Month: August 2010

Categories
Gay

Anomaly

HLN again tonight.  4pm my time.  Fantasia follow-up and more sex tape discussion, this time about Heidi and Spencer Pratt and my FAVE topic..Tiger Woods.  I love going into CNN with my button down and coat to trash talk celebrity.  It’s so much fun.

Let me know if you watch it.

Everyday I see who and why people are visiting this blog.  Not individually of course but how many people and what they typed into the search engine to get to my blog.  Every day people look for Kristian Digby, hundreds of people.   It’s lovely that people come to this blog to find the facts about his funeral and where he is buried etc.  I feel as if, in some small way, I am being of service.

Which brings me to my next topic.  Being of service.  One of my commentators very rightly pointed out that I have been less than kind recently on these pages.  Very unforgiving.  This was an accurate criticism and one that I am going to take care of addressing.

Of course I have forgiven Irene and Jake.  Irene because she is so like me and Jake because, poor little lamb, he didn’t have a clue what he was getting involved with.  Mostly I have forgiven myself.  I loathe being angry Duncan.

I am having a great time NOT having to worry about Jake.   He’s going to be just fine.  He’ll meet a lovely man (one day) and settle down and do whatever he has to do to make life exciting.  He’s good-looking, intelligent,  funny..a perfect combination.  The other gays seem to get where he is coming from so he’ll get on with his gay life with aplomb.

So, I am sorry for being a knob about you JB but you kinda deserved it.

I have a great deal to be happy about. I forget regularly this very important fact.  I don’t have to think about all the shitty times I can remember the good times.  The sweet times.  What I learned.

Relationships are very confusing.  It’s best that I don’t have them or think about them.  I lose my balance when I am in a relationship.  As for sex?  Well, this weekend I am invited to a ‘sex party’ in Long Beach…hahhahaha..yeah right…that sounds like HELL.   I would rather have Saudi’s gauge out my eyes.

Spent a lovely evening with a bunch of gay men last night.  I have always wanted a group of gay men around me who I like and trust and am inspired by.  Last night I kinda found that rather than hanker after a bunch of cool gay friends..I already had them.  After dinner we watched The Graduate and then a two-hour long Q&A with Dustin Hoffman.  It really was a magical evening.

Read in the Observer yesterday that the Editor of Attitude magazine, a British gay glossy, had written a lively piece about gay men’s mental health and how toxic shame can destroy our lives.

He quoted Alan Downs The Velvet Rage which any self-respecting gay has read a million times since it was published 5 years ago.   The editor was concerned that his readers would consider it controversial.  It’s about bloody time that we looked at how shame has shaped our lives.

“Yes, we have more sexual partners in a lifetime than other groups of people,” Downs writes. “At the same time, we also have among the highest rates of depression and suicide, not to mention sexually transmitted diseases. As a group, we tend to be more emotionally expressive than other men, yet our relationships are far shorter on average than those of straight men.

“We have more expendable income, more expensive houses, more fashionable cars, clothes, furniture than just about any other cultural group. But are we truly happier?”

Exactly, why bother taking ourselves seriously when there’s stuff to buy?

The reason why so few editors of Gay magazines write about gay mental health is that they are all BONKERS and terrible drinkers and drug takers.  A sober gay man is still an anomaly.

Cancer update:  Toby Mott just suggested that I ebay my balls.

Categories
Malibu

Empty Hook

Calm seas.  Usual Suspects.  Malibu today.  Beginning to take things back there.  Who am I writing this blog for?  210,000 unique hits.  Probably more now.

The smell of burned coffee in the apartment.  Can’t wait to leave this place.

Maybe not so calm.  When I write this I start riling myself up.  Even when things feel good.  It isn’t delivering the peace I used to feel when I used to write it.

It used to be fun to blog but that was before it became an ‘issue’ with him.

