Tag: London

Categories
Love Rehab

Are You OK?

Are you OK?

We say that to each other in the UK all the time.  It doesn’t really mean anything, it’s just the way we check in with each other.  I check in with you and you check in with me.  Even if I am not OK I thank you for asking.

When I taught him, the companion, what it meant he played at asking me if I was OK but the effect was still the same.  I felt good, checked in with, placated.

Americans, when you ask them if they are OK, worry that something looks wrong with them.  It worries them, disrupts their day.

So, don’t ask an American if he/she is OK unless you think that there is something wrong.  You’ll do more harm than good.

It’s Monday morning.  I have just been to therapy.

The weekend was a delicious blend of fun, laughter and me feeling better than I have for 8 months.  I am just so happy.  Happy doesn’t necessarily mean well-behaved. I have been delightfully rude.

Ivan Massow is in town, such an unpleasant man who was the ‘source’ in the Caroline Roux article about me for the Guardian.  The source who was too scared to be openly vicious about me.  Anyway, there he was yesterday having lunch, slimeing all over my straight friend Ben.  Who in their right mind gave that man the ICA to run?  WHO in their right mind thought he should stand as Mayor of London? Crazy!

Anyway, supposedly he is sober so I am trying not to hate him too much.

Thankfully he is losing his looks.

Saturday spent nearly all day in Malibu.  Lunch in the Lumber Yard with Jon Aubry.  I went to bed early Saturday night.

Breakfast on Sunday with Will and his dog Rocco.  Stephen popped by at about 11 and then lunch with Sharon Swart.  Delightful.  She attended a flower arranging class and brought to lunch a huge bouquet of roses and hydrangea.

Sunday night Michael and I went to a party in Silverlake.  There was a performance piece for us to watch.  Three 10 minute sections of a larger work about a man accused of burning down his house and killing his daughters.  The first part was indecipherable.  The second and third part, although messy, were much better and had good, strong ideas.  The director asked what I thought..so I told him.  Bad idea.  Nobody wants to hear the truth.

We were meant to meet Jamie Lee Curtis after that party but we did not.

Taka came by late on Sunday.   He is a funny one.   Editor, Japanese..chatty.

Oh, before I forget..the new Malibu renters arrived on Saturday and are very happy in the house.  They are the SWEETEST people from the UK who loved the house the moment they stepped through the door and from whom I have not heard since..no news is GREAT news as far as renters are concerned.

I made a ‘to do’ list for Monday that includes all the boring stuff I have been putting off for weeks but essential if I am going to stay on top of things.

I went to therapy on Saturday morning and shared my good news.  My only worry about therapy is that I am surrounded by so many miserable, desperate men.

It’s now Monday morning and I am positioned at my ‘desk’ at SHLA.  Papers and briefcase open and ready for action.  My list of things ‘to do’ is already half eaten.  THICK lines scored through the things already done.

Listen, I have no idea why I am so happy but one thing is for sure..it has nothing to do with anyone else.  In fact, I was briefly annoyed by the actions of the other last night but after a few seconds ceased to be.  There was a time in the very recent past when the other could ruin my entire evening by being snippy.  Not anymore.

Whenever one has a meaningful relationship one tends to ignore when things don’t add up.  Denial gluing disparate parts of one story into something believable.

I am not annoyed with him..a little disappointed in me.

Disappointed that I have been so desperate to make our relationship work.  Just writing that down makes me feel sick.  That I would have done anything to make another man love, want and care for me.  For the past 8 months I have devoted my time, energy, love and money to a stranger who bust his way into my life after seeing me on TV.  It is a testament to my own low self-esteem just how much I was prepared to ignore in order to feel loved.

I am grateful that I fell in love and really got to know a man, be seen by another man. You may think that I have been foolish but in fact the last few months have been some of the best of my whole life.   I miss him.  I do.  But what I miss doesn’t really exist.  I miss being cared about, thought about, fantasized about, included and lastly, but most importantly, I miss being loved.

Every decision I made these past few months has been inspired by my love for him. Consequently I now have to make decisions based on my needs, my desires and my career.

I have vowed not to work out our stuff here in my blog so I won’t.

All you, my readers, need to know is that I am ok..are you ok?

