Category: art
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LA Portraits
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Simon Says
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Warhol in The Sittingroom
There’s a Warhol in the sitting room. It’s a big pink cow originally bought at the Leo Castelli gallery in the 60’s.
During all the time I knew Fred Hughes I only spoke two words to Andy.
I was Fred’s odd teenage ‘friend’.
Andy only once initiated a conversation with me. He asked about gay life in London. When it became obvious I didn’t really know…he looked vaguely perplexed and walked away.
From that moment on we considered each other from afar, suspiciously and never exchanged another word.
I think Fred preferred it like that.
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Plein Soleil
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dFDX5Gozzk&feature=related]
Mel picked me up from the house at 6.15am and we drove into The Palisades for the 7.30am AA ‘bank’ stag meeting. I could only endure a few moments then I left.
I wandered around the Farmers Market looking at the organic vegetables, cut flowers, the smell of fresh samosas baking in the early morning sun.
I felt like Ripley (played by Alain Delon) at the fish market in the original film version Plein Soleil (see above starts at 9 mins and 9 seconds) of the novel The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith.
He has no idea what is waiting for him…
I first saw this film in Spetses, Greece. The open air cinema, when I was 21. Ironic huh?
If you don’t know this film…see it. It’s available in its entirety on YouTube.
I couldn’t sit in that meeting facing those scoundrels. One of them told us that he had called his wife a cunt and the other laughed heartily. He was trying to confess his wrongs, the others behaved like Rush Limbaugh. They thought it was sooo damned funny.
So I went for a walk in the now blazing sun. The hottest day of the year so far.
I chatted with a good-looking man and tried to take my mind off the meeting.
Mel and I walked the dogs down to the ocean. After he dropped me back at the house I tried writing, attempted to eat.
A friend dropped by and we meditated. Yes, we did.
Dinner with Anna in Venice, met a Greek friend, bumped into Rufus. Bed by 11.
“Between August 2010 and March 2011 Roy wrote a 50,000-word blog to Bauman.
Roy coldly examines his career to date, how he had been a colourful agent provocateur, his art, like his paradoxes, seeking to subvert as well as sparkle. His own estimation of himself was of one who “stood in symbolic relations to the art and culture of my age”.
It was from these heights that his life with Bauman began, and Roy examines that particularly closely, repudiating him for what he finally sees as his arrogance and vanity: he had not forgotten Bauman’s remark, when he was ill, “When you are not on your pedestal you are not interesting.”
Roy blamed himself, though, for the ethical degradation of character that he allowed Bauman to bring about on him and took responsibility for his own fall.
The first few months of the blog concludes with Roy’s forgiving Bauman, for his own sake as much as Baumans’.
The second half of the blog traces Roy’s spiritual journey of redemption and fulfilment. He realised that his ordeal had filled the soul with the fruit of experience, however bitter it tasted at the time.”
…I wanted to eat of the fruit of all the trees in the garden of the world… And so, indeed, I went out, and so I lived. My only mistake was that I confined myself so exclusively to the trees of what seemed to me the sun-lit side of the garden, and shunned the other side for its shadow and its gloom.
Thank you Oscar Wilde, thank you Bosie.
Sunday morning, children all over the bed. Asking questions. They want to know everything. Inquisitive little things. The sun is bright and warm. My hostess is making blueberry pancakes and coffee.
Lily, their youngest, had dreams about heaven and hell. Hell had something to do with a supermarket. She said, “There were people in hell who shouldn’t have been there.” Which was a very astute observation for a 9 year old girl.
She’s Jewish, Jews don’t believe in heaven or hell.
The Little Dog is confused. He’s a one man dog. He’s been with J and J these past few months so his loyalty, understandably, shifted. We are re-orientating him. He slept with me last night. Hung out at the house yesterday. He lay on his bed as we toiled in the garden.
Robby and I spent the day doing errands. I have my phone! The garden is tidy! The house is returned to normal! The art is back on the walls! Lost things have been found! There is food in the fridge! The dog is happy!
Saw Safe House at the Malibu cinema with Robby, bumped into AA folk. The film was ok but had one huge and unforgivable plot flaw.
Before the film we wandered down Cross Creek. Wondering at the night. The cold, damp breeze on my face.
Robby is the only person I tell everything. He has seen me vulnerable and survived. Not like Jennie and the others. No room! No room!
Last night we watched September Issue. Anna Wintour really is an extraordinary woman. She is also incredibly generous. You know, don’t you, that she lent us her NYC house when we made Dorian Gray. Hamish, I wish we had seen more of him. I remember meeting Grace with Patrick Kinmonth when they worked at Vogue in London and again, rather obscurely at a house in North Wales years later. She stole the show.
