Categories
prison Rant Travel

Stealing Virginity

We are in Marseilles.   Bad hotel in the port but very welcome after our long journey from Calais.

Our trip?  A spontaneous event.  Bought a ticket and jumped on a train.  The train was packed and we were moved around a lot.  The dog was in good spirits. The coffee was delicious.  In Lille I ran to Monoprix and bought ham and cheese forgetting that Jake doesn’t eat cheese.

We sat next to very good looking man and his gf who I befriended.

The last part of my stay in London was irritatingly dramatic.  A largely drama free vacation morphed into the worst kind of melodrama.

Firstly, the iPod turned up.   Whether it was in fact stolen or not is another matter.  It was not my iPod.    Yes, you heard me.  It wasn’t even my iPod.  Yet, I felt incredibly responsible.  It was Jake’s iPod – and critically, if not found, would jeopardize my relationship with whomever the fucking iPod belonged to…Jake.   Pride before a fall.   My pride before my fall.

I have only myself to blame.

A little more information about the incident:

The cast of characters I mentioned yesterday included a tall spotty boy who was recently expelled from school for stealing a girl’s virginity in the school toilets.  Ruby, a small, fat girl with bright red hair with a nasty mouth and attitude – until she wants something of course, like a fag then she sweetens up pretty damned fast.  The ugly gay friend and his pretty Greek ‘best friend’ were perhaps the worst of the lot.

Paul, Phil’s long-term man friend explained to us how rude and impossible he found them all.   He told me that Ruby was a thief.  Actually he really fanned the flames once the iPod went missing.   It seemed like there was no other reasonable explanation.

Sure I over reacted but nobody tried to help.   Yet, it was none of my damned business.  The moment it went missing I offered to pay for it as if I were somehow responsible.  Why?

I had no reason to feel responsible for somebody else’s stuff.  Especially as they were drunk and had lost the damned thing.  I was sober and didn’t lose anything.    When I left my sunglasses in Whitstable I didn’t expect anyone to pay for them yet for some extraordinary reason the moment someone else loses something I feel as if it were my fault.

As I was sitting in the cell I had a series of catastrophic thoughts.  The dog was dead, my friend was dead, my stuff had been ransacked.  I sat on the edge of the bed blaming myself for introducing someone essentially blameless into a den of thieves.

As it turned out the kids had not stolen the fucking iPod and it was LOST.   I was angry with myself that I had brought a sweet, kind, good person into a den of thieves but as it turned out I brought a forgetful person and my temper into a largely innocent adolescent smoking den.

As much as I loathed them for their promiscuity, their smoking and rudeness I had no reason to jump to conclusions.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

There is an Indian woman taking very loud telephone calls on her very large phone with a very loud alarm that goes off with appalling regularity.   I think every train should have a mobile/cell free zone where other travelers can escape.

Delightful dinner with Charlie Parsons at Dean Street Town House.  Just me Jake, Charlie and delicious food.  Calves liver.  Bumped into at least twenty old friends on the streets of Soho including Tania who was in Clancy’s Kitchen.  Ended up at Soho House with Richard and his friend.

Today we are going to rent a car and aim toward Monte Carlo.  The streets at night around the port are transformed this morning.  I am wearing a brightly patterned Etro shirt and my black sandals.   I am tired but eager to get on the road.

Categories
Dogs Travel

Police Cell

Decided to stay an extra week in London.

Woke up at 11.30 this morning.  That is LATE for me.  Me!  Me who is usually up so early.  Anyway, we were going back to Whitstable today but I ended up spending the better part of my day at Chelsea Police Station.

Why?

You may well ask.

A drama unfolded at the house that included a cast of unruly, drunk children a lost iPod touch and me trying to enforce an adolescent exit strategy.  I mean, getting 5 unwelcome 15-year-old kids out of the house whilst Phil was at her Dad’s.  Anyway, it all ended up with me being arrested and taken to the police station and then being let go.

The short story is this:  I accused them of stealing an iPod touch.  They accused me of spitting at them, which is a total lie, but it had to be investigated.  So, I got cuffed and dragged to the police station.

Of course, our accusations were ignored.  Impossible to substantiate.

Firstly, can I tell you how utterly charming the policemen were in the station.  The  Desk Sergeant, the constables, the detective..all utterly considerate and thoughtful and even though I had to spend an hour in a cell it really did not matter.  Even the cell was clean, the toilet flushed and someone had stenciled a note for a drug ‘help line’ on the ceiling.

