Category: architecture

July 18, 2006 – Tuesday

PARIS

I love the smell of Paris. I love the streams of glistening street cleaning water on a bright morning coursing over the cobbles. I love the great boulevard. I love my secret lover’s courtyard. I love her white skin at night, my black hands on her breasts. In the hot afternoon she sprays her hands with eau de cologne. The pungent smell of vetiver filling the apartment with a promise of erotic nights.

There is a small boulangerie on the Boulevard St Germaine where they sell delicious croissant almonds; they are soggy with almond paste. This afternoon I will go to Trocadero and drink lemonade and eat macaron. This afternoon I will buy a white shirt in Charvet and wear it with my secret love at dinner on the rue de cherche midi. How strange and different a woman’s body is after so many years of hairy men. How they yield, how they do not judge you. I never mind taking off my underwear in front of a woman. Taking off your clothes in front of a man who spends hours in the gym. The last man I slept with had a firm, hairy body. I had to apologise for mine. He said, “I like it, I really do.” He was lying. He did not want to see me again. He cancelled. He lied.

I am not a very good gay. Bad Gay. I don’t like men. Of course I am useless as a straight–after making her climax with my tongue I wonder about the boys on the street. I think about that beautiful Russian boy I met on the train who I am almost in love with. Even so, when PH and I were together I needed no one else. I simply needed her. I have only been in love with one woman and one man. The love is quite different. It means something different.

American men have perfected the art of seduction. When the firm, hairy one told me that he would not stay the night and wake up in the morning with me, it made me curse him. I left my body–floating just above the ceiling–and I could hear him say, “you’ve gone quiet.” And I replied, “I knew that you would do this.” And then he said, “So you’ll not be disappointed then.”

He said at dinner the line that makes a woman melt, “sex means nothing to me outside of a relationship.”  I had already blown him ten minutes into the date. He paid for dinner. The champagne was chilling in the fridge. Champagne he had bought and that I would never drink. He did not think to ask if champagne was an entirely appropriate gift. I went to bed early that night. The smell of him on my fingers. It was my birthday–I had chosen to spend it with a total stranger rather than the friends who wanted to see me. It was not a good choice.

Bad Gay.

The following night the same thing happened with a red headed boy who when I called him the next day was obviously petrified. Bad gay. I am a very bad gay. And then there is Ed. Ed, who sits in his room and has cam-to-cam sex with men. I think that he might have the right idea. He will never be disappointed.

I have lent my apartment in LA to a friend. I hope that he looks after it. People have very different ways of living than I do. I have a new bed. Hope that he does not stain it.

Susanna S. once said that Duncan will give you the world, then one day he will take it all back. She did not actually say that, that is better than what she would say–as she is an inarticulate grunt. She meant that people take advantage of me until I get pissed off. My

friend who is borrowing my flat then asked if he could borrow money from me. Then you begin to get pissed off. Joe T let me buy him alcohol and dinners and let me cook for him; then when he had money, expected me to pay the valet.

I am going to be a grumpy old man who has to defend himself like a prize-fighter. Resentment will kill them before it gets a sniff at me. I want to be on my own. People distress me. Their ways. When I did cocaine it made me even more solitary, made me walk from Kensington to Soho at 4am. My toes bruised yet I could not feel the pain.

Bad Gay.

We walked the Seine last night. It was perfect. The pedestrian bridge–the one adjacent to the Pont Neuf, is covered with young people puffing on weed. They have food and guitars and the police just wander on through. Its like a little strip of youth revolution in the heart of the city. I could not imagine that happening in London.

Night it is incredibly warm on the streets. My secret love drank menthe and lemonade. We came home and had that sort of time you only remember from your youth: enthusiastic, passionate, and perfectly connected. Did that really happen? Nobody crept out after they came; there were no lame excuses. This morning we had breakfast and then we shopped around the rue de Bac. I bought a raincoat and a velvet romper suit for LA. We had lunch. I ate a delicious garlic tart with celeriac and rocket salad. We saw a glamorous woman dressed in black linen—her haircut immaculately severe.  We saw her meet her affectionate lover.

Tomorrow my secret love has to go to the American Embassy and get her working visa. I will buy fabric for a lampshade. Tomorrow I will catch the wonderful train and be back in London, away from her arms until we see each other again in California. As I write she is playing with my beard. Her fingers glancing my nose and eyebrows. She looks tenderly over at me and smiles as the laptop noisily corrects my spelling.

She will learn to see me in less attractive circumstances. She will see me frustrated and sad and furious. She will see me rudely demand a better table in the restaurant or shout on the telephone at a moronic bank person–my least favourite phone call is to the bank/credit card/cell phone company–the thieves that come into my life monthly. She will see what I am like. The other side of this coin.

So. This bad gay has to kiss his secret love on the lips–adieu.

August 31, 2006 – Thursday

Back in LA. The apartment was very clean and tidy. However, some of my towels have vanished and one of my beautiful French tea towels was used for heavy duty cleaning and I spent ages trying to revive it. It looks like with a few more hot washes it might regain consciousness.

I woke up far too early and set about plumping cushions. My beard has a huge hole in it from my nervously pulling at it at the airport. So, this morning I went to Vine and Sunset and my Puerto Rican hairdresser shaved my entire head. I have had a beard for so long now I really did not recognize myself. I look like my grand mother when I am concentrating. Not very hot.

Courtney Love was on my plane from London. She looked pale but she always does. Sitting next to celebrities on a long haul flight is like going on a date. You get to see them so clearly. CL is on the wagon so she behaved impeccably but you could tell that the air stewardesses were waiting for trouble. A ‘difficult’ person is often made worse by the expectations of others. Everybody loves a good Naomi Campbell story.

I know that I–to a lesser degree–can sense when people have a bad opinion of me or expect me to be the person they have heard I am. It is so hard, in those instances, to take contrary action. All too often I become EXACTLY who they want me to be and then all of their preconceptions are ratified. The contrary action is to ignore the baiting, the sly comment, the sneery look or the comment behind the hand. Of course, if one says anything about THEIR behavior, one is accused of paranoia. 

The last time I flew to LA I was sitting near John Major–though what the former Prime Minister of the UK was doing coming to California beats me. Does he have celeb friends in the hills? Does he surf?  Anyway, he was there reading the newspapers in the same row as me. I had previously seen Brokeback Mountain with friends at The Grove in LA and afterwards I had battled to keep from crying. I decided, rather stupidly, to watch it again on the plane.  As the credits rolled I felt like crying, so I made my way to the tiny loo and cried. I was making a terrible noise, big fat tears rolling down my cheeks and onto my chin.  When finally I had finished sobbing, I opened the door only to find special branch—the UK equivalent of FBI—who were traveling with John Major, outside the loo door. 

“Are you alright, sir” one asked and I said, bursting into tears again, “Brokeback Mountain.” and slammed the door. After a good half hour I went back to my seat and John Major looked very kindly at me and asked in a stage whisper if I was OK. “Brokeback Mountain.” I said and the ex-prime minister of Great Britain and all of its Dominions frowned and nodded understandingly.

I took all my shirts to the lovely Russian lady who presses them at the environmentally correct launderette. I could go to the local laundry but the walk does me good. I don’t think the one at the end of the street gives a fuck about the environment. This week I am going to buy a scooter. A Vespa. I am very, very excited.

SS in Berlin thinks that I have a changed personality when I get here. I am going to make a concerted effort to be kinder this time. More accommodating. Now I don’t have a beard to hide behind–I need to be a great deal nicer. Maybe my beard made me aggressive in LA–or just the place. Hot, sweaty. Disparate.

September 1, 2006 – Friday

Woke at 4.30am. Still dark outside.  Still cannot find missing towels. Sharon only used the white ones. Apparently everyone knows that Sharon cried when she told me that the laundry had lost my large white towel.

Spoke to JA yesterday who confirmed that she has cancer. They misdiagnosed the lump she had in her leg—it was the spreading kind of cancer and not the other sort that stays put. She sounded brave but angry that the mistake had been made and that Blue Cross is not honoring their insurance agreement.

I went for a long walk on Runyon Canyon as soon as the sun came up and looked over the city. I felt like Warren Beatty in the film Shampoo when he looks over LA, sadly realizing that his life is in tatters. Yet, it was not my life that was in tatters—it was my friend’s—a friend who had been there for me for over 15 years.

I think that I have a shoe addiction. I buy so many pairs of shoes. If JA died it would leave a vast hole in my life. I think that she is going to die. It is the spreading kind of cancer and not the kind that stays put.

I felt a slight tremor yesterday. Watched the fan tremble. Thought about my bed, which is a four-poster and could save me if the big shake down happens at night. I was sitting quietly looking around at my new cushion arrangement. The blue ones on the white armchairs. The pink and orange ones on the sofa. The new paisley cushions on the floor with the mauve shot silk floor cushion. Where are my fucking towels?  Perhaps they are hidden in Daniel’s room?

September 2, 2006 – Saturday

I passed 73 dogs on my walk on Runyon Canyon today. They call it dog piss canyon. I don’t think it smells at all. The dogs are all quite good-natured, although I had a fear that if one of them did attack me it would be my fault because I was wearing black socks or had a beard. “He was wearing black socks—my dog hates men with black socks.” Most owners walk silently with their dogs but others keep a ghastly, high pitched baby talk monologue going with their dogs, “Daddy wont be happy about THAT when we get home.” “Keep up with your brother.” Obviously the dogs are not related, one is a Yorkie and the other is a large black mutt. The illusion of family pervades the canyon, all these lonely people with dog brothers/sisters to feed and focus on. “Mummy said NO!”

Last night, after my AA meeting, we ate dinner at Swingers on Beverly. The conversation was dominated by the rumor that Bush intends to use ‘little’ nuclear war-heads on Iran. I was dumbfounded by just how jocular the discussion was. 

Apparently my towels are in Daniel’s room. He did not flush the toilet AGAIN yesterday. I feel too embarrassed to say anything. Shall I leave a note on the bathroom wall? I have not actually SEEN the towels yet but at least he has claimed responsibility and will buy new ones. 

Joni Mitchell used to own the apartment block where I live in Hollywood. It is the most adorable pink building built in the early 1930s. I have a huge sitting room, a smaller, well-proportioned dining room and the original kitchen and stove. There are two reasonably sized bedrooms and a bathroom off of a long dark corridor. Pamela (queen of the groupies) DesBarres lived here in this apartment. There is a photograph of Sid Vicious leaning against my fireplace.  I have decorated for comfort and relaxation.  How lucky I am to live in two such perfect places? Whitstable and Hollywood.

At 12 I went to my lunch time AA meeting but it was a bad mistake—such a bunch of self obsessed relapsers. I had mass murder thoughts during the meeting, which I have not had since I was last there—so in the words of Hunter Philp I shall “go where the love is.”

September 3, 2006 – Wednesday

38 dogs on Runyon Canyon today.

Met Sharon S at the Arclight. We saw Oliver Stone’s new film about 9/11 which was, at times, very moving but I was over come with the feeling that it had been made too soon after the event. 

Saw JA in the line for another movie. She was wearing dark glasses. It is the first time that I have seen her since the cancer diagnosis. I suddenly felt consumed with anger that her stupid consultant had got the diagnosis so very wrong. It is such a terrible waste. 

We talked about our sexual obsessions—after a life of sex how difficult it is to reorient oneself toward a relationship. Sharon has huge tits and I kept on thinking about them during dinner. She told me that her next door neighbor is a very fit looking young girl who makes wrestling videos in her back yard. Sharon calls her Canyon Barbie. I tried to explain to her how PH makes me feel—like I am a MAN when I am with her. Filling out my own body.

Sharon has never met me without a beard so was delighted that I had dimples. I love intelligent, strong women.  We wandered to the parking lot arm in arm and then she dropped me at home in her black porsche.

September 4, 2006 – Monday

78 dogs on Runyon Canyon.

The transformers on Outpost exploded yesterday causing the fourth power cut of the summer.  Thankfully I was not here for any of the others. John and I drove to Ralph’s and bought ice to keep the fridge from getting too hot. I bought three chickens for dinner–they were half price. I also bought melon and strawberries. In the line at the check out the young couple ahead of me had 20 boxes of microwavable hot dogs and a carton of diet beverage. He looked into my cart and said, “This guy eats healthier than us.” I inquired if they were having a party. The petite, pretty blond girl told me that this was there diet, franks and diet drink. “I don’t cook.” she said, “I’m frightened of raw meat.” Her gorgeous boy friend winked at me.

Alexa, Devon and Sabrina invited me to join them on a trip to Little India which is in Artesia some 40 minutes from Hollywood along the freeway. The power out meant that the fans did not work, so they lured me with a promise of air conditioning in the car. When we got there, it was just as you might imagine—several strip malls selling sari’s, jewelery and Indian food. We had a blast. I bought odd looking raisins and nut meg and almonds. Being in Little India reminded me of the UK. Tea and digestive biscuits and Wheatabix. The smell of petuli oil pervading the hot streets. We ate lunch in a small restaurant and ordered Indian food that I had never seen in England. We took our chances and before long delicious things arrived in compartmentalized styrofoam trays. The Indians were watching me eat mine with some amusement—it turned out I was dipping my savoury main course into my desert. I suppose it was like watching someone put ice cream on their hamburger.

We all fell asleep, open mouthed on the way home.

When I got home I stuffed lemons into the chickens and poured curry paste onto the skin and put bay leaves and garlic under the birds and roasted them for two hours at a very high temp. I boiled potatoes and then roasted them with okra and tamarind sauce. 

8 people for dinner.  Delicious.

After they all left, the Internet yielded somebody for me to cuddle. Made it perfectly clear that I did not want sex. We walked together up the Canyon counting dogs and then he left.

September 5, 2006 – Tuesday

Only 23 dogs on Runyon Canyon today. Why?

At first I thought about not going or taking an easier path, but every time my head tells me to take a day off of my workout—to take the softer, easier path—I remind myself that JA is savoring every day as it may be her last and so, out of respect, should I.

On the way down the Canyon I try to say good morning to everyone I meet. I have learned that to simply nod and smile is ignored. The sort of nod and smile that I would appreciate on Whitstable beach, for instance. A hearty, British, old-fashioned “Good Morning” shakes all of them out of their self-obsession.  Of course, one can look totally insane doing that. The best way to make contact with any of them is to say hello to their dog. However, I refuse to talk to dogs. “Come on Philip.” Calling dogs’ human names is, quite frankly, batty. I like Dogs to have Dog names like Scamp, Napkin, or Ruffian. If owners must insist on human names for dogs then choose names that express something about the nature of the specific dog—Napoleon, for example.

Manny’s on Fairfax for breakfast yesterday with the gang.  The couple on the table next to us arrive carrying a dog in a basket—a shaved Pomeranian. They pulled the dog out of the bag and plopped it under the table. “Is your dog friendly?” They ask the couple next to us. “No.” I say. We all laugh.  I ask them if they are trying for a baby. I am forever asking straight couples if they are trying for a baby. “That’s our baby,” she said. On another table there is an Italian Grey Hound that is so thin it obviously has bulemia. “Does your dog have self image problems?” I ask. They laugh. Imagine that thin dog thing hanging over the toilet—its little paw shoved down its throat. 

Later, My friend arrived with his dog, Nick.  When we got home I realized that Nick was going to be like a third person in the apartment. When we went to lay on the bed my friend insisted Nick come too. Call me old-fashioned but I do not think that sleeping with dogs is entirely hygienic. So, rather than spend time with me on our own and put the dog outside the bedroom, he left.

