Categories
art

I thought having a vagina would be fun but now I hate it

…which was how somebody found the blog yesterday.  Nothing worse than a tranny with buyers remorse.

Golden Angel Head

Resting my lap top on my ball.  Did I learn nothing?  I can feel it burn my thighs.

NYC.  Why so secretive?  Secret love?  Maybe.   Secret litigation.  YES!  Not so secret.  Secret parties after the Armory?  Well…of course.  Secret drama at my favourite places?  Definitely.  Secret film stars at NYU.  Secret fuck buddies who don’t want to wear condoms.

Secrets…and I am on the verge of giving birth to this huge secret shit.

A love affair?  maybe.

Walking the dog as usual.  Selling art.  Not selling art.  Fuck!

Met up with a gay friend who is just so pissed at Obama and the HRC and can’t imagine how things are going to change for him and his lover.  How are things going to change?

It’s only a matter of time.

Don’t give up.  Read this:

Speech Michael Moore delivered at Wisconsin Capitol in Madison, March 5, 2011

America is not broke.

Contrary to what those in power would like you to believe so that you’ll give up your pension, cut your wages, and settle for the life your great-grandparents had, America is not broke. Not by a long shot. The country is awash in wealth and cash. It’s just that it’s not in your hands. It has been transferred, in the greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks and the portfolios of the uber-rich.

Today just 400 Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans combined.

Let me say that again. 400 obscenely rich people, most of whom benefited in some way from the multi-trillion dollar taxpayer “bailout” of 2008, now have more loot, stock and property than the assets of 155 million Americans combined. If you can’t bring yourself to call that a financial coup d’état, then you are simply not being honest about what you know in your heart to be true.

And I can see why. For us to admit that we have let a small group of men abscond with and hoard the bulk of the wealth that runs our economy, would mean that we’d have to accept the humiliating acknowledgment that we have indeed surrendered our precious Democracy to the moneyed elite. Wall Street, the banks and the Fortune 500 now run this Republic — and, until this past month, the rest of us have felt completely helpless, unable to find a way to do anything about it.

I have nothing more than a high school degree. But back when I was in school, every student had to take one semester of economics in order to graduate. And here’s what I learned: Money doesn’t grow on trees. It grows when we make things. It grows when we have good jobs with good wages that we use to buy the things we need and thus create more jobs. It grows when we provide an outstanding educational system that then grows a new generation of inventers, entrepreneurs, artists, scientists and thinkers who come up with the next great idea for the planet. And that new idea creates new jobs and that creates revenue for the state. But if those who have the most money don’t pay their fair share of taxes, the state can’t function. The schools can’t produce the best and the brightest who will go on to create those jobs. If the wealthy get to keep most of their money, we have seen what they will do with it: recklessly gamble it on crazy Wall Street schemes and crash our economy. The crash they created cost us millions of jobs.  That too caused a reduction in revenue. And the population ended up suffering because they reduced their taxes, reduced our jobs and took wealth out of the system, removing it from circulation.

The nation is not broke, my friends. Wisconsin is not broke. It’s part of the Big Lie. It’s one of the three biggest lies of the decade: America/Wisconsin is broke, Iraq has WMD, the Packers can’t win the Super Bowl without Brett Favre.

The truth is, there’s lots of money to go around. LOTS. It’s just that those in charge have diverted that wealth into a deep well that sits on their well-guarded estates. They know they have committed crimes to make this happen and they know that someday you may want to see some of that money that used to be yours. So they have bought and paid for hundreds of politicians across the country to do their bidding for them. But just in case that doesn’t work, they’ve got their gated communities, and the luxury jet is always fully fueled, the engines running, waiting for that day they hope never comes. To help prevent that day when the people demand their country back, the wealthy have done two very smart things:

1. They control the message. By owning most of the media they have expertly convinced many Americans of few means to buy their version of the American Dream and to vote for their politicians. Their version of the Dream says that you, too, might be rich some day – this is America, where anything can happen if you just apply yourself! They have conveniently provided you with believable examples to show you how a poor boy can become a rich man, how the child of a single mother in Hawaii can become president, how a guy with a high school education can become a successful filmmaker. They will play these stories for you over and over again all day long so that the last thing you will want to do is upset the apple cart — because you — yes, you, too! — might be rich/president/an Oscar-winner some day! The message is clear: keep your head down, your nose to the grindstone, don’t rock the boat and be sure to vote for the party that protects the rich man that you might be some day.