Much has changed since I was arrested 30 years ago.

Fingerprints are scanned, mug shots digital and every time I had to sign my name it was on a pad like you would find in a bank.  Of course there were the usual host of nutter types being held there but sadly, since the mental hospitals were closed down the police and prison service are used to hold the insane until they can be reclaimed by the broken mental health system.

The detective who interviewed me was really good looking.  Big blue eyes.

Now I just feel ghastly.  I felt like crying in the station.  How could this have happened?  That kind of sad moment.   In fact..I did shed a tear when the nice detective was interviewing me.  Had odd feeling of shame telling him that I was gay.

I felt like I was defending our honor against those kids.   They were HORRIBLE.

I am going to Victoria Station to help Jake and the Little dog who went off to Whitstable for the day.

More about this tomorrow.

Categories
art Travel

London Calling

Serpentine Gallery Pavilion Opening

Yesterday began with breakfast of cakes and coffee at Maison Bertaud on Greek Street with Tania who showed off her occasional gallery – very crowded with nondescript paintings by Noel Fielding.

The great find at the show was the animated video art piece tucked in the back of the cellar and REALLY worth checking out or indeed buying.

We had lunch at Patisserie Valerie and looked at the parade of boys and freaks.

Yesterday evening took taxi from Chelsea to Serpentine Gallery Pavilion opening at the behest of architect Tom Croft.  Saw many people from the past who all seemed delighted to see me.  The pavilion, designed by Jean Nouvel, was very red and surrounded by soggy turf.  There was some consternation about his eligibility – apparently the point of this yearly event is to commission emerging architects not those in the twilight of their career.

We were invited to Richard Rogers house after the Serpantine event but I really couldn’t be bothered so we caught the bus back to Soho where we met Matt who pushed us into a cab and over the river to Vauxhall.

Toured sad, empty Vauxhall gay bars ending up in Balans back on Old Compton St eating DISGUSTING burger.  I am going to pop in there after I have written this and complain about how bad it all was.

This morning I sat in BlueBird with, of all people, Manolo Blahnik who is looking very doddery and frail.  He has a stick and his hair is all awry.  Within the space of just one month Manolo and Christian Louboutin!  These two great..the greatest grandees of ladies shoes.  Christian is, of course, the young buck.

I have been away from London for the best part of a decade.  My contemporaries all look a bit worse for wear.  Worn out.  Thank God I have been sober for so long!

Spoke to Tim briefly today.  He admitted to having had botox.  He looks amazing.  Amazing.

On the bus to Soho I met Juanita Carberry who was a child in Africa at the time of the Happy Valley murder.  She wrote a book called Child of the Happy Valley.  Holly Aird played her in the film adaptation.  So, I know Holly and Issie’s grandfather was the murderer…weird eh?  What is even odder..Lavinia, Issie’s sister stayed at the house last night.

Lunch at Soho house with Sharon Marshall who is getting married in less than 8 weeks and is all of a quiver about flowers, bridesmaids dresses and who will photograph the event.

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Categories
Rant Travel

No Teeth

Things change between some people and some things never change.

Back at home in Chelsea after two glorious days in Whitstable.   The train to London was filled with fat women with no teeth from Ramsgate.   The Little Dog sat on his lap all the way here.   They are my strange family of travelling souls.

The house in Chelsea is neat and cool.  We are sleeping in a huge room painted a dirty rose color.  Phil bought us new toothbrushes. The cupboards are filled with boxes marked BOOKS AND PLATES.  Knowing that I love them Phil found two gilded (ormolu I think) stork shaped candlesticks for the dining room table.  In our room she filled a vase of my favorite pink peonies.  I moved them into the kitchen so I can look at them whilst I write.  Phil has a lanky, 11 month old, wolf-like lurcher called William who irritates both of us by leaping all over our bed.  Her 15-year-old daughter Moffy is going to be a model and this morning there are other very elegant girls sleeping on the drawing room sofas, their handbags overflowing with cigarettes, condoms and tampons.

The companion is in bed moaning at Phil’s dog that wants to be his friend.  “Out, out!”  William skulks away, unwanted.

We arrived in London yesterday, the hottest day here so far this year.  It was still 88 degrees at midnight when we sat on the steps in front of the house, drinking tea, explaining to the travelling companion what coal holes were and how they worked.

