We are at the lake house. The little dog and I. Yesterday a fire department helicopter arrived and scooped up water and flew away.
This is not a very good video.
I am still content and centered although I feel a bit apprehensive. Next months appearance at court.
I really don’t want to see Jake.
The nasty little troll dragging me back into his mediocre, dreadful world.
Fuck! Why did he ever contact me? Why me? Why did he choose me of all people to come out to?
What a selfish, self obsessed pig he was. Throwing me into his shit pit.
He created this mess. Let’s face it…if he hadn’t stalked me with his lies and deception we wouldn’t be here now. He had many gay friends, his boss was gay for goodness sake. He had been hooking up with Pal for over a year, Jake could have had Pal help with the process…God only knows, from what he described, Pal tried to help Jake.
I let him into my life. No amount of due diligence could have forewarned me.
The problem is that Jake is far too un-evolved to accept his part in this drama. He wants to blame me for his shortcomings.
I wrote to his lawyer offering a mutually binding solution but Jake has obviously shucked his fake ‘timid’ facade and revealed his recently grown balls.
He wants to fight in court…so be it.
His lawyer, (refers to himself as George Clooney on his laughable website) has still not sent any evidence.
The problem with Jake is: he has lived two lives for so long. Lied to everyone he knows. Ultimately he got away with it. Hurting her. She probably forgave him. Poor Jake. His world split asunder.
Let’s feel sorry for the scum bag. That doesn’t sound like I mean it? Ha!
I don’t want to be angry with him. I really don’t. It doesn’t get me anywhere.
Will you help me? Can you all help? We could pray for him, forgive him, wish him all the best.
I prefer this option.
My prayer, whenever I am forced to think about him: God, please help Jake be happy, let him succeed, help him be truthful, make his dreams come true.
God, please let Jake find love, a healthy relationship, a sober life.
Writer Michael Gastor collected me and the injured Little Dog from the Malibu house at midday and we drove east.
He has been in Berlin writing a script for a German director about Julian Assange. I am toying with moving to Berlin in December. He had a great time there. I’m sure I would too.
We stopped at American Rag and bought wrapping paper and a birthday card for Transformers Producer Tom Desanto. Tom’s birthday pool party thrown by his friend Adam Press. He seemed pleased with the gifts. Books from my personal collection that he had admired last week.
We arrived early…before the beautiful, half-naked boys began playing beer pong.
I was dressed for the next event so looked like a total freak. I wore the hat I bought for Jake at Lanvin last summer. My futuristic Helmut Lang shirt was commented on but not, I think, admired. Everyone else in board shorts and…and nothing much else. Chatted to a couple of really cool kids. Managed, of course, to locate the only straight boy and settled into a long, fruitless conversation.
Michael played pool and drank whiskey. The host was charming and sweet. Dane arrived. Huh? How did that happen?
Our birthday parties couldn’t have been more different. Somebody bought him a 6 foot inflatable penis.
Really glad I made the effort and hauled my ass over there. Good God! Who knew that there were so many beautiful, young actor boys with perfect bodies? Toby arrived with his new squeeze.
Apparently Bryan Singer turned up just after we left.
At 3pm (in the blazing sun) we drove to another pool party. John and Valoree Papsidera’s ‘Paws‘ fundraiser at his office ‘compound’ downtown. The offices are an ex-swimming club that he has beautifully renovated. This man has exquisite taste. His art collection…to die for. Some great names: Clemente, Judd, Pettibon and the most gorgeous George Condo. I am newly converted to Condo.
Chatted recovery and Dr Drew with Drew Pinsky‘s Love Line side kick, the devilishly handsome Psycho Mike (Michael Catherwood). He was in Dancing with the Stars….Valoree produces that show.
Is Psycho Mike Gay?
Olivia Munn joined Psycho Mike and I.
He said, “You are the hardest working woman in Hollywood.” (unfortunate choice of words)
I said, “Oh, that sounds good, what are you doing?”
Olivia snapped, “If you don’t know who I am, you don’t need to know who I am.”
I smiled wryly.
