Categories
Gay Rant

Middle Ages

Before I start today’s rant I must just share with you how beautiful it is in Malibu.  The house is calm, the colours are peaceful and dreamy.  The misty canyon is slowly clearing to reveal the ocean below.

Unusually there is a TV and it’s nice to hear it babbling in the background so I don’t feel so alone.  I woke up too late this morning to go to my therapy group.  Thirty minutes too late.  Perhaps all I need is a TV and a little dog to be happy?  I have been wondering since I returned from Europe what or how life will deliver next.  Obviously if I were in NYC I would be enjoying the tail end of my relationship with him.  Oh, I don’t know.

The insurance man came yesterday to discuss the burglary that happened here in Malibu before I left for Europe.  He was polite and thorough.   A friend popped by to take me to lunch, a young Japanese actor.  We ate at the new Cuban place nearby.

I spent the afternoon imagining how the house might look if I made the essential changes I want to make before I put it on the market this autumn.  I drove down to see how the new road is progressing.  They have already carved out the route and huge yellow earth movers are shifting tons of debris from the 26-year-old slide.   It excites me to see the changes.  Driving up Rambla Pacifico is really beautiful overlooking the northern Malibu shores, past vineyards and the vast Santa Monica mountain range.  As I have said before, the road makes sense of why these homes were built here.  I was sure when I bought the house that one day the road would be repaired so seeing it happen gives me a huge sense of relief.

Went out for dinner with friends last night, they had an elderly black labrador who the Little Dog fell in love with and tried humping.  He had such fun!  Running around their lawn with his new girl friend.

Something funny happened yesterday morning after therapy.  One of my co-conspirators (kinda famous) came up to me and told me that if I ever saw him in public that I shouldn’t speak to him.  That my fame as a sex addict might reveal him as the same.

The news on the TV is all about missing boys, bigamy and bombs.  For many people just like me yesterday’s great news was the over turning of the morally reprehensible proposition 8.  A federal judge declared California’s ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional Wednesday, saying that no legitimate state interest justified treating gay and lesbian couples differently from others and that “moral disapproval” was not enough to save the voter-passed Proposition 8.

Even though marriage has been small part of my long story I have never really considered marriage between me and another man a possibility.  If I stay in Malibu on the side of a mountain I am never going to meet anyone.

Meeting someone.  Why has that become so important to me?  Why have I abandoned my desire for glorious isolation?  I suppose the very fact that for the past few months I have felt connected to someone has woken in me the desire to share what I have and learn to be a pair rather than a single.  Of course this happened rather too late in the day.  I miss him because he is intelligent and funny and warm and forgiving and when I am with him I feel complete.  A rare combination.  NYC is not far away but I will stay away because he has to make sense of his new life.

I must spend the morning putting the house together for new renters.  The last renters left the house looking beautiful.  Some people just leave a really nice feeling in the house.  It is easy to remember only the bad renters and forget the good ones.  I have been jammed solid with renters this year and most of them were appreciative and delightful.  For that, this morning, I am very grateful.

Categories
Gay Rant

Ecstasy

You know if I ever relapsed on anything it is likely to be ecstasy.  After nearly 14 years of abstinence I am hankering the oblivion of an overwhelming high.

The sinking, bubbling rush of great e.   Sinking into the warmth, the clock ticking,

The moment when we are connected to the men and women around me moving as one, abandoning my individuality, my sense of self for us.   The vanishing point, the music throbbing, the sweat flowing.  I have already stowed anything valuable elsewhere:  my watch and wallet.  I don’t want to have to worry about anything.  I catch the eye of a beautiful boy on the dance floor, he is glistening too.   We find each other and I can smell him, taste his lips.  My jeans tighten around my legs and groin.

The music elevates us, I know him more perfectly at that moment than I have ever known anyone.   There is a moment of silence, just a beat but the silence becomes interminable.  I can hear my lungs fill with air, his lips open, I can see his teeth.  His black hair stuck in thick bangs over his white skin, his blue eyes looking at me.  Focused on me.

