Category: Gay

Categories
art Film Gay Hollywood Los Angeles NYC Queer

Michael Alig and Malik Bendjelloul

Cherry Blossom

I wonder if Michael Alig hated the movie Party Monster as much as I did?

I wonder if someone at Fenton Baily’s World of Wonder who filmed Alig’s ‘reactions’ whilst he watched the docudrama about himself… paid him?  I can’t imagine that he won’t be on Fenton’s payroll before the year is out, just like his friend and the gay douche James St. James… who I was once bored to meet in LA with Ian Drew.

Meanwhile, the soggy Michael Musto pretends Alig is a very bad man yet seems secretly in awe, unable to stop writing about him.   There are articles about Alig everywhere in the gay press.  Of course, The Gay Voices section in The Huffington Post want his ‘opinion’ about EVERYTHING.

The gay frenzy around Alig’s release from prison is beyond macabre.  What does Michael Alig think about the progression of gay rights?  What does Alig think about the overturn of DOMA?  Does he have an opinion about the end of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell?

Am I crazy?  This murderer gets out of jail. A murderer who dismembers another gay man and we ask his opinion about DOMA?

For those of you who don’t know Michael Alig… and there are many… Michael Alig (born South Bend, Indiana, April 29, 1966) is the co-founding member of the Club Kids, a group of young club goers led by Alig and his long-time best friend James St. James in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In 1996, Alig pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Andre “Angel” Melendez  in a confrontation over a drug debt.

If Michael were a straight, white guy getting out of jail for killing and dismembering another man… would other straight people be fascinated by what he had to say about… the Affordable Care Act?  Mind you, if he was a black man… we wouldn’t ever hear his opinion about anything… because he would still be in jail, convicted of first degree murder rather than the white man’s sop… manslaughter.

It’s so exciting to have him home in New York City!  Let’s read more about Michael Alig in Vanity Fair!  Imagine what it must be like to be free after 17 years!  Everything’s so incredibly different!  Here… play with this.  It’s called a smart phone.  These are ‘apps’.

Michael Alig tweet his fans.  Michael looks at Manhattan as he crosses an unnamed bridge into the city and has a moment of trepidation .   Did he remember dumping Angel’s body into the East River?  Alig drinks Starbucks and eats Arctic Char.  He scarcely seems like a man who would murder and dismember another gay man as he eloquently discusses fish seasoning.

Later, Michael forgets to take a shower because no one is telling him to wash.  It’s ‘amusing’ to see Michael use Grindr for the first time and wonder if and when he hooks up… will he tell his on-line fancy… the truth?  Will he conceal his true identity?  The truth about his murdering and dismembering past… huh?  Are you kidding?  Nobody tells the truth on Grindr.  A world of wonder… indeed.

“Michael you’re my hero.”  The young gays squeal on social media.  ‘We still love you!’  ‘You helped me become the man I am today.’  The elder ones tweet:  ‘You made me true to myself.’

Michael Alig has become our best, brightest and newest gay celebrity.  Hankering for a second chance in a country that loathes giving second chances to anyone.   He will become a living legend, his gay apotheosis assured by Fenton Baily and Michael Musto who may make fortunes from Alig’s gruesome celebrity.   Nor must we forget Ramon Fernandez, director of the upcoming documentary Glory Daze: The Life and Times of Michael Alig, he too expects to win big riding on Alig’s murder and mayhem.

No doubt Alig will be invited to GLAAD events, his crimes diminished by celebrity and pithy comments about hetero normative gay life… he will champion individuality,  he will sit at The World of Wonder table with Ru Paul.  He will work tirelessly for the HRC.

Michael Alig will be loathed and loved in equal measure when in fact… he should be totally ignored.

2.

Meanwhile, a truly talented filmmaker kills himself.  Malik Bendjelloul, director of Oscar winning film Searching for Sugar Man.  When I heard it, your personal story moved me.  It’s tough to be a star.  I know what you went through.  I was there for a moment too.  Same age.  It’s very disconcerting, all that attention after years of solitude.  Making art in a vacuum… then Hollywood comes calling with their lies and false promises.

Two different tales, different intentions.  Two very different filmmakers.