The house is much bigger than I remembered it.

After a lovely lunch at La Famiglia (I ate ham and figs) we walked up the Kings Road to the Designer’s Guild summer sale and hankered after a beautiful chair and a bulbous teapot.

Last night we drove to Battersea Park and walked for two hours.  The Little Dog is happier in London than anywhere else we visit.  He is free to run and leap and now he has a new friend to play with-even though their new friendship started off with growls and snapping.

Nobody knows how to access the wifi so neither of us automatically reaches for our phones or laptops as soon as our eyes open.  It is very therapeutic not having the Internet so freely available.

Less eager to check my emails, more of an event to do so.  We have to walk to the Starbucks on the Kings Road and drink warm iced coffee.

I really shouldn’t be so eager to placate myself with the soothing, addictive page after page of regular web sites I open every morning.

Even though we are only half way through our adventure I am already dreading having to deal with LA and the eventual closing down of my life in the USA.

I didn’t mention that the travelling companion bumped into (of all people) Cary Fukunaga in Wheelers the Oyster Bar in Whitststable.  He is here directing Jane Eyre. He was with the actress playing Jane Eyre – Mia Wasikowska who was Tim Burton‘s Alice.   Even before I knew who he was he had an air about him that reeked of unbridled entitlement.   It came as no surprise to hear that he directs-we are all the same.  All directors have that air about them that may indicate that he is indeed the real deal.  Time will tell.  He wanted a table in the back room but Anita refused to give him one.  If only he had been a little softer, more charming, he would have gotten what he wanted.

Seeing Gary tonight in North London.  We are going to a Diana Krall event at Kenwood House.

Travelling companion and I are having a lovely time.   Not without consternation but actually and mostly we laugh and try to make sense of our odd friendship.

There was something inevitable about this I suppose. Though there is an emotional imbalance and sexual disparity that is more revealed as we spend time together.  I understand – who wouldn’t?   It’s just the way things are.

We may know each other a little too well.

I have never, ever thought of love as anything other than fleeting.  Being here in London has filled the hole, the gaping, yearning hole that rots my life from the inside out.  London! Look around you!  The art, the architecture, the color and movement inspire and nourish.

Phil is off to a woman’s Buddhist retreat for the day.

Is this Sunday?  I think so.   We are thinking about extending our trip.  Staying in London longer, maybe going to Berlin.

Anyway, another day has passed since I wrote the above and even though we are in the very heart of London there is something oddly bucolic about this house.

Saturday morning we walked up the Kings Road toward Sloane Square.  Where the Duke of York’s Barracks used to be, there is now a food market that sells delicious looking food from all over the world, Caribbean, Mediterranean, British (of course), Indian etc. etc.  We ate curried goat and rice.  Delicious.

(We were going to have lunch at the Blue Bird restaurant but who ever now owns it is not taking much care.  The staff were rude and unhelpful.  The tables dirty, the food uninspiring.  It used to be so elegant.)

Bought ourselves Oyster cards and after a long walk through Eton Square and the back of Belgravia we caught a bus to Piccadilly Circus and hung out in Soho House.  He drank champagne and I coffee and fizzy water.  The staff brought the little dog a plastic box of water and a chicken breast.

After ‘lunch’ we walked back toward Bond St stopping in at Richard James which used to be so glorious but now looks a bit sad, the staff all puffed up and arrogant.

Popped into the new Louis Vuitton store, which is, I am very sad to say, TOTALLY VILE!  Packed with retail-obsessed tourists this monstrous, badly conceived, gaudily decorated ‘shop’ was also swarming with London’s boys in blue.  Policemen and women who I assume had been called to deal with a shoplifting incident.    It was almost Dickensian, the rich and the poor come to the emporium to either buy or steal.

We popped into APC and he bought a jacket that he is desperate to wear because he looks incredibly chic in it.   We are teaching him how to buy beautiful things.   Every gay man needs a style mentor.  He is so lucky to be a small to medium.  The summer sales here are stuffed with small to medium bargains.  50%/70% off everything with plenty of room for negotiation..one can easily get a further 10% off of everything.

I bought a teapot and six cups and a milk jug for my new life in London.

Anyway, we wended our way home.  It was incredibly hot.  We lay down and slept for a little while.

