Categories
Malibu

Full Moon

Scintillating few weeks.  I am happy.  Even though I shouldn’t be.  I have no idea what is keeping me so buoyant…not smoking, not eating wheat, full moon, going to AA meetings?  I really have no idea.

So many little things are giving me a great deal of pleasure.

The ripe figs I picked yesterday morning, the aubergine and tomatoes, the trips into Beverly Hills with Robby.  The California sunshine, the hot nights, the pool lights that I managed to fix so the water glistens at midnight.

This too will pass.

The weather has been gorgeous, the company stimulating.  The future a glorious mystery…the past not jumping up at me like a badly trained dog.

A great deal is going on…but my energy is being used creatively.  Will let you know asap.

Anyway, just as you all seem to think I have vanished…

Here I am.

Categories
Health

AA Birthday

As I embark on my 15th year of sobriety are things as I imagined they would be?

Well…they are as they are.

In God‘s perfect world there is nothing I can’t handle.

I have enough.

Enough is all I have.

What was it like before I got sober?  It was a daily, living hell.

This is the day I that I yearly recommit to sobriety and this is the day that forces me to take stock and move forward unburdened.

The day where I take a thorough inventory, both good and bad.

Some things need left behind.  You know what I am talking about.

Some things need embracing.

Life needs to be lived.

For all the love/health/death/aggravation of the past year…today I am strong and secure.  Today.

It seems that although forgiveness is key…it is a hard thing to swallow.

Categories
Health

Inside Out

Breakfast with the beautiful Dane.

We stepped out of the restaurant for a moment to smoke and a young woman approached me.

She said, “I saw you on the show.  You’re very brave.”

I felt like a total fraud.

I wanted to tell her that since the show I have broken every rule, every principal I had ever committed or adhered to.   These past few moths I have run roughshod over all the progress of the past 13 years.

I feel like I am at square one.

Sure I didn’t drug or drink.  Sure it was brave of me to reveal myself on TV…but look at the trouble it has caused.  I let myself succumb to the vagaries of love.  With a chimp.

The beautiful Dane wanted to know what she was talking about.  I told him.  I suppose now he’ll see everything.  I wonder how he’ll feel about it?   Time will tell.

I love talking with him.  We talk and talk, his stories are riveting and compelling.  This is more like it.  He’s only 33.  Suddenly we are surrounded by people we know.  Friends we know rather than he or I.

Feel comfortable, relaxed and happy.

So happy I begin to cry, my nose stings, my eyes fill with tears.  I think about what Jon said when I first got sober in SAA.  He asked me to imagine what a relationship ‘looks like’ I cried then too.  I just didn’t think it was possible.  A healthy relationship with a healthy, kind man.  Then, by way of alcoholic sabotage, I proved to myself and the whole world that I was incapable of making good choices.

Enter The Penguin.  Exit The Penguin.

I am so happy to be in the bosom of AA.  Surrounded by men and women whose language I respect, whose journey I relate to.  Listen, there could be an argument made that every relationship I have ever had (except Matt) has been with active alcoholics/addicts.

Last night, after the poetry reading, I walked the dog…wrote this blog and went to bed.  I woke at 6am to arrange the apartment for the return of the decorators.   After our rather wonderful breakfast I caught a cab to JFK and am now on a plane to an undisclosed location for a couple of weeks in the sun.

I may have been brave (I was brave) when I told you all the truth about my childhood suffering but the consequences of being on that show have been very severe.  I would never in a million years have met or absconded with, danced with, dillied or dallied with that terrible man.  I would have remained ignorant of his ugly face, his dishonest world.  I would never have worshiped his stinking hole or kissed his lying mouth.

I would certainly never have risked losing my sobriety.  I came THIS close!

I would rather be single than take those risks again.

What does a relationship look like?  I don’t know if it exists.   Not because I am unworthy but because the damage has been done.   If only you could see it on my face like a burns victim.  If only you could see the ravages of child abuse on my face.

A relationship?  The damage maybe too severe.  I have to look at it like that.  The war is over but I am limbless, traumatized, impotent, angry.  There is nothing I can do other than STAY AWAY from normal human beings who say they love me.

They just can’t see.

They think I am healthy, able bodied, sane.  Until they uncover the truth.

For the time being I will stick to my own kind.  I am never lonely with my own kind.  I never have to kid myself when I am with my own kind.   My own kind never try and kid me.  They treat me carefully.

What does a relationship look like?  Well, it’s me, myself and I.   That’s all I can hope for.

That’s all I will ever need or be able to depend upon.

