Is everything hunky dory?
It better be.
Fern asked how I spent my days and I was hard pressed for an answer. I didn’t have an answer for her.
I collect coupons. I should have said that I collect coupons and write yelp reviews about coffee shop loyalty. I should have said that I tinker with my script and have long conversations with my expensive, world-renowned lawyers about THE LAWSUIT.
I should have told her about the house I want to buy upstate. I should have told her that I dream most of the day and that’s ok.
That my day is full of dreaming and dreaming and dreaming and that’s okay.
I should have replied that I have long lunches with beautiful men that I meet in AA.
I should have told her that I found this piece by Robert Indiana.
I should have said that I go stay in The Hamptons with show girls and equity trading billionaires. Billionaires who say things like, “I saw them at Frieze and I bought all of them.” Showgirls who, knowing someone else is paying, fills up the super market cart with pies and cream and cookies. Knowing that someone else is paying.
I should have told Fern that for the past month I have been seeing this man/boy who makes me laugh so hard I nearly pee myself. That we dress up and take pictures of each other.
We have been hanging out in bars with models and freaks and transsexuals. We have been exploring Williamsburg. We have been to book launches and fancy lunches.
Michael Costiff had a book signing at the Marc Jacobs book store on Bleecker St. There was an after party at the Soho Grand.
Diego arrived from Paris and we ate lunch with Hamish in The Gramercy Park Hotel.
I should have told her that I met Orlando Soria who is a dream and has a huge, winning smile and writes a fantastic blog that you can read here.
My friends from New Jersey supported a young artist so I took Ryan. Ryan comes everywhere. Like a sweet puppy.
We saw Philomena last night at The Paris cinema opposite the destroyed Plaza Hotel. After dinner we sat in their basement and ate bad sushi. Or rather… she ate the sushi and I paid for it.
Philomena, starring Steve Coogan and Judi Dench, is the story of a teenage girl who gets pregnant, is sent away to a convent to have her baby. The baby is consequently sold to rich Americans. It is a gut wrenching film. I cried nearly all the way through. Fern stayed dry-eyed throughout. I thought about my own mother and remembered that this was her story too. Teenage pregnancy, sent away to a local convent to scrub floors until I was born into a pool of blood and shame.
After the film we sat 30 floors above Manhattan in a bar called The Skylark. I met Sophie Kennedy Clark the girl who plays the young Philomena Lee. We smoked rolled cigarettes on the terrace and she explained that Vivienne Westwood had dressed her. That Vivienne had told her to take a pair of scissors to the dress if she needed or wanted to.
I met Philomena Lee and told her about my mother. She held my hand.
Sup. I bought my wedding dress. Am I wearing it properly?
I am back in Afghanistan next week.
I may take it with me. Masc and Chill.
I’m going to lip sync ‘Call Me Maybe’ with my Marine Corp bros/buds.
My apple and blackberry crumble served with vanilla flavoured french style yogurt.
Vanilla pods and brown sugar. All locally produced. The apple and brown sugar caramelized on the dish.
The twins return from their long weekend away. I am lusting for the mountains, for fresh faced farmers.
You know who you are.
My friend’s 13-year-old troubled child is here at the house.
To tell you the truth…I don’t find him very troubling. Why? Because I was just like him when I was his age.
Difficult, intransigent, argumentative, addict manque.
Though our home situations are very different I began feeling a deep regret for how I had treated my mother and brothers. Without doubt the genesis of my anger toward them had some basis.
Seeing him treat his parents so appallingly, confound them, fight them…distresses me and everyone who witnesses it. He demands money with menace, internet privileges and rides to see other equally troubled, weed smoking teens.
It has been a particularly hard week for my friends. Interrupting a drug deal he was making with a pair of 16 year olds in a car, a deal funded by money he had stolen from his mother, he attacked his Cambridge educated father and literally ripped the shirt off his back.
Until that moment his father had been his great ally and protector. Until he saw what the rest of us had seen for some time…that there was nothing his own child wouldn’t do to get what he wanted.
The violence toward his parents is shocking to witness but he tends to behave properly when I am around because, rightly, he is scared of me. I refuse to co-sign his bullshit. I am bigger and potentially twice as violent and, of course, he knows that I will not acquiesce.
He steals anything he can lay his hands on and lies about it.
The last time I was at the house he stole $20 from me. I just demanded it back and he handed it over. When caught he tends to walk into a weird cloud of denial. Glazed, fearful.
After he attacked his father the police came and cuffed him. They wanted to take him to juvenile hall but his parents balked at the last moment.
It is only a matter of time before he ends up in very serious trouble.
I was sent to boarding school so my parents could live a normal life. It suited me to be away from the house. It suited them to get on with their normal, family life.
The problem seems to be that this kid has no passion for anything other than money. He isn’t, as I was, sketching imaginary couture collections, writing plays or poring over houses I would one day build.
His stated aim: the acquisition of money. He will do anything he can to get hold of it. He doesn’t have anything particular he wants to spend it on. He just craves hard cash.
Ultimately he will leave home and make his own mistakes…in his own time, on his own dime…but for now he tortures his parents and sisters with tantrums, violence and vile words.