At 8ish Phil stuffed us in her car and drove to Hampstead where we saw Diana Krall then after..believe it or not..we went to Cary Fukunaga’s birthday party.  My opinion of him did not alter much.  We are both quite awkward but he gets to drink.  We are both quite competitive but he is 32.  We are both talented but John Lyons wants to suck his cock and not mine.

Is Cary Fukunaga gay?  Probably.

We met a delightful lesbian and an odd gay boy who started craving shots and drugs and became so very dull.  We sat in the most beautiful garden and smoked cigarettes.  The gay boy told us about all the thrilling gay club/bar opportunities that we could have in East London.

On the way home he sleepily laid his head on my shoulder and drunkenly told me all manner of charming things but I am acutely aware that I am still on guard.  I know that if just one person says just one cruel word about these two men together I would kill them.   Too many men in big cities are killed by homophobes and I am not going to be one of them.  Consequently, whenever it may be apparent that we are gay in public my fist is clenched just in case some fool wants to try killing us.

We were home by 3.30am.

Jake Bauman by Adam King

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Dogs Travel Whitstable

New York/Paris/London

I left LA last week (July 2nd) though it actually feels like months ago, so much has happened.   I flew into JFK with bags and dog and chaos.  He was waiting for me and whisked me off to a beautiful house set in perfect woodland and rolling lawns.

We ate and walked and talked.  I never tire of listening to him.   We have done our fair share of soul-searching these past few months and now it is time to have a few laughs.   I know that at the back of his mind he worries, that he is not truly free.

I loved the countryside and delightful clapboard houses on the border of New York and Connecticut.

In distant, very white upstate town Katonah there were two very black gay men from the Caribbean eating a light lunch.   They were the only black people for miles around.

 

Two days later we were in a taxi back to JFK and onto one of Air France’s spectacular Airbus A380.   The huge plane was almost empty!  Deciding to fly on July 4th was a great idea.  Taking off over a million 4th July firework parties.  Fireworks exploding all around us.

The first part of the journey was not without drama as we managed to get delayed for 3 hours by a bomb scare at JFK.  The entire airport emptied out just minutes before we were about to fly.    We were herded outside and sat around smoking cigarettes and drinking water.   After a couple of hours in the sun we stampeded back into the building directly onto our planes and landed in France 6 hours later.

It is delicious to be back in Europe.  Away from the tangled life I have left behind in the USA.   Once in Paris we checked into Mama Shelter in the 20th, seconds from the cemetery Pere Lachaise.  We loved it!

 

Although I smuggled the dog into the hotel-actually we had no need as dogs, we later found out, are allowed.   The food and service were excellent.  The only vaguely irritating thing was the Internet wi-fi connection which was linked to their rather modern but baffling Apple TV.  Apart from finding it impossible to get on-line their sophisticated interconnected system meant that the TV remote would also remotely control our lap tops..hmmm.

It is so easy to concentrate on what is wrong in life or in others without noticing how beautiful things are.  The staff at the hotel were gorgeous and we drooled over them everyday.

First day of Couture shows in Paris.  We had lunch with William Stoddart at Hotel d’Amour near Pigalle.  Gosh that area has changed so much!   When I lived there with Claire Sant it was ghastly.  Last week it was wonderful.   The weather has been gorgeous everywhere we have been.

The beautiful Edouard joined us afterwards for coffee.  We had dinner with him the night before and 6 others at Italian restaurant.   Very pretty German model who was obviously rooting for Germany in the World Cup..she was tall and womanly and intelligent.  We talked France’s ignominious exit from the competition and sneered at the British teams pathetic attempt to get into the last 8.

 

Three days in Paris followed by a train ride to Calais and a ferry to Dover after a short taxi ride home to Whitstable we were sitting on the beach eating venison burgers and the travelling companion couldn’t believe how beautiful it all was and complained that I had underplayed how Whitstable really is.

 

Today there are warnings that old people may overheat.  We are going to take a train to London.

I am sitting writing this from my room overlooking the sea in Georgina’s home in Whitstable.   It was my birthday yesterday.   The day started well enough with coffee at Dave’s deli catching up on gossip and drinking his perfect latte.   I left the companion in bed.  He is not really a morning person.  We met my mother for lunch at Wheelers where Mark Stubbs the chef there continues to surpass himself-this time with delicately spiced soft shell crab.

