Eating cheese and pastrami with lashings of piccalilli smeared over the top. The inside of my mouth is burning. My lips are burning with desire. Not really. My lips are just bored. I am waiting for the mail to arrive so I can walk to bank and get on with the day.
I just scaled Mount Runyon with Sherpa Lil Dog, we saw two gorgeous yeti and had to: Alert! Avert! Affirm! It’s simply no good for me to gaze longingly at the perfectly honed abs of my fellow Runyon climbers.
Yesterday I realized, after chatting with a friend of mine with HIV that the average drug company will make over $2, 000, 000 out of a single person with HIV during their life time. Where is the incentive for those drug companies to educategay men about staying negative? Anyway, I am fast realizing that the sexual health education that gay men need is nothing to do with safe sex and everything to do with self-love.
The drug companies have no compassion for gay men, no desire to educate an underclass with no real rights, who are despised by most Christian bigots and have so little respect for themselves that they routinely get infected with HIV and become another $2, 000, 000 meal ticket for big pharma.
Pharmaceutical executives must be rubbing their hands in glee when another gay man converts from positive to negative.
This has to stop. We must start educating the next generation of gay men to love themselves enough to make good sexual health choices.
I got to thinking about my friend Amanda and how we recently hit a bit of a rock. I think deep down, even though she has gay men around her to dress her, she really has no respect for gay men. For many people we are clowns who have no right to complain or behave as anything other than grotesque queens. We are, to her, useless absurdities. Her notion that it is somehow ridiculous for us to have children, for us to have politics, opinions, etc. She’s not alone; I think many people are outraged by all of that and more.
Whatever I may have written about gaybies in the past I now see gay men having children as a delicious act of rebellion. It confronts homophobia head on.
I need something from you. I need closure. Don’t take this the wrong way. Moving at the wrong pace. I love you but…
You told me that you could not give me what I wanted-but I think you misjudged what I wanted. What I wanted more than anything was that we could do all the things we said we wanted to do when we weren’t in a position to do them. We had some really great ideas about what it meant to be together, time together, excitement together, exploration together.
You said you would fly to see me if only you could, then when you could..you couldn’t.
You may have become less free rather than more free, less brave rather than more brave and complain all the time about your lot without ever taking action to improve it. Darling Lamb Head: get a job you love and a place to live and make yourself available. Stop wallowing in self-pity and false promises. How long is this charade going to last where you pretend not to be having a life because you don’t want to be found out?
I am afraid of the huge difference between us. You see, I am not scared of all that life has to offer! When I was your age, at the merest hint of an invitation I would have been on that plane, that boat, that train, I would have been in Paris and London and Rome! You put all the reasons why NOT to before the reasons why you should.
If it had been me I would have come home triumphant! Armed with stories I would have told my grandchildren.
Darling, I need you to not call me when you are lonely and make cooing noises that just makes me love you all over again. I need you to set me free from the hope that we could ever be anything other than friends. If that!
It simply isn’t fair or considerate-in fact it is down right cruel because I cannot call you when I am feeling lonely not least because you are not very good at being compassionate. I don’t think we should see each other at all until we have got ourselves settled with other people.
I am going to meet this guy tomorrow and I am going to take him to dinner and then I am going to ask him if he will come to Paris with me. You had your chance and all you could say like a willful, petulant child is NO!
I think we really did exhaust things this time. We really may have pushed the right button. Please, please lets hope we did.
So, as a delicious post script to the man I loved:
You know, the days we spent in NYC together were some of the best I ever spent with anyone..ever. Lamb Head, you never let me write about that. You kept me silent. I wasn’t allowed to describe the joy, the love and the kindness. Never allowed to describe our tender kisses just in case it hurt other people. Our perfect moments sullied by your fear of what others might think. Like holding hands in the street. I can’t hold your hand in the street because I can’t bear the thought of the disapproving glances. No wonder your mother thinks so badly of me because I never get to write the beautiful things..because you told me not to. So, I want you to know that we had beautiful time. I had a beautiful time with your son. That he is capable of great love. He knows how to love a man. He knows how to make a man happy.
Just as it is meant to be.
The last thing he said this evening was that he didn’t make the huge changes in his life to be with me but that, I’m afraid, is the lie he tells himself. He left the other for a relationship with men, not this man, not me, but with men and we must honour him for that, for it was his bravest hour.
