Author: Duncan Spark
I am an artist and writer living in London
1.
I taught the inmates at MCJ the meaning of the word nonce.
It was funny. Didn’t sound like it does when people use it at home.
It really is the worst word you could imagine calling someone. Much worse than the word cunt.
Mind you, an insult is all in the delivery.
2.
A young man wrote to me yesterday.
He told me that he was gay, lived in Arkansas. An Iranian Jew. His mother tells him that gays are sick, should be in mental hospitals.
He sits there watching her. He knows that he will never ever tell her the truth.
Perhaps, he said, he should trick a girl into being with him. So…he won’t end up alone.
Sound familiar?
Now, that’s a closet.
3.
I am struck by how many young men I meet are fascinated by English men with beards.
So, I asked him. He said, “Have you seen the film The Weekend?”
I smiled and quietly thanked Andrew Haigh under my breath.
4.
God and the devil. In league with both of them…to make art.
5.
Read the Hollywood Reporter. “I was crazy for many years.” says Oliver Stone.
Which artist isn’t?
6.
I am happy. Not blissfully…but at ease with myself.
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Yikes
I love this picture. Francis Bacon and Lucien Freud in Wheelers.
1.
Waking up at Robby’s apartment. West Hollywood. Feeling like I have a hangover. I haven’t. I’m still not drinking. Waiting for the right moment…but it never comes. The sanctity of sobriety.
It’s hard after nearly 16 years to think about the right time to start drinking.
A woman I know from the programme called yesterday. I told her that I had renounced AA. “How’s that working out for you?” She pried condescendingly.
I faked a dropped call.
2.
Saturday pre pride party. Good fun. The über gays. The fake NYC producer I mentioned in an earlier post sitting at his table wondering how I manage to surround myself with such beauty. He looked exasperated. Staring over at us.
Pride was a great deal of fun. On the streets. The floats have not changed for 30 years: muscle boys and drag queens. Not very inventive.
I stayed at the London Hotel courtesy of my Kuwaiti friends. They pitched up at 8am. We ate smoked fish and Quiche for breakfast.
3.
Nothing is obvious. Just when you thought you’d never kiss anyone meaningfully ever again.
I saw you in the bar and knew you were the one. A brief conversation. Kisses, glances, then you pissed on me. That was new to both of us but so damned exciting. A mouth full of piss. Then we spent the afternoon talking. Eating. Each other.
You left an impression. Creases in the bed sheets.
4.
Without me even noticing it LA is full of gay men with beards.
Does this mean that they/we are growing up? That men are trumping boys? The aesthetic is not only very pleasing but means I get looked at all over again. I have some currency…if you know what I mean.
5.
I don’t have time to write this very often. There’s a great deal to do.
I’m helping those boys in the jail, even though they don’t know it. Meeting lawyers down town who are investigating conditions in the jail. They seem shocked. Young lawyers. Fresh faced. Idealists.
I try balancing my complaints with a broader understanding of the jail dynamic. The deputies are not just cruel…they are frightened. They do not treat the trans population with contempt because they hate gays, they are confused by the feelings the girls bring up in them.
Ernest lawyers ask how I would change things in the jail. I am always prepared for those questions.
Last week I sat with Senator Ron S.Calderon who is co-sponsoring a bill in the State of California that would basically abolish the situation in which I found myself. Protocols would have to be adhered to. States right to decide trumping the draconian Immigration Department.
I drive for hours to get to the meeting and speak clearly and concisely. I know that I am speaking on behalf of thousands of wrongly incarcerated immigrants.
I go to cities I would never usually visit. I am introduced to people I would never usually meet. Immigrant rights advocates, Methodist ministers. I am familiar with Secure Communities. I hear terrible stories. They tell me that ICE operate like the Gestapo. They spread fear in the immigrant communities, wrecking homes, lives, marriages, separating families, sending children into foster care.
6.
Then, there is the other work. Kevin, my incredible new assistant, and I…running all over town. Putting this show together. Holding things together.
Today I see the doctor. No good news all over again. I’m sure.
Wish me luck.
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The Transit of Venus
A black spec traverses the sun..not to be seen again until 2117. I will be long dead, long forgotten.
Yesterday, I sat with the producer of the Italian film and made my pitch. Novel good. Script…wanting.
An admirer sent a Balenciaga dog collar for the recovering Little Dog. It is a little too big but he doesn’t seem to mind.
The swelling has gone in his leg. He has a red rash all over his swollen belly and chest. The bite marks on his paw remind me that a big rattle snake and the Little Dog came face to face.
Robby is in San Francisco with Lance.
Having an assistant forces me to be more industrious. He takes notes, emails…arranges appointments and reminds me where I am meant to be and when.
I spend less time looking at the phone and more time focused on my dream.
