Categories
Category: Hollywood
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Categories
Kookie Kardashian
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.
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:
If a woman, an individual woman multiplied by billions, does not believe in her own discrete existence and therefore cannot credit the authenticity of her own suffering, she is erased, canceled out, and the meaning of her life, whatever it is, whatever it might have been, is lost. This loss cannot be calculated or comprehended. It is vast and awful, and nothing will ever make up for it.
I never met Nigella Lawson, not yet. She is still relevant. She is the battered wife. The super woman who drowned her sorrows in cocaine as her former husband lay dying of cancer and her ex husband allegedly emotionally brutalized her.
I only meet women like Nigella when they become irrelevant.
In my distant social orbit, light years from the warming sun of acceptability, circle the flotsam and jetsam of international society. Isolated by ignominy, the ex wives of current politicians, media titans and corporate mega moguls float in and out of the rooms of AA, expensive treatment centers in the Arizona desert, The San Fernando Valley and Malibu.
Aping the lives they once had with limitless funds, they buy a few stems of bruised tuba rose* from the same florist who once filled their many mansions with exotic blooms. Sumptuous bouquets placed on valuable escritoire, on silvered night stands, on grand dining tables.
She stands briefly on the threshold, looking at her guilty feet, apologising for the frugal fist of sweet smelling flowers. The florist looks on piteously knowing that her younger, more glamorous successor can spend whatever she pleases.
The lonely ex-wife arranges a slim vase in her well-appointed but humble apartment in Pimlico moments from where she and her spouse once lived on Eaton Square.
These frosty, cast off ex-wives, their faces wet with angry tears, looking to half-baked sober life coaches in first-rate treatment centers to recalibrate their lives. Drinking away their sorrows, dumped by men whose power they loved and whose money they spent. Yoga, sobriety, macrobiotics, spending, using, crying… nothing seems to work because all these women want is the sweet taste of revenge.
This week, one very lucky ex-wife gets her dues. She waited patiently on the sidelines of her ex-husband’s life to witness the crushing downfall of her Nemesis. Today, American born, Kay Saatchi is not only back in Charles’s life but has had the delicious pleasure of helping dispense the woman who caused Kay pain beyond description: Nigella Lawson.
Kay is delightful. I’ve met her on numerous occasions in Los Angeles. Of course she’s delightful! A man like Charles Saatchi wouldn’t marry an idiot. Kay is everything a powerful man would want, she is elegant, super smart, she has exquisite taste. Kay, nowadays, is sober. Yet, when Kay was drinking, she had an unpleasant habit of blacking out and talking gibberish about Charles. She couldn’t and wouldn’t stop. Even her best friend wouldn’t know how to stem the tirade. Her life, it seemed, could only be nothing… without Charles.
She would disintegrate into a seething mess of Charles Saatchi resentment.
The only hook Kay had in her ex as she watched in increasing horror as Nigella used Charles as a spring-board into her own rock solid career as international domestic goddess… was her/their daughter Phoebe who Kay moaned constantly was ignored by her father. When I asked Phoebe if her father ignored her over Christmas dinner a few years ago… she denied it, looked sadly at her drunk mother and told me that the only problem parent… was Kay.
Now, things are different. Kay is sober (unlike Nigella) and Kay’s undying love and loyalty for her ex husband has been rewarded by his begging Kay to help oust Nigella. Kay will never be Mrs Charles Saatchi ever again but she has made herself indispensable to him during his time of need… once again firmly cementing herself back into his life.
It is hard to explain to ordinary people the intoxicating effect of unlimited cash, how women like Kay, Nigella and now Trinny Woodall would willingly get involved with brooding Charles Saatchi. A man who throttled his ex wife in public. A man so ruthless he recruits his vulnerable ex-wife to destroy his current wife.
Do yourself a favor and read Andrea Dworkin’s Right Wing Women: the politics of domesticated females. Money and power are everything to some women. It defies logic and rationale. The patriarch, the provider, the batterer… do what ever you will to me and for me… I am yours forever.