Her mouth twisted into a sneer and she gracelessly recited her IMDB credits. I thought, the problem with you dear Olivia…you have no poise.
Chatted with a woman called Suzanne from Hidden Hills whose daughter was dating the most delicious boy. A singer and guitar player. A feast for the eyes.
I hadn’t realized that my great friend Manu is married to the gorgeous Kim Raver.
Totally adored Zach Quinto who, of course, we saw in Angels in America. We talked AIDS, his new film, his producing. That boy is a fucking star.
Fell in ‘boy love’ with Jason Ritter. Those eyes…those beautiful blue eyes.
I flirted with boys. Michael chased girls…we had a blast.
We left at 7ish for a fish and chip dinner with Henri then home to the coyote infested garden.
Robby booked his first big commercial this weekend so am dying to hear all about it.
Tracy Emin, the crazy talentless British ‘artist’ has been adopted by the Tory party and has dinner with Prime Minister Cameron. WTF? Her work installed at 10 Downing Street. Her ugly mug pressed onto Cameron’s flacid pink cheek.
Excuse me for rambling. This may have something to do with the painkillers. I don’t usually take pills but a mashed ankle and a severely strained leg…I gave in to the ibuprofen.
The news looks bad. More unemployment misery, few jobs, double dip, creationism, President takes a vacation, stock market tanks, texting in church…etc. That’s the news.
Some people are telling me that the only way the USA is going to save itself is when the American people accept third world wages. The plan: the people will become so desperate they will work any job at any wage anywhere and the corporations will abandon India and China and return to America.
If this is true…and I suspect that it is, we are in for a long and desperate time.
There were journalists in helicopters filming black people lining up for a ‘Jobs Fair’ in Atlanta. Well presented, educated black people. The usual people who suffer when the economy slows. Apparently some employers don’t want to interview the unemployed. I have no idea why. Can someone tell me?
The images from the helicopter reminded me of the Hurricane Katrina footage. Desperate black people. Waiting in badly organized lines.
“I’m a single mother and I am looking for a job.”
I’m not writing what’s been bugging me..apart from my aching foot.
I want to write about being gay, being a gay film maker/artist. I have not written enough about my recent brush with the ‘gay community’. I have been having the same multiple contractions of apprehension that I had years ago.
The same anxiety. The same question plagues me…even after years of therapy and insight.
What kind of gay am I?
Is this the same question as what kind of man am I? Is this a question I need answering? I just don’t know who my tribe is. The community that has sprung up around me on WordPress is as good as it gets. I like that you write to me. Some of you disapprove but you can’t get everybody to love you all the time.
Those of you who wanted the coyote to rip my throat out…well, it didn’t.
I called my friend Zach and I said, what kind of gay are you? By the time he replied I had lost interest.
I don’t want to know what sort of gay he is. I want to know who I am.
I tried to make gay films for a gay male audience…specifically, unapologetically. We need to see ourselves as we really are. We need to champion the language and locations of our lives as well as be critical of our bad choices, challenge our culture…reveal it, understand our politics..the differences as well as the similarities.
I loved making gay films, I loved travelling the world…meeting you in cinemas on every continent, in every major city. I like meeting you, eating with you, sleeping with you.
You were very accommodating!
Recently, I have been tempted by the mass market.
I had a meeting with a well-known, important producer about my Surrogacy film. Even though he was moved by the story he said that the story would be much improved if I could somehow incorporate a straight man’s perspective. He thought a latino character would complicate the story.
He was part of the problem…not the solution.
His ‘take’ was woefully un-evolved. Shame based.
At first I was irritated then it nagged at me: the suggestion that a regular audience could only identify with us if we sympathised with them.
I have sympathised with straight characters in movies all my life. I have gone out of my way to understand their lives and loves. I have walked in their shoes.
We all do.
I don’t think my producer friend is very interested in me. He wasn’t interested in the film or the rare books he came to see. I think he was interested in the twins. Why shouldn’t he be? It amuses me that he would have made so much effort to accommodate me when all he had to do was take Robby’s number.
