Tag: Jennie Ketcham

Categories
Rant

Sparkle

Robby R

Perfectly lovely day in So Cal.  The blue sea, the warm breeze, the humming birds in the Bougainvillea outside my window.  What more could a man want?

With all obsessions now safely stowed, with all unsavoury thoughts banished, with the metaphorical razor wire restored for my own safety, with God back in charge…I could just sit quietly and enjoy the day.

Started out with breakfast and therapy.  After so many months of anger it was as if when the storm passes I hadn’t experienced anything negative during the past year at all!   I am making huge progress with my mad head.

We discussed steps 8 and 9 of the 12 step programme which are all about making amends.  Admitting when we were wrong.   Making a list of all we had harmed.

I love those steps.

Moreover I knew that I was a billion times better because I didn’t fixate on yesterday’s ‘comment’ – I just let it go..now, like it or not, that’s PROGRESS!  I didn’t spend the day wondering who it might have been and how I might defend myself.  I just didn’t care.  Let’s put it this way:  I have finally flushed that toilet.

After breakfast I met Jennie in Venice.  I am so proud of her, she has her book deal and is writing avidly.   We sat in the sun drinking coffee and eating delicious French pastries.

I remember when I first got sober how much pleasure it gave me to feel the sun on my face.  Simple pleasures.

I drove home and filled the plunge pool.

Agent meetings to organize after lunch.  We are trying to find the right writer for our film.  Not an easy task.   We discussed some structural problems in the treatment (synopsis) and the potential remedies.

Dinner with the God Children:  Lamb chops, quinoa tossed with nuts and slivers of fennel and snap peas.  An odd combination but perfectly delicious.

I have to see the doctor on Wednesday as I am experiencing some discomfort down below…sure it’s nothing to worry about.

Categories
Rant

Choose Life

SH and DR

Suddenly enthusiastic.  Suddenly full of LIFE.  When I got sober I chose life over death…so I better get on with the living.

Yesterday ended up in steam room with the MOST GORGEOUS MAN.

I shudder at the recollection.

This morning he is sitting beside me writing.

Had long conversation with Jennie K.  It was so great to connect with her again.  I love that woman.

Mostly talked about what happens to a testicle when it is removed.

It is cremated.

My friends Joey and Chase have written an album that I love so check it out ..they are called:  THE BLACK SOFT

SH

Had long chat with CP about film.  I am going to have a stab at it before we hire a writer.  Cheaper that way.

Had dinner with SH uptown in some ghastly Korean restaurant.  I love that boy.  So lively and intelligent and good-looking.

Taxi to East Village.

Dan and I sat around giggling when I got home.  Loving living on 10th St.

Having chat with lawyer today…about STUFF.  Let’s see.

[wpvideo ttcRhKrR]

Categories
art Gay Health Malibu

Dreaming of Being Healed

As is things couldn’t get any worse I fell in the garden yesterday and ripped the tendons in the back of my right leg.

Thankfully Ashley was at home and wrapped me in ice.  I dare not go to the hospital because it will bankrupt me.  Now at home totally incapacitated.

Began to panic about getting back to the UK with one functioning leg and a dog.

Have to go via Paris again.  Not even directly to Paris but via NYC to go to court to get the money that Jake owes me.  This really stinks.   Everything conspiring to make life more difficult than it needs be.  It was such a silly thing to do.  How did I do it?  I tripped up the path and instantaneously I could feel the tendons detach.  Pop.  Oh God.

Ashley cooked dinner for us.  Her friend Emma arrived. They made steak and greek salad.  After all that meat we ate chocolate and drank hot tea.

It rained heavily all night.

The night.  Plagued with nightmares.  A kitten hidden in a chair.  Me as a child wandering into the road outside my Grandmother’s house in Herne Bay overlooked by my step-father.  Torrential leaks from the ceiling coursing unchecked through the house.

This year has been ghastly.  Made more so by Jake’s despicable antics.

Unthinking, callous, selfish.

I sometimes wonder how his parents put up with his lying shit?   Of course!  They love him unconditionally.

