Categories
Rant

HRH Duchess of Cambridge

In spite of myself it was simply too thrilling to miss.  So, late last night, I tuned into the BBC‘s excellent news website and watched the Royal Wedding.

We, the British, are just so extraordinarily good at pomp.  I looked at the small computer screen in the middle of the night and what I saw took my breath away.  Why was I surprised?  Because, when it comes to state theatre, we are so consistently awesome.  The costumes, the characters, the music, the fanfare, the subtle variations on ancient themes.   The great processions inside and out Westminster Abbey of meticulously timed choir boys, guards, clergy, government and the Royal Family.

It was interesting to watch the inexperienced Duchess of Cornwall, waiting in the nave, not slip effortlessly into line as her husband obviously expected.  She was unsure of where and how to stand as they waited with The Queen before they walked down the aisle.

Both William and Harry looked so sweet in their ill-fitting uniforms and cheerful grins but one couldn’t stop ones self from remembering them with their mother.  The affection she had for them.

This was such a different wedding from that of their parents.

Miss Middleton, when she arrived, with her severe make-up looked like the daughter of the evil queen from Snow White.  In spite of the make-up I really loved the Sarah Burton designed dress, it reminded me of Grace Kelly’s and Princess Margaret’s.  I am sure it looked exquisite off the television.  I thought the Cartier tiara (made in 1936 and purchased by King George VI for his wife Queen Elizabeth) could have been bigger but if you are not used to diamond tiaras one might opt for a humble stack rather than a glittering pile.

The vows brought a tear to my wrinkled eye.

What was Charles thinking as they read the vows?  Was he thinking about Diana?  Does he ever?  His own vows read so cynically thirty years before.  Knowing that he would never keep them.

Princes Charles and Andrew, Princess Anne had all made those vows before the British public and all had failed to keep them.  Indeed, the rancid hag Camilla had been explicit in keeping Charles from ever honouring his vows to Diana.  As this motley crew of vow breakers marched down the aisle only The Queen and Prince Phillip had kept up the very royal appearance of monogomy…even though they both have well-known romantic skeletons in their armoires.

The Queen’s affection for her now deceased horse trainer Lord Porchester is very well known..some say that her last two children are his children not Prince Phillip’s.

The American commentator on CNN was dumbfounded that the bells that pealed before and after the service were pulled by real live campanologists.

When I first heard that Diana, Princess of Wales was dead (Joe called me from NYC) my first tearful thought was for those two poor boys.

Seeing William’s face with Diana so evidently in his smile, his complexion and his demeanour.  The warmth and evident love he showed his bride at the altar.  I was moved to remember her.

Like so many people I wondered if she had lived, what Diana would have worn, who she would have arrived with.  Her new husband maybe?  Children?  I wondered what she would have made of William’s decision to marry Catherine and I concluded that she would have been very happy indeed.

Although she paid with her life, Diana’s loving influence over her sons bore fruit for all to see, not only for the monarchy but for our nation.

The ring did not fit but together they made it work.  A good metaphor.  This relationship may very well have ‘legs’ as they say here in Hollywood.

There was something deliciously bucolic about the interior decoration of the Abbey.  The trees, the green and white foliage.  They had somehow redressed this huge Abbey as a local church.  The scale of the event that was very, very human.

As much as I loved watching two young people get married I was also aware that many modern British folk, contemporaries of mine, loathe the idea that this wedding cost them so much and when pressed, err toward the idea of a republic.

The same people believe that come the death of The Queen ‘things will change’.  I very much doubt it.  This inherited power/money is hard to re-imagine for those who inherit it.

There was a moment when The Queen, The Duchess of Cornwall and Carole Middleton were standing together outside Westminster Abbey chatting.  Carole’s leg was buckled into a static curtsy, a look of bewilderment on her face.  The daughter of working class labourers and miners from  Northern England.  This woman is perhaps the most perfect example of how Britain is changing and how our attitude to class is subtly evolving to be perhaps more inclusive rather than overtly exclusive.

Carole’s buckled leg betrayed her class shame.  Knowing inherently that she had no right to be there, or rather…as her class rights had been originally written.