Of course he has more to offer Robby than I ever could. Robby would be a fool not to capitalize on that friendship.
Korda Marshall borrowed and broke the rare and valuable Venini vase that The Duchess of Argyll had given me. Now he is rich I wrote to him asking him to replace it. He did not reply to my email.
Robby is very special, he has a quality that may not get him modeling jobs but…and I rarely say this, may make him a star.
I felt that about Tom Hardy. He used to be such a brat. I had a very ‘loud chat’ with Tom in Soho House, London years ago about his excessive drinking. He heeded my advice and gave up. Then, a year or so later, he thanked me for telling him the truth. A truth few dared to tell him.
In actuality I just repeated what Anthony Hopkins told me Lawrence Olivier had said to him about his drinking when he was a young actor at The National Theatre.
It seemed to work.
Pink (Alecia Moore) told me that the hardest thing she ever had to do was ditch her band. The label wanted her and not the band. They were her best friends. She had to tell them as if it were own choice.
We all abandon those who helped us at the beginning. We have to make hard decisions in life if we are going to get on. Leaving our best friends behind so that we might succeed. It is the secret story behind every Hollywood success. Those that got left behind.
Lastly, from one of my personal heroes British gay activist Peter Tatchell:
“TheUK establishment is quick to condemn rioters. Yet, the police took bribes & failed to investigate phone hacking. No officers jailed. Cash for knighthoods & peerages. No one jailed. MPs abused expenses system. Only a few jailed. Editors bribed police. None jailed. Priests raped kids. No jail for most. Army killed & tortured civilians in Iraq. Soldiers not jailed. British elite = hypocrites. No right to moralize.”
Did you ever play Monopoly? Do you remember winning? An embarrassment of riches. Did you ever cheat? Letting your friends stay at your hotel on Park Lane for free because you wanted the game to go on? The thrill of being benevolent, philanthropic?
Did you enjoy forcing your enemies off the board. Did you learn about risk, acquisition, luxury?
Whenever I won the game of Monopoly I felt badly. It gave me no pleasure bankrupting my friends.
The game ends when one player takes total control of the bank and the board.
We are witnessing in the USA the end game. A few men and women who have won over all the rest. They have trillions of dollars. Some have acquired this cash from (amongst other things) war profiteering. From private prisons. From bloated healthcare costs. From gouging oil, gas and utilities. Stealing directly from the people.
The rich pay for laws to protect their interests, the rich consider the rest of us expendable.
Their riches and how they acquired them have not gone unnoticed.
In London, the people know something is up with the system. They couldn’t articulate what is wrong…because we have deliberately kept these people stupid. They just needed an excuse to act upon their frustration.
They have an inkling that they might be able to throw the Monopoly board in the air. Fuck the winner. I’m taking mine.
The rich have some serious thinking to do.
It is all very well to take all the money but what use is it when the cities are burning?
The rich must surely know that their ‘hard work’ and ‘good fortune’ without paying fair taxes is destroying their country…perhaps the world. It has not gone unnoticed. For that is the way of humanity. The people wake up and disparity is challenged.
Cameron said: “In the banking crisis, with MPs’ expenses, in the phone-hacking scandal, we have seen some of the worst cases of greed, irresponsibility and entitlement. The restoration of responsibility has to cut right across our society.”
The leader of the opposition agrees!
At last. An intelligent, cross party reaction to the shopping with violence that devastated London and other British cities.
Times they are a changing.
Solution is hard. What can any government do to put the pieces of society back together when it seems irreparable? Blame is frankly irresponsible, context is key.
Is it impossible to teach young people how to respect the established order when the established order is revealed to be corrupt? Respect cannot be forced upon our youth. As much as this breaks my heart to write: we must listen to those thugs and vandals.
Now, I am not interested in sitting down with a bunch of dim-witted, inarticulate youths. They have nothing to say that will teach me anything. Their actions, however, must be respected and understood.
There is no boot camp, army training, national service, prison that will change these young men and women. We have created monsters. We have given them false hope, rancid dreams, easy money.
They do not aspire to anything more than gadgets and fancy trainers.
