Here are some of the pictures Dan took last week at my party…I will add them as and when they arrive. I am having my LA birthday party tonight….should be fun.
I am flying to LA today. My work here is done. I will be in LA for the rest of the summer. There are tomatoes to look after. Twins to tend. Well, not all the summer…I’ll be back.
I am going to have a dinner for my actual birthday next week.
Yesterday I returned to the city from Fire Island. I woke at 7am and after my rather wonderful encounter with Neil we cleaned the house, made breakfast and fought our way to the ferry through the invading drag queens. Do you know about this Fire Island tradition? Every Independence Day the trannys of Cherry Grove invade The Pines.
That’s it really. A bunch of trannys get on a huge boat, one full ferry boat after another, land in The Pines and start drinking…and drinking. During all the years I lived on Fire Island with Joe I only ever saw the Invasion once and that was as I was leaving on a ferry for higher ground.
The train to Penn Station was all fucked up. When I arrived in NYC I hung out with Alex and Toby at The Soho Grand.
FJ invited me to his apartment to see the fireworks but we decided to walk to the river with the people and watch what turned out to be a remarkable display. Bumped into various friends including Alexei Muniak from LA. Ate middle eastern food and chocolate.
I really wanted to see the fireworks. Last July 4th Jake and me were flying over the very same fireworks on our way to Paris. I remember quite clearly being very fearful. Before we left I sat him down and told him how worried I was that when we came back I would miss him badly. I was really scared. He said, “We’ll deal with that then.”
We never dealt with it. It festers in me to this day. In September I return to the city and we will yet again face each other in court.
7am 4th July. Yesterday I must have walked between The Pines and Cherry Grove a dozen times.
I woke up in The Pines and fell asleep exhausted in Cherry Grove.
Benoit and I went to a ‘media’ party in some huge house on the bay. What differentiated it from any other party was not immediately apparent.
The half naked men and boys looked identical to all the other men and boys at similar parties elsewhere. I was introduced to the new editor of the Advocate. He too was half naked. He looked at me suspiciously and so he should. I have no interest in him.
By 2 in the afternoon everyone was trashed and the toxicity began to get to me. I kept thinking to myself how much fun Jake would have here. How he would fit right in.
Later that day I met Stephen Macias my ex manager. He is a truly vile individual who fully took advantage of my Hollywood initiation. I will write more about that at a later date.
He looked good for someone with ‘issues’. He told me proudly that he attends Barry’s Boot Camp in LA.
I saw Mark Beard the muralist. He paints all of those Homoerotic murals in Abercrombie and Fitch. He looks like a scull on a stick. My ex Joe helped him buy his huge studio in Hells Kitchen.
Mark’s boyfriend Jim still looks great.
I hung out with Zelcho, Caroline and Todd. We ate lunch at Cherry’s. I kissed a beautiful man who I met waiting for the water taxi.
I thought more about Jake every time I felt uncomfortable. I damned myself because I had inadvertently let one of these people into my life. One of these party boys. Even though when I met him he was merely a party boy in waiting.
Later that night Caroline cooked a delicious dinner and then we met Benoit and his friends at The Top of the Bay ostensibly to listen to Neil Sedaka sing but when we got there Neil looked frail and left with his friends.
He was being bullied by an Easter European woman. He asked her, “Do you like me for me or because I’m a famous singer?”
We chatted for a while about his children and grand children and West Hollywood where he still lives with his wife of fifty years.
Benoit’s politician friend told me his coming out story. Outed at 30, left his wife. Lost his important job in politics. I asked why he hadn’t come out sooner (read get honest) and he said that he didn’t want to lose his family.
Earlier in the day I went to the AA meeting at the Fire House (6pm) where I listened to group therapy and not one word of recovery. The good looking men only listened to the other good looking men and chatted amongst themselves if the speaker was fat, old or ugly.
On several occasions I wanted to get back to NYC. Every man on the boardwalk held a cup brimming with a lethal amount of alcohol. By mid afternoon many men were staggering or slumped or glazed.
The little dog chased a young buck with velvet antlers.
As I sit writing this Neil Sedaka sat with me and told his life story. He is such a delightful man.
I applauded him for not performing last night.
He told me how Elton had given him a second chance. He told me how he had filled the Albert Hall two years ago and he asked if I had ever been in love so I told him about Jake.
