Month: June 2014

Categories
Gay Love Queer Travel

Provincetown MA – Ten Things To Do

Meat Doll, John Derian

Provincetown, for those who have never been, is basically one long Victorian street… Commercial Street.   Primarily an LGBT resort most everyone seems welcome here.  At all times of night and day Commercial Street teems with pedestrians, bicycles and many dogs.  Cars edge cautiously amongst the chaos.   During the season (June-September) there are themed entertainment weeks (Saturday to Saturday) for gays, lesbians and trans visitors.

Near the Town Hall at town’s center there are bars, candy stores and tourist favorites like The Lobster Pot serving lobster rolls and oysters.  Provincetown has become an unlikely hen night/bachelorette party destination.  Rowdy, drunk girls dressed in cheap veils patrol the streets screaming raucous songs and hitting men on the head with large dildos… true story.  Drag queens, by the way, love dildos and hate Bachelorettes.

My Two Mums

Commercial Street is divided into East and West Ends.  It’s probably best to work out which end is which within minutes of arriving here.  So, facing from the bay where the ferry disgorged… the west will be to your left, the east to your right.  I start my day, every day at 7am, after my beach walk with the dogs… unleashed, on the patio at:

1. Joe‘s

170 Commercial St, Provincetown, MA 02657  Phone: 508 487-6656

Hours: 7:00 am – 7:00 pm

West End.

Delicious, fragrant coffee served by an attentive bunch who remember both your name and what you want.  Joe’s is a  staple breakfast haunt for most of the cool ‘townies’ (locals).  It’s common to see straight-backed, imperious Andrew Sullivan arrive with his husband on their ancient dutch bikes or watch John Waters sail elegantly by dressed in Issy Miyake.   Ryan Murphy and his adorable family chowing down on their morning baked goods.

Try the delicious, freshly baked almond croissant… but get there early to avoid disappointment.

A perfect place to eavesdrop!  Who fucks who?  Learn all the local gossip:  “They bring their terrible taste from the suburbs…”  A great way to start the day with everyone who works or lives in Provincetown… and a few tourists.

Meet this man drinking coffee and eating his breakfast:

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2. Loveland

West End.

120 Commercial Street  Provincetown, Massachusetts 02657  Phone: 508 413-9500

Run by Josh Patner ex Rome based fashion journalist and stylist, this charming haunt is brimming with local and international art.  Possibly the chicest most eclectic store in town.  Beware!  By August almost everything has been sold.  Look out for beautiful and reasonably priced ceramics by:  Gail S. Browne.

I bought a beautiful vase by Gail Browne and a gorgeous 18th Century throw.

Gail Browne

3. Room 68

East End

377 Commercial Street, Provincetown, MA 02657  Phone: 617-942-7425

Room 68 is Eric Portnoy’s 21st century gift shop.  Originally out of Boston’s Jamaica Plain – 68 South Street, originating the store’s name.  Look for Debra Folz  ingenious extending ash table and more of her award-winning work.  For those drowning in bad art glass and cat portraits… Room 68 is a welcome high style lifeboat on the choppy sea of capey mediocrity – quite unlike any other found on Commercial Street… or on Cape Cod.

4. Canteen

Town Center

225 Commercial Street, Provincetown, MA 02657  Phone: 508  487-3800

Opened in 2013 Canteen continues its stunning success.  This charming restaurant is perfectly situated at the heart of Provincetown, offering a simple, unpretentious menu that capitalizes on local favorites like the ubiquitous Lobster Roll but served in a wholly original way.  Like the interior of this nautical themed dining room the food is fresh, clean and authentic.  The deep-fried smelt with tartar sauce are not everyone’s cup of tea… but I love them.  Order everything with re-fried Brussels sprouts doused in an aromatic balsamic reduction and remember to sit in the newly opened garden overlooking the dunes and the spectacular sunset.

5. Red Inn

West End

15 Commercial St, Provincetown, MA 02657  Phone: 508 487-7334

Away from the madding Provincetown crowd, either a 30 minute walk or a ten minute rickshaw ride is the legendary Red Inn.  Consistency, taste and prompt service make this elegant venue an essential but expensive must see.  Last night we ate perfectly prepared filet mignon, served by delightfully charming staff at the bar over looking the spectacular bay.  Older bearded gay men with their well behaved hounds sit on the terrace and drink cocktails.  One eats reasonably priced oysters during happy hour (4pm-5pm) or lounge in the very British country garden: lavender, roses and sweet-william perfume the early evening breeze.