I really had no desire to see anyone other than who was at that table.  I am certainly not interested in tangoing in front of 500 people like an eastern European gypsy.    My mum and Georgina bonded over their hatred of Asylum Seekers.  My mother pointed out that some asylum seekers were pretending to be gay so that they could stay in the country.  If it’s not the Mexican’s it’s the Eastern Europeans..there always someone to blame for never having enough.

I thought that the fear of others getting something for nothing was an American phenomena but no!  It’s British too.

After lunch Adam took my picture as part of his photographic Whitstable project and his lovely mum cut my hair.  We sat in their lush garden drinking lemonade and lusting after his gorgeous, recently tattooed, diver brother.   After the pictures were taken we walked the couple of miles home up the beach.   I have never been so happy.

When we got home the companion had a drama unfold which he needed to deal with.  When he finally tore himself away from the Internet we sat in the garden and ate dinner with Georgina.  We ate huge organic pork chops that I managed to burn on the bbq.   After dinner we sat outside the Neptune pub with Barry and other drunksters.   The dog was tired and lay on the beach and fell asleep.  The night was balmy and the sea lapped lazily over the shingle.

This morning I woke at 6am and walked the dog up to the harbor.  He loves it here.   The Greens who own the Oyster Company scrawl unfortunate notes on black boards all over their property.  Don’t do this and don’t do that. Those black boards used to be charming now they just look vicious.

Some people like to get their own way..I am one of them.  When you finally meet your match, as I seem to, it can be less than comfortable.  I am trying to be sensitive to the needs of others but I am a stubborn old fool.

As for him..the traveling companion..he’s finding his feet and I am finding mine.

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Death Dogs

One Year Ago Today

Therapy, collect cheque, Jennie Ketcham for breakfast.

Jennie and I walked the length of Abbott Kinney, found a new collar for the little dog and chatted about our various relationships.  She, of course, has a relationship..I do not.   She is in love and making a TV series and I am off to Paris with a friend.   A friend, nevertheless, who makes me smile.

Last night we saw some cool live music on the roof of the Standard down town..that would be Ryan, Justin and I..then we ate dinner at Bottega Louie.  I ate pork chops.  Somebody sent us a Shirley Temple with delicious cherries floating around in it.

I have to be discreet about the location but Prince and Lionel Ritchie played impromptu performance on another roof in another part of town..it seems that Prince is always up for an unexpected gig, I have seen him perform at hotels and bars and in that huge house he rented with purple carpet everywhere.

The night we saw Prince and bumping into Barbra Streisand in the Pacific Design Center are perhaps my most startling close encounters with celebrity..oh, and befriending Roseanne in Starbucks.

From out of the woodwork crawl all sorts of characters from the past and this week an old friend called after he lost his job.  It was all the more interesting because we had not had a cordial end to our friendship a year and a half ago but time heals and we said our brief apologies and got on with being friends again.

There is probably more to gain from knowing me than not knowing me.

Time is the greatest distance between two people. Tennessee Williams wrote that.  It is time that will end up miraculously mending all the smashed Ming vases that I am surrounded with.  Remember what I said about love being like a Ming vase?

Joan brought me a rather splendid Japanese tea-pot for my birthday that arrived in a huge box from Memphis.  I felt like a five-year old again.  Opening my birthday presents.

This day last year the darling big dog was killed.  Ripped apart in front of me under that truck..she kept on trying to live, trying to stay alive for me as we lay together in the back of my truck..in the flat-bed.  Jennie drove us to the animal hospital on Ventura Blvd and the nurse put her down with a lethal injection as I sobbed my little heart out.

The next day we collected her from the freezer and I cried all the way to Malibu, apologizing to her, reminding her of all the great time we had, crying and laughing until we buried her in a coyote proof hole in the garden she loved.

Sarah sang a beautiful song.  The little dog said his goodbye.

This year has been all about death.  The death of friends, the death of my dog and of course the death of love.   Tomorrow I want it to be different but I cannot be sure.  All I know is that I am trying to be the best man I can be, let go of the past..even the recent past, and forge ahead.

Categories
Auto Biography Death Gay prison Rant

Sebastian Horsley Funeral

1983, the year I met Sebastian

Is it possible to believe in God and still take drugs and drink?  Is it possible to believe in God and sleep with hookers?  Is any of this possible?  Obviously it is.