2. They have created a poison pill that they know you will never want to take. It is their version of mutually assured destruction. And when they threatened to release this weapon of mass economic annihilation in September of 2008, we blinked. As the economy and the stock market went into a tailspin, and the banks were caught conducting a worldwide Ponzi scheme, Wall Street issued this threat: Either hand over trillions of dollars from the American taxpayers or we will crash this economy straight into the ground. Fork it over or it’s Goodbye savings accounts. Goodbye pensions. Goodbye United States Treasury. Goodbye jobs and homes and future. It was friggin’ awesome and it scared the shit out of everyone. “Here! Take our money! We don’t care. We’ll even print more for you! Just take it! But, please, leave our lives alone, PLEASE!”

The executives in the board rooms and hedge funds could not contain their laughter, their glee, and within three months they were writing each other huge bonus checks and marveling at how perfectly they had played a nation full of suckers. Millions lost their jobs anyway, and millions lost their homes. But there was no revolt (see #1).

Until now. On Wisconsin! Never has a Michigander been more happy to share a big, great lake with you! You have aroused the sleeping giant know as the working people of the United States of America. Right now the earth is shaking and the ground is shifting under the feet of those who are in charge. Your message has inspired people in all 50 states and that message is: WE HAVE HAD IT! We reject anyone tells us America is broke and broken. It’s just the opposite! We are rich with talent and ideas and hard work and, yes, love. Love and compassion toward those who have, through no fault of their own, ended up as the least among us. But they still crave what we all crave: Our country back! Our democracy back! Our good name back! The United States of America. NOT the Corporate States of America. The United States of America!

So how do we get this? Well, we do it with a little bit of Egypt here, a little bit of Madison there. And let us pause for a moment and remember that it was a poor man with a fruit stand in Tunisia who gave his life so that the world might focus its attention on how a government run by billionaires for billionaires is an affront to freedom and morality and humanity.

Thank you, Wisconsin. You have made people realize this was our last best chance to grab the final thread of what was left of who we are as Americans. For three weeks you have stood in the cold, slept on the floor, skipped out of town to Illinois — whatever it took, you have done it, and one thing is for certain: Madison is only the beginning. The smug rich have overplayed their hand. They couldn’t have just been content with the money they raided from the treasury. They couldn’t be satiated by simply removing millions of jobs and shipping them overseas to exploit the poor elsewhere. No, they had to have more – something more than all the riches in the world. They had to have our soul. They had to strip us of our dignity. They had to shut us up and shut us down so that we could not even sit at a table with them and bargain about simple things like classroom size or bulletproof vests for everyone on the police force or letting a pilot just get a few extra hours sleep so he or she can do their job — their $19,000 a year job. That’s how much some rookie pilots on commuter airlines make, maybe even the rookie pilots flying people here to Madison. But he’s stopped trying to get better pay. All he asks is that he doesn’t have to sleep in his car between shifts at O’Hare airport. That’s how despicably low we have sunk. The wealthy couldn’t be content with just paying this man $19,000 a year. They wanted to take away his sleep. They wanted to demean and dehumanize him. After all, he’s just another slob.

And that, my friends, is Corporate America’s fatal mistake. But trying to destroy us they have given birth to a movement — a movement that is becoming a massive, nonviolent revolt across the country. We all knew there had to be a breaking point some day, and that point is upon us. Many people in the media don’t understand this. They say they were caught off guard about Egypt, never saw it coming. Now they act surprised and flummoxed about why so many hundreds of thousands have come to Madison over the last three weeks during brutal winter weather. “Why are they all standing out there in the cold? I mean there was that election in November and that was supposed to be that!

“There’s something happening here, and you don’t know what it is, do you…?”

America ain’t broke! The only thing that’s broke is the moral compass of the rulers. And we aim to fix that compass and steer the ship ourselves from now on. Never forget, as long as that Constitution of ours still stands, it’s one person, one vote, and it’s the thing the rich hate most about America — because even though they seem to hold all the money and all the cards, they begrudgingly know this one unshakeable basic fact: There are more of us than there are of them!

Categories
art

Armory 2011

Even though, as I was recently told, I have no right to be writing about art…I brazenly decided, against my better judgment, that I should risk making a fool of myself by attending the Armory Show.