Provincetown Garden

6. Mimere’s Homemade

Town Center

281 Commercial Street #4, Provincetown, MA 02657 Phone: 917 670-7561

Opened by ex-banker Andrew Hood just this year to sell his vast array of delicious home-made, seasonal jams and jellies using old-fashioned techniques.  I bought 6 different flavors including hefeweizen (wheat beer and orange) and red onion preserve.  The chunky peach jam is particularly delicious, slathered on crusty toast from the Pain D’Avignon French Bakery found at Provincetown Farmer’s market held every Saturday by the Town Hall.

 

7. Provincetown Film Festival

Town Center

Provincetown Town Hall, 260 Commercial Street, Provincetown, MA 02657  Phone: 508 487-7000

This years Provincetown Film Festival, hailed a huge success, attracting viewers from all over the world.  I met women from Europe and a couple from Australia who coincided their holiday with the film festival.   A well-organized and international feeling festival The Provincetown Film Festival grows in reputation every year.  This year I saw Andrew Sullivan rip a new ass hole in the makers of the ghastly Chad Griffin propaganda film: The Case Against 8, at a festival breakfast.   I couldn’t think of a better way to spend $25.

As I left the breakfast feeling exhilarated, I bumped into a huge and handsome man, I said, “Did you see that! Andrew Sullivan is my hero!”

He replied, “Me too, that’s why I married him.”

Andrew Sullivan at Ptown Film Breakfast

8. Fag Bash at The Governor Bradford

Town Center

312 Commercial St  Provincetown, MA 02657

I’ve already written at length about this wonderful, subversive spectacle.  A delightful Wednesday night basement party.  Arrive at 11pm, leave at 1am.  Wear your finest drag.  I expect the ghost of Leigh Bowery to make an appearance at any moment.  Remember, most everything closes at 1am in Ptown.

Tranny Fun at Fag Bash

 

9. John Derian

East End

396 Commercial Street Provincetown, MA 02657 Phone: 508 487-1362

The queen of decoupage Derian runs a tiny showroom a world away from his NYC empire.  It is packed with essential nick nacks at the back of his Greek revival Ptown home.  Black, $500 paper hollyhocks are not immediately alluring or justified… but… with time… anything is possible.  I love the meat dolls by Nathalie Lete and the papier-mache hippo head.  At night, as you pass by, envy his candle lit parties for Martha Stuart… and other gorgeous celebrities.

This boy will serve you.  His name is Kevin and he is DIVINE.

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10. Monument Barbershop

West End

145 Commercial Street, Provincetown MA Phone: 508 487-5151

Once a week I drop into see the charming, flirtatious Joey to have my hair and beard trimmed.  It’s essential whenever you are anywhere for longer than a week to locate a great barber and Joey is he.  Very reasonably priced, very funny and he’s… totally gorgeous.  In fact, I’m off there, right now to get my neck shaved.

Quebec Boy

 

 

Categories
Queer

Fag Bash/Last Weekend

Kevin Campos at Fag Bash

There’s a party thrown every Wednesday night in Provincetown called Fag Bash.  I popped in late last night.  It’s perhaps the best $5 you can spend in this little town.  It seems that everyone (crammed in the tiny dark basement) takes hours applying meticulous makeup and dressing in gorgeous goth/romantic costume.  Thick black eye liner, masks and glittering lipstick.   Organza capes, knitted horns for devilish girls and boys, a carnival of creative wonder.

This procession begins weaving its way up Commercial Street at 10 o’clock and back again, disheveled and drunken, after the decadent party in the wee hours.  It’s so heartening and invigorating to see.  Inspiring!  I’m going to dress up next week.  Count me in.  She’ll make an appearance.  I promise you.

Thank God for Fag Bash!   Earlier,  yesterday evening,  I had to sit through perhaps the worst gay themed film… ever.  Tom Dolby and Tom Williams’s co-directed travesty: Last Weekend.

