Categories
Malibu

Trapped!

Delightful day yesterday.  Did not go to therapy.  Did not worry about anything.  Walked the dog.

I know that I have said this a million times but when the sea glitters there is nothing better that sitting quietly and gazing down at the Pacific.  Awesome!  Better than therapy.

Lunch at Geoffrey’s with friends, English friends.  CP’s friends.  British director in town to direct a studio movie and his wife.  Lively, intelligent conversation.  The wife was very funny…especially when describing her ex-nanny.

Ate crab cakes (poor), salad nicoise (forgettable).   The food at Geoffrey’s is really not very good but the view is wonderful.  They charged us per Arnold Palmer (iced tea and lemonade) and diet coke rather than giving us free refills which is de rigueur in So Cal.

After lunch, they collected their children from the nanny and we drove back to the house.   Their kids (7 and 18 months) were delightful.  Whilst I made a big pot of tea they picked tangerines and lemons from the trees.  I showed the kids the video Anna shot the day I killed the rattle snake in the garden.  The seven-year old was entranced by the snake…of course.  He then wanted to see what a flesh-eating ant looked like….and a cicada.  So, we sat on Google until he found what he was looking for.

Dinner in Brentwood with Jody.  He has two infants who he is bringing up single-handedly.   We ate at A Votre Sante in Brentwood which was DISGUSTING and cost $25.  I can think of better ways of spending money.

I am meant to be seeing Jody again today but…

The car started making a rattling noise on the way home and this morning it stopped completely.  Trapped!  Thankfully CP is on his way over to hang out and have lunch and tie up loose ends.  He leaves later today.

My return East is imminent.  Much to do before I leave.

By the way…I have a new neighbour.  A Swami called Shantanand Saraswanti.  He looks just like you imagine an Indian mystic might look.  Big hair, big beard etc.  He dropped by yesterday and, after asking if I would like to be ‘acquainted’ with him, handed me a pamphlet called Confusion and Clarity.  What does he know? (!)   I’ll read it later.

There is a huge storm heading this way and should make landfall on Wednesday.

Categories
Uncategorized

Friday Night Fight

[wpvideo CPx6Ci09]

Categories
Hollywood

Working Title

Friday morning.  Another fucking gorgeous day in Malibu.  The Sea! The Sea!

“The Sea! The Sea!” Thalatta! Thalatta! was the shout of joy when the roaming 10,000 Greeks saw Euxeinos Pontos (the Black Sea) from Mount Theches (Θήχης) in Armenia in the year 401.

The Egyptian people are free!  I couldn’t help myself from crying with joy.

My favourite Egyptian quote of the day, “I am a free man!  Thankyou Facebook!”

Yesterday was one of those packed days of meetings that I have not had for many years in Hollywood.

A Hollywood day.

Meetings, coffee, driving, meetings (agents, manager, lawyers, casting agents)…and a passion that has eluded me for years.  Finding oneself in strange offices, department stores and hotels with one aim: to tell the story.

My investment in this city finally paying off.

When things get the most interesting I am least interested in writing about it.

All I can tell you:  I am doing what I am meant to be doing and not living in the half-light.  What more can I say?

It was EXHAUSTING.

By the time I arrived at the house it was well past 11 and I flopped into bed and fell into a deep sleep.   Content.  Woke at 6am as usual…bright as a button.  Doing something I never usually do..I am jigging around the house listening to very loud, very happy, very HAPPY LOUD…music.

PS  Am I missing sex, pornography and the like?  No!  I have Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Covered Caramels!

Categories
art Fantasy Film Health Hollywood Los Angeles

John Bock

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1.

Before I hit the doctor’s office I stepped into Regen Projects on Santa Monica Boulevard.

Owned by Shaun Regen this is by far the most interesting gallery in LA and consistently shows challenging and stimulating work.

Regen Projects is currently showing work by German artist John Bock.

Born 1965, Gribbohm, Germany

Lives and works in Berlin.

The show reminded me (inevitably) of fellow German Martin Kippenberger.