What preoccupied me as I climbed the mountain? My roommate, Daniel. Where do I begin? The towels have not been returned. Daniel and his very young boyfriend pick at my stuff in the kitchen, nuts etc., but not enough for me to make a decent complaint. I buy a huge carton of kitchen roll; he buys two.  To make matters worse, his towels are printed with gold fish.  Then, last night at 3:45, I wake, as if from a nightmare, hearing a huge crash in the kitchen, of course, think that somebody is breaking into the apartment, I leap out of bed. I see that the rug in the hall is folded over and rather than be timid I shout, “Who the fuck is there?” and charge toward the kitchen. Standing in the dark is Daniel, holding a bowl of cereal and a glass of juice. He is obviously very drunk and calmly begins questioning me about why I am screaming around the house. His tone is sinister. “Tell me exactly why you found it necessary to scream.” 

JT called. He is having a great time in early sobriety. I remember my first sober New Years Eve. I was in the Sydney Opera House watching The Magic Flute. During the interval we watched the midnight fireworks that set the entire Sydney Harbour Bridge ablaze and then we returned to the opera house for the second part of the opera. Perfect. 

September 6, 2006 – Wednesday

Thirty four dogs on Runyon Canyon. Saw a group of elderly Russian men pushing a baby in a stroller. Had sudden panic that I could be arrested for smiling at lesbians. “I smile at everybody.” Would be my pathetic defense in the courtroom. Nobody smiles on Runyon Canyon.

Sprinting up the canyon I thought about my father dying of pancreatic cancer when he was only 53. The last pictures of him are on his hospital bed looking defeated but still very fat.  He only had one eye. Lost it in a Porsche racing accident. When my father was a young man somebody apparently threw him out of a second floor window because he owed them money.

Dan Glenn popped by to cheer me up even though I was perfectly cheery. A few minutes after he left, Chris Parker arrived with chocolate muffins.  Later, Tony my neighbor dropped by to say hello. He had been in Redondo Beech dressed as a Hot Dog for three days being paid $50 an hour. Children hugging his legs. He lost a lot of weight in that costume.

Dinner with Ian Drew at The Chateau Marmont.  Nicole Richie arrived and kissed us all.

Ian and I have a very jolly supper.   We discuss the Prada party that neither of us bothered going to but was apparently the best party of the season.  Half way through dinner Ian made us move inside to a very bad table because he thought he saw Elizabeth Taylor. It wasn’t.  I see the adorable James Franco eating dinner with his charming friends. We will meet this Friday to watch my film. Joel Mikely was busy with Peter Bogdanovitch and Brittany Murphy. I love Joel.

Sadly, I also bumped into DP (Paramount number cruncher) and TB (bit player) who are ghastly people. Snobby DP telling more dreary stories about getting drunk—she had just returned from Deauville film festival and was disappointed that there were too few parties. She boasted, “Last time I was here at the Chateau I was up until 5 getting WASTED.” Ha ha ha. When is she going to realize just how un-cool that is? 

In the lobby Will introduced us to two very handsome marines who had somehow got past security. They invited us to have a drink at the Bar Marmont. I had lemonade.

September 7, 2006 – Thursday

Only 12 dogs this morning on Runyon Canyon.

I woke at sunrise and slogged up the hill. Very few people are out and about that early. Before the sun breaks over the horizon it is easier to see the path ahead of you.  Every day, before my walk, I pray for JA. 

After lunch my beautiful actor friend Josh came over to discuss his auditions. He is so fucking handsome yet lacks that essential oomph that gets him the job. Josh is worried that people will perceive him as arrogant if he is too sure of himself. When you are that beautiful people expect you to be a little bit arrogant. Nobody wants a nerd in buff’s clothing.

I have never been that good looking but I exude confidence and I genuinely believe that things are going to work out. I rarely feel defeated, even when things are DIRE. Since I got sober nothing frightens me. So many people live in so much fear. Financial insecurity, snakes, Muslims, preparing raw meat. When I was younger I was ok looking, young looking, but when I walked into a room people were aware that I was there: by reputation, by the way I dressed but mostly by my presence. It’s a fact.

Josh is a war hero fresh from Iraq—he should be super confident. I will take him to the next Hollywood do I go to. He needs to be out there, dressed up, making things happen. Letting people know who he is. We all do that in this city. It is like living in 17th Century Versailles. The etiquette, the pecking order, the instant recognition that leads to stellar patronage. Who sits where in restaurants or how they are sitting and with whom they sit. Madame de Pompadour by Nancy Mitford is a great book to read if you really want to know how Hollywood works. 

The Internet introduced me to a young man who came over as a prospective date. We fed the tame squirrel nuts. No sex. He left when Dom turned up to take me to dinner.

The Beef ribs we gnawed on fwere disgusting. $25. I was a bit hyper after having spent all day with Josh. Conversation about Lindsay Lohan’ss vagina on the Internet. No knickers as she got out of the car. Poor LL.

How could I forget to mention that the towels have FINALLY been returned to the cupboard in the bathroom where they live. Hurrah! Thank you for your concerned e-mails and notes.

September 8, 2006 – Friday

It is a totally over-cast, grey day on Runyon Canyon.  35 dogs.

One of my oldest friends called from Europe—I was really pleased to hear from her. She is a very chic art collector who I met and had a brief but passionate affair with when I was in my late teens. As with all of my friends, we have had our ups and downs. We have had periods of silence and moments of high drama. I was thrilled to hear from her—I always am, but I could hear in her voice that something was wrong, the very same something that I have been aware of for some considerable time. She confronts me—challenges me. We end up having a furious row but instead of slamming the phone down, I finally demand to know what was the matter. What was this all about? She tearfully told me that she was going to be 52 next week and the penny dropped. Menopause.  On the edge of madness. 

September 9, 2006 – Saturday

42 dogs on the canyon path today. The path that scars the mountain as you look up at it from Labrea. Blue-eyed man is slowly learning how to say good morning. He glances at me now and cracks the merest smile. “Good morning!” I say. 

After my walk I eat dates and nuts and coffee made in the pot Will Self bought for the house in Whitstable.

Lunch was wonderful. Xan and I ate at Italian restaurant on Brighton Way. Our waiter was a bit smelly. I ate antipasto and chocolate cake. 

We talked for two hours and afterwards I felt totally invigorated and optimistic. It seems that we have a friend in common—Tim Hunt. I met Tim when I was Lord Rendlesham. I have a very old picture of Tim Hunt, The Princess Anne of Bavaria, Alexis deToquville and me at dinner in Paris in 1982.  I like talking about that time; I so rarely get an opportunity to do so with people who understand it. 

I must be the same age as Xan. 1978, whilst I was in Whitstable being bullied by my stupid stepfather, Xan was leaving a huge stately home and going to Oxford.

Lunch $37 with tip.

Barneys after lunch. I saw apricot silk velvet pillows that I have been hankering after for AGES reduced from $350 to $100. I had to buy them. Shop assistant gave me his number.  I had my meeting with James Franco at the Chateau Marmont so I took my cushions and left.  Once at the Chateau, I heard my name being screamed across the lobby. Chris Parker. I could not talk. He was with two girls who looked like they had their phones glued to their ears.

All I want to say about James is this: he is a gentleman. We watched the film. We drank Badoit. He drove me home in his Bentley.

When I returned from London two weeks ago I felt energized. I felt strong. Two weeks into being back here and I feel put upon. That is the only way to describe it. I feel pressured by unknown forces. Low-level dissatisfaction pervades my day. I engage with fools and play their games. I am already sick of listening to the trials of others in one-sided conversations. God works hard for me in LA. I hand over a great deal to him. Perhaps tomorrow will be better.

Go where the love is.

September 10, 2006 – Sunday

Sunday. Day of rest. AA meeting to go to. I may walk this evening. The same young man just left the house that left last week. No sex. I was not interested. That’s cool.

Xan and I are really connecting. He is very funny and warm. I find that I am slightly in awe of him for all the wrong reasons. I told him what happened with my brother and mother when I was at home. He asked if I had ever made amends to either of them and of course I have never ever made amends to my Mother for past behaviors. I wrote to my brother S offering amends but they were rejected, described as ‘nauseating’. We drove to Gagosian to see some austere black and white Japanese show. It was dull, serious and lacked energy. The crowd was sexier. The men wore expensive hats.

Now, I am going to walk to Santa Monica Blvd. and get the bus to my AA meeting.

September 12, 2006 – Tuesday

Just returned from my morning walk. 53 Dogs. 

Today I walked with Corey Nelson, my realtor from Sotheby’s. Corey is a stunningly good-looking ex-Bruce Weber model. He and his girlfriend walk Runyon Canyon everyday. We decided to take the other, steeper path.  On the way up it was difficult to talk because I was huffing and puffing like an old man.  We made our way down the usual way yet, astonishingly, everybody at 8:30 seems very social—most people say a warm hello.  I suspect that this is because Corey has perfect pecs and abs.

Later, I had a conference call with my manager, lawyer and producer of Dorian. It was the same old story. Arclight stalling, Carl failing, Effie dealing. Carl is the guy who a year ago came on board to raise more money for the film. He seems to spend most of his time on vacation. His big, bovine head grinning inanely. His LA teeth catching the sun. He agrees with anything anyone says. If I did not have the rooms of AA I would be tearing my hair out but this is God’s plan and I have to put up with it. I really don’t worry about it. Art comes when it is ready. It is born out of confusion.

If I choose to make unconventional films in an unconventional way I must expect there to be no convention.

September 13, 2006 – Wednesday

I did not count the dogs on Runyon Canyon.  I saw the Russians with the baby and they all said hello. The cute boy with the hat totally ignored me. The lesbians said a cautious hello.

It was a cool, tranquil morning.

As I began my leisurely decent, deep in the wooded part of the Canyon a man started screaming. He was furious, angry against the world. I tried to see what he looked like but he was hidden under a canopy of trees. He was like a monkey in the rain forest letting everyone know that he was there. “Shut up you crazy fuck!” somebody called out to him but it was half hearted—they understood why he was screaming. He was screaming for all of us.

Yesterday was such a day of extremes. Corey took me to see another house. It was a house owned by an Italian writer in Beverley Hills. A beautiful modernist house designed by Georgescu in 1958, sadly it had a ropey view.  After the viewing Corey dropped me off at the Key Club AA meeting. I stayed for half of it then walked to my 1pm meeting at the Chateau Marmont. 

When I got home I planned to take a nap, but I ended up having a long chat with my manager about Dorian instead. 

Later, John picked me up in his jag and we headed off to the AA meeting on Robertson.  I put my hand up and I shared about my walks on the mountain. I told them that I was going where the love was. I hinted that I had found God in the mountains—that I was humbled by the mountains. I do my best in AA, which is all I can do.

John and I had a late dinner at The Chateau. Chris Rock was hanging about the lobby—apparently stood up by Courtney Love. I sat with Jessica Simpson briefly—she looked AMAZING. That girl has the most perfect skin.

September 15, 2006 – Friday

22 dogs. One young man applauding his Jack Russell for taking a piss. “That’s amazing Billy!” he commended.

I have been organizing my Itunes library. 22 days of songs. The new itunes 7 reveals previously unseen album covers on my lap top-suddenly I am excited again by my music collection, flicking through all the music I have. Seeing old friends—like Alice Cooper’s Billion Dollar Baby—the first ever album I bought.  I was at boarding school in Dorset listening to Alice Cooper from my bedroom overlooking the verdant English countryside—I always have been a bit bi-polar.

I liked being at that school. I learned how to make cheese, chutney, jam, milk cows and learnt all about Jason and the Argonauts. Saw a dead badger by the side of the road and when I pulled its tail the thing came off in my hands—I was 13. Country people are not scared of dirt or death. We would camp outside on the lawns and learn to listen to the earth. The school was called Monkton Wyld Court—a beautiful gothic, Pugin inspired rectory.  I remember horseback riding in the snow, my fingers frozen onto the reigns. I remember learning to play the piano. Where are those skills? Stored away just in case. Stored away with the detailed maps of Sydney and Paris and Glasgow or Cannes. Stored with my times tables. 7×8=56 Remember that one and you’ll be fine. 8×8=64. Stored with descriptions of Renaissance Art and Golden Rules.

Yesterday I had a gentleman caller—no sex. Just being held is all I require lately. My new maid started. Angela was here when Virgil the gentleman caller arrived. Virgil and I sat on the roof and listened to our respective stories. He has three dogs and a daughter. Is that a deal breaker? Angela laughed when I followed after her putting all the ornaments, candles etc back in the correct places.

September 17, 2006 – Sunday

Sunday, day of no walks on Runyon Canyon. No dogs to count, no fat to burn. No.

Runyon Canyon Emergency! Yellow notices posted all over the waste bins, the seats, the notice boards and on Myspace. Attention Everyone! The Parks and Recreation Department want to build a car park at the foot of the Canyon.

Why can’t people just walk to the Canyon? I walk to the Canyon. I walk everywhere. I really love walking LA. I love peering closely at palm trees, I like nosing into gardens. I like taking alternative routes. When I was a small boy I walked in my pyjamas from Whitstable to Herne Bay. When I had my drug problem I walked so hard from Kensington to Soho that all my toes turned purple from the bruising. 

September 18, 2006 – Monday

Yesterday, by 10 am, I had already met a handsome black realtor off of the internet. I made it crystal clear that I did not want to have sex. He swung by in his flashy BMW and we headed to the farmers market on Vine where I bought 8 huge organic peaches which are ripening in a pale green bowl in the sitting room as I write. 

At night, I got the oddest phone call from my friend Tim in NYC. Tim is a 26-year-old Whitstable lad who has done very well for himself as a sort of live in life coach for a very rich Jewish American family. He told me that Danny Gallagher was dead.

Danny, another young Whitstable boy, was badly hurt in car wreck just before I came back to LA. It seems that he got some sort of infection in the hospital and never recovered. “I don’t know how I feel about it, Dunc.” Tim said. I felt exactly the same. You see, I have an affection for those rough Whitstable boys, but it is not always comfortable bumping into them as they drunkenly make their way up Island Wall. Danny, when he was younger, was very homophobic. He would sit outside the Neptune and sneer at local gay man Duncan. But, last year, we sat down and talked and he asked about my life and I listened to his story. His brother had died of cancer. From that moment on he always went out of his way to come say hello and ask how I was doing. I love those rough Whitstable boys. I always have. I am, after all, a rough Whitstable boy who just, for the time being, lives in LA.

So, Danny Gallagher is dead and I am sorry for that.  Finally stumbled into bed at 12.30. I am going to collect my new desk today and write…and go to the gym…and think about rough Whitstable boys.

September 20, 2006 – Wednesday

76 dogs. A great deal of unchecked poo.

I forgot to mention in yesterday’s blog that from the tallest mountain Corey and I climbed we could see below us, for the first time, the 101 freeway carving through the other canyons. It was almost beautiful. We were suprised that we had never before noticed the shimmering 101. There was very little haze and for a brief moment the sun lit the tarmac and the tiny, glinting cars. 

I have a distant memory of a steam train roaring into Whitstable. I remember the smell, the acrid smell of burning coal. The diesel trains that ran between Wolverhampton and Shrewsbury stank so badly even on the coldest day we kept the windows open. I thought we were lucky not to live in the age of coal smoke but we live in the age of exhaust fumes and the sound of the 101, the 405, and the M2. 

Yesterday Steve the beautiful actor came with his huge car and we drove to Bonham’s to collect my new desk. When I got it home I was so excited because I had to rearrange my sitting room to accommodate it. I LOVE rearranging; it is and has always been my greatest pleasure. I filled the draws and set out my lucky desk creatures: my lucky bird, my lucky cow, my lucky Jesus, my lucky saint. It is, I am certain, the gay gene that determines that I know how to scatter cushions and place ornaments in such a way that when Greg Yeardye popped over last night he said: “You have such great taste.”  Darling Phil used to berate me for talking about home décor rather than deal with any problem we might have. Even when I was in prison my cell was perfectly clean and rearranged and the other prisoners would stop by and hang out.