Categories
Auto Biography

Kuros Khazaei

My friend Sebastian’s father was my father’s very best friend.  When Sebastian first met me he knew exactly who I was.

My father was his hero.  His description of Kuros almost perfectly matches how I have heard myself described.  He cut quite a dash, he was impeccably dressed and when he entered a room people took notice, he could also be very, very bad-tempered.

Not many people have very nice things to say about my father.  My mother, his business colleagues, some of my brothers and sisters and their mothers all of them seem a little too ready to condemn him yet, strangely, I am not.   Even though he wanted nothing to do with me and treated my Mother very badly I am still willing to forgive him.  It is touching that he had such a profoundly positive effect on Sebastian.

We are without doubt very similar in temperament but unlike when I die…when he died he died very, very rich.

He was without doubt a colourful/controversial figure.

Sebastian’s father owned a restaurant in London where my father met all of his wives.  I still don’t know a great deal about him but I know for sure that his second wife disappeared one night with her children never to see him again.  I know that his third wife had a terrible time with his temper and cavorting.  I know that he loved backgammon and opium.  I have been told, although these might be myths, that he was thrown out of a second floor window by the notorious gangster Kray twins causing him to have a life long limp?  That he wrapped a sports car around a lamp-post severely damaging his eye?  That he was implicated in a massive robbery but never formally charged?

He certainly owned a restaurant and an antique shop and his big break came when he met a profligate Saudi Prince who bought everything my father could lay his hands on and sold to the Prince at exorbitant prices.

Isn’t it odd that whilst he owned an antique shop in London (only feet away from where I would one day live with JBC)  I was trawling through the antique/junk shops in Whitstable and Canterbury.   That his restaurant was only a block away from where I would settle with Phil.  That we may very well have passed each other in the street and never known who one another was.

I met a man on the train to Shrewsbury I was convinced was my father.

He was not my father.

I felt as if I were not allowed to ask Sebastian questions about my father, as if the topic were still off-limits, disallowed, forbidden.  There is still a huge amount of shame surrounding his name.  As if even the barest mention of him a terrible catastrophe would somehow happen.

Yet, there is nothing more I need to know about him.  I know that I am his son, that we are cut from the same cloth and that it scares me to hear about him because in some way I am forced to accept my own flaws/defects/shortcomings.

That, my friends, is incredibly uncomfortable.

My father died in 1998 of pancreatic cancer.  I never met him although I feel as I have.  A protracted and messy financial battle ensued after his death.   There are all sorts of stories about who stole what from whom but my four younger siblings seemed to do OK.   He left at least 8 children behind, two ex-wives (did he ever bother getting a divorce from any of them?) and a widow.

It was a pleasure discussing him with Sebastian because Sebastian has fond memories and…I believe him.

Categories
Dogs Travel

Rocky Outcrop

The final day of my holiday with the mysterious travelling companion.  We are staying in Cannes then will make our way home tomorrow.   Will update you all on the tone of the past few days when I get some space between the adventure and me.

We arrived in Cannes yesterday afternoon.  Last night I ate salad Nicoise in a small brasserie behind the Majestic that I enjoy whenever I have been here for the film festival.

The last time I was here was when Suzanna and I rented that house in Seillans.  I had driven to Cannes to take Dicky to the station curtailing his time with us.  After a walk around the harbor he decided to stay.  Now, THAT vacation was hard.  Surly children, love affairs and God knows what.  From what I can remember, I seem to have paid for the lions share of that holiday…for eight people!

Cannes, here we are again.  We chanced upon Suites Hotel on the Blvd Camot.   It’s like a hotel from the future!  The bed linen is really crisp and expensive feeling, the room is huge and well laid out and the bathroom and toilet have a pod like quality.  It might be described as flexible accommodation.  There are Japanese type raffia screens that divide the room if so required and even though the colors and fixtures are not to my taste it is incredibly comfortable and ergonomic.  The television moves around on wheels, there are a desk and a daybed.

 

Our room in Canadel at the Hotel de la Plage looked much nicer than it turned out to be.  The bed was uncomfortable, the room was noisy and the breakfast unbelievably expensive and not, as we first thought, included in the price.  Consequently, we paid eighteen Euros for a basket of bread.  The day before I had spent only twenty Euros in the market feeding us both for the entire day.