When things get really bad at the house his desperate mother calls me and I sleep over.
Calm is restored. Last night we made tea and dipped strawberries in chocolate.
I know, of course, how things will end up for him: jails, institutions and death.
It is the way of the addict. We are all similarly destined until we take those imperative steps toward sanity and abstinence.
This summer has not delivered the early morning, glittering sea views we are used to. It is gray and wet. The dew is so heavy that it drips like tropical rain off the plane trees.
By 10am the sun has burned off the marine layer but somehow never really recovers. The weather is totally messed up. The garden thrives although I worry about the cacti.
We lost three this year, rotting in the damp air.
I have huge and beautiful squash growing on the terrace.
Henry is dropping by today. He is taking me to the doctor. My foot is still very painful. Swollen. I can see that it gets better. Slowly, slowly. I take a stick with me into the garden. Ever since the coyote attacked the little dog he stays close to me.
There is a very destructive squirrel chomping on anything and everything but mostly he/she picks oranges and peels them very carefully.
The plums have all been harvested. The figs are ripening. There are so many this year.
Tomatoes and beans, lemons, limes and grapes.
I cooked dinner for Andrew last night, we sat eating it watching Ted on Chopped. I rarely veer from watching HGTV or MSNBC.
Late last night the dog started howling at the moon. It’s impossible to get back to sleep.
Dawn. Crows cawing. Dawn chorus.
There is so much dew it looks and smells as there has been heavy rain. I spend an hour every morning watering whatever I can from the path at the top of the house. I enjoy this.
There are so many snails.
Had lunch in Hollywood yesterday with a writer. Actually, we didn’t eat lunch. I drank some iced tea. Met the man who owns Mama Shelter in Paris. I have known him for years but I just didn’t know that he owned that hotel. You know we stayed there don’t you? This time last year.
How can I spend so much time wishing away the past?
Long conversation with a man in Sonoma who makes chicken coops. They are expensive but look great.
Jennifer bought fresh garbanzo beans which seem like they might be easy to grow in my garden. The melons are growing. The black tomatoes are doing well. Something ate the pumpkin seedlings. The lemon trees, after the wet winter, are laden with fruit. There are figs and plums and ruby grapefruit.
There are roses blooming all over the property.
What else can I tell you? I write my novel as per suggestion. It gets better and better. Perhaps I get better? It started as one thing and already, with a little intelligent coaxing, is evolving into something quite different. It started with vengeful intentions. Now it is getting funny. It started with a view to kill. Now it embraces the will to live. These are not my ideas.
I would prefer my original plan.
I have just a few weeks to finish writing The Scarlett Empress. It is by far the most commercial thing I have ever written. It is helping me though. Helping me think in a different sort of way.
The more I write the other stuff…the less I want to write this. Yet, this spurs me into action.
Three days until the ‘Big Adventure’. The Dane arrives from NYC on Sunday.
Becoming a Pilgrim. You’ll enjoy reading about it. I have had to keep the plan a big secret. I don’t want anyone ruining it.
The twins are running around the house in their boxers.
Pains in chest and arm. Balls ache once again. Nasty cough.
The day passed slowly and uneventfully.
I watered the garden. “Why don’t you have an automated system for that?” I hear you say. Well, I do. But…a bit like our mad bad Prince of Wales I like watering the plants individually and chatting with each of them. The citrus trees especially respond to gentle coaxing.
There is something charming and rather annoying about the ‘we’ pathology of twins. We are with each other a little too much. Consequently, when we left for Lake Malibou, I wasn’t in the best of moods.
We all helped Jennifer with her Out of The Box Wednesday pack then Miles set off with the delivery.
Robby and I drove into Hollywood. I wanted to stop in at Fresh and Easy where I buy English staples. Tea, bacon, marmalade etc. I can’t do with out them. We, me and the Little Dog, sat in the ugly court-yard outside the supermarket drinking coffee waiting for Robby watching lithe men heading for 24 hour fitness.
A woman from Chicago, who had arrived in Hollywood two nights previously, looked down at the dog and said, “There’s a little person trapped in there.” She fed him chicken breast. “This has got to last me two days.” She told the Little Dog. She was plump, dyed black hair and red lips. She told me that she was here in Hollywood to pitch reality TV ideas to…God know who. She was going to pay to pitch her ‘concepts’.
I was overcome with pity for her. She told me a couple of ‘ideas’ she had thought of pitching.
It occurred to me that for forty years not one original thought had been formed in that sappy brain.
I went for a walk.
Hollywood is grimy. There is nothing of any beauty to look at…to be inspired by. I yearn for my garden.
Robby picked me up after an hour in the gym. We had planned on going to an art/film/glamour party in Beverly Hills but I was tired and irritable so we drove home.
Well, we drove back to Malibou Lake and I helped Jason cook dinner for the children. After dinner, as the children were going to bed, I sat at their Steinway and tried playing the piano. I had not played for thirty years. I was shocked by how clumsy my fingers were. No longer able to slide effortlessly over the keys. I began to sweat. Evidence of my old age. Evidence of my own mortality. It was so frustrating! My left hand refused to even practice the scales in unison with the right.
