Categories
Malibu

Trapped!

Delightful day yesterday.  Did not go to therapy.  Did not worry about anything.  Walked the dog.

I know that I have said this a million times but when the sea glitters there is nothing better that sitting quietly and gazing down at the Pacific.  Awesome!  Better than therapy.

Lunch at Geoffrey’s with friends, English friends.  CP’s friends.  British director in town to direct a studio movie and his wife.  Lively, intelligent conversation.  The wife was very funny…especially when describing her ex-nanny.

Ate crab cakes (poor), salad nicoise (forgettable).   The food at Geoffrey’s is really not very good but the view is wonderful.  They charged us per Arnold Palmer (iced tea and lemonade) and diet coke rather than giving us free refills which is de rigueur in So Cal.

After lunch, they collected their children from the nanny and we drove back to the house.   Their kids (7 and 18 months) were delightful.  Whilst I made a big pot of tea they picked tangerines and lemons from the trees.  I showed the kids the video Anna shot the day I killed the rattle snake in the garden.  The seven-year old was entranced by the snake…of course.  He then wanted to see what a flesh-eating ant looked like….and a cicada.  So, we sat on Google until he found what he was looking for.

Dinner in Brentwood with Jody.  He has two infants who he is bringing up single-handedly.   We ate at A Votre Sante in Brentwood which was DISGUSTING and cost $25.  I can think of better ways of spending money.

I am meant to be seeing Jody again today but…

The car started making a rattling noise on the way home and this morning it stopped completely.  Trapped!  Thankfully CP is on his way over to hang out and have lunch and tie up loose ends.  He leaves later today.

My return East is imminent.  Much to do before I leave.

By the way…I have a new neighbour.  A Swami called Shantanand Saraswanti.  He looks just like you imagine an Indian mystic might look.  Big hair, big beard etc.  He dropped by yesterday and, after asking if I would like to be ‘acquainted’ with him, handed me a pamphlet called Confusion and Clarity.  What does he know? (!)   I’ll read it later.

There is a huge storm heading this way and should make landfall on Wednesday.

Categories
Love Malibu Rant

Flush That Toilet!

Spent yesterday, all day, sorting our film structure.

It’s so much fun working with CP.  He makes me laugh all day.

His ideas are strong and sensible.  He thinks in a way that I can understand.

We worked methodically through the original treatment, exploring each element.

Who are these men?  Who are we dealing with?  Where do they live?  How did they get there?  The structure, the logic and the sensibility.  By the end of the day I really felt as I knew exactly what was happening and why.

Where as I was trying to make these characters more like me he was, quite rightly, identifying the sort of men who would actually make the life we were creating for them.

Our approach to structure is very different (I think in acts and timing) but we end up finding common ground.  This is perhaps the most grown up working relationship I have ever had.  I am willing to share, defer, negotiate.  Why?  Because I trust him.

He knows that I am not convinced by own ability in some spheres.  I know that the project, like any film, is bigger than me and therefore, as a director, must agree to be replaced if I am not the right man.

Directing the film is not my aim.  The film is my aim.

We still don’t have a working title but that is the least of our concerns.  The idea is strong enough to be transportable.  We flip-flopped between England and America.

By the end of the day we were both totally exhausted but I felt so happy that we were well on our way to being able to present a coherent idea to our writer..when we finally choose him/her.

I cooked lunch.  We ate dinner in Venice.

As I sink myself further into this project the less interested I am by past concerns.  The more I invest in making art (a life beyond myself) the more complete I feel.

I tell you what I love about our working relationship:  he understands that when I am passionate I am not being angry.  He is not sensitive.  He sees that the ideas I believe in I will fight to keep but not every idea is worth keeping.   He will not lecture me about my ‘attitude’ or how ‘difficult’ I am because he understands the rough and tumble of this highly charged creative process.

Over dinner we discussed his remarkable achievements.  I felt really humbled by his success.

We have lumped all of our agent meetings into one day.

Had breakfast with AA chums in the Palisades.

Categories
Health Malibu

February

Madness, when it comes upon me is a grueling mystery to solve.  For months now I have been gripped with what started out merely as a broken heart.

When one begins to feel the onset of ones own brand of insanity it is always impossible to make sense of the confusing depth and range of emotions.

In the midst of the maelstrom it all feels so incredibly real.  Yet, as we are well aware, once sanity returns:  FEELINGS are not FACTS.

Regardless of how and why I experienced such a destructive wave of emotion I could only wait, as one does, for the storm to end.

