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Author: Duncan Spark
I am an artist and writer living in London
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Fuck You Tracey Emin
Tracy Emin‘s ‘My Bed‘, part of the spurned Charles Saatchi collection, sells at auction to Jay Jopling at the White Cube Gallery for $4 million.
Jay originally sold it to Charles Saatchi for $300,000. Why did Jay Jopling want it back so badly? Sentimental?
No. Buying and selling art at auction determines international prices for all gilt-edged (and emerging) artists.
The art market remains totally unregulated. An audacious art market ploy, it is an open secret that gallerists operate a cabal that controls bidding at auction, maintaining an artists credibility and in this case artificially inflating Tracey Emin’s waning prices.
This con is not illegal.
Transforming art of questionable value into work of capital value that can be tendered with the Inland Revenue. Money laundering in plain sight until the ‘art work’ has an ersatz value all of its own… independent even of its secondary market value, it can then be offered to the State as an asset by its owner, in place of whatever they owe in taxes. The Lucian Freud estate recently traded 15 million gbp worth of Art in lieu of death duties.
A foot note: Tracy hid in her bed for three days presumably on housing and other benefits. Benefits she received for 30 years. Benefits she, as a Tory, wants to deprive others.
Wanna read about the bed….
A consummate storyteller, Tracey Emin engages the viewer with her candid exploration of universal emotions. Well-known for her confessional art, Tracey Emin reveals intimate details from her life to engage the viewer with her expressions of universal emotions. Her ability to integrate her work and personal life enables Emin to establish an intimacy with the viewer.
Tracey shows us her own bed, in all its embarrassing glory. Empty booze bottles, fag butts, stained sheets, worn panties: the bloody aftermath of a nervous breakdown. By presenting her bed as art, Tracey Emin shares her most personal space, revealing she is as insecure and imperfect as the rest of the world.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
Categories
Fag Bash/Last Weekend
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.
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Father’s Day
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Two Women From Manchester
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.
Last night I stopped for a slice of pizza with Brent and Derek, my crime fighting buddies.
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:
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.
I found a beautiful dusky gray/mauve tamarisk at Captain Jack’s Wharf.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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UKIP! What Do You Want?
Wow, this immigration thing is getting serious for you brits? I get that you’re feeling uncomfortable in your own country and many of you don’t seem to fully understand why you’re feeling so uncomfortable.
What do you people want? I can hear what you DON’T want. You don’t want foreign languages spoken on YOUR streets. You don’t want Eastern Europeans taking your jobs. You don’t want to do business with Europe. You don’t want to lose the Scots. Some of you don’t want gays to get married.
It seems like a lot of you are drowning in nostalgia, kidding yourselves that you can reclaim some beautiful ideal England. The bucolic lie we tell ourselves England once was: White faces, full employment, strict adherence to the class we were brought up in… Is that what you want? I’d genuinely like to know.
Tell me what you want. Tell me what this great british utopia looks like… once you have kicked out all the Romanians, the eastern Europeans, the muslims, the jews, the homosexuals… once you have purged your cities of indian, chinese and mexican restaurants… once your boarders are iron curtains with strictly regulated tourism… in and out of your country. Is that what you people want? I really have no idea when I hear UKIP and their supporters… what the end game is?
If British people bothered to learn and speak other languages (like the UKIP leader‘s wife learned English) they might feel happier taking advantage of the free movement of labour within the EU. But let’s face it, the basic brit is a retarded xenophobe who blames anyone but himself for his woes.
Oh, and here’s a picture of a foreigner with big tits to grab your attention.
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Forgotten Artists
For centuries great artists have been isolated, opportunities withheld for being homosexual, women and people of color. Amazingly, black, gay and female artists are still side lined, deliberately obscured, forgotten. One of them might have been Robert DeNiro‘s gay father, Robert DeNiro Sr. who is currently having his gay moment in the sun… albeit posthumously. His famous son and names sake pledges that he isn’t going to let the establishment forget his father’s name. DeNiro keeps his father’s studio like The British National Trust keep Vita Sackville-West‘s tower. In aspic.