I have really enjoyed the last week here in France more than our time in London, mostly because everything, apart from Cannes and St Tropez, was new and unusual.   Showing someone around your life can have its drawbacks.

Yesterday, on our way to Cannes from Canadel-sur-mer we spontaneously stopped off at a cliff overlooking a small bay.  We scrambled through the brush over hot red stone to a rocky outcrop and swam in crystal clear waters.  The little dog watched from a shady ledge.  The sea was teaming with tiny, silver fish skimming the surface looking for food.

You know, there were times when I was with JBC, toward the end of our 7 years together, when we would find ourselves in some remote, beautiful place and I would hanker to be with someone I truly loved.  That this maybe beautiful but to make it perfect one must share the moment with a man that I loved.

Dicky

There is something dismal about looking at a wonderful view and not have a lover by your side.  I think, during this past week, we may both have felt that.  To be with someone familiar, hopeful and in love.

We did not stop for lunch after the swim so by 5ish I was exhausted and desperate for water.  At moments like these I feel like I may have become Uncle Monty from Withnail and I.   Monty, the tenacious old queen who pursues Withnail with gay gusto.  Example: the day before yesterday the car had been laden with food to eat and water to drink.  Yesterday, with the companion in charge, the cupboard was bare.  Instead of just buying more food I sort of expected my companion to think ahead and do as I do.  To no avail.   A sticky wicket that one..expecting.

Like leaving your fingers in the car door to prove how selfish someone is when they squish them.

Do you know the film Withnail and I?  It used to be a cult film.  Uncle Monty arrives in the freezing country cottage where Withnail and his friend have escaped from London.   They have no money; unable to light a fire, nothing to eat and both look utterly miserable.  Within seconds of Monty’s arrival the table is groaning with food, the fires are roaring in the hearth and the lighting is perfect.

Unlike Monty, and men like him, I have a limited desire to provide and make perfect day after day.   I foolishly expect him to think ahead when he just can’t.   It is not in his nature.  It’s not his fault.  You see, I have a fantasy that includes being looked after as well as I look after him or others.   It is a fantasy, it is unachievable, and it is my role and my role alone.  I have only myself to blame when even the most simple of expectations remain unfulfilled.   If I want water in the car then I must buy it, if I want delicious food then I must go to the market.

As vacations draw to a close there is the inescapable dread of going home.  We return to very different scenarios.  He climbs back into the bosom of his family with yet another vacation and I will peel off elsewhere to make something happen with that extended family of AA men and women who have become my solace.

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Categories
Love Money Travel

Marseille to Sanary Sur Mer

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.

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Categories
prison Rant Travel

Stealing Virginity

We are in Marseilles.   Bad hotel in the port but very welcome after our long journey from Calais.

Our trip?  A spontaneous event.  Bought a ticket and jumped on a train.  The train was packed and we were moved around a lot.  The dog was in good spirits. The coffee was delicious.  In Lille I ran to Monoprix and bought ham and cheese forgetting that Jake doesn’t eat cheese.

We sat next to very good looking man and his gf who I befriended.

The last part of my stay in London was irritatingly dramatic.  A largely drama free vacation morphed into the worst kind of melodrama.

Firstly, the iPod turned up.   Whether it was in fact stolen or not is another matter.  It was not my iPod.    Yes, you heard me.  It wasn’t even my iPod.  Yet, I felt incredibly responsible.  It was Jake’s iPod – and critically, if not found, would jeopardize my relationship with whomever the fucking iPod belonged to…Jake.   Pride before a fall.   My pride before my fall.

I have only myself to blame.

A little more information about the incident:

The cast of characters I mentioned yesterday included a tall spotty boy who was recently expelled from school for stealing a girl’s virginity in the school toilets.  Ruby, a small, fat girl with bright red hair with a nasty mouth and attitude – until she wants something of course, like a fag then she sweetens up pretty damned fast.  The ugly gay friend and his pretty Greek ‘best friend’ were perhaps the worst of the lot.

Paul, Phil’s long-term man friend explained to us how rude and impossible he found them all.   He told me that Ruby was a thief.  Actually he really fanned the flames once the iPod went missing.   It seemed like there was no other reasonable explanation.

Sure I over reacted but nobody tried to help.   Yet, it was none of my damned business.  The moment it went missing I offered to pay for it as if I were somehow responsible.  Why?