Kippenberger is one of my favorite artists.  His work has been inexcusably and crudely plundered by the YBA (Young British Artists).

Bock influences  include: Paul McCarthy, Otto Muehl, Paul Thek and Maurizio Cattelan.

John Bock is a performance artist and sculptor whose three-dimensional works often serve as props for his performances.

Bock creates entire universes using a wildly eclectic range of materials, described in multiple languages, and presented with an antic energy that is equal parts mad scientist and Buster Keaton.

A dizzying mix of pseudo-scientific, aesthetic, social, and political commentary,  Bock’s works defy logic.

This view of the world has various precedents, notably in the post World War II Theatre of the Absurd, a movement whose goal was to shock audiences into facing up to life “in its ultimate, stark reality.”

Bock believes the pre-conscious associations inherent in words are unavoidable and that only through experience and empathy can we penetrate what he terms the “heavy numb dumb world” of daily life.

Bock’s lectures seduce and confound, simultaneously proving perhaps, the inexplicability of the interrelationship of man and his universe.

2.

When I let God take the reigns of the humble buggy I drive down the promised path of happy destiny I am sure of one thing: things are going to turn out just the way they are meant to.  Good and bad.

When I angrily push him out-of-the-way and drive myself I am sure of nothing.

I used to think that if I let God take control of my life, my life might be ever so slightly boring but that simply isn’t the case.  God and I can still go on a wild ride, we can still have excitement and ambition.   We just do it the right way.

I get to have all that life has on offer without paying the terrible price I seem to pay when I wilfully drive the buggy myself.

I used to think (convinced myself) that doing the right thing meant that I had to live a pious life.

This simply isn’t true.  God doesn’t want me kneeling at his feet all day praying that his will be done.  He knows that I believe in his will being done, but what I have come to understand of late is that his will needn’t be dull.

Everyday things get better in my head.  Everyday without the grip of obsession, compulsion and the like I am calmer, more centered, more and more in my own skin.

Getting back to work and in touch with my God-given desire to create (and a means to do so) I feel more like the man I was meant to be rather than the man I have been lately.

Yesterday I went back to the doctor, had more scans and lo and behold there are yet more problems to deal with.  The difference between this time and the last is that I now have a skill set to deal immediately and healthily with these problems rather than the last time when I associated the problem with him.

It is remarkable to me that for nearly a year I let somebody else rule my head and my heart.  By so doing I allowed the deep shadow cast by another to blot out the sunlight of the spirit.

When I talk about God I don’t mean a christian…organised religious God.  I mean a God of my understanding, a higher power to whom I must defer at all times if I am going to live a healthy life.

Categories
Love Malibu Rant

Flush That Toilet!

Spent yesterday, all day, sorting our film structure.

It’s so much fun working with CP.  He makes me laugh all day.

His ideas are strong and sensible.  He thinks in a way that I can understand.

We worked methodically through the original treatment, exploring each element.

Who are these men?  Who are we dealing with?  Where do they live?  How did they get there?  The structure, the logic and the sensibility.  By the end of the day I really felt as I knew exactly what was happening and why.

Where as I was trying to make these characters more like me he was, quite rightly, identifying the sort of men who would actually make the life we were creating for them.

Our approach to structure is very different (I think in acts and timing) but we end up finding common ground.  This is perhaps the most grown up working relationship I have ever had.  I am willing to share, defer, negotiate.  Why?  Because I trust him.

He knows that I am not convinced by own ability in some spheres.  I know that the project, like any film, is bigger than me and therefore, as a director, must agree to be replaced if I am not the right man.

Directing the film is not my aim.  The film is my aim.

We still don’t have a working title but that is the least of our concerns.  The idea is strong enough to be transportable.  We flip-flopped between England and America.

By the end of the day we were both totally exhausted but I felt so happy that we were well on our way to being able to present a coherent idea to our writer..when we finally choose him/her.

I cooked lunch.  We ate dinner in Venice.

As I sink myself further into this project the less interested I am by past concerns.  The more I invest in making art (a life beyond myself) the more complete I feel.