DeNiro cries because he regrets not forming a loving relationship with his father. Why now? Why is DeNiro telling us now about his gay dad? Because he can. DeNiro is rewriting his personal history to include his previously forgotten father. Yet, it turns out that it wasn’t just DeNiro who erased his father’s memory for so long… predictably, so did the arts establishment.
For hundreds of years the male-dominated arts establishment didn’t want women written into art history, as recently as the 1930’s painter Gwen John, the more talented sister of Augustus. Side lined. Ignored. Considered an acquired taste. Black directors of theatre and film… considered inadequate. Gay men passed over for straight directors or their gay films/scripts/stories ignored… often by other gay men in positions of power.
You know, gender/race apartheid still happens in Hollywood. Fine directors, black, women and gay… side lined, excluded and maligned by otherwise ‘liberal’ or ‘forward thinking’ agents managers and studio heads… in favor of straight white men. Most of the decision makers, ironically… are gay white men. Colluding with the status quo.
We all have our Hollywood horror stories, I used to think my Hollywood story was unusual but sadly I share my experience with black directors, women directors and fellow gay and lesbian directors. I used to think it was just me, Duncan Roy… the ‘difficult one’ but I have met some really nice people, some really talented folk who share this Hollywood experience word for word, blow by blow.
I’ll tell you my story. It’s a true story. I have not disguised the names of those I met. Here it goes. Get ready. Ten or so years ago after the initial success of my British Academy nominated film, AKA I found out that old ideas about who should succeed based on gender, sexual orientation and the color of your skin flourished in Hollywood…
I made a feature film.
Making an independent film is difficult. Making a gay, independent film is almost impossible. After shooting the film we had no money to finish it. Margaret Matheson the award winning Producer came to our aid, she took the film to The Briitsh Film Council who reluctantly agreed to finish the film.
I was told by Paul Trijbits at the UK Film Council that “No one will be interested in your film… only you and gay people.” He spat the word gay at me. Paul was a renowned ladies man. He had slept with Gulshan Jaffery the producer of my previous films. Paul could get away with that kind of homophobia ten years ago. Both Margaret Matheson and I were, by that time, used to snide and homophobic remarks from straight men like Paul Trijbits. We learned to ignore them.
After the film was finished we realized that we had a cult gay hit on our hands. AKA travelled the world opening and closing gay and lesbian film festivals winning many awards. We were invited to Outfest, the LA gay and lesbian film festival. They offered us a prime time screening at The Directors Guild if we could provide them with a 35mm print. We agreed. Until that point I had never seen my film on a huge screen. I had never seen it projected on 35mm. I had never experienced it in Dolby surround sound.
The weeks leading up to the screening I was camping at the sprawling, un-renovated home in Santa Monica of writer/actor Brandon Boyce and his Italian child bride Roberto. The film had been winning awards but I did not expect the cynical film industry to respond very well to a gay film told (think Abel Gance Napoleon) on three screens running simultaneously throughout.
Paul Trijbits’ remark lingered like an acrid fart and I wondered the night of our Hollywood screening if Paul’s prophecy would come true. As it turned out, he was completely wrong and completely right.
As Brandon and I arrived for the screening he said, “God, the entire velvet mafia are here.” I had no idea what that meant. I wish I’d asked. The film played to a hushed crowd and after the final credit the audience erupted. Applause like I had never known. In the lobby afterwards I was assaulted by every one who was anyone but I had no idea who anyone was.
That night Jason Weinberg from Untitled took me to dinner at The Chateau Marmont, he said he wanted to be my manager but Stephen Macias from Outfest had already told me that he was my manager and so, not realizing what a terrible mistake I was making, declined Jason’s kind offer. Macias, as it turned out, was going to be one of the worst people I ever let into my life. A more conniving, drunk/drug fucked and foolish man you ever did meet.
During dinner at the Chateau people were coming to our table and congratulating me.
That night I took a taxi home to Santa Monica and even though this had been the most triumphant day of my life I had never felt more alone and uncomfortable. I learned a great lesson that night, for all their foibles Americans believe inherently that they are destined for greatness so when it happens to them… they are prepared. They graciously accept the award, the money and the plaudits. I had, that night, in my greatest hour… only the lingering promise of defeat. Paul and men like him poisoning the moment with their homophobia, their doubt and their jealousy.