Before I went to bed I thought about a friend of mine who had started drinking again after a good few years of abstinence. I had the weirdest reaction: I was jealous. Even though he only drank a couple of glasses of cheap red wine I was jealous that he could start the whole sobriety thing again from the very beginning—that he could wipe his slate clean. 

September 21, 2006 – Thursday

It is too dark to go for my walk. Ten minutes to six. Silence. The fridge groaning and shuddering in the kitchen.  Lucky Jesus on my desk peering at me with his one good eye. He is made of mercury glass, he has a painted white face and red lips. Lucky Jesus is holding a chalice in the folds of his robes. I bought him in Romania in a tiny antiques store, I think I paid a dollar for him.

At his feet, propped up on my new desk, are the only two photographs of my Father that I own. In one of these black and white photographs my Father is leaning against the railings over looking Margate beach. This photograph was taken in the summer of 1959. My Father is looking directly at the camera; he has a wry smile on his tanned face. On what is obviously a baking hot, high summer holiday the beach is packed with British sunbathers.  The other photograph of my father is very odd. He is holding a gun, perhaps it is only a toy, but he is pointing it at a boy’s back. The boy has his hands up in surrender.  In both pictures my father is exquisitely groomed and perfectly dressed. He is wearing well cut trousers, a crisp white shirt and in the first he is wearing a plain, straight tie. In both he looks very Persian, he must have been quite exotic for the North Kent coast in 1959. I bet he knew how to look after himself. I wish that I had met him just once. Even though he was, by all accounts, a difficult man.

Yesterday I went to the DGA and watched, for the first time, The Picture of Dorian Gray on the big screen. I saw, for the first time, that it really worked. Oh thank GOD.  Now we can put it back into a box until all of the financial problems are resolved. From now on I am going to concentrate on the property I want to buy.

After the fantastic screening I had some very nasty phone calls from a deranged English man I know who has substance abuse problems. He said that he wanted to kill me. So, I had to spend time talking to the police and lawyers and I will, unfortunately, have to deal with this today. Thankfully, after the first mad call, I had the foresight to record the second abusive, threatening rant. This second homo-phobic, racist, violent, death-threatening call lasted for over 17 minutes. My father would carry a small recording device everywhere he went for just such an occurrence.

My third date with Sunday Internet Man.  We explored The Grove and finally we just sat in his Mercedes and cruised the hills, exploring the tiny, winding roads around Beachwood Canyon. It was very romantic. We stopped in at mine for an hour and he rubbed my back and shoulders with his strong hands until I slept.

September 22, 2006 – Friday

The mountain was so fresh and breezy this morning. I saw, at least, six blue jays. 54 dogs. All of the Russians said good morning. Unusually a couple kept pace with me through out my walk. They discussed James Blunt, he told her about his job as a writer on some TV show and she told him with a rather embarrassed laugh that all of the guys she dated in college were now gay. She couldn’t understand her “super power,” so I turned and I said, “Perhaps gay men know how to listen. Perhaps they want to hear what you have to say.” She looked at me askance for a moment. A stranger was talking to her. Then she replied, “Yes, perhaps that is true.”

September 23, 2006 – Saturday

I went to an AA meeting instead of taking my walk. 

You know, believe it or not, I did not get sober to make films, buy more stuff, get a better job, make friends, have more sex, get a partner or a bigger house. I stopped drinking and taking drugs 9 years ago so that I could sleep easy at night. All I wanted was a life without fear. I got sober for one reason: I wanted Peace of Mind.

Yesterday, Peter YBH collected me for Breakfast.  At the table beside us a young woman was wearing a T-shirt that said in bold black letters: “I’M NOT INTERESTED” over her huge nip tuck tits. I went up to her and said, “Oh, I’ve got a tee shirt like that, it says, ‘I HATE EVERYONE.’” She laughed, “I like that, where can I get one of those?”

I should have said that I had a T-shirt that said “I suck black cock.”

I don’t have either of those T-shirts.

I was in bed by midnight. Daniel the roommate, by the way, has disappeared.

September 24, 2006 – Sunday

45 dogs, 1 screaming Chinese infant. Happy Russians. Many isolated, miserable looking ‘attractive’ 30 something white folk. Squirrels noisily harvesting what ever they can find in the palm trees. The sun is shining. LA looking marvelous.

I feel unencumbered today, like I used to when I first got sober. I don’t think that it is truly possible to explain the feeling of being in one’s own body after having such a profound sense of being emotionally AWOL. After years of what can only be described as an out of body experience, re-entering ones own skin, inhabiting ones own head is such a RELIEF. Of course I still have the occasional, odd moments when I desire not to be me. To run away and hide, lost in the tsunami, surfacing twenty years from now in a white Panama hat in some obscure fishing village in South America. I think about what it felt like not be me when I had that other name. I thought about it there on the mountain this morning.

September 25, 2006 – Monday

6am. The sun rising over LA. I saw: 15 Dogs, The Chinese Man running backwards.  I met and walked with Denny the interior designer and Regina his 8-month-old puppy with topaz eyes. We both admitted to praying on our walk on the mountain. Today I prayed for serenity and a moderate disposition.

September 29, 2006 – Friday

San Francisco

I am on my way back to LA from San Francisco today. I used to say, on my way ‘home’ but of late I do not feel like LA is home. Whitstable is home. Whitstable is my home where I live and I will die. I keep dreaming about what I will take back to London with me when I go. The art, that’s all. I will take that wonderful collection I have amassed so quickly.

San Francisco is totally unlike LA, which is a scummy shithole with no friendly faces, that stinks of rotting avocado, which smells like semen. I over reacted. I love LA. No I don’t. I am there to finish my film. If that’s the case I may be there a few more years.

October 1, 2006 – Sunday

LA

A sluggish start to this Sunday morning. I was up and down the mountain by 8am. I only counted 27 dogs. Almost everyone said hello. I was wearing red. Everyone says hello when I wear my red hoody.

It was on this day ten years ago that I got sober and stayed sober and did not have another alcoholic drink one day at a time. No wine with dinner, no glass of champagne at New Years. Nothing. On this day ten years ago I made my way from Adam and Eve Mews in Kensington to my first AA meeting. I weighed 50 lbs lighter, I was wearing a black Dolce coat, a black polo neck sweater and I was driving a brand new pea green Porsche. Within two years all of those fancy trappings had gone. Before I got sober I could not leave the beautiful house for more than ten paces, black discharge drained out of my nose onto my white shirts, I was desperate, broken and alone.

Today is also my stepfather’s birthday—a hideous coincidence.

October 2, 2006 – Monday

Pink clouds drifting over LA this morning smeared onto the pale blue sky. 26 dogs. Triathlon boy with amazing calves. 

On the mountain two ordinary women were discussing Iraq, “Attacks on US servicemen have gone up from 1 to 100 a day.”  I put that situation to the back of my mind. 

My 10th year AA anniversary was mostly quite dull—no fanfare. Many people called to congratulate me. I suppose that it is some sort of achievement. I suppose.

I was in bed by 12. This time next week I will be in London. Already I have delicious things planned. Must remember to take autumn coats and good shoes.

October 3, 2006 – Tuesday

22 dogs. I wore a hat. Most everyone said good morning.

I saw the elderly Ukrainian couple who stand on the corner of my street. They greet me politely. They must be 70 years old, no taller than 5’4. They have dark, tough, wrinkled skin. They look like the circus performers Diane Arbus used to photograph. They wait there patiently every morning. She wears a heavy coat and carries an old fashioned handbag. He smokes unfiltered cigarettes, his pants and shirt are beautifully pressed. This morning they were still waiting when I got back from my walk. I asked what they were doing but she said, “Speaky no inglis”.

Yesterday. Went to lunchtime AA meeting.  To my profound irritation I could not get hold of any of my closest friends. Tried calling and e-mailing and texting but nobody replied. It felt like I was stalking my friends! Sascha seemed to have just vanished. Maria, who always returns my calls, vanished. Dom, Ian and Peter: vanished. Sent article to Eric—no reply. He’s new so doesn’t realize. By the evening I was exceedingly grumpy and paranoid.

By 7ish most people had replied but by that time the damage was well and truly done.

I was seething.

I decided the best way to deal with my irritation was to walk to Neal Spectre’s house near the Peninsular Hotel in Beverly Hills for his Yom Kippur celebration. I walked all the way down Sunset then turned left near Rodeo. Stepping off of the busy road and into those expensive streets. It is so quiet around there. I passed no one, not one other pedestrian. The hiss of the water sprinklers misting the lawns to keep me company. 

October 4, 2006 – Wednesday

This morning, at 6.30am I saw a great big hawk. A beautiful bird of prey intelligently surveying the world around it. The bird watched me pass the Ukrainian peasant people on the corner of the street.  I did not care how many dogs I passed.

Good walk, good meeting then a great screening at the DGA for buyers. They loved the film—loved it. What more could I want? They understood it, loved the style.

I walked home from the DGA, which is less than half a mile.

Then I began to read the last few weeks of my diary. Recognizing the miserable truths. There is no grand declaration I can make that I can honestly stick to. Will I choose inappropriate people to pin my hopes on in the future? Certainly I will. Will I spontaneously fly across the world to see someone I think I can love? Yes. Will I always be the subject of my own mythology? Certainly. This is the way it is.

October 6, 2006 – Friday

Yesterday, Romaine, my friend from Nice, came to the house whilst I did the laundry and we drank coffee and killed time before I prepared to meet Amanda in Bel Air.

I had been invited via Amanda by Sandy to: A pre-Halloween celebration: “Dinner of the Dead Poets”.

THE INVITATION:

‘It will be held at my ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley on the night of the full moon.

This will be a formal, black tie and ball gown, dinner for just 12 people. I know that you possess both the imagination and the wardrobe to be an important guest at this artistic evening. Please come dressed as a dead poet and bring a poem to recite, which was written by the character you have chosen.

In order to facilitate your transportation needs, I would like to send my plane to bring you to Santa Ynez (a 30 minute flight from Santa Monica airport, leaving at about 4:30 PM) and to return you back to Los Angeles before midnight on the 5th’.

So, that is what we did. I decided to dress as and read from Oscar Wilde. As a dead Oscar I interpreted the event accordingly. I wore Miu Miu knickerbockers, my new Dior jacket and long pink stockings with red shoes. Thank God I took my huge aubergine silk velvet scarf that Tania Sarn gave me and threw it over my head. It was freezing!

On the way there I sat next to the pilot, which was wonderful watching the journey unfold in front of me. I was not at all frightened. It was like having goggles on underwater. I can’t swim without goggles because my biggest fear is the unknown. On the way back I sat in the back and I felt every bump—it was scary just because I couldn’t see.

When we got to the tiny airport we were chauffeured twenty minutes to a contemporary house that looked like a vert de gris Mayan Temple. 

The really great find of the evening was Bo, our hostess’s 25-year-old son, who is a friend of Oscar’s. He drove me, at great speed, in his turbo Porsche to the party, which was set in a vineyard ten minutes from the house. Charming, sweet boy.

We ate in the winery, which had been beautifully decorated for the occasion. The twelve of us sat under a diaphanous golden awning. We all had our photographs taken. We then ate amazing organic food that had been fedexed from Ohio. There was a small band that played suitably dead music and a young woman sang gently in the background. Spookily the accordion player looked EXACTLY like Vivian Westwood.  Our hostess was charming and funny and dressed as a 9th century Chinese poet. 

In between each course the guests, in order of when they died, stood up and introduced themselves. I stood up as Oscar Wilde and told them about my life and work. I then read the first part of The Ballad of Reading Jail. When I finished Ovid said, “That was intense.” I sat between Emily Dickinson (who looked more like Janice Dickinson) and Bo’s very pretty girlfriend. 

After dinner the car came and we were flown home. In bed by 1:30 am.

This morning there were 41 dogs on the Canyon path—four of them belonging to Peter D., who I bumped into as they were leaving the park. I heard him before I saw him, as did the other concerned walkers who exchanged worried looks at the sound of this man screaming at his dogs. He was shouting at one of his small Yorkies to get back on the path. Peter K. in tow.

I cheerily said hello and kissed them both. We were all a bit too sweaty for that kind of greeting. He asked about the film and apologized for not returning my calls. It was at this moment that I began to have a sort of out of body experience. My outer me saying, “LEAVE, walk away from the area, don’t tell him anything, just get out of there as quickly as you can.” My actual body is now fully engaged in conversation, I began to tell him about Sandy’s party I went to last night.  He snapped, “She’s a NIGHTMARE, she killed two people on Everest!” I did not react. I just looked carefully as him and began to gently erase him out of the picture. I felt rather sorry that he was so angry. “I rather liked her,” I said. “We had a wonderful time”. He just looked at me as if to say of COURSE you would like some one like that. “I’ve got a meeting at the Palisades.”  He barked at Peter K. who was pulling twigs off of the dog. Peter D., angry before I got there—I bet he’ll be angry all day. He was wearing lurid pink underwear.

October 8, 2006 – Sunday

Friday was another day of boring lawyers and stuff that I simply had to get on and deal with. Signing with new agency, management, publicist and lawyers in one foul swoop.  All of that palaver had to be handled by the time I leave for London tomorrow. It had to be done. A new broom.

Today went to 8am AA meeting. No walk. Coffee in Urth café with Will.

Alexa came with me to Bonham’s to view the Sunset Estate Sale and guess who I bumped into! Peter D. He was outraged!! He said, “I don’t appreciate that you wrote about me in your BLOG.  I’ve never trusted you.  Ten years ago, I said, ‘I like him but I don’t trust him’. I didn’t have to be pleasant to you first thing in the morning. Showing off about your party.”

This indignant tirade about my blog, which one of my helpful readers had passed onto Peter D by e-mail. How speedily news travels! Then he changed tack and huffed and puffed about how ‘grateful’ he was to me for alerting him to the dangers of gossip. Alexsa, listening in, just laughed as discreetly as she could out of Peter’s view. It took will power not to laugh at his pathetic tantrum there in the middle of Bonham’s. Paulo, sitting behind the desk, asked us three times to leave the foyer.

“Was anything I said made up?” I asked. “No,” he flamed. 

“Then how have I been untrustworthy?” 

“You’re right, I shouldn’t gossip,” he said. 

“So it was you that was untrustworthy?” I asked calmly.

Peter had waited ten years for evidence of untrustworthiness and finally he had PROOF that I was indeed the person he always thought I was, or heard I was, because I simply and honestly reported what he had told me yesterday. As he blustered I just kept thinking, this is nothing to do with me, this man has been waiting ten years for me to let him down. A long-term self-fulfilling prophecy. 

As I tuned back into his diatribe he said, “How many people did she kill on Everest? Was it two or three?” As he was unable to let the story go I thought that I should, at least, defend my hostess as she had been so generous to me. Armed with a little information from the Internet I said, “What proof do you have that she killed any people on Everest? From what I can gather the worst thing she did was have a copy of Vogue sent up the mountain. If any one of your society friends whom you DO approve of had done that you might very well of thought it humorous. The worst thing Sandy did, as far as you and the bunch of piranhas you hang out with are concerned—is survive.”  At that point he totally capitulated and resorted to petty insults.

The great thing about this blog is that I find out very quickly whom I can depend on. Those who loathe being mentioned are usually snotty ex pat Brits who are embarrassed to know me. People who dip into my life to see what is going on but too embarrassed to say that they have been there. Like visiting mad people at Bedlam.