I tell you what I love about our working relationship:  he understands that when I am passionate I am not being angry.  He is not sensitive.  He sees that the ideas I believe in I will fight to keep but not every idea is worth keeping.   He will not lecture me about my ‘attitude’ or how ‘difficult’ I am because he understands the rough and tumble of this highly charged creative process.

Over dinner we discussed his remarkable achievements.  I felt really humbled by his success.

We have lumped all of our agent meetings into one day.

Had breakfast with AA chums in the Palisades.

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
Gay Hollywood

Gore Vidal

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYymnxoQnf8&feature=player_embedded]

My third meeting with Gore Vidal.

Two years ago I was introduced to him by Dennis and Elizabeth Kucinich when Dennis Kucinich was running for President.

The second time I met Vidal it was with Stephen Fry when Stephen was here in LA writing his book.

On both occasions I had to share him with many others.

On this occasion Charlie Parsons and I had him all to ourselves.

Gore looks very frail.  He looks like a child.  Sitting in his wheelchair, his clothes hanging off his slight frame.  His eyes still blaze, his smile..when he smiles…lighting up his whole face.   He looks ever so slightly like Monty Burns.  He remains mesmerizing.

He is still king of the brilliant bon mot.

Charlie  arrived from London and checked into his hotel.

My good buddy is here in LA so we get to spend a great deal of time together.  He is such fun and very gently mocks how seriously I take myself.

We sat with Gore at his dining room table in his beautiful Spanish revival house (for sale) in the Hollywood Hills riveted to his take on contemporary America.

Sitting with his assistant and his realtor Delphine.  He offered us white wine but we opted (obviously) for water.

Gore recently sold his home in Italy so the house is crammed not only with thousands of books piled in every room but also an extraordinary collection of renaissance art.

A ginger cat with huge eyes lay on his bed.

We sat in the dining room chatting, covering a great deal of ground in a very short amount of time.

We discussed his dancing carp, we discussed the errant Charlie Sheen who he had once played a corrupt senator opposite in The Shadow Conspiracy.

He laughed at how he was always asked to play corrupt senators.

We discuss Sarah Palin .  He impersonates Palin brilliantly reducing us to fits of giggles.  He described her as ‘un-American’, he laments her lack of intelligence.

We discuss pre-war Germany and how the catastrophic economic situation here perfectly mirrors the situation there; creating a moment in time when a person like Palin can grab the attention of the people and make them feel as if she alone can provide simple answers for difficult problems.

Like any snobby intellectual he scorns the stupid whenever he can.   He laments how Obama has been stopped by the vicious right from achieving anything esteemable.

Yet, Obama’s people were also described as ‘stupid’.

Next week he will be with Gorbachev.  He holds Gorbachev in very high regard.

Not only is Gore Vidal a remarkable man, he is a remarkable gay man.  Inspiring me to understand the old, old gay man in my film and who he might be.

Such a wonderful history.  Belligerent, surly, glamorous.

During one of the TV debates at the 1968 Democrat Convention erudite William F. Buckley, Jr. called Gore a “goddamn queer” and threatened to beat him up.

When we left the house we sat quietly in the car making sense of this extraordinary moment.

Gore Vidal, embittered by this contemporary America.  He is saddened that corruption is rife.

Like anyone with a big brain he wants to understand how this could have happened to such a great country.

He mentioned my pet American peeve, that Americans boast continually that they are the very best at everything in all the world.

That they have the best police, firemen, soldiers, scientists, schools, healthcare, healthcare delivery… the list is as long as you want to make it.

Yet, elsewhere people live longer, are better educated, live safely etc.  Gore mocked American grandiosity.

He said, “I don’t know many Swedish boys who are desperate to become American, look at the people who do…”

At one point Vidal started talking about the end of slavery, how the blacks were deliberately uneducated by the whites and if they showed any desire for an education, for reading and writing, he said that they were “Taken out and shot.”

I remember a Chris Rock skit when he imagines what that must have felt like, to disguise ones intelligence for fear of ones life.

Now we are all slaves with no real need to be educated.