I had no reason to feel responsible for somebody else’s stuff.  Especially as they were drunk and had lost the damned thing.  I was sober and didn’t lose anything.    When I left my sunglasses in Whitstable I didn’t expect anyone to pay for them yet for some extraordinary reason the moment someone else loses something I feel as if it were my fault.

As I was sitting in the cell I had a series of catastrophic thoughts.  The dog was dead, my friend was dead, my stuff had been ransacked.  I sat on the edge of the bed blaming myself for introducing someone essentially blameless into a den of thieves.

As it turned out the kids had not stolen the fucking iPod and it was LOST.   I was angry with myself that I had brought a sweet, kind, good person into a den of thieves but as it turned out I brought a forgetful person and my temper into a largely innocent adolescent smoking den.

As much as I loathed them for their promiscuity, their smoking and rudeness I had no reason to jump to conclusions.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

There is an Indian woman taking very loud telephone calls on her very large phone with a very loud alarm that goes off with appalling regularity.   I think every train should have a mobile/cell free zone where other travelers can escape.

Delightful dinner with Charlie Parsons at Dean Street Town House.  Just me Jake, Charlie and delicious food.  Calves liver.  Bumped into at least twenty old friends on the streets of Soho including Tania who was in Clancy’s Kitchen.  Ended up at Soho House with Richard and his friend.

Today we are going to rent a car and aim toward Monte Carlo.  The streets at night around the port are transformed this morning.  I am wearing a brightly patterned Etro shirt and my black sandals.   I am tired but eager to get on the road.

Categories
Dogs Travel

Police Cell

Decided to stay an extra week in London.

Woke up at 11.30 this morning.  That is LATE for me.  Me!  Me who is usually up so early.  Anyway, we were going back to Whitstable today but I ended up spending the better part of my day at Chelsea Police Station.

Why?

You may well ask.

A drama unfolded at the house that included a cast of unruly, drunk children a lost iPod touch and me trying to enforce an adolescent exit strategy.  I mean, getting 5 unwelcome 15-year-old kids out of the house whilst Phil was at her Dad’s.  Anyway, it all ended up with me being arrested and taken to the police station and then being let go.

The short story is this:  I accused them of stealing an iPod touch.  They accused me of spitting at them, which is a total lie, but it had to be investigated.  So, I got cuffed and dragged to the police station.

Of course, our accusations were ignored.  Impossible to substantiate.

Firstly, can I tell you how utterly charming the policemen were in the station.  The  Desk Sergeant, the constables, the detective..all utterly considerate and thoughtful and even though I had to spend an hour in a cell it really did not matter.  Even the cell was clean, the toilet flushed and someone had stenciled a note for a drug ‘help line’ on the ceiling.

Much has changed since I was arrested 30 years ago.

Fingerprints are scanned, mug shots digital and every time I had to sign my name it was on a pad like you would find in a bank.  Of course there were the usual host of nutter types being held there but sadly, since the mental hospitals were closed down the police and prison service are used to hold the insane until they can be reclaimed by the broken mental health system.

The detective who interviewed me was really good looking.  Big blue eyes.

Now I just feel ghastly.  I felt like crying in the station.  How could this have happened?  That kind of sad moment.   In fact..I did shed a tear when the nice detective was interviewing me.  Had odd feeling of shame telling him that I was gay.

I felt like I was defending our honor against those kids.   They were HORRIBLE.

I am going to Victoria Station to help Jake and the Little dog who went off to Whitstable for the day.

More about this tomorrow.

Categories
art Travel

London Calling

Serpentine Gallery Pavilion Opening

Yesterday began with breakfast of cakes and coffee at Maison Bertaud on Greek Street with Tania who showed off her occasional gallery – very crowded with nondescript paintings by Noel Fielding.

The great find at the show was the animated video art piece tucked in the back of the cellar and REALLY worth checking out or indeed buying.

We had lunch at Patisserie Valerie and looked at the parade of boys and freaks.

Yesterday evening took taxi from Chelsea to Serpentine Gallery Pavilion opening at the behest of architect Tom Croft.  Saw many people from the past who all seemed delighted to see me.  The pavilion, designed by Jean Nouvel, was very red and surrounded by soggy turf.  There was some consternation about his eligibility – apparently the point of this yearly event is to commission emerging architects not those in the twilight of their career.

