Categories
Self Sufficiency

Writing My Will

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1.

Another wholly preventable wild-fire in the mountains.

If only, like the Mexicans, the residents of the Santa Monica Mountains could bear the idea of a yearly brush burn.

Then, every decade, they wouldn’t stand miserably by their pyre lamenting the loss of personal items on the early evening news.

2.

So.  I’m writing my last will and testament.  And, after much prayer/thought, I’ve decided to leave everything to my former school Monkton Wyld.

I am also discussing making a charitable donation to Monkton which is now a residential education center.

The Grade II listed neo-Gothic building is set amongst an idyllic eleven acres of lawns, gardens and meadows.

Designed by Richard Cromwell Carpenter, the rectory was built in 1848.  It is in need of help.  Tracery needs restoring, energy efficient windows need installed and a large bay window at the front of the house needs underpinning.

As a Centre for Sustainable Education, Monkton Wyld hosts a range of courses, conferences and gatherings for adults, families and children.

From bee-keeping to scything to yoga, Monkton’s programme promotes low-impact, earth-centred skills for changing modern life.

Meals are prepared in the house kitchen using fresh organic ingredients from the Court’s own Victorian walled garden, orchards and farm.

The Court is managed by a resident volunteer staff with the help of volunteers and overseen by a board of trustees.

They work to develop and promote a lifestyle based on mutual respect for each other and for the wider community and environment.

Sounds perfect doesn’t it?

I want my ashes scattered there.

Have you written a will?  How many single people do?  It is imperative.

I’ve been thinking for many years what to do with any money I might have when I die and this, I believe, is the best solution.  Helping with the fabric of this building may secure its future for decades to come.

Categories
Hollywood

More LA Portraits

Tyler

Alex

Peter

Categories
Alcoholics Anonymous Brooklyn NYC Queer

The Endless Summer

January NYC

1.

The definite seasons on the east coast. The passing days, changing. Slowly.

Each day has a brand new identity. New light. Color.

The bland, endless Los Angeles summer has finally come to an end. After 8 long years. I am heading home.

I wear my long, grey cashmere coat (Hermes) and fur hat (Dior).

I pull on my knee-length, woolen socks and my heavy boots.

I am going to therapy… daily. I am finally addressing the issues I have been ignoring this past year. You know, those pesky medical issues.

Strangely, without warning… even though we share the same streets. I never see him. Nor do I wish to conjure him, manifest him, make him appear… I had lunch with one of his co-workers the other day, a youngster (we met at an AA meeting) who wanted his job.

It was funny being at the same table as someone who works in close proximity to him. Their opinion.

They knew the story. An urban myth that they delighted in fact checking.

Oh well.

Of course there’s loads going on (Film/House/Social) but somehow I don’t have the energy to write it.

I take pictures and let that suffice.

2.

I found a picture of Joe. He’s obsessively going to the gym. A man mountain. In his late 60’s now.

I scarcely ever think about him. Isn’t that odd? To have no thoughts about someone who was once the center of your world.

Categories
Gay Rant

i am not gay

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1.

Nope.  Not any more.

I AM NOT GAY.  I am OUT.

Unambiguous?

My New Years resolution: don’t call me gay.

I am The Other.  I am simply… Out.

I have resigned my gay membership.  I renounce the word GAY.

The Other is different from you.  He is neither superior nor inferior.

He is not alone.  He is out.

2.

Are you kidding?  I still like sex with men… but I’m not interested in being gay.   Do you understand what I’m saying… gays?  Yes you.  I’m talking to you.   I’M TALKING TO YOU!  Yes you, the gay in the bar, on the street, editing his Grindr profile.

Let’s face it.  This separation will work out just fine for both of us.

I loathe you and you hate me.

I know, amongst other things, what galls you… you (particularly) don’t like when men in their fifties own up to having a rich and varied sexuality:   I’ve been called a ‘dirty old man’ by more gays than I ever have by straights for wanting or having beautiful younger men in my bed.  The gays write it anonymously.  They post it all over the place, whenever they can.  As If I should be ashamed?

You, you who have cornered the market in nihilism, immorality, homogeneousness, bitchery, selfishness, self-aggrandizement, self-obsession… in fact anything with the self prefix… apart from self-awareness.

I am peeling off the parade.  I am letting the party wend its way elsewhere.

2. (a)

They told me at Triangle House in LA when we were making our documentary about older gay people:  they say that old gay people end up going back into the closet because… it can get ugly… it can get dangerous.   They say that gay men are more likely to end up homeless than in any other demographic… because they have no community.

