My friend Jamie has a store in West Hollywood called Phillis Morris.
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Author: Duncan Spark
I am an artist and writer living in London
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Red Spider Cafe
Before I start my regular blog I want to write about Whitstable and The Red Spider Cafe.
The Red Spider Cafe was a charming shack on Whitstable beach that, throughout my childhood, served tea and cake. It closed some time in the late 70’s and stood derelict for many years. The Red Spider was finally demolished in the 1980’s during the massive beach renovation and sea-defence construction.
I have always dreamt of the Red Spider being rebuilt.
There’s something non-Whitstable people need to know about Whitstable Beach: it is an anomaly. Unlike most beaches in the UK which are owned by the Crown Whitstable Beach is owned privately by my friend Barry Green’s company.
There’s something else non-Whitstable people need to understand. If Barry had not bought the Whitstable Oyster Company and preserved it and the surrounding buildings the Oyster Stores would have been demolished. They were slated for demolition. Barry saved the building and by doing so saved the town.
Barry is not a philanthopist..he is a businessman. The Red Spider cafe will make a profit. It must be rebuilt because Whitstable needs to continue evolving and growing. People need jobs. Especially now.
Barry’s eldest son Richard and I instigated the restaurant at the Oyster Company (Royal Native Oyster Stores) that almost single-handedly regenerated Whitstable’s fortunes.
Nobody local took the restaurant very seriously when it first opened. I cooked, Richard served. Within a month it was packed. Every day.
During those early years I begged Barry to rebuild the Red Spider and now, twenty years after it was torn down, the Red Spider may indeed be rebuilt. However, Whitstable and the people who now live there, has changed. Middle class, ‘keep it as it is‘, ‘terrified of change‘ type people now vocally oppose the rebuilding of what was once a great, water-side resource.
They are frightened of alcohol being served at the Red Spider even though just a hundred feet away stands the Neptune Pub which is a very messy, unkempt affair.
They are scared of the suggested long opening hours even though the building is further away from homes than the nearest, noisy pub.
They say that the rebuilding of the Red Spider will have an ‘environmental impact’ which is just bull shit and proves how far these detractors will go to stop the Red Spider cafe from being rebuilt.
Obviously I am totally in favour of the rebuilding of the Red Spider Cafe as I am also, unfashionably, in favour of Barry rebuilding the beach huts along the beach. As one can see from the photograph above there were huts all over the beach when I was a child and they enhanced the charm of the town and more importantly the beach.
The sort of people who complain about The Red Spider are the sort of people who frankly don’t understand Whitstable and more importantly resent the difficult, unruly Greens and their stunning success.
Did you notice that the crude painting of the ‘red spider’ looks more like a tick?
REBUILD THE RED SPIDER
Oh yes, and before all you new Whitstable people wonder what business it is of mine…I am presently buying a property in Whitstable after only 4 years of absence.
Yesterday ended up being more fun than I anticipated. Occasionally things happen that inadvertently make sense of uncomfortable feelings. What started out as a day where I couldn’t even raise my head ended at an AA meeting where my perspective changed, my positivity regained.
What seemed important in the morning was less so in the evening.
This is the AA reality. It is almost impossible to burn ones bridges. The door is always open. It is a club where anyone is welcome…forever. The friendly faces may change but they remain friendly and welcoming. It really is the best club in the world for a person like me.
So, as I said, yesterday began with a feeling of uselessness. Even though I have more going on than I have all year (the film) I still felt like a husk, a useless, unevolved husk. I had a beard trimming accident in the morning so lost my beard.
The little Dog and I went for a long walk to the new Rambla Pacifico road which has come once again grinding to a halt.
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I sat at my desk and ticked more things off of my moving list. Roger stopped by and ate pfeffernusse which are spiced german cookies. The choreographer visited later. He was a great deal of fun persuaded me to buy an album by Concha Buika (beautiful) and by so doing goaded me out of my bad mood and my house and into the aforementioned AA meeting.