All through my twenties I took drugs recreationally.  Always at weekends, with friends all over London and New York.  The finding and buying and taking of the little pill.   I am the first one on the dance floor.  There are a thousand gay men around me and it is so fucking gorgeous, so fucking glamorous.  I am slim and agile, my arms are long and muscular, my hands are behind my head then they are up in the air above me playing in the light.  I know how delicious I look.  Passed from one man to another, passed from the arms of one man to another.  Kissing the ones I want, briefly.  Kissing the men I want as the music slows and panting, filling my head with the thoughts of the men dancing around me.

Drugs gave me so much more than a human could ever give me.  For a few moments I am granted a reprieve.  No thought, no care, nothing.  Just me and the moment.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1hzXKcQrg0&feature=related]

Categories
Love

Mohave Desert

Soho House.  LA.  Misty morning on the 13th 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.

Anna Albelo

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.

Categories
Hollywood Malibu Rant

Doing

Palisades, Coffee Bean.  Free Wi-Fi.  6am.

Without much effort I achieved a great deal yesterday.

I woke early..one of the benefits of jet lag I suppose.  I sat down first thing and wrote a long list of things to do and accomplished most all of them.

Started the day at my regular Wednesday morning therapy meeting.  Breakfast with the boys..usual crowd.  Later I told friends how happy my long trip away had made me.  It had been a reminder of how life could have been.  Cramming a 20-year relationship into the past six months.   Warts an’ all.

Ending up as friends…that’s a good thing.   Funny to think just how intense, intimate, loving, abrupt, fiery and passionate one can be with just one small man.

Sent off script to a writers’ workshop that I would love to attend this October.  It’s my Brothers script, which is in bad need of development.  I originally thought that Pink could play the lead female.  Pink, now that’s an unwritten story.  What a gorgeous human being she is.

Met Luce the cleaning lady at the Malibu house.  Drove to supermarket, bought detergent, loo rolls, kitchen paper and pan scrubbers.   Paid water bill, looked at my huge phone bill incurred whilst in Europe and felt sick.

Went to bank and had $100 of charges removed from my account.  Bastards.

I don’t think I am going to be so lucky with AT&T.

Met with lawyer and dealt with stuff in Woodland Hills.  No time like the present to: get new iPhone and organize for lap-top to be repaired.

I ran into a delightful Brazilian talent agent intern whilst having bugs resolved in my sync..

After the chaos of The Grove I sat in John’s kitchen giggling about life.  I really am in a very good mood.

New renters arrived yesterday.  4 instead of 2 as contracted.  I have to go to house today and deal with this.   It’s such a bloody bore.  Renters can be such lying shits.

Had dinner at Unami Burger with Justin.  I ate crab.  He needs a manager..don’t we all?

Grateful for:  New Road.  Early Mornings.  Chilly Evenings.  You Tube.  Good Health.

Categories
Travel

Arizona

Stopping over in Phoenix.  The very best thing about this airport..free wi-fi.  Genuinely free.  Flight to Arizona on route to Burbank.    Excruciatingly early flight from Newark, but Newark seems so much closer to Manhattan than JFK.  It only took 15 mins. to get from the East Village to bag drop off in the rather elegantly designed 70’s terminal.

The flight promised to be bumpy but is anything but.  Smooth, calm, good coffee and cute neighbors.

Woke up early yesterday.  Too early.  Walked around Tompkin Square Park with the dog who just freezes when ever he sees a squirrel, transfixed by so many squirrels in the trees.  Once in the park he sits rather regally with me and refuses to run around with other dogs unless there is some sort of barking palava going on and then he’ll join in.

I met a very sweet man in the dog park yesterday, Greg.  He has a wire-haired puppy, incredibly good-looking with big brown eyes.   Greg or the dog?   New York is chock full of very sexy looking people and dogs.

On the walk home from the West Village to the East Village last night I was stopped by a very nice man who chatted with me and Dan and gave me his email address.  It is so very good for the soul to be noticed, looked at, validated – although I must keep that sort of behavior in check.  I imagine that the hunt for a bf is on again.