I have no idea what day it is. It may be Sunday. It is Sunday. I am on Fire Island, (The Pines) I can hear the waves crashing on the beach. The little dog is desperate to get out onto the board walks. Yesterday he chased a deer.
I could have got a $100 ticket for letting him off the lead.
I am staying with Benoit Denizet-Lewis and his utterly gorgeous friends. Well, some of them are. The ones he lives with in Boston are charming. The rest, although beautiful, are a bit snippy. There must be fifty ipads in this house. The fridge is stuffed with sliced turkey.
Must walk on beach and buy coffee.
We arrived yesterday afternoon, Toby, Charlie and me. Had lunch (salad Nicoise) with Lawrence and his friends overlooking the bay. The house is charming. Surrounded by pom-pom hydrangea. Lilac coloured blooms. Ten of us for lunch.
David Collins very pretty ex-colleague at lunch bitching about his ex-boss.
It’s sadly true that when David befriended Madonna it changed his DNA. David used to be a sweet Irish boy earning a good living for himself as an interior decorator. Then he met Madonna and thought he sat amongst the gods.
Neither Charlie or Toby had been here before. So we, albeit briefly, explored the community.
I popped into Grey Gardens, the house where Joe and I used to live. It has been bought by a rather arrogant queen who told me that he had chased the lesbians away who used to be our neighbours.
The house looked exactly the same. Including all the flags and stuff hanging outside. He also bought the house to the right of the property. I will go back there today and take a picture.
After lunch Benoit and I walked via the meat rack to Cherry Grove. We met Zelko, Todd and Caroline who are staying in a rental next door to Neil Sedaka. We met him briefly yesterday. He is a legend. Also, their friend John who I have a picture of when we were really young shaving his balls in my bathroom wearing a cowboy hat that is probably still where I left it in Grey Gardens.
Cherry Grove is like The East Village. I used to hate it but now I fit right in. The boys at Benoit’s (the ones we like) all agree that Cherry Grove is less problematic…less snooty.
Since I was last here with Georgina five years ago things have changed around the dock. The Pavilion has been rebuilt. It is now a very chichi affair. There is a huge gym. It is altogether less charming than it was but not so bad. At least it doesn’t smell of rotting pineapple which I remember from before.
We ate a good lunch at a new restaurant called? Can’t remember.
There was a drinks party at the neighbours house yesterday. They had bees embroidered onto their carpet. They had navy blue Ralph Lauren interiors and discussed their silver wear like it had been designed by Faberge.
Before I went to bed I walked to the dock. The club was ramping up for a full night of joyful gayness.
Even thought I am having a great time and feel confident…I still feel a little edgy. On the edge. Like..they are not me and I am not them. I am looking for the differences rather than the similarities. Even thought I love them unconditionally I wish I would not.
I am going to look for an AA meeting. I am going to buy some coffee.
The previous day we spent with Dee and the beautiful Sean and the equally beautiful Joe.
Had dinner with Dee and Toby at the worst and most expensive restaurant I have ever been to. DEL POSTO on 10th Avenue. It belongs to Mario Batali. The space is cavernous, tacky, chilly, boring and pretentious. The wait staff are all huge and dress in ugly, ill-fitting suits: like FBI operatives.
The language they have been coached to use when describing the menu is almost old english. It is absurd. When the food arrives, in our case drizzled with different olive oils before our very eyes like they were fucking magicians…oh the disappointment! Miserable, tasteless and badly prepared.
Every dish must have been touched a hundred times by fifty different people. Had it not cost a bloody fortune it would have been laughable.
Terrible tummy later that night.
I stayed in The Standard. I have been very tired. Very tired.
Robby left this morning. I was really sad to see him go.
The indisputable zenith of my birthday party was Lady Rizo singing Lilac Wine. Seventy people in the room, you could hear a pin drop. Such a disparate group of people with a magical spell cast over them…as only Rizo can.
The day was perfect in every way. Dee emerged from her room at The Standard and we ate a delicious lunch with Toby and the super cute Joe. When he took his clothes off and dived into the pool everybody watched him in awe. A man not a boy. A man with a perfect body.
Joan met me mid afternoon and delivered my birthday gift. A BEAUTIFUL pair of sunglasses I had been hankering after for six months.
We all returned to Dee’s room at The Standard. I love this hotel. The finishes and detailing throughout the hotel are ravishing, the amazing view of The Statue of Liberty peeking over the horizon.
Spent the afternoon with Joe.