It was galling that I had not suffered a comparable emotional torment for many years, fourteen in fact.  As you have read on these pages, when I first got sober I had the same misery, the same terrible sense of powerlessness that has overwhelmed me every day since last January.

There is no way to prepare for such misery.  One can only pray that it passes.  That it passes swiftly and without too much damage being inflicted on either myself or others.

I have learned so much these last few months.  Learned the very good and the very bad about myself.   It is so incredibly lonely when one is gripped by such furious indignation.

After the storm inevitably there is the wreckage.  After the storm, picking up the pieces of everything that has been smashed and knowing that it is impossible to mend what is so utterly broken.

Salvaging first and foremost ones dignity.

On this occasion I know that I have done irreparable damage to myself.  I used to have hope and I no longer do.  The reserve of hope that I was born with is exhausted.

In many ways I have been returned to that moment last January before we met when I had everything to look forward to.  It is now up to me to start again.  Start building, start a positive dialogue with myself that may include some sort of sanctuary.

My body is wrecked from these past few months.  Fighting, fighting, fighting.

Fighting what was growing inside me, fighting the feelings, fighting my true intentions to be a good and better person.

I have no idea what comes next.  I know in my heart, in the pit of my stomach, in my soul…that I will never attempt to have another relationship.  I seem truly incapable of that basic human connection and unable to deal with the associated feelings of inadequacy that swamp me once I meet any person I value.

I dare not take that risk.

I know that all familiar avenues others take for granted are now closed to me.

When I was a child, the only way I could express my fury at the world was to smash everything in my room.  Everything I held dear.   It was my only option.  There was nowhere to run, no place to hide.

And what of him?

Well, I hope and pray that he is already living a wonderful life, that he has great and extraordinary beauty ahead of him.  I know that he is capable of things I can only dream about.  I finally expunged his name from this blog and worked hard to uncouple him from me in the virtual ether.  His ‘bit of fun’ turned into a nightmare for us both but I am determined to forgive him…the alternative will merely drag me into further insanity.

He is not the problem.  He must be part of the solution.

If I am truly over this catastrophe then I must love him as much as I must love the unfair world around me.  He is a stranger now.  He will remain a stranger.

For what once felt so beautiful, as I predicted, must now be an inconsequential blip.

To this end I must accept any and all of my own shortcomings.  I must see my part in this drama.  Own my part in it.

I must let God take back the reigns.

There are other more important lessons to learn, adventures to be had…but I will not learn any of them unless I can truly forgive.

Categories
Malibu

God Children

My darling God Children give me so much pleasure.  Here is a glimpse of them.   They have moved to Lake Malibu which is  just PERFECT.

Loads going on in SoCal…but just H’wood shit.   On HLN again tonight with my valued opinions about Charlie Sheen.   SAG awards…blah blah.  Aleksa won with her Boardwalk Empire colleagues.  She texted me after…so excited.  I am so proud of her.

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Categories
Malibu

Fallen Tree

As per your requests on facebook….

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Categories
Malibu

70 degrees Fahrenheit 10am

I woke at 4.30 am once again.  Nothing unusual about that.  Pottered around making tea and reading the news.  Unusually I went back to bed and for four hours I dreamt:  dreams of reconciliation.

I found myself at Victoria Station (London) waiting at a platform.  Then, I am on a road trip in France with a man I seemed to know but at day break no longer recognise.   Then, I am in a strange bedroom with a girl and a boy who are fighting.  She is crying.  She lets me hold her, console her.

Back at the station there is a large white dog who is lost, I can hear her owner calling out her name and they are reunited.   The dog plays in a sand box, performing tricks as if she were not a dog at all.   Burying herself comically in the sand.

Now the boy and the girl are there at the station.  There is still tension between them but the girl thanks me for holding her.  I ask if I can talk to her friend.  When we are alone I look into his eyes and ask him if he had ever, in fact, loved me.  He smiled wryly and I knew that he never had.  I was disappointed but not surprised.  He let me kiss him on the lips.  He was being very brave.  I said my goodbye and they left, the girl and the boy.

Some man wrote to me last week, an anonymous man (might have been a woman) telling me that I had ‘borderline personality disorder‘ well, I looked at the symptoms on-line and well, yes I could very well be that man.  But, so could almost every body else that I knew.  I thought, ok..so take away these symptoms..cure me.  What am I left with?  Not much.

What is it to be normal?  To have ‘normal’ aspirations?  To have ‘normal’ relationships?

I am willing, as I have all the way through my recovery..to remain teachable.  To consider the options.  To seek, to find, to mine my happiness without compulsion.  I have failed again and again but I try and I try.

