Month: November 2010

Categories
Health Whitstable

Bucolic

It certainly is.

Balls not withstanding.   The heavy snow and cold conditions don’t stop me from getting in my little car and driving to Canterbury.

We are only seven miles from one of the most beautiful Cathedrals cities in the world.

Meandering through the snowy Kent countryside listening to BBC Radio 4 I arrived, parked inside the Roman city walls and walked down Palace Street looking for a man to unlock my iPhone.  The ancient and the modern.

I love Canterbury, I love the tiny medieval streets, the busy shops.  I ended up buying a cell phone…as it looks as if I maybe here for longer than I anticipated and I have to keep in contact with the hospital.  I bought the correct adaptors and leads etc for my lap top so I no longer need to pop into Georgina’s and use hers.

The economy seems really good.  Really good.  The shops are packed with paying customers.  We are well out of recession.  It’s like the British are embarrassed to let the American’s know that our economy is just fine.

The average British person really doesn’t have a clue just how bad things are in the USA.  No idea at all.  They don’t know about the unemployment, the foreclosures, the corruption or the burgeoning right-wing tea party movement.  They are oblivious to Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck.

One day very soon they will wake up to a very different America and a very different world run by ignorant, xenophobic thugs.

Even on a wet, cold, miserable Tuesday in Canterbury people look quite unlike those you see not shopping in sunny Santa Monica.

All of the little restaurants and gift shops are packed with customers in Whitstable too.  The Whitstable shopping equivalent: Venice CA the shops on the main drag Abbot Kinney are still boarded up.

If things are fine why is the government hell-bent of dealing so aggressively with what is evidently a self solving problem like the deficit?  THE DEFICIT!

This British government is forcing austerity upon the nation because?  Because the people have had things so good for so long?

This country is not falling apart, seems very stable and prosperous from what I can see..but under the guise of the DEFICIT reduction plan this new government stealthily returns to Thatcher type fiscal/social conservatism.  The class havoc deliberately caused with unnecessary job reduction ends up merely furthering their class war aims.

Governments like drama.

British Governments, like Hollywood studio execs, cause problems so that they can be seen to fix them.  The people, our British people, unlike the sleepy time/weed brained/prozaced citizens of my adopted home the USA…we will get off our angry asses and break some windows.  Make our voices heard.  No, you bloody can’t start charging our children for a university education…something you had for free.  NO.

Thanks to the bankers to whom we are already indebted in so many, many ways we can give extra thanks that we can now officially add the innocuous word deficit to the list of things we are encouraged to fear.  Along with Asylum Seeker, ASBO, global warming, that millennium bug thing (remember that?) and, of course…terrorist.

DEFICIT=TERRORIST.  Something abstract and confusing to be frightened of.

In the UK everybody complains about their gas bill and it’s true that utility bills here are out of control…a recent price hike of 40%.  Where the people have no option the corporation steps in and gouges whatever it can.  Same as the Insurance industry.  The law states that you must buy car insurance so the insurance industry just demands what ever it likes from whom ever it likes.

You want to know about the hospital?   The German oncologist was very nice.   Do you need to know more?  We wait for further test results.  Who could have foreseen that a jolly German oncologist would make his way center stage into my life.

I actually feel a great deal better already.  I just trust European doctors more than American doctors and they agreed that me coming here was the best possible thing to do.  Not having to worry about paying a huge amount of money to anyone anytime soon for what should be a human right sure takes the pressure off.

After it was all over at the surgery I came home and lay down under a pile of blankets and fell asleep.  What with the Jake stuff this has not been a great year.  Not one of my best.  Not a great vintage.

The little dog just hates the snow and who can blame him?  His little paws are soaked in cold water up to the ankles.  He tags along after me very bravely.

last night Carol cooked a delicious dinner here at the house and we greedily scoffed baked potatoes, ham and a delicious salad made of crunchy endive and baby tomatoes and watercress.

Seeing Charlie tomorrow and others in London.  Going to risk the roads in my little car.

Oh yes…I read yesterday that somebody somewhere in the US press demanded that Obama get some ‘backbone’.  How dare anyone ask President Obama to have ‘backbone’ when his constituents lack any kind of skeleton what so ever.