You gays are the very worst at hating yourselves.  But you reserve more venom for the elderly homosexual than any other group.  It is a sickening idea to many young gays, that we (the elderly) exist.  Some young gay people believe that past 50 our penises shrink appropriately into our bodies.  Retract.  In old age we become like wrinkly Ken dolls with smooth, pink groins.

No longer a threat to anyone.

I thought that when I became old… I would start wearing women’s clothes.

Where do young gay men learn how to be dignified old gay men?  I learned from older men in AA how to be an older man.   The respect that AA old timers get, applauded for their contribution to the community of AA stands in stark contract to the respect that older gay people don’t get from younger gay people.  Unless, of course, they are famous… or comical freaks… or rich enough to buy the boys they used to get for free.

Young gay people don’t want to be reminded that the party comes to an end.

2 (b)

So, today…

I resign my membership.  I am no longer a true believer.  I’m handing back my awards, my medals, my history, my pride.

It’s yours not mine.  Take it.

I renounce: gay pride, gay film festivals, gay beaches, gay basketball, gay bars, the gay ghetto, the gay plague, gay marriage, gaybies, gaydar.com, gays in the military, gay cruises, cottaging, felching, gay news, gay voice, gay face, the gay sub section in the book/video store/Huffington Post.

So help me God!

I’m praying the gay away!

The terms of this divorce:

You can keep it all.  The gay plays I made, the gay films I directed, the gay art I painted/etched/sculpted.

Take everything I ever made in your honor.

If you don’t want it?  Burn it.

2 (c)

When I offered our award-winning film catalogue of gay films to The Legacy Project (the gay and lesbian film preservation project) based out of UCLA… the gays turned it down.  Even though AKA  had won the LA Outfest audience award and opened (and closed) many gay film festivals all over the world with all of my films.

The Legacy Project said no to the free gift.  They wanted me to disappear.  They don’t want any evidence that I existed.  As a man or an artist.

“He’s trouble.”  “He’s angry.”  “He’s a parasite.”

Gays!  Look at what you’ve become!  Examine, for just one goddamned gay second…. the mediocrity!  Your righteous indignation! Your mock elegance!

Being with you is like drowning in cold tea.

3.

I don’t drink or take drugs.  Tom blew weed into my face.   He put vodka into my virgin mary.  That’s how the gays bully one another.   Try wearing something unusual when your companions  just want to be invisible.

“Who does he think he is?”

Their artificially deepened voices.  The plaid shirt, the super hero tee.  The cloak of invisibility.

INVISIBLE.

Tom asked incredulously, “What are you wearing?”  A man who wears nothing but ugly jeans, ill-fitting t-shirts.

Tom has an ‘opinion’ about individuality:  He doesn’t believe in it.  These gays are terrified of being seen.  Gripped by the politics of invisibility.   At least that grotesque, lying freak I used to date… he and his boy friend have some sartorial audacity.

Even if it is TOTALLY misguided.

Who are these gays?  These invisigays?

Like Tom, they may appear normal.

4.

How can a gay man expect to age with dignity when nobody gay wants to age at all?

I saw it in LA… my destiny. If I chose to take it.   At first, Adam looked just like any other confident gay man claiming to be 48.  His gay parties are the talk of the town.  Richer than most of his friends, though not very well connected … not to the real gay power in LA.

I mean, David Geffen wouldn’t be seen dead at this piss elegant, graceless house in the Hollywood Hills.

Adam invented the heart valve.  At one of his parties (to his chagrin) I photographed every single one of his guests.  A snap shot of LA gay life.

He has never been elegant, he has never been a great beauty.  He will never be tall.  He is, however, manicured, botoxed, his teeth reinvented, his flawless skin, his demeanor… (that only great wealth lends you).

It was at that last raucous party I attended (as a plus one) I saw him upset (rattled)… why?

He looked like an old, vulnerable man.

“What happened?”  I asked the gays.

They told me imperiously (as if it were obvious) that the young, chiseled boy he imported from NYC just wanted him for his money.   Adam looked… beaten.  Crest fallen.  His frail hands shook, the delicate skin around his eyes failing.

The gays stood around helplessly as their host fell apart.  They stared into the plastic cups of vodka.  They played with their nipples.  The pimps and the whores waited silently by the sodden beer pong.  He turned the music off.  Finally, he threw everyone out.

They lined up on the steep drive.  A hideous parade of grotesquely young boys, graded online or in public bars for their sexual prowess, their social fallibility, their youth.

The man who invented the heart valve, it seems, suffered from a broken heart.

5.

Take the gay man who gave up his 160k surrogate child for adoption because she had a small birth defect on one of her legs.