We were invited to Richard Rogers house after the Serpantine event but I really couldn’t be bothered so we caught the bus back to Soho where we met Matt who pushed us into a cab and over the river to Vauxhall.

Toured sad, empty Vauxhall gay bars ending up in Balans back on Old Compton St eating DISGUSTING burger.  I am going to pop in there after I have written this and complain about how bad it all was.

This morning I sat in BlueBird with, of all people, Manolo Blahnik who is looking very doddery and frail.  He has a stick and his hair is all awry.  Within the space of just one month Manolo and Christian Louboutin!  These two great..the greatest grandees of ladies shoes.  Christian is, of course, the young buck.

I have been away from London for the best part of a decade.  My contemporaries all look a bit worse for wear.  Worn out.  Thank God I have been sober for so long!

Spoke to Tim briefly today.  He admitted to having had botox.  He looks amazing.  Amazing.

On the bus to Soho I met Juanita Carberry who was a child in Africa at the time of the Happy Valley murder.  She wrote a book called Child of the Happy Valley.  Holly Aird played her in the film adaptation.  So, I know Holly and Issie’s grandfather was the murderer…weird eh?  What is even odder..Lavinia, Issie’s sister stayed at the house last night.

Lunch at Soho house with Sharon Marshall who is getting married in less than 8 weeks and is all of a quiver about flowers, bridesmaids dresses and who will photograph the event.

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Categories
Rant Travel

No Teeth

Things change between some people and some things never change.

Back at home in Chelsea after two glorious days in Whitstable.   The train to London was filled with fat women with no teeth from Ramsgate.   The Little Dog sat on his lap all the way here.   They are my strange family of travelling souls.

The house in Chelsea is neat and cool.  We are sleeping in a huge room painted a dirty rose color.  Phil bought us new toothbrushes. The cupboards are filled with boxes marked BOOKS AND PLATES.  Knowing that I love them Phil found two gilded (ormolu I think) stork shaped candlesticks for the dining room table.  In our room she filled a vase of my favorite pink peonies.  I moved them into the kitchen so I can look at them whilst I write.  Phil has a lanky, 11 month old, wolf-like lurcher called William who irritates both of us by leaping all over our bed.  Her 15-year-old daughter Moffy is going to be a model and this morning there are other very elegant girls sleeping on the drawing room sofas, their handbags overflowing with cigarettes, condoms and tampons.

The companion is in bed moaning at Phil’s dog that wants to be his friend.  “Out, out!”  William skulks away, unwanted.

We arrived in London yesterday, the hottest day here so far this year.  It was still 88 degrees at midnight when we sat on the steps in front of the house, drinking tea, explaining to the travelling companion what coal holes were and how they worked.

The house is much bigger than I remembered it.

After a lovely lunch at La Famiglia (I ate ham and figs) we walked up the Kings Road to the Designer’s Guild summer sale and hankered after a beautiful chair and a bulbous teapot.

Last night we drove to Battersea Park and walked for two hours.  The Little Dog is happier in London than anywhere else we visit.  He is free to run and leap and now he has a new friend to play with-even though their new friendship started off with growls and snapping.

Nobody knows how to access the wifi so neither of us automatically reaches for our phones or laptops as soon as our eyes open.  It is very therapeutic not having the Internet so freely available.

Less eager to check my emails, more of an event to do so.  We have to walk to the Starbucks on the Kings Road and drink warm iced coffee.

I really shouldn’t be so eager to placate myself with the soothing, addictive page after page of regular web sites I open every morning.

Even though we are only half way through our adventure I am already dreading having to deal with LA and the eventual closing down of my life in the USA.

I didn’t mention that the travelling companion bumped into (of all people) Cary Fukunaga in Wheelers the Oyster Bar in Whitststable.  He is here directing Jane Eyre. He was with the actress playing Jane Eyre – Mia Wasikowska who was Tim Burton‘s Alice.   Even before I knew who he was he had an air about him that reeked of unbridled entitlement.   It came as no surprise to hear that he directs-we are all the same.  All directors have that air about them that may indicate that he is indeed the real deal.  Time will tell.  He wanted a table in the back room but Anita refused to give him one.  If only he had been a little softer, more charming, he would have gotten what he wanted.