So, what of the mysterious travelling companion?   The one who loathes me writing about him?  Well, we are friends I suppose!   He is very supportive and helpful and encouraging.  He is off with his parents enjoying his family vacation.   That’s all there is to say.  We will see.  No plans to see each other any time soon.

I think that the little dog may just have farted..though I think it may be the humans in the row in front.  I spoke too soon about how comfortable this flight is.

Yesterday, after Greg and the dog park and coffee with Anna at Mud I had a busy day in the city.  I had morning meeting with auction house about selling the rest of my art, stopped in at Alexander McQueen and tried on a pair of terribly expensive trousers that I could not justify buying.   Dogs still interdit at Soho House so had lunch with Michael at the dog friendly Mercer, we bumped into Nadine Johnstone and her PR crew then randomly Meg Ryan who I had met at TED event last year.  That woman needs a job!  She looks great.

After lunch I had a quick nap, took dog for walk, had first of two dinners at the Hummus Place then met Dan over on West 4th for second dinner.

When I opened my email I found an offer to perform in another film!  Two in as many months.  I dare not think about acting as a late start career as it can be so painfully, miserably tough.  Actually, talked about just this issue with John Lyons last night.  He is off to London today to see Cary F’s director’s cut of Jane Eyre.  I would love to be a fly on the wall for that screening.

Anyway, let’s talk about me being an actor.  If I pull it off and make a career from it I would have come full circle as that, my dear readers, is how I started.    I am certainly unable to write at the moment.  I need to get out of my head and be a human doing rather than a human being.    Thinking too much causes me too much sadness and perhaps this writer’s block is just a sign!  Gods way of getting me out of the house and away from my laptop.

I really did speak too soon!  The flight is bumpy.  Yuk.

Categories
Dogs Gay Hollywood Malibu Travel

Little Dog? We eat those in our country..

Amelia (Lady Rizo)

Just spilled water all over my lap top which after a few shakes is now working again.  So clumsy today.  All over the place.

Firstly, I have to tell you THIS:  The NYC heat is frying my brain.

Now, I must tell you this:

I have been sitting on/keeping from you an insane and shocking moment the past couple of months.  I just didn’t know how or if I should even mention it.

One of my freaky Hollywood neighbors text me after we had dinner before I left California asking if I had ever ‘been intimate with the little dog?’ it was NOT a joke.

He intimated that he had ‘feelings’ for his kitten.

I really didn’t know what to do.

I urged him to get help.

This is just one of the many reasons I don’t want to go back to LA.  I missed my flight – overslept.  Had to buy another ticket.  It’s all the same.  There must be more insane/lonely/desperate people per square mile in LA than any other city in the USA.

I know that this might sound a bit racist but every time a Korean looks at the little dog I wonder if they are thinking what sauce they would eat him with.  Once, outside the Mud Cafe on 9th a Korean told me with a smug smile that she could not understand our absurd preoccupation with an animal that they grill.

Saw the Kids are Alright yesterday evening with Amelia.  We had a lovely lunch in Williamsburg.  We made plans after her genius performance at Joe’s Pub the previous night.  I had to walk over the boiling hot Williamsburg Bridge as it was unexpectedly closed to traffic.  Walking over the bridge made it all the more exciting adventure.

After our lovely lunch in Williamsburg– omelets and watermelon/mint juice we, Amelia and I hunted the shops for exciting sale items.  I bought socks and underwear at the 70% off Paul Smith Shop.

This is the performance from the night before:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtbfBrHH3KU]

 

Saw Amelia perform Lady Rizo with Jake.  He loved the show.

Afterwards we hung with Amelia and her husband at a small bar on Lafayette.

The following afternoon me and Jake bid our adieu.  I have absolutely no idea if or when we will see each other ever again.  We have not made plans.  We will see each other if it feels right I suppose.

Last night, the streets were boiling hot and humid.  At night the thunder, lightning and torrential rain cool everything down for a few glorious moments.

