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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.

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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.

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Spring 2014

Happy Sunday

 

Wendell Castle

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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

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Brooklyn Family 2014

Hannah

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Random Landscapes USA 2014

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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 Pagecomes 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:

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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.

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Alcoholics Anonymous Gay NYC Queer Rant Rehab

GoProud Jon Fortin/Brayden Forrester

IMG_7019

1.

Philip Seymour Hoffman died this week.  The rooms of AA were full of weeping newcomers grieving his death.  Finding spurious reasons to hitch their wagon to his hearse.  Sober people with many years of sobriety rolled their eyes as crocodile tears drenched the disingenuous faces of people claiming intimate friendship with the deceased film star.

At the Perry Street morning AA meeting the press stood in packs, enduring the frigid February winds waiting for people who might have known PSH.  Many were less than discreet and sang like canaries.

The press was awash with sentimental descriptions of Hoffman, endless references to his ‘genius’ ‘talent’ and the ‘tragic waste of life’.

There were long essays by addiction ‘experts’ describing how addicts like Hoffman had no choice, that he was predestined to die with a needle in his arm, that his death symbolized something more in American culture that just the death of a ‘lonely’ junky.

You know, junkies who are taking drugs on the lam tend to isolate.  It’s hard to load a syringe, find a vein and discreetly nod off in a room full of people.  Especially when you are a household name.  He wasn’t lonely, he was alone.  He needed to be on his own to conduct his junky life.

The police arrested the guys who allegedly sold Hoffman the heroin.  They arrested the wrong people.   They should have gone after the directors of the ‘for profit’ treatment center he attended last year.  The snake oil sales men who promise relief from active addiction by cosseting addicts in expensive rehabs, re packaging the 12 steps of AA with no chance of long-term sobriety.

Criminal sober people with no interest in helping the desperate addict, just screwing them for the big bucks year after year for short-term relief.

Anyway, he’s dead.  Just like thousands of other junkies all over the USA but he gets a fanfare… they get a pauper’s grave and the shame of the addict heaped upon them.

Addicts are selfish, self obsessed monsters.  He chose to call his dealer rather than reach out to a sober person.  He chose to load his syringe rather than pick his kids up from school.

Now he has a million apologists who think he had no choice at all.

2.

Yesterday I signed up for the NYU AA men’s retreat to be held at Bill W’s house in Massachusetts.

As I walked into the room where the event was being organized the young gay white men with no more than 7 years of sobriety looked imperiously at me.  They could scarcely concealed their contempt or their bitchy sneers as I sat down and asked pertinent questions about travel and accommodation.

Their faces began to droop however, as they grasped that there was very little they could do to exclude me from coming to their cozy gay event.   The idea they could be trapped at a country retreat with me… for three days filled them with total horror.

The Gay men from the controlling gay AA cabal… who don’t even attend the NYU AA meeting are organizing the event.   I’m perfectly sure they went into isolation overdrive.  What could they do to get rid of me?

They were texting each other furiously.

We will see what shenanigans they come up with.  This is going to be very interesting.

3.

Jon Fortin/Zac Bissonnette

Last Saturday I went to the birthday party of a model publicist at The Skylark on 39th St.  It was a dreary affair, too few people bumping around a cavernous space.  Andy Roddick and Brooklyn Decker, a gaggle of ‘event gays’ and some asian women I convinced my friend were rifling his gym bag.  Yes, he had his gym bag with him.

After a moment of party remorse I decided to talk to some dull looking gays at the bar.  I wasn’t disappointed.  They were terrible.  Anyhow, I was introduced to one mealy-mouthed homo called Jon.  Jon who?  Jon Fortin.  He told us that he had started and had consequently left the organization GoProud the Republican gay group that represents gay conservatives and their allies.

I thought  Jimmy LaSalvia started GoProud?  No?  Hadn’t he recently renounced his republican affiliation?

Hmmm,  Jon Fortin.  Name didn’t sound familiar, between cranberry and sodas I snuck away and there on my second screen was Jon Fortin.   Google turned up very little about Jon Fortin other than a brief mention in the Gay Blade as a booth helper at the RNC and in his Linkedin profile as a Political Consultant for GoProud, The Whitehouse and John McCain.

He took my number and we met for brunch the following day with my friend Vanessa.  The brunch was very enlightening.  Firstly, he told us that he had fucked Aaron Schock the republican to whom Itay Hod alluded in some crude Facebook posting but was subsequently roundly discredited.

Jon described how he had picked Aaron up from Dulles airport, taken him to his hotel and fucked him.  It was very convincing.  My friend and I were both entranced.