Remember, if you meet me, that I am covered in the most terrible scars inside and out.   You should think twice about getting involved.  Alcoholics seem to see the scars and hold out their hands so I can walk proudly amongst you…but don’t be deceived.

I am not what I am.

Categories
Fashion Gay Love Rant

Odious John Galliano Fired From Dior

I never met John Galliano.  Nope, never met him.  If I looked for him on FB, if he was even on FB, we would probably have buddies in common but to my recollection I have never actually pressed the flesh with John Galliano.

Love, love, love his women’s wear, never cared for the men’s line.

John Galliano!  The man is a fucking genius and a total KNOB.  He just did that gay, alcoholic cliché thing of totally sabotaging his entire career.

A genius, iconoclast, nihilist…alcoholic.

An alcoholic knob.  I mean…he just flushed that amazing career down the toilet.

He will lose everything.

Why do drunk, powerful people start in on the jews?   Mel Gibson..remember his anti-Semitic rant on the PCH outside Moonshadows bar?

In a brief statement, Dior said because of his “odious behavior” Dior has sidelined Galliano and initiated proceedings to fire him.

I just LOVE the word ‘odious’.

Galliano, in the video I saw of him in that super cool Parisian bar La Perle on the Rue Vieille du Temple…apart from looking totally PISSED (drunk) he reminded me of David Bowie playing the alien with no finger nails Thomas Jerome Newton in the Man Who Fell To Earth.

Lonely, beautifully dressed, politely out of control.

With great poise he told the people he was insulting that their ancestors should have been ‘gassed’.

Unlike Mel Gibson who was screaming anti-Semitic insults at the only jewish cop in the LAPD.

John…darling…lovey, you’ve come so far.  Humble beginnings…your dad was a plumber.  Want a solution?  Want to deal with your grandiosity?  Go to AA.  You don’t want to end up dead like Alexander McQueen or Isabella Blow?  Do you?

Go to AA based rehab.  FAST.

Alcoholics Anonymous was designed for people like you.

You probably don’t even remember your rant.

UPDATE

A sober speech by Christian Dior chief executive Sidney Toledano and a finale bow of applauding, white-robed seamstresses and craftsmen bookended today’s Dior fall-winter fashion show, which went ahead under the shadow of the anti-Semitic outbursts that led to the ousting of its couturier, John Galliano, earlier this week.
“It has been deeply painful to see the Dior name associated with the disgraceful statements attributed to its designer, however brilliant he may be,” Toledano said, in the only reference to Galliano, never mentioned by name. “What happened last week has been a terrible and wrenching ordeal for us all.
“So now, more than ever, we must publicly re-commit to the values of the House of Dior.”
The show, held in a giant tent in the gardens of the Rodin Museum, had little of the usual front-row hoopla, but the usual thumping music and army of models.
“What you are going to see now is the result of the extraordinary, creative, and marvelous efforts of these loyal, hardworking people,” Toledano said of Dior’s teams and studios.
As reported, Galliano is to stand trial this spring in a French criminal court on a charge of public insult after three people filed complaints alleging Galliano hurled racist and anti-Semitic remarks at them.
Galliano has apologized “unreservedly” for his behavior in causing any offence, assured “anti-Semitism and racism have no part in our society” and reiterated he denies the claims made against him and has commenced proceedings for defamation and threats made against him.

PARIS — The show must go on.

That seems to be the mantra at Christian Dior SA, which is soldiering ahead with the Dior fashion show today despite John Galliano’s dramatic ouster over anti-Semitic outbursts.

It is expected to be a straightforward affair, with little of the usual celebrity hoopla. News organizations have been instructed that photographers will have no access to backstage or the front row. That hasn’t stopped what Dior’s public relations battalion describes as “overwhelming” demand for invitations. (For more on the Dior brand, see page 6.)

According to sources, the attendance of luxury titan Bernard Arnault — typically flanked by glamorous Dior ambassadors such as Charlize Theron and French government figures — is not assured, owing to the tug of other business obligations.

Meanwhile, the John Galliano fall collection is to be presented on Sunday in its appointed time slot, but in a different format and venue. Sources said plans for a runway spectacle in landmark Left Bank brasserie La Coupole have been changed in favor of a tableau vivant format in a hôtel particulier. The designer will not be present.

Dior, which controls the John Galliano company, has yet to disclose its intentions for the business, now that its namesake designer is to stand trial this spring in a French criminal court on a charge of public insult after three people filed complaints alleging Galliano hurled racist and anti-Semitic remarks at them.