Fenton Baily and Ramon Fernandez add a miserable, self indulgent post script to a stark and soulless documentary making themselves more money from the death and dismemberment of a brown man… no doubt delighting other soulless white people… whist you dear Malik made an inspiring documentary that touched the hearts of many and was so deserving of the international acclaim it received.

Sometimes it seems like a shit, shit world.  A world where people like a gay drug addict and murderer Michael Alig get all the attention on exactly the same day a brilliant man like Malik Bendjelloul ends his own life.

Rest in Peace.

Categories
Fashion Gay NYC politics Queer Rehab Travel

How to Stay Sober

Fire Island Kitchen

 

Arrived on Fire Island.  I’m here for the next few weeks… until I decamp (via Martha’s Vineyard) to Provincetown for a month or so… then it’s LA for the rest of the summer.   Nobody wants to be on the East Coast for August.  Not when one has Malibu… everyone agrees that Southern California is gorgeous in August.

I finally found an affordable and rather beautiful house near Whitstable to buy.  Just far enough to be close to those I love… yet out of harms way.   There’s so much on the market.  Everything in my old home town seems for sale.  Everything.

I’m staying, as usual, in The Pines… a guest in the most gorgeous house.  I stayed here last year.  So many pretty things to look at, art to admire and crisp white linen to drown in at night.  A fancy cooks kitchen, every utensil one could possibly wish for.

As I was winding down last night I noticed that the house is loaded with alcohol, bottles and bottles… and I am all alone.  It’s odd isn’t it?  What keeps me, and those who want it badly enough, away from the booze.  Sober.  Nobody would ever know if I took a huge gulp of something before I went to bed.  Only me.

What’s stopping me from taking a drink from the well stocked bar?  Even if it’s just me?  I suppose… I would know and God would know.  The power of ones conscience.  I’d lose the only thing I’ve ever worked really hard to keep.

I realize that many people don’t get sobriety.  The disease, the god part, the endless AA meetings.  During the past 17 years it’s been a struggle to remain interested or focused.  There’s so much to put you off.  Sober people can be a big pain in the butt.  The endless revolving door of people you meet who commit to sobriety then drink again, the deaths, the drama, the fucking rules…  but I tell you, if this is a cult (and many say it is) I’m a happy member.

I’m cooking a very old-fashioned coq au vin.  A hearty treat for a chilly May evening on Fire island.

Enhanced by Zemanta
Categories
art Brooklyn Dogs Gay Hollywood Los Angeles Malibu NYC Queer Venice

Spring 2014

Happy Sunday

 

Wendell Castle

Categories
Gay Money NYC Queer

Zac Bissonnette: Good Advice From Bad People

guy-piggy-bank-main

Here is petulant Zac Bissonnette, shaking down a pig for Glamour magazine.  His new book, Good Advice From Bad People, is a collection of poorly collated quotes by people we would rather forget.

Last year, after reading a post on the Facebook wall of dog book and minorities writer/teacher Benoit Denizet-Lewis, I had the misfortune to run into Zac Bissonnette (too many consonants, no?).

Gay Benoit is a brilliant writer, why he lauds Zac Bissonnette is a mystery to me.  Unless… of course… Gay Zac’s flaxen hair and youthful spirit and perfect teeth… no… that just couldn’t be.

Anyway, I read the essay by Zac that Benoit posted on his ‘wall’ and frankly… it wasn’t very good.  So.  I said.  Under the post… in the comments section: ‘this isn’t very good’.

Zac, in-between reading Facebook, counting the money that will keep him from moving in with his parents if everything fails, moisturizing his perfect creamy skin, preening his immaculate coiffeur and appropriating Bernie Madoff quotes… found the time to have an old-fashioned shit fit.  Apparently, not uncommon for Zac.

It turns out he is the Veruca Salt of financial self-help.  You remember her?  The demanding, selfish little kid from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory who wants an Oompa Loompa but ends up with an ever lasting gob stopper.

Like most arrogant, entitled white american gays Zac didn’t take my mild criticism very well.  Within an hour or two Zac had sifted through the internet declaring me bankrupt, running a bad business and a bunch of other ‘designed to shame’ comments.  The one that pissed me off… you know, after having been abused for so many years, was his unsubstantiated accusation that I could be a child molester.