In Obama the liberals chose a limp shield made of skin (albeit black) and gristle behind which to gripe about their own inertia.

Categories
Health

The Night Before

It’s the night before the hospital visit when all through the house, not a creature was stirring not even a mouse.  Well, the little dog is stirring as I write this but everyone else has gone to bed.

I woke up really late this morning..I mean..at eleven am.  I popped over to George’s house where her son was having a cup of tea.  He’s a bit of a tricky character.

I have not drank one cup of coffee since I arrived here nor smoked one cigarette.

Decided to drive to my mother’s house for lunch.  She cooked chicken.

After lunch she cried for a good long time about my grandmother dying.  She is finding it very hard to process her mother’s death.  As I am doing some grieving of my own we both sat there and cried a bit.

If I hadn’t gone through what I had gone through recently I think I might have been less sympathetic.  The pain she is going through is hard to watch.

I hung around her house all afternoon and into the evening.  She and her boyfriend live in the most gorgeous 16th century house overlooking ancient forests and vast, snow-covered fields in the most southerly part of Kent.   There are quarry tiles in the kitchen and Elizabethan beams.

Finally held in my own hands the beautiful, ancient oak box Nana left me which was originally filled with beads but only a few now remained.

Driving home I nearly killed myself driving on the wrong side of the road. What an idiot.  Approaching a roundabout the wrong way.  I panicked.

English TV is really informative.  Tonight I learned that the only way a medlar can be eaten is after being bletted by heavy frost.  It’s true!  You’re welcome.

I also learned that the X factor is a hugely watched TV show in the UK and restaurants and bars are empty when the show airs.  It’s a kind of talent show for the truly talentless.   Aren’t they all?   Simon Cowell is not such an ogre here, more like a grumpy uncle.  He has fun being a super bitch in the USA.

My Mother sits making snide comments about all the contestants and I understand the genesis of my own pervasive dissatisfaction.

How am I feeling about tomorrow?  Kind of wide-eyed.  I have no idea what to expect.  Stoic.  British.

Categories
Health

NYC/Paris/Whitstable

I am in Whitstable.  It is really cold.  The water-butt is frozen.  I slept under two comforters.

Carol woke me this morning with a fresh lemon and ginger infusion and a big plate of steaming porridge.  Ate another breakfast at Copeland House with Georgina.

It’s later on Saturday morning and I am laying under a blanket at George’s house.  Feel very beaten up.  I managed to wear myself down so badly that I now have bronchitis.

Terrible cough, phlegm, headache.  Best thing is: I am at home so everything seems very dealable with.  I am so glad that I don’t own anywhere here.  It’s so much nicer crashing at Carol’s or laying here on George’s sofa.

My head is too painful with real pain to concentrate on anything else.

Whitstable.  Last night.  Sitting with Georgina and her grand-daughter Poppy eating shepherd’s pie.  Do you remember Poppy?  Poppy!

Carol and Marc dragged me out to a small town on the other side of Canterbury to watch a ska band.  Even though I felt pretty bad it was nice to be included.

Feels safe here.  I arrived from Paris on Friday morning.  I rented a car, drove to Calais on the A1 toll road (20 euro).  Ferry to Dover (120 euros) then drove to Whitstable.  Dropped in at Wheeler’s, Dave’s and Carol’s place.

There is a cute gay boy running the new coffee shop.

Dumb man that I am…I decided to watch Brokeback Mountain again on the flight to Paris.  I could scarcely get through the first few moments without having to change channels and watch Friends reruns.

Went back to it and still cried buckets.

I left New York the night of the 25th.  I’m good at that…finding half empty flights to Paris when everyone else is settling into American public holidays.

Remember when we left for Paris on July 4th?  That seems like it happened decades ago.

Why did it take me so long to leave NYC and why didn’t I write about it?  Well, we didn’t go because the Little Dog wasn’t well and vomited all over the place so it wasn’t prudent to go anywhere.  Anyway, the vet advised me not to.

I was offered a very kind room in a very beautiful hotel to rest my weary body…for free.  They really looked after me.

I stayed on 10th St for a few nights.  During the day I would practice what it would be like to live in NYC again.

