Tag: California

Categories
Hollywood Rant

London Hotel West Hollywood

Really!  What has happened to the London Hotel West Hollywood?

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.

Categories
art

Toby Mott at Honor Fraser Gallery

I am at The Honor Fraser Gallery on La Cienega.

My old friend Toby Mott is hanging his show Loud Flash: British Punk on Paper.

While the Sex Pistols and the Clash wreaked havoc on Britain’s pop scene, their disciples were busy with glue and scissors, channelling punk’s energy and DIY spirit into hundreds of posters, fanzines and sleeve art.

Toby’s exhibition brings back these lost classics of the revolution.

Later on in the day Punk Archivist Bryan Ray Turcotte joined Toby at the gallery.  Bryan wrote the best-selling Fucked Up and Photo Copied.

Backdrop courtesy of Bridget Riley.

Honor Fraser Gallery, 2622 S La Cienega Blvd, Los Angeles, California 90034

Categories
art

Numbers

43 minutes to write this post.

14 days left to enjoy this month.

33 days until I face The Penguin in the court.

83 degrees at the beach club.

811 emails from him.

16 days left in California.

7 is a beautifully directed film.

10 feet of Bougainvillea to chop down.

3 loads of organic matter carried to the end of the drive for composting.

7 dollar sandwich for my lunch.

3 dolphins swam past us as we lay on the beach.

1 of the twins helped me with the garden.

4 of us sat in the sun.

23 dogs past us as we sat in the sun.

9 minutes to write this so far.

2 visitors from LA.

460 dollars owed to a renter.

6 months on the market and I didn’t sell the house.

13 years spent in my last house.

3,582 blog views on my busiest day.

531o days sober from drugs and alcohol.

2 days content.

1 day is all I need to think about.

24 hours is all I need to get through.

10 pages a day.

1402 Facebook friends.

90 days I want of sexual sobriety.

1 room with a perfect view.

Categories
Malibu

Robby!

Robby, the twin that hung around in the womb a full twenty minutes longer than Miles is urging me to go to breakfast at the bottom of the hill.  It is 9am and it is already very hot here in Malibu.

The dog is sprawled on his bed in the sun.

Miles is on set somewhere nearby.

Last night Armand popped in and we took Robby’s car and had dinner at Dukes.  Dukes, the restaurant of little culinary interest at the bottom of the hill.  Why?  Mainly because I found one of the waiters attractive.  I met him in Starbucks last week and he told me that he would ‘hook us up’.  I didn’t eat anything because the food looked so rancid.  They had burgers and Caesar Salad and calamari and beer.

We were not hooked up.

Yesterday afternoon, after my long walk with Miles down Rambla Pacifico, my Australian friend Daniel turned up with a bottle of white wine.  I poured him a glass and looked at it longingly.  Crisp white wine on a warm Californian afternoon.

We have many friends in common in Sydney and it was so nice to hear all the news.  I am sure if I just looked on Facebook I could have found out for myself but it was lovely listening to him tell me all about everything and everybody…the weather and the burgeoning Australian economy.   The drought has ended, the reservoirs are full.

We headed into Malibu where we ate lunch at the Deli.  The once very fat man who runs the Deli has lost 130lbs just by NOT eating white bread.  He looks so much happier.

After lunch, as we were wandering around the absurdly priced shopping Mall, a beautiful man with a bleeding dog begged me to tell him where the vet was.  His beautiful labrador had been bitten in her face by a Rattle Snake. My worst nightmare.

I pointed him in the right direction.

He had been sucking the poison out of her face.  I hope she survived.

Armand stayed long after I went to bed.  Teaching Robby how to use his synthesiser.

This morning I squeezed fresh grapefruit from my tree.  Ruby red.  Delicious.

Categories
Health

Heat Wave

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Gorgeous day here in Malibu.  Another day on the beach with the twins.  They are dragging me out of the house and making me laugh.  More to come.   A heat wave with record-breaking temperatures.  I may go into rehab sooner than I thought.  Long chat with therapist/admin at Pinegrove Mental Health Facility in Hattiesburg Miss.

The film is progressing.  We have a title at last.

Categories
Rant Rehab

rain, rain, rain…

The heaviest rainfall Southern California has ever recorded. 8.5 ins last night.

The road to my house is impassable, strewn with boulders fallen down the mountain and smashed on the road. So…no go to the house. Thankfully, the roof was repaired exactly one day before the storm so even though my house is probably, at this very moment, sliding into the ocean…at the very least it will be dry inside.

I am staying with J and J and their lively children. Their lake overflowed and I had to wade through sewage water to my ride…where to? You may very well ask! Where would I be off to on such a rancid day?