So.  This is who we are dealing with.  Zac gets some mild criticism and decides to accuse me of fucking children.

He is typical of his generation:  young, white gay men.  I meet them all the time.  Prone to tantrums, relying on their good looks and minimal talent.  When challenged they accuse anyone over 40 of pedophilia.  They have run out of credible insults.  Accusing a gay man of pedophilia masks two horrible truths.  Firstly, people like Zac are terminally ageist.  Secondly, puerile Zac feels ‘abused’ by anyone he considers stupid enough to challenge his ideal self.

He accuses me of pedophilia because he thinks of himself as an innocent little boy.  He feels my criticism like he imagines a child feels a rapists penis.  He suffers from crippling denial, like many gay men, denial that he is no longer a child and terrified that he will become an old man.  After all, what is he without his youth?  This particular denial runs rampant throughout his poorly educated, right-wing generation.

Not taking his pedophile accusations very well I challenged Zac on twitter to say publicly what he had accused me of privately.   He rather wisely refused.  He told me I was harassing him… even though he had contacted me!   Then, after a change of heart, he told me that he wanted to talk to me.  He said, “I think it’s better by phone. . . I promise I’m really nice on the phone.” He gave me his home phone number but told me not to call him at 3am.  Here is his number for those of you who might want to get to know Zac better… lolz… do you dare me?

I’m not going to call Zac Bissonnette… because he is an idiot.  How much of an idiot? Check his ‘financial advice’ in Glamour magazine. Advice so moronic and condescending only a man in a tight gray tee-shirt could have gotten away with it.  Perhaps the folk at Glamour thought Zac’s pecs would distract women from what he had written?

My good advice to you, Zac?  From this bad person?   Grow the fuck up.

P.S.  According to the World Health Organization 7 out of every 1000 American babies die before they are a year old.  Sadly, Zac wasn’t one of them.

oompa-loompa-2

Enhanced by Zemanta
Categories
Auto Biography Film Gay Love Queer Travel

Train to Paris 2010

There is a moment when you know it’s over.  That his proximity disgusts you.   That no amount of love can disguise what was or what could be.   These photographs were taken at the moment, the moment I knew for sure.  The fast train to Paris from Cannes.  A beautiful boy sat opposite me and I wanted to ravish him.  I couldn’t wait to say goodbye to the loved one.  Yet, I knew, the moment we parted I would not stop thinking of him. From the moment I woke up to the moment I fell into a fitful sleep.  Gone, the door slammed.   He was dead to me long before I made it impossible for him to do anything but take drastic measures.  It was the worst kind of grief because nobody died…

Enhanced by Zemanta
Categories
Film Gay Hollywood Old Blog Queer

Bryan Singer

Bryan Singer

Most of you know there is little love lost between me and gay Hollywood… the gay establishment, our unelected leaders, our taste makers and moral guides… or lack of them.   From Chad Griffin (who now claims to be the Rosa Parks of marriage equality) at the HRC to the bullying tactics of gay mafia org Glaad I have made my voice heard and paid the price.

During the last year I have had death threats and put up with the gay rumor mill distorting facts about me.   So, today, old acquaintance Bryan Singer finds himself in my world… the shadowy world of innuendo, accusations, smears, allegations and (unlike me) the hard to remove stains of rape and pedophilia.

The gays are springing to his defense.  The boy was 17.  Old enough to know better.  Old enough to say no.  Well, as we all know, whether it is Jerry Sandusky or Bryan Singer power and prestige can be very alluring to a damaged soul and let’s face it… many young gays are very damaged.  It’s difficult to say no if you think saying yes will change… everything.

Dorian Gray was a damaged soul.  Just a boy.  Would he give in to love… or power and prestige?  We all know the answer.

Duncan. Unknown, Brandon Boyce, Bryan Singer Fire Island

I first met Bryan on Fire Island 20 years ago.  He stayed at our house with Brandon Boyce and some eager young twink.  Latterly I stayed with him in Hollywood, and we have kept friendly but distant ever since.  When I was arrested he (and his friends) delighted in my jail time* and made snide comments about me getting into trouble.  Their arrogance, like most sexually unmanageable people, was legion.