I never understood how he could hate it so much?  I’m sure that he hates it now..this blog.  Why shouldn’t he?  As he retreats and I am left up on the mountainside in the ark.  The sea retreating, leaving the ark on the side of the mountain.  No dove of peace just a little dog.

Michael told me stuff yesterday that I didn’t feel like listening.  Would I rather be right or happy?  In essence that is what he was saying.

Sunday morning.  Helicopters already circling over head.

I think it’s going to be hot today.  Hot and dry.

Jennie stopped writing her blog.   Perhaps I should stop writing mine.  It used to be cathartic.  I used to enjoy the validation but of late it feels like all I do is fight the demons..even when there are none.

Deconstructing the apartment.  Stacking the art that needs to be sold and I still have more art to hang on every single empty hook.  How could one man have amassed so much?

Lunch date tomorrow.  Is my heart going to be engaged?  Can I be bothered?  I seem to know the outcome before I even get there.  The script is already written.

There are more creative ways to start the day than indulgently publishing my diary.

New renters arrive today.  The penultimate batch before I move back in.

I had a lovely time last night.  Dinner with Jane.  Duck salad at the Mercantile. The duck was a little over cooked.  The little dog ignored the morsel I left for him.

Going to get into the truck and go in minute.  Shorts and tee.  Little dog.  Coffee burned in the pan.

Reading World War Z.  It’s about Zombies.

There are more than two positions to take.  Happy or sad?  I am just here..with more than enough, consoled by faith.   Can you believe that I just dragged an almost complete stranger around Europe?

 

Categories
Gay Health Hollywood Love

You Don’t Know What I Fear

You know what I’m doing?  I’m going out!  Started the evening feeling sorry myself.  Fuck that.

I sent an SOS to Amanda that I may or may not need.  But most of all, I am not going to be beaten by 5mm of something black on my balls.  It’s not a death sentence.  It’s black on the scan.  I wonder what color it is in real life?

I’m listening to very loud music.

Old fashioned shit.  I know.  But I’m allowed to.  I don’t have to answer to anybody.

I bought Jasper Conran‘s beautiful book Country.   Packed with so many beautiful images.  Try looking at THAT on a fucking kindle.

I cleaned the apartment.  I sorted my papers.  I totally forgot that I had to call the police station in London to deal with the iPod incident.  Never mind.  I would rather be in a cell than have this maggot growing inside me.  It’s all relative.  I read Michael’s brilliant script.  After I finish writing this I will take the little dog to see the cats on Cherokee so he can squeal like a pig with excitement.   Cat!  Cat!

I have to submit my HLN idea.  I received a lovely text message from an old lover in NYC who is eager to get together..balls or no balls.

Meeting Seb at SHLA at 11pm.  Fuck this sitting around shit.  I need solution!  have I LEARNED nothing from all those years sitting in church halls and masonic lodges reading the recipe of the 12 steps?

Take action my friends!  Get out of that shit relationship.  Don’t be bowed by illness!  Eat!  If you feel lonely get out onto the streets!   Don’t give in to the furies.  TAKE ACTION.

December 21st, 2009-August 12th, 2010

Jake has been in my life..for months…for most of it was an acting out dream come true.

Oh I WILLINGLY gave up my sexual sober time.

We talked almost every day.  Why trash those precious few months?  For the time being I will celebrate the time we spent together.  Although, sooner or later it will just feel…embarrassing.

In the long run it will mean far more to him than it will to me,  Try as he might he will never be able to unstitch me from his story.  I am, after all, the one who tore him out of the closet and in so doing rescued that poor girl from just one more day of deceit and lies.

I said to him on February 9th:

All I know is as the years pass this will weigh heavier on your mind and every time you look at J your girlfriend/wife/mother of your child you will know that there is a fundamental deceit.

If it is not me or the Hungarian it will be another man..and another and the outcome will always be the same.

One day you will meet a perfect man and then you will resent her, begin to hate her because it is not him…

I am the FUCKING HERO.  Beautifully written…don’t you think?