We throw ourselves even harder into helping others when we cannot shift our stinking thinking. So, with this in my nutty mind, I volunteered as a night carer in a sober living in Malibu. Awake all night, chatting with recovering addicts.

This morning I felt loads better. A bit tired.

There is nothing better than helping those who cannot help themselves.

Look!! Loads of people searching for JB on the internet! Whatever for?

JB…dear Oh dear.

This morning I spent a few moments looking at a picture of us together and I can still remember what it feels like to kiss him. From the very first to the very last. Pity that what I was kissing was such a cunt….and not in a good way.

JB!!! What have you done to me? I felt loved and complete. I will never feel like that again. Ever. Should I feel happy to have loved or resentful that I am never likely to love again?

Today…my spirits are high. Not as high as this tide tho.

Overflowing Lake
Categories
Death Whitstable

Tudor Tea Rooms Whitstable

You know how much I love Whitstable?  That would be one of my ‘weak tea‘ successes:  my relationship with Whitstable.

I love it there.  I know everyone.  We really know each other.  For good and for bad.

Well, today I received some very, very sad news.  My Mother‘s friend Carol who owns the Tudor Tea Rooms on Harbour Street…well..and this is terrible…her son Tony died.

Known affectionately as Wally to everyone who knew him, he was only 40 years old, tall, gentle, ran his mother’s business with aplomb.

When you order a pot of tea at The Tudor Tea Rooms you get a pot of tea made with loose tea and a strainer.  Quality.

We used to say that they served school dinners at the Tudor but we loved going in there.  Fire burning in the hearth all winter.  Closed on a Wednesday.  Real steak and kidney pudding with a thick suet crust.

Wally was killed during the day on the train tracks at the end of Glebe Way.  Struck by the coast-bound 11.22am Victoria to Ramsgate train just before 1pm.  I have no idea if he committed suicide or not.  That’s what people are saying but I really don’t want to believe it.

He was such a nice man.  Wally and his sister Sue had run that Tudor Tea Room since they were kids.  Since we were all kids.  Serving Steak and Kidney Pudding…opening the tea garden.  He was the sort of bloke you’d see in Prezzo Pizza Place with his young family.

As every Whitstable pub and every other shop front became yet another super chic gastro pub or seasonal/organic eaterie…the Tudor kept the same decor, the same menu, serving the same Whitstable us who didn’t want the bother of seared scallops or poached samphire.

My Mother and I saw Wally just a few weeks ago when I was home for Christmas.  He served us a good old-fashioned English roast.   My mother mocked me for drinking tea with my lunch…like ‘some one from a council house‘ she said.

He stood at the till and asked after my life in LA.  I felt embarrassed to tell him what my life was like in California.  What he didn’t know…what he could never have known…was what I was thinking that cold December day a week before Christmas:  that I would have quite easily traded my life in Malibu for a chance at running the Tudor Tea Rooms.

From where I was standing…his life looked perfect.

When I was a kid we would sit in the Tudor Tea Rooms and spy on Peter Cushing eating his poached eggs.

Poached eggs on toast.  Every day.

My mother accidentally pushed Peter Cushing off his bike one day when she was getting off the bus from Canterbury.

Anyway, Wally was killed on the railway lines.  The third person killed in the same spot in less than two months.  What’s happening?  What a waste of a good life, a sweet family man.  I feel for his wife and children, his sister Sue and his lovely mum Carol.

If you get the chance listen to this Jellybotty’s track, Peter Cushing Lives in Whitstable.

It mentions the Tudor Tea Rooms.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wpGPqWrjeQ].

Goodbye Wally.

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Categories
Gay Malibu

Paid in Full

It rained steadily all night.  This morning the sun is shining.

Yesterday stayed in almost all day.

Dinner at Frank’s Whitley Heights apartment.   Very little traffic on the 10.  There were ghastly British people who Frank had met randomly at another party.  I left early.   Food was good though.  He made some sort of Brazilian coconut chicken with rice.

Parking in Hollywood is shit.

I like Frank..even though his slimy British friends just wouldn’t stop talking about how much they had drunk the night before.  “So Duncan, why did you come to LA?”  I told them that Los Angeles had more AA meetings than any other city in the USA.  They looked baffled.  After a difficult moment of silent processing the Brit said, “Each to his own old chap.”   He really did call me old chap.

Before dinner this black kid from the deep south sang/warbled/yodeled a prayer.  I looked at my feet in HORROR.