Anyway, The Kids are Alright: Annette Benning is marvelous in Lisa’s movie.  A totally convincing alcoholic dyke.   The other performances were wonderful too but Benning’s was by far my favorite..and there again was Mia Wasikowska!  Our Whitstable lunch condiment.  I assume she is well on her way to getting an Oscar, possibly next year?

Julianne Moore lacked control in A Single Man, her talent all over the place like a prolapsed labia.   Compare that asinine performance with the very genuine, tight..measured performance in the Kids Are Alright.  I would have preferred Olivia Williams of course but who the hell wouldn’t?

My ONLY gripe with the movie was the wholly unresolved issue of Ruffalo’s character who just vanished in a puff of metrosexual angst, ferociously seen off by Benning’s well observed impression of an alpha male.  Unfairly berating Ruffalo on her doorstep, telling him that he was an ‘interloper’.

He was the sperm donor.  After all they had been through, he should have been included in the family at the end of the movie.  The kids wanted a relationship with him.  It seemed unfair and churlish to jettison his character..although probably quite realistic.  After all, it was they that contacted him.  Moore who seduced him, Benning who suggested the ill-fated dinner at his house etc. etc.

I wish, when I had found my real dad he had been like Mark Ruffalo rather than the lying villain on offer.

Somebody suggested that if it had been a straight couple who had cheated with a surrogate mother..would the mother be part of the family?  Well,  if the kids wanted her..I suppose so.  It posed many interesting and complex questions about what family means.   What it could mean.

I loved everything about this exquisitely crafted movie but one thing above everything else totally blew me away:  all of the characters took turns being the persecutor/rescuer/victim.  Genius.  There was so much at stake for all of them.

Saturday after the movie met Ian at Soho House NYC, which was jammed with gays.  One particularly drunk, gay in swim short was making a total fool of himself.  He should have been chucked out but everyone was a bit scared of the repercussions I think.  Ate pork chops.  Took cab to The Phoenix, a gay bar in East Village.  Drank sickly diet coke.  Met 20-year-old Persian boy.  Nice for the ego.

This morning I saw Mike Z, a friend from LA, at the park whilst walking our dogs.  Now I am waiting on him to come pick me up for lunch.  He may forget.  I am really hungry.  Ravenous.

Ended up eating polish sausage on my own.  Never trust a drinker to do what they agree to do.

Busy week ahead.  No idea what’s in store.  All I know is that once I get home I am going directly to the new road to see it being built.  I can’t wait.

Categories
Dogs Fashion Gay Travel

St Tropez Redux/Cap d’Antibes

 

Understandably I totally erased from my memory the briefest of moments we spent in St Tropez.

There is something you should definitely know about St Tropez:  St Tropez is shit.

Two miserable hours in what could only he described as a hot Margate – the tackiest of British seaside towns.

Like Margate there were miserable old ladies with dyed, fluffy blond hair cut short over ruddy complexions eating styrene trays of limp French fries.

Crowds of hopeful ‘who wants to be a millionaire’ types sit silently looking over at the multimillion dollar yachts hoping, one assumes, that they will glimpse the filthy rich (with whom we were meant to stay) eating their three-leaf salads served by lithe flunkies.

In between the vulgar, plastic looking yachts and their brasserie bound spectators a torrent of fetid, badly dressed tourists divide the audience from their theatre.  Like an open sewer running through what once was paradise.

We drank coffee behind a defunct HSBC.  It was interesting that none of the ATM’s worked in a place that relies so profoundly on the buck, the yen, the mark and the pound.

Our original plan had included an extended stay in St Tropez but thankfully we did not.

Our final days on the Cote d’Azure were, at times, a little sad. Not only was our nearly month away together drawing to a close but after spending every single waking hour with one other person one becomes slightly worn by that other person..even if one really loves them.

In nearly three weeks we had traversed major cities in three countries and two continents with a little dog, far too much luggage (my fault) and my BIG BIRTHDAY.

Before we left Europe we had one final excursion to Cap d’Antibes.