Do American white folk still resent an educated black man?  Is that what he was trying to say?  Was this why, when he was elected, people here kept on telling me that Obama would be assassinated?

I drove home listening to NPR but I couldn’t listen to anything other than the conversation we had just had with this frail old man.

When he dies something of old America, good America will die with him.

Chris Rock

Categories
Hollywood

Guilt

My friend Jamie has a store in West Hollywood called Phillis Morris.

[wpvideo bSnJtSPv]

 

Categories
Rant Whitstable

Red Spider Cafe

Before I start my regular blog I want to write about Whitstable and The Red Spider Cafe.

The Red Spider Cafe was a charming shack on Whitstable beach that, throughout my childhood, served tea and cake.  It closed some time in the late 70’s and stood derelict for many years.  The Red Spider was finally demolished in the 1980’s during the massive beach renovation and sea-defence construction.

I have always dreamt of the Red Spider being rebuilt.

There’s something non-Whitstable people need to know about Whitstable Beach: it is an anomaly.   Unlike most beaches in the UK which are owned by the Crown Whitstable Beach is owned privately by my friend Barry Green’s company.

There’s something else non-Whitstable people need to understand.  If Barry had not bought the Whitstable Oyster Company and preserved it and the surrounding buildings the Oyster Stores would have been demolished.  They were slated for demolition.  Barry saved the building and by doing so saved the town.

Barry is not a philanthopist..he is a businessman.  The Red Spider cafe will make a profit.  It must be rebuilt because Whitstable needs to continue evolving and growing.  People need jobs.  Especially now.

Barry’s eldest son Richard and I instigated the restaurant at the Oyster Company (Royal Native Oyster Stores) that almost single-handedly regenerated Whitstable’s fortunes.

Nobody local took the restaurant very seriously when it first opened.   I cooked,  Richard served.  Within a month it was packed.  Every day.

During those early years I begged Barry to rebuild the Red Spider and now, twenty years after it was torn down, the Red Spider may indeed be rebuilt.  However, Whitstable and the people who now live there, has changed.  Middle class, ‘keep it as it is‘, ‘terrified of change‘ type people now vocally oppose the rebuilding of what was once a great, water-side resource.

 

Red Spider in the snow

They are frightened of alcohol being served at the Red Spider even though just a hundred feet away stands the Neptune Pub which is a very messy, unkempt affair.

They are scared of the suggested long opening hours even though the building is further away from homes than the nearest, noisy pub.

They say that the rebuilding of the Red Spider will have an ‘environmental impact’ which is just bull shit and proves how far these detractors will go to stop the Red Spider cafe from being rebuilt.

The Red Spider Cafe 1950's

Obviously I am totally in favour of the rebuilding of the Red Spider Cafe as I am also, unfashionably, in favour of Barry rebuilding the beach huts along the beach.  As one can see from the photograph above there were huts all over the beach when I was a child and they enhanced the charm of the town and more importantly the beach.

The sort of people who complain about The Red Spider are the sort of people who frankly don’t understand Whitstable and more importantly resent the difficult, unruly Greens and their stunning success.

Did you notice that the crude painting of the ‘red spider’ looks more like a tick?

REBUILD THE RED SPIDER

Oh yes, and before all you new Whitstable people wonder what business it is of mine…I am presently buying a property in Whitstable after only 4 years of absence.

Yesterday ended up being more fun than I anticipated.  Occasionally things happen that inadvertently make sense of uncomfortable feelings.    What started out as a day where I couldn’t even raise my head ended at an AA meeting where my perspective changed, my positivity regained.

What seemed important in the morning was less so in the evening.

This is the AA reality.  It is almost impossible to burn ones bridges.  The door is always open.  It is a club where anyone is welcome…forever.  The friendly faces may change but they remain friendly and welcoming.  It really is the best club in the world for a person like me.

So, as I said, yesterday began with a feeling of uselessness.  Even though I have more going on than I have all year (the film) I still felt like a husk, a useless, unevolved husk.   I had a beard trimming accident in the morning so lost my beard.