Their limited aspirations are shocking to someone like me. Gadgets and trainers. Good God.
When Bagdad was sacked the youth took really valuable antiquities from the museums. They seemed to understand the value of their culture. Perhaps we are what we steal?
Rampaging through a city, stealing, breaking and screaming….takes a certain amount of guts. Physically challenging an army of police officers. Their actions must be understood.
We will never return to a time when young people respected their elders, the establishment, society and themselves. That time never existed. Young people have always and quite rightly challenged the status quo.
I’m glad Cameron mentioned the banks. Nobody would do that here.
The more I dwell upon the bank bailouts in the USA the more I realize just how catastrophic it was for the American People. Cauterizing the banking crisis with huge amounts of cash rather than letting those institutions fail has proved very problematic. It confused the message of capitalism. It undermined capitalist principles and laid bare the lies of successive US governments.
Mostly it disheartened those of us who understand that change is imperative for growth.
If the banks had been allowed to fail a new order would be established. A power shift. Other men would hold the reins. New ideas would have flourished. Capitalism would have sorted it out all on its own. Where there is weakness others come to make good. New opportunities revealed for the brave. The next generation of fearless entrepreneurs would have made themselves known.
By bailing out the banks we merely hold on to what we know rather than doing what humans are best at…striking into the unknown.
Does the USA deserve it’s AAA credit rating? Does it matter? I heard many times that Americans, after losing their AAA rating..had their self-esteem knocked.
America’s self-esteem exists in a putrid vat of delusion and self aggrandisement.
I am told over and over again that the US economy is the largest in the world. That may be true but somehow the people have become confused. They tell me that their police, fire department, health system etc. is the best in the world. We are the best at everything. We are the champions of the world. My army keeps you free.
I keep my mouth shut.
It is obvious to those of us who have lived in many different countries that this simply is not true.
I often tell the gays in this blog to get off their asses and break some windows if they want to see change in their country. I am scolded for doing so. Government is petrified of insurrection, rebellion, people on the streets.
David Cameron and the leader of the opposition have impressed me with their willingness to understand what is happening in Britain. Commentators, baffled by the violence, murder and mayhem are trying to work it out. It just didn’t make any sense. Now it is.
The British, like the French are good at letting their frustrations boil over onto the streets. It is part of the fabric of our lives. It sends messages, good and bad, to everyone who complacently enjoys a peaceful life. That peaceful life cannot be taken for granted. Peace, harmony, respect, order…they are earned together.
Together we create society so together we must find solution if we are to keep what we value.
P.S. Yesterday the beautiful deaf boy came to the house and came over my chest.
So happy that it reopened after the fire that took it out a year ago. Great food, lovely people, delightfully limited menu. We ate goat stew. We ate delicious flat bread. We ate home-grown tomatoes and burrata.
Party at Gabe’s. Sat by the fire talking to a beautiful surfer with long blond hair and thick thighs.
Finally, this beautiful army man blew his brains out because he thought no God would ever forgive what he had done to others in Iraq. Very sad.
Sunday morning, Malibu. You understand don’t you that I have not been to an AA meeting, therapy or spoken with my sponsor…not properly, for a week or so? It leaves one feeling quite raw.
I should devote myself to healthy choices this week.
Joe left yesterday afternoon. Back to NYC. A friend popped over for dinner last night. I made the most delicious Italian feast. We had a cuddle. He left.
Totally forgot all about the party I was meant to be going to yesterday. Instead I hung around in Hollywood. Met a bunch of cool, young Hollywood types who shared their Obama disillusionment.
How in hells name will he turn this around?
Obama is fucked, the liberals have been fucked over.
How will he turn this around?
He can’t, it’s too late.
If only he would grow some balls, stop goofing around, stop reminding people that he is President. Tap dancing when he should be banging heads together. Somebody should remind him that he’s not a contestant on Dancing With The Stars.
Can you imagine what’s going on in the White House? Obama looks petrified. Overstretched, isolated, mocked. When he speaks I can barely listen. Continually grasping for the flayed notion that consensus politics will save him…us. Grinning inanely.