And for all you guys and gals who have been shat on..here is a shitty, campy song for you to remind yourself that we can all laugh at how stupid we have been:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxxwNuTpdd8]

Categories
Health

Going Home

There’s no easy way to say this but the cancer stuff is not turning out very well.   Irene will be pleased and so will Jake.  They can join the legions of others who wouldn’t mind watching me suffer..

I am going home.  There’s stuff here to sort out here.  Practical stuff.  It may take a few days.

Financially it couldn’t have happened at a worse time.

I heard the news this morning.

It’s odd how the news made my balls feel tender.  They began to talk to me.  Whine and complain.

You know who I wanted to tell first?  Well of course I did even though he wouldn’t have given a damn.

This is not great.

Categories
Rant

Anthony Has Left the Building

This morning I woke up and felt different. Something had happened. It was like waking up after a….catastrophe.

There was an ominous silence. Of course I knew immediately what had happened. Anthony had let off a huge bomb. Destruction all around. Now he was gone.

Anthony has left the building.

How did I know he had even been? I need look no further than these pages.

Oh well, God doing for me what I could not do for myself. Jake is dispensed with. Sad really as he was kinda sweet.

Anthony was right, the kid was not only too young, he is in a different league.

I am in SHLA waiting for inspiration.

Still have not made another appointment or even called the doctor. This entire cancer palaver has just polaxed me.

The Him episode. The cancer scare. The house. The money.

5am Friday.

Hunting around the house for a forgotten smoke. None to be found.

I spent the day yesterday in my apartment. It was brutally hot outside. In the evening I met J and J for a light snack then Will for dinner. Home and in bed before 12.

He and I have spoken nearly every day for the last 8 months. We have expunged every detail of our lives. Even though I cannot have him near me I miss the familiarity.

I made coffee and read over the emails I threatened to publish but they are simply too revealing. About us both! I am shocked by our behavior. The anatomy of a failed relationship. The ups and downs of my mad head and him emerging into the light.

He is indeed a fragile man. He is the first American that I ever really felt I knew. They speak English but they are not like us. They are just wired differently.

I am going to have to let this go. Really!

I found an email that I hadn’t read before. It was his penultimate email. It made a lot of sense.

This is what I think is going on: You are cutting me off because
you’ll take nothing if you can’t have it all I suppose it was naive
of me to believe that we could function as anything in between. You
are a perfectionist.

I wish I had read that email. I just had a lot on my mind. I didn’t read his penultimate 17 emails because I wanted to sort my head, my thinking, my feelings. He sent 17 emails.

Then he sent the final email, email 18 was the very one I decided to read and I couldn’t stop the anger.

I just needed that day, a little bit of solace. To know that he still cared. Like in the endless stream of emails when we first met. When he was wooing and seducing me.

Anyway. Anthony has left the building and at therapy today I shook with fury about addiction and Anthony and wished it wasn’t so…but it is.

Oh dear, he really let off an atom bomb. Oops. Sorry….

Categories
Gay

Red Suitcase

I wrote this just before I left for NYC to meet Jake prior to going to Europe.

Packed my big red suitcase. Trying to take clothes that I will actually wear rather than clothes that simply look good. We are going to be tourists in London and Paris rather than me just visiting friends. Getting away, making sense of everything. There is a great deal to make sense of. I am a little apprehensive.

Incredibly busy day yesterday. In Malibu winding things down. Lunch with a friend, back up to the house, meetings and more decisions. Dinner with a bunch of people at Soho House. Long chat with Sharon S. We are both fucking idiots when it comes to our respective love lives.

So, this is what I am flying into: the traveling companion says that he will make dinner but is going to buy Chinese food instead. He is such a selfish prick. Spends all night fucking some guy but can’t be bothered to stick to promise of making dinner for the man who is taking him to Europe.