God forbid if I write something dumb.  I decided that I would NOT have opinions.  How would that feel?  But, try as I might… within seconds of arriving at the 2011 Armory show… I was overwhelmed with… opinions.  Many, many opinions. Sickeningly, I just could not stop.  Opinions… swarmed… like bees.  Involuntary… like hiccups, like dry heaving, like angina.  In many cases the opinions were as painful as having a heart attack.  Worst of all… I had no idea if my opinions were worth having or not.

I was invited by Adam Gross…thanks for asking Lorcan.  “Who invited you?”  He sneered imperiously.  “What are you doing here?”  I stopped by at 12 midday with my friend Aaron so I could enjoy a leisurely meander around the 200 or so stands on Pier 94 devoted to NEW WORK BY LIVING ARTISTS….rather than fight through a raucous crowd at 5pm like everyone else.  All the usual suspects in attendance.

Remember when Jay first came here?  That little room at the Gramercy Park Hotel?  Those were exciting days.  The White Cube gallery is now an ‘institution’ and looked just like that: a dreary, so what space showing all the usual stuff in all the usual ways. White Cube has lost its edge. In the words of Jay’s greatest victim Miss Tracy Emin it is ‘stuck, stuck, stuck’.

Living artists?

Also stuck: Max Wigram (looks terribly OLD) and Lorcan O’Neill (attractive) who still pedal that same old YBA shit. Lorcan tried to up his game with a mediocre Richard Long mud work but it was too little too late.

Victoria Miro, also an ‘institution’ but less arrogant, more in touch.

There sure were slim pickings this year.  There were a few exceptional stands that inspired and a few artists who caught our attention.  Here are some of them:

My favorite piece and stand were audaciously combined by Paul Kasmin.  Ivan Navarro’s site specific Armory Fence delineated Kasmin’s pitch and excluded even the gallery assistants who sat at the edge taking comments and cards.  It was genius.

Ivan Navarro at Paul Kasmin

Felt a little sorry for the surrounding booths as there was no escaping the nuclear fallout from Navarro’s huge neon piece.

I loved Sean Kelly’s delicious space and choices. I asked him if he had offered Billy Childish a show. “Not to my knowledge.” He said.

Richard Heller showing Devin Troy Strother…not usually worth mentioning but there is something charming about Devin’s new work.

At Josh Lilly I fell in love with the work of Analin Saban who works in LA and shares a studio with John Baldessari. It sold moments before I could pull out my cheque book.

Analin Saban @ Josh Lilley

At Leo Koenig I was drawn to and offered to buy a small and very beautiful work by Nicole Eisenman. Again I was beaten at the pass by an ‘important’ collector. It was the only piece that they had sold. At 6.5k this was a bargain. Studio visit planned for next week. I dragged Stavros Niarchos into the gallery to admire this most painterly of painters.  Leo started in on Vito Schnabel, boasting that it was opening his gallery that inspired Vito to become a gallerist. Really?

Bumped into my friends from the Donald Judd Foundation who invited me this week on a hard hat tour of the space on Spring St that is currently being extensively renovated.

I noticed Jay Jopling all over a Belinde De Bruyckere work at Galleria Continua. Here it is:

Berlinde De Bruyckere

There was another work of hers at Sean Kelly’s:

Berlinde De Bruyckere

Frankly the boys were prettier than the art… and cheaper.  One GORGEOUS Swiss boy working his father’s gallery.

Lunch with Aaron at Soho House.   Steam room.  Saw Joan.  Missed Dan.  Dinner and a cuddle with SH.

On the way home from the Armory we stopped off at David Zwirner’s gallery on 19th street.

Marcel Dzama’s Behind Every Curtain. Delightful:

[wpvideo 0efUC8qA]

Categories
Fashion Gay Love Rant

Odious John Galliano Fired From Dior

I never met John Galliano.  Nope, never met him.  If I looked for him on FB, if he was even on FB, we would probably have buddies in common but to my recollection I have never actually pressed the flesh with John Galliano.

Love, love, love his women’s wear, never cared for the men’s line.

John Galliano!  The man is a fucking genius and a total KNOB.  He just did that gay, alcoholic cliché thing of totally sabotaging his entire career.

A genius, iconoclast, nihilist…alcoholic.

An alcoholic knob.  I mean…he just flushed that amazing career down the toilet.

He will lose everything.