This leg situation is going to take at least a month to fix…more without treatment.

I wrote to Jake’s father asking him to persuade his son to just pay me the money.   We have a court date fixed now.  This is fucking bore.  He is holding onto me.  Refusing to let go of the final tendril.  The last vestige.  Let me go Jake.  Pay me the money so I can go to the UK and get on with my life.

I am sure that he feels the same way…we were perfectly synchronised.

The drawings are by Jennie.  She sent them yesterday.  Drew them when we were in rehab. They have a real Picasso feel about them.

Categories
Hollywood Rant

Goodbye Hollywood

So, all packed and moved out.  I left the apartment empty and covered in dust. I have to go back tomorrow to collect deposit and hand over the wi-fi thingy.  I am pleased not to be going back there.

When Jennie and I moved into The Chateau de Fleur we did so to escape the lives we had and wanted to change when we went into rehab.  For Jennie it was the beginning of a life away from being a porn performer.  For me it was to escape the exquisite monotony of Malibu, the pornography, the internet hook up sites and the gruelling symptoms of sex addiction.

Amazingly, for the longest time, I steered clear of the worst of my sex addict tendencies.   Until, of course, I met Jake and collapsed..once again..into active addiction.  As much as I try..I cannot forgive him.  I was doing so well.

I tell you, I hate him now more than anyone I have ever been wronged by.  More than the vile people who ran over The Darling Big Dog and more than I ever harboured for my step-father.

Masquerading as an innocent, timid boy JB knows exactly what he is doing.  I would urge anyone that gets involved with him never, ever believe a word that comes out of that mouth.  His lies are not even very amusing.  An amusing liar, like Leigh Bowery or Diana Vreeland can enhance a dull world but a tepid, self-serving liar like Jake can only make the mediocre a paler shade of taupe.

The only good thing that came out of his mouth was my cock.

I though I might write about the day my dog was killed in front of that building, in front of me and the little dog..but I can’t, not least because the memory of her written on the same page I write his name would sully the memory of her.

To think, he left his gf and flew to me.  I tended him, looked after him, cooked for him, dabbed at his tears.  I reassured him again and again that things would work out fine..and I am sure they will for the conniving little cunt.

Goodbye Hollywood.   Hello New York City.

Letter from Susan:

I drove my father to the Stiperstones last Saturday  – creamy golden late afternoon sunshine lighting all that hilly beauty – he was so happy. But all I could think of was the time we drove up there in his little Mini – I rammed the car off the road at a funny angle and we then draped ourselves around the seats and dashboard. Do you remember how much we laughed when people came to help and we woke up ? I still find it quite funny.

I do remember..and it was really funny.

Categories
Rant

Renters

After yesterday’s blog purge I felt a whole heap better.  I can now concentrate on my lumpy testes and getting my life back in order.

I spent 30 minutes virtually decoupling myself from the timid Beast of Westchester.  Facebook, Skype etc.  Of course I forgot that he owes me money from the UK tax refund but hopefully he will just do the right thing and send it to me.

The number of people who read my blog doubled yesterday.  Why?  Very odd.

How exhausting!  The entire thing with him from beginning to end was exhausting.  Relationships?  Who needs them?  Well, I for one would like one that works.  As I said before, we packed a twenty-five year relationship into the last eight months.  I really had no intention of publishing yesterdays incendiary blog but he sent me such a vicious email the only way I could be assured of never seeing him again was to tell it as it is.  He’s an idiot, I was all washed up yesterday afternoon.  I really wasn’t feeling very mean-spirited in light of my testicle problem but he riled me into action and out came Anthony (my angry alter ego) to protect my honor.

After I published the blog I met Sharon and we headed over to the Pacific Design Center where the Weinstein Company were premiering their new documentary,  The Pat Tillman Story.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWmqogu3mZw].

Good God, if that couldn’t shake me out of my mad head nothing would.  What an incredibly sad story.

