Tag: Chinatown

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
Gay

The Strengths I Imbue

After Stephen left yesterday afternoon for some appointment somewhere…I lay on the sofa and mulled over the days events.  One thing was certain, The Penguin no longer rents space in my head.

I kept marveling at how I had once found him so intoxicating.  I finally saw him as others saw him.  When Charlie said, “He wasn’t like anyone I had met you with before…”  I felt vaguely insulted.   “The boys you usually introduce me to are beautiful.”

Yet, Charlie was right.  My love for him made his fascinating.   The pictures I took of him made him look like a model.   The life I handed him.  The strengths I imbued.  When I took him to Paris all he brought with him was his mediocrity.

I realized that I had never seen him, in all the time we knew each other, with anyone other than my friends and family.  To see him interact with his parents was a revelation.  They looked at his iPad and laughed.  The sham, It might have worked if his Mother didn’t look so incredibly sad.  Amongst them The Penguin looked for all the world like the entitled brat who would think nothing of taking drugs to their house, using their kitchen as a porno web casting studio or telling them bare-faced lies.

Their ‘unconditional’ love created The Penguin.   I had hinted before that this may have been the case but just seeing them together confirmed my worst fears.

I suddenly understood Jessie’s fury in a way that I had never understood it before.

He wrote:

“Well, it’s over.  She came home, got me to confess a bit more truth–that i have had sex with men before–then after a lot of kicking, hitting and screaming, she kicked me out.  I took the train to my parents’ house, where I told my mom everything (my dad is out of town which made it all a bit easier actually), and she held me and told me it will all work out.  Jessie called her to make sure I’d gotten home, which gave me some hope that she might not hate me forever…but after she got home tonight it became clear that there is no going back.  She accused me of ruining her life, of being a deceitful sociopath, of being a bad person who she wishes she never met.  This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life.

 Part of me feels like I wish I’d never met you–your were a catalyst of sorts and without that catalyst everything right now would probably be as it was.  But I know that “as it was” was not as perfect as I wanted it to be, and beneath all the pain right now I know I did the right thing.  Thank you for guiding me towards the truth,,,you are so incredibly strong…I can hear it in your voice, your words.  I hope I can be as strong as you and I really want to thank you for being here for me.  I cannot fucking believe this happened today.  Love you a lot.”

The truth is:  he would never have ‘come out’ if I had not been the crazy man I am.  I had threatened to ‘un-pick’ his life and he knew that the truth had to be told.   I forced him to tell her the truth.

His lies made me physically sick.

Whilst he was with Jessie I wrote:

You are making me unhappy.  There is no fucking hope.

 I refuse to be the other person in your life whilst you selfishly shit on other people.

 It is not fair on any of us.

 I refuse to be the levelheaded guy who just puts up with you.   Then, when and if it suits you, you turn on and accuse of craziness.

 I can’t do it.

 Yes, today I felt fed up with you because I don’t trust you.  Why should I?

 Why should anyone?

 What the hell did you expect from this?  That I just have no feelings?  That we just fuck?   That you sit in your room and jerk off on camera and that was going to be enough for me?

 Jake, PLEASE stop living a lie.  Leave that poor woman.  Be single for a while then find a man to love.

 Please.

I think often about Jessie.  How he treated her.

Let’s talk about who I became yesterday.  I didn’t really like me yesterday.  I didn’t like the goose-stepping, mad man who took obnoxiously loud telephone calls in the court waiting room.  It seemed like I just had to be THAT GUY.  It seems like it’s the only way I know how to protect myself.

I was the wrong size when I left the court.  So it was that I had to get back to being the right size.   Not too big, not too small.

Alex called.  We had dinner at Angelica’s Kitchen.  I ate steamed vegetables.  We talked briefly about the day but I was done.  Done talking about The Penguin.

We fell into bed and I kissed him.   Everything felt so different.  Fresh.

Just two men in bed, two men in bed without any expectations.

I am on Fire Island this weekend house hunting for the summer.   Very excited.

http://http://www.nextmagazine.com/nexus/scene-heard-brian-rafferty-and-shawn-paul-mazur-give-royal-treatment-kings

Categories
Rant

The Penguin


Torrential rain.  Lightening.  Veselka.  East Village.  NYC.

Every day in NYC is unusual.  Most every day in LA is usual.  NYC, Paris and London are cities where one is forced to expect the unexpected.

So it was that yesterday, after I walked the dog, I made my way to China Town to find sulphur soap.  I popped into the Family Court to get a feel of what to expect next month.  Another tawdry location.   It takes a long time to file a petition.  It can take all day.  The Penguin must have sat in there for a long time.  It would have given him ample time to reflect on his shortcomings.