Why do drunk, powerful people start in on the jews?   Mel Gibson..remember his anti-Semitic rant on the PCH outside Moonshadows bar?

In a brief statement, Dior said because of his “odious behavior” Dior has sidelined Galliano and initiated proceedings to fire him.

I just LOVE the word ‘odious’.

Galliano, in the video I saw of him in that super cool Parisian bar La Perle on the Rue Vieille du Temple…apart from looking totally PISSED (drunk) he reminded me of David Bowie playing the alien with no finger nails Thomas Jerome Newton in the Man Who Fell To Earth.

Lonely, beautifully dressed, politely out of control.

With great poise he told the people he was insulting that their ancestors should have been ‘gassed’.

Unlike Mel Gibson who was screaming anti-Semitic insults at the only jewish cop in the LAPD.

John…darling…lovey, you’ve come so far.  Humble beginnings…your dad was a plumber.  Want a solution?  Want to deal with your grandiosity?  Go to AA.  You don’t want to end up dead like Alexander McQueen or Isabella Blow?  Do you?

Go to AA based rehab.  FAST.

Alcoholics Anonymous was designed for people like you.

You probably don’t even remember your rant.

UPDATE

A sober speech by Christian Dior chief executive Sidney Toledano and a finale bow of applauding, white-robed seamstresses and craftsmen bookended today’s Dior fall-winter fashion show, which went ahead under the shadow of the anti-Semitic outbursts that led to the ousting of its couturier, John Galliano, earlier this week.
“It has been deeply painful to see the Dior name associated with the disgraceful statements attributed to its designer, however brilliant he may be,” Toledano said, in the only reference to Galliano, never mentioned by name. “What happened last week has been a terrible and wrenching ordeal for us all.
“So now, more than ever, we must publicly re-commit to the values of the House of Dior.”
The show, held in a giant tent in the gardens of the Rodin Museum, had little of the usual front-row hoopla, but the usual thumping music and army of models.
“What you are going to see now is the result of the extraordinary, creative, and marvelous efforts of these loyal, hardworking people,” Toledano said of Dior’s teams and studios.
As reported, Galliano is to stand trial this spring in a French criminal court on a charge of public insult after three people filed complaints alleging Galliano hurled racist and anti-Semitic remarks at them.
Galliano has apologized “unreservedly” for his behavior in causing any offence, assured “anti-Semitism and racism have no part in our society” and reiterated he denies the claims made against him and has commenced proceedings for defamation and threats made against him.

PARIS — The show must go on.

That seems to be the mantra at Christian Dior SA, which is soldiering ahead with the Dior fashion show today despite John Galliano’s dramatic ouster over anti-Semitic outbursts.

It is expected to be a straightforward affair, with little of the usual celebrity hoopla. News organizations have been instructed that photographers will have no access to backstage or the front row. That hasn’t stopped what Dior’s public relations battalion describes as “overwhelming” demand for invitations. (For more on the Dior brand, see page 6.)

According to sources, the attendance of luxury titan Bernard Arnault — typically flanked by glamorous Dior ambassadors such as Charlize Theron and French government figures — is not assured, owing to the tug of other business obligations.

Meanwhile, the John Galliano fall collection is to be presented on Sunday in its appointed time slot, but in a different format and venue. Sources said plans for a runway spectacle in landmark Left Bank brasserie La Coupole have been changed in favor of a tableau vivant format in a hôtel particulier. The designer will not be present.

Dior, which controls the John Galliano company, has yet to disclose its intentions for the business, now that its namesake designer is to stand trial this spring in a French criminal court on a charge of public insult after three people filed complaints alleging Galliano hurled racist and anti-Semitic remarks at them.

If found guilty, he could face six months imprisonment and a fine of 22,500 euros, or $31,207 at current exchange, according to the Paris public prosecutor. Galliano has apologized “unreservedly” for his behavior in causing any offence, assured “anti-Semitism and racism have no part in our society” and reiterated he denies the claims made against him and has commenced proceedings for defamation and threats made against him.

Dior initially suspended Galliano from his duties on Friday and then ousted him on Tuesday amidst the mounting allegations and an explosive video depicting the maverick designer saying in a slurred voice, “I love Hitler.” Dior condemned the statements made in the video and commenced termination procedures.

Galliano, a London-born wunderkind who was the creative architect of Dior’s rejuvenation, has been its couturier since 1996. Succession rumors continue to swirl in the hothouse atmosphere of Paris Fashion Week.