We travel in an elevator with Casey and Ben Affleck. We sit with Salim Akil and discuss his film…Sparkle.
We go to a screening of Prometheus on the Fox lot. The film doesn’t make any sense. The rambling musings of an elderly man unconvinced by humanity.
A crazy bloke from Whitstable reminds me why I have no reason to be there. He is trapped, I am not.
I meet with a production company to discuss a comedy show idea. TV, they say, it’s the way forward.
We drive downtown to pick up my passport, we eat in the car. We drink coffee and meet friends. The sun is shining. I stop in to see Jennie at the ACLU and we talk about lentil soup.
I speak with the detective about my lap top. It sickens me. I say, “Are your family proud of the work you do?”
Dinner at home then crash at 11pm.
I have promised a young man that I will wait for him…so I will.
I am convinced that (like Venus) I have a short moment in the sun, before I am plunged back into darkness.
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Some People…
…think that artists are nice people who gratefully sit around making work in a peaceable way. That we do not confront life and all of its various struggles. That we spend hours picking the wings off of dead butterflies in bucolic settings.
Bullshit.
Art is all about struggle. The struggle to understand. The struggle to be seen. To be heard.
You know, don’t you, that I’ve been banging on about this film I want to make (if I do or not is another matter) but those who read it are unimpressed by the ending. They call it a suicide note.
The ending isn’t very good. It’s melodramatic and unconvincing. It needs rewriting.
Life and art. Art and life. The two mingling, revealing…the truth.
The story evolves.
People are not what you think. They make choices that reveal so much more than they ever intended.
Some people cast characters in their life like they are directing their own reality TV show.
You know, I’m not a very nice person and that is obvious to many…but, as they said after the John Edwards trial, nasty people are not sent to prison for being nasty…it is not enough that you don’t like me.
Whilst they could blame me for his problems they conveniently forgot him and his glaring defects.
Who are you?
I have always been fascinated by the grotesque.
The little dog stayed over night at the vet. Rattle snake bite. His paw and front leg swollen to twice, three times the size. It’s touch and go if he’ll survive.
Since they let me out of the jail we have been distant. It’s just the way it is. Yesterday I pressed my forehead against his and told him not to die…we have other adventures ahead of us.
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Tempus Fugit
You must have worked out by now…gay men have tempestuous relationships.
It’s not unusual.
What they did, the feelings they had…they weren’t unusual.
Gay men get restraining orders. Beat each other up. Gay men resent…themselves.
He had lunch with a friend from NYC who knows your lover/husband/partner.
He said…what a warm character he is, that he’s friendly and brave. Courageous and resourceful…has a great future ahead of him.
Anyone who gets up in the morning and wears what he wears, well…he wants to be seen in a world where most people crave invisibility.
He saw the video. A big man with style.
As for you two? He thinks you’re silly for not wanting to forgive the stupidity, forget the battles.
You are, without doubt, indelibly linked.
You two beautiful men pressed together (as you intended) didn’t make him jealous. He felt like you had given him a clue.
He ignored the angry songs…
Seeing you with your new love gave him a clue as to what you might have been attracted to when you contacted him that dark winter.
You see, he could never understand what you saw in him. It was a mystery. He just felt like an old, fraudulent freak when you were together. Over dressed, too loud, too confident….lagging behind like an Indian wife.
Now he understands.
Now, wearing your own cool clothes for all to see…you look pretty damn good…he began to understand.
Do you understand? Understand what went down between you both a little better? Now you’ve been in the world as a gay man these past two years…or do you still feel like he took advantage of you?
I don’t know if you have any good memories of your time together. Are there any? All bound up with lies and recrimination and your coming out.
You both dropped a huge bomb on everybody around you. Nobody escaped unharmed. Both in denial. Both fragile. Both afraid.
Ever since you published your blog…well, he has been in awe. Impressed by your openness.
I’m sure that you don’t give him much thought nowadays. You must have heard what happened…there was so much fanfare about it all.
He had a long time in jail to think everything over.
A long time in terrible circumstances imagining that look of delight on your face…and he wouldn’t blame you. He would’ve been just as happy.
I don’t know if he/you will ever truly recover from what you went through.
There were many times when all he wished was that things between you hadn’t ended so badly so he could tell you what happened. Describe it in detail…because he knew you’d be fascinated.
He knows that for so much of your life you hid your creativity and your desire for beautiful things just in case this betrayed your true nature. He can’t imagine how that must have felt.
Seeing you emerge from that closet into the man you are today gives him great pleasure.
He wishes you all the best in your relationship and your life.
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10 Affectations
1. Phil bought me a string of Baroque pearls for my 26th birthday. They vanished. As Coco Chanel lay dying on the Rue Cambon in 1971, her friends stole the jewelery she was wearing from her fingers and from around her neck. The same happened to Barbara Hutton the Woolworth heiress.
