The More You Ignore Us….The Closer We Get or
“Being Gay Is A Waste Of Time”  – The Divine David.

Like our other heroes Gilbert & George we dislike thew word 'gay' – “it was stolen from female prostitutes in 18^th Century London”. Used to address people 'of a certain persuasion', the word has become a marketing device for third rate goods, brainwashing individuals into believing “its the way I am supposed to dress”…“these are the clubs I am meant to go to” and “these are the kinds of records I should buy” (like erm … how many Hazel Dean records can intellectually sustain a person?). HomoElectric never has been, nor ever will be about 'gay' or 'straight'. Canal Street culture (or lack of it) continues to marginalize sexuality in a way that seems completely unhealthy to us. Arguments that it exists as a 'safe space' appear redundant, the hoards of orange faced queens in 4×4's (taking Queer As Folk a little too seriously), lager louts and baby-dolled babes parading up and down the stretch make it clear that it is not – a rough district of Benidorm would be a more accurate comparison. Nor is it, as last years Mardi Gras slogan suggested, a place to 'Express Yourself' – if your face, body or clothes don't fit, the gay scene can be one of the most intimidating and isolating experiences to be had – while the big brewery invasion and corporate attitude of many businesses makes it difficult to try and do anything unusual or dare we say 'arty' (unless that means decorating a bar with black and white Athena-style shots of naked men).

Mardi Gras – the white elephant that is Manchester's gay carnival – continues to sell short any 'community' it claims to represent by flaunting its barrel-scraping line up behind the excuse of being a fundraiser and an opportunity for the cities gay population to 'celebrate' and take 'pride'. When did gays ever need an excuse to celebrate? And 'pride' is all too often based on the false sense of 'self' gay people acquire when they allow their entire identities as human beings to be subsumed by their sexuality – 'I fuck, therefore I am'. Like being black or being a woman,being gay isn't something in itself to be proud of. Being born wasn't your doing. Neither was being gay. So why be proud of something you didn't even do? Despite the (admittedly well meaning) charity aspect of Mardi Gras, the gay 'community' also continually fails to ask and address the question of why so little money is raised by such a huge event – last year the average donation made by a village bar to the Mardi Gras fund was £2,000 for the weekend – when anyone can see that many businesses are making much more than that amount in less than an hour.

Of course we know that our criticism of this shiny, happy, all-singing, all-dancing gay world will be met with cried of “Anti-Gay” or dismissed as 'internalised homophobia' because we've all been sold the lie that “Everybody's free – to do what they want to do”. But HomoElectric doesn't believe it. If you live within a ghetto, you live with a ghetto mentality and the day when we all live together in peace and harmony simply ain't gonna come. Its time to move on, time to move out of Canal and Old Compton Streets. Why be defined by your sexuality? True liberation comes without needing or even wanting to feel 'gay' or 'straight'. Hold onto your homework and throw your rainbow flags on the fire. 'Come out' and find the one you that you love.

Ryan Minchin AKA Dee Bators

August 1999

1. HomoElectric is for Homos, Hetros, Lesbos, Don’t Knows and Disko Asbos.
2. There shall be no fighting, blighting, celebrity sighting or ego biting. No fakers, mugs or thugs.
3. Music is life.
4. Kill your idols.
5. The gym is the coffin.
6. Get over yourself.
7. Bomb the past. It’s over for now.
8. Postmodern ironic posturing is evil. It is not considered chic anymore.
9. Discussions about loft spaces, PR, Kabbalah and Power Yoga are deemed unfit for an establishment of downtown boompatink suaveness.
10. Chit chat, tittle tattle, hubble bubble and careless whispers are accepted.
11. Stepford Wives/Husbands, Hollyoaks cul-de-sac fundamentalists are ugly.
12. Be yourself, in a way.
13. Be ugly.
14. Lets get together in a non-tantric way.
15. Sailors in free, uniform essential. No anchors.
16. Hang the DJ.
17. Smashing 30 grams of glucose boshed coke up our hooters and hanging out in coke gangs pretending we like each other, is simply nasty.
18. Fuck fashionable negativity and cynicism and fly the flag for all things passionate and real.
19. There is more to Manchester’s gay scene than Hazell Dean and orange faced Queer as Folk queens listening to Generic Gay Beige Anthems Vol. 726.
20. The sunbed is dead. The sunbed is for clubbing oven ready chickens & turkeys. Keep in pastey!
21. Fuck tofu and macrobiotic dieting.
22. Full English Breakfast please Sir, E’s, Wizz, Ketamine and Stella, £10 Meal deal.
23. Don’t mind if I do, don’t mind if I don’t.
24. Ya get me?
25. Swear down.
26. Keep Britain dirty. Dirty is all we’ve got, dirty is truth, dirty is the heart and soul. We are all dirty bastards. Dirty preserves us.
27. It’s time to get back to basics with outer space dancing, voodoo jacking, dirty bassline burning, heat, sweat and love.
28. We are friends Electric.
29. Long live Disko Asbos!
30. Back to the basements. Disko dogging starts here.