The weather has been stunning here. Walking the streets has been inspiring.
Soho House did an amazing job of organizing my birthday party. The food was excellent; the staff were charming and helpful. The room perfectly appointed.
As well as Lady Rizo my friends Joey and Chase also known as the Black Soft and Rob Roth performed. Rizo stole the night. She sang a brilliant and very funny mash-up of Diamonds are a Girls Best Friend and Wannabee. With the writer of the Spice Girls classic in the room it was especially poignant.
People really made the effort. Victoria Whitbread, Matt Rowe and Charlie Parsons flew from London and of course there were many, many gorgeous boys to look at. I had exactly what I wanted.
This was the birthday party I should have had last year but traded for a miserable time with the crazed fan.
We ended up on the roof by the pool with yet another blue balling straight boy called Sean. Soft skin, perfect body. As we were sitting there I saw Dominique Lomas from Sydney! Of all people. She looked gorgeous. Here in NYC writing a novel. If only I had known!
So, we all sat there in the balmy night looking down at the Hudson. Dreaming of Sean’s face in my lap.
Sean headed off with Dominique. We were invited to young FJ’s house. We walked the few blocks to his huge Soho loft, stuffed with amazing art belonging to the boy’s step-father..a renowned art historian and personal hero of mine.
Tom, Robby, me and the boys.
We had the beautiful boys to take their tops off and then we took pictures of them. It was honest (sordid) fun. Note the Lucian Freud beside them.
I was surrounded by love last night. Surrounded by people who loved me. Serenaded me. Friends old and new. People had traveled a very long way to see me and I felt finally rewarded for these past months of painful growing.
I am determined that these final months in America will mean something to me. Determined that they will be happy, joyous and free. The glimpse of the Statue of Liberty reminded me why I came here, have made it my home but also why I must ultimately move on.
Matt Rowe arrived from London. Lunch with Casey at Westville. Steven and I ate an early supper and held hands in the street. I felt my whole body tingle with excitement. Late dinner at lil’ Frankies with my pride boys. I love them.
Gave up after that. Exhausted.
I found out that somebody for whom I had long-held a candle is in fact gay…
I can’t really write about yesterday morning. Needless to say I will. In time. Maybe tomorrow.
Had lunch at the Mercer Kitchen with a friend. There were many, many tired looking servers/shop assistants etc., in New York the day after Pride. Grimly going about their working day at the mercy of rotten hangovers.
Only one of the twins arrived from LA. Miles had to stay home and guard the fort.
Robby has never really been to NYC before; you should have seen his face! He was delighted. He had such a big Robby smile. We wandered the East Village and as much as he complained that smokes were triple the price you could tell that no amount of money spent on ciggies was going to ruin his NYC state of mind.
We took the subway to 42nd Street. Excited to see Transformers 3. 3D.
Tom’s film will have grossed more than 3 billion dollars by the time all is said and done.
I am not going to review the movie. He’s my friend. Watching a friend’s movie is not like going to the cinema and just sitting down and watching a film.
I am already invested.
OK, I’ll just tell you a couple of things. Frankly the film was a bit confusing: the transformer goodies and the baddies melding into one heap of scrap metal with no clear battle, no defining heroic moment.
Even the casting was confusing; I thought John Malkovich was Gary Busey. What has he done to his mouth? His teeth?
There were too many quips and not enough story.
The special effects were remarkable and keep the tension levels high. Somehow watching any well-shot fight captures the imagination even though in this case one might not know what they are fighting about.
The lead girl, a Victoria Secrets model, was appalling, all lips and hair and pout. The camera fetishizing her lithe body. The director forcing his camera into her face, her mouth.
Shia looked worse for wear and has certainly lost that youthful vulnerability that carried him and us through the first of this blockbuster franchise.
The parents who amused us and grounded us in the first film have become irritating non-secateurs. Great actors and not so great actors deliver cheesy lines that segue into another well-crafted fight. The disparity causing some general merriment in the room
Regardless of what Transformers has become Tom’s initial idea had integrity and poise. It is important to remember that.
For the second time in as many days I wished I could have gotten fucked up.
This is getting crazy.
Everybody falls in love with Robby. Robby, quite rightly, drowning in positive affirmation. I am proud of the way he handles himself in these situations.
My big birthday party on Thursday night, there are people flying from Hong Kong, London and LA. It’s going to be a blast. I am really looking forward to it. 100 people. Entertainment. Hootenanny.