Billionaire, Tom Dolby is the Dolby sound system heir.  In lieu of any real talent he has bought himself a free pass into the film industry.   Last Weekend is his debut film made after the crashing disaster of his first novel… I’m assuming another vanity project?  Tom embraces the ‘right to fail’.  Why not?  Tom and his husband and their two surrogate daughters have nothing to worry about.  It really doesn’t matter how miserable their artistic endeavors… because money is no object.

Co-Directors Tom and Tom arrived at the opening night screening wearing their crisp navy/cream linen suits, their Hollywood team in tow… their ‘award winning’ producers, their manager; my old friend Danny Halstead and their leading lady Patricia Clarkson.  Tom introduces the film with a sullen one liner and so it began… the dirge.

After a confusing opening moment… Clarkson gazing wistfully, maybe perplexed (perhaps she has cataracts) over Lake Tahoe, family members arrive for Memorial Day Weekend.  They are served by a phalanx of miserable latino staff.  There are bad jokes about celebrity, alcoholism and how ‘crazy’ Clarkson’s character is.   The pace is languorous and indulgent, the characters are clichéd and increasingly… unwatchable.

After twenty minutes the roof of The Provincetown Town Hall begins to sag with disappointment.  Members of the audience leave.  Feet shuffle, somebody drops their change.

Patricia Clarkson is an accomplished actress, yet in Last Weekend she is left flailing, undirected, spewing appalling lines in badly constructed scenes. Left to her own devices… she resorts to pleading hand gestures (elephant’s testicles) and shrill, post menopausal delivery.  The director of photography does her no favors with unflattering close-ups and clumsy framing.  I felt so sorry for the actors.  Trapped in trite scene after trite scene.  Forced to act out the life of the writer/director… was it shot in the Dolby family lake house?

Heartless, bereft of emotion, contrived.

My friend, the talented actor Zachary Booth plays a screen writer… obviously Dolby.   Yes, another film about a conflicted writer.  Why can’t these people have real jobs?  Lazy writing by rich, entitled, white gay men.   Neither director seems to have any compassion for their characters, just as they had no compassion for the Provincetown audience.   This film is terrible and no amount of Dolby gay millions could save it.

These two local events (Fag Bash and The Provincetown Film Festival) serve as a metaphor for gay life in the USA.  On the streets and in the bars the club kids are brimming with creative genius, embracing modernity. Wearing their extraordinary costumes they stand in opposition to mediocrity.  Last Weekend is what affluent, heteronormative, white gays serve up as ‘gay culture’.  My fear is that the obscenely rich and bourgeois Tom Dolby and his terrible film will be used as evidence for what queer life is like now rather than the vibrant party thrown by the disenfranchised in the dingy Fag Bash basement.

Categories
Auto Biography Love Queer Whitstable

Father’s Day

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Here is my father, the year he met my mother in Margate and Herne Bay.

Categories
Queer

Two Women From Manchester

On the Phone

As the elderly gray-haired gays tittle-tattle at Joe’s Coffee shop on Commercial Street, making snide comments about those they like and those they don’t… like so many teenage girls, bullying, name calling and whispering. The lesbians remain dignified and polite.  They say good morning or make easy conversation. They comment on the weather or ones choice of croissant in such a way that improves the quality of the day.

Not all lesbian are like this of course but my experience here in Provincetown is irrefutable.

We chanced upon a lesbian memorial at Herring Cove a few nights ago, a memorial for a woman who died last October.  There were photographs of her set around the fire on sticks.  I sat with her wife of 30 years and she reminisced.  She told me their story.  I wondered how she would cope on her own.

“Oh, you get used to it.”  She said.

I didn’t believe her.  Dude sat on her lap.  She loved Dude and Dude loved her.  We ate her Red Velvet gluten free cup cake and sprayed ourselves with insect repellent.

Memorial

Last night I stopped for a slice of pizza with Brent and Derek, my crime fighting buddies.

Derek

We’d had a long day, I was up at 5am.  I’d spent an hour or so on the phone with lawyers.  I spent time answering emails.  I filled in forms and scanned them.   I made time to have a pair of sandals made here:

Sandle Workshop

Like most days I walked the dogs in the graveyard with Benoit.  I walked the dogs on the beach.  I walked the dogs to Joe’s coffee shop.  I walked the dogs to the West End and back east again.  Dude is still fat.  The Little Dog is lithe and eager.