I sat with friends outside Mud, I hung out at the Derby and Joe’s Pub with Amelia.  I made many, many new ‘friends’ on line and met with them at obscure locations.

After a few days of being in the city I totally forgot about Jake unless, of course, I found myself on 1st Street or outside the Judd Foundation or on the roof at Soho House which is cleared away…just like the memories I have to clear away.

I no longer thought that any man who resembled him was him and instead marveled at how many men there were who might be him.  Cute, short, hairy men with winning smiles.  On occasions, as the days passed, I realized that I told too many people about him…that it was obvious to them that I was having difficulty letting him go.

When they asked if I was still in love with him it was difficult to say no without crossing my fingers.

The emotions are far more complex and seem to exist on a far deeper level than I ever planned which is why I took time away from my blog because it just riles me and I find myself posting things that I regret.

I had a number of dates with really extraordinary men but one in particular made my heart sing.  I ate dinner at Mary’s Fish Camp in the West Village and met some good gays.  A producer, a stockbroker, a TV anchor and a journalist..I found myself thinking: Jake would like these men.

He would get a kick out of these intelligent, ambitious men.

The anchor  (Don Lemon) was a cool black dude who said that in his opinion Obama was frightened of white people.  Which explains, he said, why Obama is such a loser.   The anchor’s bf of 3 years was 20 years younger.

I don’t know how I felt about that.

Aleksa P and I had supper in Chelsea.  She talked candidly about how much fun it is for her making Boardwalk Empire.  I told her that I get hundreds of people a week looking for references in my blog to her hairy armpits.  She showed me how shaved they were with a wry smile but lamented how she must start growing them again soon.

We talked about our absent dads and how this shapes our view of ourselves.  We talked about her gorgeously happy marriage.  We laughed a great deal.  She showed me the pictures of her in Vanity Fair and I felt as proud as any dad could ever be.

We talked about Jake.  She was sad for me.

Brokeback: I had forgotten that Ennis and Jack had that fight.  That their fight had more to do with their love and their frustration and how much they would miss each other.

Dressed as cowboys their fight seemed more romantic than ours on the King’s Road.

The last night in NYC I met a man who I could imagine being with.  Just like that.  I have no idea if it will turn out like I want it…but we connected.  I am excited to see him again.  One thing is for sure:  I ain’t writing about him. Not any time soon.

TSA pat-downs are really thorough.   At JFK the rather good-looking man who inadvertently (or maybe not) held my balls whilst looking for what ever they are looking for looked up at me and I said seductively, “My balls have been held by a lot worse.”

Categories
Health Rant

Guilty as Charged

Plagued with appalling thoughts and feelings.  Has more to do with going home than anything else.

Fatigued.

Have to go to vet to get the Little Dog a certificate to travel and the tick and worm treatments that are mandatory for our trip to Europe.

Yesterday in terrible funk.   Had breakfast with Dan in East Village.  Lunch with Pierre in Chelsea.  Late tea with Amelia and Andres at Gitane then walked North to see Wendy Asher’s curated street art show back in Chelsea.   The gallery belongs to Robin William’s son.  The art was terrible.  The guests?  Rich women from the Hampton’s.

An LA show in NYC.  Perched precariously at the edge of some aesthetically inchoate oblivion.  Will sell out.  Doesn’t deserve to.

I wandered around the city in a daze.  Dreading bumping into Jake.  In every coffee shop there seemed to be short, bearded men who looked just like him diligently working at their laptops.  Every single time I saw someone who even vaguely resembled the poison dwarf I felt sick.  Is this what being in NYC is going to be like?

I have not felt like this since I was in Sydney 13 years ago after Jamie and I split up.  Foreboding.

I am perfectly sure he is delighted by my unending, nauseating apprehension.

It is like being gripped by the throat.

How did I deal with it last time?  I kept praying and praying to be relieved of the obsession.

When I think about this coherently I know that this has more to do with my fear of going home and what awaits me there.  Not only do I have to deal with my balls but I also have the tail end of the iPod situation to deal with.

Everything is such a MESS.   Remember how buoyant I felt before I met him?  I was sexually sober, looking for a book agent (or rather, they were looking for me) mind cleared of rancid thoughts….now look.  I think I need to go back into rehab.  This is almost WORSE than before.