As St Tropez is shit, Antibes is gorgeous.   We spent hours exploring this authentic little port.  This is what, I assume, St Tropez used to be like before Roger Vadim and Brigitte Bardot made it famous.  I wonder if this travesty will blight my darling Whitstable, made vile by it’s own success?  For that I feel partly responsible.

We happily wandered the tiny, cobbled streets until dusk then found a divine little restaurant called La Taverne du Safranier and ate St Pierre and Frito Musto.  The crowd: reassuringly posh.

On our drive back to Cannes we saw the tail end of the international firework festival exploding over the sea.  The beaches were crammed with half-naked young people grilling on makeshift bbq and playing unnamed ball games.

The train to the airport the following morning he fell asleep on my shoulder and when he woke up we chatted to a handsome, 18-year-old musician called Clovis.

The flight home was a little uncomfortable but once we landed we were swiftly processed through customs and immigration.

I watched four films on the plane:

Tom Ford’s A Single Man is without doubt one of the most indulgent movies ever made.  Tom should be an art director rather than a film director?   An exercise in style over substance.  The attention to detail (art direction and costume) was painful– though not quite as painful as the total lack of any human emotion throughout the entire movie.

Brokeback Mountain was also about gay men experiencing loss and stifled emotions.  The differance?  Brokeback is a wonderfully human film told with charm and compassion and a Single Man is not.  It’s odd isn’t it that two inarticulate cowboys made me cry buckets whilst an uptight English Professor with excellent taste could not.

Stephen Jones, the milliner, mentioned in an article for Vogue that Ford had lent heavily on Madonna during the making of the film and that is why it is perhaps so profoundly flawed.   There was some nice editing and camera work but it was like a huge fragrance commercial rather than a film about loss and love and yearning.

Irritatingly there is an unreasonable death..the protagonist: this SINGLE MAN could not grieve and make his partner’s death a part of his life…oh no..he had to die.

The boys he encountered remained unkissed and unfucked but in Ford’s world as long as your shirts are well pressed and you are drinking from a Lucy Rie mug…don’t get me started.  Even watching him take a shit..you just KNEW his shit didn’t smell of anything other than vetiver.

There was something chaste, restrained and totally chic about it all..and I use the word chic pejoratively, although I never, ever thought I would.

There were rather weak attempts at some polemic as Firth spars with Julianne Moore about the sanctity of gay love and his students about Aldous Huxley.

Firth’s performance is worth noting.  Unlike many others (I am not being deliberately contrary) who thought his performance ‘amazing’ it was Firth’s disregard, disconnect with/for the character he was playing that amazed me.  What a straight person thinks a gay person is.  The oft applauded and often awarded performance (as well-intentioned as it might have been) of a reserved gay English gentleman is in fact, like the rest of the film, totally heartless.

My guess is he actually had very little respect for Ford as a director who most certainly had no idea how to communicate with a classically trained genius like Firth.

After A Single Man I saw An Education again which is well worth seeing a second time and as it is so damned good.  Funny, well put together, brilliantly acted.

An Education followed by I love You Phillip Morris, which is definitely my kind of movie.  If you can…SEE IT!!!

He reminded me when I finished writing this that we also saw Polanski’s Ghost. What a load of old bollocks.

Disgorged at JFK.

10th street was lovely to come home to and Dan and I sat together as I debriefed him on the preceding three weeks.

Here I am back in New York.  The streets are hot and humid; the parks are jammed with sturdy men in silky shorts with huge smiles.   I am drawn to want to befriend all of them.

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Categories
Dogs Travel

Rocky Outcrop

The final day of my holiday with the mysterious travelling companion.  We are staying in Cannes then will make our way home tomorrow.   Will update you all on the tone of the past few days when I get some space between the adventure and me.

We arrived in Cannes yesterday afternoon.  Last night I ate salad Nicoise in a small brasserie behind the Majestic that I enjoy whenever I have been here for the film festival.

The last time I was here was when Suzanna and I rented that house in Seillans.  I had driven to Cannes to take Dicky to the station curtailing his time with us.  After a walk around the harbor he decided to stay.  Now, THAT vacation was hard.  Surly children, love affairs and God knows what.  From what I can remember, I seem to have paid for the lions share of that holiday…for eight people!

