Categories
art Malibu

Convoy

There are pale, grey days by the Pacific that remind one of home.  Thunder clouds over Catalina.   A huge rain over the ocean,  blasting the surface, then fierce sunshine through the clouds like so many celestial arc lights.

There are more storms forecast for next week.   Just as the house fills with Thanksgiving guests and I prepare to leave for NYC.  Early December shopping and once again…him.

Usually, at this time of year, the mountain is parched and brown but last summer was unseasonably wet.   Everything is dark green, richly hued, sweet-smelling earth abundant with as much wildlife as I ever saw.

Last night at 2am I passed three young, regal bucks on Rambla Pacifico.  Their velvet antlers and fearlessness making them all the more beautiful.  There is a huge owl that now roosts in the palm tree on the drive.

I know why he’s here, to eat the squirrels and rats.  The Little Dog killed a rat yesterday.  It had a beautiful pale grey coat and a long black tail that squirmed like a snake minutes after he snapped its neck.

I have been going to events.  Small talk with strangers…boring.

AFM.  GLADD.  Etc.  Why would I ever want to leave my mountain?  I meet bumptious gay men with nothing original to say.  Invisible people, terrified of being seen, identified, different.  Straight acting.  God, that bores me.  I wore a Derby.  They couldn’t even identify a Derby.  That thought it was a Bowler hat.

Then a beautiful boy arrives and turns everything upside down.  I can feel him beside me now.

Last night I cooked dinner and, as it may be the last time before I sell it, I powered up the huge Sylvie Fleury neon piece that hangs in the parlor.

Doesn’t it look beautiful?  CURIOUS!

Can you believe that Rachel Maddow, of all people, gets hate mail?  Hateful, terrible things.  Everyone who has ever been on TV gets hate mail.  Anonymous fools sitting at their computers, steeped in resentment, conspiring against the world.

Regis Philbin gets hate mail.

The storm is coming, there is nothing we can do except bring in the cushions, clear the drains, avoid falling rocks loosened by the deluge when we drive.

Can I tell you something?  I haven’t been here, to this blog…very recently, because I had other things I needed to write.  A film to finish, the essays to map, the novel is done with.

I met friends for dinner and ate far too regularly at Gjelina.  Breakfast, lunch and dinner.  I had meaningful assignations with beautiful men.  I walked the new road with the dog and did not fall down.

I removed the bulk of my blog archive because it was no longer appropriate to keep it there.  I kept the essays that seem to give you most pleasure.  Instead of writing this…I concentrated on other things.  The trash was put out on time, the Caster Oil Trees that grow by the spring were chopped down.  The trees that died last year must be felled and cut up for fire wood.

I travelled in convoy from one event to another and blended as much as I am able.

We are not expecting anything so inclement that our lives maybe risked.  The worst that could happen, after the heavy rain, is another slide.  That, my friends, is life on and off the mountain.

Categories
Malibu Rant

Long Night

During the night a huge wind storm-swept over Malibu from the desert.   I lay in bed listening to pine cones crash down onto the house.  The dogs snuggled under each arm.

Willie and the Little Dog, even though they are not friends, work as a good team when there are unexpected visitors on the drive or deer crashing around the property late at night.

The house continues to be very social.  Ashley and her friends, my friends.  I had 3 visitors before 8am this morning.

After the gardeners left yesterday and the paths were clean and order restored to the land I felt just great and have not felt anything other than great ever since.

Something is happening.  A new energy, a new optimism, a new employer.

Money.

The art I sold in NYC yesterday sold for double what was expected.  Why in hells name did I sell my other stuff here?    I paid my $18, 000 property tax bill.  I really RESENT paying so much tax.  Anyway, making money.

Ruminating over the past can be so EXHAUSTING.

The sea has turned the most delicious azure.   The wind is still roaring through the trees.  I can see all the way to Catalina.  Spoke to Tim who is recovering from his heart bypass but is laughing out loud so must be getting better.  His cheeks are all rosey, his mood and personality have become optimistic and sure.