The fact is, I have never felt very comfortable around Peter. He insists on making totally unprovoked bitchy jibes. “Darling, you need to get my boyfriend to give you botox.”  His best friend is a camp, Greek illustrator with an active drink problem who battles Peter in some vile post-modern contest to see who can be more offensive. Peter lives a metaphysical farce.

He is consequently a very angry and resentful man. Of course I know exactly why, but THAT is something I would never, ever write here.

October 11, 2006 – Wednesday

LONDON

Pouring rain. Soho House.

I left LA on Sunday after the Bonham’s Sunset sale. I bought an African head dress. I don’t know why. I love auction rooms; they have a very calming effect on me.

We flew into London over Kew, the pagoda there is so pretty and I realised that what I missed most about home when I am in the US are these great acts of public generosity made for the greater good of the people. We have so much to love about our towns and cities, so much that distinguishes them from each other. In LA we have the HOLLYWOOD sign. LA is a one-postcard town.

I headed into Soho on the bus through torrential, almost tropical, rain and ended up in Soho House sitting with Nick Love who I have not seen for a couple of years. He was sitting quietly reading the Sun and drinking a cup of tea.  Nick and I were at film school in Dorset ten years ago and at that time and for a few years after we had a pretty intense, inseparable friendship. The same sort of co-dependant friendship that I had with Richard Green during most of my twenties. These homoerotic, non-sexual, highly charged friendships I associate most with my alcoholism. I have had them with both women and men and they usually end very badly. They are creatively and emotionally explosive but regardless of the outcome, for me, have been the greatest relationships of my life.

When Nick left we gave each other the hugest hug. I kissed him on the neck.

I took the tube to the Frieze art fair where I met Bettina who is organising the press for Dorian. Bumped into and chatted warmly with Tracy Emin, Benedict Taschen, Max Wigram, Simon English, Sam Hodgkin, Paul Kasmin and many, many others. Apart from Benedict, I have known most of these people for most of my adult life. It felt very good to embrace all of them. We are getting older and less ambitious. That is a very good thing. Saw Jay from afar but can still not bring myself to say hello. 

Later, I met Christian and his blonde friend from university. The friend wanted, very amusingly to get “fucked in the arse.” He was adamant but we remained at the bar and Christian and I just jawed for hours about LA and London and the relative values of each city. The friend, eager for a stuffing persuaded us to go to a tacky gay bar a few streets away where a toothless drug dealer tried to sell us cocaine and pills. I was wearing Dior so had no intention of staying in that ghastly place for long.

Christian, realising that I was in no mood for gams and the young took me to Trisha’s on Dean St, which is a basement room with pictures of the Pope on the wall. An old fashioned speak easy. It was rather wonderful. Chatted about ‘The Queen’ and Diana of Wales and soap operas. When we ran out of cash we headed over to Soho House where we met Alan Cummings and the cast of Bent. We hung out with them until 3 in the morning and then I took the night bus home. Briefly thought about taking a cab as a bunch of Asian youths were brawling on the street and I was wearing red shoes but thought better of it and caught a number 38 which took me directly to Phil’s. Crept into bed. Slept like a log.

The following day I had tea with my brand new obsession de jour–Harry C. We walked from Regent’s Park to the Dover Street Hotel and sat in the lobby, now remodelled, where Scott Crolla and I used to go when Crolla still existed. The high tea with scones etc. cost $150. Absurd. Harry is a blonde, willowy, 25 year old Etonian with the sweetest disposition. Married. Lives in Paris. Beautiful.

October 17, 2006 – Tuesday

Sunday. Chelsea.

Spent all day in bed with a horrid cold. Both Phil and I blighted with aching limbs and throbbing heads late last night. Isn’t that odd to get simultaneous colds?  I couldn’t think of a better place to be ill than here with Phil. We are in beds at opposite ends of the house. I can hear people arriving upstairs, I can hear Moffy leaving the house with her chums, then hours later her footsteps in the hall, chattering about her adventures.

When I was in prison I began writing a novel. It was as if today had been a perfect slice of that novel only on that fictional afternoon there was snow on the ground. Snow on our boots. Fresh snow. I just lay here all day and felt incredibly safe. Nothing could hurt me here in this room. Here in this huge house, sleeping where the cook probably slept once upon a time. Here in this room I do not have to deal with liars or the disingenuous or the black dust that settles on everything in LA. I do not have to climb a mountain to find my serenity.

October 18, 2006 – Wednesday

Back in LA, resident alien. Sick as a dog. I spent all day chasing North Dillon St once again. Fuck. That house has fallen out of escrow three times. I really love it. What is God doing to me?

When I got home last night I rearranged the house. I was meant to be eating with Devon and Aleksa but ended up franticly rearranging books and the mantle piece. I was naked. The curtains were not drawn. I did not care.

The day before I left for LA I had to haul my sorry ass down to Whitstable. I had a goodbye breakfast with Phil and Paul at the Mona Lisa.  Whitstable gossip included: the Barratt girl (toughest family in Whitstable) had smashed Shivonne Hewlett in the face at the pub because Shivonne had stolen the Barrett’s boy friend who is down to the final eight on X Factor. The Barrett girl had then sold her story to the Sun and filled the ex-boy friend’s piano with tuna.

Bumped into the Barrett girl outside Dave’s deli sitting with two girl friends, suddenly she looked very glamorous as if a dose of minor celebrity really suited her. Oblivious to her recent brush with notoriety I told her how wonderful she was looking. Apparently, according to them, X factor is all a fix because Shivonne’s mother, Therese, is a friend of Sharon Osborne’s.

What a load of bollocks.

As fate would have it Monday was Danny Gallagher’s funeral so I took my life in my hands and decided to go to the wake, which was happening up at the Marine Hotel in Tankerton. When I got there I realized that there was not much building, plastering or plumbing going on in North East Kent that day as every builder, plasterer and plumber for miles around had found themselves a black suit and was now eating pork pies in the paved area at the back of the Marine. Saw Ronnie, the antiques dealer, who owes me £100. Poor Stuart, the plasterer, was given a very hard time—when I arrived his friends raised a huge chorus of light hearted jeers, as I had once very loudly told all of his mates that I thought he was one of the best looking men in Whitstable. I think that crown now belongs to Andy, the electrician, who although a bit dull is very cute.

Finally I made my way home but not before three other people had told me the Barrett/Hewlett story and how Sharon Osborne was fixing it at X Factor.

October 20, 2006 – Friday

Ashton Kutcha

5.45am

Back in LA. I still have had the flu.  Sitting in germ soup on the plane sandwiched between two of the most miserable women alive did not help. What, you may ask, was I doing in the back of the plane? Can’t be bothered to explain that drama.

I am spluttering phlegm all over my laptop as I write. Consequently, due to illness, I have not been up to much. Invitations to LA fashion week went unanswered. Meant to be going to New York today but can scarcely move from my bed. I hate being ill. Ill means weak, ill means powerless, ill means unable to climb the mountain. Stalling at the base.

Thankfully I am sleeping well. In bed by 9.30 last night. It is cold in the apartment at night though. I am sitting here wrapped in a pale blue shawl like a little old lady. I could just turn on the heat. Won’t do it, too British, old fashioned, put on another jersey or climb into bed.

Spent Wednesday evening at home instead of going to parties. Sweating hot and cold.

On Thursday morning, my friend Hillary popped by for a cup of tea. It was great to see her and for the next hour and a half we luxuriated in a trough of delicious gossip. By the time she left I felt bloated on our feast of The Misfortune of Others. It was very, very naughty. 

Later, after 18 months of messing around, I walked two blocks from my house and I hired a car. I was so weak and had so much to do I could not stomach buses, taxis or walking. 

The moment I pulled away from the strip mall in my rented car I became a Californian.

Even though I was stuck in traffic listening to a mad misogynist I was pleased not to be on the hot streets negotiating the cracked pavements and the cracked out pedestrians.

October 26, 2006 – Thursday

Last night, Michael and I drove to the Hollywood sign where a rather odd 40th birthday party was taking place. A drum circle, fire pit, belly dancers and women on stilts. Met a couple of actors, a rocket scientist and a comedienne. After a couple of hours of not really engaging and some spicy chicken wings I walked home.

The Canyon. It was pitch black until 7am this morning. Pitch black. The air was cold and damp. As usual the small Armenian couple were out there on the corner. As usual they were not speaking, as usual he was smoking, as usual it was she who said “good morning.” I could smell the aromatic tobacco from the gate. Everything about these two was as I had left them two weeks ago except she was wearing lipstick on her thick, old lips. I suddenly wondered why she had made that decision, this morning, looking in the mirror and I wondered if she had put lipstick on for him, the silent dwarf.

October 30, 2006 – Monday

The sky is grey but it is not cold. The clocks fell back on Sunday so I can climb the mountain at 6am and it’s not going to be pitch black. Today, there were mostly women on the path. 23 dogs. The craggy dwarves were on the corner of my street, she was wearing lipstick…again. He looked very carefully at me when I greeted his wife. Apparently they wait there to be collected for day care. There goes my maid/butler fantasy.

I came home to the smell of fresh coffee and pineapple. I am really loving where I live, at just the moment I am about to pack up and leave. Isn’t that always the way? I spend hours rearranging the furniture, the rugs, the bits and pieces that I have hauled in my luggage to this town to make myself feel better about being here. A big bowl of green apples and papaya on my mirrored table gives me more pleasure than anything I can describe. On a cloudy day like today in LA when there is a certain chill in the air I relax a little more than I usually do. Like taking a roast leg of lamb out of the oven. The juices seem to settle.

On Saturday morning I called JA who has cancer. I dreaded calling her, as she has been so understandably angry of late. But for the first time since she knew how ill she was she sounded really optimistic, joyful even. She spends two weeks in Germany being treated for cancer then flies back to Mexico to build her houses. She really is an amazing woman. She told me that she would be spending Christmas in London with her children and I wondered, of course I did, if it would be her last Christmas and if it was then London is the perfect place to be.

October 31, 2006 – Tuesday

This morning, the polite Latvian dwarves were not standing silently on the corner of El Cerrito Place waiting for their ride to the day care facility. They were at home screaming at each other in Latvian. Rather, I saw the old woman dressed in a floral, floor length house coat on her 5th Floor balcony screaming back at what could only have been the silent husband. She held, in her right hand, a long carving knife. She kicked thuggishly at her screen door on her way back into the apartment. I lingered on the street for a few minutes wondering what would happen next but I really did not want her to clock me out there on the street listening to them…to her. Aleksa told me that the old lady was well known for screaming, everybody knew about her on the street. I was so sad. She had always been so polite to me. “Good morning,” she would say softly, reverentially.

Amazingly I got ‘looked’ at today on Runyon Canyon by somebody quite cute. Even though I knew I would never act on it just being looked at in that way gave my day a tiny kick-start. When ever I get my beard going I am looked at all the time. My woollen beany over my eyebrows and a big bushy beard and I get looked at. 

Yesterday was a horrible day. Horrible. I don’t think that I can even bring myself to tell you what happened yesterday morning but needless to say it was all about relationships, expectations, disappointment. 

So that I might try and fix my feelings in a positive way I caught a bus to the coffee bean on Sunset and Fairfax and ordered a blended caramel frapaccino. I sat outside on the chilly patio and watched a homeless man trying to get food or money from who ever would listen. The people he begged from were polite but he didn’t manage to get anything from any of them. Finally, he sat down at one of the empty tables opposite me and picked shreds of thick black skin off of the soles of his feet that he then placed carefully on to the table. I will never, ever drink a caramel frapaccino ever again.

I went to two AA meetings yesterday after the homeless foot skin incident; I went to one at 5:15 and another at 7:45. The first made me feel OK the second compounded the feelings of utter misery. In between the two meetings I managed to cram in a screaming conversation with both my realtor and the realtor of the house that I am meant to be buying. Buying houses is a shit experience in LA. Shit.

I was in bed by 11.00

November 3, 2006 – Friday

Ate dinner last night with Ian at Chateau Marmont. Sat next to Geoffrey Rush. We then bowled over to the BAFTA/LA awards at Century Plaza. Sharon had a ticket for me for dinner and the celebrations. Stephen Fry hosting the event very amusingly. Dustin Hoffman, Tim Robbins and Forest Whitaker presenting awards to Sidney Poitier, Rachel Weisz, Anthony Minghella and Clint Eastwood. The awards were good but the party afterwards felt like a suburban dinner and dance just like I remember my parents going to when I was a kid. Blousy women wearing too much make up, too many sequins, the men in moth eaten tuxedos. The invitation should have read: Join BAFTA/LA to honour Hollywood icon Clint Eastwood with a dinner and dance in the Hove Cricket Club situated behind the gas works. 

We ended the evening at Hollywood Social at Aldomovar party where drunk, gay Sony Classic publicist made a fool of himself.

November 7, 2006 – Tuesday

I collected Johnny T. from airport this weekend. Dropped his stuff off at his hotel in Century City, then ate dinner at Chateau M. Saw Steve Garbarino and his girl friend Maddy sitting with Val Kilmer. Steve congratulated me on the piece I’d written for him about Oscar Wilde. I loved writing it. I used to write for The Sunday Times Style Section when Tim was editor. When I arrived at Steve’s table I made that terrible cliché of an error of thinking that I already knew Val Kilmer and asked enthusiastically how he was doing and what he was doing next, before realizing that I did not know him at all. The last time I did that was to Diana Ross in First Class from Cannes to London. OH GOD. How foolish.

When I got home I paid my Canterbury City Council tax over the phone. I then realized that as a single man I was entitled to a 25% discount that I had asked for some time ago but had not been applied to my account. Consequently I have been overpaying my Council Tax for 6 years. They owe me 6x£300=£1,800. When I complained they told me that I was not considered a Whitstable resident. NOT A WHITSTABLE RESIDENT? I immediately contacted my lawyers.

November 8, 2006 – Wednesday

Yesterday I had breakfast at the Chateau M with Stephen Fry. This was the first time since we met two years ago that I did not sit opposite him feeling like I was no more than a well dressed baboon. When he took me to the Garrick I was completely overwhelmed, my long hairy arms negotiating the condiments, my orange fur matted with kedgeree, my huge monkey face full of huge monkey teeth, my black beady eyes gazing around the recently decorated room. When we met in New York and had dinner with Barry Humphries after The Dame Edna show on Broadway I was less embarrassed but kept quiet. I felt more evolved. Yesterday all of my digits felt like they were the right human size. I could understand every word he said and even made him laugh. I ate porridge, he ate muesli.

The afternoon was spent listlessly trying to tie up loose ends. Tried getting back my DVD from Doug Christmas who is a nightmare of a human being.

Dinner at the Chateau with MR turned into a bit of a fiasco when he overslept and I was left table-hopping, which can sometimes be fun, but all I really wanted to do was hang out with Sharon. Saw Diego Luna who I am having breakfast with this Thursday. Saw Steve Garbarino who showed me the mock up for the edition of Blackbook that I am in. It looks fantastic. He was dining with Chloe Sevigny.

November 10, 2006 – Friday

Graham Nash

This morning I lay in bed paying bills on-line and looking at pornography. I answered e-mails then hauled myself out of bed, into my shorts and onto the street. The Canyon was quite eventful, bumped into David Thomas and his boyfriend. Then, hard on David’s heels, I bumped into the Peters. Peter D. scuttled past me like a reptile but dear, sweet Peter K. gave me a big hug. That man is a class act.

A dorky straight couple held up a picture of a non-descript dog, “Have you seen our dog Scruffy?” The plump male one whined. “We have lost our dog, Scruffy.” The female warbled out Scruffy’s name. If I were Scruffy I would be in some kind of witness protection program, living in Florida.