I am so determined to walk into this situation with an open heart, with no expectations. It is going to be really hard as I am so pissed off that he didn’t make time for me.

Every night he is in town meeting new men. Tells me he is going to read my script but doesn’t. Tell’s me is going to cook dinner but doesn’t. Feeling very angry about this.

Funny eh? There are lots of posts I never bothered posting.

Categories
Rant

Forgiveness and Acceptance

Anger disguises sadness. My anger disguises my sadness.

I am trying to forgive him. I know that my anger toward him merely disguises just how rotten this breakup feels. Whilst it is easy to blame him for his insensitivity I will sooner or later have to totally accept my part in this drama. Accept that I wanted him to be something he could never be.

Accept that I chose to overlook his drinking and drugging and manhunting because I wanted him more than I was prepared to know what was good for me.

Forgiveness comes in waves. Acceptance too. I must forgive him and accept that things are exactly how they are meant to be.

The truth is (as per the tenets of AA) sooner or later I will have to totally forgive him and make my amends..a living amends in this case.

I was so happy when I came back from Europe! I felt and looked like a different person. Everybody noticed it and commented. Now look.

I just want to sleep. Get back into my bed and stay there all day long. I have another article to write and a proposal to submit. I have to wrap the art in bubble wrap to take to NYC. I must do these things or he steals even more than he has already stolen.

When we got home all I wanted was an open and honest relationship.

I woke early this morning and drove to the beach where I walked the lil dog for an hour. On the way there I passed a cute man in a sleek convertible and chatted with him briefly at the intersection of Fountain and Labrea. He looked lovely. We continued our chat at red lights on and off until I turned onto the 10.

What must he have thought of my battered truck?

The promenade in Venice early morning is a cess pit of vagrants and drug dealers. Rich folk unlock their homes overlooking the ocean and tip huge dogs into the melee.

Here it comes again: I am so angry with him. Yet, just like I was broken when the big dog was killed and every death and loss and separation came to be healed as I sobbed for her poor broken body so now when the tears come it is for every man I have ever left behind.

No tears yet.

I wish the tears would come. I am dry-eyed, emotionally arid.

When I am not feeling angry, I feel like a fool. It was such a waste taking him home to Whitstable. I thought I was taking someone who would appreciate what he was being given but all he did was lose his iPod and cause trouble and make a fool of me.

He took a huge shit at the very heart of my life. Did you notice that he was always on his lap top when we were in Europe? Couldn’t keep him away from it. He’s addicted to intensity, to fantasy.

Everyone else could see that he was just a using fame whore. I hadn’t had anyone want me just because I had been on TV. I genuinely thought he wanted me.

8 months of Jake.

Last night Michael and I watched Goddess with Kim Stanley. Written by Paddy Chayefsky. It’s a really camp half-telling of the Marilyn Monroe story. One huge, cumbersome monologue after another. There couldn’t have been a single conversation during the entire movie.

The film eerily anticipates Monroe’s demise.

As we lay on his bed watching the film the Lil Dog kept an eye on Michael’s cat who hissed and spat until we left for SHLA stopping briefly at Boa where we met Bryan Singer and Toby. Up in the house we were assaulted by three very drunk people who wanted to be our friends who, in fact, totally ruined our evening so we scarpered.

I had a massage at my house at 11pm..no not one of those…and fell asleep.

I wrote to Jake today telling him to cough up what he owes me. I suppose he will force me to do what I am telling Irene to do. Go to small claims. It’s a fucking bore but I’ll do it.

I want to drop an atom bomb on him for hurting me. I want everyone to appreciate the injustice. That I did nothing to chase him, lost my sexual sober time.. As I look back over the months we spent together every beautiful moment is lost in the dark cloud of resentment that blocks the sun out of my life.

I must pray for acceptance. It’s the only way.