Only the Queen has the power to suck the confidence out of whom ever of her subjects she is speaking, leaving one a mere husk.  Quaking.  I was on Smith’s Polo Lawn in 1984, stamping divots after the first chukka, the first time I met her.  I was perplexed that she was wearing dark glasses, that her suspenders were visible through her skirt. To then be introduced (even if I had been Lord Rendlesham for a few years) nothing could have ever prepared me to meet my Monarch.

I was uncharacteristically speechless.

The Queen is neither ego centric nor ruthless, she doesn’t need to be either.  She is known to be grumpy, obsessed with punctuality and desirous of simple pleasures.

I listened intently to the service, the words that are used during the matrimonial agreement before God.  It was very heterosexual.   A man and a woman wedded so that they may have children etc.

I listened closely to those words and wondered how they might apply to me…me and another man.

Then, foolishly I looked at Twitter and there was the reprehensible Perez Hilton checking out the boys at the wedding and tweeting lewd, inappropriate comments about Katherine’s brother.  Even if he was gay Perez, would he consider being ‘snatched’ by a fat ugly monster like you?

Then I check Facebook and my gay friends are also making lewd comments…objectifying Harry and Katherine’s brother.  It made me sad.

How do we square our childish behaviour with our desire to be taken seriously enough to demand marriage?  A fairy tale marriage?

P.S. My dear friend Tara Palmer-Tomkinson  looked amazing.

Categories
Rant

Fuck You Donald Trump

Thanks Donald.  You have been revealed.

Not only are you despicable for decrying gay marriage but now you have forced a black man in the highest office in the land to show his birth certificate like an undocumented worker.  What now?

Now you have the evidence that Obama with his weird name is really American you have decided to challenge the authenticity of his education.

Working in tandem with Fox News, in the back pocket of Rupert Murdoch…you are as credible as anyone can possibly be who works on a fake reality TV show.

A bi-product of your unrestrained Obama hatred?  The US press is finally talking about the vile racism that motivates you as well as these terrible Tea Party Republicans, these ghastly birther people.  They are finally acknowledging what I have been writing for months:  that these hateful people simply cannot come to terms with the fact that Obama is a black man in the White House.

Why has it taken them so long to articulate this?

Why?

Donald Trump.  What a terrible man.

His crude attacks on Obama may very well have finally focused the minds of this dumbed down, frenzied American media.  Even the so-called intelligent press jumped on the Birther conspiracy band wagon.  Now, like guilty children they stand back from the story embarrassed that they had anything to do with it in the first place.

Let us not forget that rotting at the very heart of this ‘news’ story are the mutilated bodies of countless black men, women and children whose enslavement, torture and death white supremacists like Trump, Limbaugh et al still gloat over.

Hung drawn and quartered, their bodies swing in trees for all to see.  This is exactly what is happening now.  An intellectual lynching.  I say again, these white, resentful fools are determined to undermine this President, not because he is a bad President but because he is black.

Fuck you Donald Trump.  Fuck you.

Robby and I walked on the beach yesterday.  The Little Dog was bitten (not badly) by a three-legged terrier.  He was terrified and screamed like a baby.  He is a bit traumatized today.  Keeping close to me.  The wound is healing.

I cooked a huge pasta dish for dinner and we sat on the terrace in the warm night air talking about the origins of Christianity.  The origins of the myth of Jesus and the pagan stories that fed into that myth.  After a while Robby went quietly to his room.  I asked if he was ok.

He said, “It’s like finding out that Father Christmas is a lie.”

He was really perplexed, his faith in the literal teaching of the Bible has been shaken.

This morning Juan came for breakfast to discuss his food truck idea.  We drank coffee and looked over the ocean.  The sea is calm.  Elsewhere tornadoes are raging through communities in Alabama.

I am thinking about the idea of mid-life crisis.  Will expand on this when I know what I want to say.

Fuck you Donald Trump.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4ZyuULy9zs]

Categories
Malibu

Royal Wedding

The Royal Wedding?  What of it?  I remember the Charles and Diana fiasco very well.  I doubt whether this will compare.  Not for those of us who sat through it all before.  My friend Dan is in London covering the show for WWD.  My ears burning, I called him just as he was having afternoon tea with CP.  It cheered me up immediately speaking to them both.  Dan covered the Charles and Diana wedding for CNN.