I lay in bed last night thinking too much. Waiting to be dead.
Not so fast Batman!
Next week I set off on my ‘great adventure’ culminating in the birthday hootenanny. There are people flying from all sorts of wonderful places to help me celebrate my 50th Birthday…before I am not. I am stunned that so many old friends even exist for me let alone want to jump on a plane and be with me. You know, this is what I should have done last year…but last year I was with him in the back parlor of Wheelers.
Last year there was no room for anyone else. WTF?
It was a wonderful day yesterday.
Had lunch with Jon in West Hollywood. Delicious chicken and polenta at Hedley’s. Great to see him. We hadn’t seen each other for weeks and had loads to catch up on. He is in very good spirits. Business is booming for purveyors of luxury furniture so he is doing very well.
Robby picked me up and we sat in the sunny Chateau Marmont garden and drank iced tea. Eva Longoria sat next to us.
Met Ryan F and his super sexy new girlfriend Kirsty Mitchell who was once Miss Scotland but is now a very bankable young actress. She worked with my old friend Billy MacKinnon in his and his brother’s film Small Faces.
We then headed into the hills under the Hollywood Sign where we met Tom D who very kindly let Robby try on the Wolverine talons used in X Men 1.
Had dinner at The Tasting Kitchen in Venice with Anna. Wonderful food. I had pork…again with polenta and baked cherries. Dropped into Gjelina to congratulate owner for sticking to his guns and not let Gordon Ramsey and ‘Lady’ Victoria Beckham bully them into making menu substitutions.
Arrived home late and fell into bed exhausted. Woke at 5am and watered the garden. My current obsession.
I had no idea yesterday was Monday. That’s embarrassing isn’t it? I genuinely thought it was Sunday.
Robby and I kayaked for a mile or so with the Little Dog. It was beautiful. From the Piette’s Malibou Lake, up an unnamed tributary. Our navigational skills left a little to be desired but we had a great time. It was beautiful paddling under the weeping willow to the Paramount Ranch and back again.
The rest of the day I hung out with the twins. Trying to finish my novel. Jennifer’s mother kept trying to talk to me as I was writing.
Max came home from school. The previous day three squad cars came to see him after he smashed the stained glass window in their front door. When the police arrived he escaped on a boat across the lake. My kind of adolescent.
He took the boat, hitched a ride to the local CVS where he bought himself a sleeping bag thinking he could sleep rough. Sadly, for him, it began to rain so he called his parents and they came and scooped him up.
Rather exciting adventure for a 13-year-old boy? A bit distressing for the parents but I rather like watching the adventure he is having. It reminds me of my own. I KNOW that I shouldn’t encourage him. I really hope that he comes live with me in September.
Later the twins and I went to Trader Joes where mama bear bought his lil family food for the week. Everybody thinks that the boys are my sons. Funny.
I was meant to go into Venice for dinner but stayed at home instead. I wanted to sit on my own and watch HGTV. I had spent most of the day murdering three people in my novel so I was exhausted.
Cary Fukunaga and Michelle Williams are dating. Wow, isn’t that odd? My friend Heath’s ex and the director the Penguin and I hung out with last summer. Perfect match I think.
A couple of pics from the w/end:
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.
Too busy to write 500 words.
Briefly, yesterday was spent with my yoga/park friend Alex. We walked…and walked.
Lunch at Northern Spy on 12th St between A and B. Appalling food. I will eat pretty much anything but the watercress and potato soup was so bitter I had to send it back. My friend’s risotto was bland and uninspiring. The grilled cheese was ok but I couldn’t get the bitter taste of rancid watercress out of my mouth.
We chipped before the desert and the entire fiasco still cost $70.
After lunch we walked via Soho past my old apartment on Varick St to the Chelsea piers and looked at the sweaty runners. Oh yes…we also popped into the Rem Koolhaas show by The New Museum on The Bowery. It was like an art school architecture demo. I suppose that’s what he wanted. I was underwhelmed. The theme was RESTORATION.
There was one photograph that really moved me. A table in the St Petersburg summer palace groaning with gilded paste figurines. Each one worth a fortune but each a nightmare for a conservator. What to do with so much stuff?
I shopped for granola. Watched TV. Still can’t write. Still unable to think about anything creative. Just enjoying the wind on my face. My feet ached from the long walk.
Met Donovan later that night and we hung out at Eastern Block with a bunch of moderately ok looking gays. I looked good again…so garnered more unexpected attention. Thank God for drunk boys with beer goggles.
It always helps to have a hugely attractive, similarly aged man with you…as bait.
Dan returned from LA. He looked exhausted.
Robby suggested that I call todays entry…well..you can see can’t you?
The twins are home and the house is full of twin energy and plans and smells. The washing machine is stuffed with their weekend laundry. Miles is falling in love with a young lady he met on his trip. It is so sweet to see him delicately negotiating these new and powerful feelings.
Robby is off to Hollywood for an audition. He looks great.