Dude in a Grave

I found a beautiful dusky gray/mauve tamarisk at Captain Jack’s Wharf.

Tamarisk

Brent and I poked our noses into John Derian’s home/shop.  His little shop of curiosities.  He sells French glass cloche and rattan and decoupage.  Who buys decoupage?  Everyone apparently.

I ordered the slice of Pizza and sat with Derek.  It was delicious.  As I was leaving, I heard a Northern English accent.  Two elderly women from Manchester… eating the largest pizza I have ever seen.  They looked embarrassed.

They said, “This is too big for us, d’you want some?”

I overcame my English reserve and sat with them and ate their pizza.   They were retired PE teachers from Bolton.  They had lived together the past 15 years.  They had a small house and garden and took the bus into central Manchester which, they assured me, was very safe and had loads to do.

I wanted to know what they were doing with their retirement.

They said they went to concerts and the theatre and sat outside ‘weather permitting’ enjoying Manchester’s ‘cafe society’.  They rode their bikes and looked after their cats.  Mostly they travelled, this year they had been to The Galapagos and seen the giant tortoise and snorkel with penguins, they had taken a safari in Africa and showered out doors under the stars.  They had visited a brother in Sydney and driven to Melbourne along the coast, like I had with that beautiful boy… all those years ago.

I found myself talking about getting older.

“Old people aren’t the same as when I was growing up.” I wondered.  “Yes,” they said, “Not the same at all.”

“They retired and spent time just waiting to die.” I said.  “Yes.” They nodded in unison.

I told them about my grandmother who was widowed when she was in her 50’s and at that very moment became an old lady.  Cut her hair short, permed it and let it whiten.   She died when she was 96.  I didn’t cry.  My mother did, she sobbed like I sobbed when the big dog was killed.  She was inconsolable, as was I about my dog.

I thought a great deal about my grandmother, chatting with these dear old lesbians.  I wondered how she could have lived so long feeling so miserable, stuck in one town, complaining about this and that… isolated from all her daughters (how can a mother hate her own daughters?) other than my mother.  I remembered just how much she didn’t want to die.  She was terrified.  I wondered if my uncle Norman killed her.  There was little love lost between them and he was with her at the end.  She would have been too weak to fight.

We said our goodbyes and good nights.  I’m sure I’ll bump into them again.  I hope I do.  I wish I was an old lady.

The light is beautiful here today.  The sea is sparkling.  I want for nothing.  Happily looking over the Atlantic, the Cape swinging around me teaming with life.  Lobsters, basking sharks, oysters, cod and herring.  I had fish and chips for lunch yesterday.

Here are my finished sandals:

New Sandals

 

Categories
Gay NYC Queer Travel

Provincetown Changes

Penny Arcade

Gay men in Los Angeles told researchers that they believed a culture that focuses on one-night stands and partying, that emphasizes perfect bodies and good looks, that prizes material possessions, that sees gay men tearing each other down as they compete for attention and that pressures gay men to fit in or conform is bound to create unhappiness, stress and unhealthy behaviors.

The word on the street in gay resort/haven Provincetown?  The straights are coming, they are coming thick and fast, young affluent heterosexuals buying property, renting holiday apartments and day tripping.  I was reassured by a cool, 31-year-old, straight person yesterday that this was the heterosexual ‘tipping point’.  Of course (if true) the reasons are obvious.  The older more affluent crowd of gay men and lesbians who bought affordable homes here twenty years ago are simply not that interesting to a less ghettoized younger gay crowd who go to Fire Island or Mykonos where a good gay thumping time is assured, where they can find an affordable share for the summer… anyway, the drag is so much better the closer you get to NYC.

Provincetown Garden

Young straight men and women who used to actively avoid hanging in gay ghettos… or felt uncomfortable no longer have any reservation.  This, my dears is one of the more unexpected changes that comes with ‘integration’.  Our gay communities, gay clubs and gay bars will dilute as we become more heteronormative.