If found guilty, he could face six months imprisonment and a fine of 22,500 euros, or $31,207 at current exchange, according to the Paris public prosecutor. Galliano has apologized “unreservedly” for his behavior in causing any offence, assured “anti-Semitism and racism have no part in our society” and reiterated he denies the claims made against him and has commenced proceedings for defamation and threats made against him.

Dior initially suspended Galliano from his duties on Friday and then ousted him on Tuesday amidst the mounting allegations and an explosive video depicting the maverick designer saying in a slurred voice, “I love Hitler.” Dior condemned the statements made in the video and commenced termination procedures.

Galliano, a London-born wunderkind who was the creative architect of Dior’s rejuvenation, has been its couturier since 1996. Succession rumors continue to swirl in the hothouse atmosphere of Paris Fashion Week.

It is understood Dior is in no hurry — and is legally unable —to name a successor until it has completed its procedure to terminate Galliano’s employment.

Under French employment regulations, the procedure to terminate employees can go quickly for what is known as faute grave, a serious misdemeanor. If the reason for termination concerns a personal matter or incident off the company clock, it can take several weeks.

According to sources, Arnault’s various advisers are pitching a variety of candidates, among them Haider Ackermann, Hedi Slimane and Givenchy’s rising star, Riccardo Tisci.

Delphine Arnault, deputy managing director at Christian Dior and the daughter of the billionaire LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton chairman, is said to be a champion of Tisci. In a splashy cover feature in Madame Figaro magazine in January, Tisci coaxed Arnault to be photographed among five women said to be under his spell. (The others were Liv Tyler, Isabelle Huppert, Vahina Giocante and Lou Doillon.)

“There won’t be any choice for quite a while,” said one source familiar with the French luxury group. “They’re receiving offers.”

It is understood overtures have been made recently to Ackermann as a possible candidate for Dior, or to succeed Tisci at Givenchy, should he be moved over to Dior.

Approached at the Ann Demeulemeester show Thursday, Anne Chapelle, chief executive officer and owner of Bvba 32, which controls the Haider Ackermann brand, declined to comment, saying the focus for now should remain on Ackermann’s own show, scheduled for Saturday. Asked whether the designer would contractually be free to work for another house, should he be offered a role, Chapelle replied: “Everybody is free.”

As principals at LVMH hunt for a successor to Galliano, some are hoping to make a profit from their final decision. PaddyPower.com, the British online betting site, has odds on Stefano Pilati (11-8) or Hedi Slimane (9-4) getting the top job. The odds are lower, however, for Tisci (3-1). Meanwhile, Nicolas Ghesquière, Kris Van Assche and Roland Mouret are all tipped at 4-1. Alber Elbaz trails them with odds of 6-1. The site specifies that all bets apply “To the next permanent, top Dior Creative Director after John Galliano.” The person must be confirmed as a permanent appointment by the ceo of Christian Dior.

Categories
Malibu

14 Years Sober Today

There were many times when I was with him that I wanted to drink.  Not because I wanted to get drunk but because I wanted to be where he was.

I didn’t want to feel apart from him.  I wanted to share his experience.  Our experience as he experienced it.  Making love after a couple of glasses of wine.

Wanting so much to feel that warm glow that I remember being ever so slightly tipsy affords me.

So glad I didn’t.  Could you imagine giving up sobriety for him?  For anyone?  I shudder when I think about it.

The desire to fit in never really goes away.

So, yet again, fate has been kind.  I’m lucky to have escaped without totally ruining my life.  I’m telling you if I was drinking now I would never be able to deal with half of what is being thrown at me.

Even though we have been estranged.  My relationship with AA has really been the best thing that ever happened to me.

Even though I don’t want to believe it.

My relationship with LA AA has been particularly beneficial.

Going back to my 7am meeting in the Palisades.   That’s why I’ve been waking at 5am, write this blog then schlepping down the mountain to that little room.  It was the men in that room that persuaded me to move here to California.  After a couple of years of getting involved I stopped going.  The personalities there started to annoy me.  I stopped listening.  So, this time, I have been pretending I don’t know anyone.  Like it’s my first time.  Listening for the similarities, going back to basics.  Relearning the language of AA.

It has been a time of great reflection.  AA birthdays always make one think of how life might have been if I hadn’t stopped drinking.   Good God.   I was always so angry.  Every day.

My anger is so destructive.  I wonder if it has anything to do with that massive head injury I suffered when I was a kid?