During the next few weeks I met everyone who was anyone in Hollywood, Leonardo DiCaprio came to a screening of the movie, Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston had a screening at their house and I was invited to meet every major agent, every studio, every independent production company.
The previous year I had been in Cannes and met John Lesher who is now a fine producer with exquisite taste but was at that time an influential agent at Endeavor. So, when it came to choosing an agent I was clear about who I wanted representing me. Brian Swardstrom, Tilda’s agent, had seen the film and had reintroduced me to John. I made the decision and told Steve Macias.
Macias told me that it was Hollywood etiquette to take every meeting. So, I was forced by Macias to go to CAA, William Morris, UTA and ICM even though I had already made a decision to sign with Endeavor. The agents I met were utterly appalling. At every agency I was introduced to the token gay agent and every one of those gay agents told me definitively that if I wanted to make further gay themed films I should kiss my Hollywood career goodbye.
It was like being forced back into the closet.
My favorite line, delivered by lesbian agent Rowena Arguelles at CAA, was said with such gravity I thought it was a joke. I told her that I had already made a decision to go with John Lesher at Endeavor. She told me that Endeavor was going bankrupt, she told me that I would just be another director at Endeavor but if I chose CAA to represent me I would be a star. I laughed out loud. Not because I was being a dick… but because I thought it was a joke. Because nobody had ever spoken to me like that… not seriously.
On the way out Rowena looked scathingly at my Smythsons, black leather diary and thinking it was a bible asked me what chapter I was reading… I opened it and said, August.
As it turned out, my representation at Endeavor was short-lived, deliberately upended by then ICM agent Nicole Clemens. Nicole made a particular nuisance of herself in her attempt to sign me, coming to Brandon’s house in Santa Monica at 7am and calling 24/7 begging for a meeting that my ‘manager’ Stephen Macias insisted I take. After the third unsolicited call to my home Nicole delivered this apocryphal line.
She said it through the letter box.
“You and I have to work together because we have so much in common.” I opened the door. “What,” I asked, “Did we have in common?”
“Well,” she spluttered, “We both love being fucked in the ass.”
I slammed the door. That incident really happened.
I told Stephen Macias but he insisted that I meet with her and her boss at ICM even though I was already represented by Lesher. When I finally met Nicole at her office I told her again that I had signed with Lesher. She tried to persuade me to change my mind. She told me that I would end up like Ken Loach if I didn’t change my attitude. I laughed. I told her I couldn’t think of a better way to end up. I told her I was leaving, she picked up the phone and had her assistant call Swardstrom, she told him I was at ICM taking a meeting with regard to representation.
Brian, understandably, went crazy and that was that. No more Endeavor.
Finally, I signed with Bobby Thompson who had discovered and nurtured Tim Burton… but it was over for me in Hollywood. Between the rabid homophobia, my lack of experience, Macias and Clemens I kissed my Hollywood career goodbye.
During the next few months I met all the above again, firstly at Sundance where the film played to enthusiastic audiences and at the British Academy Awards where I was nominated for a best new comer award. I didn’t win. I stayed in the UK. A very long way from Hollywood and the homophobia, conniving and lies of the people I met there.
At Sundance I bumped into Paul Trijbits, he looked sheepishly at me over a dinner that was thrown by my agent for me and Tilda Swinton. He was wrong that nobody was interested in the film… but he was right that at that time gay product was worthless. Ten years later all of that has changed. I, of course, was in the gay film making vanguard. I often wondered if I stumbled so young gay directors could flourish?
No. That hasn’t happened. Gay directors are still sidelined by gay agents and gay studio executives. Gay projects hijacked by established straight directors… Liberace, Dallas Buyers Club, Brokeback Mountain… to name but three gay themed films made by straight directors and producers. The work we all put into changing attitudes toward gay film making and gay story telling worked… but not for gay directors.
Homophobic people like Nicole Clemens who may very well have ‘evolved’ since then… put the kibosh on that.
The 35mm print shown that extraordinary night now rests peacefully in the vault at UCLA as part of the Outfest Legacy Project.