One stupid Facebook message later and there he was, this dull barbarian invading my life.

I keep trying to persuade myself to take action.

Somebody asked yesterday how I could possibly fallen so hard for ‘somebody so patently unsophisticated’.  Exactly.  But as I have written a million times before…love has no logic.  Nor does hatred…so it seems.

What formerly delighted me now sickens me.

He would like you to believe that he is a seasoned world traveller, close to glamour, sophisticated and erudite.   I imagine that his new friends think he is all those things but when you hang out with kitchen salesmen upstate then you can be pretty much what you want to be.

If you look at his public Facebook pictures they are designed to deceive you into believing that he is one thing when he is most patently not.  The truth is that the picture of him by the Oscar is totally fraudulent (under his suit he is scarred by poison oak) and the pictures taken of him in Peru and the South of France were taken by people who loved him and over whom he ran roughshod.

Cheating and lying.

Wearing my hat,  taking my time when all he wanted was his new friends.   I took many pictures that month we were away but he didn’t take one of me.  Not one.

Rather pathetically he is seen in one picture stroking his cat in his old apartment with his gf.  The caption reads ‘the good old days’ or something equally, utterly bogus.   The good old days for him maybe…as he was living a totally double life literally risking the health and well-being of the woman he told he loved yet lied to every single fucking day.

Oh yeah, go on Jake be sophisticated and fabulous at other people’s expense.   Charm them with your lies and your cock.  But just remember that I am out there keeping an eye on you.

I gave you the chance of making this good but you declined my offer.

On August the 21st I offered you a kind goodbye and you spat such venom at me…after everything I did for you.  After every late night call.  After being there for you.

Every time I tried to break it off you came crawling back like the SNIVELLING prick that you are.  I showed you my most vulnerable underbelly and you stabbed me in the heart.   Nobody will treat me like that again and, if I have my way, you will never treat anyone like you have treated me and your ex gf.

You may be laughing in all those pictures designed to ensnare other men, you may have a host of sycophantic friends around you who believe that you are a good guy, a naive innocent…but sooner or later your machinations will get the better of you.  Just you wait and see.

Categories
Dogs

Veselka

NYC November. Beautiful day. Breakfast here in Veselka the polish restaurant on 9th Street then apartment hunting. I hope I don’t bump into him. I really do. I don’t know what I would do. Not angry with Jake today. Being back here in the thick of my life but laying on a bed where we had once been. I am getting over this so damned slowly. I keep wondering how many lies he told me? Who is this guy Richard Brooks who writes to me? His friend?

I remember him telling me that he would hang around his old apartment at night looking up at the window. Wishing that he was inside. That was when I gave a fuck. Now his behaviour just seems creepy and weird. A lonely drunk on the corner of a windswept street looking up at the window of someone whose life he had effectively stolen.

How would he feel if I hung out on the corner of his street in Westchester? Ewww.

Sometimes I wonder what it must be like to live such a lie, so complete, so utterly avoidable. Then I remember that for a few years I did..when I changed my name.

What must it feel like to wake up on the eve of your thirties and know that your conflicted life until that point had not been lived at all. Avoiding ones nature. In opposition to ones own nature?

Part of me wonders if Jake and I shouldn’t attempt to say that kind goodbye I so badly wanted in August but he dashed..then..the questions I need answering (haunting) one can’t imagine he would answer truthfully. He is such a fucking liar.

Sometimes I wonder if we will ever forgive one another? If that is possible?

I am looking at places in Gramercy Park and both East and West Village. Two bedrooms so I can have people stay. I am going to have what I want.

I left LA early yesterday morning. Ashley drove me to the airport.

I arrived in NYC yesterday afternoon, made my way into town, walked the dog. Met a man from off-line. Joan and Joe picked me up at 7.30. We had dinner in the West Village at the Little Owl. Met Amelia at the opening (soft) of the Derby. It was very shrill in there. The whole place needs calming down. Amelia very disgruntled. Used to having an audience of adoring fans she stands there miserably belting out songs for noisy, unappreciative diners.