When CNN anchor Don Lemons suggested to me at dinner that “Obama was frightened of white people.” I was shocked. But, I’ve seen it in Obama’s eyes. Lemons was right. He’s frightened of everything. The most ill-equipped man ever to preside over the free world.
Who is running this country?
If you’re wondering why we are still sending drones into Afghanistan? Perhaps it’s because Obama has no control over the military. If you are wondering what happened to his inspiring oratory? Realize that even his speech writers have deserted him.
I wonder what he promised Geitner to stay by his side? A penis enlargement?
If you are a liberal who is sick of watching Obama partying and quipping when your country is falling into a fascist abyss…demand that he is replaced by Hillary.
The Clintons, after all, have already stolen the money.
What will come next? I urge you to worry. Especially my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters. There is a real and present danger that we cannot, must not ignore. Perry and Bachmann have every chance of being elected.
There will be a time, very soon, when you will start taking this threat seriously. You will set aside your hook-up sites, your apple martinis, the marriage sop you take for granted, the liberal air that you breath…and remember this:
In the 1920s, homosexual people in Germany, particularly in Berlin, enjoyed a higher level of freedom and acceptance than anywhere else in the world.
However, upon the rise of Adolf Hitler, gay men and, to a lesser extent, lesbians, were two of the numerous groups targeted by the Nazi Party and were ultimately among the 6 million Holocaust victims.
Beginning in 1933, gay organizations were banned, scholarly books about homosexuality, and sexuality in general, were burned, and homosexuals within the Nazi Party itself were murdered. The Gestapo compiled lists of homosexuals, who were compelled to sexually conform to the “German norm.”
Between 1933–45, an estimated 100,000 men were arrested as homosexuals, of which some 50,000 were officially sentenced. Most of these men served time in regular prisons, and an estimated 5,000 to 15,000 of those sentenced were incarcerated in Nazi concentration camps.
It is unclear how many of the 5,000 to 15,000 eventually perished in the camps, but leading scholar Ruediger Lautman believes that the death rate of homosexuals in concentration camps may have been as high as 60%. Homosexuals in the camps were treated in an unusually cruel manner by their captors.
After the war, the treatment of homosexuals in concentration camps went unacknowledged by most countries, and some men were even re-arrested and imprisoned based on evidence found during the Nazi years.
It was not until the 1980s that governments began to acknowledge this episode, and not until 2002 that the German government apologized to the gay community. This period still provokes controversy, however. In 2005, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the Holocaust which included the persecution of homosexuals.
Only three weeks until I am yet again due in Family Court to fight the spurious accusations, lies, falsehoods from that dwarfish, dishonest man who lied his way into my life, my wallet, my heart and my underwear.
This vile fame-whore will rip me out of paradise.
Some cheap liar who had devoted every day of his 30 years to deception.
When he saw me on TV he merely saw his next victim.
Someone else he could use in his war against a woman he said he loved. Risking her health, her sanity. Someone I heard blaming for his shortcomings. He was so angry with her that she didn’t see things his way. A woman who had blindly believed in her man, who will never do so again.
The bigger problem when you let a liar into your life…you end up never trusting.
Every man I have subsequently met I have looked upon with suspicion.
If YOU have had experiences of spurious restraining orders or false orders of protection let me know by emailing me on [email protected] or leaving a message here. If you want to come to court in NYC and support me on the 8th September 2011, let me know.
If you want to cover this story for your gay publication…let me know.
If you have been fucked over by an ex, lied to, cheated to, infected with HIV by someone who said they were clean…if you have never had recourse to get revenge. Let me know.
Men or women.
Let me know.
If you are sick of keeping quiet about the way gay men…men treat each other or women.
Let me know.
Dan Savage‘s It Gets Better campaign may save teens from killing themselves, but what next? We don’t treat each other very well. Sometimes I think that Better than Death is not good enough.
I used to have compassion for that man. I used to make excuses for him. I stayed up waiting for him to call. Worrying about him. I urged him to tell her the truth. I convinced him that the truth would set him free. Until recently I thought he should be forgiven. Some people can never be forgiven.