Bryan and I have discussed his boy obsessions and sex tourism. We have discussed his prescription drug addiction.  We have discussed his drinking problem.  We have discussed his point that it is useless to know anyone socially unless there is a sexual point.

Today Bryan finds himself at the center of a roiling  sex scandal.  It is of his own making.  Everyone one knew… but no one said a word.  Young boys on his arm, on his set, at dinner with equally vile boy obsessed Hollywood grandees… the lamentable Adam Press, the teen dating Dustin Lance Black.

If you want to get on in Hollywood straight or gay… you better learn how to please the directors and producers you meet at drug fueled, drink sodden gay parties.

Of course, when someone cries foul, the gays think it is the victims ‘fault’.  They have played victim for so long.

Somebody suggested to me this morning that it was ‘homophobic’ of those accusing Bryan of rape.  No, it’s not homophobic to accuse someone of rape, it’s homophobic to forcibly sodomise someone.

Bryan’s close friends include Guy Shalem (Jane Lynch’s red carpet plus one), Transformers Producer Tom DeSanto and Teen Wolf director Toby Wilkins.  Finding themselves on private jets, at Elton John’s Oscar party and vast Hollywood mansions overlooking Los Angeles.  They are surrounded by a stable of beautiful young boys.  They are delighted to be included.  It’s always so much fun.  Bryan can make anything happen.  He has so many cool toys.

Bryan films a group of eastern european ‘barely legal’ porn performers ejaculating over him… then shows the video to who ever wants to see.   Many do.   Bryan audaciously dresses as a catholic priest for Halloween, amusing his friends with his ‘ironic’ choice of costume.  Bryan loses his Ferrari in The Beverly Center parking lot and has a panic attack.  He drives with the parking attendant in a golf buggy until he locates the car.

Amy Berg, the Oscar nominated documentary maker has been researching predators like Bryan for the past two years.  Her explosive documentary about sexual misconduct in Hollywood will blow the lid off  those who perpetrate these heinous sex crimes and those in power (sex therapists, law enforcement, prosecutors and the judiciary) who collude with wealthy pedophiles and rapists to keep their sex crimes secret.

This story is no longer just one lone victim brave enough to tell the truth about Bryan Singer.

I like Bryan Singer and rather than sneer at him (as he did me) I am hopeful that someone is keeping a seat warm for him at a Sex Addict meeting where he will find solace and understanding from many other ‘important’ Hollywood men who have fallen from grace whilst arrogantly thinking they could get away with what ever they pleased, when ever they wanted, regardless of price or consequences.

As we shall see.  There are always consequences.  Even for Bryan Singer… and his ilk.

From an earlier blog:

“So, this beautiful teenager arrives at a party I’m at last week in the Hollywood Hills.   Fresh off the boat.  He’s beautiful.  He has a fresh, open face…his pale skin is flawless.

Boy

He hadn’t been in Hollywood for longer than a month but already he’s on the arm (unwittingly) of a so called LA ‘producer‘ who, it seems, has immediately pimped the boy out to the head of programming for a popular music network.  The no name, no hope LA producer pimping the boy out… so that he might curry favor with the TV grandee.  Just to be clear… the same LA producer hires young boys to ‘read scripts’ so he has access to their young boy world.

The whores and the pimps and the fairies…

The network head ain’t no beauty. He looks like Dobby from Harry Potter.

So the good looking kid arrives and he tells me that he’s working in NYC with an equally scummy NYC ‘producer’ who always has some starstruck kid on his arm.  The NYC producer looks like he has downs syndrome, he looks like his teeth are too big for his fat, useless head. He looks like he’s wearing a wig but the fringe ain’t deep enough to cover the alcohol bloat, the never was visage.  He was a bullied kid at the expensive school his mother sent him to… signed him up the moment she heard the sperm had hit the egg.

Both of these producers have one thing in common: they have loads of inherited money and never produced anything.

David

They might have their names attached to invisible projects, they might have inveigled their way into the production meeting of some meaningless movie, thrown a little cash behind an artless indi. But, they ain’t never winning no awards, they ain’t never been invited to no Sundance, Berlin or Cannes.  They’ll go anyway, keeping their mouths shut to those who matter and lying to those who don’t.

Should I tell you who they are?

No.