Seeing Gary tonight in North London.  We are going to a Diana Krall event at Kenwood House.

Travelling companion and I are having a lovely time.   Not without consternation but actually and mostly we laugh and try to make sense of our odd friendship.

There was something inevitable about this I suppose. Though there is an emotional imbalance and sexual disparity that is more revealed as we spend time together.  I understand – who wouldn’t?   It’s just the way things are.

We may know each other a little too well.

I have never, ever thought of love as anything other than fleeting.  Being here in London has filled the hole, the gaping, yearning hole that rots my life from the inside out.  London! Look around you!  The art, the architecture, the color and movement inspire and nourish.

Phil is off to a woman’s Buddhist retreat for the day.

Is this Sunday?  I think so.   We are thinking about extending our trip.  Staying in London longer, maybe going to Berlin.

Anyway, another day has passed since I wrote the above and even though we are in the very heart of London there is something oddly bucolic about this house.

Saturday morning we walked up the Kings Road toward Sloane Square.  Where the Duke of York’s Barracks used to be, there is now a food market that sells delicious looking food from all over the world, Caribbean, Mediterranean, British (of course), Indian etc. etc.  We ate curried goat and rice.  Delicious.

(We were going to have lunch at the Blue Bird restaurant but who ever now owns it is not taking much care.  The staff were rude and unhelpful.  The tables dirty, the food uninspiring.  It used to be so elegant.)

Bought ourselves Oyster cards and after a long walk through Eton Square and the back of Belgravia we caught a bus to Piccadilly Circus and hung out in Soho House.  He drank champagne and I coffee and fizzy water.  The staff brought the little dog a plastic box of water and a chicken breast.

After ‘lunch’ we walked back toward Bond St stopping in at Richard James which used to be so glorious but now looks a bit sad, the staff all puffed up and arrogant.

Popped into the new Louis Vuitton store, which is, I am very sad to say, TOTALLY VILE!  Packed with retail-obsessed tourists this monstrous, badly conceived, gaudily decorated ‘shop’ was also swarming with London’s boys in blue.  Policemen and women who I assume had been called to deal with a shoplifting incident.    It was almost Dickensian, the rich and the poor come to the emporium to either buy or steal.

We popped into APC and he bought a jacket that he is desperate to wear because he looks incredibly chic in it.   We are teaching him how to buy beautiful things.   Every gay man needs a style mentor.  He is so lucky to be a small to medium.  The summer sales here are stuffed with small to medium bargains.  50%/70% off everything with plenty of room for negotiation..one can easily get a further 10% off of everything.

I bought a teapot and six cups and a milk jug for my new life in London.

Anyway, we wended our way home.  It was incredibly hot.  We lay down and slept for a little while.

At 8ish Phil stuffed us in her car and drove to Hampstead where we saw Diana Krall then after..believe it or not..we went to Cary Fukunaga’s birthday party.  My opinion of him did not alter much.  We are both quite awkward but he gets to drink.  We are both quite competitive but he is 32.  We are both talented but John Lyons wants to suck his cock and not mine.

Is Cary Fukunaga gay?  Probably.

We met a delightful lesbian and an odd gay boy who started craving shots and drugs and became so very dull.  We sat in the most beautiful garden and smoked cigarettes.  The gay boy told us about all the thrilling gay club/bar opportunities that we could have in East London.

On the way home he sleepily laid his head on my shoulder and drunkenly told me all manner of charming things but I am acutely aware that I am still on guard.  I know that if just one person says just one cruel word about these two men together I would kill them.   Too many men in big cities are killed by homophobes and I am not going to be one of them.  Consequently, whenever it may be apparent that we are gay in public my fist is clenched just in case some fool wants to try killing us.

We were home by 3.30am.

Jake Bauman by Adam King

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Categories
Dogs Travel Whitstable

New York/Paris/London

I left LA last week (July 2nd) though it actually feels like months ago, so much has happened.   I flew into JFK with bags and dog and chaos.  He was waiting for me and whisked me off to a beautiful house set in perfect woodland and rolling lawns.