It is understood Dior is in no hurry — and is legally unable —to name a successor until it has completed its procedure to terminate Galliano’s employment.

Under French employment regulations, the procedure to terminate employees can go quickly for what is known as faute grave, a serious misdemeanor. If the reason for termination concerns a personal matter or incident off the company clock, it can take several weeks.

According to sources, Arnault’s various advisers are pitching a variety of candidates, among them Haider Ackermann, Hedi Slimane and Givenchy’s rising star, Riccardo Tisci.

Delphine Arnault, deputy managing director at Christian Dior and the daughter of the billionaire LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton chairman, is said to be a champion of Tisci. In a splashy cover feature in Madame Figaro magazine in January, Tisci coaxed Arnault to be photographed among five women said to be under his spell. (The others were Liv Tyler, Isabelle Huppert, Vahina Giocante and Lou Doillon.)

“There won’t be any choice for quite a while,” said one source familiar with the French luxury group. “They’re receiving offers.”

It is understood overtures have been made recently to Ackermann as a possible candidate for Dior, or to succeed Tisci at Givenchy, should he be moved over to Dior.

Approached at the Ann Demeulemeester show Thursday, Anne Chapelle, chief executive officer and owner of Bvba 32, which controls the Haider Ackermann brand, declined to comment, saying the focus for now should remain on Ackermann’s own show, scheduled for Saturday. Asked whether the designer would contractually be free to work for another house, should he be offered a role, Chapelle replied: “Everybody is free.”

As principals at LVMH hunt for a successor to Galliano, some are hoping to make a profit from their final decision. PaddyPower.com, the British online betting site, has odds on Stefano Pilati (11-8) or Hedi Slimane (9-4) getting the top job. The odds are lower, however, for Tisci (3-1). Meanwhile, Nicolas Ghesquière, Kris Van Assche and Roland Mouret are all tipped at 4-1. Alber Elbaz trails them with odds of 6-1. The site specifies that all bets apply “To the next permanent, top Dior Creative Director after John Galliano.” The person must be confirmed as a permanent appointment by the ceo of Christian Dior.

Categories
Love Poem

You Are Gorgeous

[wpvideo f4zNSsKA]

[wpvideo lLgL7D0i]

 

I had a lovely time today with you.  You must have been twenty years old when I first met you.  Now look at you.  I like when you wear your jeans tighter.  Cargo pants really don’t suit you.  I like when you read poetry to me.  I like when you crack my fingers.

Help yourself.  You can have whatever you want.  Take what ever you want.

Categories
Death

LOUD AND DIM

Gary Winick (Tadpole 2002) died.  He was 49-years-old.

Gary once introduced me to Mark Ruffalo.  Mark wouldn’t remember me, Gary would.

Gary was one of the forward thinking guys who set up the ground breaking film production company InDigEnt.  He was a really, really sweet man.  No news as to how he died but I think, from what I can remember, he may have had a serious illness that he kept quiet about.

He was very discreet.

Crikey, so many deaths!  I just diligently report them.  It’s rewarding to find something nice to say about the recently departed like poor Wally in Whitstable.

In Jean’s case, it was quite hard.  We hadn’t spoken for ages because we had a money issue that neither of us wanted to resolve.  He was a terrible drain on his friends and family.  Let’s put it this way: it was very hard for Jean to enjoy his gifted life without endlessly complaining or taking drugs.

People die.  I just put on my bombazine shift and write the bleeding obituary.

Perhaps I should try writing my own?

I would entitle it:  WEAK TEA  or  LOUD AND DIM or NOTHING REMARKABLE.

To be run in the Whitstable Times in the event of my death:

Surly Duncan Roy (65) found dead in his Swalecliffe bed sitting room.  Former Lord of The Lies refused medication for obvious mental illness and made unremarkable films.   Campaigned for the Red Spider Cafe.  He will not be missed.

I have not written a last will and testament so the fuckers can squabble over what is left.   I may leave it all to that little girl or to a bat charity or Jake’s ex-girl friend.  That would be funny.

Watched Oscars.  Was James Franco stoned?  No!  He’s been sober for YEARS.  He just looked a bit unprepared.  I would have preferred if Social Network had won best film.  It deserved to.  The Kings Speech is constipated TV tosh.   Tom Hooper is a director of no importance.  Why does Colin Firth KEEP telling the world how important Tom Ford is to him and how he wouldn’t be receiving these awards without having met him?  I thought that Firth had a rather long and distinguished career before meeting Ford?  Are they or have they been…fucking?