We are tired of the conflict, tired of the unresolved feelings that causes so much distress on this roiling sea of emotion. We must say goodbye now-help me. Help me say goodbye.
Busy, busy, busy! Fled, after my morning meeting, to the bank and Malibu and back again. The misty garden smelling of jasmine and other, sweeter perfumes. I love the way the garden evolves. Wood chip paths and great forests of Euphorbia down where the goats will live.
Meeting with lawyer re. company in Santa Monica-where I also bought English chocolate and piccalilli. Had stove and blender fixed. Kept an eye on Blankstein grilling via NPR. Even if it is just political theatre it’s fun to think that this most ghastly of all men-Blankstein is having to play the villain role for all to see.
Goldman Sachs is just another human empire and it will eventually fail as they all do-eventually. It is the way we do things here on earth.
Human being/Human doing.
The Christian Louboutin party at the Robertson store with the great man in attendance (wearing lilac slacks) was a very friendly, if soulless affair.
‘A’ gays including the poisonous Peter Dunham with his age defying boyfriend the celebrity dermatologist Peter Kopelson-we often take time ignoring one another passing on Runyon Canyon. Peter Dunham, hideously scarred by acne and HIV, making small talk at the edge of the room with similarly scarred reptilians. Peter’s talentless, screeching ‘artist’ friend Konstantine Kakanias arrived bound in a flimsy scarf that did nothing to distract from his unusually fat face. Oh how one loves to loathe. The most amusing line from Konnie’s on-line resume- Second Prize, International Award for blah blah blah…who the fuck boasts about coming second?
As well as the gays, some of whom I liked by the way-none of whom were wearing CL shoes there was a contingent of Iranian women with huge asses squeezed into badly cut denim jeans tottering around on red soled CL hooker heels. These dusky gals baying for their photograph taken with Christian who willingly obeyed as only a man can when he is selling most of these women over a thousand pairs of his shoes-each! It was like a fetish party. I didn’t recognize any of the women other than the ubiquitous Tracy Ross-saw her at Prada party too. Dull.
One woman arrived in McQueen but the ensemble was so badly put together she looked like a Michael Jackson Halloween clone. Sad.
There have been a glut of ‘recessionary chic’ soiree held in small stores across Beverly Hills and West Hollywood, usually with red carpet facilities but there was none last night. Tomorrow will be the shoe-signing event when Christian signs shoes. My friend Jamie is going, one might want to link to her blog to find out how that went.
Dinner with Peter Scarf at the Mercantile before he went off to drink at some hip club somewhere.
Sweet, late night conversations with lamb head made me content and happy before I slept. Oh, if only..
On my way back to the United Kingdom. Even though it is to deal with very bad situation at home. Includes a long journey so I can travel with the little dog: New York, Paris, Calais, Dover, Whitstable! One month before I leave-will arrive there May 30th. I am excited. I will stay there for three months-one of the many benefits of not having a career!
Anyway, a great deal to sort out. Nothing much to write or worry about today.
An odd and contradictory day began with my Saturday morning breakfast buddies. They were all so fractious! I ate a three cheese pizza with prosciutto. It was delicious.
The night before was spent chatting with the other who was drunk and emotional. Today I invited him to come with me to London but the ‘pressure’ was just too much. Apparently it is hard to just be friends when we are still awash with uncharted feelings.
The truth is I am just not as involved as I was. I am ACTIVELY seeking other men to fall in love with. An invitation is an invitation and that’s that. Whereas before I would find his indifference and hesitation devastating asking many times if he would change his mind-this time there will be no repeat invitation.
Jennie moved out of her apartment here in Hollywood and in with her west side boyfriend.
I received some bad, bad news yesterday whilst on my way home from Malibu and it took a whole 24 hours to process what to do next-waiting for the next intuitive thought. Bad news bottom line: the little dog and I will be making our way to London and Paris for longer than I expected. Perhaps for three months. Perhaps it means making my movie there rather than here. Perhaps it’s all for the best. Anyway, I can’t write the detail because the devil is in the detail.
Today, I attended two fundraisers and was asked on two dates. I declined-kindly declined.