Today the harsh glare of media scrutiny lights up every dark corner of Charles Saatchi’s famously private life. Appearing every day at the trial of his former employees, The Grillo Sisters. It must be a painful time for secretive Charles. During the trial there was constant mention of the grown women (who were no more that indentured servants) as ‘family’ yet, as Deborah Orr points out in the only pro Grillo piece on offer this week…
“You cannot insist that someone is in your family, then cry fraud when they behave as if they are.”
The rich are different. They like to live beyond scrutiny, they operate without care for consequence. Partially, this week, on a micro and macro level justice was done. For servants like the Grillo sisters and for ex wives who crave revenge.
* Princess Diana‘s favorite flower.
Tuesday, a woman I know sent me a revolting picture of a skinned, live puppy attempting to escape a pot of boiling water. The following email I opened that day was a friend telling me the young Olympiad Tom Daley was dating Dustin Lance Black. The similarities between these two emails far outweigh the differences.
Black, known to his friends simply as Lance has been around my life as long as we have both been making gay films. Despite how we have been described, Lance and I are NOT friends. Never have been, never will be.
Recently, Lance’s films have fallen by the wayside. His famous friends and perfect Hollywood pedigree can not augment his startling lack of talent. Despite the luxury of many recuts his film Virginia remains almost unwatchable. One of his producers told me that Lance cannot and should not direct.
He claims that he loves my British Academy Award nominated film AKA. Yet, for all his ‘love’ of my work… he and me have never really connected. I’m not… a) a young blonde boy, b) a Hollywood grandee, c) interested.
Like so many gay men in Hollywood he is ruthlessly ambitious.
Lance Black (born to the Mormon faith) is an affluent, white, gay man. I stress this because it defines who he is as a so-called gay activist. We see each other at gay apartheid (white only) parties in the Hollywood Hills. I am usually the plus one.
He lives in a nice house on Fairfax Avenue in West Hollywood. It is sparsely decorated. For all his riches Lance lives a frugal life. One might say the house lacks imagination which is odd for such an imaginative man. One of the bedrooms in his humble home is reserved for the two surrogate children he is planning in his not so distant future.
The only fly in the ointment? He will not have children unless married. Sadly, his seeming inability (like so many gay men in Hollywood) to keep just one man, a man to marry… the bassinets remain empty. He is drawn predominantly to much younger gay men. The subject of child rearing, when discussed, often leads to amicable separation.
It seems that Lance may have found in Tom Daley a young man he can marry who shares his desire for an immediate family. Let’s wish him all the best and that child-birth comes quickly… he doesn’t want to be an old dad, too old to play football with his young child.
Lance’s pre occupation with a nuclear family is at odds with how I would determine an activist. But Lance is no ordinary activist. He passionately wants for all gays to perfectly ape what heterosexuals seem to have. Nothing less than full integration will do. He fights vehemently for the gays to participate in the traditionally right-wing institutions of marriage and the military.
He hangs primarily with a gang of affluent white men who share similar mores.
Gay activists like Lance Black were quick to blame California’s African-American voters for the defeat of Proposition 8, the anti gay marriage amendment. People for the American Way president Kathryn Kolbert, criticized “the speed with which some white gay activists began blaming African-Americans—sometimes in appallingly racist ways.”
Black is wedded to right-wing gay organization the HRC who once famously refused to support the rights of trans people then issued a groveling apology. Not learning from their white gay mistakes the HRC recently silenced the voices of trans and queer undocumented activists outside the Supreme Court during the DOMA Supreme Court decision, again… apologizing after the fact.
The gays at the HRC, it seems, have a very narrow view of sexuality. The LGBTQ coalition leaves many affluent, white gay men feeling uneasy and confused. Unsurprisingly, like so many gay men, Lance questions the legitimacy of bisexuality. A nettle the gays prefer not to grasp…
Read more about the dark practices of the HRC here.
“In recent years, HRC has been working to contradict its former reputation as an organization overly focused on issues of concern to affluent white gay men, combating long-simmering charges of transphobia within the organization.”
When Lance first started calling himself an activist and regularly going to Washington to meet President Obama I bumped into him at Cafe Solar de Cahuenga on Cahuenga Blvd in Hollywood. Solar is a tatty south American coffee shop/restaurant popular amongst young actors and writers within sight and sound of the busy 101 Freeway.