Perhaps the fight in general, the war..is over?  I don’t know.  I am not suicidal.  I am not unhappy.  Today I find myself in my own body, seeing out of my own eyes.  Feeling with my own fingers.

If indeed it is true that I am as mad as a hatter then I must learn to live with my madness.  I am not, any time soon, taking psychotropic drugs or committing to therapy that declares some sort of vegetable normality.  Regardless of what or who I am I shall continue to make the best of a bad lot.

If one really could change out all of ones shortcomings what is one left with?

Yesterday we chopped down the tree that fell on the house.  Jody arrived from the electricity company to oversee our work.  We stood on the roof and fearlessly chain sawed the branches out of the live wires.

Roger, my assistant, emailed, called, swept paths and generally made my life a great deal easier.  Started making a list of things to be packed up and sent back East.

Categories
Malibu

malibu views

Spent all day sweeping paths…I will show you the garden tomorrow when it is swept and hosed down.  Just a few more weeks before I am gone from here.

I wont miss it.

I hired an assistant more for the company than anything else.  He has been on his laptop selling the truck, fetching the Dorian Gray Archive out of storage, fetching and carrying…fetching and carrying.

We made good headway today.  Great.

Had lunch with John in Beverly Hills.

Can you see how much STUFF I have to contend with?   I am just going to sell everything and start anew.  Auction house here I come.

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Categories
Malibu

Los Angeles

Ashley picked me up from lax.   70 degrees..the little dog started molting immediately.

The flight was uneventful. Attending the final days of Sundance…I hope.

It was sad leaving NYC.  I loved the bitter cold on my face.

Expecting friends to visit…odd being thrown back in the middle of nowhere…yet something rather miraculous happened…I started writing my film with some long-lost compulsion to create.

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Categories
Malibu Travel

Whitstable Life

Whitstable life.

Actress Fay Ripley has moved into the house opposite my old place.   Saw her today in the most elegant shearling coat and big glasses.   Celebrities stalk my home town…jabbering away loudly on mobile phones.

Even the little houses beyond the High Street that I never thought would be interesting to London people are now 300k and never on the market for longer than a few weeks.

Recession?  Where is it?

I am still really pleased I sold both my houses.

I never really liked the Peter Cushing house (number 3 Seaway Cottages) it was large and draughty and I think I must have been to the beach maybe twice in 13 years.  The beach was the front garden..but I am not a beach man.

I really loved the other house (number 2 Seaway Cottages), the house next door that I renovated from scratch.  It looked superb by the time I finished with it.

I poked my nose through the door yesterday and the Anthony Gormley coat pegs are still in place.  The rather beautiful kitchen lamps have been replaced by ugly, modern, cheap looking, brushed aluminum sconces.   Everything else is just as I left it.  The fig tree in the garden has been severely pruned as it should be.

I had an unfortunate incident on Sunday night.  Went to see my friend Cathy for dinner but she was so drunk I turned on my heels and left the house.

Last night, through a genuine blizzard, walked to an NA meeting.  I looked like a snow man when I got there.  Expecting the worst (crack addicts) but instead met with a group of sober people with surprisingly good, modern recovery.

It was great.

Sometimes I think that NA has more to do with SAA than AA.  The Step work and traditions of NA as written in the Green and Gold Book have really appropriate text for addicts of any kind sex/drugs/drink.

I had lots to write about the past couple of days but…the memories escape me right now.

Long walks with the little dog around the golf course.   Tea with Georgina and family.   Sunday lunch time went to the Monument Pub and ate roast pork with crackling.  Entertained myself with the Monument Football Team who are all, every single one..to a man…GORGEOUS.

Ate home-made pate today for lunch with Carol before she crawled into her workshop…you know she’s a potter?  A ceramicist?

Back in LA Ashley tells me that the waterfall that thunders under the Malibu house drive is thundering nicely.    By the time I get back the garden will be a jungle.  I was worried that the new road would be washed away.  I bloody hope not.

The sun’s gone dim,

The moon’s turned black,

For I loved him,

He didn’t love back.

21/12/09 – 21/12/10  Adieu my darling.

Categories
Malibu Rant

Long Night

During the night a huge wind storm-swept over Malibu from the desert.   I lay in bed listening to pine cones crash down onto the house.  The dogs snuggled under each arm.

Willie and the Little Dog, even though they are not friends, work as a good team when there are unexpected visitors on the drive or deer crashing around the property late at night.

The house continues to be very social.  Ashley and her friends, my friends.  I had 3 visitors before 8am this morning.