2. What does it feel like when one assumes that someone they loved is dead and gone and then they reappear? What changes, adjustments have to me made? When one has already grieved. The shock of the living far outweighs the shock of the dead.
3. I did not sleep last night. The demons were upon me. Yet, I would describe myself as happy.
4. I wear dark glasses. I am reading the Martin Kippenberger biography.
5. It is so cold at night I fear the succulents will die.
6. I found the Lanvin straw hat I bought in Paris. It was crushed in the back of the car. I took the remnants and had them framed.
7. I am optimistic.
8. Stringing together the visual DNA on my blog. I find myself abruptly halted. How can one leap from a formal portrait of a disgraced Duchess to snowy Stonehenge? What is the connection? Either the Duchess goes or I’m stuck.
9. The final act of my film needs rewriting. Truth is stranger than fiction.
10. Not sleeping has a powerful effect on my libido. I have unwanted erections.
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Unspeakably Cruel
Still preoccupied with Tumblr.
It’s such a marvelous tool. An archeological dig through ones own history of ideas.
Everything is there on the internet. Nothing is hidden from me. Then, they come…liking and reblogging and commenting.
They like the most unusual things. Like the picture of Marilyn Manson.
Yesterday, I hired an assistant. Had a long chat with Robby. Dealt with my tax bill. Spoke to my wonderful lawyers at the ACLU. Cooked dinner. Watched Jennifer cut up a wheel of cheese. Spent hours looking for a certain picture.
Then, I lay in my bed wondering when I will see that boy up North who wants me to take what ever I want from him.
I’m waiting for you, he says.
I look at pictures of him. I imagine what it would be like to find another to fuck him. To watch him suck someone else.
He wants me to be unspeakably hard on him. And, I shall.
Tell me, I like it when you tell me what to do…he murmurs. Control me. Take me. Love me.
He is waiting.
I am obsessed with my Tumblr account.
Sitting with 12 year old Hannah learning how to do it properly.
Sitting up all night searching for images, videos, quotes from a long life.
Constructing a narrative where all events harmonize. Where color and texture blend from one image to another. Telling public and private stories simultaneously.
As for the rest? My other life?
I had tea with a producer on Friday ostensibly to talk about my new film…then unexpectedly he asked me to read a script which they are looking for a director.
It arrived immediately and it is beautiful. It will take me to Europe for a year. To Italy.
I drove back up the 10…happy, joyous and free. Perhaps the hell of the last two years is truly coming to an end?
Dinner in Venice, then bumped into my ‘friend with benefits’. He said, although drunk, that he was embarrassed to introduce me to his friends because I am so much older. I told him that was like me being embarrassed by his being a jew or gay…I walked away. He’s a kid. What do I expect?
He needs to learn to own his own life.
Today it’s lunch on the beach with British friends then tomorrow a magazine editor friend of mine from NYC is here.
I explained to Robby why I was feeling so optimistic, hours before the script was mentioned. Looking out over LA from the 13th floor.
I explained why seeing the man I once loved in love was so reassuring.
To be excluded from the life of one for whom I had been so instrumental…had driven me insane.
The emotional investment in another, even when that relationship changes into something else…well…one is always looking to recoup.
The dividend…was to see him happy. I saw irrefutable evidence that all our hard and painful, beautiful and passionate time together…was worth it.
I don’t need, nor do I deserve to have the enduring love of another to make me happy…all I needed to know was that he, he who I love…was loved.
It is very simple to me…though confusing for most.
My ‘failed relationship’ has meaning now. A context.
During the past two years I have written so often about finding peace. Peace and understanding. This is it! I announced grandly…this is the peace I have been searching for! Well, I was wrong.
It was merely an illusion. A false hope. The glaring eyes of many storms…a momentary peace…which I mistakenly assumed would last. The 100 foot waves continued to break over the bow and I was lost again.
Seeing those two men pressed together, harmonious, happy…well…who couldn’t want for them what I was never able to achieve?
I know what you think…that I deserve what I get, that I am not very nice, that I have been very cruel. Well, it’s true. I have been cruel and mean but I don’t think it was anything other than necessary for us to go through what we went through.
The only people, as I have written before who are deserving of my apology…are his parents and sister who I demanded into our violent storm, who I insulted and maligned.
For that I am truly sorry.
I have no idea, ultimately, if he intended for me specifically to see those things but he must have known. Wether he intended to try making me jealous..well..that’s another consideration and we’ll leave it at that.
What I have learned these past few years is that (in a quieter less public way) so many men and women are tortured by love…in and out of love. Choosing inappropriate partners, chasing hopeless dreams.
Sadly, there is no cure for curiosity.
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