Cannes, here we are again.  We chanced upon Suites Hotel on the Blvd Camot.   It’s like a hotel from the future!  The bed linen is really crisp and expensive feeling, the room is huge and well laid out and the bathroom and toilet have a pod like quality.  It might be described as flexible accommodation.  There are Japanese type raffia screens that divide the room if so required and even though the colors and fixtures are not to my taste it is incredibly comfortable and ergonomic.  The television moves around on wheels, there are a desk and a daybed.

 

Our room in Canadel at the Hotel de la Plage looked much nicer than it turned out to be.  The bed was uncomfortable, the room was noisy and the breakfast unbelievably expensive and not, as we first thought, included in the price.  Consequently, we paid eighteen Euros for a basket of bread.  The day before I had spent only twenty Euros in the market feeding us both for the entire day.

I have really enjoyed the last week here in France more than our time in London, mostly because everything, apart from Cannes and St Tropez, was new and unusual.   Showing someone around your life can have its drawbacks.

Yesterday, on our way to Cannes from Canadel-sur-mer we spontaneously stopped off at a cliff overlooking a small bay.  We scrambled through the brush over hot red stone to a rocky outcrop and swam in crystal clear waters.  The little dog watched from a shady ledge.  The sea was teaming with tiny, silver fish skimming the surface looking for food.

You know, there were times when I was with JBC, toward the end of our 7 years together, when we would find ourselves in some remote, beautiful place and I would hanker to be with someone I truly loved.  That this maybe beautiful but to make it perfect one must share the moment with a man that I loved.

Dicky

There is something dismal about looking at a wonderful view and not have a lover by your side.  I think, during this past week, we may both have felt that.  To be with someone familiar, hopeful and in love.

We did not stop for lunch after the swim so by 5ish I was exhausted and desperate for water.  At moments like these I feel like I may have become Uncle Monty from Withnail and I.   Monty, the tenacious old queen who pursues Withnail with gay gusto.  Example: the day before yesterday the car had been laden with food to eat and water to drink.  Yesterday, with the companion in charge, the cupboard was bare.  Instead of just buying more food I sort of expected my companion to think ahead and do as I do.  To no avail.   A sticky wicket that one..expecting.

Like leaving your fingers in the car door to prove how selfish someone is when they squish them.

Do you know the film Withnail and I?  It used to be a cult film.  Uncle Monty arrives in the freezing country cottage where Withnail and his friend have escaped from London.   They have no money; unable to light a fire, nothing to eat and both look utterly miserable.  Within seconds of Monty’s arrival the table is groaning with food, the fires are roaring in the hearth and the lighting is perfect.

Unlike Monty, and men like him, I have a limited desire to provide and make perfect day after day.   I foolishly expect him to think ahead when he just can’t.   It is not in his nature.  It’s not his fault.  You see, I have a fantasy that includes being looked after as well as I look after him or others.   It is a fantasy, it is unachievable, and it is my role and my role alone.  I have only myself to blame when even the most simple of expectations remain unfulfilled.   If I want water in the car then I must buy it, if I want delicious food then I must go to the market.

As vacations draw to a close there is the inescapable dread of going home.  We return to very different scenarios.  He climbs back into the bosom of his family with yet another vacation and I will peel off elsewhere to make something happen with that extended family of AA men and women who have become my solace.

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Categories
Travel

Sanary Sur Mer – Canadel Sur Mer

Sanary Sur Mer

The last few days of our great adventure.   We left Sanary and the Hotel de la Tour yesterday morning taking time to stop at the market to buy chicken, fruit, macaroons and a delicious loaf of artisan bread.  Fruit included huge white peaches, yellow plums and sweet apricots.

We loved Sanary Sur Mer and were delighted to discover that Aldous Huxley lived there.  After 1933, when Hitler came to power, dozens of German intellectuals took refuge in what was then just a sleepy fishing port – amongst them Bertolt Brecht and Thomas Mann.