God, Andre Leon Talley is such a twat. The least interesting character in the film…just because he tries so hard to be fabulous. Inauthentic. I knew him when I lived in Paris, we met at Karl Lagerfeld‘s house when Karl lived on the Rue de la Universite in the early 80’s. Gerard Falconetti and I stopped by unannounced.
Falconetti’s brilliant grandmother Maria played Jean d’Arc in The Passion when she was 19 years old.
For some reason I remember touching Andre’s face, his skin was cold and soft. Like an old handbag.
Gerard was 11 years older than me, so incredibly handsome. A wonderful lover. In 1981 Gerard played Meryl Streep‘s boyfriend in The French Lieutenant’s Woman.
In 1984 Gerard found out that he had AIDS and threw himself off the Tour Montparnasse.
Gerard was a generous, extraordinary friend. He played Montserrat Caballe singing Tosca when I was sick with flu, he lifted my spirits with delicate macaroons from Carette. He showed me the Paris I would later show those who have never been. The secret places we all need to know when we discover a city for the first time.
I have, somewhere, a note Karl sent Gerard referencing his grandmother.
That was then this is now…
I have a million things to do. A great deal of catching up and making good.
I promised to write about being arrested. Well, I will…but after conversations yesterday with my journalist brethren I’ll let them do the reporting and I’ll take a rest. There’s still so much to tell you.
As you may know this entire being arrested thang was to do with this very blog. What can or cannot be said.
Meanwhile on another part of the internet…you simply have to check out what is being said about me by identifiable enemies: an ex-employee calling me a sadist, a gross individual from Province Town who attempted to malign me last summer, some cretin accusing me of killing my own dog…these people are wrought with life affecting, overwhelming resentment. It is so extreme it makes me laugh.
Baying for blood. Send him back to jail! Throw away the key! If only, in some way, they could find a way of getting me locked up for ever…the death sentence even?
I am chuckling to myself.
Chris Lewis of Sydney Australia thinks I want your sympathy. If I looked like Chris Lewis I would want your sympathy. Even when he was young he was ugly. You know very well that I report as I see…as truthfully as I am able. It is my unalienable right to do so. I don’t want sympathy. I need your support. Those of you who have stood by me, my God! I never expected such amazing gifts.
Marilyn Monroe, of all people, said that for every fan excited to see her there were 10 enemies waiting to bring her down. Being hated is an occupational hazard for those of us who do not live in the shadows. If you think what people write about me is outrageous…try being Rachal Maddow.
Somebody called from the jail yesterday, he is as well as can be expected. How quickly one forgets. Yet…you know me. The lure of the uniform…the smell of ruminating men…ransacked sexual fantasies.
Do you know what a Nonce is? It’s a slang word for a child molester. I taught the men in my dorm at Men’s County Jail this very English word. By the time I left they were calling each other Nonce, it was quite inappropriate…but very funny.
By the way, I didn’t get any Christmas cards whilst I was at the jail, I thought you didn’t care! I now know that many of you sent cards and letters of support. Apparently, they were all returned as having inappropriate content. What were you sending me?
One’s body is weakened by three months of inactivity. Working in the garden was exhausting yesterday.
Thank God for Robby.
As I lay here, at what ever time during that constant night…the ghosts of Wilde and Cocteau, Rimbaud and Verlaine come to me. The fragrant, aromatic smoke he blows to me through the tiny hove carved between cells. The great poet cries, “Hard labour!” And all…for love.
A famous passage from the Ballad of Reading Gaol:
Yet each man kills the thing he loves
By each let this be heard.
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word.
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!
The line is a nod to Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, when Bassanio asks, “Do all men kill the things they do not love?”
A passage from the poem was chosen as the epitaph on Wilde’s tomb.
And alien tears will fill for him,
Pity’s long-broken urn,
For his mourners will be outcast men,
And outcasts always mourn.
What a frustrating night!
Of course, as time passes and I know that I have to see Jake again…I get more agitated, start protecting myself. Arm myself. Perhaps I am not myself? I just can’t bear the idea of being in the same room as that lying scum bag.
So, yesterday I waited for the storm but none came. It was so hot in Venice that I shed almost everything I was wearing. Robby and I drank coffee in Intelligentsia.
Chanced upon a great art show by an amazing young British artist Paul Insect. Strong graphics, good colours.
Apparently I was not alone…the previous show had been bought entirely by Damien Hirst.
I think I am frustrated because I met someone last week with whom I have a connection but do not trust myself to see again. Will not risk involvement.