Secondly, after brunch… during the boring Super Bowl he took me to one side and with sad eyes and wet mouth revealed that he had left his wallet at home in another coat.   As you may know dear readers I really don’t mind paying for lunch but I really mind paying for alcohol.

He left, promising to make it up to me the following day.  Yet, when the following day came around he refused to meet me on the east side where I was at my 12.30 AA meeting (listening to PSH stories) preferring a spot near where I lived.

Annoyed that I was being asked to walk 15 blocks through ten inches of wet slush I balked.  I told him that it was up to him to come to me as he owed me lunch.  After a bit of text argy bargy which included him telling me that I should just forget about how much lunch cost, he decided to leave $72 in dimes at my club which they very kindly processed.

It was an amusing stunt and one that had taken some careful preparation.

He paid his share.  I didn’t care if it were in pennies or euros.  It was paid.  Republicans believe that we are all ultimately responsible for our actions and there are consequences for our mistakes.  It was only right that he paid.

That was that… I thought.  Until this morning when an unidentified source revealed that rather than ‘political consultant Jon Fortin’ I had in fact fallen foul of Brayden Forrester porn star and hooker.

I Googled Brayden Forrester and my screen was ablaze!

Of course he had ‘lost’ his wallet.  Of course he was pissed that I asked him to pay his share.  Poor love.  I felt rather sorry for him.  30-year-old ex porn star fails to secure free lunch at exclusive club.

I let him know what I knew about his porno past and he called me a train wreck, a psycho, mentally ill, insane.   The usual insults.  I’m used to them.  Yep.  Sounds accurate.

Jon.  What did you do?

I received calls from the gays.  Don’t blog about him… it will ruin his life.  Ruin his life?  How?

In my humble opinion the truth will set Jon Fortin free.  He should shamelessly embrace his Brayden past.  The gays love a good porn star and Brayden knows how to take a big cock/load.  CHECK IT OUT BITCHES.  He’s far more interesting to me as Brayden than he ever will be as Jon.  Most gays agree.  Lance Black only benefitted from those X Rated pics of him getting fucked… in the ass… without protection.

My unfortunate encounter with Jon/Brayden reminded me of the equally repugnant/misguided writer gay:  Zac Bissonnette, author of the perfectly revolting and poorly written book  How To Be Richer, Smarter, and Better Looking Than Your Parents.  Yes, he really wrote a book with that title.

This elitist prick became infuriated when I mentioned on Facebook that he didn’t write particularly well to my friend Benoit Denizet-Lewis.  This solicited from Zac the sort of invective only the gays have ever reserved for me.

Zac trolled the internet and after reading vile and libelous comments left by anonymous queens… repeated them back to me as facts.  Accusing me of being a pedophile, trying to shame me for filling for bankruptcy, suggesting that I deserved to be in jail, he reminded me that I am old and ugly.  You know, the usual gay shit.

Smelling a delicious and potentially lucrative law suit I urged Bissonnette to make the pedophile accusation public.  Of course… he refused.  “Without proof I would never say that publicly, do you think I’m an idiot?” He minced.

Yes, I think you’re an idiot… Zac.

Zac (like Jon) believes that unless you are living a life that almost exactly replicates his with his specific design for gay living you may as well be dead.   In an attempt at peacemaking Zac offered an olive branch but it’s kind of hard to forgive a man who accuses you groundlessly of fucking children.

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Fashion Gay Malibu NYC Queer

Green Fur Hat

Marc Jacobs Hat

I bought a huge green fur hat from Marc Jacobs.  It’s very warm, very green and attracts many, many comments.

The people who comment fall into three distinct groups.

1.  The people who comment most are African-American men and women who approach me with huge smiles and open hearts and say wonderful things about the hat.

They tell me how happy it makes them.  They ask where they could get one.  They love the color. They hold me at the checkout at Trader Joe’s and ask if they can touch it.  Black school kids holler across the street.

2.  White woman tentatively tell me how much they like it, how warm they imagine it is.  They rarely look me in the eye and their diminished confidence allows them only the slightest… but genuine opinion.

3.  Gay men.  I sighed writing that.  Gay men.  I sighed again.

When gay white men (strangers) talk to me about my hat it is always with sneering disregard.   They go out of their way to say something catty and unpleasant.   They look at me witheringly, their comments infused with: who do you think you are wearing that absurd hat?   They dress compliments up in such a way that confuses the listener.

If the African-Americans who complement my hat had not done so I would have nothing to compare the responses of the gays.  I might think I was going crazy.  But I’m not.

We all know what a heartfelt compliment sounds like and the gays seem incapable of giving one… unless (of course) they want to get laid.

Here are more pictures of our brief stay in Malibu and our trip home.

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