Even though you might not believe it, I really hate me when I am angry (really hate me) and as you have seen these past few months I am not well served when I get angry.  Letting myself down like that.  Love, it seems, not only brings me sorrow but makes me very angry.  Angry is not the man I want to be.

My real father was a very angry man.  Not my step-father.  My real father was pathologically angry.  My step-father was just frustrated by me. If I hadn’t been around he would have been much calmer.  Probably.  There I go again, letting him off the hook.

So, I shall be off in a minute.  Making my entrance again with my usual flair.

I had my Manhunt date Number Seven last night.  It was lovely.  Let’s see what happens.  I told him about the blog and (you wont believe this) I decided that after this entry I wouldn’t write about what happens between us.  Do I wish I hadn’t written about Jake?  No, he deserved it.  To be written about.  But, I may have learned my lesson.  Some things just need to be not written about.

I’ll tell you this before I keep my mouth shut:

We walked up Abbot Kinney in Venice.  We ate at all the food trucks.  It was really, really sweet.

The house is now officially on the market.  First viewing today.  I am in two minds.  Part of me doesn’t want to sell.  Part of me is desperate to.  I will never have the opportunity to own such a gorgeous house ever again but buying a small place in NYC is perhaps a better idea.

Jerome popped by yesterday and said, “You have too much stuff.”

He’s right.

I spent a great part of yesterday getting rid of half of my books.  I now have a much leaner library.  Dictionaries gone.  Thanks internet.  Thanks Kindle.  Thanks new technology.  Thanks spell-check.

I am not the sort of person who hoards crap.  Everything I have is beautiful and could probably sell for exactly or even more than I bought it.

I love heavy, white linen.  When the house is rented I put colored sheets on the bed.  Now I live here full-time I have stripped off the dark green sheets and remade the bed with my freshly laundered, white Irish linen.

It is still dark.  Waiting for the dawn.  The light on my desk attracts moths.  Tiny little moths.  I crush them and put them in the bin.

A HUGE cricket just landed on my desk.

Categories
Health

Blank Cheque

Reading over this entry I am reminded that perhaps a more pious life might suit me better that a life devoted to intensity.  Piety, we tend to use the word pejoratively,  saying more about our Godless world than the idea behind the action.

Today I crave piety, humility, silence..

Tres Triste urged me to go into one on one therapy.  I will have nothing to do with that.  I am bloated on my experience of one on one therapy.

I am, however, recommitted to the rooms of AA.  I know that they understand because I am just like them.  One on one therapy obviously suits many people but I don’t trust doctors, I don’t trust therapists who profit from the misery of others.  I resent paying them.  That I become their blank cheque.  In fact, I resent paying all doctors because I come from a country where visiting a doctor is free.

AA is free.  For fun and for free.

The simple fact is: I chose to abandon the principles of AA during the last few months.  Not taking a drink is just a small part of what we do in those rooms.  The rest of the time we help and guide each other toward sanity.  During the past months I deliberately abandoned my principles and let my alcoholic head run the show.

Many people ask why I moved to LA.  It really had nothing to do with film making.  I came to LA to be closer to the rooms of AA where I found comfort, solace and peace.  I made friends and found an extended family of people who understood me, who were always willing to forgive…no matter what.   I felt as if I needed, as if I NEED a great deal of forgiveness.

After a few years I became disgruntled and disillusioned with AA and went to fewer and fewer meetings.  As I did so my mind became more and more confused.  If I do not do the work to keep me sane I very quickly unravel.

I believe in the power of AA.  It is a church. It is my church.  For all to see during these past months I threw away my sanity because I wanted to use..so I did.  I used HIM.  He is not even real.  He is a bag of coke, a bump of crystal, my works, my baggy, my bottle, my paraphernalia.   He is not real.  Do I miss him?  I miss him like a glass of Montepulciano.  Full bodied red wine that I secretly want to drink when that day comes…and it very well might.  Never take your sobriety for granted.

You think that I have been cruel but I needed him out of my life and sometimes keeping your dealers number is the way back to active addiction.  If I had not jettisoned him that day I KNOW what would have happened.  We would have remained friends, we would have hooked up, my head just could not take it.

I napalmed the poppy fields.

This morning I chatted with Tim about the past.  A place one tends to reinvent as one gets older. It is invigorating having him there at the other end of the phone/skype.  He is in Worcester waiting for his triple bypass.  We are both waiting to have our skin cut open and our insides messed with by experts.

We talked about the power of prayer.  Our spiritual lives.  I needn’t tell you how important a loving God is in ones life but even though I know that prayer really works I am loathed to pray just in case is doesn’t.

That even God might let me down.

