Duncan Roy's Blog
Here is something beautiful for you: Blondie and Philip Glass
You must have worked out by now…gay men have tempestuous relationships.
It’s not unusual.
What they did, the feelings they had…they weren’t unusual.
Gay men get restraining orders. Beat each other up. Gay men resent…themselves.
He had lunch with a friend from NYC who knows your lover/husband/partner.
He said…what a warm character he is, that he’s friendly and brave. Courageous and resourceful…has a great future ahead of him.
Anyone who gets up in the morning and wears what he wears, well…he wants to be seen in a world where most people crave invisibility.
He saw the video. A big man with style.
As for you two? He thinks you’re silly for not wanting to forgive the stupidity, forget the battles.
You are, without doubt, indelibly linked.
You two beautiful men pressed together (as you intended) didn’t make him jealous. He felt like you had given him a clue.
He ignored the angry songs…
Seeing you with your new love gave him a clue as to what you might have been attracted to when you contacted him that dark winter.
You see, he could never understand what you saw in him. It was a mystery. He just felt like an old, fraudulent freak when you were together. Over dressed, too loud, too confident….lagging behind like an Indian wife.
Now he understands.
Now, wearing your own cool clothes for all to see…you look pretty damn good…he began to understand.
Do you understand? Understand what went down between you both a little better? Now you’ve been in the world as a gay man these past two years…or do you still feel like he took advantage of you?
I don’t know if you have any good memories of your time together. Are there any? All bound up with lies and recrimination and your coming out.
You both dropped a huge bomb on everybody around you. Nobody escaped unharmed. Both in denial. Both fragile. Both afraid.
Ever since you published your blog…well, he has been in awe. Impressed by your openness.
I’m sure that you don’t give him much thought nowadays. You must have heard what happened…there was so much fanfare about it all.
He had a long time in jail to think everything over.
A long time in terrible circumstances imagining that look of delight on your face…and he wouldn’t blame you. He would’ve been just as happy.
I don’t know if he/you will ever truly recover from what you went through.
There were many times when all he wished was that things between you hadn’t ended so badly so he could tell you what happened. Describe it in detail…because he knew you’d be fascinated.
He knows that for so much of your life you hid your creativity and your desire for beautiful things just in case this betrayed your true nature. He can’t imagine how that must have felt.
Seeing you emerge from that closet into the man you are today gives him great pleasure.
He wishes you all the best in your relationship and your life.
New York. May 2012
There you are. Finally. For all to see. Like bumping into you in the street. That’s how it felt. But you were where we met…virtually…on the internet.
Peony, the rain, the winsome songs.
If we had bumped into each other in the street, I think I would have felt the same. I left the page with a sweet smile on my face. I felt proud of you. I know how exciting life must be for you. And if I had bumped into you in the street and you had told me that you were in love…inevitably you wanted me to know that you were in love and inevitably I crumbled.
I am indeed that cliché you despised so badly. 😉
I called Robby and he listened. I called Joan and we looked into your life and we all agreed that it was swell.
So…
The end of the film needs rewriting. All the world can see your love. Ironic huh? Now you know how I felt when I wanted to publicly celebrate what we once had, when I wrote about us.
There you are, together…pressed together. In love. You looked great. Your hair well cut, your pants the right length. Your boy friend looks extraordinary and familiar. Celine is a great brand. I know you didn’t put that Tumblr page up for me but you knew I would see it. You knew I’d have an opinion.
It was a perfect way to let me know.
If we hadn’t ended things so badly and we’d met in the street…I would have hugged you. I would have thanked you. I would have smiled gently. I may have shed a tear. I loved you very much…you know that. But, we knew what we had was fleeting…needed to happen for you to set yourself free, free for this relationship that you celebrate so publicly today.
The metamorphosis is complete and you have emerged fully into the world…a beautiful young man capable of great love and glamor…and your underwear was chic as all hell.
I know that you will make something amazing one day…something I would have never guessed. A film or a book or a room or a garden. You are capable of all those things.