Walked home at 2am and stopped in at the Phoenix. Sat with a friend.

Life becomes immediately full when I get here. January 1st I will be here full-time.

Categories
Health

Welcome Home

Remarkably elegant going away party last night.  We sat around the fire.  Some people brought gifts.   The food was welcome after a long day schlepping around town erranding.  My word.  Erranding.

I started the day at therapy..of course.  AA.  Felt great after.  Had breakfast with my right-wing (almost fascist) Palisades friends who are just delighted that Obama, as they promised when he was elected, has shown no leadership skill whatsoever because, they say, he wants everyone to like him.

I know someone like that.

I am on the plane writing this..on my way East.

I drove up Sunset to Doheny and over to Robertson in near perfect driving conditions to the doctors to pick up all the scans and notes etc. which were neatly downloaded onto a DVD for me to take home to my doctor.   My LA doctor told me not to worry..well everyone does.  “Don’t worry…”  they say pityingly.

I called my Mother to tell her that I would be home.  I called Carol and she told me to stay with her in Whitstable.   I am beginning to relax about going home.

At noon I went to speak/lead at a huge men’s meeting on the West Side.   I talked my flawed recovery.  I felt very emotional sharing my journey with a room stuffed full of very straight men.

I am happy that I will be in Whitstable  even though the last time I was there I was with him.

I had to drop Willie off at Frank’s place in Hollywood.  Willie is such a baby so we love him very much and I am tearing up writing this..I miss him already.

Bad turbulence.  Scarily bad.  Christian Camargo is on the plane.  He played Henry Wooten in my Dorian Gray.  Good to see him.  You’ll know him from Dexter.

I keep seeing Alex O’laughlin the actor who I used to lend a helping hand when we lived in Sydney.  I’ll find some pictures of him.  He was gorgeous when he was 19.  Gorgeous.  JBC and I took him away with us to a tropical island.  Now look at him…all grown up and living in weho and making films with his shirt off opposite Jennifer Lopez.

Categories
Health

Lucille Ball

Last Month

My left testicle has a name..Lucille.  Why did you call it a woman’s name you may ask?  Well, that’s just the way it is.

I leave on Wednesday to have Lucille removed.  Goodbye Lucille Ball.  In a particularly bumptious mood today.  Seems like the only way I can get through this.  Becoming more rather than less. Dealing with my vulnerability and fear with monstrous emotions.

I have been feeling angry with him again as I face this fucking thing on my own.  I really resent that I was so completely on his side, his support, his kindly ear when he needed it most but the MOMENT I needed a shoulder he fucking dumped me.  Listen, I know the little creep couldn’t think about anyone except himself and I chose the most selfish man alive to depend on when things got tough..

It is just a bore to have to own my part in this but I am forced to.   My part is that I should have no expectations of anyone ever but who the hell lives like that?

Tomorrow night Ashley is throwing a Goodbye Lucille party for me at SHLA.   Instead of doing what I did on my big b’day and not inviting anyone I have asked everyone.   Fuck them if they don’t turn up but I think that they will.

The reason I didn’t invite anyone for my lunch was that I didn’t want him to judge my Whitstable friends.  That’s fucking ridiculous isn’t it?  What lengths I would go to please him.   I got mocked for that too.  “You know that you find me irresistable.”  Fucking rat.

I watched Taxi Driver again last night for the 100th time.  I always feel so energized after watching how he deals with being a lonely misfit.

Here is someone who stood up against the scum, the dogs, the filth, the shit – here is someone – who stood up

I love the letter at the end from Iris’s parents.  The suburban parents thanking the crazy guy for rescuing their daughter from hell.   Yeah right…nobody gets thanks for doing a good deed. The only time I get letters from parents it’s to tell me what a cunt I am.

Last Night

Mostly I love that Travis Bickel, like me, is so crazily angry at the world.  Thank GOD I have AA to dump my shit.

Yesterday spent whole day with Ashley and Michael.  We drive up the PCH to Jennifer and Jason’s house.  They are moving so went ostensibly to say goodbye to their lovely house.  On the way we stopped off at Malibu seafood for fish and chips: delicious.

This morning Julia Roberts was standing in line ahead of me at the Coffee Bean.