Met JA at Soho House.  Drank espresso.   Miles arrived looking very dashing.  Saw Eugenio Lopez and told him about Steve Martin‘s book.  He was DELIGHTED and reported this to his friends.  “Steve Martin has written pages in his book about meee…tell them Duncan..tell them.”  I told them the Getty story.  Eugenio was with an older gentleman and a slobby boy whore who he scolded for putting his feet on the furniture.  Eugenio was wearing a black sequined jacket.  Seemed delighted that Martin had written about him.  Who wouldn’t?

I was going to hook up with some random dude from Grindr but he didn’t turn up on time so I left and we all (dogs) curled up alone in my big white bed.

Oh yeah, I forgot, Jerome (my next door neighbor) rented his house this weekend to a young couple who threw a huge, ornate wedding…could almost be described as baroque.   The ceremony took place in the garden.   You could hear the dreary, clichéd classical music…a good third of a mile away.  All the obvious shit mixed in with random film scores.  They probably couldn’t tell the difference between Ennio Morricone and Pergolesi.   Idiots.  A disparate group of badly dressed men and women gazing admiringly at this bride and this groom about to be locked in matrimony.

The dogs started barking during their vows.  I didn’t do much to stop them.  I didn’t want to hear their fucking vows broadcast over my quiet valley.  Obnoxious white, straight people.  A coalition of the entitled.

The party continues there today.  A simpering European party/events planner slimed around to the house like a huge slug..apologizing in advance for the noise.  Thank God this is a random event.  Events planners btw are always the worst kind of gay and always the dullest human beings on earth.  Who the fuck would ever find an events planner interesting?  Oh yeah, I remember.

JB sent the money he owed me.  Deal done.  Goodbye JB.

A fit black guy contacted me on Manhunt.  He wanted to fuck.  He asked if I was good.  I replied..does it matter?  Do I care if you think I am good at fucking?  I cum you leave.  I won’t be reading the reviews.

Categories
Rant

Meg Whitman

Meg Whitman has now spent nearly $200, 000, 000 of her own money on an election campaign to become California’s next Governor.   This is a woman who previously never voted in any election nor to my knowledge ever engaged in public life at any level either charitably or politically.

Perhaps for what she is best known will end up losing this election:  the treatment of her Latino housekeeper Nikki Dias.

Only yesterday Whitman said that nobody would remember Nikki Dias after she has been deported.  An undocumented worker who for 11 years worked tirelessly for one of the richest women in America.  Meg’s cavalier attitude toward Nikki has without doubt influenced the people and their opinion about Meg Whitman.

UPDATE:  Meg actually said “Come November 3rd nobody will care about Nikki Dias”

In these tough economic times most people can relate to disenfranchised Nikki Dias and not Whitman who spent as much as it costs sending 2000 California students to an Ivy League University…which is why Jerry Brown now has a 12% poll lead over the profligate, uncaring, miserable Meg.

By the way Meg 2010, smiling that big false smile your advisors have advised you to smile on TV simply isn’t working.  It looks absurd.

Come November 3rd everybody will be thinking/caring/remembering Nikki Dias because they know that the way you treat your staff may say something about the way you treat us.

Therapy at 7am.  Home by 8.30am.  I had a lovely time in my group this morning.  Felt strong and secure.  The sun is shining.  The Santa Ana’s are blowing.  Ashley is eating gluten-free corn flakes.

Dan Savage.  Hmmm.  Still not ready to eviscerate him.  Still researching.

My mother wrote this to me when she heard about the JB debacle/fiasco/upset:

Those who have never been wounded in love will never be able to say I have lived…because they haven’t.

I think that it may surprise some that I have a parent who cares sufficiently to say that she loves me and is as upset as any parent when her child suffers.

I know that she is there but I rarely call for help.  This health thing will be dealt with as I have dealt with any hard ball thrown my way..on my own.  Part of the sadness around him was that he seemed to dump me at the very moment I called for help.

For this very reason I loathe asking for help.  That I will be abandoned when I am most vulnerable.  His inability to help me selflessly when I needed it undoubtedly fueled my rage.  After all, I really tried to be of service to that boy.

The Bad Baby slept through the night.  He is still sleeping soundly.

OK.  Dan Savage and his It Get’s Better campaign.

This is difficult.  My primary beef with Savage is that he rejects that Sex and Love Addiction exists.   Surely it exists if self-diagnosed addicts say it exists?  Addiction is always self-diagnosed.  Acceptance is key?

Listen, my doubt about the ‘It get’s better’ thing is that for so many young men who come out it simply does not get better..because the community of gay men ready to accept these boys and girls is predatory, limited and frankly without morals.  What and where is our ‘community’?

Breaks my heart to write that.

What in hells name, outside of big cities, do we have to offer young gay men and women?   Younger gays, indeed like most young people, simply don’t relish the idea of being identified as different.

This is a country where difference is rarely celebrated and oft maligned.

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.