So I’m keeping my head down. I’m not saying a word. I’m instagramming the bar man, I’m already elsewhere…waiting for something real to happen.   Dobby (the music TV network head) shows the man I’m standing with his very smart, smart phone. He’s so excited. There are hi def pictures and video of the same wide eyed teenager at Dobby’s huge house wearing just…a towel.   Yes. The kid is wearing a towel around his waist, his perfectly sculpted body on full view and standing beside him is another, equally cut young teen.

Two young boys.

The inference? You don’t need me to explain this to you do you?

So I take this kid to one side and I ask him if he’s gay? He’s not. I ask him what he thinks of the network head showing everybody his new naked body to anyone the network head needs to impress.

‘They are good guys.’ he reassures me.

No, I say…they are anything but good guys.

You know, all he wants (this kid) is a job, a chance, an opportunity, the dream of celebrity…freedom. He can almost taste it. He knows that these men make all the difference.

His desire for a better life is palpable.  He’ll drink the drinks. Undress, get into the hot tub.

You know, I love beauty. I love it. Look, I’m surrounded with beauty.  My ex-friend might say, oh your just jealous. You’re just jaded because you want what they’ve got,  Believe me, I do just fine. But on terms that do not compromise my integrity.

Would I show random strangers the body of some boy who stands feet from me? Knowing that those artless, semi pornographic images suggest that we are more than just…innocent friends?  The network head winks, smiling…dribbling over the screen on the smart phone.  Dobby’s nose is dripping from undisclosed snorting.

He says, without saying anything: That teen boy…the boy with the perfect abs. He’ll do anything..because he thinks I’m going to get him a role, find him an agent…make him the next teen sensation. LOL.

LAUGHING OUT LOUD!

He lets seasoned Hollywood gays believe that this boy will do just about anything to get on.  Dobby wants you to believe he fucked the boy. Dobby is powerful. Dobby can get whatever he wants. Even the virgin ass of a young boy fresh off the boat. Particularly… the young ass of the boy standing feet away from us, oblivious that he is now the victim of rank objectification and intrigue.

Proud to be gay? Not today.

So I wrote a short email to the NYC ‘producer’ guy. I told him what was going on with his protege. He wrote back immediately…he thought it was hilarious. I reminded the fat, vodka marinated, creep…that the boy…has parents.”

P.S.

* For those of you who want to know why I was in jail and why I am currently suing LA County:  my civil rights lawsuit arises from the fact that I was unlawfully held in the Los Angeles County jail for 85 days, in violation of my constitutional right to post bail. (I was a pretrial detainee and eligible to post bail yet the jail did not allow me to post bail). I was denied the opportunity to post bail because U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had issued an immigration hold (sometimes referred to as an “ICE hold”). An immigration hold is a request from ICE to hold a detainee so that ICE can look into their immigration status; it doesn’t mean the person has violated immigration laws or even that ICE has probable cause to believe they’ve violated immigration laws. At the time of my arrest, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s department routinely denied bail to pretrial detainees with immigration holds, which is illegal under California and federal constitutional standards. Since the filing of my lawsuit, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department discontinued this practice and now permits pretrial detainees with ICE holds to post bail.

Enhanced by Zemanta
Categories
Dogs Gay Hollywood Los Angeles Travel

Kookie Kardashian

Des Moines

1.

Monday morning.  Brooklyn.  The end of this particularly hard winter is nowhere in sight.  In LA the sun shines over the glittering sea, in London my friends post pictures of balmy evenings in St James Park. I run from our place to sit in crowded coffee shops.  I’m writing under a pseudonym nowadays for publications that love paying him/her but would never pay me.  Funny.  Doing what writers have always done: assuming different names for different opinions, different styles, different genres.  Consequently, I don’t get to write my blog very often… as I traverse the continent once a month.  From sea to shining sea.  No one understands why I love driving 2,800 miles twice over once a month… but I do.  The last trip was short and sweet.  I stayed in LA a few days then drove back over the Rockies and into a 50 car wreck on the i80 a hundred miles east of Chicago on the Ohio Turnpike.  Trapped on the side of the road for ten hours with two patient dogs and so many bad christian radio stations.  Badly educated, right-wing bigots on the radio.  Wondering out loud how they will roll back the rights of women and gays and undocumented workers, how they will keep hold of their white America.  The America their ancestors battled to tame.  I think about those early Americans very often as I drive over the Rockies,  the hardship they suffered, the dreams they had… the cruelty they inflicted on those who lived on the land they took and the slaves they owned.