We ate and walked and talked.  I never tire of listening to him.   We have done our fair share of soul-searching these past few months and now it is time to have a few laughs.   I know that at the back of his mind he worries, that he is not truly free.

I loved the countryside and delightful clapboard houses on the border of New York and Connecticut.

In distant, very white upstate town Katonah there were two very black gay men from the Caribbean eating a light lunch.   They were the only black people for miles around.

 

Two days later we were in a taxi back to JFK and onto one of Air France’s spectacular Airbus A380.   The huge plane was almost empty!  Deciding to fly on July 4th was a great idea.  Taking off over a million 4th July firework parties.  Fireworks exploding all around us.

The first part of the journey was not without drama as we managed to get delayed for 3 hours by a bomb scare at JFK.  The entire airport emptied out just minutes before we were about to fly.    We were herded outside and sat around smoking cigarettes and drinking water.   After a couple of hours in the sun we stampeded back into the building directly onto our planes and landed in France 6 hours later.

It is delicious to be back in Europe.  Away from the tangled life I have left behind in the USA.   Once in Paris we checked into Mama Shelter in the 20th, seconds from the cemetery Pere Lachaise.  We loved it!

 

Although I smuggled the dog into the hotel-actually we had no need as dogs, we later found out, are allowed.   The food and service were excellent.  The only vaguely irritating thing was the Internet wi-fi connection which was linked to their rather modern but baffling Apple TV.  Apart from finding it impossible to get on-line their sophisticated interconnected system meant that the TV remote would also remotely control our lap tops..hmmm.

It is so easy to concentrate on what is wrong in life or in others without noticing how beautiful things are.  The staff at the hotel were gorgeous and we drooled over them everyday.

First day of Couture shows in Paris.  We had lunch with William Stoddart at Hotel d’Amour near Pigalle.  Gosh that area has changed so much!   When I lived there with Claire Sant it was ghastly.  Last week it was wonderful.   The weather has been gorgeous everywhere we have been.

The beautiful Edouard joined us afterwards for coffee.  We had dinner with him the night before and 6 others at Italian restaurant.   Very pretty German model who was obviously rooting for Germany in the World Cup..she was tall and womanly and intelligent.  We talked France’s ignominious exit from the competition and sneered at the British teams pathetic attempt to get into the last 8.

 

Three days in Paris followed by a train ride to Calais and a ferry to Dover after a short taxi ride home to Whitstable we were sitting on the beach eating venison burgers and the travelling companion couldn’t believe how beautiful it all was and complained that I had underplayed how Whitstable really is.

 

Today there are warnings that old people may overheat.  We are going to take a train to London.

I am sitting writing this from my room overlooking the sea in Georgina’s home in Whitstable.   It was my birthday yesterday.   The day started well enough with coffee at Dave’s deli catching up on gossip and drinking his perfect latte.   I left the companion in bed.  He is not really a morning person.  We met my mother for lunch at Wheelers where Mark Stubbs the chef there continues to surpass himself-this time with delicately spiced soft shell crab.

I really had no desire to see anyone other than who was at that table.  I am certainly not interested in tangoing in front of 500 people like an eastern European gypsy.    My mum and Georgina bonded over their hatred of Asylum Seekers.  My mother pointed out that some asylum seekers were pretending to be gay so that they could stay in the country.  If it’s not the Mexican’s it’s the Eastern Europeans..there always someone to blame for never having enough.

I thought that the fear of others getting something for nothing was an American phenomena but no!  It’s British too.

After lunch Adam took my picture as part of his photographic Whitstable project and his lovely mum cut my hair.  We sat in their lush garden drinking lemonade and lusting after his gorgeous, recently tattooed, diver brother.   After the pictures were taken we walked the couple of miles home up the beach.   I have never been so happy.

When we got home the companion had a drama unfold which he needed to deal with.  When he finally tore himself away from the Internet we sat in the garden and ate dinner with Georgina.  We ate huge organic pork chops that I managed to burn on the bbq.   After dinner we sat outside the Neptune pub with Barry and other drunksters.   The dog was tired and lay on the beach and fell asleep.  The night was balmy and the sea lapped lazily over the shingle.

This morning I woke at 6am and walked the dog up to the harbor.  He loves it here.   The Greens who own the Oyster Company scrawl unfortunate notes on black boards all over their property.  Don’t do this and don’t do that. Those black boards used to be charming now they just look vicious.