How do the gays feel about straight people buying into the gay and lesbian ghetto dream?  I hear grumblings from some, but what can they say?  We can’t restrict straight people from joining the party?  Before the great shift, the Obama ‘evolution’, the Blair/Mandleson equality bill I would regularly challenge straight people who came to our clubs and bars, wondering why they were there… if they understood why gays and lesbians created safe spaces for themselves… now apparently we all live in a safe space… together.

If the war is won do we abandon the notion of a safe space, a gay bar, an LGBTQ community? Is that what we were fighting for?  As it turns out, gay men are still living shameful and secretive lives… safely hidden from prying eyes.  No longer behind the blacked out windows of the gay bar but on the internet where we can fully reinvent ourselves as muscle-bound avatars, 10 years younger than we really are.

The gay bar, meanwhile… becomes a themed experience for enlightened neo-liberal heterosexuals.  After all, gay men don’t need to meet one another in real life when we can meet on-line, reducing our interaction before a sexual encounter to the barest possible exchange of relevant facts.  Hung? Looking? Party?

The same heterosexual land grab is happening in the Fire Island Pines gay community.  Straight people are buying and renting homes at a faster rate than gay people. Of course… the truth is, we never really owned the lions share of Fire Island Pines… it was always owned by straight people.  Three heterosexual families who control The Pines real estate market.

In San Francisco‘s iconic gay area The Castro we are facing extinction in our natural habitat, bought out/selling out to silicone valley billions.  What are we left with?  Our sad LGBT ‘pride’ parade: a blinded corporate-sponsored dinosaur serving only the breweries and distilleries, no longer a political defiance… no longer worth a pilgrimage by those newly out yearning to see gays en masse… the gay parade and all it seeks to celebrate merely adds to our woes, confirming the worst about who we have become.

Little Dog

How long will it take for Provincetown to lose its unique identity and become just another Cape Cod town? The Pines,  just another beach community on Fire Island?  How long will it take for our history to be lost, forgotten or ignored by apathetic gay white men who have no interest in those who came before?  The heroes who fought decades of violent oppression, the ‘gay plague’, who demanded equality… how long will it be until their names are erased?

Do you know who they are?  Harvey Milk… and…

The politics of invisibility.

As the quality of our lives collectively ‘improves’, as we ‘integrate’ due to the passing of progressive equality laws why are we still facing a crisis?  Why do gay men continue to struggle with life-threatening health problems at alarmingly high rates compared to straight men — alcoholism, drug abuse, depression, suicide, and sexually transmitted diseases.

Gay and bisexual men are still most impacted by HIV/AIDS and syphilis, they suffer higher rates of substance abuse, they are more likely to drink heavily later into life, and they are more likely to commit suicide and suffer major depression and anxiety and bipolar disorders.

Gay men with mental health problems are more likely to use illegal drugs and commit suicide. Or regularly using drugs and alcohol can lead to risky sexual behavior, which increases the likelihood of getting infected by an STD.

Our health problems, in other words, are feeding into each other, we’re literally killing ourselves through suicide, substance abuse and HIV/AIDS at higher rates than straight men.  Let’s say that again: We are killing ourselves at higher rates than straight men through suicide, substance abuse and HIV/AIDS.

Some gays are quick to point to the stresses of living as a gay man in an overwhelmingly straight world — one that passes anti-gay laws and constantly spews homophobic rhetoric — as a reason for mental health and substance abuse problems. With that argument, they are coming very close to saying that we are powerless victims who have little control over our own lives and choices, that homophobes have more power over us.

That’s a ridiculous notion — lethal and self-defeating.

Since homophobia still exists and is not going away any time soon, the victim theory, if embraced, dooms us to a life of external, homophobic stressors that forces us to drink too much, commit suicide too frequently and get depressed too often.

The quote is from the LA Weekly.  You can read it HERE.

 

Categories
Alcoholics Anonymous Gay NYC Queer

Fire Island Pines to Provincetown June 2014

Go, then! Then go to the moon-you selfish dreamer!

I left Fire Island on Wednesday.  Driving north with my Persian friend Iliad.  The clouds were low, the air muggy and thick.  We took the ferry from Orient Point to New London.  There was a British aristocrat on the ferry stitching needle point.  Beautiful raspberry and pistachio coloured yarn.