November 13, 2006 – Monday

Monday morning. The weekend was long and eventful. I did not climb the Canyon on Saturday or Sunday. This morning I woke at 6am, pulled on my shorts and thick tee shirt and began my walk. No dwarves, no screamers. I was so deep in thought I did not notice the view nor did I count the dogs. I was thinking about what I had, what I needed, what I wanted. I was thinking about Whitstable and how much I love it there. I was thinking about my friends and the cottage where I used to live. I was thinking about the over 60’s centre.

The weekend began last Friday lunch time at the Chateau M. When I arrived Steven Fry bellowed my name out over the garden.  It was Veteran’s day so the poor dear at the desk had to spend the entire afternoon turning away ghastly looking civilians. However, one table of vulgar interlopers who would never usually be welcome in our little garden paradise had managed to get past him. They were pointing, staring at celebrities. The staff responded by ignoring them completely. 

Bought groceries at Wholefoods and started cooking for Tiffany, Sharon, Houston, the Palladino’s and BIG MISTAKE my shallow gay neighbor and his ghastly friend. The gays giggled and made snide comments and one of them scarcely knew how to pick up a knife and fork. How can you be gay and not even know how to eat properly? I made it quite difficult for them to stay so they left before the pudding. Cooked sweet potato and sprouts, which I par boiled then threw into hot olive oil until the edges were singed like bubble and squeak. Chicken baked in red wine and bay leaves.

November 14, 2006 – Tuesday

7am. Yet again I missed the dwarves. I listened for her screaming but I could not hear her. The usually blue LA sky full of towering silver clouds. Downtown the fragile skyscrapers are scraping the sky. I passed the elderly Russians with the baby and a photograph of Scruffy with LOST written under his name, pinned to a fence.  Scruffy, I fear, has gone forever.

November 15, 2006 – Wednesday

So hot today, already, at 8am. I feel delicate this morning, fragile even. My skin is uncomfortable on my fingers. Pins and needles. I remember my grand mother saying “pins and needles.” “Suck it and see” was another one of hers. I don’t suppose that I will ever see her alive again. I don’t want to see her. She is in her assisted living room in Herne Bay, stuffing food into her mouth that she can’t swallow. My grand mother is 96. I would like to say something to her. I would like to apologize. I just can’t seem to forgive my grandmother or my mother. I try to, God help me, I try to forgive them but I can’t.  The last time I saw my Mother and Grand Mother was on Island Wall in Whitstable near the first cottage I owned. Nana was in her wheelchair. I kissed her. She had some food on her chin from the lunch she just ate. I am sitting here trying to forgive her.

I remember visiting her at her neat, seaside, semi-detached house in Herne Bay when I was a child. She had orange curtains in the spare room where I slept decorated with black reeds. I liked when the sun would shine onto them as everything in that room would have a warm orange glow. Before she went to bed she would lay the table for breakfast so that if I woke before her I would sit in the dining room quietly, the room smelling of sweet apples. Little boy delighted by the expectation of breakfast. The curtains drawn. I loved that house. I liked that the back garden was ordered, the lawn closely cut. In the wooden water butt I could pick at mosquito larvae that wriggled in the black water.

When I stayed with her I especially liked taking the bus on adventures to Reculver, Broadstairs and Ramsgate. I liked falling asleep in her lap. I liked the sharp smell of vinegar on fish and chips. I liked the junket she made with nutmeg.

Does she remember what joy she gave me when I was little? She is well looked after by my Mother who is a good daughter and Grand Mother herself.

I don’t really have much to do with my family nor they me. Without family that I can trust suits me fine. I no longer feel isolated.  Thankfully I have God, a God of my understanding. I am never alone.

I have been so angry in the past. I am getting too old to be angry like a young man.

Yesterday I met Joe and Dom for a late dinner. We ate at the ghastly Wolfgang Puck restaurant in Beverly Hills. This was my second experience at this terrible place. The curried short ribs were disgusting. The chocolate soufflé was almost inedible. Thankfully I did not pay. Dom and Joe quizzed me about my burgeoning relationship with Sharon. Of course I am just as baffled as they are but I really like her, being with her. Connected.

November 17, 2006 – Friday

I just got back from my walk. It was far too late to find any serenity up there on the mountain; there were far too many chattering people. On the way down I slipped on the steep path—it was the first time. I wouldn’t want to break my hip, not here in America where nobody gives a shit.

I spent most of yesterday in bed critically unable to do anything. Spoke to sponsor who told me that taking a day off is fine, but lets face it: I have been taking “days off” for twenty years.  All day I suffered sudden flash backs to obscure moments in my life. Most alarmingly I vividly remembered fetching the milk from the farmyard when I was at Shotton Hall School. Lugging churns of milk from the farm, freezing before sunrise, into the Land Rover. It set off a chain reaction of odd memories. Shotton memories ending with that fateful kiss with Linda, the member of staff who was subsequently fired for her “unprofessional” involvement with me.

The day before was great. I had lunch with Amanda at the Chateau. I adore her. She is such a chic, intelligent, funny, charming woman. Sat next to Jason Resnick from Focus who told me that I had lost weight. The beard is such a great way to fool people into thinking you have lost weight. He mentioned that he had seen Sharon making out with some guy at the New Yorker party the previous evening. That guy, of course, was me. 

“I thought that you were gay”. He said. “If only it were that fucking simple,” I smiled. Somebody sent a picture to Sharon of us making out at the AFI party. We have become a very public couple.

That night I had dinner back at The Chateau M and met the utterly charming, handsome Stavros Nicharos and Carine Roitfeld, the editor of French Vogue. Dinner with Marilyn Heston, Ian Drew, saw Robbie Williams, Claire Danes, Hugh D’Ancy and others.  Claire Danes found everything Hugh said very, very funny. I don’t remember him being THAT funny. 

November 21, 2006 – Tuesday

The top of the Canyon was obscured by thick, low lying cloud. Met Glen Williamson and his new puppy. I hauled my ass up the hard way. The later one climbs the more screamers there are.

I’ve not written anything for three days. Such drama! Whilst I was having lunch, on Friday, with Merle Ginsberg in Beverly Hills somebody came into my house, pushed my maid and stole my laptop from my desk. Later that day the thief called me on my mobile phone demanding $2,000 to be put into a bank account. I can’t write anything more until the police have dealt with it. Thankfully, I learned many years ago to back everything up. Nothing vitally important has been lost. Most of my really important day-to-day information is stored on my Blackberry. Photographs will have to be reloaded but what the hell. I was more annoyed that my maid was reduced to tears. Poor thing, when I got home she was standing in the kitchen twisting her handkerchief in her hand, her face wet with tears. “Mister, a man came”. She sobbed.

The police were wonderful, really prompt and polite and interested. The two detectives were so different from British police who really don’t seem to give a damn. It was very impressive.

I had to somehow forget about the missing laptop and concentrate on feeding 12 people who were invited for dinner. Merle Ginsberg, Sharon Swart, Hilary Carver, Julie Delphy and her German boy friend, Marilyn Heston, Loren Beck, Aleksa and Devon for lamb and roasted beets which were DELICIOUS. Joe, Ian Drew (plus three) and Dom arrived after dinner with pudding and eggnog.

It was a remarkable success.

The following day I went to AA meeting then took JT to Brentwood for breakfast. Maury looked very busy. Met Sharon after breakfast but I was in shock about my lap top and unable to communicate effectively. We drove to Burbank in the truck and bought rugs at Ikea. I felt introspective. SS didn’t like me being so quiet so I went home and napped. We have not spoken since.

On Sunday I got up early and instead of my hike I went to the Hollywood farmers market where I bought more flowers. I saw KD Lang buying groceries. I then drove that huge truck to AA meeting in West Hollywood. An hour later, feeling very good about life I headed to the Grove to buy a new laptop at Apple. It took two hours but it was worth it. Met Dom at Barney’s where I bumped into Brian Ferry and his young wife. He looked great, she looks like Lucy. Dom insisted that we eat lunch in a nasty Beverly Hills diner. Why? Dom tried to convince me that he is on some sort of frugality drive which means that we have to eat at a cheap, ghastly diner. In fact he is spending all of his money taking JT to the Barbra Streisand Concert. He is obsessed with JT.

Buying chocolate in the chocolate store on Canon Dom and I saw a young Ethiopian girl with a pair of false red pumped lips like you some times see on celebrities here. At first we thought that they were real and dashed out of the store for a closer look but the girl took them off and Dom and I screamed how wonderful the false lips were and how much she looked like the “Dreadful Jocelyn Wildenstein”. “Yes! Oh my God how much like the dreadful ‘Bride of Wildenstein’ you look”. Dom chimed in. “That Wildenstein monster!” And, as if by some ghastly say it three times magic we noticed, sitting, eating a light lunch out side, not ten paces away was Jocelyn Wildenstein no longer enjoying a quiet bite whilst she listened to a morbidly obese queen and his svelte friend screaming about how vile she was. When we realized our catastrophic faux pas Dom just ran up the street. There is nothing more heartening than watching a fat man running.

On Sunday night I met my new neighbor and hung out at my place.

Yesterday had tea with S Fry at Chateau. Introduced him to Joe. Of course they got on like a house on fire. S Fry really loves Dorian. He looked a bit disheveled. Talked more about the Dam Busters.

Dinner, where else but the Chateau, with my friend Richard and others. Saw Michael Bellisario. Clare Staples joined our table briefly but after telling us that she had just spent 6 million dollars on her new house and that she only came down from her room because she thought that I was Duncan from the boy band Blue I lost interest in her. She wonders why she is single? Most probably because she has grown a cock and bathes in testosterone every night.

Don’t worry love, you’re buying a 6 million dollar house and you live in LA, you won’t be single for long.

P.S. Dom wrote these very funny revisions to todays blog…

I have taken the liberty of editing your blog entry:

On Sunday, I got up early and instead of my hike, I went to the Hollywood farmers market where I bought more flowers to cover the smell of my old roommate’s decaying body that I hid behind some drywall in the spare bedroom. I saw KD Lang buying groceries and told her how people often mistake me for her, but she seemed disinterested (maybe because she didn’t realize I used to be a woman). I then drove that huge truck to an AA meeting in West Hollywood. One hour and four donuts later, I headed to the Grove to buy a new laptop at Apple. It took two hours and several reminders that I was a film Director, but it was worth it. After trying to force Dom to eat at Koo Koo Roo, we strolled to a fun little diner in Beverly Hills (a beloved watering hole of Beverly Hills notables for decades). I devoured a huge burger and fries which left a greasy grin on my face upon completion. Dom is helping me learn the important lesson of frugality. He explained to me how saving in certain areas would give me more money to do fun things like going to the Barbra Streisand concert. He and Joe are going tonight and he promises to tell me all about it. I am not jealous of the beautiful friendship that has grown between Joe and Dom. I love them both and fully understand when Dom feels compelled to hang out with someone closer to his own age. Ended my Sunday at Barney’s where we met Bryan Ferry and his wife. He looked great, she looked beautiful, and their bodyguard that removed me from the building was charming (I got his number and promised to put him in my next movie).

….Dom chimed in. “the exotic Jocelyn Wildenstein!” And, as if by some ghastly say it three times magic we noticed, sitting, eating a light lunch out side, not ten paces away was Jocelyn Wildenstein no longer enjoying a quiet bite whilst she listened to a handsome impressionable young man and his older friend screaming about how vile she was. When we realized our catastrophic faux pas Dom just ran up the street. I was impressed by his speed and agility; I tried to run, but couldn’t, because I am in my 50s. I am asking Jocelyn to bring pudding to my next dinner party.

November 22, 2006 – Wednesday

dog/child

The canyon was virtually empty this morning as most people were packing or heading off on their Thanksgiving holidays. There were two scrapping dogs brawling in the dust. Their lesbian owners did almost nothing to separate them. Like CS who has a Great Dane most of them think that these creatures are their children and rather than pulling them apart like animals the lesbians were ‘negotiating’ with them.

Meet Princess the four legged dog/child that can be locked in the house for ten hours a day and eats its own shit. Taking a dog out for an hour each morning then locking them up in an apartment all day is frankly cruel. At least when CS brings her child/dog to LA she has bought it a huge dog run but most people who live here are just not that lucky. The same screwed thinking that makes ‘animal lovers’ imprison their dogs in tiny apartments with an hours exercise a day also makes them believe that eating a salad with a huge meal makes the meal healthier. As if eating lettuce cancels out all the damage a massive plate of pasta is doing to them before they haul their fat asses into their cars, up elevators or the path of least resistance.

I love Runyon Canyon, this morning it was quite chilly and grey. Silent. Green finches chasing each other. I always head up there feeling angry and resentful and return feeling peaceful and creative. If I don’t work out my resentments on the side of that mountain I work them out here in this blog.

Yesterday I ran errands, met Benjamin in the morning. We ate an early lunch and drank coffee in various locations all over town. I went to Silverlake to look at the house. I wish some one would buy it so that I could stop thinking about it. Jesse M called in the afternoon, a young actor I have not seen for ages. For reasons known only to himself he wanted to swing by the apartment. He arrived with another short, good looking 22-year-old ‘actor/producer’. I sat on my sofa wondering what the fuck they wanted. Apparently they wanted to meet me. Flirtatious, dangerous straight boys in my house. They knew Bryan Singer, Joel S and Bill Condon and now they knew me. I had invited Aleksa’s family for dinner so I was sitting in my apron and tending the oven as they told me all about their huge projects. Jesses’s sister is called Mindy and I think may be the wrestler who lives next door to Sharon.

At 7.30 the boys were still there and invited themselves to dinner. I fed ten people easily as I had massively over bought thinking that I could make enough for lunch today. Aleksa’s grandmother and grandfather Tony Palladino are amazing and I can only hope that if I ever make it to their age I will be as vibrant. Tony is the artist who created the Psycho logo for Hitchcock.

By 11 they were all gone so I went to bed. Getting tired of sleeping on my own. I want to fall in love.

November 24, 2006 – Friday

Thanks Giving

The Canyon was really chilly and bright this morning. I had to wear a hat, sweat shirt, tee shirt and long sweats so that my knees didn’t get cold. I think that I may fire up the boiler and burn off all the dust.

Yesterday was Thanksgiving which means nothing at all to a Brit like me. Turkey, buckles and puritans. To celebrate this greatest of all American hoidays Dom, Hillary, John and his girlfriend and I ate Thanksgiving lunch at some second rate restaurant in a huge Shopping Mall called The Grove. The food was inedible and I could have fed everyone there for half of what it cost me personally. It really annoys me to have to spend good money on bad food. What is the fucking point when one can cook great food effortlessly and cheaply? I should have stayed at John Wolf’s and eaten with the Palladino’s but I felt OBLIGED to eat with Dom. I hate feeling OBLIGED! In fact I hate holidays.

The morning started well enough: Hillary and I walked the Canyon straight up the hard way. I then drove around in search of an AA meeting as the one I wanted to go to was not available to me. Unable to find anywhere convenient I ended up at The Coffee Bean on Sunset where, amazingly, I had an impromptu AA meeting by the fire pit with other grateful recovering addicts who had also discovered that none of the usual venues were open for the holiday. I felt a bit weird holding hands and saying the serenity prayer in public. Apart from our little group holding hands there were ten other people drinking morning coffee at the Coffee Bean on Sunset including Paris Latsis and one of the Baldwin brothers who was playing backgammon in an outfit that could only be described as caramel.