Pat Tillman the sporting star was used in life and death by the US government to support an unpopular war.  As the genius filmmakers made clear, the US Government probably wishes they hadn’t messed with the tenacious Tillman family.   You have to love them, the mother and father are probably the most patriotic, considerate, intelligent people you ever met.  They were the sort of people you want to believe all American are.

Watching their faces as they testified in congress, tangling with the likes of Donald Rumsfeld, Karl Rove and George W at the very pinnacle of government, laughing in the face of the toothless Congressional oversight committee.  It was a ghastly example of how ordinary, good Americans have been trampled and continue to be trampled by their very own government.

I will never forget listening to the young man who saw his best buddy Pat Tillman have his head blown off his shoulders just feet from where he stood.  The blood trickling out of Tillman’s neck like a drinking fountain.

I chatted with that brave young man after the film and was filled with admiration.  I have no reason to complain about anything when I meet a man like that.  He had the best line in the film, he said, “Afghanistan reminded me of Arizona but (pause) the people looked a bit different.”

I do hope that you all get to see The Tillman Story, that you get to meet Pat as his parents and friends remember him and hopefully be as inspired as I was after seeing this remarkable film.  It was very hard not to cry.

Before I went to sleep last night I thought how beautiful Pat Tillman was, not just his beautiful face but what made him really beautiful was his compassion, sensitivity and unusual intellect..a perfect example of how one can never ever judge a book by its cover.

His beautiful face and brutal death make him an example of what a hopeless, desperate, unnecessary war this is.  The waste of life and resources and time and ideals.

Yet, the oligarchs continue sending these young boys to their deaths, profiting from sorrow, emotionally blackmailing an entire nation in the name of patriotism, trading on their love for the American flag and nobody will lift a finger to stop it…this absurd ‘war on terror’.  Such nonsense.

Before I got caught up writing yesterdays blog I had planned to write about the people who rent my Malibu house.  The good and the bad but after I received his vicious email events overcame me.  Here is a snippet of what I will take time writing about at a later date.

The renters.  When it comes to renting the house through VRBO there are far more Dodi, Richard or Jan’s (appreciative and complimentary) than there are Irene, Vikam or Dave’s (unappreciative and demanding).

The good renters love the house and realize that they are getting a great deal for their buck.  They write glowing reviews in the visitors book.

The bad renters, with exactly the same house, same EVERYTHING seem to feel duped.  They think the house is dirty, they complain about the modern art, that the TV is too small.  They complain that there are personal effects in the house, that a hose is not wound properly.  They demand their money back without ever checking their contract.  Worst, is when they break things and never ever like to pay for what has been broken.

They seem to forget that they are getting the house for up to 7 people for $250 a night rather than the houses they can see below them for $3,000 a night.  They also forget that I have rented that house to hundreds of renters and most of them are perfectly happy with their experience of the house.

There is one particularly insane woman in Hawaii who tried duping me…bad move.  As we know very well I am not easily crossed.  Bad boyfriends or bad renters..they are all the same to me.  More about Hawaii woman at a later date.

Listen, the complainers, thankfully, are not as frequent as the those who just love it there.  Who, when they leave, leave a sweet smell behind them, who obey the rules and don’t smoke or throw clandestine parties or break stuff or try claiming that the house was not as described.

It confuses the hell out of me when people just turn on their heels and leave the house without even staying one night.  Thankfully that has only happened twice in the three years that I have been renting.

I slept late this morning, made coffee, took the little dog for a long walk.

Jennie and I had a luxurious conversation.   She is in good spirits about getting into University.  And so she should be, she is a remarkable young woman.

Oh yeah, before I forget…who is Adam Patch you ask?  Don’t worry, I didn’t know either.  Check the Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald and you’ll understand the literary allusion.  A 1920s socialite and presumptive heir to a tycoon’s fortune…you’ll see that the timid man and I had more in common than even we realized.

Am I being snippy?

Categories
Money Rant

Montana Fishburne

Yesterday I was on HLN with Jane Velez-Mitchell debating whether it was cool or not for Montana Fishburne to have released her own porn film.