It occurred to me why Portman trumped Benning…Portman has more mileage in her and will generate more cash for CAA.  Poor Annette Bening so obviously deserved that Best Actress Academy Award but she’s an old mare and who writes great roles for old mares that Meryl Streep isn’t getting first refusal?

Clip Clop Annette.

Categories
Death

Jean Perramon RIP

My neighbour, Jean-Maxime Perramon was killed on the 101 yesterday.  He got out of his Ferrari at the edge of the freeway and was hit by a Lexus.

According to the CHP report two other vehicles were involved in the accident which happened at approximately 12:25 p.m February 26th 2011.

A silver Chevy van traveling north on the 101, five miles north of Reyes Adobe Road, initiated a lane change.  A silver Lexus ES350 swerved to avoid it but collided with the rear of the van.

The Lexus driver lost control of the car and sideswiped Perramon’s Ferrari parked on the right shoulder.

Jean had stepped out of his vehicle because, according to the report, he thought he had hit a piece of metal.  As he did so, he was instantly struck by the Lexus.

He was taken to the hospital, where he was later pronounced dead.

The driver of the Chevy has been identified by the CHP as James Pershing Flynn, 67, of Thousand Oaks, and the driver of the Lexus as Antonio Castillo, 37, of Montebello.

“Tonya Nicole Toma, 37, of Agoura Hills, was present in Perramon’s Ferrari at the time of the accident.”

Jean introduced me to Malibu.   Showed me around.  I discovered the house I would end up buying with Jean.  We were once very good friends…for many months inseparable.  Running up and down that bloody Malibu mountain in his Ferrari, attending AA meetings all over LA.

An unwitting child prodigy, Jean began his career earning money drawing chalk pictures on the streets of Paris. His creative talents did not go unnoticed. After completing art college he was hired as an art director by the important French advertising agency Oscar Mors et Varout.  This would lead to his exclusively overseeing the world-wide advertising account for L’Oreal.

He moved to the USA where he became a production designer for the Richard Williams Animation Studio, becoming one of LA’s premier digital directors and designers working with artists and animators to create eyecatching, entertaining projects for clients such as Kellogg’s Froot Loops campaign.

Incredibly successful but mortally wounded by rarely discussed childhood events.

Jean lived with his wife and elderly mother on two lots on Rambla Pacifico.  His Mother doesn’t speak perfect English so I would stop the truck and natter with her in French whenever I saw her.

Jean’s Mother remains a charming local character who walks the neighbourhood waving at passing cars.  Jean was forever shouting at her.

I called his wife this morning.  She sounded understandably exhausted.

Forever remodeling his home.  I wonder if he ever finished it?  Apparently he did, the house stands as a testament to his creativity and endurance.

His struggle to overcome active addiction was legendary to anyone who knew him.  I hope that he died sober.

He was one of the most tormented men I knew.

He will be at peace now.

Very Sad.

P.S.  A few months later his frail mother died in her sleep.

Jean Perramon

 

Categories
Fashion

Knitting

Did you know that I could knit?

Another of my weak tea successes.

When my mentally ill readers are not either reading my blog or taking their anti psychotic pills they may be knitting all alone in their unheated homes.

I can knit!

My grand mother taught me to knit when I was five years old.

I learned how to read a pattern, knit socks, knit Intarsia, knit a sort of free form, improvised Fair Isles technique.  I knitted myself an Aran sweater.

I pride myself for knitting intuitively and not having to follow a pattern.

Spent the day at the farmers market.  Farmers market folk seem to be very nice people indeed.

Here’s something I knitted earlier:

[wpvideo 74j2U8XU]

Categories
Death Whitstable

Tudor Tea Rooms Whitstable

You know how much I love Whitstable?  That would be one of my ‘weak tea‘ successes:  my relationship with Whitstable.

I love it there.  I know everyone.  We really know each other.  For good and for bad.

Well, today I received some very, very sad news.  My Mother‘s friend Carol who owns the Tudor Tea Rooms on Harbour Street…well..and this is terrible…her son Tony died.

Known affectionately as Wally to everyone who knew him, he was only 40 years old, tall, gentle, ran his mother’s business with aplomb.