I don’t have anything to say about Catherine Middleton nor William for that matter.  Their relationship seems very ‘modern’ which makes the entire event less relevant somehow.   Two youngish people getting married in grand circumstances for the sake of the British people and the Commonwealth.

I will be interested to see the dress.  Less interested to imagine how much this pantomime will cost the British people.  Expensive no doubt.

My brushes with the Royal Family over the years have been brief but fascinating.  The Queen, Princess Diana, Princess Michael etc.

Obama released his ‘long form’ birth certificate which had the effect of trumping Donald Trump‘s absurd ‘birther‘ nonsense.  More importantly I felt a great deal of immediate sympathy for The President.   Unusually.

Today, Miles has gone off to help Jennifer with her box delivery and Robby is running errands for his WeHo boss.

The little dog and I walked the new road and back again through searing heat.

I have devoted this week to gardening.  Planting Basil and Thyme. Sweeping paths, trimming shrubs.  Whenever I am in the garden the Little Dog helps out by digging random holes.  Since seeing the dog with the snake bitten face I am a little more cautious about him freely exploring the garden.

The boys generate a huge amount of laundry which I tackle with aplomb.

When Miles returned yesterday from a day on the beach we grilled pork loin and sat in the garden eating our simple dinner.  We discussed his burgeoning relationship and his understandable fears.  Before I gave my advice I warned him that my experience of relationships is woefully inadequate.  I didn’t really want to add my ha’penny worth.  I tried changing the subject.

We watched The Edge which is an appalling film.  Miles, a great fan of David Mamet, thinks the film ‘great’.  Now, I may not know about relationships but I know about films.   Tony’s performance was the only thing worth watching.  Making the best of a bad job.

I went to bed thinking about Miles.  I hope he understands that I know nothing special about love or sex or relationships.  One just makes it up as ones goes along.  Reinventing what may or may not work as opportunities present themselves.

My own relationship carnival begins the moment I step off the plane in NYC.  A film crew waiting for me with my sweet D.

Categories
Malibu

Suck Yourself

Robby suggested that I call todays entry…well..you can see can’t you?

The twins are home and the house is full of twin energy and plans and smells.  The washing machine is stuffed with their weekend laundry.  Miles is falling in love with a young lady he met on his trip.  It is so sweet to see him delicately negotiating these new and powerful feelings.

Robby is off to Hollywood for an audition.  He looks great.

The weather is incredible and the hillsides are vibrant with spring flowers and tiny baby rabbits who hop dangerously out into the road.  This is the first year that I have seen so many rabbits.  Either the coyote are fattening up elsewhere or the rabbits have migrated from another part of the mountain.

I saw a dead bobcat in the road last week.  They are such beautiful creatures.  Even the dead animals in the road are beautiful.

Therapy this morning, listened to an ex homeless man tell his story.  Very restorative.  Humbling.

Collecting my thoughts for next weeks trip.   There is not much to think about other than what to take to wear.  Which, as you can imagine, is more of a headache than it should be.  I have no idea what to expect, it’s just going to be great to be back in NYC.

Peace of mind.  No longer the roiling mess I have endured for months.

Categories
Malibu

Beautiful Day in SoCal

It is such a beautiful day today I almost can’t describe it.

This weekend was great fun.  Too much fun to blog.  Easter should be spent with children and friends with children.  Fat on chocolate and ham.

Woke early Good Friday morning and drove the twins to Pasadena.  They spent the weekend in Arizona at a Mumford and Sons concert by way of the Grand Canyon.   They are on their way home now.  I filled my weekend with lunches and dinners and a pedicure.   I went to AA meetings and walks with friends old and new.

There were moments this wonderful spring weekend when I felt as if I were my old self (pre The Penguin) but couldn’t work out why.  There were moments when I experience the very illusive peace of mind I had been craving for many, many months.

It all seemed to begin after we had chopped out the great bush of Bougainvillea.  I understood that any change, however destructive, can be very creative.   By freeing up the view I could see clearly.  My over-view, perspective and willingness all remade.