The road along the coast is not nearly as busy as one might expect.   We drove through Toulon which was badly bombed during the 2nd World War and onto the Iles d’Hyeres where we ate the delicious chicken and fruit on a huge beach and swam in very warm water.   The little dog is not allowed on any of the beaches so we smuggle him everywhere in his little bag where he sleeps contentedly.

After lunch I call Edouard who, by amazing coincidence, lives a mere hour away from where we were swimming so we arranged to stop in on him and his visiting Australian friends.  Edouard’s parents house is a Provencal gem.  A huge pool overlooking the ocean, hundred year old terracotta tiles and elegant furnishings.

Nearby we found a small hotel for the night called the Hotel de la Plage recommended by the Guardian Newspaper (described as Cheap and Chic) where I am now sitting at 8am under the unusually fragrant Oleander writing this and answering emails.

We joined Edouard and the Australians for a lazy afternoon swim in the tiny bay.

After our delicious swim they drank chilled rose and I citron presse.  The young men tidying the beach were, as usual, gorgeous.  The companion noted that Europeans are generally hairless.  As the sun set we lazily climbed the hill back to Edouard’s house and they grilled Daurade Royale for dinner which was totally delicious.

The Australians are singers.  Julia Gurry and her brother are Melbourne based folk singers and are currently touring France this Autumn.  Abby Dobson was also at the house as she is dating Julia’s brother.  Abby used to be the singer in a band called Leonardo’s Bride and had a huge hit with a sweet love song in the 90’s called Even When I’m Sleeping.  Abby entertained us with astrological analysis.  Apparently Cancer’s are prone to be moody.  Who knew?

The more tired I get the worst my stick shift driving becomes.   The car is full of dirty underwear.  Must find laundry.

We were meant to be staying with friends in St Tropez, people I had royally accommodated when they were visiting LA..anyway, they have totally let us down.  Really puts one off hosting anyone ever.

Occasionally dip into the Huffington Post but too depressing and bleak and all those damned pop up advertisements!   Arianna addicted to bad news and gloating…too many tabloid elements.

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Marseille to Sanary Sur Mer

Sanary, La Hotel de la Tour.

The South of France is my kind of South and my kind of France.

After a delayed, bumpy, listless, sanguine (huh), laconic train-ride to Marseille with little to eat other than the ham and cheese I bought at Monoprix we finally arrived on the Riviera at 2 in the morning.

Of course the taxi driver tried to charge us 20 Euros for a 6-euro trip but I refused point-blank to give in to his extortion.

Marseille is the oldest city in France.

The Hotel Tonic, accommodation that Eric very kindly found for us, was directly on the Vieux Port, which, unsurprisingly, was less romantic than I remembered it when we – Richard Green and I – visited here 20 years ago.

At 3am bawdy groups of handsome Arabs sit around the harbor, some wearing dejellaba, gesticulating and smoking.

We walked the dog then fell into two tiny beds and fell fast asleep.

The first part of the first day was incredibly frustrating.

Our plan to rent a car and drive to Nice was scuppered by Hertz et al who said they had no cars.  They told us gravely that there were in fact no cars to hire in the entire region!

After the preceding days of London drama we fell into an immediate funk.  Being forced to stay an extra night in Marseille, getting on each other’s nerves.  When we finally returned to the Hotel Tonic I slumped into the elevator and told him that I wanted to go home.

Tired and demoralized after all that had happened in London, unable to rent a car, sleeping in a miserable room, not hearing from the people we were meant to be staying with in St Tropez..

As it turned out it was really the best thing that could have happened.

Circumstance has a rather wonderful way of shape shifting.

Firstly, the good people of the Hotel Tonic upgraded us from our tiny room to a huge room in the attic with a majestic bathroom.

Once there we set about trying to rent a car on-line and immediately did so.  The car paid for, as was a train from Nice to Paris on Thursday, we could relax for the first time in 48 hours.    I unpacked my suitcase, had a long shower and washed the little dog.