Even though the eating part of our lunch was ghastly I am very fond of Dom so enjoyed talking about OJ Simpson, Netflix, dark meat versus white meat and the guy who plays Kramer on Seinfeld losing his temper on stage at the Laugh Factory and calling talkative black audience members ‘niggers’. Kramer then lamented the passing of lynching ‘niggers’. The Jews and the Blacks have always had difficulties with each other. Why?

After lunch I fled to the security of Beverly Hills and the huge house of Anastasia the Romanian eyebrow lady who was throwing a party with Merle Ginsberg’s sister. The house that eyebrows built nestled serenely in the most beautiful part of Beverly Hills. It was a delightful party with excellent food. I stuck my fingers down my throat, vomited up the lunch I had just eaten and started all over again. No I didn’t. I didn’t vomit but I did eat a second HUGE lunch, which I forced down my throat. It was SUPERB. Merle was on sparkling form. She introduced me to her gay friend who wrote Prêt e Porter for Altman who died yesterday. Look, we are all allowed to make at least one bad film and that was Altman’s. SORRY, but it’s true. I rather liked her sullen gay friend but he had one of those faces that looks as if he has just tasted something very, very sour. I call it ‘gay face’.

I cannot get enough of Merle. Her boyfriend was there who I met in the plane on the way to Sandy Pitman’s party. He looked completely different as he was not dressed as an Arab. I met Anastasia’s Romanian family who were adorable and thrilled that I had been to Constanza where they come from on the Black Sea. I met other friends of hers from Bucharest who knew all about the Elizabeth Hurley scandal. I met one beautiful girl who is a series regular on Nip Tuck who had seen The Method and knew my entire name. Ended the evening talking more to gay face and an Internet gossip woman who tried to pump me for information about who was gay in Hollywood, as if I would know anything more than her. To the amusement of the others I turned the tables and grilled her about her love life. As it turned out this dried up old harridan had had no sex life at all and when she did confined it to missionary position with one person. Vicarious sex lives are the worst sex lives of all.

I left Beverly Hills at 7.30 and joined Ian Drew at a very odd little party in Larchmont. There was no traffic so getting around LA was very quick and easy. You could understand how convenient it must have been here once upon a time for drivers. Anyway, Ian was sitting with seven women, six miniature dogs and some silent designer who looked like that freak from the band Sparks in the 1970’s. I ate more pumpkin pie and offered to start a food fight but the woman who owned the house looked a little shocked. I did my favorite comedy party trick and put one of the tiny dogs into the microwave. I did not press the button although I was tempted.

Home and in bed by 11.

November 26, 2006 – Sunday

Michael Temple

The Canyon. Homeless people live there at night. Once the gates close at sunset they must emerge from secret paths. Occasionally one hears them screaming out. Screaming their truth. From where I live, at night, I see helicopters scouring the brush for them. Hovering noisily over the Canyon with powerful lights beaming, searching, and sweeping the contours of the canyon for the homeless.

This morning a tatty black man with a moth eaten white beard was petting a tiny black pug owned by a very chic Asian woman. She called out its name. The dog ignored her and licked the homeless man’s fingers. Worlds converged, I watched her anxiously look at her dog and the homeless man. She knew that this old man wasn’t going to harm either her or her dog. We train ourselves to ignore the poor. I ignore their pleas for money, for food, for shelter. The dog/child knew nothing. No amount of training could make a dog differentiate between his kindness or hers. Asian woman had to acknowledged that she shared her world with homeless black man.

Further up the Canyon angry black woman from last week was screaming at her Husky called Runner. Screaming. The husky looked bewildered. I asked her if her dog was deaf. She said no. I asked if it might not be a good idea to put her dog on a lead then train it to accept commands. Angry black woman was outraged. I said, “You know that I am speaking the truth. I am telling you quietly and politely.” She tried to laugh at me as if I was an idiot but the truth was indisputable. “Nobody wants to listen to you screaming.”

I climbed the mountain with Michael Temple who arrived from London yesterday. We had dinner at Taste with Benjamin, Joe and Richard Squire. The food was OK. Richard was very funny but looks washed out. He reminds me of those medieval drawings of the Plantagenet’s. Thin features and flaxen bangs covering his ears. Richard fascinates Michael; he can’t understand how he survives. Nobody really understands. Michael asked a million questions about Richard. Like an alien he might have chanced upon.

Yesterday was spent mostly at home reading and writing.

I thought about Zoë in Whitstable, the mad woman with the red hair who lives on Harbor Street. Michael met me in her basement when I was 7 years old. What was it about her that made me feel like she was where I belonged? Her shop was opposite the Harbor gates and called Napoleon Bonaparte’s 101st Lucretia Borgia. It smelt of bees wax polish, wood smoke and the harbor. It must have been winter when I first discovered her. It must have been a bright winters day. Perhaps it was snowing. There were kittens in the basement and I sat by the fire on brown leather, Victorian sofas rupturing their horsehair innards. In the shop there were two huge pieces of Victorian furniture and a chandelier. Everything was painted white except the soot licked onto the chimneybreast.

Why was I drawn to her? Drawn to Richard Squire. Drawn away from my family? I have a framed picture of me on my desktop. I am seven years old. The harbor is a long way from where we lived.

Too much remembering.

I have been having very vivid dreams. Last night I found myself in bed with Brad Pitt and some woman. I have never ever thought of him like that. It was so..real. I blush just thinking about it. As we were having sex I thought to myself in the dream, “How will I ever write about this in my blog without pissing him off?”

November 27, 2006 – Monday

Yesterday

It is raining. Raining. Beautiful Elliot arrived from Sydney and tormented me with his perfection–he stayed twelve hours then left for Colorado to work as a ski lift operator. It is very strange living with Michael in my flat. I have known him for so many years in so many different situations. Even though he is a delightful friend he has so many annoying habits. He repeats words one after another in curious voices. He compares situations we find ourselves in to films he has seen. Michael speaks with his mouth full of breakfast and showers me with scrambled egg. We spent the day exploring LA in the car. Silverlake, Los Felis, Down Town. I thought that we should drive through the rain to Santa Barbara. We went to the Chateau for dinner but when I got there the charming security man took me to one side and told me that I had to leave. Shockingly, I have been banned from the Chateau Marmont for writing this blog so I have had to set my blog to private until further notice. Earlier in the day, at the Farmers Market, on Beverly I bumped into my AA sponsor but he was behaving very oddly. I am really looking forward to getting away. Going to Sydney. Finding my serenity. Of course it does not matter what I lose or what is taken away from me. I believe in my higher power and therefore everything will be OK. It always is.

November 29, 2006 – Wednesday

Arrested

It was a very, very chilly morning. I wore my woolen hat with the hood from my red hoody pulled over my head. The wind whipped through the Canyon; thankfully the rain from yesterday had dampened the paths so there was no dust whipped into my face. I took long fierce strides. I was furious. Furious about Michael, furious about my film, furious!

At the summit I looked down over the wind swept city and did not feel so bad. I kept on begging God to give me a sign that would make things better. A sign that would solve the various problems that now inhabited my beleaguered head. Some sort of sign that would show me the way toward repairing my tattered sense of well being.

I repaired the damage I caused at The Chateau. I apologized to the general manager for causing him to have to take such drastic action. He was so sweet. For any of us who are lucky enough to have the sort of relationship that I do with perhaps the most civilized environment in LA we have to take our commitment very seriously. If it weren’t for delightful times had at that charming place I would have left LA many, many months ago.

The police called to tell me that they had arrested the boy who’d stolen my laptop so I had to attend an interview at Wilcox LAPD. The detectives that interviewed me were, yet again, courteous, attentive and professional. They recovered my laptop but it is damaged so I will have to have the information removed from it professionally. I felt sorry for the guy who stole it, sitting in his cell, unlikely to get bail.

I dashed home to:

Cook ox tail for my Steven Fry dinner. He was on sparkling form. Joe made a great sidekick for him to entertain us all with one masterfully told anecdote after another. I really had no idea that S Fry was such a great mimic. Michael (the emotional vampire) did not say one word throughout dinner. He sat there listening and eating tofu. Eric was just beautiful. Eric’s boy friend was very quiet and a bit overwhelmed. Dan Scheffy from New York: very sweet. Merle Ginsberg was a sad no show.

December 1, 2006 – Friday

The Pebble

At 8am there was a chilled, stiff wind gusting exhilaratingly over the canyon path. I can’t really remember what I was griping about as I climbed to the summit but my head was going ten to the dozen. I met a boy called Anton Dolphin sitting, swinging his legs on the bench at the summit. He was gazing at the crystal clear view of Los Angeles toward Santa Monica. It was so clear I could see Catalina, the smog blown out to sea. The canyons to my left, toward the Hollywood sign, filled with soft misty meringue. The huge, grey mountains beyond Silverlake usually concealed by smoke and mirrors were clearly visible. It was spectacular.

Anton is a twenty five year old accountant from Auckland. He was doing what most young people do from his country–he was taking time to explore the world. Anton is an ordinary boy making an extraordinary adventure. We chatted for an hour then separated on Hillcrest. I love talking to young men. I love listening to their stories, their aspirations laid bare. It is the truth.

Yesterday I had meetings with my lawyer and my manager who has become an agent at a great agency. I have, totally by default, got myself an agent at a great agency. I wonder if he will be able to effect any changes there for me. Anything for me to do? I just want to do SOMETHING other than Dorian.

Went to the Magritte show with Michael and Hillary but Hillary flounced off when I started talking to a charming 19 year old boy who wanted to know how to interpret Magritte’s work. I had forgotten just how much I actually knew. It all just spewed out of me. John Baldessari (curator) has made a great job of the show. It looked and felt great. The cloud carpet and decorated ceilings, the bowler hats on the guards and the extraordinary collection of work. I loved ‘A Clear Idea’ the best. I did not realize what a wonderful painter he was. The execution was exquisite. I enjoyed seeing contemporary works hung along side the Magritte, some work a homage to Magritte others a conceptual progression/evolution. Of course these iconic images are all very well known but as with Rothko or Matisse the experience of the work is key, I felt totally invigorated by the experience of this well known work.

The 19 year-old boy asked me to look at ‘The Pebble’, which is an odd Lautrec type cartoon painting of a half naked woman licking her shoulder. The sea is lapping around her. We sat looking at it for three quarters of an hour. It is the most sensual painting; one can taste the salt on the woman’s skin. One pays attention to her tongue and the back of her neck, the way she holds her breast with one hand, her modesty with the other. Her nipples are like tiny exotic fruits. The more one looked at it the more one realized that it was also one of the most erotic paintings that I have ever seen. Perhaps standing next to a perfect youth made it more so. I have no idea.

Dinner at 101 fried chicken special.

December 9, 2006 – Saturday

New York

New York. It is a bright, cold day in this vibrant city. I am staying at Soho House in the Meat Packing District. They have set me up in a huge suite with a massive white bed, steam room and a butler. I am here to write the secret project with Maria. I arrived the evening before last. Very kindly Tim picked me up from the airport, which was so darned sweet of him. Unfortunately there had been a bit of a mix up over my room booking at Soho House, so the first night I stayed at the gruesome Gramercy Park Hotel. The problem with the GPH is that it cannot work out if it is a dance club or a hotel. As I arrived somebody had vomited on the tile floor in the lobby and a young Asian woman had slipped in the diced carrots and acrid smelling spew. As chic as some say this place (GPH) is no amount of Warhol, Clemente or Schnabel will compensate for how bad and unwelcoming it is at night. It was so dark at the reception that it was impossible to read the booking slip. It was so noisy in my room that I could not sleep. In the morning I quietly made a detailed complaint, understadably they did not charge me for my room. Later that morning it was wonderful to finally arrive at the Soho House. The General Manager Mark and the others immediately made me feel welcome and gave me Danish to eat and latte to drink and told me their various home stories and I no longer felt angry or displaced.

As some of you may have noticed I have not been writing my blog so much lately. It suddenly felt like I was giving too much away. Also, I started going to AA meetings in the Palisades at 7am. As a consequence I have not been walking the Canyon. Instead, I get up at 6am drive west, go to my meeting and am at home by 9. Because I am dressed properly for my meeting I don’t then want to take off my clothes and change for the Canyon. As for this blog, annoying my friends at the Chateau deeply upset me and made me think hard about what writing an open diary does to the people around you. Anyway, I have decided that I will write this blog periodically or when I have time on my hands or need to let myself know what is going on.

I had lunch at the Chateau with Hilary C last week. We had a great time. I really enjoy her company. It was odd going back to the CM after my banning, as I no longer feel the same sense of freedom that I had before. It sort of curtailed my enjoyment. I wore a cap and sunglasses and tried to hide my face as best I could. I am so bored with LA and being here in NYC has merely heightened that feeling of discomfort I have about going back.

Sadly, last week, I caught Joe lying about me and tring to cause trouble in my life. Amazingly, he told Hilary that I had stolen Sebastian Scott’s chequebook. Telling me that he was having a dinner, inviting people I knew and letting me know that I was not invited. Why? I would have thought nothing of it had I not been told several days later by another friend that Joe had warned him away from me. I think what Joe seems to forget is that a) more people tell me what they think of him than he realizes and b) that I find it terribly painful discovering that a ‘friend’ has spread such miserable clichés about me. Such dull, unimaginative lies.

Bought gloves in Barneys. Had polet roti in cute restaurant near Barneys. Had sex last night with some one of unimaginable beauty. First time I have had SEX for months.

The boy who stole my laptop is in prison. His mother called me and told me that I was the Devil and that her son could never have committed such a crime. She hoped that I might find Jesus. The police called and I finally got hold of my laptop to transfer items from that to this. The horrid thief had forced his way into my files only to put most things into the trash. Thankfully I found all of what I wanted except the secret project.

Had business meeting with Victor. It was fruitless. I am no closer to getting Dorian finished. Strangely, I am not upset. God has a plan. I know it.

December 15, 2006 – Friday

December LA. I have just returned from NYC. Whilst I was there Will Self walked (for the press) from Kennedy Airport to his Downtown hotel. He is here in the USA to promote his new book. It will be just as bad as all of the recent others. I can just imagine him striding pompously along the LIE puffing on his pipe baffling the accompanying journalist from the NY Times with a whole lot of long words. He is truly the Gerard Manly-Hopkins of our age.

It is not perhaps the time to admit this but whenever he used to visit me in Whitstable I was always terrified that he would break something. He would change a shitty baby on a white bed or open oysters directly on wood causing great scratches in the wooden kitchen counters. One night I had Janet Street-Porter, Will Self, Deborah Orr and Jay Jopling around that tiny zinc dining table in my Whitstable kitchen. They are all HUGE people in stature and ego. Deborah used to be huge laterally which caused everybody I know to think that she was extraordinarily fecund. You just have to imagine Will Self and you start using words like fecund. Will is a sweet man but he uses his celebrity to ensnare then his verbosity to crush too many willing victims. What ever may or may not happen to Will and I, I am glad that we have been friends.

Time is the greatest distance between two people.

From a distance one quickly sees the people one has known for who they are and forgive them their defects of character. Janet is a cold fish, a snob to boot but her eccentricity is what makes me proud to be British. At dinner Deborah asked Janet why she had never had children. It was a question only Deborah could have ever asked Janet. Janet told us that one of her husbands had had a child who died. She said that she never wanted to suffer the pain she saw him endure. It was really very touching.

Deborah Orr. I never really trusted her or her incessant moaning. She is undoubtedly a genius, more so than her husband. Her intellect is a thing of great beauty. I would much prefer to hear her spout than her moribund husband. She endlessly reminds anyone who will listen that she comes from Govan, a very rough part of Glasgow. When Deborah and I met Lulu at Jay’s house one night I made Deborah tell Lulu where she came from and Lulu made a grand whooping noise and brushed her fingers against her nose to indicate how POSH it was. Lulu grew up in the Gorbals, which used to be a total shit hole.

