I'm ready for my close up, Mr. DeMille

Hello, Friends!

Age is a bitch; don't let anyone tell you otherwise. All the talk about being older and wiser, aging like fine wine, etc - hogwash. Watery perfume to mask time's putrid stench

Two days ago, we were shooting Heihei Yau's folio for Mr. Gay World. My friend, Van, used me as a body double to test the light before we put Heihei on. I was shocked at the rushes.

"I'm fat," I declared. "Why am I fat?"

"You're healthy. People's faces simply look twice as large in photographs," Van replied diplomatically.

But after an entire day of following Heihei around with a camera - each image looking just as perfect as the ones before - it became clear to me that I wasn't really fat. I'm just... old. And nothing makes one more aware of age than being confronted with the perfection of youth.

I once joined a TV talent show. I didn't win, but I got enough paid singing gigs after the show to keep me going. Plus, I considered myself smarter than run-of-the-mill TV starlets, anyway, so I picked myself up, dusted myself off and produced a solo concert in my hometown.

Immediately after university, I was cast as Crackerjack in an all-star production of Sacrilege. And then I was  tapped to helm David Hare's psychosexual thriller, The Blue Room. It was to be my professional directorial debut. Anything was possible...

2004

... until after the opening night reviews. They were mixed. My let's-change-the-world outlook was crushed, to be restored months later by an overseas call which came whilst I was in the toilet.

"It sounds important!" my sister, Loren, screamed. "The man speaks English!"

It turned out to be Disney's casting director, asking me to be part of Hong Kong Disneyland's opening team.

Who am I to say no to Mickey Mouse?

***

2005

I had a grand, old time. I worked with gorgeous, talented performers from all over - Australia, Canada, UK, US, South Africa, Indonesia, the Philippines, mainland China, Hong Kong...

Such was how my career would begin: Try TV and fail; play a crack addict onstage; direct a controversial hamsup psychological sex drama; leave home; portray a military captain in a bun who has a penchant for big sticks and falls in love with an androgynous soldier in the Chinese imperial army. Kinda like how my life would unfold, really.

I relished it. 

2006

One of the first girls I got to be friends with started as a Disney princess in her teens. She was able to buy a car, house, life insurance - everything - with Disney dollars. She was already 32 years old when she scored the Hong Kong gig. She was flawless. A year later, she returned to Florida to wed to a man whose mother is a plastic surgeon. She then continued princess-ing at Magic Kingdom.

"You should be busy making babies instead of kissing babies," I chastised her on MSN. "How long for are you gonna keep playing a Disney princess?"

"For as long as I look good," she replied.

Her answer chilled me to the bone.

I made a pact with myself:

I'm quitting entertainment If I have not yet become a proper "star" by the time I'm 25.

***

When the clock struck 12 on my 25th birthday, I found myself in Princess Margaret Hospital, with an unglamorous stomach flu. That afternoon, an ambulance picked me up from Disney's backstage after my body refused all sorts of sustenance - even water. It was high drama coupled with high fever.

Twenty-five.

You become paranoid when your professional premium are youth, good looks, and a perfect set of teeth. Who gives a fuck about your brain?

I didn't wait out the end of my contract.

I resigned.

***

My path to becoming Asia's Most Hyperactive Gay Boy™ started the moment I left Disney. Pink Sundays® was born, followed by a year-long assignment doing Guest Relations at The Grand Hyatt, and then a short stint running a luxury boutique at The Peninsula. I didn't feel fat; I was P.H.A.T.

2007

Still, a few, random photos in a local gay mag and a coffee table book hardly qualified me as a star. In fact, they highlighted the stark reality that I still hadn't become one.

And so a year passed...

2008

...and then another...

2009

...and yet another...

2010

 ...until we get to today.

2011

I produce Mr.Gay Hong Kong, I write a blog, and I help run a restaurant group. I enjoy keeping myself busy; I'm a reliable sort.

I'm pushing 30. It's tempting to resort to bitterness, like the mother who holds grudge against her own child for taking her youth, except I'm finding my own impertinence increasingly funny.

I dread having to set another sell-by date.

So I wont.

I just want my fucking close up.

With Affection,

James