I tried sleeping in the car.  Minus 6 degrees.  Occasionally fellow travelers would stop by to see if we were okay.  They offered cookies and consolation.

2.

I’ve been with my boy for 8 months.  We cook at home and watch bad make over TV.  Every day our situation gets stronger as we over come our own and the prejudices of others.  I realized that most of my male gay friends are single, even the ones with the best pedigrees.  The ones who are good-looking and sweet and a ‘good catch’.  I, of course, am none of those things.  I am the bullet you need to dodge.  That’s what they say.  But the gays are eager to diss all of their friends burgeoning relationships.  They are disparaging about anyone who may not be ‘ideal’.  This ideal that keeps them single and lonely.  They look at me sadly when they find out how old L is as if I am deluding myself that my relationship could ever work.  Did I think it would work?  Well, not in some fairy tale way, not the way gay writers write the perfect arrangement… the ideal.  We muddle through, we miss each other when we are apart, we fight occasionally but not as much as we did when we first met.  All in all, I’m happy and feel love from him and let my love flow… to him.  That’s occasionally a very confusing and baffling thing for me.  To let myself be loved.

3.

In Des Moines, I met Kookie Kardashian… the morbidly obese (500lb), hirsute… older sister of Kim Kardashian and Kourtney Kardashian.  She is the least known of the KKK Klan.  Drinking alone in a dump of a hotel bar, reruns of KUWTK playing on the flickering TV above the tequila selection, staring absently into a soupy pina colada.  Text messages remained unanswered as she pulls at her thin mustache. I introduce myself, she says she appreciates the company.  Apparently, when the cameras are in her Calabasas house Kris makes her leave with the undocumented servants.  Kris pokes her with a stick.  Kookie said that Ryan Seacrest called her a ‘fat cunt’, that if she wanted to be on the show she should ‘get a fucking lap band’.  Kookie, blinded by grief, drinks herself regularly into a blackout.  She commandeered Kanye’s jet and took it to Iowa. Her brushed denim and patent leather Fendi bag stuffed with cash. If she loses the weight… Kris promised her that she and Rob can have their own show.

She told me she misses her dad.

4.

Has anyone been watching the OWN Lindsay Lohan ‘documentary’? That girl is OUT OF HER MIND. A world without consequence will do that to you. A world where nobody has the guts to confront an addict and her worst defects. A world where she believes she is still important or relevant, a world where no one will tell her that death is imminent… like Heath, Phil, River… living in a room stuffed with clothes, jewelry… evidence of active addiction.

Despicably, this tragedy is being manipulated by entertainment industry matriarch Oprah Winfrey… the disingenuous bad mum who knew all along that her little girl would let her down. Oprah’s fake outrage is utterly disgusting.

Enhanced by Zemanta
Categories
art Auto Biography Dogs Gay Love NYC Photography Queer

Brooklyn Family 2014

Hannah

Categories
art Brooklyn Film Gay Hollywood NYC

Ellen Page Brave or Self Serving?

Jacob Brown and Andrew Durbin

1.

Yesterday the HRC hijacked another celebrity coming out to further their own white, elite agenda.  Shame on you Chad Griffin.

So, Ellen Page ‘comes out‘ with Chad at her side and (as scripted) is immediately hailed as ‘brave’ by the neo liberal media for telling her truth.  Big fucking deal.  Did Ellen Page come out in Uganda, risking her life?  Did Ellen Page use her power and prestige to help those less fortunate lesbians in other parts of the world who risk being imprisoned or worse for the luxury of telling their truth?  No, she talked about how hard it was for her to crash stereotypes.

Poor Ellen.  My heart bleeds for you.

As more and more celebrities come out it is no longer good enough to expect and prepare for fanfare without their truth becoming a political gesture.   It is not good enough for a celebrity in the free world to expect a ‘small gesture’ toward acceptance to be adequate.