He may have learned his lesson, maybe he tells the truth nowadays? Regardless, he has unfinished business. We need to deal with it. Some day soon the truth will be revealed.
Orders of Protection are well-known for inflaming benign situations, creating malignancy where there was none. He has done just this. The cells of resentment, hatred and revenge are multiplying before my very eyes.
Hey..and before you lecture me about how stupid I was to fall for him. That he was just a 30-year-old kid…look at the men who are killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Teenagers. If you think that love has logic? Take a look in the fucking mirror and tell me you haven’t done the same. Before you advise me to let go of my resentment, tell me why I should. This may be eating me alive but that’s better than being dead.
He could have killed me.
Before I get advice from angels…take your own inventory. Your own moral pulse.
P.S. No, I don’t have HIV but I hear plenty stories of men who have been cheated out of their negative status by lying queens. Just another thing our fucked up gay community wont talk about.
There is something very heartening about the British reaction to what can only be described, but is rarely described, as an insurrection.
What of it? This insurrection? Who understands it?
Look at what The British have experienced recently: A corrupt government in league with corrupt media billionaires who in turn corrupt the police and the establishment.
Nothing can be trusted.
Phone hacking and police bribes may be more the cause of this rebellion than the death of a black cabbie.
The mess at the top sends a distinct message to those at the bottom that society is rotten.
I heard a young white British girl telling a reporter in Birmingham that she ‘hated the police’ because they did not ‘respect’ her.
“Why should I respect them, they don’t respect me?” She sneered.
Why indeed? She may have nothing that you or I think worth respecting. But she lives in a country where her government and the police are known thieves and liars. Where bankers have looted the system, bankrupted the country and she is being asked to pay. To tighten her belt.
She feels disrespected. She has a point.
Of course, it takes an old white man to say what that young, female heathen could never articulate.
Like many young, white people she is not eager to get on her knees and scrub floors, look after the smelly elderly, drive a bus. She wants the Simon Cowell dream of instant riches. A hidden talent that may earn her legitimacy.
She wants to win the lottery so she can be more like the Beckhams. She wants to be Catherine Middleton and marry into a powerful family that is paid by the state to do nothing.
She has forgotten just how lucky she is because she wants stuff more than an attitude of gratitude.
The streets are teaming by night with angry black and asian men threatening the police with sticks. By day the same streets are being swept by jolly middle-aged white women wanting to restore order.
Today my friends on Facebook are finding humor where there is no obvious answer.
At the Michelin awarded restaurant The Ledbury in Notting Hill Gate the rich cowered in the wine cellar as the looters came, stealing their money and their jewelery. The looting continued on Sloane Square. They rampaged over the thick carpet in Prada and Burberry, places that they could never hope to afford, leaving mannequins on the pavement like broken people.
What of this rebellion? How could it be? Why in London? Why in Britain?
This is not a racially motivated rebellion. This is about greed. Taking what we want when we want it. Instant gratification. It has no focus other than greed. These people have no political agenda. The are not trying to wrest control of government.
This is a rebellion. A refusal of obedience and order. It may evolve into a mass non-violent resistance, it may attempt to destroy an established authority such as a government…but it wont.
“I can’t afford it, I will take it.” It is the scourge of capitalism. The ‘haves’ must prepare to either give a little or lose the lot. The ‘have nots’ are beginning to find out how powerful they are…armed with clubs and their Blackberry.
Don’t be complacent America. This will happen here too. Sooner or later the desperately poor will take back their power and you will see what I have been suggesting since the beginning of the banking crisis: the people will speak. They will not be polite.
The difference here will be that any rebellion will be bloodier than our tame British street brawls. It will be more like Syria. Many dead.
Insurrection is as much a part of civilised society as the peace that reigns between. The ruling class have had it easy. They have looted from the poor and now the disenfranchised will have their say.
98% of the wealth owned by 5% of the people. Seeing images of the British on their streets stealing what they cannot afford may inspire Americans to do the same.
In Britain the police were woefully unprepared, armed or organized to protect what we consider important. The British police scarcely lifted a finger as the people came and took what they wanted.