I discovered that my heart was still taken by the attentions of folk who live elsewhere and even though I have no intention of rekindling any sort of relationship or entertaining the idea of a relationship ever again with the folk who live elsewhere (and even though I am actively searching to have a relationship with a man who might live on my very street) it would be unfair to anyone who is interested in me to get involved whilst there are unresolved and deeply held complex feelings.
Everyone is a little bit discombobulated at the moment. A li’l bit prone to rudeness. A fat red haired woman trod on the little dog with such force that he screamed and emptied his anal glands all over a very posh shop.
I had a lovely dinner with Jane in WeHo then wandered home, throngs of young people with big smiles on their faces weaving up Sunset Boulevard.
British class shame is nothing a regular gun-toting American would or should know anything about. Whether or not one has an understanding of manners, social hierarchy or top hats is neither here nor there.
I have spent blog time bashing America but really, the Brits are just as bad-if not worse. My friend Pierre in New York, upon moving here at the behest of his company, missed London terribly but after a short while, much less time than I, understood why we come here and why we want to stay. Pierre began to notice a change in himself and those around him. He felt valued, pumped up, fearless. In America he could feel like a man.
Like me, when he meets Brits who stay at home he marvels at their naivety.
It takes a huge amount of self-loathing to ‘know your place’.
In the USA there is no shame about bettering and reinventing ones self. There are rules, of course, but every one of the rules (guiding principles) is designed to be broken.
You may have to pay a disgruntled employee a ton of money for a spurious sexual harassment claim but that’s how the dispossessed get their share of the pie.
Everyone is on the make, everyone! It’s an on the make, nickle and dime affair that I am having with the USA. It’s better than pecan pie and nuclear waste! It’s more thrilling than Guantanamo Bay.
As a Brit I still hanker after public art and healthcare but the rampant small mindedness of my countrymen, their embittered jokes masquerading as irony, their post imperialist arrogance and their total inability to allow anyone to grow beyond the class they were born into keeps me from going back home.
I suppose for all my anti-American sentiment I love the hurly-burly, the hegemony, the extremes, the greed, the excess, the stupidity. I love their terror of art and history. I applaud their dogma and their denial. I love that they think that they are the very best at everything they do when they are patently not. I love that they behave like willful children. I love that they think knowing about nature or food is elitist. I love that an engaging presidential candidate can emerge from nowhere and take the world stage-where as the British produce a bunch of familiar, threadbare politicians like so many provincial repertory actors delivering lackluster performances in what passes for political theatre. Imagine British MP’s sitting in their shared dressing-room waiting for lurid makeup to be applied before performing their ‘great scene’ during Prime Ministers Question Time. Smoking, sinking rummers of whiskey, discussing their expense claims, squabbling over cabinet positions and who’ll wear what at the state opening of parliament.
We don’t cast our parliament terribly well. Here they cast the Whitehouse like a huge movie. No wonder Rahm and Ari Emmanuelle are behind Barrack. They recognized his star potential and like a baby starlet hanging out in the Chateau Marmont plucked him from obscurity and handed him the best role ever in their box office blockbuster political thriller-so whilst the Emmanuells steal the money they got themselves the bestest alibi ever..a black president. They got themselves a well-dressed first lady descended from slaves. They got tears of joy at the inauguration and a divided, blind sided America whilst the spoils of the middle class were being divided up by unscrupulous hedge fund managers and Ponzi schemers betting on the downfall of their own and other nations.
So, there’s Barrack blustering over the war and the economy in his professorial tweeds, his sweet and sexy demeanor softening the hearts of the liberal elite and providing drama and focus for the next lot-the emboldened white Christian right. There he is dithering over healthcare and everything continues just the way it was.
Am I the only one who can’t imagine Tim Geitner having sex with anyone other than himself? He is such a WEED.
If China wasn’t running the world-this could look dangerous!
When British politicians get caught with their hand in the till-what paltry amounts of money they steal! Awarding their friends dodgy $150,000 construction contracts and creaming a few quid and a meat pie for themselves…subsequently getting caught and fired. An American politician wouldn’t waste his time or his position stealing so little. Tony Blair is the only politician to get away with stealing real money. He got away with the money and murder. He understood what few in the UK do-that American politicians are not elected to represent their constituents but to steal as much money as they can within their 4 years in office.