My point, contrary to the other more morally confused commentators, was that it is perfectly OK for Montana to make a pornographic film.  That her father Laurence Fishburne‘s career will not be hampered by difficult questions on the red carpet.  That as far as I was concerned Montana’s decision was a ‘feminists dream’.  Of course I was being deliberately incendiary but it’s a news entertainment show.  That’s my role.

Seriously though, we are only ‘shocked‘ and ‘outraged‘ because a rich girl decides to make a pornographic film.  Why are we shocked?  Because our preconceptions about pornography and women in pornography are blown out of the water.  We still believe that women who make a choice to go into porn have no choice at all.  That they are the naive victims of unscrupulous men and to be sure, there is some truth to this on some occasions but not all porn is the same.

I am perfectly sure that when my friend Jenny Ketcham made porn she knew exactly what she was doing.

Montana Fishburn legitimizes pornography and scaily, for some people, may encourage a different sort of woman to make pornography a legitimate career choice.

Montana’s choice blasts the lie of the ‘sex tape’ out of the water.  Let’s face it, both Paris and Kim knew exactly what they were doing when their sex tapes were released.  They were complicit.  The tape would never have been released without their consent.  To be sure Rick Hilton never lost any sleep about the impact on his career after his daughter’s tape was released.

We live in Hollywood, fame and celebrity (even notoriety) is the goal for most people who live here.  To live in your father’s shadow when you too crave what he has but your options are few…what’s a girl to do?

Porn has become a legitimate way for a starlet to reach a mass audience and become a star.  The press is more than willing to collude with the associated lies.  That both Paris and Kim shot their sex tapes covertly merely attempts to disguise the truth.

I take my hat off to Montana Fishburne.  Let’s hope she makes a whole heap of cash.  The kids of the rich and famous are notorious wasters.  If this girl is as clever as she seems to be she’ll never ask her father for another cent.  For the time being Montana Fishburne will glory in the spotlight that until now has been reserved exclusively for her father and my guess is that more people, in the long run, will see her film work than his.

Categories
Death Dogs

One Year Ago Today

Therapy, collect cheque, Jennie Ketcham for breakfast.

Jennie and I walked the length of Abbott Kinney, found a new collar for the little dog and chatted about our various relationships.  She, of course, has a relationship..I do not.   She is in love and making a TV series and I am off to Paris with a friend.   A friend, nevertheless, who makes me smile.

Last night we saw some cool live music on the roof of the Standard down town..that would be Ryan, Justin and I..then we ate dinner at Bottega Louie.  I ate pork chops.  Somebody sent us a Shirley Temple with delicious cherries floating around in it.

I have to be discreet about the location but Prince and Lionel Ritchie played impromptu performance on another roof in another part of town..it seems that Prince is always up for an unexpected gig, I have seen him perform at hotels and bars and in that huge house he rented with purple carpet everywhere.

The night we saw Prince and bumping into Barbra Streisand in the Pacific Design Center are perhaps my most startling close encounters with celebrity..oh, and befriending Roseanne in Starbucks.

From out of the woodwork crawl all sorts of characters from the past and this week an old friend called after he lost his job.  It was all the more interesting because we had not had a cordial end to our friendship a year and a half ago but time heals and we said our brief apologies and got on with being friends again.

There is probably more to gain from knowing me than not knowing me.

Time is the greatest distance between two people. Tennessee Williams wrote that.  It is time that will end up miraculously mending all the smashed Ming vases that I am surrounded with.  Remember what I said about love being like a Ming vase?

Joan brought me a rather splendid Japanese tea-pot for my birthday that arrived in a huge box from Memphis.  I felt like a five-year old again.  Opening my birthday presents.

This day last year the darling big dog was killed.  Ripped apart in front of me under that truck..she kept on trying to live, trying to stay alive for me as we lay together in the back of my truck..in the flat-bed.  Jennie drove us to the animal hospital on Ventura Blvd and the nurse put her down with a lethal injection as I sobbed my little heart out.

The next day we collected her from the freezer and I cried all the way to Malibu, apologizing to her, reminding her of all the great time we had, crying and laughing until we buried her in a coyote proof hole in the garden she loved.