The weather is incredible and the hillsides are vibrant with spring flowers and tiny baby rabbits who hop dangerously out into the road. This is the first year that I have seen so many rabbits. Either the coyote are fattening up elsewhere or the rabbits have migrated from another part of the mountain.
I saw a dead bobcat in the road last week. They are such beautiful creatures. Even the dead animals in the road are beautiful.
Therapy this morning, listened to an ex homeless man tell his story. Very restorative. Humbling.
Collecting my thoughts for next weeks trip. There is not much to think about other than what to take to wear. Which, as you can imagine, is more of a headache than it should be. I have no idea what to expect, it’s just going to be great to be back in NYC.
Peace of mind. No longer the roiling mess I have endured for months.
Let’s not forget shall we that I was nominated for a BAFTA for my film AKA. However insane you might think me now…there was a time when I could get things done and to a certain extent I still can. I only mention this because some people would like to forget that it ever happened…rendering me and my life utterly useless.
So, I decided to fetch out all of my awards put them on my desk.
Last day of the vile tasting chinese herbal medicine yesterday. No more foul-smelling pee.
There seems to be a small window of creative opportunity that I can mine the first thing in the morning. Just after I have had my coffee. If I am lucky I can spin this into a day of writing. If I fail to act then I tend not to write a thing.
I bought a small publication at The New Museum called For Lonely Adults Only. A pictorial diary by Regis Trigano. It is very beautiful. Documenting this gay artists various hookups.
I feel sad.
Set adrift in an ocean of self-pity. FUCK!
I am often asked where one can buy my version of Dorian Gray. Well, we only really played it at festivals. When the cast becomes more famous (as they are doing) we may very well release it. It is proving nicely. One day it will be released.
I am in LA. At the house. Another huge rattle snake in the garden resting on the step. I hit it with spade but it slithered away. Thankfully the Little Dog didn’t see it. He may very well have chased it.
The twins are a joy. So sweet to me. The house was perfectly well-kept when I got home. The larder well stocked and the fridge full of things I would never eat but hey ho.
I bought the most beautiful new hat. A Derby from Stronghold on Abbot Kinney. Dinner at Nobu with Miami Henri. He looked better in my hat than I did. See above. Damn.
Sharon S came by and I made cauliflower cheese and pasta ripiena. The twins need to learn how to cook. I taught them how to make a roux then showed then how to turn that into a delicious cheese sauce. They don’t even know how to boil pasta! Miles makes the most inedible, lumpy, often burned scrambled egg.
I forced them to watch Rachel Maddow. They are self-proclaimed born again christian republicans. Once they understand what is really going on they are amazed at how the world really is.
One of them said, “Obama is trying to cut funding for education.” No, I grimaced, he’s not.
The other said, “Is there a Republican Rachel Maddow?” I balked.
I think that they were anti-abortion. Hmmm. Not for much longer. I feel like Socrates corrupting the youth of Greece. Let’s hope that I don’t end up like him. Oh why not?
Will be back in NYC in two weeks then Cannes, after Cannes I will spend a week or so in London and Whitstable. I bought a ticket to Sydney for next winter. I need me some Southern Hemisphere.
This is great! Please listen to this lecture from the good people at TED.
Great weekend in Malibu. Loads going on.
Therapy Saturday. Lunch with filmy people. Another lunch with Gabe and Toby in Venice.
Met two very sweet Redondo boys in coffee shop.
Writer arrived at 1pm. Twins came home on Sunday as I am working with writer. Both of them had a great night in Hollywood. They got so drunk and sick and in trouble but separately. They lay down looking worse for wear.
The writer left. I vacuumed the house.
Miami Henry popped over. Made dinner for the four of us. Twins surprised that I made the salad dressing.
Henry left after dinner. Bed at midnight.
Nothing more to report. I have been writing like a crazy person.
I am thinking of checking into rehab. Seriously. I can’t go on like this.
Who reads my blog? Some people find it by chance. Others are looking. For those who are looking…I say welcome. Welcome. I don’t care if I only get 500 readers a day…they are the 500 readers who need to read my blog. Friends, family…and the rest of you…who come to sneer and blame.
Raining again in LA.
Listening to Bob Dylan singing Isis.
Spent time in Venice with Mel and one of the twins.
Popped into see Drew who looked even more handsome than when I first met him. Exquisitely dressed. He hugged me. Two people who were once entangled and now can be kind to each other.
I would rather be on my own than put up with half measures.
The young twins arrived last night. Spent a couple of hours making beds and sorting where they are going to stow their things.
Because of the terrible storm I could not get up to my house until late yesterday so as I was staying over at J & J’s house. I drove with Jason to Venice through the Santa Monica Mountains. The storm has caused huge amounts of damage. Thankfully CalTrans have dealt with the worst of the mess. Did I mention that during the storm we saw 5 Pepperdine boys surfing the steep lawn on their campus. Wetsuits in the rain. Looked like fun.
I dropped Jason off at work then arranged to meet Sinatra and Hilary at Intelligentsia on Abbot Kinney. After an hour and some extraordinarily expensive Rwandan blend coffee and an ‘artisan made’ orange and cranberry muffin I picked Lily up from school in Malibu and drove her home.