I had to own up, once again, to misdirected anger.  I am not angry with him…I am angry with my nemesis.  He is not that man.  By demanding answers from him I forego the courage it takes to ask my nemesis why he did those terrible things.

What The Penguin did to me scarcely compares to what happened before yet I am willing to blame The Penguin for all that is evil in the world.  Of course he should never have lied his way into my life, nor should he have used me to help him.  He should never have said ‘I love you’ without considering the consequences.

Our moment in court next month could be used to heal rather than to punish.  To move on with amends and explanation rather than two disparate men re-entrenching their anger.

This time next week I will be in NYC…a camera shoved in my face.  I must admit that I am ever so slightly excited.  I am excited to see D.  I am excited that I am going to have a gay old NYC summer.  Hamptons, Fire Island…one last gay hurrah!  Even though it is not my show and I am merely an adjunct I am excited by the prospect of showing a different, more vivacious side of my character than the one you saw last year on Sex Rehab.

This time next week?  I am not living in next week, I am living now.

Therapy this morning was great.  Every meeting/group/session I attend things seem to get better and better.

Categories
art

Malcolm’s Hats and Knickers

This is how we spend our time up on the mountain.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgX_8vNJmIU]

Categories
Malibu

Little Edie

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CG_30gJ6LTY&feature=related]

Miles inadvertently looked like Little Edie this evening.

A cold outing to Venice after a good 8 hours in the garden.  Our third day of chopping, dragging, pruning, raking…a hard, hard day doing man work with Robby.

The vast, dense Bougainvillea finally vanquished so the house doesn’t end up looking like Grey Gardens.   There are now new views all over the estate.  It looks a bit bare on the terrace but we shall wait for the grape-vine to grow across the newly denuded arbour.

I wore a very fetching outfit into town.  See below.  Wore my Derby rather than my cap.  Miles said, “I want to dress like you Duncan.”  Which, as you may have guessed, is the greatest of all compliments.

We ate dinner in Venice.  Food trucks.  Not the greatest food truck food but filling and cheap.  Then we headed over to Santa Monica and walked the length of the Third Street Promenade.  I am quite happy doing these simple things knowing that very soon I will be back in NYC up to my eye balls in Penguin shit.

What a fucking tosser that man is.  When I told Toby that The Penguin was attempting a restraining order he said, “Oh, so you’ve won.”  Which is one way of looking at it I suppose.

There are no winners here I am sorry to say.

P.S. Did you know that JBC’s house in the Pines was called Grey Gardens?

Categories
Malibu

Bougainvillea

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The huge hedge of Bougainvillea that separated the house from the garden is all but gone.  It has taken Robby and me two days to chop it down and cart it to the compost at the end of the drive.   The house now feels as it is floating above the forest of specimen trees and succulents.  Uninterrupted views all the way to the hot tub and the drive.  More importantly, as one enters the garden, the full glory of this house, this post and beam gem can be fully appreciated.

On Sunday, after my AA meeting and wander around the Palisades Farmers Market,  Anna popped by.  We ate a particularly foul, tasteless lunch at the newly refurbished Malibu Inn (at my suggestion) and then we walked the length of the Malibu Pier which, I am ashamed to say, I have never done.

It really is very beautiful.

Nicely decorated shops and restaurants, fisherman (mostly Mexican) fishing on both sides.  A seal lazily swam on it’s back looking up at us.  The water around Malibu is teaming with life.  Seals, Dolphins, Whales.  At the end of the Malibu Pier are two elevated rooms which might be perfect for hiring.  I suddenly thought that rather than have a birthday party at my house this year I would have my party there.  What do you think?  I didn’t celebrate last years mile stone so this is maybe a perfect opportunity and location.

Whilst in the Malibu Inn the beginning of a rather bizarre incident began to unfold.   One that caused some consternation later on that evening.  A rather jolly, good-looking young man handed me his number.  A usual occurrence here in LA.  Especially if one has been on TV.  Whilst serving us he had overheard Anna and I talking about the entertainment industry.  I took the number and we started texting, agreeing to meet after he had gotten off of work at 7pm.  I asked if he had a car and if he could get up here or if he needed to meet on the PCH.