The little Dog and I went for a long walk to the new Rambla Pacifico road which has come once again grinding to a halt.

[wpvideo 0Zjzb0eU]

I sat at my desk and ticked more things off of my moving list.  Roger stopped by and ate pfeffernusse which are spiced german cookies.  The choreographer visited later.   He was a great deal of fun persuaded me to buy an album by Concha Buika (beautiful) and by so doing goaded me out of my bad mood and my house and into the aforementioned AA meeting.

Before AA I decided to go to the last few days of the RRL sale at the Malibu Lumber Yard.  I bought a shirt, waistcoat, vest and a pair of gray woolen trousers.  Ended up wearing this very fetching outfit sans beard at dinner with the choreographer.  We ate at Sauce in Venice.  We ate a huge plate of excellently prepared green vegetables.

Looking in the mirror this morning I do indeed look very puffy and unattractive but hey, that’s the way things are and at my age things are only going to get a whole heap worse so I may as well get used to it.

I don’t feel ugly on the inside.  In fact, I feel very good indeed.

Categories
Health Malibu

February

Madness, when it comes upon me is a grueling mystery to solve.  For months now I have been gripped with what started out merely as a broken heart.

When one begins to feel the onset of ones own brand of insanity it is always impossible to make sense of the confusing depth and range of emotions.

In the midst of the maelstrom it all feels so incredibly real.  Yet, as we are well aware, once sanity returns:  FEELINGS are not FACTS.

Regardless of how and why I experienced such a destructive wave of emotion I could only wait, as one does, for the storm to end.

It was galling that I had not suffered a comparable emotional torment for many years, fourteen in fact.  As you have read on these pages, when I first got sober I had the same misery, the same terrible sense of powerlessness that has overwhelmed me every day since last January.

There is no way to prepare for such misery.  One can only pray that it passes.  That it passes swiftly and without too much damage being inflicted on either myself or others.

I have learned so much these last few months.  Learned the very good and the very bad about myself.   It is so incredibly lonely when one is gripped by such furious indignation.

After the storm inevitably there is the wreckage.  After the storm, picking up the pieces of everything that has been smashed and knowing that it is impossible to mend what is so utterly broken.

Salvaging first and foremost ones dignity.

On this occasion I know that I have done irreparable damage to myself.  I used to have hope and I no longer do.  The reserve of hope that I was born with is exhausted.

In many ways I have been returned to that moment last January before we met when I had everything to look forward to.  It is now up to me to start again.  Start building, start a positive dialogue with myself that may include some sort of sanctuary.

My body is wrecked from these past few months.  Fighting, fighting, fighting.

Fighting what was growing inside me, fighting the feelings, fighting my true intentions to be a good and better person.

I have no idea what comes next.  I know in my heart, in the pit of my stomach, in my soul…that I will never attempt to have another relationship.  I seem truly incapable of that basic human connection and unable to deal with the associated feelings of inadequacy that swamp me once I meet any person I value.

I dare not take that risk.

I know that all familiar avenues others take for granted are now closed to me.

When I was a child, the only way I could express my fury at the world was to smash everything in my room.  Everything I held dear.   It was my only option.  There was nowhere to run, no place to hide.

And what of him?

Well, I hope and pray that he is already living a wonderful life, that he has great and extraordinary beauty ahead of him.  I know that he is capable of things I can only dream about.  I finally expunged his name from this blog and worked hard to uncouple him from me in the virtual ether.  His ‘bit of fun’ turned into a nightmare for us both but I am determined to forgive him…the alternative will merely drag me into further insanity.

He is not the problem.  He must be part of the solution.

If I am truly over this catastrophe then I must love him as much as I must love the unfair world around me.  He is a stranger now.  He will remain a stranger.

For what once felt so beautiful, as I predicted, must now be an inconsequential blip.

To this end I must accept any and all of my own shortcomings.  I must see my part in this drama.  Own my part in it.

I must let God take back the reigns.

There are other more important lessons to learn, adventures to be had…but I will not learn any of them unless I can truly forgive.