Before AA I decided to go to the last few days of the RRL sale at the Malibu Lumber Yard. I bought a shirt, waistcoat, vest and a pair of gray woolen trousers. Ended up wearing this very fetching outfit sans beard at dinner with the choreographer. We ate at Sauce in Venice. We ate a huge plate of excellently prepared green vegetables.
Looking in the mirror this morning I do indeed look very puffy and unattractive but hey, that’s the way things are and at my age things are only going to get a whole heap worse so I may as well get used to it.
I don’t feel ugly on the inside. In fact, I feel very good indeed.
Madness, when it comes upon me is a grueling mystery to solve. For months now I have been gripped with what started out merely as a broken heart.
When one begins to feel the onset of ones own brand of insanity it is always impossible to make sense of the confusing depth and range of emotions.
In the midst of the maelstrom it all feels so incredibly real. Yet, as we are well aware, once sanity returns: FEELINGS are not FACTS.
Regardless of how and why I experienced such a destructive wave of emotion I could only wait, as one does, for the storm to end.
It was galling that I had not suffered a comparable emotional torment for many years, fourteen in fact. As you have read on these pages, when I first got sober I had the same misery, the same terrible sense of powerlessness that has overwhelmed me every day since last January.
There is no way to prepare for such misery. One can only pray that it passes. That it passes swiftly and without too much damage being inflicted on either myself or others.
I have learned so much these last few months. Learned the very good and the very bad about myself. It is so incredibly lonely when one is gripped by such furious indignation.
After the storm inevitably there is the wreckage. After the storm, picking up the pieces of everything that has been smashed and knowing that it is impossible to mend what is so utterly broken.
Salvaging first and foremost ones dignity.
On this occasion I know that I have done irreparable damage to myself. I used to have hope and I no longer do. The reserve of hope that I was born with is exhausted.
In many ways I have been returned to that moment last January before we met when I had everything to look forward to. It is now up to me to start again. Start building, start a positive dialogue with myself that may include some sort of sanctuary.
My body is wrecked from these past few months. Fighting, fighting, fighting.
Fighting what was growing inside me, fighting the feelings, fighting my true intentions to be a good and better person.
I have no idea what comes next. I know in my heart, in the pit of my stomach, in my soul…that I will never attempt to have another relationship. I seem truly incapable of that basic human connection and unable to deal with the associated feelings of inadequacy that swamp me once I meet any person I value.
I dare not take that risk.
I know that all familiar avenues others take for granted are now closed to me.
When I was a child, the only way I could express my fury at the world was to smash everything in my room. Everything I held dear. It was my only option. There was nowhere to run, no place to hide.
And what of him?
Well, I hope and pray that he is already living a wonderful life, that he has great and extraordinary beauty ahead of him. I know that he is capable of things I can only dream about. I finally expunged his name from this blog and worked hard to uncouple him from me in the virtual ether. His ‘bit of fun’ turned into a nightmare for us both but I am determined to forgive him…the alternative will merely drag me into further insanity.
He is not the problem. He must be part of the solution.
If I am truly over this catastrophe then I must love him as much as I must love the unfair world around me. He is a stranger now. He will remain a stranger.
For what once felt so beautiful, as I predicted, must now be an inconsequential blip.
To this end I must accept any and all of my own shortcomings. I must see my part in this drama. Own my part in it.
I must let God take back the reigns.
There are other more important lessons to learn, adventures to be had…but I will not learn any of them unless I can truly forgive.
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God Children
My darling God Children give me so much pleasure. Here is a glimpse of them. They have moved to Lake Malibu which is just PERFECT.
Loads going on in SoCal…but just H’wood shit. On HLN again tonight with my valued opinions about Charlie Sheen. SAG awards…blah blah. Aleksa won with her Boardwalk Empire colleagues. She texted me after…so excited. I am so proud of her.