Sebastian will be buried on Thursday, July 1st 2010.   There’ll be a horse-drawn cortege from Meard Street to St James’s Piccadilly where the service will be held.   Stephen Fry will be speaking,  as are others.  Stephen very kindly offered to say a few words on my behalf.

Rachel Campbell-Johnstone wrote to me yesterday inviting me to the funeral, she said,  “We are mountaineers roped together heading for the summit of beauty.”   She warned us that the funeral will be filmed.

Remember, I was 23 when I met Sebastian.  That was 27 years ago.  He was still a teenager working for Jimmy Boyle in Edinburgh.   Our show, Pornography, a spectacle, invited by the Richard Demarco Gallery would play in Jimmy’s cold performance space where Sebastian and I met for the first time.

I would later work for the Demarco Gallery and meet Joseph Beuys, the greatest conceptual artist of our age.   There was a fascinating dialogue between Beuys and Boyle..then styled one of the most dangerous men in the United Kingdom.

The dialogue was initiated by Richard Demarco whilst Jimmy Boyle was serving a sentence of life imprisonment in Barlinnie Prison for murder.  Beuys went on hunger strike because of Jimmy Boyle’s removal from the Special Unit, Barlinnie to Edinburgh’s Saughton Prison where he was no longer able to continue making art.

Sebastian claimed in his book Dandy in the Underworld that he was sleeping with Jimmy and I have no reason to doubt him.  I would have too if I had had my chance.  There was something wildly attractive to me about ex cons and hard men and dangerous criminals.  Remember I had been in prison the year before I met Sebastian and developed a nasty habit for sex with brutal straight men.

If anybody was going to fuck me he was going to be a man who deserved me.    He was going to be a man who knew what he wanted and how to take it.

My cell mate Tommy Cowling, married with two children from Hoxton, East London was the most beautiful man who ever lived.  When the lights went out in our cell he said, “I’m asleep now, you can do what you want to me.”  For nine long months we did exactly that, everything we wanted when the lights were out.   He could make me cum by just rubbing his stubble over my soft face.

Perhaps this is another reason why I spurned the soppy men that I met in gay bars and gay clubs?  Perhaps this is why I would rather have my head buried in a squaddies (soldiers) groin, the smell of wet pussy on his cock than a nice boy from The Abbey.  Prison spoiled more than my reputation.   It proved, if any proof were needed, that straight men with furious urges, hard and hairy bodies and urgent desires were far more interesting than living in the half-light of shameful, gay London, Paris or New York.

This is all a matter of taste of course.  My desires cannot be compared to yours.

Yesterday something a little untoward happened.  At Anna’s birthday party she rolled me a fag and it had a few crumbs of weed in it.   I was as high as a kite for a good few hours.  Everything was totally wonderful.  I had that gorgeous feeling of euphoria and masterful abandon.  I hadn’t felt that feeling for nigh on 14 years.  I demanded to speak to Jake because I wanted to know how the experience of me being high would affect what I thought of him.

He was complaining that it was late and he wanted to go to sleep…he was blithering on about how people might think he was some sort of man whore if I compared his experience of being gay with men who died of AIDS in the 1980’s.   Obviously, I didn’t mean that.  I was trying to be nice.

Fuck it!  Go and be a man whore.  All of you!   Go and be whores.  It doesn’t matter to me.  I was sucking squaddie cock and getting fucked in the back of cars by East End builders.  LUSH.  I didn’t wait around to have a gay life.  I emerged from the womb searching for the most perfect penis to suckle on.

Anyway, as I did not deliberately get high I am not going to reset my sobriety time.  I still believe in God but I’m not going to be so fucking pious.

I will miss you Sebastian Horsley.

Categories
Gay Rant

Beware of False Gods

After dinner, before the last US election, I sat in a ‘circle’ with a bunch of my Jewish hippy friends who live in Northridge, California.   They were praying quietly and not so quietly for the Obama presidency.

An African healer sat silently with us wearing traditional headdress and multi colored robes.   He had been flown to their house from Africa so that he might share his wisdom.

In turn they held a gnarled wooden ‘talking stick’ and gravely shared their optimism for the creation of Obama World.  The Obama paradigm shift, the liberal equal and opposite reaction.  A world where sanity and fairness would be restored.  Where this young black man’s promises would come true and Guantanamo would be shut down and wars would be ended quickly not slowly.  Where Bush/Cheney corruption would be revealed and the culprits brought to justice.