The logistical nightmare that is having three kids in different schools all over LA.
Found myself alone with Max, we sat at home discussing rap music. He is 13.
My stomach ached all day. A mixture of anxiety from having JB at the forefront of my thoughts once again and exhaustion from staying up all night at the Sober Living facility.
This morning I woke early and made tea for us all and set about doing long overdue desk work. All three of us are tapping away quietly on our macs. Must go buy loo roll. These boys sure get through it.
I find myself in limbo once again.
However beautiful the twins are I am discombobulated. Absent. Sad.
Well and truly stranded in Whitstable with the temperature plummeting below minus 5 degrees celsius.
The snow has frozen into crisp, wind-swept gullies, the car iced into its space in the car park, the dog makes its way cautiously into the biting air, pisses then runs back inside.
Bleak mid winter, frosty winds made moan…
Bought a shoulder of lamb yesterday. Cooked it slowly in the oven on a bed of rosemary and garlic. Slow roasting it to perfection. We sat around the table heartily carving the great piece of meat, eating it with cabbage and roast potatoes.
After the lamb we scoffed great hunks of Stollen and mugs of tea. This is Whitstable living and I love it.
I spent the day, as I mentioned yesterday, walking the dog..meeting old friends and keeping warm.
I had a slight HIM relapse. Entitled prick made his way back into my mind.
This is addiction at it’s very worst.
This is far better than the original…
I JUST REREAD THIS POST. IT IS SO BORING!
Hahahaha
Without intensity and drama what becomes of me?
I woke up feeling really positive. I am really beating this one. Really.
A simple day. I am losing weight. I saw my reflection. It gives me great pleasure to see a flat tummy.
I decided to give Manhunt a try as I had paid for that account to snoop on u know who. It was good to get some interest from cute looking men but I felt as if I had come full circle since I was last living here. At least I am being myself on Manhunt rather than disguised by some fake profile just to hear the reassuring ping of interest.
Almost immediately two men recognized me from the show and two friends. It was fun.
Talked to realtor about what he wanted me to do to the house before we put it on the market this November. He said nothing. He said whoever bought it would probably tear it down.
I made jam. I made a jam. Strawberry jam. Tomorrow I am going to finish up after the gardeners. Today the little dog ran around after me in the garden. We drove to Venice and ate breakfast at Sauce. How quickly the staff get to know me. They remember after just two visits what I have and how I like it.
I like that. I like being taken seriously.
Scrambled, tomatoes..grilled.
Sanary, La Hotel de la Tour.
The South of France is my kind of South and my kind of France.
After a delayed, bumpy, listless, sanguine (huh), laconic train-ride to Marseille with little to eat other than the ham and cheese I bought at Monoprix we finally arrived on the Riviera at 2 in the morning.
Of course the taxi driver tried to charge us 20 Euros for a 6-euro trip but I refused point-blank to give in to his extortion.
Marseille is the oldest city in France.
The Hotel Tonic, accommodation that Eric very kindly found for us, was directly on the Vieux Port, which, unsurprisingly, was less romantic than I remembered it when we – Richard Green and I – visited here 20 years ago.
At 3am bawdy groups of handsome Arabs sit around the harbor, some wearing dejellaba, gesticulating and smoking.
We walked the dog then fell into two tiny beds and fell fast asleep.
The first part of the first day was incredibly frustrating.
Our plan to rent a car and drive to Nice was scuppered by Hertz et al who said they had no cars. They told us gravely that there were in fact no cars to hire in the entire region!
After the preceding days of London drama we fell into an immediate funk. Being forced to stay an extra night in Marseille, getting on each other’s nerves. When we finally returned to the Hotel Tonic I slumped into the elevator and told him that I wanted to go home.
Tired and demoralized after all that had happened in London, unable to rent a car, sleeping in a miserable room, not hearing from the people we were meant to be staying with in St Tropez..
As it turned out it was really the best thing that could have happened.
Circumstance has a rather wonderful way of shape shifting.
Firstly, the good people of the Hotel Tonic upgraded us from our tiny room to a huge room in the attic with a majestic bathroom.
Once there we set about trying to rent a car on-line and immediately did so. The car paid for, as was a train from Nice to Paris on Thursday, we could relax for the first time in 48 hours. I unpacked my suitcase, had a long shower and washed the little dog.
Once settled, we decided to walk up the steep hill to the Notre-Dame de la Garde, the church with the huge golden angel on it overlooking all Marseille.
On our way there we explored the tiny, cobbled streets, leaving the tourists at the port, having my hat blow off my head many times in the refreshing gusts of wind that grew stronger as we climbed the hill.
It occurred to me, once we got there, that my climbing Runyon and praying was obviously a very human spiritual solution. Climbing clears the mind, exhausts the body and once at the top one is somehow prepared to pray.
There was a beautiful boy leaving the church when we arrived, pulling his shirt off for the decent. He had fluffy black hair and perfect disk like nipples. We were both entranced. Walking on either side of him two older men complimenting his perfect body. There was something utterly erotic yet innocent about all three of them.