Some people like to get their own way..I am one of them.  When you finally meet your match, as I seem to, it can be less than comfortable.  I am trying to be sensitive to the needs of others but I am a stubborn old fool.

As for him..the traveling companion..he’s finding his feet and I am finding mine.

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Categories
Auto Biography Death Gay prison Rant

Sebastian Horsley Funeral

1983, the year I met Sebastian

Is it possible to believe in God and still take drugs and drink?  Is it possible to believe in God and sleep with hookers?  Is any of this possible?  Obviously it is.

Sebastian will be buried on Thursday, July 1st 2010.   There’ll be a horse-drawn cortege from Meard Street to St James’s Piccadilly where the service will be held.   Stephen Fry will be speaking,  as are others.  Stephen very kindly offered to say a few words on my behalf.

Rachel Campbell-Johnstone wrote to me yesterday inviting me to the funeral, she said,  “We are mountaineers roped together heading for the summit of beauty.”   She warned us that the funeral will be filmed.

Remember, I was 23 when I met Sebastian.  That was 27 years ago.  He was still a teenager working for Jimmy Boyle in Edinburgh.   Our show, Pornography, a spectacle, invited by the Richard Demarco Gallery would play in Jimmy’s cold performance space where Sebastian and I met for the first time.

I would later work for the Demarco Gallery and meet Joseph Beuys, the greatest conceptual artist of our age.   There was a fascinating dialogue between Beuys and Boyle..then styled one of the most dangerous men in the United Kingdom.

The dialogue was initiated by Richard Demarco whilst Jimmy Boyle was serving a sentence of life imprisonment in Barlinnie Prison for murder.  Beuys went on hunger strike because of Jimmy Boyle’s removal from the Special Unit, Barlinnie to Edinburgh’s Saughton Prison where he was no longer able to continue making art.

Sebastian claimed in his book Dandy in the Underworld that he was sleeping with Jimmy and I have no reason to doubt him.  I would have too if I had had my chance.  There was something wildly attractive to me about ex cons and hard men and dangerous criminals.  Remember I had been in prison the year before I met Sebastian and developed a nasty habit for sex with brutal straight men.

If anybody was going to fuck me he was going to be a man who deserved me.    He was going to be a man who knew what he wanted and how to take it.

My cell mate Tommy Cowling, married with two children from Hoxton, East London was the most beautiful man who ever lived.  When the lights went out in our cell he said, “I’m asleep now, you can do what you want to me.”  For nine long months we did exactly that, everything we wanted when the lights were out.   He could make me cum by just rubbing his stubble over my soft face.

Perhaps this is another reason why I spurned the soppy men that I met in gay bars and gay clubs?  Perhaps this is why I would rather have my head buried in a squaddies (soldiers) groin, the smell of wet pussy on his cock than a nice boy from The Abbey.  Prison spoiled more than my reputation.   It proved, if any proof were needed, that straight men with furious urges, hard and hairy bodies and urgent desires were far more interesting than living in the half-light of shameful, gay London, Paris or New York.

This is all a matter of taste of course.  My desires cannot be compared to yours.

Yesterday something a little untoward happened.  At Anna’s birthday party she rolled me a fag and it had a few crumbs of weed in it.   I was as high as a kite for a good few hours.  Everything was totally wonderful.  I had that gorgeous feeling of euphoria and masterful abandon.  I hadn’t felt that feeling for nigh on 14 years.  I demanded to speak to Jake because I wanted to know how the experience of me being high would affect what I thought of him.

He was complaining that it was late and he wanted to go to sleep…he was blithering on about how people might think he was some sort of man whore if I compared his experience of being gay with men who died of AIDS in the 1980’s.   Obviously, I didn’t mean that.  I was trying to be nice.

Fuck it!  Go and be a man whore.  All of you!   Go and be whores.  It doesn’t matter to me.  I was sucking squaddie cock and getting fucked in the back of cars by East End builders.  LUSH.  I didn’t wait around to have a gay life.  I emerged from the womb searching for the most perfect penis to suckle on.

Anyway, as I did not deliberately get high I am not going to reset my sobriety time.  I still believe in God but I’m not going to be so fucking pious.

I will miss you Sebastian Horsley.