So, I spent the day with Robby. He dropped me off in Beverly Hills. Met Matt ostensibly to go see Shame and Q&A with Steve McQueen. Didn’t go. Went, instead to see the Hedi Slimane installation at MOCA. Good crowd. HUGE crowd. Jonathon Brown, Miggy Hood, Gus Van Sant, Jeffrey Deitch..others.
Met cute, well dressed boys. Was not the only man with facial hair.
Boys wore Comme kilts. Girls wore red lispstick. Lots of black and velvet. NYC type crowd. Met ‘going to be huge’ photographer Aaron Stern and the kid who won the last survivor Judson Birza.
The show was hideously derivative. Reminded one of Larry Clark but without the compelling obsession. Black and white pictures of pretty, full lipped boys and girls, urban landscapes projected onto a huge cube whilst a shaggy haired band played discordant music.
Gagosian Gallery showing graphite work by Adam McEwan.
Particularly loved the ‘shutter’ that divided the main space but caused major anxiety for the gallery assistants who had to stop people mushing their heads into this low slung sculpture.
Loved all most all of the show except the work in the upper gallery which was very dull and badly conceived.
Off to shla to meet Nick Compton my South African cricketer friend.
He was co-opted by the most awful drunk in the room. We left.
Then…bad, bad mistake followed Matt to gay party in North Hollywood at some writers house where I bumped into Robby, Miles, Tom, Toby, Fielder and Bryan Singer.
I was the only man there with a beard. Most of them knew who I was and had an opinion.
God help me.
One particularly vile but pretty 21 year old started telling me how to dress.
This rancid, dreary waiter from Utah wearing a ubiquitous plaid shirt…ill fitting jeans telling ME how to dress. I was outraged.
He wouldn’t stop talking.
I said, “When I was your age I kept my mouth shut because I learned so much more.”
Adam Press looked on at me in horror, I know what he was thinking, “You blown your chances with that one.”
Which was true. Nothing he had to say for himself was either interesting or original.
Unlike Fielder Jewett (same age) who is a true original and worth listening to. We left, drove home up the 101 in the pouring rain.
The storm had arrived.
There are pale, grey days by the Pacific that remind one of home. Thunder clouds over Catalina. A huge rain over the ocean, blasting the surface, then fierce sunshine through the clouds like so many celestial arc lights.
There are more storms forecast for next week. Just as the house fills with Thanksgiving guests and I prepare to leave for NYC. Early December shopping and once again…him.
Usually, at this time of year, the mountain is parched and brown but last summer was unseasonably wet. Everything is dark green, richly hued, sweet-smelling earth abundant with as much wildlife as I ever saw.
Last night at 2am I passed three young, regal bucks on Rambla Pacifico. Their velvet antlers and fearlessness making them all the more beautiful. There is a huge owl that now roosts in the palm tree on the drive.
I know why he’s here, to eat the squirrels and rats. The Little Dog killed a rat yesterday. It had a beautiful pale grey coat and a long black tail that squirmed like a snake minutes after he snapped its neck.
I have been going to events. Small talk with strangers…boring.
AFM. GLADD. Etc. Why would I ever want to leave my mountain? I meet bumptious gay men with nothing original to say. Invisible people, terrified of being seen, identified, different. Straight acting. God, that bores me. I wore a Derby. They couldn’t even identify a Derby. That thought it was a Bowler hat.
Then a beautiful boy arrives and turns everything upside down. I can feel him beside me now.
Last night I cooked dinner and, as it may be the last time before I sell it, I powered up the huge Sylvie Fleury neon piece that hangs in the parlor.
Doesn’t it look beautiful? CURIOUS!
Can you believe that Rachel Maddow, of all people, gets hate mail? Hateful, terrible things. Everyone who has ever been on TV gets hate mail. Anonymous fools sitting at their computers, steeped in resentment, conspiring against the world.
Regis Philbin gets hate mail.
The storm is coming, there is nothing we can do except bring in the cushions, clear the drains, avoid falling rocks loosened by the deluge when we drive.
Can I tell you something? I haven’t been here, to this blog…very recently, because I had other things I needed to write. A film to finish, the essays to map, the novel is done with.
I met friends for dinner and ate far too regularly at Gjelina. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. I had meaningful assignations with beautiful men. I walked the new road with the dog and did not fall down.
I removed the bulk of my blog archive because it was no longer appropriate to keep it there. I kept the essays that seem to give you most pleasure. Instead of writing this…I concentrated on other things. The trash was put out on time, the Caster Oil Trees that grow by the spring were chopped down. The trees that died last year must be felled and cut up for fire wood.
I travelled in convoy from one event to another and blended as much as I am able.
We are not expecting anything so inclement that our lives maybe risked. The worst that could happen, after the heavy rain, is another slide. That, my friends, is life on and off the mountain.