Dogs not allowed in the church I briefly sat on my own and prayed for serenity.
On the way down the hill we chanced upon and made a reservation at the Passarelle on the rue du Plan Fourmiguier, a small yet intriguing looking restaurant tucked behind the Radisson Hotel on the Vieux Port.
I knew immediately that the Passerelle would make us both very happy. With blue and white awnings over the decked al fresco tables and chairs it all looked reassuringly authentic. As if to prove my point a very chic woman was cooking in the kitchen and took our reservation.
We discovered, quite by chance, a famous bakery called Four des Navettes on the rue Sainte that has sold scented loaves and hard, rose smelling/tasting bread sticks since 1781. I bought the hard sticks of byzantine ecclesiastical ‘bread’ and a sugary ‘brioche’ that was, in fact, a huge doughnut. The bread sticks were disappointing…like eating deodorant.
After a well-deserved nap we dressed for dinner and walked the half-mile back to the Passerelle and ate the most delicious food in the most perfect circumstance. I started with the salad of jambon Palme, melon, mozzarella, rocket and basil sprinkled with toasted seeds. After my salad, a tagine of lamb and couscous (I hate the word garnished) but it was indeed garnished with a delicious stewed pear. He ate grilled Loupe and ratatouille.
Unable to choose between the four deserts we ordered three of them. Yogurt with honey, chocolate tart and fruit salad.
During the dinner there was a children’s fashion show, ten very sweet infants paraded, hand in hand in the most charming crocodile showing off very pretty, beautifully made dresses.
After eating every last mouthful we sat under the awning chatting for a very long time. Drinking coffee and smoking aromatic French cigarettes. The walk back to the hotel, past throngs of happy, drunk holidaymakers was a rather wonderful way to end what promised to be a rather miserable day.
We spent a very long time making love that night. It was perfect.
The following morning we woke late, fled to the station collected our car; kangaroo hopped (stick shift) back to the Hotel Tonic where he manhandled the luggage into the tiny Ka and off we went.
Weaving our way East along the coast we discovered La Ciotat a small tourist town where we saw yet another beautiful man with a perfect smile and even more perfect body/nipples than the man on the steps leading from the church.
There were beaches and beaches covered with equally beautiful, tanned men…we gazed out of the car longingly. Gay men on vacation in the South of France looking at beautiful men. What could be more normal than that?
Interestingly and appropriately for us La Ciotat was the home to the first publicly projected movie by the Lumiere Brothers.
After a few hours of driving we settled into Sanary Sur Mer, a simple town that transformed at 7pm into a huge craft market and fete. In the Victorian bandstand a French rock band sang very spirited covers of amongst many, many others Maroon 5, The Band and Santana.
I upset the kebab shop man by buying kebab meat for the dog. The kebab man was a rude, nasty piece of work and I delighted in feeding the little dog his dinner even though the traveling companion ate half of it before the little thing had a chance.
We ate dinner in a small restaurant near the town center called (I can’t remember sorry). We started with the Moule Marinere then had the freshly caught grilled Tuna. He had the Paella, which had rabbit and chicken and huge prawns in it.
Two glasses of Rose for him only cost three euros. This made him very happy as he is incredibly careful about money.
Walked around the port back to our hotel and fell into a deep and immediate sleep.
I thought about Whitstable today. I miss you so much! The shallow lazy sea, the honey coloured shingle, buying espresso from Dave’s deli, walking the little dog on Duncan Downs. I wondered, like I do occasionally, if I could ever live there again.
Part of me wants to be there but most of me is perfectly as ease with where I am right now.
If I went back what would I be returning to?
It’s a great place to visit but maybe it’s never going to be my home. Maybe it never was.
Taking that bloody, stinky train to London. I never had the money for a ticket. Hiding in the toilet. One hour and fifteen minutes. Faverham, Sittingbourne, Rainham, Graveney, Bromley South. Victoria Station!
Walking to Mayfair. Sweet-scented drawing rooms, thick carpet and polished silver. Oh God. I know why I am thinking about this! I am dreading being left on my own on Tuesday evening when the man/boy leaves for Italy.
I want to travel too! Paris, Sydney, Whitstable or New York where do I go next? If I go what am I running away from? I’ll tell you what: a great, gaping God shaped hole.
18th Century boy/man was up until 2.30 last night pottering around, tidying, making a mother’s day card and finally fell into bed exhausted. We had dinner at Axe on Abbott Kinney. I ate the farmer’s plate with prosciutto. This morning we toured the Santa Monica Farmers Market and bought fresh almonds and pale pink hydrangea and delicate budded peonies.
He reminds me of Patrick Kinmonth, the same sensibilities and creativity. He is so tall and elegant, so curious about everything, which can all at once excite and tire. It is good to live again with someone on my arm that has such an extraordinary zest for life. He wants me to teach him how to sew. I would love to do that, pass on a few of the many skills I have that were meant for some unborn child in an imaginary family.
I wish that I hadn’t killed the snake but I was scared that it would bite the little dog then where would I be? John watched the video of me killing it and looked delighted at the very manliness of my snake murder. I should have been more proud but I wasn’t. I value life, even the life of a dangerous snake or the rat I killed the previous week.