Categories
Rehab

What a Waste

I always assume that anyone I meet is gay, the same way straight people assume (unless a flaming queen) every man they meet is straight.  Consequently most straight men I meet are perplexed at the sort of small talk I make with them.  Last week for instance someone mentioned that he was meeting his fiance and I said, “He’s a lucky guy to be marrying you.” This caused him to nearly drop his wine glass.  He spluttered nervously that he was straight.  “Oh!” I said as he dabbed at dribbled wine over his jacket.  “What a waste.”

Now, I am NOT the sort of man who thinks every man I meet is gay but I must always assume that he is until told otherwise.  It’s the only way these men are going to learn how to be inclusive.

Another funny example: two men having lunch with their small dog.  As they were leaving I asked them about their dog and mentioned how, in my opinion, a dog really improves a relationship…were they thinking about having children?  They looked increasingly horrified as they realised that I thought that they were a couple.  They said, “Oh, we’re not gay.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  We’re straight.”

The reaction always amuses me.  Men are still insulted by the insinuation that they might be gay.   Pathetic.

Update on Irene the mad woman from Hawaii.  Last night she informed me that she had called the Lost Hills Police Department reporting me as a terrorist.  I am assuming because my father was Persian?  Anyway, so far Homeland Security have not interviewed me about this and I imagine that they won’t be any time soon.

Why doesn’t she just go to small claims court?

Anyway, she is reporting me to the IRS, the California Governor etc. etc.  To Irene I am a regular Bernie Madoff.

The bottom line:  even if I wanted to benevolently return the money she says is owed to her she has caused such internet havoc and destruction I simply can’t.  I am not going to.  She thinks that her internet attacks on me are somehow going to force my hand.  What she simply cannot comprehend is the following fact about me:  I do not care about my ‘reputation’.  As I mentioned to her last night during one of her frenzied email bombardments the worst has already been said about me, nothing that she says is either new or bothers me.

Finally, last night, her gay friend sent me an odious email mocking my cancer scare.   All for $800?  They want me dead for $800?

Great morning at therapy today.  Wonderful.  I am in very good spirits.  mainly because I don’t have a blood sucking fame whore at my tit sucking the life out of me.  Oh, it’s 4pm on the east coast, he is probably already stoned, on web cam showing off his only asset.

The most annoying thing about Jake is that before meeting him that cold January afternoon in the East Village I had a meeting with agent David Vigliano who was really interested in working with me.  Jake called him Vig the pig.

I have a GREAT idea.  Irene you should call him, perhaps he’ll offer you and your friend a book deal.

Never assume men are straight until they tell you categorically that they are.

It just isn’t worth it.

Categories
Love

Red Sofa

Dione Sofa

8am.  I didn’t go get the biopsy.  Something is stopping me.  I don’t want to know the truth.  Just like I didn’t want to know the truth about him.  Some truths are just too hard to face.

I am aware of the dull thump in my ball sack and in my lower back.  Like somebody is gripping my left testicle.

One of Jake’s friends wrote to me saying, and even though inaccurate, I really liked the quote, “We have all had diamonds thrown in our face.”   It was lyrical and charming.  He could have added darling to the phrase.  It would have worked perfectly.

Anyway, interesting day yesterday after I published the Irene blog.  She, of course, is threatening the IRS and an internet fraud investigation.   The problem is..I do my taxes, really thoroughly.  It’s not worth doing them any other way.   I am not feeling so feisty today.

I remain teachable.

Last night something rather remarkable happened.  I met a man a year and a half ago who is perhaps a dream of a guy.  That dream of that perfect man.  Beautiful in every way.  When we first met he explained that he was anxious about his sexuality, we had talked it through but nothing happened.  I had wondered about him occasionally, mentioned him to Jake even,  but had not contacted him.

Yesterday I received a blunt email from him asking if I wanted to explore his curiosity about men.

I thought about it for a nano second and invited him over.