Sarah sang a beautiful song.  The little dog said his goodbye.

This year has been all about death.  The death of friends, the death of my dog and of course the death of love.   Tomorrow I want it to be different but I cannot be sure.  All I know is that I am trying to be the best man I can be, let go of the past..even the recent past, and forge ahead.

Categories
Love

Happy Today

I am happy today.  You know there are so many good things happening to me and more importantly to those around me.

It’s so easy to write about being miserable.  It’s easy to indulge our fears.  It’s easy to blame the world for all of the bad things but I ALWAYS forget to tell you when I am happy.  Perhaps I am not sitting at my desk when the happiness comes?  I think that may be the truth because I am out in the world experiencing my joy.

I am with friends, climbing the canyon, writing and reading.

My joy is NOT dependant on any one person.  My joy comes from listening to Joni Mitchell, sitting in the sunlight of the spirit and reveling in the triumph of watching my friend Jennie celebrate her one year of continuous sobriety.  Oh, and before you say it, I am sure I am not meant to be discussing her ONE-YEAR publicly but I am.  After all she has worked so hard to get to this place of authenticity.

Most of you witnessed how she changed on TV.  How we all began this remarkable rescue mission-rescuing ourselves from oblivion, self-hatred and isolation.

Change comes in great gobs never in dribs and drabs.    So this change is all about not wanting to be at the mercy of others, understanding that I can never trust my perception.  It is always wrong.   This change comes from giving into not wanting to change the way I feel.   I have put a lifetimes of effort into separating myself from everyone.  Emotional Boom and Bust.

By watching Jennie flourish I can hitch my wagon to her well planned recovery.  I learn from everyone who comes into my life.  Everyone.

If I have to be on my own then so be it.  But I needn’t punish the world by keeping those around me at arms length.  It’s time to let you in.  Let you be my friend, my colleague, my lover, my mother and my brother.

Being happy does not mean that I ignore suffering, ignore inequity, ignore insensitivity but I don’t have to make it mine.  I needn’t own the suffering of the world and use that as a reason to ruin my own chances.

There are hurdles, great ravines and deep chasms that hinder the direct path that any man needs to take in the great journey of life.    But rather than dwell on what may or may not get in my way I can enjoy the wind in my hair and the sun on my face as I get to where I am going.

I would rather wear a compass than a watch-after all it is best to know where I am going than what time I get there.

When I am scary I am most probably scared.

I don’t want to be that scary man I can be.  I want to be free and if I only get a glimpse of freedom today and just for a few hours then as least I have experienced the feeling and have something to work toward, something I am capable of.

Have a great day everyone.  Remember that there is a solution-so start living in it.

Categories
Gay Love Malibu

Limerence

Malibu Spring

Woke up this morning in a wonderful mood after a lovely evening with Anna.  True friends are too few in this life.   I woke up in my own body.  Does that sound familiar to anyone?  Doesn’t everyone?  I woke up in the moment, not in some delirious fantasy about what could be.  I smiled to myself.  Gently.   I imagined myself walking the pavements of Notting Hill Gate.  I imagined looking into the beautiful homes there.   I thought about London-because I am happy.

A beautiful spring morning in Los Angeles.

The fact is I don’t live in New York.  I live here and for the foreseeable future I will continue to live here.  I have to make this work as best I can.   Any other plans to move will have to be made because it suits my sensible self.

My great friend John has gone travelling and I miss him being around.  He reminds me to be awake, to no longer sleep walk through life.

I loved seeing Jennie this week.  It was after all this week last year that I entered Sex Rehab and the adventure began.  The journey of self discovery, the great revelation, the great insight, the life of many choices, the decision to love myself, the strange and wonderful experience with reality TV and of course my relationship with the inspirational Jennie Ketcham.  The love affair, the language of recovery.  The list goes on and on.

To love someone selflessly is hard.  To live without hope is very hard.  To put a lid on my feelings for another seems almost impossible.  If I think back to the end of my most beautiful relationships there are weeks of debilitating sadness, sad songs then emerging from the pall with my head held high.