My intention is to return to Fire Island… maybe…. next month.  The last couple of days blighted by torrential rain and chilly winds.  Friends came, David visited from NYC for the day and Lorne made an appearance but mainly to fetch his forgotten/lost bag.

May proved to be chillier than I remember.  Memorial Day and the biscotti queens came and went.  John, the owner of the house arrived and made everything broken… work.  I cooked a huge dinner and he and his friends the Scots seemed to love it.  Andrew from Dover Street Market swept in wearing incredibly chic pants.   John baked Halibut en cocotte.

During the week those of us who stayed were thrown together at the Canteen (I think they call it The Cultured Elephant).  It’s true when they say one makes gay acquaintances in the city and gay friends on Fire Island.  I got to hang with the resort staff who are genuinely the sweetest, most handsome men… see the pictures above.   They have a grueling season ahead of them: working the bars, the clubs, the hotel and the restaurants.  Only the most robust will survive.  It’s a tough, unforgiving business serving entitled, demanding gay men.  The day before I headed North one of the newbies left the island in tears, torn apart by gay unreasonableness.

I met Joey the little person who is a particularly inspiring soul.  I was in awe of his ability to be the hugest man in his little body.  He has a captivating story.

Everyone has a Fire Island Pines story.   There are love affairs and breakups, tears on the boardwalk and fights in the elegant cedar homes.  There are couples and  thruples and orgies, there are undignified old men last gasping for their youth.  Wide eyed first timers arrive on the ferry, amazed such a place as Fire Island Pines exists.  I remember the day, the first day Joe-Baily brought me to Fire Island 25 years ago.  I will never forget it.

Everyone has a story.  I was told one hundred times by stick thin youths they were too fat or not pretty enough to meet the man of their dreams.  They told me boys talk to them in real life like they do on Grindr.  “Hung?” as an opening gambit.  “Party?”  “Looking?”  The single word pick up.  So lazy and charmless.  I did not envy them, these young boys… so far from serenity.   Of course, not all young gay boys are wracked with self-doubt.  I met young gay men who were comfortable and confident and conquering all… whilst the vulnerable fell by the wayside or let old men blow them at the dick dock.

There’s a degree of gay anarchy on the island.  Every one of the local laws are broken every day by almost everyone.

The AA meetings are vile.  The recovering alcoholics looking down their nose at those who drink and take drugs.   I met a dozen gay men, once sober who now drink… taken out by a beautiful boy and a meth pipe.

One story particularly moved and disturbed me.  A grey eyed, erudite black boy no more than 28 years old who works for a renowned artist.   We met on the beach.  He described his Fire Island experience, embarrassed to tell me he had encountered a great deal of racism during his time at The Pines.  There are few black people on Fire Island and now I know why.

We finally made it to P’town.  I had dinner with Benoit the night I arrived, we ate fish and chips.  The ex-gay story he wrote for the New York Times Magazine is now a film produced by Gus Van Sant, starring James Franco and Zachary Quinto.  I’m very proud of him.  Except… it’s another entirely white cast.   Why? Why? Why?

Yesterday, a local fisherman brought two pounds of freshly caught lobster knuckles.  We shucked for dinner.

The dogs loved Fire Island.  They miss it!  Dude and The Little Dog bounding up the boardwalk, chasing rabbits and deer.  They are a little more restricted here even though we live directly on the beach and they are allowed to walk unleashed.   Today we walked a mile or so to the West End and visited the pier shack where Tennessee Williams wrote The Glass Menagerie on a stolen type writer.

The Shack where Tennessee Williams wrote to Glass Menagerie

My favorite and the most obviously poignant Tennessee Williams line from The Glass Menagerie:

I didn’t go to the moon, I went much further… for time is the greatest distance between two places.

Which made me think momentarily about Jake Bauman who I kinda owe my love of both Cape Cod and the Catskills.  Both of whom he introduced me.  If he hadn’t mentioned them with such fondness… I wouldn’t have explored them years later.   There are times when I wonder about those crazy few months with Jake.  They sure seem indelible.   There are brief moments when I wish I could pick up the phone and ask him how he is and what his life is like now.  Then I think better of it and let the memory, the moment… the past… slip back into the black, bombazine black water of what was but could never be.

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