There is no doubt what so ever that for the past few months I used another man as my drug.  Intensity, fixation, obsession etc. etc.  Remember when you spent your last cent on drugs? When the getting and using was your main focus?  Remember the risks you took?  I am a crazy addict.  Yet, it is somehow easier for us to understand a man who cannot say no to drugs than a man who cannot say no to his addiction to people.  It is a far more complex and ultimately destructive addiction.

I think you have all been my witness to that.

I crave a healthy relationship with people who ever they might be, lover, family member, friend, shop assistant, telephone banker etc.    I am powerless and my life becomes unmanageable.  I am powerless over people, places and things.  This powerlessness causes me such misery. Powerlessness, vulnerability, weakness of any kind cannot be tolerated and as you have seen…I will bring you down if you challenge who I am, get to the heart of me.

I don’t think I am so different from most of you?

Yet, I most definitely am.  I do not think like normal people.

The idea that somehow, someday I will control and enjoy my thinking is the obsession of every abnormal thinker.

That was a quote from Bill Wilson with the word drink switched out for think.

Wether you believe it or not the rooms of AA are filled with men and women just like me.  When we sit together sharing our similarities and not our differences then I become aware of the presence of God.

I have struggled with SAA.

There is a big difference between being an alcoholic and a sex/love addict.  Alcoholics share the experience of abstinence.  Sex addicts do not.  The differences between sex addicts, when we share our stories, are all too apparent.  The similarities..scant.  Where there are few similarities I find myself divorced from God.

As I have reported in earlier posts, as the years pass and ones last drunk become a distant memory I am forced to deal with other more pressing, more destructive addictions.

The consequences of my actions are all too apparent.  I have rampaged like a spoiled child through another mans life.  Regardless of his part in it..I have only myself to blame.  As I have said before, it is none of my business assigning blame or becoming an interventionist for others.

We all learn by our mistakes, by the lies we tell, by the havoc we wreak.

So, today’s prayer:  God, relieve me from the bondage of self.  Help me be kind.  Let me be present.  Let me tell the truth.

Bind me so my arms do not flail,  gag me so I cannot speak, shackle me so I cannot walk, lay me down in some quiet place so I do not think.

Categories
Malibu

Think Like Normal People

The house is rented for the week to nice sounding people from Texas.    They arrive at 1.

I am looking forward to spending what may be one of my last weekends in Hollywood.   I fill my suitcase with favorite things and return them to Malibu.

I am listening to BBC Radio Four, Gardeners Question Time.  One of my favorite programmes, the show was first broadcast in 1947.  My grandparents loved listening to it.  My mother loves it too.  I particularly enjoy listening to the advice of the more elderly gardeners they interview most weeks.  Softly spoken with thick regional accents. Even though I cannot take their advice directly because, of course, my high sierra garden is nothing like the lush, green gardens of England.

This morning they discussed string beans.

I often forget that I can tune in and listen to BBC radio live everyday.  It’s very reassuring listening to British news and opinion, current affairs and of course..The Archers.

Yesterday I trimmed the Bougainvillea around the terrace so one can eat breakfast and look over at the ocean.

I am struggling with my sad head, my achy balls, the move, the renovations and the house sale that I hope to make this year.

As for where next?  God only knows.

The door that regularly opened between me and my creative mind is jammed shut.  Barricaded by resentment.  It is obvious that a life which includes a deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness…

I am planning my trip to Australia.  The little dog will have to be in quarantine for 30 days and I fear that he will go mad without me.  I can visit him every day at the kennel but I know that he will hate it.  I would much prefer that he lived with someone he loved here whilst I am away.   Or..maybe I shouldn’t go.

Whilst I seem to report only the most catastrophic thoughts and feelings in this blog I am actually working hard in therapy to understand the consequences of my actions.  As a single man the consequences of watching porn, masturbation, hook ups etc, are few.   However, I had a delicious revelation at group therapy on Wednesday night.  I have struggled applying what I know to work in AA to my sex/love addiction.  I needed a key to unlock this conundrum.  Someone in the group shared that when he read the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous he replaces the word drink with think.  We have lost the ability to drink like normal people.  Becomes:  We have lost the ability to THINK like normal people.

I began to make my way through the Big Book replacing the word drink with think and suddenly began to totally embrace how I could make sense of my sex/love addiction.

Through the pain of the last few weeks as I hurtle away from Jake leaving him somewhere in the cosmos I have wilfully forgotten the solace I get from my commitment to sobriety in which ever form that takes.

Must remember to sweep the paths.