Yes, you heard me.

When we interviewed the doctor who makes hundreds and thousands of gay dollars from the gayby industry… he told us that the gays want perfection.  Nothing less will do.

Take it all… this gay culture.  This gay community.  Take it.

Take the video of Bryan with 25 Bel Ami boys jacking off over him.  Moisturized with Czech sperm.

Or the man/boy with the huge cock who they pay to sleep with a hooker and unbeknownst to him… tape him.

This tribe of entitled, elitist gays clinging to gay marriage and their smart phones.

6.

I had lunch today with a 30-year-old man/boy who just came out.  “Why did it take you so long, ” I ask, “To tell the truth?”  He said, “I didn’t… (he paused dramatically) …I mean I still don’t… I don’t want to be gay.”

“That’s ok,” I reassured him.  “You can describe yourself however you want.”

When, as frightened teens, blooming… prepubescent boys… infants… when we understand that we want to fall in love and fuck and suck and slide into another man… what choices do we have?   To describe ourselves?

Gay is the only way.   And if you don’t know what you are.  The gays will tell you exactly what you are.

The gays are so prescriptive.

He’s gay, they claim conspiratorially.  They claim anyone ‘hot’ is gay.  They all know someone who had sex with Tom Cruise or Hugh Jackman.  “He’s fucking his ‘assistant’.”   Oh Yes!  He’s had sex with a man… he’s gay.  He’s experimented… he’s gay.

Prescriptive.

6 (a)

Hollywood does not lend itself to morals.

CAA agent Kevin Huvane.  When you first meet him, he shakes your hand and pulls you toward him.   Trying to pull you off-balance.  The first time he met me… it worked (I was rocked) the second and third times I was prepared and we set to a gay tug of war, an argy bargy, him attempting to pull me and me attempting to pull him.

The fourth time I let him pull me onto him.  I crashed into him.  His tiny frame overwhelmed by 6′ 2″ me.  He landed in a heap beneath me.  “Oh sorry,” I said.  “You pulled me toward you.  I lost my balance.  Sorry… Kevin.”

He’ll put you on a ‘list’ they told me.  “I’m on so many lists.” I murmured.  “More lists than Cathy Griffin.”

7.

After claiming on the Dr. Drew show that I wanted to make healthy decisions about sex.  Somebody wrote to me or about me:  If Duncan Roy doesn’t like gay sex… he isn’t gay.  He wasn’t far from the truth.  At first, I was outraged by their attempts to isolate, malign and lambaste me.   They had tried for years.  Without success.  Every time they try… they fail.   This last time… the jail.  What the hell did they expect?  That I would buckle?

Those who throw rocks at me are seldom innocent of that which they accuse.

8.

The Gays, have become so… bourgeois.  Do you understand what that means?  Let me refresh your memory:

Marked by a concern for material interests and respectability and a tendency toward mediocrity.

When I was young… gays like you knew their place.  They stayed in the closet.  I mean.  Coming out of the closet was brave!  Now anyone can do it and become a fucking hero.

9.

Gays… why are you killing yourselves?   You kill yourself because you can’t take a joke, because you can’t hold your liquor, because you can’t say no to crystal… because you don’t want to be gay.  I don’t remember young gay people killing themselves in the UK.

It gets better?

What gets better?

Better than death?

10.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled when any oppressed group gets a bit of equality… but what will the USA gays do with their equality?

I’ll tell you.  They will make it even harder for the rest of us to be different.   There is a hideous conformity to which these young gays feel they must adhere.   Gay life in the USA.  A blushing desire for ‘straight acting’ has become a tsunami of heternoramativity.   The foundation on which this miserable gay monolith now stands.

Who are you?

A greek god, perfectly muscled, forever young… dressed to be ignored, as bland a personality as he can effect.  He is Peter Pan, he is Hercules, his personality as glittering as the Pillsbury Dough Boy.

Do you care about anything other than marriage equality?  No.  He eats what his parents eat.  He would vote republican if they could only find it in their neo con hearts to see that the gays are perfect conservatives.

So.  We are divorced.  I am no longer gay.  I’m OUT.  I’m out of here.  I’m out but I’m not gay.

Happy New Year!

Categories
Dogs Gay Health Immigration politics

ACLU 2012 Bill of Rights Award

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The ACLU 2012 Bill of Rights awards at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel.   I sat with my lawyers Barry Litt and Peter Eliasberg.

We ate stewed pear salad, grilled chicken and for dessert they served a strange, solid cake.

During the dinner they projected various videos describing the work they do for Homeless Veterans, Immigrants Rights, The LGBTQ community.