And, you might ask, why shouldn’t he? The Blair’s are just doing what the Royal family and the landed gentry have done for hundreds of years. He just took what he thought he was owed for getting to the top of the pile. It must piss our lowly politicians off to go through all the pain of getting elected to public office and then once there, look around…bleak…lonely…underpaid. Servants of the democracy that we hold dear and never really getting what they deserve-compared with the politicians in the USA who are on the fucking gravy train!
Drill baby drill, bailouts, healthcare, there’s money in them there policies..money for every politician in Washington, TONS OF IT! Politicians accepting donations from whomever and where ever.
Poor old Dennis Kucinich-he’s the congressman President Obama lassoed into helping change the mind of the bold progressives who were holding out for a radical public option during the last few moments before the Healthcare Bill was forced into law.
Well, dear Dennis lives in a one room apartment in Washington…never accepts a dime from anyone..but he lives in a one-bedroom apartment with his wife Elizabeth. If he had played his cards right, abandoned his principles and cut himself free from the people he was sent to represent then he could be living in a huge house in Georgetown-which is what the people expect by the way. To the average American there is something vaguely retarded about a man who is able to steal the money but doesn’t.
That’s why we elected you into office! To steal the money but, mind you, not so much that you piss the other thieves off who have seniority or think you are stealing too much. Of course, once in a while an odd politician needs to be thrown to the lions so that the public think that the other politicians have some sort of morality.
This is America and once you get a handle on it it’s not that bad. As long as you understand that to survive here you have to learn how to steal. You have to learn how to lose. Learn how to pick yourself up. Not get trampled in the stampede.
You must definitely learn to rub belly..pat head..
The Sex Rehab show effect has been cumulative. When it first aired I expected to be immediately recognized. As the weeks and months pass more and more people come up to me in the street and introduce themselves.
Shown daily on VH1, making it easier for old ‘friends’ and acquaintances to reach out to me. Long forgotten, now reminded by Sex Rehab re-acquainted on Facebook, twitter etc.
Reality TV is truly life changing. Opportunities include film projects, book deals, lovers-I am anywhere but where I thought I might be at my age.
Outside, this rainy afternoon, the gardeners are pulling out tons of weeds. It is good to hear them chattering away in Spanish. So, that’s what life will be, a life of chattering Mexican gardeners until Dorset Mary pitches up in her airstream and tends the goats and the chickens.
I have to call the bee man today about getting the bees up here. I know where I want them to go.
I wrote yesterday about crying, a commission for a new magazine. There’s been a great deal of crying during the past few months as my focus shifted from the big picture to just one man. Ones view narrows exponentially when one falls in love and at the same time balloons into something huge. My tears were not often for him but for past traumas and relationships and deaths. My focus became very shallow and as I retreat from love I seem to be more aware of the horizon.
I cried when my Darling Big Dog was killed. I sat in my bed for a week and sobbed like a child. I am still prone to sink into that deep, black well of sadness, tears flooding my eyes and my heart.
If I had not witnessed that terrible moment I would be a lesser man today. In many ways to have suffered like that unleashed all I had been denying myself throughout the years. So many times I should have, could have, would have cried but remained stoic and dry-eyed.
The architects have just been to the house to check out the layout. She was a rather wonderful, practical woman with a great attitude.
My film is taking shape, the garden continues to give pleasure and I am getting into my creative groove. Although I am still mourning the death of love I am looking forward to a brighter, leaner future.
Breakups are never usually times to relish but this breakup has been very good to me.
This is exactly the time in my life to take action and find a new perspective.
I took action by finding my peers in gay AA who might, in turn, shed some light on my relationship with the other.
In the scheme of things I was just an inconsequential blip in his life and I would be kidding myself if I thought differently.
I certainly could not compare with his other enduring relationships. Anyhow, we seem to be communicating like friends and I am largely over what he may or may not be doing-though sitting here alone writing causes me a certain doleful curiosity.
Let me tell you about the past few days.
On Saturday I went to the Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills to see the Andreas Gursky show with my friend Dom. We ate lunch at the Montage-he had the steak tartar and I, the charcouterie.
The Gursky show was good but uninspiring. Huge photographs framed in monstrous oak frames. Big forgettable pictures…that’s all.
