Mohave Desert

Soho House.  LA.  Misty morning on the 13^th floor facing east overlooking the Pacific Design Center.  I think it’s going to be a beautiful day.

I will write a six-month review of the LA House sometime soon but as of August ’10 everything is perfect in the paradise they have created here.   During the day it is mellow and there are, thank god, few people hanging out this early in the morning.

So far my return from Europe has been very uneventful.  I have thrown myself into therapy.  My head is cleared of all recent obsessions and I am going to the Toronto film festival with Charlie in September.    Phillip’s will sell the remaining art I have this winter and then, hopefully, I can pull myself out of the financial malaise that has blighted most of this dismal year.  Me and a million other Americans.

I am eating a huge English breakfast.  The grilled tomatoes remind me of him.

So, what of him?   He returned to his life in NYC and our ‘relationship’ is in abeyance.  Without doubt I will miss him and do on occasions (kissing him) but only when I compare him to what is on offer here for me.  I mean..the gays I have to choose from.

Anna Albelo and I spent the day together yesterday.  She is exhilarated by the fantastic attention her new film Hooters is getting.  She deserves it.   We ate a late lunch in China Town then went to an al fresco screening of Withnail and I at the Palihouse.  It has been so unseasonably chilly here in LA, we left after 40 mins shivering and in general discomfort – pillows smelt of beer.  We ended up at SHLA where we met a couple of well turned out gays that I really struggled to find anything in common with.  They did not mean to be clichéd but sadly..they are.   I understood that my experiences, history and personality are hard for anyone to deal with let alone a couple of sweet gay men who have a specific lifestyle that I cannot seem to make mine.

Before we left I bumped into Orian Williams the producer of Control (Joy Division) and his friend.  They had been playing footie at Rod Stewart’s house.   I like Orian.

The preceding day I was in the Mohave Desert shooting my scenes in a small, low-budget TV series about a future world of cannibals and gunrunners.  The heat was unbearable.  When it came to shoot my scene my brain was totally scrambled in the searing 110-degree heat.    My lines vanished in the rivulets of sweat and parched throat.

I was impressed by just how many people my friend had persuaded to work with him for nothing.  Boys love that sort of thing:  guns, motorcycles and sexy Asian girls.   I had an AK 47 to play with.  It took me an hour or so to feel comfortable with it.

The rest of the cast were real actors and sat around talking auditions and managers and the Asian crew asked each other about the community of Asian actors they knew.  They said things like, “Do you know Eddy Woo?  John Chan?  Margaret Cho?” etc.

We sat in an old air steam type trailer that, as you can imagine, was a big metal box in the desert..not exactly practical.

The little dog stayed in LA with Hillary who let me in at 3.30am when I finally got home.

As for my darling little dog?  He really didn’t like sharing me with the companion.  He likes me all to himself.

I shared last week in therapy how my time away with the companion in Europe had made the impossible seem possible.   That a sexual relationship with another man where I remain present at all times could, indeed, be part of my narrative.  That even though we were occasionally snippy with each other if one compares our time together on vacation with what I have heard since from others..well, we did excellently.   We only had one big fight, on the street in London.   Two men shouting at each other but we patched it up and made a potentially destructive moment into something worthwhile.

I never knew, before I went away, the joy of ‘make up’ sex.

Since coming home I slept over at an ex lover’s house but we just lay in the same bed.  I am not ready to have sex with anyone else but equally I don’t like being on my own at night.  This is what I miss most, waking up in the morning holding familiar flesh.   Listen..do I think I will see him again?  Certainly, but it will never be the same.   After such a thrilling adventure the reality of who he is and what I am comes into hard focus..different people at different stages of their lives who came together for the most passionate of moments and are now friends.

I am sure a bunch of other things have happened since I last wrote my blog but this, for the time being, is all I can remember.