Josh, my sober A gay friend and I toured Barney’s yesterday. Trying on expensive clothing neither of us would ever buy. Bumped into a friend of Charlies who was wearing cut off denim shorts, a sleeveless tee, a man bag and Jackie O sunglasses. What a fucking STATE. Also bumped into my friend Jody who has recently had two surrogate daughters-the $250,000 a pop kind. I asked, like I would my straight friends, if he is signing them up for pre-school. He spat back that he had no intention of sending them to pre-school as their nanny had them on the Einstein system for infant learning. He said that he wanted to control who came into their lives as he had no intention of letting them socialize with other kids as they might pick up bad habits. Now tell me if that doesn’t sound unhealthy? Child as project. Lot’s of my gay friends have chosen this route when they become parents. However, this is not peculiar to gay men, I know straight parents who do this too. In my opinion it can only lead to disappointment and resentment.
I thought about my mother and where she might be this overcast mother’s day. I wondered if my brothers had brought her flowers or sent her a card. I did not. Then I thought about Kristian’s mother who seems to loathe the idea of his friends getting together to celebrate his life and I wondered how she could be so bitter about this simple act of remembrance?
I pay scant regard to my creative life. My desire to create comes in huge waves that crash inconsequentially and leave me feeling tired and unfinished. Why can’t I seem to finish anything? My novel remains unfinished, my film too-as for everything else? I don’t know.
As his departure looms so do the morbid thoughts.
I find myself thinking about the NYC man and grieve for what was and what is lost, broken or as dead as the headless rattlesnake. I am all at once in celebration for what I have and desolation for what was and how that affected me. Man/Boy asked if I was on the rebound last night which I strenuously denied. But, of course, there is some truth to his accusation. John cautioned me yesterday about euphoric recall, the yearning for an acting out partner rather than the fully fledged, present young man who I now have.
I have no reason or right to have wanted more from NYC man. As I have said before I was an inconsequential blip in his life. It’s hard to own that. Yet, in a way, it has made me a stronger man for what I have now. I look at this new man and love him and care about him with new eyes. The eyes of a man who has loved and lost but is lucky to have loved at all.
As for my sobriety, I am sober! I have that to be grateful for. Gratitude is key!
Have to write for the Good Men Project. I am going to write about how to be a man when other men don’t recognize the sort of man you were born to be: A quest for validation.
Whilst cooking lunch yesterday I bent over and herniated one of my disks. My spine gave out and I am now laying supine in a cloud of white linen and little dog waiting for the pain to subside. Symptoms include: Shooting electric spasms in my legs. Laboured breathing. My balls ache. It is Impossible to make the most simple move without the most excruciating pain. So, this is what getting old is all about? I went into a terrible shame spiral as I was forced to ask Cooper to help me perform the most simple task.
Instantaneously crippled by SHAME and spine failure.
Shame, Resentment and Fear. The three ugly sisters who regularly cripple this particular Cinderella.
It’s interesting how a deeper understanding of toxic shame has given me a greater insight into all things-especially writing fiction.
Watching my adaptation of Dorian Gray again last night with Cooper (I was in bed sweating from the flu and squirming in pain from my herniated disk) I realized how much more evolved it could have been.
My contemporary adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s only novel Dorian Gray is a deeply flawed movie.
If I had had the understanding that I now have..understood Dorian Gray’s shame and Lord Henry Wooten’s subtle manipulation of it. If I had comprehended why Dorian, in turn, heaps shame upon Basil Hallward.
We collectively determine what is shameful and who we think ought to feel shame . Shame is subjective.
Sanctimonious people, self-righteous people, religious people, are all very eager to heap shame on whomever takes their fancy.
My mother’s shame began as a young 16-year-old girl when she had me-out of wedlock. To make matters worse my father was a Persian! My mother was hustled out of dodge by my vitriolic Grandmother to a Catholic mother and baby home where she was forced everyday, by nuns, to perform menial acts of attrition and atone for her sins.
I was born into shame. I have perpetuated it at my leisure. I was oblivious to how shame had shaped my life until I started dealing with my sex issues.
For what should we legitimately feel shame? Should I feel shame for being gay? Should Natalie Octomum Suliman (Natalie is her birth name) feel shame for having all those babies? Judging by what is written on my comments page the answer would be a resounding YES.
There is a disturbing connection, for me, between Natalie Octomum and my mother who, 50 years ago, was shamed for the same thing..for giving birth. They were both called selfish, irresponsible, their actions cast as shameful and both punished by society.
My mother’s character would not have withstood a barrage of outraged press attention when I was born. She may have come off as surly or defensive when in fact she was just scared and confused. After refusing to give me up for adoption (for which she was branded selfish and irresponsible) she had the audacity to ‘sponge’ off of her parents and the state before she got a job.
The mother and baby homes run by nuns have all been closed down. We would be outraged, in the UK, if we heard that heavily pregnant young girls were scrubbing floors by way of Christian punishment. My Mother was considered by her shamed parents as both criminal and wrong-just like Natalie Suliman. However, times change and wounds heal.