I have now re-written the end of the novel and await notes.
Determined that my party will neither depress or stress me.
It is 6am. Monday morning. The day after NYCGay Pride. I am sipping strong black coffee like a man who has a hangover and a job. I have neither.
There is a great deal to do today. Mostly unpleasant. The Transformers 3 party tonight. The twins are winging their way to New York. Robby called me late last night. I was too tired to talk. I wonder if he changed his mind?
Let’s talk about yesterday.
I can’t remember what I did before 12. It is lost.
At around one o’clock I wandered down tenth street to see the parade. I thought I might meet Tom and pals but they had other plans. I had a great day on my own and not on my own.
I made a few out reach calls.
Let’s face it…that’s what I like best. I like being on my own or with strangers who don’t know me.
I carried the little dog in my arms through the drunken crowd. I saw Dan Savage on the first float. His very own apotheosis. I watched Andew Cuomo, recently beautified by the gays for the bone that he threw down at us…like a fake holy relic. The body guards around him formed a tight cordon. It was funny that he should be so frightened. Needing that many body guards. We need him to guard us. Protect us. His appearance in the parade was unashamedly about his re-election.
Those about me thought that what he had done for them was wonderful.
“It’s a start!” They explained to me as if I were retarded. I have given up trying to explain my position. I just look at these men and smile weakly.
I remembered being in the Sydney Mardi Gras. How many years ago? 1990. I was covering it for the BBC. I made a BBC Radio 4 documentary. I was entranced. I should fetch out my old diaries. I should try and find that material. I don’t have any record of anything I made for the BBC.
Mardi Gras. Being in the parade. From the street looking up at the millions of faces staring down at us from every window on Oxford Street. I remember taking ecstasy and wandering into the rancid, hot bathroom and watching men fuck each other. I stayed in Sullivans on Oxford Street just like I always do when I return to Sydney. Where I will be this winter.
The parade and the party afterwards. I accepted the decadence. It was as if in that sinking ship…we had no option.
I did not question our behaviour then because it was my behaviour.
If young documentarian Duncan chanced upon yesterdays parade. Given that ship is no longer sinking? What would he learn about being gay in 2011?
Well, if I was as fucked up as I was then I might have come to the same conclusions. I was just chasing a drink, a line and some tail. Loving the attention that a young gay man gets.
The attention has waned.
I thought about Paul Keeting the Prime Minister of Australia being so publicly inclusive. Letting us know that his government included/represented us too. It was the first time in my life I had ever heard a world leader positively acknowledge my existence.
Keeting reminded fellow Australians that the LGBT community paid taxes, were less likely to cause trouble or end up in prison…he then signed an anti vilification bill into law which really felt like it was real. It was. It made people think about what they said to us and how they treated us.
Yesterday, every elected politician in the state made an appearance in the parade. The police were cheered heartily as they are every year in every GLBT parade and I wondered why? Even as I was wondering why I felt the same wave of emotion that everyone else seems to feel.
I bumped into Jeremiah Newton.
He took me briefly to a tranny party in an apartment overlooking the parade. I thought of Diane Arbus. The apartment was very dark and decorated crudely with red plastic. The ceilings covered in rainbow flags made of cheap gauze. It was too depressing. There was some sort of tranny chaser sitting on his own in the kitchen under the flourescent light. He directed me to the chicken pasties. I ate some jelly beans.
I left.
I bumped into a beautiful couple I had met on-line in Los Angeles. We ate a very late lunch at Westville (not east) and fed the Little Dog a huge chicken breast. The food seemed better (cleaner and fresher) at their West Village location.
We separated at around seven. I will see them again.
That night I thought I might watch the fireworks or go to a club. If I had been drinking or taking drugs I might have. But not drinking and not taking drugs somehow lessens the experience of being gay.
Of course I thought about Jake in that melee. What a perfect gay man he most probably is now. Drugging, drinking, fucking. Selfish, self obsessed. And I wondered if I was jealous that he could do those things and I could not. I wondered if I was missing out on being gay? I wondered if I could still be dignified and take a drink.
I thought about taking a drink a great deal at Gay Pride 2011.
Dan came home and we rearranged art on the freshly painted walls. He showed me a picture he had hidden in his office that he thought might be Sol Lewitt. He doubted it. I knew the moment I saw it that it was real but we shucked the frame and there was the neat signature.