We applauded the British rioting students.  He is a right-wing conservative and I am not yet we both agreed how healthy it is for any government to deal with insurrection.   The students broke into the Conservative headquarters and smashed it up.  Jolly good!  Why the hell should we charge for education?  This government is undoubtedly a one term affair.  After all, how do we vote back in a coalition?

Lots of you have written to me wanting to know more about the Ellen incident.  As I said, if I get moody this week I will funnel my moodiness into telling THAT story.  It’s really funny.

Ok, I will.

Tommy Clements, the rudest gay man alive, owns a store in LA.  He’s a hot-tub homo.  Know what I mean?  His sister is actually very sweet.  His mother Kathleen and his vacuous Aunt need to take less testosterone.  Suppurating sores on the ass of LA.

The store is called The Melrose Project.  A cavernous space filled with expensive, pretentious furniture.  Over-stuffed Victorian, roughly upholstered sofas dressed in yellowing hessian, useless winged mannequins attempting to be art.  This bad, bad art from an equally absurd store in Venice called Obsolete.

Don’t get me STARTED.

Tommy and Kathleen are very, very proud of the furniture they design.  Really?  Why?

Who in their right mind could possibly be proud of the slew of insipid soft furnishings for which they continually boast?  Amongst the overly restored ‘antiques’ and ‘quirky’ nick knacks which they describe as eclectic…are more ‘designed’ pieces.  For instance, a particularly vile white lacquered table caught my attention that has a curious lack of anything resembling style and a remarkable absence of ego.

This ersatz chic only exists in LA where there is a great deal of money but where the rich have a surprising lack of confidence hence the ascendance of people like Tommy and Kathleen.

Tommy’s aunt had (rather unsuccessfully) tried to set me up on a date with Tommy.  God, what a self-obsessed pig and, as I found out later,  the recent cast off of celebrity stylist David Thomas.   I have a great deal of affection for David but I am in no mood for his ghastly sloppy seconds.  What the hell was he was doing with Tommy?  Perhaps he was taking hallucinogenics at the time?  The only way one could possibly endure Tommy’s mind numbingly dull conversation.

David designed the costumes for three of my films.

So, I meet Tommy who is patently the wrong sort of gay for me and I politely leave the launch party of his space (Peter Dunham in attendance leaving a trail of acrid mucus behind him)  look, these people think they are sooo much better than the average shop keeper/sales assistant.

People who sell art in galleries always think rather grandly of themselves.

After that first meeting I was determined not to go back to his ‘gallery’ but J&J wanted to see it before we had lunch last week so rather than wait outside I went in and there was Ellen (yes that one) and Tommy and his mother who had caught the frail Ellen in their web.  Ellen is well-known for her love of collecting extraordinary furniture.  Every vintage furniture salesman in town prays for her patronage.

So I say hello to Tommy and his mother but they look horrified and the mother ducks my attempt to kiss her (as we have before) or warmly greet her.

Their disdain is palpable.

A night later I bump into the aunt, who tried setting me up with Tommy, and the aunt’s girlfriend who I rather unfairly make the focus of my irritation.  Knowing that this is misdirected I apologize but they decline my apology.  The drunk, inflated aunt starts in on me…with rather disastrous consequences.

I know rather too much about this devious woman for her to start telling me what she and others THINK about me.

Do I care?  No.

JBC and I met Ellen years ago in NYC and spent some time with her.  I don’t need a repeat performance.   It’s not hard to be nice Tommy.

Still so happy to have bumped into Maia and Simon.

Mended the gate at the top of the drive and adding an electric opening device.   Having the chain link fence covered with green canvas.  Now I can wander naked all over the property without nosey neighbours having opinions.

Nothing else to report.   Oh, I had like Manhunt date number 16 yesterday.  Nice man.  Big smile.  The others were scarcely worth talking about.