I praised him for his film Milk which he valiantly produced and won an Oscar for writing. I didn’t ask him about the controversy whirling around the gay gossip vortex in which we are both hapless victims. Amongst the back stabbing gays his success and authenticity were being questioned.
Hadn’t he stolen the Milk project from another gay producer? Did he even write the script that won him the Oscar for best film? Some people said Ron Nyswaner had in fact written the final script that Gus shot? The gays told me that he took his Oscar everywhere. That he couldn’t put it down. They scoffed that he used his power and prestige within the gay community to snare impressionable young boys. They said he should have been wearing a condom when he was fucking his ‘boyfriend’ in the infamous shots of Lance with a cock in his ass… if he was at all interested in being an ‘activist’ he should have been wearing a condom. They said that he should practice what he preached. They said that the original documentary about Harvey Milk was far better than the film.
Harvey Milk made Lance Black famous. What Milk would have made of Black personally… I wonder. What Black would have thought of Milk if he had met him contemporaneously… I wonder. Milk was a charismatic, bombastic, driven, older jewish man. Lance channels Milk’s political inclusivity when he claims that all he wants to do is ‘give people hope’, this wholesale appropriation of Milk’s legacy… sticks somewhat in the caw.
Lance hangs with Milk’s contemporary and true activist Cleve Jones. Lance riding Cleve’s activist coat tails? Cleve seduced by Hollywood glamour?
What kind of political activist is Dustin Lance Black?
Whilst whistle-blower and trans hero Pvt. Chelsea Manning rots in jail, ‘activist’ Lance Black lead the ‘human rights’ charge on The Castro for San Francisco Pride. SF Pride chose to controversially exclude Manning from the official Pride demonstration in fear of upsetting Pride’s corporate donors.
Back in Hollywood, Lance sits writing on his own in the middle of the coffee shop sipping green tea. Everyone could see him there. We talked about British equality legislation fashioned by Waheed Ali. I told Lance about British gay rights activist Peter Tatchell. He seemed enthralled by Peter’s unique brand of direct action so I organized an introduction. When the time came for him to meet with Peter… Lance bailed.
I sent a dismissive note.
We didn’t speak again until he started dating a dear friend of mine who was at that time living at my home. My friend is perhaps one of the sweetest man I know. Kind, considerate, thoughtful, intelligent, curious and recently out of the closet. In fact, history repeating itself, my friend came out for Lance. My friend made the first move.
Knowing that my friend was falling for Lance I tried to stay as impartial as I possibly could. It didn’t last long. I was supportive and kind for as long as I could be. I asked Lance over to the house for his new boyfriend’s birthday lunch. Lance bailed.
During the next few months of their relationship I watched my friend fall apart. My friend started therapy. He was torn and confused and miserable. At one particular gay pool party Lance rudely left without telling my dear sweet friend that he was leaving. Lance ended up at another Hollywood party, at Roland Emerich’s surrounded by more young boys.
My friend was distraught.
Thankfully, when Lance took my friend to The White House he didn’t bail. They ran around with Don Lemons stealing Christmas cookies. They had access all areas. They hung in the Oval office. My friend was delighted to see history being made… for affluent white gay people.
I maintained my impartiality.
I have no opinion about Lance and Tom. Sadly, others do.
Tom Daley is being scolded in the bully chat rooms by the petit bourgeois gays for ‘making the first move’ as if his teenage innocence and delight can be construed as a devious attempt at star fucking.
The British public love Tom Daley and they will not let him get hurt or tangled in anything other than a relationship they deem appropriate. For the time being they will give Lance Black the benefit of the doubt. I am sure the British press will keep tabs on Lance. If he thinks for one gay moment that he can get away with any duplicitous behavior around Tom Daley… he had better think again.
The problem is: no one expects gay men to have morals, or stick to the rules. Gay white affluent man have written their own rules and nobody dares question them. They have become a super elite, their access to the world stage unparalleled. But with wider acceptability comes broader scrutiny.
Elton John once said in front of me, “10 gay men run the world… and I know all of them.”
Tom Daley is a beloved young British boy. We may begin to see this corrupt, elite gay world through his teenage eyes. It is a shadowy world of sexual un-manageability, pedophilia and other unsavory obsessions.
It is not what the elite gays want you to know, whilst they paint a public picture of themselves that makes them seem… just like you.