When you order a pot of tea at The Tudor Tea Rooms you get a pot of tea made with loose tea and a strainer.  Quality.

We used to say that they served school dinners at the Tudor but we loved going in there.  Fire burning in the hearth all winter.  Closed on a Wednesday.  Real steak and kidney pudding with a thick suet crust.

Wally was killed during the day on the train tracks at the end of Glebe Way.  Struck by the coast-bound 11.22am Victoria to Ramsgate train just before 1pm.  I have no idea if he committed suicide or not.  That’s what people are saying but I really don’t want to believe it.

He was such a nice man.  Wally and his sister Sue had run that Tudor Tea Room since they were kids.  Since we were all kids.  Serving Steak and Kidney Pudding…opening the tea garden.  He was the sort of bloke you’d see in Prezzo Pizza Place with his young family.

As every Whitstable pub and every other shop front became yet another super chic gastro pub or seasonal/organic eaterie…the Tudor kept the same decor, the same menu, serving the same Whitstable us who didn’t want the bother of seared scallops or poached samphire.

My Mother and I saw Wally just a few weeks ago when I was home for Christmas.  He served us a good old-fashioned English roast.   My mother mocked me for drinking tea with my lunch…like ‘some one from a council house‘ she said.

He stood at the till and asked after my life in LA.  I felt embarrassed to tell him what my life was like in California.  What he didn’t know…what he could never have known…was what I was thinking that cold December day a week before Christmas:  that I would have quite easily traded my life in Malibu for a chance at running the Tudor Tea Rooms.

From where I was standing…his life looked perfect.

When I was a kid we would sit in the Tudor Tea Rooms and spy on Peter Cushing eating his poached eggs.

Poached eggs on toast.  Every day.

My mother accidentally pushed Peter Cushing off his bike one day when she was getting off the bus from Canterbury.

Anyway, Wally was killed on the railway lines.  The third person killed in the same spot in less than two months.  What’s happening?  What a waste of a good life, a sweet family man.  I feel for his wife and children, his sister Sue and his lovely mum Carol.

If you get the chance listen to this Jellybotty’s track, Peter Cushing Lives in Whitstable.

It mentions the Tudor Tea Rooms.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wpGPqWrjeQ].

Goodbye Wally.

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Categories
Rant

Feisty and Confident

The secrecy is getting to me.  I can’t bear it.

You can slag me off as much as you want but the truth is: I am mortally indiscreet so this is like shoving a red-hot poker up my ass and NOT in a good way.

After bleating this week about never going to have sex ever again well…an old comfort buddy called me yesterday morning and we lay in bed all afternoon kissing and stroking and showering together.  Someone I have known for years.  A sweet-natured Iranian man, 28..hairy chest.  There’s a picture of him in the blog I think.  Hidden.

It felt good to hold him in my arms.  It was very comforting.

The back of his neck reminded me of you know who so I looked him in the eye.

We scoffed a late lunch overlooking the sea.

As we ate two drunk people started a fight.  A bruised woman in her late 40’s and her madly attractive, much younger (20’s) blond, surfer boy friend.  Both chestnut coloured from lazing all year on the beach.  Her sun bleached hair tangled in dried blood from a recent brawl.  She threw two large bottles of beer at his head.  They smashed on the ground.  Later we saw this odd, violent couple being arrested.

Spent the rest of the day wrestling back control of the computer from Max.  His 13-year-old brain having got the best of his mum and dad’s good intentions.  Taking control of the family internet.  He was horrified by what I had done: limiting his internet usage to 3 hours a day, no iChat, no unfettered Facebook.  Every time he wants to do anything dodgy the computer emails me and tells me all about it.

Whilst they were out 10-year-old Hannah and I cooked dinner.  Moroccan influenced lamb balls.  Assorted vegetables.  Buttered rice.

I am feeling good.  Excited.  Fearless.

Categories
Death Gay

Catastrophe!

The past few weeks have been really interesting.

Annoyingly I’ve not been able to write about most or any of it and will not be able to in the foreseeable future.

As I have said before, as life gets really interesting the blog becomes less relevant.   Real life interrupts blog life and for that I am very grateful.

Eventually, when I am allowed, I will explode all over the blog and tell all but for the time being I am keeping my BIG MOUTH SHUT.

I am having to be covert.

Presently staying with friends whose main morning preoccupation is to read really bad news out loud off of the internet.  The corruption, the greed and the misery we create around the globe gleefully read out loud to their increasingly cynical children.