After the gardeners left yesterday and the paths were clean and order restored to the land I felt just great and have not felt anything other than great ever since.

Something is happening.  A new energy, a new optimism, a new employer.

Money.

The art I sold in NYC yesterday sold for double what was expected.  Why in hells name did I sell my other stuff here?    I paid my $18, 000 property tax bill.  I really RESENT paying so much tax.  Anyway, making money.

Ruminating over the past can be so EXHAUSTING.

The sea has turned the most delicious azure.   The wind is still roaring through the trees.  I can see all the way to Catalina.  Spoke to Tim who is recovering from his heart bypass but is laughing out loud so must be getting better.  His cheeks are all rosey, his mood and personality have become optimistic and sure.

We applauded the British rioting students.  He is a right-wing conservative and I am not yet we both agreed how healthy it is for any government to deal with insurrection.   The students broke into the Conservative headquarters and smashed it up.  Jolly good!  Why the hell should we charge for education?  This government is undoubtedly a one term affair.  After all, how do we vote back in a coalition?

Lots of you have written to me wanting to know more about the Ellen incident.  As I said, if I get moody this week I will funnel my moodiness into telling THAT story.  It’s really funny.

Ok, I will.

Tommy Clements, the rudest gay man alive, owns a store in LA.  He’s a hot-tub homo.  Know what I mean?  His sister is actually very sweet.  His mother Kathleen and his vacuous Aunt need to take less testosterone.  Suppurating sores on the ass of LA.

The store is called The Melrose Project.  A cavernous space filled with expensive, pretentious furniture.  Over-stuffed Victorian, roughly upholstered sofas dressed in yellowing hessian, useless winged mannequins attempting to be art.  This bad, bad art from an equally absurd store in Venice called Obsolete.

Don’t get me STARTED.

Tommy and Kathleen are very, very proud of the furniture they design.  Really?  Why?

Who in their right mind could possibly be proud of the slew of insipid soft furnishings for which they continually boast?  Amongst the overly restored ‘antiques’ and ‘quirky’ nick knacks which they describe as eclectic…are more ‘designed’ pieces.  For instance, a particularly vile white lacquered table caught my attention that has a curious lack of anything resembling style and a remarkable absence of ego.

This ersatz chic only exists in LA where there is a great deal of money but where the rich have a surprising lack of confidence hence the ascendance of people like Tommy and Kathleen.

Tommy’s aunt had (rather unsuccessfully) tried to set me up on a date with Tommy.  God, what a self-obsessed pig and, as I found out later,  the recent cast off of celebrity stylist David Thomas.   I have a great deal of affection for David but I am in no mood for his ghastly sloppy seconds.  What the hell was he was doing with Tommy?  Perhaps he was taking hallucinogenics at the time?  The only way one could possibly endure Tommy’s mind numbingly dull conversation.

David designed the costumes for three of my films.

So, I meet Tommy who is patently the wrong sort of gay for me and I politely leave the launch party of his space (Peter Dunham in attendance leaving a trail of acrid mucus behind him)  look, these people think they are sooo much better than the average shop keeper/sales assistant.

People who sell art in galleries always think rather grandly of themselves.

After that first meeting I was determined not to go back to his ‘gallery’ but J&J wanted to see it before we had lunch last week so rather than wait outside I went in and there was Ellen (yes that one) and Tommy and his mother who had caught the frail Ellen in their web.  Ellen is well-known for her love of collecting extraordinary furniture.  Every vintage furniture salesman in town prays for her patronage.

So I say hello to Tommy and his mother but they look horrified and the mother ducks my attempt to kiss her (as we have before) or warmly greet her.

Their disdain is palpable.

A night later I bump into the aunt, who tried setting me up with Tommy, and the aunt’s girlfriend who I rather unfairly make the focus of my irritation.  Knowing that this is misdirected I apologize but they decline my apology.  The drunk, inflated aunt starts in on me…with rather disastrous consequences.

I know rather too much about this devious woman for her to start telling me what she and others THINK about me.

Do I care?  No.

JBC and I met Ellen years ago in NYC and spent some time with her.  I don’t need a repeat performance.   It’s not hard to be nice Tommy.

Still so happy to have bumped into Maia and Simon.

Mended the gate at the top of the drive and adding an electric opening device.   Having the chain link fence covered with green canvas.  Now I can wander naked all over the property without nosey neighbours having opinions.

Nothing else to report.   Oh, I had like Manhunt date number 16 yesterday.  Nice man.  Big smile.  The others were scarcely worth talking about.