Some of the women cried.

When I was handed the talking stick I advised them carefully not to worship false Gods, that I did not share their optimism and that they would only be disappointed.   The hippies laughed at me with desultory guffaws but the silent African suddenly spoke up, “He is right!”  They looked at him aghast!  He pointed his long bony black finger around the room.  “He is right.  It is you all who are wrong.”

Duncan: 1.  Hippies: 0.

Stunning naivety, ignorance and blindness have kept liberals in the USA an amateur political sideshow, they remain inchoate and powerless.    They do not realize that they will never be represented by any established political party.  Ever.

So Obama has not, as I suspected, provided the ‘paradigm shift’ that so many of my crystal loving film industry friends thought he would when they rushed to elect him.

Indeed, quite the opposite has happened.

After 10 years of Bush/Cheney there was no equal and opposite reaction, there was just more of the same.  This time from a sweetly smiling, articulate black guy rather than the gruff inarticulate white guy.  He has let you down and it is all the more galling.

In Britain another altogether more intriguing story is unfolding..

I am oddly optimistic about the Cameron/Clegg coalition.  With no real power Prime Minister Cameron will have to toe the line and be more representative of the British people and their desires than cow towing to the ruling elite.  Even though he is cut from aristocratic cloth he seems rather more inclusive than the scarily evolved Tebbit/Thatcher type of Tory who changed Britain over three decades ago.

Watched the England/Germany game.  Proving that the squad seem more interested in their hair than scoring goals.  They are an unruly mob of shopping addicts who have lost their passion for soccer and developed an expensive taste for power and prestige.  Arrogant bunch of wankers.

Had a long chat with Dan in NYC.  I was describing how my newly gay friend was evolving.  I noted that he seemed to own and accept his power and beauty and acted accordingly.

We both agreed that if we had been that sure of ourselves when we were younger both of us would be dead.   It was people like my newly out friend (not that I am suggesting he is sleeping around) who died first of the mysterious disease that became an epidemic and withered away the most beautiful boys.

AIDS, thankfully, never got me.  I was always too much of a prude, never realized quite how beautiful I was and mostly too much of a snob and star fucker..unable to go near the average gay.   In retrospect I think things turned out just fine for gay men like Dan and me.  We survived.  Might not have had as much sex as the others but certainly never paid the ultimate price.

I have come full circle.  He, unwittingly brought me full circle.  Being in love then not being in love.  Wanting to own to letting go and enjoying, from afar, his freedom.

I have always fallen for the impossible.  Yet, unlike before, I do not want to punish him for being who he is and instead just take a small amount of satisfaction from his evolving self.  Like a bird trapped in oil in the Gulf of Mexico he is now cleaned up and ready to fly.

As he flies into his future..what of mine?  Well, I am ok.  I really am.  A great deal could be a lot better but I am OK.

We are off to Paris next week and part of me wants never to come back.

I loved being in love.  It has happened so rarely of late.  As I draw down the shutters on a gay life that I really have no reason to be part of I instead, sit at the edge of that world.

Perhaps there will be a time in the near future when he will come to me and I will be able to hear all of his conquests and heart breaks without my own heart being quite so broken.

Yet, even writing that, I know that he cannot (any longer) break my heart.

I knew with certainty that Obama would never satisfy the lust for change some of my friends thought he might,  just as they knew that I have been naïve about falling in love with him.  He was not sent to be the great love of my life.

He was sent, actually, to be my friend and for that I am very grateful.

P.S.  So Arrianna Huffington is bemoaning Obama and how frustrated people are with him.  How dare she!  It was her daily attacks on Hillary Clinton and lauding of Obama that galvanized so much support for him.  She was short-sighted and more overly impressed by his ivy league nerdyness than his ability to lead.  She wants 5 words to accept her webby award?  How about:  I was wrong about Obama.

Categories
Death Dogs Malibu

Eclipse

The Big Dog

7am Friday morning Los Angeles.  It’s time to come clean.

This week last year was the last I would spend with my Darling Big Dog who is now buried in Malibu.

I miss her so much.

The occasions when I just breakdown and cry for her are fewer nowadays but it still happens.

If it weren’t for the little dog I don’t know how I would have survived the darker days this year, the dread comes upon me but I have to get up and go on because his needs come first.  He is a little dog, he comes from a damaged place and I made a promise to him..