The enemy for The British and The Americans are not in caves in Afghanistan they are in the trailer homes, homeless shelters and squalid broken cities like Cleveland and Detroit.
They are the casualties of a class war waged upon them by the rich. They will tell us eventually, the poor, this simple fact: We can’t earn it…we’ll take it. When they come they will take what they want and they will not take hostages. Not here. They will come into our shops and our restaurants, our homes and our cars.
They will come because they are desperate and we do not respect them.
Such delight and disdain it has caused. Such heartache and joy! Thanks readers. Thanks.
Duncan x
There’s almost too much going on inside and outside of my head.
Firstly, the garden. Every day for the past few weeks I have worked in the garden. Pulling tons (literally) of weeds and leaves out of the flower beds. Reclaiming the paths. Defending the vegetables from the gophers and rabbits.
I have planted Datura and Hibiscus. Salvia, basil, onions, beans and tomatoes.
A bumper crop of plums this year!
For the first time in 4 years I managed to get to them before the birds.
Have hooked up a pump to the spring water reservoir. It’s located at the bottom of the garden, now watering parts of the estate I can’t usually justify irrigating with expensive, potable water.
The previous owner built the two huge tanks. Until last week I just hadn’t gotten around to buying the small, inexpensive pump. Absurd isn’t it?
Having this free supply of water means that I can clear part of the garden and lay turf which in any other situation would be immoral, irresponsible.
Everything in a tropical garden has spikes or thorns or needles. My hands are cut to ribbons. Robbie has been here twice this week helping me and his arms and legs, poor thing, are shredded too.
Dinner last night with Anna and Jeff at Nobu in Malibu.
Apparently I was mentioned in passing by Derek in the ‘A’ List last night. I can’t imagine that I will escape lightly from this situation. I am perfectly sure my posing as the ‘Mister Big’ will make me the laughing-stock of Gay New York.
Whatever.
The weather in Malibu is perfect. Hot as hell in the sun but a delicious sea breeze blowing onshore.
The crows are hunting chicks. They bombard the trees. Tiny dead chicks on the paths. So sad.
I took the picture at the head of the post last weekend at the Piette’s. Their house is soooo depressing. Even though it’s located on the lake and the twins are living there now. It’s so dark inside at night. Gloomy.
You know what? I should be getting on with something else. I should be leaping all over my novel. I should be writing the film. You know what it’s about don’t you?
Two gay men want a baby but end up with an old man instead.
This was one of the videos Charlie and I shot when we were researching our film.
Trans Alexis, The Scarlet Empress, must be in her 80’s. She was at Triangle House, a home for elderly gays and lesbians in Hollywood. Getting old is a pain in the ass for everyone but elderly gays seem to find it particularly difficult. Most of the men and women at Triangle House have endured homelessness. Old age, as they say, is not for the faint hearted.
Lesbians, apparently, don’t seem to end up so isolated but gay men do. Lesbians are often dialed into an extended family of other lesbians and are less ageist.
Anyway, I’ll write more about Alexis and our film which maybe should be a documentary.
I don’t know.
The elder gays we met were really quite wonderful. The gay men we met who had surrogate children or were going through the surrogacy process were less wonderful. Downright awful in fact.
Robby is on his way over to help me in the garden.
Is Toby right? Do I live in the past? Am I addicted to what was rather than what is or what could be? Fuck. Maybe he’s right?
Amy Winehouse is dead. It comes as no surprise. She was an out of control drug addict and alcoholic. She dies alone. She died an addict. I am sorry for her family. It is always the family that has to pick up the pieces and go on living. Amy did not choose life. She sneered at the prospect. She thought she could get away with a dance with death. She failed.
My friends Michael and Yaniv who are visiting from New York very sweetly invited me to lunch there yesterday.
I loved their room which has a nice, easterly view over the Hollywood Hills and a huge bathroom.
Lunch was less charming.