When he arrived at the house (shrouded in marine layer) we chatted for a few moments, whilst chatting he must have received at least 10 calls from his parents wanting to know where he was and when he was coming home.  “Perhaps you had better go.”  I said.

We continued our conversation regardless.  He wanted, of course, to be an actor.  An actor who wants to be in action films.  He mentioned that he had thought about modeling.  He is a great looking guy but, I told him, maybe a little too short for modeling.  He told me that he needed money to finish his tattoo and move out of his house.  He wanted to be free of his family.   I sympathised and told him to work harder at Malibu Inn.  When young men start talking about how much money they need I disconnect.

Then, I noticed that there was someone looking at us.  A man on the terrace looking in.

I opened the door and there was a man (my age) with a friendly looking German Shepherd and asked him what he wanted.  I noticed another person scurrying up the path.  A woman with long black hair.

He said gruffly, “I’ve come to collect my boy.”

I demanded an explanation.  He explained sheepishly, losing some of his bravado, that he was the young man’s father and rather than the young man having driven himself to the house as he had implied, his father had brought him.   I suddenly felt rather set up.  As if I was part of something that had been planned rather than being as spontaneous as I had first thought.

“Why didn’t you come in?”  I asked him.   “Rather than skulking around the garden.”

“You should conduct business meetings in your office.”  He chided.

“This wasn’t a business meeting.” I snapped.  “It was personal.”

I asked the young Malibu Inn man if he was OK and he nodded, his face reddened with embarrassment.  I asked his ‘father’ if everything was OK.

“For the time being.”  He said.  The inherent threat was not lost on me.

They left.

I heard them stall their cheap car on the steep drive, spinning their tires on the damp concrete.

My next door neighbour Jerome was in so I stopped by and told him what had happened.   The more I thought about it the more I realized that this may very well have been some sort of opportunistic venture on their behalf.  They must have thought that being a self-proclaimed sex addict that I would ‘try’ something.  Not realizing that I only really respond to sexual advances rather than initiate.

I suddenly felt quite vulnerable.

Thankfully the twins arrived home.  It was a spooky night, the man emerging from the mist.  The strange boy who needed $150 to finish his tattoo of a skull in the shape of a dollar sign.

Spent most of Monday taking down the last of the Bougainvillea.  Breakfast on the PCH.  Dinner with friends.

Categories
Malibu

Moment by Moment

I had such a spectacular day yesterday.  I am determined that today should be the same.  With that in mind I set off at 7am for my Palisades Men’s AA meeting.  Had breakfast with the guys.

There is a huge cloud of marine layer climbing up the mountain as I write.

Usual crowd at the meeting.  Love the men in that room collectively, loathe them individually.  Everything I judge I walk through.   I have to remember that.

Listening to John Martyn.

Miles threw me into the sea yesterday.  I somersaulted into a huge wave, gulped seawater, swallowed it, smashed into the sand.  It was so much fun.

The Little Dog loves the sand, he dug two great big holes and sat in them.  Clever dog.  I love our beach club.  I have only been there twice in 4 years.

Anna, my NYC producer friend, is coming for lunch.

The wind in my face.  Malibu morning.

I am getting better.  Thanks wholesome twins.  Thanks AA.  Thanks beautiful weather.  Thanks dewy morning garden.

Here are  some odd moments:

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Categories
art

Numbers

43 minutes to write this post.

14 days left to enjoy this month.

33 days until I face The Penguin in the court.

83 degrees at the beach club.

811 emails from him.

16 days left in California.

7 is a beautifully directed film.

10 feet of Bougainvillea to chop down.

3 loads of organic matter carried to the end of the drive for composting.

7 dollar sandwich for my lunch.

3 dolphins swam past us as we lay on the beach.

1 of the twins helped me with the garden.

4 of us sat in the sun.

23 dogs past us as we sat in the sun.

9 minutes to write this so far.

2 visitors from LA.

460 dollars owed to a renter.

6 months on the market and I didn’t sell the house.

13 years spent in my last house.

3,582 blog views on my busiest day.

531o days sober from drugs and alcohol.

2 days content.

1 day is all I need to think about.

24 hours is all I need to get through.

10 pages a day.

1402 Facebook friends.

90 days I want of sexual sobriety.

1 room with a perfect view.