Huge photographs of the insides of neutrino splitting machines buried miles under Japan and filled with super purified water. Satellite images of the great oceans. It was all spectacle and no substance.
After our gallery visit I bought a pair of very baggy white trousers in some outlet store. Gucci $48.
We popped into the new Missoni on Rodeo designed by my once boyfriend Patrick Kinmonth. The outside is PERFECT, like a huge basket, woven metal softening the corner of Rodeo and Little Santa Monica.
The inside, however, is a bit of a mess.
I suppose the concept is the shopper wanders down a grand boulevard with variously sized vitrine to grab ones attention. It was too theatrical.
The men’s area, the woman’s area, the home store etc. It doesn’t work, it’s a mess. The interior finishes are very beautiful but the layout left too much to be desired.
Again, the outside is exquisite.
I could tell you very wonderful stories about Patrick but I will save them for another day.
The last time I saw Patrick Kinmonth he was reclining on a velvet sofa at the Chateau Marmont with Mario Testino.
He drawled that I could have been so much more than I was. He is, after all, a very grand queen; something I long abandoned aspiring to be but glad that I had the chance to meet.
For a few glorious months at the age of 21 he totally indulged me.
Sadly, I didn’t really fall for him. I fell in love with his impeccable style.
Actually, he may very well be the Diana Vreeland of our age. That plaudit might have been reserved for Hamish Bowles but Hamish doesn’t dress well enough or take enough care with his appearance.
Saturday night we celebrated Josh’s continuing testicular cancer treatment. Every one of his friend brought ball-shaped hors d’œuvre to commiserate his recent loss and the chemo that began today.
He is an incredibly brave 29-year-old and described his cancer as an ‘inconvenience’. I have huge respect for that young man.
GLADD awards and party on Saturday night that I was not invited to. Odd really as I was the only out gay man in recovery ever on a Dr Drew show. I am definitely not pretty enough for GLADD.
I suppose that this was the Velvet Mafia’s way of expressing their disapproval. The sex addict message is not one the gays are eager to hear.
Even though conversion parties, bug chasing and crystal meth are discussed at length amongst the young gay men I know. Perhaps this is only a myth? A meth myth? It is much easier for the gay community to concentrate on attacks from the outside than focus on the damage we do to ourselves.
Dane
On Sunday I met Gore Vidal again (the last time was with Dennis and Elizabeth Kucinich during Dennis’s run for President) he described the sad state of the USA, describing it as rotten and then said (rather surprisingly) that he would like his bones buried in France and not, as he has always said, beside his lover in Washington.
I wonder if he was just being dramatic. It was lovely to see him… even though he is beyond frail.
Others at the party included the divine Ben Barns who played the other Dorian Gray, he told me how disappointed by the film he was.
Quite right! Not nearly as interesting as our deeply flawed Dorian. Eric Mc Cormack, Rufus Sewell and Michael Sheen all friends from different places and all at Stephen’s party. I had a wonderful time.
So nice to be included by someone who the British might describe as a National Treasure.
Stephen is, of course, the most gracious of all hosts. The food was excellent, the Pellegrino..well there’s not much more I can’t tell you about Pellegrino.
I took my friend Dane who looked a bit like Tarzan. He was wearing a tiny black vest… nipples like peanuts.
Met a British director called Toby and after Stephen’s we decided to hit WeHo where I met a whole host of adoring sex rehab fans but regardless of their drunken attempts to get into my boxer briefs-I slept alone.
It is simply too soon to start meeting folk again-especially after the feast of affection, love and intimacy I have gorged myself on this past few months.
If I miss anything about dear old HIM I miss that I will never kiss him again, that he will never nestle in my arms and sleep as lovers do. Hey ho, that’s going to be a hard one to replicate any time soon.
So. My main obsession as of the 15th April is not some stray boy but this: I now have an assigned parking place at my apartment building in Hollywood.
I am free to come and go without fear of having nowhere to park.
This may mean nothing to those of you who live in parking heaven-like Kensington London or Bourke StreetSydney but to me in Hollywood club land where every miserable Saturday night I spent HOURS looking for somewhere to park it is like driving through the pearly gates.
Bloody Hell!
I can now glide effortlessly behind my mechanized gate and slip into a glove of a parking place. Bliss.