Frankly, there is no reason for a young child to have the worst possible news read out to them first thing in the morning as they prepare for school.  Scares them.  Scared me when I was a kid.  All that bad news about nuclear weapons.  I had a recurring nightmare about the atom bomb exploding.  On my own walking home from junior school up Windmill Road, Whitstable just in sight of my family home…when the atom bomb detonates.  A blinding light then a fierce, hot wind.  All I could think about was that I had to get home.  Of course, there was no home to get back to.

Right now my friend is telling her 8-year-old, “Brain damage is linked to cell phone use…”

Like a fairy story.

They had a lunch here on Sunday for two German friends.  A well-known actress and her film industry husband.   Within two minutes of arriving he announced the death of Perry Moore a man I knew in passing from New York.  Perry produced the Narnia films.  Years ago Toby Mott, Noreena Hertz and I had lunch with Perry and Tatum O’Neal at Freeman’s on Rivington when it was hot to have lunch there.  Perry and Tatum were both very drunk and weirdly abrasive.  Terry Richardson joined us for coffee.

Toby Mott, Noreena Hertz and? NYC

I was not shocked to hear about Perry’s death as it was somehow gay inevitable.  His father sadly telling the press that his son was on fine form the day before.  Well, nobody ever expects the death of a healthy young man, no father ever expects to bury his son.

Unless, of course, their son leads a double life.  We live, as gay men, lives away from our loved ones. Compartmentalized, fine one day..dead the next, slumped in the bathroom…oxycotin overdose.   It is too familiar to me.  So sad.

It would not surprise me if Jake ended up like Perry.

Anyway the German made some flip remark about Perry dying and gay people in general.  He didn’t realize that I was gay.  He didn’t realize that I was half Iranian so later made equally racist, inappropriate remarks about Iranian films winning the Berlin Film Festival.

Sometimes you just have to take the bullet so…I challenged him.  Within minutes he was threatening to punch my fag lights out.  His wife apologized for his behaviour.

They left.

Scratch most white Germans and a jackbooted Nazi goose steps out of the wound.

Samia Saouma my Lebanese ex-friend, gallery owner who lives in Berlin and is arguably one of the chicest women in the world was once applying her lipstick in the back of a cab when her white driver told her that she was a rag-head whore who should prepare for her next trick out of his cab.

Nice.

Recently I took down a whole heap of posts from this blog.  Blogs about him.  Removed until they had no internet traction.  Yesterday I reinstated them without his name attached.  Self censorship is not a good thing.  I also reinstated the Angry Reader blog that obviously came from ‘you know who’.

It amuses and disturbs me in equal measure that he would think that every achievement, everything of which I am proud he considers worthless.  This coming from a man who has achieved NOTHING before he was thirty years old (17th May) when I, in comparison, achieved so much!  Much more than anyone ever predicted.

By the time I was thirty years old I had written and directed plays, opened a restaurant, renovated houses, travelled the world.  Christ!   I did all that as well as being mentally ill, making enemies, etc. etc.

Achievement is not to be judged by others but rather owned by oneself.

I know that he gets drunk, stoned and lonely.  I know that deep down he would prefer to resolve rather than reload.  Time will tell.  Time, as I have often quoted, is the greatest distance between two people.

I know that the we he suggests laugh at me has always laughed.  They want me imprisoned or dead.   They condemn me and they condemn my friends for being my friends.

He, on the other hand, may be surrounded by friends, family and lovers but at the end of the day he has to face himself, as we all do, in the mirror.  I saw him wrestle with his conscience.

At that moment when I was most proud of him I should have just walked away.

As for the film?  It takes shape before my very eyes.  Working with CP in quite a different way than I have before.   That’s all I can say.  That’s all I want to say.

I still have no interest what so ever to meet, engage or have sex with any man.

Oscar party week.  I am not involving myself until Saturday.  Kick off festivities with Sharon…we will do the do…the merry dance.   Still, if I am honest, I can’t really be bothered.

I want to make my own film now…not celebrate the achievements of others.

P.S. Tatum O’Neal wouldn’t remember me.   She and Melanie Griffith once broke down together in an AA meeting.  Crying about the relationships they had failed to have with their children.   Meg Ryan looks like Melanie Griffith.  They must have had work by the same surgeon.  Meg Ryan wouldn’t remember me either.

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