Again I had to walk up Varick St risking bumping into him.  The Subway at the back of my building must surely disgorge him every single working day.  I had a late breakfast with Pierre.  I met with my lawyer who was on sparkling form.    This evening we discuss strategy with the very expensive litigator.   The expensive, mean litigator.

The Penguin is forefront in my thoughts.  I spoke to Jill and Drew the day before yesterday when I was feeling less stable.  Thankfully I feel good again.  Apparently it often happens that TV people are ensnared by crazed fans.   Drew was so helpful.

I sat in the steam room for an hour.  On my own.  I lay naked on the black marble, sweating and groaning in pain from the searing heat then, enduring a different agony, under the icy cold shower.  My heart pumping.  I lay resting under thick, white towels.

I had lunch with handsome Philippe and at 6.30 I met Ross at cafe Gitane fresh from his weekend in Barcelona.  He is such a funny little dude.  We ate their ‘signature’ avocado on toast and I drank hot chocolate.  A drunk, homeless man started talking to us.  He must have been 70 years old.  He shook my hand.  He told me that he respected those who could care for a dog.  My patience for humans is worn quite thin.  My compassion for any dog is evident.

I had my head shaved at the barbers on 9th Street.  Boris trimmed my beard a little too extremely.  I look like a Spanish conquistador.  I wanted to look good for my trip up town.

UP TOWN!

I have not been north of 30th Street for many years.  Remember when I first lived in NYC I found myself on Columbus and 86th.   The day I arrived was the only time I ever saw a man raise a firearm in anger.   That was years ago.

I took a cab.  That part of town looks less salubrious than it did when I lived there.  A bit broken.  Dinner with an Armenian friend of my lawyers at a greek restaurant on Columbus.  Lamb shank.  It was passable but nothing special.  We had a nice time.  After dinner he showed me his apartment: a few rooms carved out of a giant mansion that was once very beautiful.  Thick architrave,  cornices,  creaking stairways.

I fell asleep on his bed whilst he collated his resume.  Woke up at 1am.

On a whim I decided to walk home.  I walked via the Ace Hotel.  Thumping music.  Pretty boys.   Pretty girls.

82 blocks to contemplate.   An 82 block contemplation.

I thought a great deal about what The Penguin and I will say in court.  I was torn between two stalls:  pity for the boy and derision.   The more one finds out, the more one realizes that he mixed a catastrophic cocktail of deception/desire and would not stop until he got what he wanted.

He chose the wrong man to fuck with.  His timid, delicate, winsome, coquettish facade masking the hard assed sociopath that lay within.  He compartmentalized his life: home, family, perversions/drugs/drinking.

If only I had been like the others and just seen things his way.  Poor boy, trapped in a heterosexual relationship that he didn’t know how to escape from.   That girl paid half his rent so he could live an East Village life, cheat on her with endless men.

My heart bleeds for him.

I kind of blame his hapless parents.  No…I do blame his parents.  They are not idiots.

Then, when I am done being angry, I imagine how embarrassed he must be that the whole world knows that he chose me of all people to come out to, to tell that he loved.  To be involved with.   What an idiot!

He doesn’t want you to see the picture I have of him sucking my cock.  My fat white cock in his mouth.

At least with most/all of my ex’s they were equally abnormal.

He wants to re-write the past so I am no longer in it.  The Penguin will even attempt to censor this blog, challenge my first amendment rights.  Tricky, if you work for a publishing house that must surely enshrine the values of FREE SPEECH.  Nice press angle…for me.

Dinner conversation inevitably turned to him.

Almost every gay will ask if his ex gf suspected that he was cheating on her, then congratulate him for an excellent piece of deception.

The view that all women are essentially worthless to gay men, indeed maybe even a threat…is a view commonly held but very rarely articulated.  The Penguin’s relationship with his ex ‘best friend’ (how do you treat your ‘best friend so?) was an excellent example of how gay men abuse women.

He had no regard for her.

One might say that all men who cheat are the same…but I am not interested in what heterosexuals get up to.  I am interested in the way gay men treat women.  Since interviewing so many of them for our film I understand better that gay men still have little or no respect for women.  They treat them like brood mares when going through the surrogacy procedure.  They are expunged from the surrogacy story.

They might have fag hag friends who dote on them but to me that is the most lethal symbiosis.  A no win situation.  Like marrying Jesus.

By the time I got home it was late, late, late.  I took the dog to the park.  I cadged a cigarette and smoked it.

The Penguin was bullied as a child for his short stature and beak-like nose.  His fingers are fused together, resulting in flipper-like hands.  He waddles like a penguin when he walks.  He was forced as a child to always carry an umbrella by his over-protective mother.   In keeping with his pretensions of being a refined gentleman, he prefers to wear formal wear.