Anyway, enough of the aptly named Self’s.

I walked the Canyon at 7am this morning. It was so pretty but my heart was heavy. I cannot imagine living here after I get back from Australia. I will do a few months of Dorian then it is time to get on and go back to Whitstable. I expect to be there by June. I listened to the same sort of conversations on my way up that I heard when I left, two frumpy women in badly fitting sweats complaining about some one who had wronged them. On the way down two executives were discussing powerful studio men. They were in awe.

I have done my stint, paid my dues to LA. I have stayed sober in LA. LA has been an interesting home for me but as I have said before it is like living in Whitstable, yet there in no allure. LA is a small town with small people. Self important, heartless and occasionally very, very cruel. The squabbles are no different or important from those I might hear in The Duke of Cumberland. The fights I witness in Hollywood are as vicious as any I have seen outside the kebab shop on Whitstable High Street.

Thankfully my shrewd investments may make this year my most profitable yet my ‘profit’ of course would scarcely pay for the mixers at one of Jay’s parties!

I am on the edge of something here in LA. On the edge of a continent or on the edge of my own life? I cannot continue this journey without a serious moment of reflection yet wherever I settle I am at the mercy of my own madness. My life has been all about shopping and fucking yet with none of the irony that this may suggest.

Somebody once asked me if I had ever been proud of anything in my life. I can honestly say that I am proud of every achievement I have ever made. Every play, film, dinner, room, article, sobriety, garden, blog. I am proud of all these things because I have had to do such terrible battle with myself to get anything done. The worst part of ME has always been my most terrible adversary. There is no one else to blame. I used to blame my stepfather but whatever seeds he sowed I have propagated. Every day I wonder who will get the best part of my day, that Duncan Roy or this Duncan Roy.

Finally, whilst in NY I contacted very old friends. A Whitstable friend and someone I had not spoken to for seven years. It was such a relief to call him. I was walking in what used to be the shadow of the twin towers. I suddenly remembered his telephone number and like a spell, a long forgotten spell I dialed the number and listened to his voice. It was wonderful.

Today I counted 27 dogs on Runyon Canyon.

December 17, 2006 – Sunday

Dreams

Last night I dreamt that it snowed in Los Angeles. The snow glinting in the sun, melting fast, too fast to fetch my camera. The snow held on longer in the valleys in the deep shadow. It was an exciting dream.

I have been very ill in bed with my cold. I am too ill to leave the apartment, too ill to call anyone. Dom came over yesterday but I no longer trust him and eyed him suspiciously over the matzo ball soup he very kindly delivered me. He is so crazed with love for Joe it is embarrassing and frankly, tragic. Joe is just as bad using poor Dom to fill his time before he does the decent thing and goes back home to England to do something sensible. Dom genuinely believes that he can be Joe’s boy friend.

By yesterday, full of phlegm, I had had just about enough of being here. I craved my little cottage and the brown Whitstable sea. I craved The Tudor Tea Rooms, Wheelers and The Whistle Stop. I craved Mother’s pride and marmite. I craved poached eggs. I craved anything that wasn’t me here and now. It was apparent that nothing I could do was going to change any component part of what I am suffering.

Joe the mountain scientologist visited me and showed me his new bicycle helmet. Merritt swung by and set up the printer that had been sitting in it’s box since it was bought weeks ago. Devon brought more soup as did Aleksa’s mother Sabrina who made a wonderful, soothing concoction of limes, cayenne pepper and hot water.

Being ill here reminds me of this time last year when I ended up in Cedars (hospital) with that terrible leaking spine. The devestaing head ache, unable to speak, to stand up. Then being saved by and staying with David and Hunter. Meeting Hilary. The way the doctor fixed it with that blood patch. I refused the anesthetic. Laying there begging that the pain be taken from me. I thought that I was going mad. I thought that I was having a nervous break down and all along spinal fluid was draining out of me. Just like George Clooney.

Phil left text messages. Cheered me up. She will never make it here–maybe in February for Mexico and the whales.

It was cold when I woke this morning; there was a bite in the air. I cannot stay in bed all day. I can’t do it. I have to do SOMETHING productive. Make lists. Write.

Apparently, if you threw a cat onto a 15th century funeral pyre the cat represented the devil. When I was a child I had a recurring nightmare that I had thrown a kitten into a fire.

December 19, 2006 – Tuesday

Deal or no Deal

I am still in bed with what has developed into a hideous chesty cough. I should never have gone to my AA meeting last night or had dinner at Ago even though I love rissotto and had truffle shaved all over it.

As I lay in my large bed my mind drifted from this illness to the first time I remember being in hospital when I got my scull crushed in a car accident when I was 5 years old. The next time I ended up in hospital was when I was 13 years old for being a nuisance at school. I thought that I might spend some time this morning writing about that. I remember playing canasta with Edna, hiding the drugs they gave me in my ear so that I did not have to take them, St Augustins, Pandora with the flakey teeth and the morgue. I thought that I might write about my being hospitalized when I was 25 in Sutton at the Hendserson Hospital and describe Sarah who killed herself and the blood in her room and knitting during group therapy but I have decided that I am going to write about that some other time.

Instead, I am going to write about people who read this blog and try to use it against me. Who contact friends and organizations with disinformation, who try to derail my film and me. For it came to pass this morning that I was sent a whole heap of e-mails from people I had worked with who are dissatisfied with me, who are working tirelessly against me and my film.

The more damage these people cause, the less likely I am inclined to get the film out of the box and try and raise money to finish it. The less likely I am able to attract an investor. As you may know, if you have been diligently reading this blog, I am about to start making a movie in the UK. Some of you naughty minxs seem to be under the misapprehension from you’re e-mails that you can do damage to me. If I lived in the scum you call you’re lives then no doubt you could indeed hurt me badly. But I do not.

Nothing you can do to me will ever stop me being creative or living a wonderful life. Nothing you can do to me can take away my sobriety, which is more important to me than any fucking film or any one of you.

I have passed these e-mails to my lawyer and any further attempts to scupper our film will be met with fierce counter measures. You are not the only ones who can make life very difficult. I urge you to consider this: You do not hurt me when you do these things you merely hurt the people who genuinely want to benefit from making art. the DP, the actors etc. By reducing the value of the film you merely stop yourselves from getting the money you are rightly owed under the agreement of your deferment deal. You do not and cannot hurt me. You merely hurt yourselves and the others that are owed money.

I urge you to work with me to deal with this problem as best we can.

December 28, 2006 – Thursday

Sydney

Sydney New South Wales Australia

I am back in the southern hemisphere, arriving on the chilliest day of the summer. It was a relief, however, not to step into sub tropical Sydney. A delicious wind cooled the usually sweltering mid summer city. I left my lap top in the taxi but it was returned to me. At night I noticed how hot the stone buildings were, that my skin was already mildly burned. I managed to deal with the jet lag in two days. This morning I woke at a very respectable 7am.

Since I arrived in Sydney I have eaten three times at the new Tropicana (chicken salad) now finally at home back in its original place on Victoria Street. I have eaten flourless orange cake at the new Dov also on Victoria Street and tasted their delicious, home made, sticky nougat loaded with candied cherries and almonds. I saw Ursula and Kate who now part own Dov with Matt Onions. I walked the streets to see what else has changed. I walked so hard that my calves hurt. I joined the gym, and worked my chest and shoulders. I found NA meetings and AA meetings and caught a cab to Bondi Junction and met Ben and drank more juice at The Tropicana.

I visited the dentist and had my teeth cleaned. I made further appointments to have a small filling in a tooth on my upper jaw and replace a broken veneer.

I listened to the varied bird song and realized what I missed so much in LA but for all my bitching and complaining how LA had reconnected me with AA, a connection I hadn’t felt for years and years. I bought a phone and got myself a new phone number. I smelt the sweet lush blooms on the trees on the street and listened to the mewing of the birds that sound like crying babies. I looked out for familiar faces and found them. I looked at the bald black-headed egrets in Hyde Park; I gazed at the huge bronze sculpture of Queen Victoria. I was just too damned excited. I have not seen the huge fruit bats migrating from Centennial Park but I am sure that I will.

I walked to Kings Cross, Potts Point, Elizabeth Bay and Woolloomooloo. I began walking up Oxford Street to Paddington but decided to do that some other time. I realized that the lower gay part of Oxford Street was now filthy dirty and far too many toothless drug addicts asked for spare change. For every fit, beautiful Sydney boy/girl there was a scrawny homeless addict to remind one where one might have ended up or might yet.

Surprisingly Sydney does not feel as optimistic as it once did. It feels like an anxious place to be compared with the ebullience I felt here a few years ago. Apparently, according to friends, China is making some parts of Australia fabulously rich but not here. Buying minerals, feeding the great 21st Century Chinese expansion.

I have no expectations for New Years Eve. What ever happens, happens. May go to bed, may watch the fireworks.

I have written 21 pages of my new script and I am falling over myself to complete it. It flows out of me like a torrent. It always happens like this here in Sydney Australia, in the Southern Hemisphere. I find my voice. It was here at this table that I wrote Dorian, it is here that I am writing Untitled LA Project and already a new world exists on the page. What could be more exciting than that?

January 6, 2007 – Saturday

Sydney. lay on Bondi beach yesterday with Charles, Anthony and Sophie. Had dinner at Lotus with Cameron and Zoe. Decided to go to bed early. Burned my hip in the sun. I am happy. Not really worrying. Drifting aimlessly when I am not writing or walking or going to AA meetings. I am bored with my hotel so am going to move. I may hire a car tomorrow and drive down the coast. I will. I think that I will.

The script is coming along very nicely. It is better than I expected. Works well.

Decided definitively that I am going back to London to live as soon as I can.

When I walk the streets I am inspired, alive, able.

January 7, 2007 – Sunday

FRUIT BATS

It is cloudy again today but deliciously warm and humid.

Most of my days here in Sydney are spent doing what I came here to do: write. I write in the mornings. I get up at 6am. I spend a good hour messing around on the internet. Read mail, the news: BBC, Huffington Post, look at messages left for me on various web sites. I write my required AA lists then my private diary. I leave the room to write my film (75 pages so far) and this occasional blog at a deli on Victoria Street where I am in love with the boy who serves coffee (flat white). As we all know it is impossible to buy a bad coffee in Sydney. I get back to the hotel room and check the Dorian Gray web site stats. We are getting a huge volume of hits from France where David Gallagher is a TV star. I mean over 2000 hits a day, which is phenomenal for an unpublicized site.

On occasions I don’t write at all and just explore the streets of Sydney either on my own or with my friend Ben. On Sunday morning Ben, Jake (the artist) and I found a cafe in Erskinville and ate chicken salad, drank delicious coffee and I poured demerara sugar straight from the bowl on the table into the palm of my hand and ate it like a child. We sat there for hours discussing Australian art whilst tropical rain fell torrentially onto the streets. A uniformed policeman and his female mate came into the cafe to escape the rain, he was so beautiful I asked him if he was a stripper.

I walk despite my poor burned hip which is horribly painful. I have bought books and food but little else. I am training myself to follow a pre-planned path and not get way laid by beauty. I have only seen one must have item: a modernist carved marble lamp in my friend Ken’s shop in Darlinghurst.

Cooked dinner last night at Zoë’s house. Huge frizze salad with boiled egg, lardons, walnuts and chopped freshly cooked asparagus. We bought some delicious salami and mozzarella and Turkish bread, which we all tore apart and devoured the moment we sat down. Baklava for pudding with guava juice. Ben, Zoë, Rose, Teddy, Larry, Jack, Jack’s girlfriend and another girl all no more than 22 years old. Very Sydney, so much fun.

Zoë is renting a beautiful basement in Surrey Hills and has invited me to move in tomorrow so I rented a car and am suddenly FREE! Whenever I get here I am trapped by old habits. I never really move from Sydney yet there I was washing my smalls in the hotel laundry waiting for the dryer to dry and I started looking at a map of Australia. I knew immediately that if I did not take advantage of this opportunity I never would. I am going to drive into the desert, the red heart of Australia. I have only ever explored New South Wales and parts of Victoria. I have been to Nyngen, Forbes (Charles Wilson’s beautiful country house), Melbourne, Tilba and Condoblin where I travelled with Georgina and Oscar Humphries who wrote very offensively about the Australian country tradition of the Batchelors and Spinsters ball. I took millions of pictures that ended up in a sunday magazine and an exhibition of Australian reportage.

Back in tedious LA things have been going a pace. Before I left Hollywood I realized that I had been the victim of a terrible fraud and so had to deal with it. The worst thing about knowing that things are ‘not right’ when you are naturally paranoid is sorting the fact from the fear based fiction. I had to write a difficult letter. The truth, and nothing but the truth. It took a week to write the bloody thing. That said, when it was done I felt a whole heap better. Lawyers in these circumstances are not your best friends. When I fought my ‘divorce’ in court I did it on my own and as honestly as any one can in the circumstances. The courtroom and the truth are not, one quickly realizes, synonymous. Even after I had written the letter my index finger hovered dangerously over the return key for a good few days. I just kept praying for guidance and asking God and my few trusted friends what they thought of what I was doing.

I hate having to fight fairly yet when I fight unfairly I end up loathing myself. In a world which seems rigged against most of us most of the time this primitive side of my nature becomes essential. The courage to change the things I can, it’s tough to be courageous. It’s hard to turn up in a city with nothing and make a film from scratch. It’s tough to do things in an unusual and challenging way. For all of producer Brad W’s defects of character he taught me to pick my battles wisely.

I pressed the button and off it went for only God to determine the outcome.

I have been thinking a great deal about Tracy Emin-what a great artist she has become. I saw a photograph of a sculpture that reminded me of the roller coaster at Dreamland in Margate and of course that is exactly what it was. A scaled down naieve sculpture of the roller coaster at Dreamland. It was so wonderfully evocative. Tracy and I both come from Kent, villages that are not so far away from one another and we are about the same age. She was the girlfriend of Billy Childish who I was at art school with and very close friends with. It was because of Billy, I suppose, that I was suspicious of the authenticity of her work but let’s face it: if she was ever influenced by Billy Childish as he loudly claims she has well and truly flown his coop. When she makes work away from the mirror she excells. Building the Whitstable beach hut in the Saatchi gallery for instance was a stroke of genius. I loved her helter skelter tatlin tower at White Cube and now I love her roller coaster. I remember the experience of Dreamland so well. The coconut matting to slide down the helter skelter. The clockwork ticking of the roller coaster, the abrupt ending and the fearful screams. I loved it, as did she. Tracy has evolved into a bone fide arts star. One of the best of British.

I cannot tell you how much I love being sober, how much I love my sobriety and how I am loving writing the most thorough and grueling step one. Sometimes I feel so ‘here’ that it’s as if all my skin has been removed and I experience the world as a raw unborn thing.

Every night I watch the bats in the sky, huge fruit bats flying haphazardly in the twilight. Streams of them, black flapping chattering to each other all the way home.

January 10, 2007

Rap

The Book Kitchen, Surrey Hills, Poached eggs.