Today is Saturday 3rd of April.  I pay my rent today.  I go to my Saturday morning meeting and see my friends.   Do you have a group of men or women around you who can hold you when everything seems desperately bleak, when things are going so well that your feet scarcely touch the ground?

Several of my readers really helped me yesterday with their comments.  I read about limerence and it was painfully, embarrassingly familiar.  I particularly liked Leslie’s comment.

“What are the three most dangerous words? ‘I love you.’ By saying these words to another, we give them power. But the power is two-fold: the Other then has the power to destroy us, to kill our heart. The Other then also has the power to create us, to give our heart life. So what is the love we give when we say those dangerous words? It is peace, patience, mercy, trust, fidelity and forgiveness.”

It is hard to explain to those who are close to me how important this blog is.  It is a relationship with the world.  Reaching out daily to those of you who read what I write and honour me with your comments and opinions-good and bad.

So, Anna and I sang sad songs and laughed out loud and when I went to bed I no longer had any yearning in my heart.  After all, what have we got to look forward to?  I’ll tell you what-today, this moment..right NOW.   Like so many people I have lived so much of my life regretting the past and hoping for a brighter future without really paying attention to what was happening to me right now.

Categories
Gay Love Rant

Fuck you God

Golly Gosh.  I was ready to write an obituary.  Now there’s some hope in the air and it smells so sweet-like winter flowering Jasmine.

To my readers:  I want you to understand something.  You don’t know who I am writing about.  You can guess but you’ll be wrong.   Even if you are right-you’ll still be wrong.

Men together?  I don’t understand how that works.   Can it work out?  Need I worry?  Just go with God’s plan and see what he has in store for me.  God’s plan never ever includes meeting a normal nice man with no issues who can be ready and willing to deal with mine. hahahahh.  Fuck you God.  Have I ever told you just how much I trust how God works in my life?  That whatever happens everything is going to be ok?   It’s all going to work out just the way it’s meant to be.  God, can you PLEASE not torture me by making me learn how to be patient? By making me be the one who has to be selfless?  Can you just give me a frigging break!

The problem with long distance relationships?   There is no comfort what so ever in the time spent apart.  The distance, the anticipation and the disappointment.  It drives me BONKERS.  In the Land of Needy I suddenly become King.

Wonderful times spent together are mirrored with miserable times spent apart.

Added to all of this it feels like I am being given the mighty heave ho.  Why oh why are relationships so DIFFICULT.  It’s not just me.   I know it.  Why can’t everyday be like getting up in the Jane Hotel feeling complete?

Now I understand why you don’t get involved with certain kinds of men.  Well, we all have to make our own mistakes don’t we?  One day you walk away and you don’t look back. But I can’t walk away from this one-there’s still fuel to burn.  It’s not exhausted.  Yet.  As much as I want him to tell me that’s it’s over.  There is something intoxicating about being loved.

It’s not who you think.  It’s nobody you have ever met.  Nobody I have ever introduced you to.  He’s a different man.

Yesterday was rather wonderful despite emotional long-distance telephone calls with this young man that I recently met in NYC.

I had a deliciously long cup of coffee with an occasionally tearful Jennie… tears of joy I hope.  We looked each other in the eye.  We talked recovery and lost love and new love and what it was to have sex whilst being present.

By the end we were hugging and smiling and everything was just how it was meant to be, you see… what ever real friends go through they remain real friends.  The foundation of our friendship was constructed almost exactly a year ago when we entered Sex Rehab.

It is obviously unshakeable.  The Lord and the Porn Star.

So, I arrived at Amanda’s for dinner, she was in a fractious mood but I think she may just have been hungry.  She has lost a ton of weight.

Amanda and Lady Forte had spent the day with their grown up children looking at universities.  There was some unexplained drama around how easy it was to buy yourself into UCLA.   Anyway, had long chat with Charles about helping him make a film this summer, a short film to get into film school.  I would rather like to do that.  In lieu of teaching at UCLA this year which I really miss.