According to the verbose London Hotel website:
“Gordon Ramsay has recreated the Hollywood culinary scene, with dining inspired by the sunny, savvy and social setting of L.A. From his Michelin-starred signature restaurant and casual bistro, to private, poolside and in-suite dining, cuisine is truly superb, highlighting California’s fresh abundance of produce.”
The luxurious appointment that was The London when it first opened is no more. The faux suede walls, the marble foyer, the topiary…has dated incredibly quickly.
The poolside dining was a disgrace.
The astro turfed roof looks a mess. It looks unkempt. The tables strewn rather than arranged. The staff uniform one step away from Macdonald’s, with the ubiquitous polo shirt and a hideous recent (?) addition…a huge corporate name tag stamped in shiny silver and black plastic pinned haphazardly onto the waitresses grubby white outfit.
We ordered from the polite and attentive young waitress, two salads and one burger.
Gordon must agree that the Devil/God is in the detail. So, whenever I am in any of his restaurants my expectations are high. Surely his personal standards should be greater than those he insists of his hapless TV show victims.
Am I being unreasonable?
Like going to the theatre or a movie, when I sit down in any restaurant I don’t go looking for trouble. I want to be delighted. Especially when my lunch is being paid for.
Unlike a movie or the theatre, however, when I sit down to eat it doesn’t take much to please me. I have never walked out of a restaurant half way through a meal whereas I often leave the theatre/cinema huffing and puffing with disgust.
Authenticity delights me. Generosity too. Appropriateness thrills. Detail is everything.
It was an uncomfortable experience.
The table and chairs were crammed behind an immovable planter. Three big men at a very small table. We were all a little surprised that the condiments were served in ugly plastic sachet.
We ordered drinks.
My Arnold Palmer was far too tart. Too much lemon and not enough iced tea.
We had loads to talk about so waiting a little bit longer for our lunch didn’t seem to matter.
When Yaniv’s burger finally arrived the bun was crushed. It looked cheap. It looked unloved. The miserable burger sat forlornly on the plate. Instead of fries it was served with a tiny cup of chips (crisps).
My skirt steak salad was pathetic. The undressed salad of various leaves including raddiccio dwarfing the tiny amount of steak. No ‘abundance of Californian product‘ here.
We thought better of desert.
We ordered coffee. Yaniv was amused to note that every sugar sachet bar one was empty.
It served as a fitting metaphor.
The experience of being at The London West Hollywood looks like it might be full of surprises but ends up an empty promise.
BTW the London Hotel website ‘poolside lunch’ menu is inaccurate as of 21st July 2011.
We drove to Santa Monica where we met the gorgeous Jeff. Ate a late dessert on Third Street. Wandered around the new Santa Monica Place. Walked to the beach where we watched my friend Armand, as nimble as a monkey, work the rings.
Went home to dogs who were delighted to see me and bounced around crying with pleasure.
Must make coffee. I have desk work to do today. Need to write to Jake’s lawyer re iPod incident.
Why? Because there wasn’t enough evidence to convict her.
Even though Nancy Grace seems to have witnessed the murder with her very own eyes she was loathed to take the stand and tell the jury what she saw.
Even if Casey Anthony was partying (according to an amazed Drew Pinsky) after her child went missing we can’t send someone to the electric chair for being insensitive.
Justice was served in the case that was presented to Casey’s peers.
If Nancy Grace and Drew Pinsky are outraged by the jury’s decision perhaps they should talk with the police or the prosecutors who failed to find any evidence that linked Caylee’s death to her mother.
Nancy Grace was outraged that Casey referred to herself as a celebrity even though Nancy Grace caused Casey Anthony to become one.
It is notoriously difficult for celebrities to be convicted.
If they had just left this trial alone, this morbid story, the jury might have convicted.
If they had left this woman to her own fate rather than trying to shape it for us all like so many bad soap operas and by doing so creating a celebrity who can now demand a million dollars per interview…justice may have been served.
There is no hope of a fair trial in the USA whilst uninformed, bigoted people like Nancy Grace are allowed to say what ever they want to say…creating a celebrity firestorm in their wake.
A baby girl was murdered. It is very sad. It is sadder still that due to an unregulated media justice may never be done.