Once settled, we decided to walk up the steep hill to the Notre-Dame de la Garde, the church with the huge golden angel on it overlooking all Marseille.

On our way there we explored the tiny, cobbled streets, leaving the tourists at the port, having my hat blow off my head many times in the refreshing gusts of wind that grew stronger as we climbed the hill.

It occurred to me, once we got there, that my climbing Runyon and praying was obviously a very human spiritual solution.  Climbing clears the mind, exhausts the body and once at the top one is somehow prepared to pray.

There was a beautiful boy leaving the church when we arrived, pulling his shirt off for the decent.   He had fluffy black hair and perfect disk like nipples.   We were both entranced.   Walking on either side of him two older men complimenting his perfect body.  There was something utterly erotic yet innocent about all three of them.

Dogs not allowed in the church I briefly sat on my own and prayed for serenity.

On the way down the hill we chanced upon and made a reservation at the Passarelle on the rue du Plan Fourmiguier, a small yet intriguing looking restaurant tucked behind the Radisson Hotel on the Vieux Port.

I knew immediately that the Passerelle would make us both very happy.  With blue and white awnings over the decked al fresco tables and chairs it all looked reassuringly authentic.  As if to prove my point a very chic woman was cooking in the kitchen and took our reservation.

We discovered, quite by chance, a famous bakery called Four des Navettes on the rue Sainte that has sold scented loaves and hard, rose smelling/tasting bread sticks since 1781.  I bought the hard sticks of byzantine ecclesiastical ‘bread’ and a sugary ‘brioche’ that was, in fact, a huge doughnut.  The bread sticks were disappointing…like eating deodorant.

After a well-deserved nap we dressed for dinner and walked the half-mile back to the Passerelle and ate the most delicious food in the most perfect circumstance.  I started with the salad of jambon Palme, melon, mozzarella, rocket and basil sprinkled with toasted seeds.   After my salad, a tagine of lamb and couscous (I hate the word garnished) but it was indeed garnished with a delicious stewed pear.  He ate grilled Loupe and ratatouille.

Unable to choose between the four deserts we ordered three of them.  Yogurt with honey, chocolate tart and fruit salad.

During the dinner there was a children’s fashion show, ten very sweet infants paraded, hand in hand in the most charming crocodile showing off very pretty, beautifully made dresses.

After eating every last mouthful we sat under the awning chatting for a very long time.  Drinking coffee and smoking aromatic French cigarettes.   The walk back to the hotel, past throngs of happy, drunk holidaymakers was a rather wonderful way to end what promised to be a rather miserable day.

We spent a very long time making love that night.  It was perfect. 

The following morning we woke late, fled to the station collected our car; kangaroo hopped (stick shift) back to the Hotel Tonic where he manhandled the luggage into the tiny Ka and off we went.

Weaving our way East along the coast we discovered La Ciotat a small tourist town where we saw yet another beautiful man with a perfect smile and even more perfect body/nipples than the man on the steps leading from the church.

There were beaches and beaches covered with equally beautiful, tanned men…we gazed out of the car longingly.  Gay men on vacation in the South of France looking at beautiful men.  What could be more normal than that?

Interestingly and appropriately for us La Ciotat was the home to the first publicly projected movie by the Lumiere Brothers.

After a few hours of driving we settled into Sanary Sur Mer, a simple town that transformed at 7pm into a huge craft market and fete.  In the Victorian bandstand a French rock band sang very spirited covers of amongst many, many others Maroon 5, The Band and Santana.

I upset the kebab shop man by buying kebab meat for the dog.  The kebab man was a rude, nasty piece of work and I delighted in feeding the little dog his dinner even though the traveling companion ate half of it before the little thing had a chance.

We ate dinner in a small restaurant near the town center called (I can’t remember sorry).  We started with the Moule Marinere then had the freshly caught grilled Tuna.  He had the Paella, which had rabbit and chicken and huge prawns in it.

Two glasses of Rose for him only cost three euros.  This made him very happy as he is incredibly careful about money.

Walked around the port back to our hotel and fell into a deep and immediate sleep.

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