Small gestures need to get bigger.  It is the responsibility of every lgbtq celebrity who comes out to address the disparity between their free lives and their oppressed brothers and sisters else where.  For Ellen Page not to mention Uganda, Russia etc. was willful and selfish.

After all, what did she expect… a fucking medal?  No, all she was doing was safeguarding her job and her position and her fame and fortune.

2.

Party last night at Jacob Brown‘s East Village duplex.  Celebrating his birthday were cute thin people, two old farts… me and the perfectly adorable producer Hunter Hill.   Crowd included (amongst others) the delectable poet Andrew Durbin and former MOCA head honcho Ari Wiseman.

I loved that my controversial green fur hat found favor with this cool, queer crowd.

3.

Valentine’s Day, enjoying my burgeoning relationship.

We decided to have dinner at Isa in Williamsburg.  We’d heard good things and it looked very lively when we passed by this summer.

We popped in at lunch time to make our reservation and the young lady maitre’d dutifully jotted it down, took names and numbers and the promise of a two top.

At 8pm we arrived at Isa.  The booking was lost, we were given the end of a community table under a loud speaker playing the most intrusive music, the waiters seemed to be very eager to process EVERYONE in and out very quickly.

We were asked by 4 separate people if we were sure we didn’t want alcohol.

Anyway, I ordered the rustic tomato soup and the skirt steak.  The soup was ok but served in very small dish.  The skirt steak entree was ghastly.  It was like chewing through a shoe.  A rubber shoe.  I sent it back and the duck special was whisked to our table in its place.  The duck was ok, not very well seasoned, the polenta was soupy and badly prepared and $30.  The tiny dish of $7 brussels sprouts were tepid and badly flash fried leaving most of them untouched by the pan… temperature issues at Isa became an irritating theme.

Our coffee was also cold so I left it.

The staff were the kind of people who try to shame you for making a complaint.  Condescending young people who are used to old people putting up and shutting up.  “Do you think you’ll like the duck better.”  He asked after I sent back the inedible steak… he asked as if I had some sort of learning disability.  No, I’m just past 45 years old.  I can hear and understand just fine.

We attempted to leisurely enjoy our dinner but the waiter was eager to snatch our unfinished dishes, “Still working on that?” they pestered.  YES!!  Leave us alone I wanted to scream but I didn’t.  This was obviously the worst choice for a Valentines dinner.   A total waste of time and money.

Here are some recent moments:

Enhanced by Zemanta
Categories
Alcoholics Anonymous Brooklyn Gay NYC Queer

Snow Day 2014

Williamsburg Snow
In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

Christina Rossetti

It’s snow day here in NYC.  Me and the man are at his place in Williamsburg.  It’s been 5 months now.  Seems to be enduring.  We are watching a neo-liberal straight man mock elderly Russians in Sochi for their old-fashioned views about gay people.  He really didn’t have to go that far to find narrow-minded people with hate in their hearts for the gays.

He could have gone to New Jersey.

As for narrow minds… just because one’s a gay doesn’t mean that you have a naturally expanded view of the world… that you are more insightful, more agreeable, less prejudiced or liberal.  Yet, the pro gay press wouldn’t dare reveal the dark side of the gay for fear of annoying their new pay masters.

Ask dumb gay people what they think about immigration, women’s rights, racism and laugh at their fucked up right wing views. Yes, do it.

What a delightful diversion the gays have become.   Whilst we fight to be in the military the military fights illegal wars, whilst we demand benefits those same benefits are taken away in the name of austerity, whilst we line up to get married the divorce rate soars.

With that in mind I thought I might share my recent queer adventures with the gays.

Given that the gays in AA pretty much write their own rules… writing about them seems perfectly ok.  After all, we are meant to keep what we see and hear in AA a big fucking secret.  The gays rarely play by that fundamental rule.

They sit before meetings gossiping and cruelly discussing what they heard at their gay AA meetings.  “My sponsor HATES him.”  I heard some bitchy queen exclaim.  So I asked what kind of sponsor hates people in AA and tells his sponsee?  That didn’t go down very well.

Nope.

Gay AA is a cult within a cult.

The man just cooked me breakfast.   He really seems to love me.  Being loved is always a surprise. Whenever it happens.  The delightful routine, the domesticity, the kissing.  Taking the dogs for long walks in the snow.