The young man who jumped into the car and kissed me is coming this afternoon.

Give me something to worry about that isn’t Lucille.  Go on…

Categories
art

The House

The house looks so beautiful.  Totally rearranged, crammed with stuff…another load of art off to auction this week.  The gilded hall table, the 18th century credenza…my Gio Ponti lamps…should make no sense but does.

New art by Dustin Yellin and Danika Phelps.   I covered the 18th century Napoleonic chair with latte coloured silk..a sort of duchess satin.

I can’t believe that I have sold only a third of the art formerly hanging on the walls.  It is astounding that there is so much still here.

A gorgeous breeze from the sea today after several days of blistering Santa Anas.

After my meeting this morning (saw an old friend from Whitstable) Mel and I had breakfast by the Palisades Sunday farmer’s market then walked the dogs.  I dropped in on my young neighbour who was having a party.  His friends wondered if I was his uncle.

Last night on my way home from Brentwood (middle eastern dinner with Dom who now works for new Oprah channel) I stopped at a red light, smiled at a very cute boy standing on the sidewalk.  He promptly got into the car, kissed me fully on the lips, took my number and has been texting ever since.  Now, if I never see that boy ever again he managed in that one moment to trump every pathetic attempt Jake ever made at a romantic gesture.

We are going to the beach this afternoon.  Point Dume, we can take the dogs.  Going to take a picnic.  My last days before I leave on Wednesday.  A daunting trip home.  Taking the same route he and I took which, frankly, I am not looking forward to for that very reason.

Such a beautiful day here.

Categories
Dogs

Saturday Morning

You may have noticed, those of you who read this blog regularly, that I am slowly winding down.

Keeping the blog has been interesting but I think it may be time to let it go.

I won’t take it down completely but as I enter this next chapter of my life I may just post as and when I feel like there is something really important to tell you.  When we start truly making the film for instance or like next Wednesday when I fly off and face the music.

I committed to this blog as I have committed to anything…well, it’s not really a commitment.  It’s a compulsion.  I do everything I do compulsively.

It has closed as many doors as it has opened.  I met him.  The door opened, the door slammed shut.  It has without doubt scared people.   It has amused people.  I have reconnected to past loves, old enemies and shared with you all the most intimate moments of my life since Sex Rehab.

Much has changed.

I can sit here and beat myself up…or you, if you get in my way or piss me off.  I could continue doing that but there is no allure, no.

It’s hard to articulate what is happening to me at the moment.  A single man with no real idea of how to change that.  Stuck in CA or not?   Money in the bank.  Food on the table.  Dogs on my lap.

I have been going to my meetings.  There, returned to my family.  The family of men and woman I chose above and beyond my flesh and blood.  Open arms to greet me.  I crawled back into those meetings the walking wounded but, within hours, the promises made to me when I first entered those rooms felt achievable once again.

It is none of my business what you think of me.

All I really want, all I have ever wanted is peace of mind.  It’s really that simple.  I have no other ambition.

I don’t want to grow up.  I really don’t.  I want to be a kid…forever.

I understand that you cannot fix me.  That you cannot save me.  That you cannot pay my bills or wipe away my tears.  All you can do, all you have ever done for me is hold out your hand when darkness falls, as I tread each treacherous step and know that you are there.

That everything is just the way it is meant to be.

I am responsible.  I am able.  I am ok.   I am on my own for a reason.  I have faith.

Categories
Malibu Rant

Long Night

During the night a huge wind storm-swept over Malibu from the desert.   I lay in bed listening to pine cones crash down onto the house.  The dogs snuggled under each arm.

Willie and the Little Dog, even though they are not friends, work as a good team when there are unexpected visitors on the drive or deer crashing around the property late at night.

The house continues to be very social.  Ashley and her friends, my friends.  I had 3 visitors before 8am this morning.

After the gardeners left yesterday and the paths were clean and order restored to the land I felt just great and have not felt anything other than great ever since.

Something is happening.  A new energy, a new optimism, a new employer.

Money.

The art I sold in NYC yesterday sold for double what was expected.  Why in hells name did I sell my other stuff here?    I paid my $18, 000 property tax bill.  I really RESENT paying so much tax.  Anyway, making money.