So, last night we had a very steamy session with each other but I wasn’t engaged.  I felt distant, absent..and not really ready to have sex with anyone else.  I didn’t even want to kiss him. It is odd this morning to wake up with the smell of some other man on your fingers.   I knew that it had to happen sooner or later..somebody else but it’s still too early.   I tell you, I don’t envy men like Jake who can sport fuck but the healthy alternative is such a lengthy process.  We all agree that if I had been a sport fucker I would have been dead a very long time ago.

Why was his coming to see me last night so remarkable?  Because I was always warned in AA to be careful what I prayed for.  Getting what you want when God wants you to have it rather than when you want it can be very ungratifying.

Peter Doig painting in my bedroom 1982 Boom Boom Boom (The Sublime)

Is getting to know a man before you sleep with them so bizarre?   So when the moment happens, one is present and authentic?  After all,  Jake and I talked for months before we finally fell into each others arms.

Perhaps he can do that with anyone?  Perhaps a period of total abstinence is what I need?

I could have let things just stay the way they were, letting him tell me about his conquests but by the time we returned from Europe I just knew that merely having him in my life would be too disruptive.

I did not want that young man to stick around last night.  He left and I lay on the red Victorian sofa I have owned for twenty-six years.  I began to doze.  There was something very comforting about laying there.  The over stuffed arms, the familiarity.   The constant presence of that sofa in my life.  Dione bought it for me in Edinburgh in 1984.  It was on the street outside a junk shop and it was desperate to be loved.  I covered it in white ticking, the first of 4 times it has been reupholstered.  Jake was three when I bought that sofa.  Unexpectedly Dione’s daughter wrote to me yesterday.  She’s a sweet heart.

Things have given me more pleasure than the men I have loved.

So, the young man left the house at 2am.  I don’t think I’ll be seeing him again.

The picture at the top of the page was taken in my Whitstable house, the house that belonged to Peter Cushing.  The red sofa wearing it’s blue slip cover.

Categories
art Auto Biography

Picture Perfect

I wanted to post a few pictures. I want to remind myself that it has all been an incredible journey.

I wanted to include this one because I have a man’s legs wrapped around my shoulders. He is called Chris Boot. He was in South Africa with Tilda Swinton. Tilda came to the dinner thrown for me at Sundance when AKA played there. She came with Jamie Johnson.

Boom Boom Boom (The Sublime) 1982 Peter Doig

 You can see half of the Peter Doig painting I bought at his St Martin’s degree show.  It hung in my Furlong Road, Islington sittingroom until I was arrested.  At which point Doig decided to snatch it back and I never saw it again. It is probably worth in excess of $1, 000, 000 now.

Matt Rowe and Marie Palmer, we met at the Mercer Hotel in NYC with Mel C from the Spice Girls.  Matt had been one half of the duo who wrote all of their best tunes. New Years Eve 1999, Mercer Hotel with Calvin Klein, Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Alan Cummings and Fran Leibowitz. A cool very night.  Matt is still a great friend.

I’ve written loads about Jay Jopling in this blog. This is the night he met my sister Jessica.

Justin Lee-Aliston was my best gay friend in Whitstable. He was the sweetest boy. He killed himself a few months after he was gay bashed in Camberwell South London.  Here he is in happier times with my friend Tracy at the Island Wall, Whitstable house.

Celia Lyttleton, I can’t remember where we met but she is a doll and this picture was taken at a fancy dress party at the artist Glynn Boyd Hart’s house during the 1980’s.

Celia introduced me to the artist Ana Corbero at her Albermarle St gallery. She in turn introduced me to Colin Cawdor , the Thane of Cawdor-Macbeth. Duncan and Macbeth in NYC, in a sprawling apartment in Williamsburg. Long before anybody else was living there.

Our view.

Colin and Anna. Now, Colin lives in the North of Scotland in his castle, a castle he had to wrestle from his step-mother. Ana lives in Spain with her husband. I remember that he dressed Ana in Azzadine Alaia-and the moths ate clean through her fur coat.

I’ll post some more soon.