Of course I still love you. But not like that. This is all I ever wanted, to know you are happy and to share your happiness
By publishing your life so publicly I am relieved…even though I cried, I cried because you were there on the street telling me what I needed to know.
That you are happy and in love and…of course…beautifully dressed.
PS I bought the book.
Sitting in Ground Works coffee spot on Sunset with Kevin and Fielder yesterday. Eating a cheese Danish after my latest stint on the JVM show.
Alleged ‘Madame’, Anna Gristina has been locked up in solitary on Rikers Island, charged with a single count of prostitution. Held on an absurd $2million bail.
“It’s not about me; it’s bigger than me,” “They’re trying to sweat me out. They are clearly trying to break me.”
The self-described “hockey mom” and real-estate developer claims to have no idea why prosecutors are so intent on digging up dirt on those men – half of whom she said she knew as friends or business associates.
“I’d bite my tongue off before I’d tell them anything,”
Since my run in with the LAPD I know exactly how they try breaking their victims of choice. Can you believe that they tried forcing me sign a gagging order? As part of their ‘deal’ the DA tried to get me to sign a gagging order…
Obviously I won round 1 by getting myself out of jail.
The fight will get a great deal harder, nastier and…as I predicted…the Immigration Department are already trying to discredit me.
They already lied to the Newsweek journalist Christine P (a meticulous journalist with great sources) about my immigration status.
As I pointed out to her, even if I had been here illegally or ‘out of status’ the immigration department and the Sherrif’s Dept. are still obliged to follow rules and protocols.
As it happened, when I was arrested, I was neither here illegally nor was I out of status.
Kevin and I had lunch yesterday at the 101 Coffee Shop on Franklin. Delicious. We polished our ‘trans superhero’ idea.
By day Ricky is a model booker at LA Models. “Hello? Nordstrom? Yes, you got it.” However, by night, after the emergency call on his ‘weave phone’, he’s Tranny Hooker! Solving gay crime all over WeHo. Dressed in his bad wig, gold disco shorts, crop top and size 13 stilettos he flies (fueled by huge amounts of Tina) along Santa Monica Blvd, to The Abbey where he/she solves most of WeHo’s gay crime…
Mostly crimes against style, including badly cut pants, shopping at Vons and old men pawing mid-western model boys at their palatial homes in the hills…
There by the table I leapt up, over the blackened chicken sandwich, acting out Tranny Hooker’s flight through smoggy LA…just as Robby arrived.
Great being back on Jane’s show. Love CNN. Love the make up girls. Love the security guards…
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.
…of what ever dramas he may be initiating. I am really happy.
Last night I ate with my Ohio friends and a really cool young surfer from Florida and a pot head fabric designer. Gemma, under The Bowery Hotel. Service bad. Food OK. Conversation riveting.
I was on such good form. Really buoyant and witty.
The whole city was alive with people and late night shopping and drama for Fashion’s Night Out. It’s like a very chic Halloween. Fashion week brings out the very best and the very worst of the gays.
We ended up at 3am on the SH roof. My sanctuary.
I am glad that we got the Order of Protection drama over and done with at the beginning of my month here on the East Coast. In a strange way I really couldn’t justify coming here so often if it hadn’t been demanded of me.
I forgot to write about my health. I think because I was scared and made me look weak.
I had my cancer follow up visit to the doctor before I left LA. All good in the scrotum department. The colonoscopy revealed a forest of ‘pre cancerous polyps’. They are doing further tests. The best bit about it was the sedative. I’ve never like things in my ass.
I’m just not that kind of gay.
Strangely resilient at the moment. Happy to be alive.
Yesterday’s drama made me stronger, more determined. Channeling my father. Harnessing the strength he had to fight anything and everything that came his way. I could feel him. I really could. Urging me to fight. For him.
It was the first time in my life that I felt him beside me. I can feel him beside me now. Sneering at other fathers. Their weakness. Their lack of respect. I am proud to be a fiery Persian…as was he.
I am no longer interested in being compassionate or forgiving.
A price must be paid when fools rush in.
When your back is against the wall…well, we must do what we must do.