Ruminating over the past can be so EXHAUSTING.

The sea has turned the most delicious azure.   The wind is still roaring through the trees.  I can see all the way to Catalina.  Spoke to Tim who is recovering from his heart bypass but is laughing out loud so must be getting better.  His cheeks are all rosey, his mood and personality have become optimistic and sure.

We applauded the British rioting students.  He is a right-wing conservative and I am not yet we both agreed how healthy it is for any government to deal with insurrection.   The students broke into the Conservative headquarters and smashed it up.  Jolly good!  Why the hell should we charge for education?  This government is undoubtedly a one term affair.  After all, how do we vote back in a coalition?

Lots of you have written to me wanting to know more about the Ellen incident.  As I said, if I get moody this week I will funnel my moodiness into telling THAT story.  It’s really funny.

Ok, I will.

Tommy Clements, the rudest gay man alive, owns a store in LA.  He’s a hot-tub homo.  Know what I mean?  His sister is actually very sweet.  His mother Kathleen and his vacuous Aunt need to take less testosterone.  Suppurating sores on the ass of LA.

The store is called The Melrose Project.  A cavernous space filled with expensive, pretentious furniture.  Over-stuffed Victorian, roughly upholstered sofas dressed in yellowing hessian, useless winged mannequins attempting to be art.  This bad, bad art from an equally absurd store in Venice called Obsolete.

Don’t get me STARTED.

Tommy and Kathleen are very, very proud of the furniture they design.  Really?  Why?

Who in their right mind could possibly be proud of the slew of insipid soft furnishings for which they continually boast?  Amongst the overly restored ‘antiques’ and ‘quirky’ nick knacks which they describe as eclectic…are more ‘designed’ pieces.  For instance, a particularly vile white lacquered table caught my attention that has a curious lack of anything resembling style and a remarkable absence of ego.

This ersatz chic only exists in LA where there is a great deal of money but where the rich have a surprising lack of confidence hence the ascendance of people like Tommy and Kathleen.

Tommy’s aunt had (rather unsuccessfully) tried to set me up on a date with Tommy.  God, what a self-obsessed pig and, as I found out later,  the recent cast off of celebrity stylist David Thomas.   I have a great deal of affection for David but I am in no mood for his ghastly sloppy seconds.  What the hell was he was doing with Tommy?  Perhaps he was taking hallucinogenics at the time?  The only way one could possibly endure Tommy’s mind numbingly dull conversation.

David designed the costumes for three of my films.

So, I meet Tommy who is patently the wrong sort of gay for me and I politely leave the launch party of his space (Peter Dunham in attendance leaving a trail of acrid mucus behind him)  look, these people think they are sooo much better than the average shop keeper/sales assistant.

People who sell art in galleries always think rather grandly of themselves.

After that first meeting I was determined not to go back to his ‘gallery’ but J&J wanted to see it before we had lunch last week so rather than wait outside I went in and there was Ellen (yes that one) and Tommy and his mother who had caught the frail Ellen in their web.  Ellen is well-known for her love of collecting extraordinary furniture.  Every vintage furniture salesman in town prays for her patronage.

So I say hello to Tommy and his mother but they look horrified and the mother ducks my attempt to kiss her (as we have before) or warmly greet her.

Their disdain is palpable.

A night later I bump into the aunt, who tried setting me up with Tommy, and the aunt’s girlfriend who I rather unfairly make the focus of my irritation.  Knowing that this is misdirected I apologize but they decline my apology.  The drunk, inflated aunt starts in on me…with rather disastrous consequences.

I know rather too much about this devious woman for her to start telling me what she and others THINK about me.

Do I care?  No.

JBC and I met Ellen years ago in NYC and spent some time with her.  I don’t need a repeat performance.   It’s not hard to be nice Tommy.

Still so happy to have bumped into Maia and Simon.

Mended the gate at the top of the drive and adding an electric opening device.   Having the chain link fence covered with green canvas.  Now I can wander naked all over the property without nosey neighbours having opinions.

Nothing else to report.   Oh, I had like Manhunt date number 16 yesterday.  Nice man.  Big smile.  The others were scarcely worth talking about.