The dread.

There is, I hear, something quite magical about drowning.  There is a euphoric moment just before death that could make a long swim quite an attractive prospect.

Up and down, up and down.   The trip home will, I know, keep me balanced and sane.  So much to do and see.   Spoke to my travelling companion last night.  He seems well and happy.

Yesterday I woke at dawn and filled my time until I could legitimately start the day.  The little dog sleeps as I potter around in my bathrobe and read the news.   I am going to climb Runyon this morning.

Over in Malibu I saw another huge snake in the garden but it was hot and angry so I didn’t fetch my shovel.  Anyway, I still feel guilty for killing the last one.  So may people asked why I didn’t keep the meat and eat it.

The problem with changing your life so completely is that you are left with a huge hole where your life once was.  Sex Addiction meetings are not enough to keep me happy or secure or in touch.  Gratitude lists look paltry when written down.  Even meeting up with my friend and mentor can’t seem to shift the immense longing I have in my heart that periodically casts such a deep shadow over me.

My happiness eclipsed I look to the usual suspects to shine light into the darkness.  Sadly their batteries are dead.

Listening to loud and uplifting music can go some way to making life better.   My choices may seem suspect, Elton et al.   I can’t listen to Joni, her obsession with lost love merely plays into the pessimistic thoughts I am already prone to when the sun stops shining.

Dentist yesterday.  The dentist gave me a lecture about flossing and I lectured her about the perils of white flour/sugar/rice etc.   I don’t think any kind of doctor here likes being told anything because they are so used to dispensing advice and usually remain unchallenged.  She tried to scare me with apocalyptic visions of the bone around my teeth falling away that can only be solved, she said, by spending thousands of dollars and endless hours in the dentist’s office.

I think I will ignore her advice and see my lovely dentist in Sydney when I am there this winter.   Oh yes, I am going to Sydney this winter.   I decided this morning.

After seeing Sebastian this week I thought a great deal about my father.  Dead, maligned,  reviled..much like I expect I will be.

Another Sebastian to think about, my friend Sebastian Horsley who has finally become the glittering star he always wanted to be.  I knew it.  In death he has become the man they wanted him to be.  Death becomes him.  In death we can acknowledge the fantasy of who he was rather than the stinking reality, the crazed drug addict.  I will remember him for twenty-seven years from Edinburgh to London.  I will remember him struggling to stay clean, vulnerable, and helpful to other heroin addicts.   How can I forget?

I stopped in on Andrew yesterday.  He had a square, roughly glazed vase of white hydrangea mixed with other tiny, yellow flowers.  The mere act of filling the house with flowers lifts the spirits.  They have hung huge photographs and his found chair collection grows weekly.  I fell asleep on the sofa and when I woke up he was gone.  When did I stop appreciating these tiny gestures of good will?  When did I stop buying flowers?  How did my house get so full of other stuff?  That’s why I like going to the Malibu because I have stripped out all of the mess.  I am left with an African seed pod on a porcelain plate.

My Darling Big Dog

When did I start forgetting that aesthetic?  The aesthetic that Patrick taught me when I was Andrew’s age?

Meanwhile I am dealing with the birth of a monster.  One I can scarcely contain.  One I have done my level best to avoid for many years.   The goblins hold a cracked mirror to your face and all you can see is the ugliness.  Not the age, (because I am sure of my age) but how very ugly one is.  My confidence stems from this:  that when I look into the mirror I appreciate what I see and hope that others may see me just as I see myself.

OK, off to Runyon with the Little Dog.   Time to go now.   Time to get on with the day.   Busy, busy, busy.

Categories
Rant

Nothing to Report

It has been an exciting few days.   Very Hollywood..just like it used to be before I moved to Malibu.

I can’t really report anything actual as I feel like keeping life secret.  I suppose this is how it has to be.  This time next week I will be elsewhere, gone from LA and occasionally I look around me and wonder why I have stayed so long.

All in all I have absolutely nothing to complain about, in fact I have been a bit of a nag recently and it doesn’t suit me.  Not at all.

I am going to act in my friend Ryan’s film tomorrow.  That should be a great deal of fun then I am seeing a show tomorrow night.  Each day that passes brings me closer to Europe, to home, to familiarity.

I am working very hard to make sure that nothing ruins the good time I have planned.