I have found a new walk to walk every morning. Bronte to Bondi along the coastal path. Up at 6.30 I wake poor Zoë and drag her out of bed, drive to Bronte and we walk. God damn, such beauty we pass in nature and human form. “You missed that one.” Zoë said this morning as some perfect being sprinted past us and out of sight. And such is the nature of my addictive personality I want to run back and catch a glimpse of what ever I had missed. We mostly both walk quietly, however, lost in our own thoughts. Gazing out to sea. It always looks so inviting even though there were warnings of bad currents at Bronte. The air is wet and piquant with sea spray that dries the moment it touches our faces. I love my morning walk, all my thoughts are collected there. I don’t have the same sort of medatative experience that I have on Runyon Canyon but quite frankly I am never so full of loathing and resentment here as I am in LA. Here I am calm and fearless. Perhaps my renewed vigor in AA has caused me to be less furious. Perhaps I just feel safer and why shouldn’t I? Anyhow, what ever it is, I am losing weight, being calm, tanned and start the day with a new kind of optimism. I passed three dogs on the path. This is not a dog culture. No tiny house bound, constipated dog children to negotiate, no screamers, no dust.

What will be will be.

We were going to Bronte yesterday to swim with Teddy and Anita but ended up at Nelson’s Park which is a harbor beach packed with Greek families swimming within the confines of the shark net. We swam beyond the net risking being eaten by great whites. Met Eugenie who used to go out with Oscar and had a brief flirtation with one of the Grimaldi boys and a bunch of Zoë’s very thin chums who were being perved over by men who sat like vultures at the periphery of the group. The girls are so thin most of them look like boys. No wonder thin women feel they need breast augmentation. I swam with Teddy and James in the warm water then we went for a precarious rock climb along the shore. I am not a sprightly as I once was and lagged behind these 22 year old boys who scampered over the rocks like lizards. On the way back we discussed how a lobster sheds its shell. They did not believe that a lobster could shed its entire shell and sit soft and vulnerable on the ocean bed whilst it waited for its new exoskeleton to harden up. This odd knowledge comes from me hanging around the kitchen at Wheelers listening to Delia, who, by the way I miss terribly. When we all got home and verified the disputed lobster information on the Internet I won a $5 wager.

On the way to the beach a small, old woman was trapped in the drive of her huge Vaucluse home by a selfish person who had parked in front of her gate. We commiserated with her and wondered who could have possibly done such a thing. I told her it was probably the muslims which she agreed with without a seconds thought. It would seem that Muslims and global warming account for all most every bad thing that happens nowadays.

Anita cooked dinner for us all at her Mother’s house and then we drove to Hyde Park barracks to listen to Hip Hop, which was all part of the Sydney Festival. Ugly Duckling were the headliners and of course we found ourselves back stage with the politest most unthreatening rappers you ever did meet. I entertained them with my meeting Jay Zee in New York and The Game in LA stories which dumb found people who know about rap. Anyway, Zoë knew the guys who were on before Ugly Ducking who are the sweetest, blue eyed, public school boys who rap about how nasty stale muesli is and his mum asking him to tidy his room. Very sweet. The white, middle class audience bobbed around half-heartedly. White rap is not as authoritative as black rap. You simply don’t feel that thump in the chest that you do when you hear black rapper men shouting at you. We went to the gaslight after the concert and bid farewell to James who flew to London this morning. I did not envy him flying back to London. Not one bit.

Last Days

Book Café, Surrey Hills, Sydney

It is raining today. Hard. The streets are flooded. Rain drops loudly on the tin roofs. Nobody complains about the weather because of the drought. This morning, like every morning for the past week, I have ordered poached eggs and bacon.

I spent the early part of the morning at the dentist having a crown replaced that fell off in the 101 Cafe in LA 6 weeks ago. I did not feel the needle go in. My nose is still numb from the anesthetic and I am concerned that stuff is hanging out of it because that’s how it feels. I have to go back tomorrow to have the last of the mercury fillings removed and replaced with white porcelain. Finally getting rid of all those ugly, unnecessary fillings British National Health Service dentists made us suffer just for an extra tenner a pop. That’s what they were being paid by the government to fill our teeth. Taking perfectly fine teeth drilling them and filling them with mercury. I have been traumatized by British dentists just like so many 40 something men and women. Consequently, my poor gentle Australian dentist has to deal with me in his office sweating and squirming and swearing at him.

As the end of my Australian trip approaches I must tell you all that I have had a lovely, relaxing time. I left my hotel on Oxford Street and stayed with my friend Zoë Wane. Together we have traversed the city from one huge house to another. When we weren’t enjoying the many mansions of her rich friends we sat in the Cricketers Arms that Zoë’s brother runs where we sat with Vito who looks like Bart Simpson all grown up (see pics) and Jack who looks like Castro and her twin friends Teddy and Larry. Last week, Anita, Teddy’s girlfriend cooked a Malay feast at her home which was so delicious I thought that nothing I would ever eat again would ever compare to what she served at her table that night. Zoë and I ate at Fratelli in Potts Point with Zoë’s friend Ben Brady and endless coffee shops in all the Eastern Suburbs with various combinations of the above.

Last night Ben’s girlfriend Jasmine and her mother prepared Persian food and we sat and ate on their balcony discussing Lebanon and Iran and watching forked lightening dance over the sea.

I had dinner with my friend Vassilli Kalliman who took me to his brand new gallery and introduced me to the wonderful work of Sally Smart and David Griggs. We ate at Bird Cow Fish on Crown St., which was very satisfying. I saw Sophie Mears and Anthony Sissian and swam with them at Bondi they told me that they had been living three blocks from me in LA. I walked around Coogee bay with Kate Fisher and we sat fully clothed on the rocks being sprayed by huge waves. I ate pasta on the lawn of the Darling’s beautiful home in Bellvue Hill with their son Daniel and his gorgeous South African girlfriend.

My dear old friend Charles Wilson, the furniture designer, and I ate dinner at his house and whilst trying to assemble his very chic candelabra I spilt a huge mug of coffee over my white trousers. Ken Neal took me to one of many dinners I had at Fish Face on the Darlinghurst Road. I ate the sashimi on every occasion, had everything on the menu once and the fish curry twice.

I saw Jess Cook who prepared a lunch time avocado salad for me to eat in her loft. I saw Rose who took me to a one nighter at the Flinders Arms called Health Club. I tanned on various beaches and had occasional tangled phone calls with people in other countries. Saw Dreamgirls and hated it. Saw Babel and respected it. Saw Marie Antoinette and loathed it but remembered what it was like to shoot AKA in Versailles. I finished the first draft of my new Untitled LA Project and I wrote a gratitude list every day and sent it to my AA sponsor.

I slept alone and often wondered about someone I had left behind in NYC–you know who you are. I thought about Sharon and developed a nasty resentment against Samia who has not returned my e-mails despite the fact that at this time last year she was so obsessed with me that she flew uninvited to LA and behaved toward me like Glen Close in that bunny boiling film. As usual I got all the blame.

Unsatisfyingly bumped into Oscar H at Fiveways who was all snipes and false promises and Peter S at The Bayswater Brasserie who was frankly annoying although I enjoyed seeing his brother Charles and his charming uncle.

I will miss the friendship, the food, the beauty, the vista and most of all I will miss who I become when I am here. The man I allow myself to be. Calm, kind and full of hope. I will try and carry all of this good me back to LA and The Oscars and to Baha Mexico where I started blogging last year and where this year I am meeting Phil H to watch the whales migrate at the beginning of February. Thousands of them.

February 2, 2007 – Friday

Kevin Zegers

I am back in LA. Feels like I am back at work/school/LA. Various pre-Oscar dramas unfolding, Hollywood intrigue playing itself out in front of me. I am not as invested as I was last year. Last year I was at the center of it all with Sharon to see how it worked. It was utterly exhausting. I will not be going to the parties this year. I may pop into the Soho House rented mansion. Anyhow, I am just not interested in the films they have in competition this year.

Went with Kevin Zegers to Hyde. He is a sweet thing. Interesting listening to his take on the making of Trans America. He is Canadian. Liked him a great deal. At the Golden Globes last year Brad Pitt said to him, ‘Trans America is your Thelma and Louise.’ Which is a pretty damned cool thing to hear. Kevin stole Trans America from David Gallagher. David lost TA and made DG instead.

Up on the Canyon this morning it was very cold. It has been really cold here. I like it. There were very few people there, fewer dogs. The guys that tend the path were using a very noisy machine, a ‘low blower’ they said, and that is what it does-very loudly. It blows dust all over the place. What about using a broom?

So, I thought about how lazy we all were and how much I hate the TV remote control and how it was the best and worst invention of the past fifty years. I thought about those ‘home entertainment’ rooms that folk have here and how many remote controls these people have lined up in front of them desperate to be entertained. Last week I invited a friend to my home and he was amazed that I don’t own a television set. American TV depresses me. It makes me miserable. The commercials are grueling, relentless and mind altering. The content is formulaic baby food. When I live in NYC I lay on the sofa when I can’t sleep and watch the Home Shopping Network because there are no commercials and the content is exactly what it is-selling. The Home Shopping Network is authentic, amusing, dramatic, reality TV at its very best. I love it. Occasionally I am tempted, like an alien from another planet, to pick up the phone and buy something. Austrian Art Glass or a cover all powder that gives a translucent glaze to any skin in any tone. I listen to the rehearsed testimonials and I am transported.

Jean and I drove in his Mazeratti to Malibu and the mountains around there. As the sun began to set, low in the winter sky, the grassy hillocks at the base of the mountains were covered in silver grass that looked like fur. We had gone to look at a beautiful modernist house perched on 15 acres of land on the top of a huge mountain that is For Sale and we were tempted to pool our resources and buy it. The air was bitter. Remember it had been snowing in Malibu only two weeks previously.

Had lunch with Amanda Ross who invited me to Laurie Simmons event at The Billy Wilder Cinema at The Hammer. It was an ‘art’ film. Meryl Streep can sing! There was much applauding the work but I must be honest, I do not understand why Laurie Simmons feels that an obscure art film needs a conventional narrative. I don’t get it. Laurie’s film was shot by Ed Lachman who had introduced me to Brian Jackson the Dorian DP. She had worked with Mathew Weinstein who I had a brief affair with when he lived in London 20 years ago. He was so gorgeous then. I had dinner with Merle Ginsberg at Red Pearl Café after the film. Met Amanda’s rather handsome fiancé.

Had meeting with my agent at Urth Café flushed from his trip to Sundance.

Back at school, getting on with shit. Every moment of every day, in every situation in LA we work toward our filmmaking goal. Every relationship and situation unfolding in front of us like so many jewels, sifting out the paste from the diamonds.

May 17, 2007 – Thursday

Isabella Blow

There is a large John Lautner house out on the PCH for sale it will costs who ever buys it 33 million dollars. At night it looks like it has been carved in amber.

I am in Toronto, here for the gay film festival. I am staying in a bed and breakfast that was once a very grand house. Dorian is the opening night film and I can’t get out of bed. I can’t move out of my room. I am ‘on line’ to various friends. Various websites. Looking, my eyes getting very tired.

Death:

Isabella Blow killed herself. She drank weed killer, paraquat, and took 3 days to die. Her husband’s father did the same. Her grandfather committed suicide too. She was an occasional friend to me. When I made The Baron in The Trees she oversaw extra ordinary pictures of me for Vogue. The week before she died she visited with Philippa in Langton St with her sister Lavinia. The last time I saw Isabella she was at a party Lucy Ferry threw with Si Newhouse at Lucy’s home in Kensington. She was with some Argentinean man who looked like a second rate gigolo. I don’t remember her for her hats. I remember going to Hilles to see her and Detmar and Amory with Philippa and my friend Justin from Whitstable who was a simple lad who also committed suicide a few years later after he was set upon by homophobes in Camberwell. Isabella took him under her wing, realizing that he was totally out of his depth and said,” You know what you need young man–a pork pie!” and dragged him in his car to the village and bought him a HUGE pork pie.

I have one very funny picture of Isabella and Jay Jopling in my photo album. He looks bemused and she looks like an alien in mourning. He looks young.

You know that she was Tim Willis’s girlfriend for years but left him for Detmar Blow. I called her the night before she was to marry Detmar to ask why she was marrying him and she said, “I’m not marrying a man, I’m marrying a house.” Which was true. I used that line in AKA.

KB wrote yesterday:

‘Sorry, darling Duncan, missed all the excitement around Dorian – though I saw Mrs. Merton last week, who mentioned she’d seen you. Issie’s funeral yesterday. Amazing send off with horse drawn hearse (very beautiful – though I forgot to remind Detmar that she had wanted a glass coffin a la Snow White!) from Glos Cathedral. kept remembering their wedding there and was sad, but service was rather uplifting and Rupe Everett gave a very good address. Detmar did a good wake at Hilles afterwards and I saw lots of old friends.’

I met Issie when I was tenty four. She was seeing Tim Willis in those days and they had just moved into Tim’s aprtment in Notting Hill. Tim Willis married Joanna and then I became the God Father to their child. Issie could not have children. There was some shenanigan about Hilles and children and how Detmar’s mother wanted her daughter (can’t remeber her name) who married Crusty Levinson (who was married to Philippa’s sister Francine) and their children to have the house. In aristocratic circles to lose out on the big house is a DISASTER. She indeed married the house but it was stolen from her.

Good-bye Isabella Delves Broughton nee Blow.

Since I last wrote my blog I have moved to Malibu and now sit high above the sea on a small bluff. Everybody visits so I am not alone. I am in Toronto unable to leave my room and I miss it terribly-my house. The very light traffic outside my hotel room woke me at 5am.

I moved from Whitstable finally–just as the peonies were about to bloom, ants on their sticky buds. I have not really stopped grieving my Whitstable loss but will do when my stuff gets to Malibu. In some ways I wish that the whole lot would sink in the Atlantic. But that might mean that people would get hurt which I don’t want.

Dinners during the past month included: Birthday dinner for and with John Dewis and Kevin West where I met the utterly adorable Elliot Hundley. Opening of Dan Flavin show at LACMA. New age baby shower on Mulholland with babies spirit guide who had been ‘communing with foetus’ and wanted us all to celebrate that the baby was looking forward to being born, to be made flesh. Derek Frost and Jeremy invited me to dinner in Pimlico when I traveled to London for premiere of Dorian. Dorian, up on the big screen in Leicester Square. How did it feel? Not great. I love the film but others were not so kind. People who get it-get it. The others are the others and perhaps they are right. Even so, this experience is more exciting than AKA, which was only great when it got to Outfest. Then that soured when the onslaught happened and I was unprepared for them, for when they love something and you don’t believe it.

Melanie threw a dinner for me with Mickey Wolfson and others came too. My new best friend Wendy A had lunch in Malibu with her and Barry Levinson and others.

Seeing a great deal of Joe who made moving effortless and wonderful. In fact he is making my life all that much nicer by being good to me.

I gave my brother Martin my Porsche, which seemed to delight him. I gave my fridge to Babs and Tony. I took down all the curtains and deconstructed the house. I said goodbye to every one of my plants. I felt like such a traitor for leaving them behind. Tim came by with Jo and Sibbley. He brought gypsy tart and we ate it at Babs house with hot tea.

When I returned from my final month is Whitstable Dom collected me from the airport and when I got back to the new place Joe was in the new kitchen cooking dinner. The new garden is a huge undertaking. Thankfully I have discovered a nursery that is closing down on the PCH and is selling everything very cheaply. Yesterday I bought an 8 foot cactus and planted it.

Bought euphorbia and aloes and agaves.

I listen to the coyote at night howling and chattering and eating baby deer. I am eager to see a rattlesnake. I saw a mountain lion. A raccoon got into my car and ate skittles. A Blue Jay raided the humming bird nest and stole all the baby humming birds. Trevor stopped by and heated the Jacuzzi and we lay in it with Eyal the Israeli boy who is dark and mysterious.

So much more has happened but I can’t remember or don’t want to remember. I had a great time in Miami and lay by the pool at the Raleigh with VD and CZ. I am as brown as a nut and looking forward to great wrinkles on my face.