The morally acerbic press keep Natalie in a holding pattern of shame. The babies are born! By punishing Natalie we merely punish every one of those children, creating a stinking cloud of toxic shame that will linger for the rest of their lives.
This is OUR part in the shame game, we perpetuate shame as and when we feel like it.
My mother’s actions in the early 1960’s are scarcely shame worthy in contemporary Great Britain. In fact most British people would not think Natalie Octomum should have shame heaped upon her for her actions. She is perceived as a macabre American sideshow where ‘freedom’ breeds freaks like Natalie and people like me who end up on Dr Drew’s Sex Rehab.
Natalie, in my eyes, is neither criminal, wrong, selfish, irresponsible or cruel. Unless her children are not being loved or cared for…and one assumes with so many prying eyes on Natalie Suliman an unwashed kitchen surface would be enough for child protection agencies to be summoned..then she should be allowed to get on with her very own brand of American ‘freedom’.
Hey, America, I don’t give a damn that Natalie accepts public handouts. Sounds like some of you want her to feel shame for accepting welfare. It stinks when I read that some of you don’t think that she is capable of rearing those children when really none of you have any evidence to the contrary. None of you know how capable she is of limitless love. None of you.
As my therapist friend Sean M is want to say: There’s No Shame in My Game.
Finally an artist who inspires: Allison Schulnik who is presently showing at the Mark Moore Gallery in Santa Monica‘s Bergamot Station. I am persuading all of my friends to buy her work. It is amazing. A real figurative painter who uses great gobs of paint with such dexterity and precision, so sculpturally and with such poise that I stood before the work salivating, hankering after Frank Auerbach, De Kooning and oddly Corot. I immediately called Kay and Amanda and insisted that they buy something whilst Allison’s work remains affordable.
The flu. Oh God. A week before the show airs and I get the most crippling kind of flu-shivers, giddiness, headache, severe pains all over my body, exhaustion. Hobbled like an old man, with Jennie, into Extra interview which is taped on Victory Blvd Glendale. Hindsight? Good idea?
Must remember not to do interview when ill. Really need to be in ones own body to do interview. I did my blustering, inchoate best. Internal monologue: Remember to say the word healthy rather than normal when referring to sexual activity. Make salient point about Elliot Spitzer and Larry Craig. Remember that there is no cure for addiction. Remember. Remember! Actually, I totally forget everything. The modern opera that plays constantly in my head overwhelmed me. Oh well, that’s what you get for being interviewed with a 103 degree temperature. Chicken soup?
Last night my tee shirt and sheets were drenched with sweat. I peeled them off and lay panting in the inky black Hollywood night. This morning I do feel a little bit better but the backs of my eyes ache and I am covered in the light mist of transpiration.
Thank God it is not the AIDS or Tudor Sweating Sickness. Tudor Sweating Sickness-a deliciously fruity disease that gripped the United Kingdom during the reign of Henry VII. Sweating Sickness was distinct from the Black Death. The Black Death, incidentally, the Jews were blamed for causing.
Must have been fun to have been Tudor.
“The disease began very suddenly with a sense of apprehension, followed by cold shivers, giddiness, headache and severe pains in the neck, shoulders and limbs, with great exhaustion. After the cold stage, which might last from half an hour to three hours, the hot and sweating stage followed. The characteristic sweat broke out suddenly without any obvious cause. Accompanying the sweat, or after that was poured out, was a sense of heat, headache, delirium, rapid pulse, and intense thirst.”
Gosh, maybe I have got Tudor Sweating Sickness. I love that the disease begins with a ‘sense of apprehension’.
Yesterday evening Justin and Eric came to visit. As ill as I was I still managed to stumble out of bed and cook the most delicious pork loin. I baked it in the oven with fresh thyme and Dijon mustard. I roasted potato and turnip and boiled some peas. Wholesome food will help anybody overcome the misery of any illness.
Feeling at best a little vulnerable and at worse castrated I will not now launch into my practiced tirade against those of you who don’t know the ingredients of pasta or how to make jam or why a pastry board in a Victorian kitchen is made of marble.
I took a tour of the old Governor’s Mansion. Our guide asked if anyone could think why the table had a marble top. There were a dozen or so women in the group, each of an age to have cooked unnumbered meals, but not one of them could think of a single use for a slab or marble in the kitchen. It occurred to me that we had finally evolved a society in which knowledge of a pastry marble could be construed as “elitist,” and as I left the Governor’s Mansion I felt very like the heroine of Mary McCarthy‘s Birds of America, the one who located America’s moral decline in the disappearance of the first course.
Why oh why are people so lazy about making food properly? Buying ingredients, preparing and serving. I love cooking. Taking care. Using linen napkins. Why should these delightful experiences be abandoned or exchanged for fast food? Eating on the go? The TV? Yes it’s true-I don’t have a TV. Don’t know what Extra is. Never seen it. Didn’t know who Drew was. Never saw Celebrity Rehab. I was busy making cassoulet and pressing my huge Edwardian tablecloth.
I am going to get dressed and walk the dog. It is his birthday tomorrow.