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Fallen Tree
As per your requests on facebook….
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70 degrees Fahrenheit 10am
I woke at 4.30 am once again. Nothing unusual about that. Pottered around making tea and reading the news. Unusually I went back to bed and for four hours I dreamt: dreams of reconciliation.
I found myself at Victoria Station (London) waiting at a platform. Then, I am on a road trip in France with a man I seemed to know but at day break no longer recognise. Then, I am in a strange bedroom with a girl and a boy who are fighting. She is crying. She lets me hold her, console her.
Back at the station there is a large white dog who is lost, I can hear her owner calling out her name and they are reunited. The dog plays in a sand box, performing tricks as if she were not a dog at all. Burying herself comically in the sand.
Now the boy and the girl are there at the station. There is still tension between them but the girl thanks me for holding her. I ask if I can talk to her friend. When we are alone I look into his eyes and ask him if he had ever, in fact, loved me. He smiled wryly and I knew that he never had. I was disappointed but not surprised. He let me kiss him on the lips. He was being very brave. I said my goodbye and they left, the girl and the boy.
Some man wrote to me last week, an anonymous man (might have been a woman) telling me that I had ‘borderline personality disorder‘ well, I looked at the symptoms on-line and well, yes I could very well be that man. But, so could almost every body else that I knew. I thought, ok..so take away these symptoms..cure me. What am I left with? Not much.
What is it to be normal? To have ‘normal’ aspirations? To have ‘normal’ relationships?
I am willing, as I have all the way through my recovery..to remain teachable. To consider the options. To seek, to find, to mine my happiness without compulsion. I have failed again and again but I try and I try.
Perhaps the fight in general, the war..is over? I don’t know. I am not suicidal. I am not unhappy. Today I find myself in my own body, seeing out of my own eyes. Feeling with my own fingers.
If indeed it is true that I am as mad as a hatter then I must learn to live with my madness. I am not, any time soon, taking psychotropic drugs or committing to therapy that declares some sort of vegetable normality. Regardless of what or who I am I shall continue to make the best of a bad lot.
If one really could change out all of ones shortcomings what is one left with?
Yesterday we chopped down the tree that fell on the house. Jody arrived from the electricity company to oversee our work. We stood on the roof and fearlessly chain sawed the branches out of the live wires.
Roger, my assistant, emailed, called, swept paths and generally made my life a great deal easier. Started making a list of things to be packed up and sent back East.
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The War is Over
I sat in therapy this morning overcome with regret.
Don’t want to fight any more. The war is over. The bloody war is over.
Take your life and live it. You won’t find you on these pages any more.
You couldn’t say a kind goodbye so I must accept what you threw at me.
I had such a lovely breakfast with the boys. Everyone of them so thrilled for me. I don’t want to ruin it with petty acrimony.
Listen, owning up to the genesis of my anger has been a chore.
I wanted, from the very beginning, to set you free from your bondage but ended up chaining you to me like a Siamese twin.
I have been looking and longing for so many years.
Take it…take it all.
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malibu views
Spent all day sweeping paths…I will show you the garden tomorrow when it is swept and hosed down. Just a few more weeks before I am gone from here.
I wont miss it.
I hired an assistant more for the company than anything else. He has been on his laptop selling the truck, fetching the Dorian Gray Archive out of storage, fetching and carrying…fetching and carrying.
We made good headway today. Great.
Had lunch with John in Beverly Hills.
Can you see how much STUFF I have to contend with? I am just going to sell everything and start anew. Auction house here I come.
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Los Angeles
Ashley picked me up from lax. 70 degrees..the little dog started molting immediately.
The flight was uneventful. Attending the final days of Sundance…I hope.
It was sad leaving NYC. I loved the bitter cold on my face.
Expecting friends to visit…odd being thrown back in the middle of nowhere…yet something rather miraculous happened…I started writing my film with some long-lost compulsion to create.
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Monday Morning
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