Implications: less gas used in car, less walking to and from the house, less time squandered looking for parking, accurate departure and arrival schedule. I no longer curtail my pleasure in fear of no parking.
Oh brother, that I conned myself into not paying for assigned parking because I would save money! I ended up paying $700 in parking tickets last year. Can you believe it?
The little dog and I have an exciting day ahead of us. Very glamorous party in Beverly Hills. Dinner with Dane. My morning meeting in West Hollywood first though. Let’s get reconnected with God and AA and start today as I mean to go on, getting stronger, refilling my poor depleted heart with the love of mankind and not one man but all of you-the great collective.
Why in hells name is love so fucking painful? Why do I do this to myself? Why? What lesson do I refuse to learn?
I know things are bad when I start imagining that I am a great chanteuse wearing Chanel. At least YOU got a laugh out of it dear readers.
The truth will set me free. That is all we have. At the end of the day, that is all we have.
P.S. And I promise this is not some morbid recall. One of the best things you know who did for me when he was being eager-beaver-boy was to start editing my blog for publication.
I must admit that it was really rather good. This makes me think that I should pull out those ancient diaries and start cobbling together some sort of autobiography. It would be selfish not to really, wouldn’t it?
Hours of conversation with a friend this morning and later this afternoon.
Feel like the skin has been burned off of 90% of my body. Vulnerable to the memory of the Big Dog. Remembering her broken and bloody body. She comes to me and reminds me of what I am capable of.
The conversation was at first a crude attempt at land grab in the emotional terrain we had been inhabiting these past few months but after a while we settled into a healthy dialogue about much-needed closure.
The last vestiges of what was are now stowed away. The resentments are dealt with, every fact revealed, keeping my side of the street totally clean. For that I am proud. In the realm of full disclosure I am king.
I had to listen to truths I would rather not hear. I am smarting from words like ‘damaged’ and ‘unhealthy’. I just took them on the chin. It would be easy for me to fight back, to make excuses, to tell the story of my life but really..I consider the source. Everything I am left with is for me to deal with without recrimination or harmful actions to the other.
The little dog is restless tonight, unable to find a place to get comfortable. He perfectly reflects the way I feel. After Josh’s cancer party we walked the streets of Hollywood and I gazed at men longingly, as if strange flesh would make my head ache less.
I wish that I could drink, sit in some bar somewhere and get totally wasted. I wish I could take drugs like vicodin or morphine. I wish I could open my veins to let out theses screaming demons. I have only one solution and that is to pray. That is my weapon of last resort. As the obsession shrinks, the man diminishes, the heart fills full of love once again rather than the desiccated scarcely beating leaden thing that fills the place where my heart should be.
If I pray to that God others have such a problem believing in then all will be well. I have been embarrassed by my belief in God when that was all I really had, what I came to believe, that gave me succor and a will to live! I am alive today. I did not die when I wanted to. I chose to live so now I must live the best life possible however ‘damaged’ I might be.
Oh damn you addiction. Damn you for taking me once again to the brink of oblivion. Damn you for blinding me to the consequences. The unenlightened live in a world without consequences.
The greatest insults were not leveled at me today, the ones I truly deserved. That I had been willful and disobedient before my creator. God had shown me the path to happiness elsewhere and I ignored it. How embarrassing! How totally and utterly embarrassing that I should have got caught up in some suburban drama, a bit player in some bad soap opera. Acquainting myself with those who do not have the willingness, honesty and open-mindedness required for living a serene existence before God.
I am crushed by own actions. I have no one else to blame. I now retreat into what has held me for 13 years, that has continued to show me forgiveness and opened its doors and arms to me. It is my true love, it is the only path I know that will help me achieve my initial desire when I first got sober: Peace of Mind.
Remember the relief you felt when you first saw the word God written in the 12 steps? I offered myself to God because I had nowhere else to turn. Tomorrow I will do the same thing, I will sit with men and women who came to believe, who daily turn over their extraordinariness to a God of their understanding so that they might live a humble life with Peace of Mind their goal.
I know that they will understand, that they will forgive me and help me to forgive myself.
Eating cheese and pastrami with lashings of piccalilli smeared over the top. The inside of my mouth is burning. My lips are burning with desire. Not really. My lips are just bored. I am waiting for the mail to arrive so I can walk to bank and get on with the day.
