Yugoslav states, plus Turkey and Hungary. Draw your own conclusions!

The favourites seem to be a Su Pollard lookalike drag artist from Ukraine, whose costume is mainly bacofoil, and what can only be described as a Serbian lesbian (well, I can't be sure, but look at her performance!). As ever, the UK are deemed to have no chance (25-1 for a win, 8-1 for a nul-points!), but I have to admit I think the Scooch song is funny!

Bear Bash

Well bear bash has finally come and gone for another year... As usual it was horrendously overcrowded, but hey, there's no way around the event's success. The Thursday night in AXM was a really good way to start the weekend off, understatedly. We did try the Outpost on Friday night, but we could only manage about 45 minutes in there before feeling too squished! Legends on both Friday and Saturday was excellent - very busy but still do-able. Having the patio open downstairs was very welcome.

The highlight of the weekend was Sunday afternoon at the Birdcage. Jonathan once again made a great host, and the Mr Bear 'competitions' were almost lost (thank goodness - does anyone care about these any more?) amongst the top quality entertainment from Bearlesque, Rowetta and the videos. I was really pleased at the reaction to the videos - the quality just keeps going up.

All the videos are now on YouTube - just do a search for Manbears.

Fame at last!

A quick blog entry... just to say how strange it is to see your face on a magazine cover! Honestly, it's bizarre! It is nice, however, to see a magazine write about bears without any particular sniping. Although the page after the bear article has a feature about losing weight LOL.

Nothing much to update on since the last blog... not done a great deal, and been kinda depressed for a bit... mainly to do with work. I'm determined to find a way to resolve things though.

Cover Star!

Monday was a strange day... had to go into town early evening for a photoshoot. How very glamorous! It was for Out Northwest magazine, and was for a promotional cover for Bear Bash. It'll be published near the end of April, so I must remember to try to get a copy!

Some of the photos taken might also end up advertising the LGF free condom scheme LOL. You can see one of the pictures on the left.

The other thing taking up my time has been a new Macbook. I've not had a Mac before, but the adjustments are all going reasonably well so far! I've managed to work out how to move and catalogue my photos and move my mail and browser settings across, and I really think I can see myself using it for everything, and not even having to install Windows on it...

An actor's life for me...

I spent this morning updating my acting website, adding some links to YouTube videos. I've had a renewed burst of energy about acting recently, probably brought on by the Manbears filming for Bear Bash. Also my pal Jonathan has helped me get a showreel DVD together, which I can send out to casting directors and agents. I will put that onto YouTube in early May. you can take a look at my acting website here.

Well, I MIGHT keep it up...

Thought I'd start a blog. I'm notoriously bad at keeping in touch with friends and acquaintances, so I'm making a vague attempt at this in the hope that some people might read it and feel less neglected!

So what's happened since the start of the year?

Well Phil and I haven't been out much for a start. It's the usual January hangover from Christmas really, not got too much cash and can't honestly be bothered! I'm not a winter person... maybe I've got that S.A.D. ... ;-)

I've done a few more bits of filming for Manbears for the upcoming Bear Bash 10 in May. Can't believe it's the tenth one... I remember being panicky about the first one, and whether or not we could make it break even! It's amazing to see how it's grown from 53 people to the thousand plus it attracts nowadays. The films will be the usual comedy spoofs... this time of CSI, Extreme Makeover, Psycho, Most Haunted and Antiques Roadshow. No doubt they'll be posted on YouTube soon after Bear Bash. You can take a look at the previous Manbears videos (I'm in some of them!) on my YouTube playlist here. By the way, most of them contain none-too-subtle gay innuendo!

Phil and I did manage to take a trip to Cardiff a few weeks ago - I was down there to work in a school in Barry, so seemed a good idea for Phil to tag along. When we went out on the Friday night, I thought it was all a bit tired... plus Phil and I seemed to be the only bears in the city!

I guess my other news happened yesterday when I appeared on Brainteaser on Five. I sent off an application months ago and thought nothing of it. Then just over a week ago I got the call, did a telephone audition and was in! All very speedy. Best of all is that I got to the final and won £750 - should come in handy for something... :-)

Final piece of good news for this month is the holiday is finally paid for! :-) Which means everything we save from now until August is spending money - hurrah!