Consequently it is off to be reframed in something more befitting.
That’s how important art work gets lost. People forgetting, not knowing. Not believing.
The previous nights I slept whilst they drove the car. Thomas in detention. The Dane miserable and grumpy because his best friends New York life had crumbled to dust. Lucie just trying to make the best of a bad lot.
I left them in Austin and settled into the four-hour wait for my flight to NYC.
I had nothing better to do so decided to get my hair cut. I walked through the oppressive heat to Birds Barbershop under the freeway at the ghetto end of 6th Street. Walking less than half a mile from the city center Austin’s miserable underbelly reveals itself.
Firstly, and most oddly, dogs are not allowed in barber shops in Austin so the Little Dog sat in a shady spot outside. Lara was assigned to cut my hair.
I asked for a number two buzz all over my head and beard.
Lara, less than five foot tall began shaving my head. She told me to uncross my legs. She told me to sit straight in my chair. She told me to put my feet on the foot rest. Then, when things were obviously not finished she announced that she had finished and how did it look? It looked terrible. It was perhaps the WORST hair cut I had ever had.
I told her to re buzz it so it might at least look even. She said, “I’m not comfortable with that.” As if she had been taught in some barber class how to avoid unwanted advances.
She picked at the mess of her own creation with a pair of scissors. Then she started trimming my beard. The past few days had been so exhausting I just let her hack at my face.
I paid the $25 and walked away.
In Austin airport I sat next to a thirty something French man who I ended up in bathroom stall. He has a huge, uncut cock.
My plane unloaded in Charlotte but the plane to Newark was cancelled. Charlotte airport is just packed with army boys. I could live in Charlotte airport.
Finally, after resigning myself to a night at the Novotel in Charlotte, I found a flight to Newark. On the plane East I completed the end of my novel and started sketching out the associated film idea. Because I now know the story so well it was easy as all hell to write the treatment. In fact, it may be one of the best things I have ever written.
As I sat in Charlotte thinking about the curious French man with the beautiful penis Dan texted me to say that same-sex marriage was now legal in NY state. I had two opposing thoughts, it struck me that even though the gays would celebrate this change in the local law it is actually merely a sop to us.
So? So? I thought angrily. This isn’t going to help Zach and his Scottish boy friend. If they get married immigration will not recognise their union, no one official anywhere is obliged to recognise this marriage anomaly other than the states where segregation is outlawed.
Then I wondered if Jake celebrated the change in the law, whether he owned that this vote applied to him. I thought about him getting married to a man, taking that man to his parents house. If he could stay loyal and monogamous?
I thought about gay marriage and just because we can…should we?
Arrived in the East Village just after midnight. Walked dog. Slept really well.
There is so much dew it looks and smells as there has been heavy rain. I spend an hour every morning watering whatever I can from the path at the top of the house. I enjoy this.
There are so many snails.
Had lunch in Hollywood yesterday with a writer. Actually, we didn’t eat lunch. I drank some iced tea. Met the man who owns Mama Shelter in Paris. I have known him for years but I just didn’t know that he owned that hotel. You know we stayed there don’t you? This time last year.
How can I spend so much time wishing away the past?
Long conversation with a man in Sonoma who makes chicken coops. They are expensive but look great.
Jennifer bought fresh garbanzo beans which seem like they might be easy to grow in my garden. The melons are growing. The black tomatoes are doing well. Something ate the pumpkin seedlings. The lemon trees, after the wet winter, are laden with fruit. There are figs and plums and ruby grapefruit.
There are roses blooming all over the property.
What else can I tell you? I write my novel as per suggestion. It gets better and better. Perhaps I get better? It started as one thing and already, with a little intelligent coaxing, is evolving into something quite different. It started with vengeful intentions. Now it is getting funny. It started with a view to kill. Now it embraces the will to live. These are not my ideas.
I would prefer my original plan.
I have just a few weeks to finish writing The Scarlett Empress. It is by far the most commercial thing I have ever written. It is helping me though. Helping me think in a different sort of way.
The more I write the other stuff…the less I want to write this. Yet, this spurs me into action.
Three days until the ‘Big Adventure’. The Dane arrives from NYC on Sunday.
Becoming a Pilgrim. You’ll enjoy reading about it. I have had to keep the plan a big secret. I don’t want anyone ruining it.
The twins are running around the house in their boxers.
Pains in chest and arm. Balls ache once again. Nasty cough.