Of course the work I have been contributing to was just part of what was projected.  I was incredibly proud to be asked to stand in front of the 1000 or so people and introduce myself.

Will Ferrell, Jay Roach, Ermin Chemerinsky and Jane Lynch all spoke beautifully on behalf of the ACLU and their various causes and friends.

During the interval both Usher (the singer) and Scooter Braun (2 million twitter followers) took the time to introduce themselves and congratulate me.

Of course, as usual, not one gay person, including honoree Jane Lynch made themselves known to me.  The chasm that exists between me and the gay community in LA was even more evident than usual at this event.

Only last week the gay ‘director’ Guy Shalem texted me telling me that I deserved to be in jail… mocking the time that I had spent there, telling me that I only had friends I made in jail.

Guy Shalem is a gay Israeli fame-whore who lives in Los Angeles.  I met him at some grimy gay party in the Hollywood Hills last year and he subsequently invited me to Griffith Park for a walk the following day.

The conversation on the mountain centered around his visa problems, his inability to make relationships work, his celebrity friends and his desire for younger boys.

He complained that Outfest were sniffy about his short film.  When I saw it I understood why.  “Bruce Vilanch is in it.” He boasted, “They should love it.”

After all, he’s obsessed with celebrity… why shouldn’t Outfest?

So, it was mildly shocking to see Guy at the ACLU event. Wearing a bad suit and even worse shoes.

He had seen the video lauding the work we are all doing for those held on spurious ICE holds.

He heard the applause I received when they asked me to stand.

He heard Hector Villagra, head of the ACLU talking publicly about my personal bravery and commitment to the ACLU.

Guy is the perennial plus one to any gay celebrity.  Last night, yet again, he was with Jane Lynch.   He saw me, headed toward me and shook my hand.  Apparently forgetting the vile things he said last week.

I told him in no uncertain terms how and what I felt about him coming up to me.

He motioned to his ugly short gay friends lawyer Aaron Rosenberg and his ‘husband’ that this was worth watching.  They snickered, like vile bullying children, behind my back.

Let’s face it, Guy was only there for the free dinner and to stand with his famous friend and hope to ensnare other famous people with his puppy eyes and his maudlin sob stories.

The point of the evening was completely lost on him.

After I walked away from Guy other honorees came up to me and offered their hands.

One of them, an elderly female philanthropist  said, “We are like kindred spirits, you and me.”   I was so touched by her generosity.

So many kind people… not one of them gay.

2.

There was a moment in Beverly Hills recently when my body decided enough was enough.  7am, Beverly Drive, walking the dogs… I fainted.

The last thing I remember:  kicking a fresh pine cone.  The next thing?  I crashed to the ground painfully twisting my wrist under the weight of my body.

Dude, my fat red dog ran away as fast as he could.  The Little Dog stayed beside me as loyal as any dog can be.

I probably should have seen a doctor but, like my Grandmother and my Mother, a visit to the doctor is the last thing I do willingly.

It took an hour or so to persuade Dude to come back to me.  For the rest of the day he looked at me differently.  Like I was a  stranger.

Categories
Hollywood

No Contest

The criminal matter is resolved.

Do you want to know what happened?

As part of a plea deal crafted by the DA and my lawyer, I plead NO CONTEST to a misdemeanor.  My sentence?  An 18 month gagging order and a 52 hour course in anger management.

There was no jail time, no fine.  It was all over in 20 minutes.

I smoked a cigarette outside the courtroom.  So did the DA.  She sat there in her black coat.  Sitting where she always sits.  Behind a wall.

Like a naughty school girl.  Smoking.

And I felt like it was going to be OK.  Because she was smoking too.

The judge said goodbye, the bailiff smiled.  The stenographer watched with interest.

I said goodbye to my lawyers and drove to Venice.

I had a lot of thinking to do.

On the way to Abbot KinneyRussian woman rear ended me.  We stopped abruptly on Wilshire Blvd.

Her name was Natalie Volk.  She was very apologetic.  Her husband got out of the car.  Natalie must have been 80 years old, he was older.  She touched the back of the car to make sure it wasn’t all a bad dream.

We exchanged personal details.  I’m not going to call her insurance people.  I know what they’ll do to her.  How punitive they can be.

That night I stopped at a gas station to buy gas and soda.  A huge black woman begged me to fill her gas tank.  The station wagon was packed with kids.  They were homeless.  They lived in that car.

I paid for their gas.  I made it seem like a terrible imposition.

Absurdly, I didn’t want other people to think I was being hijacked.

I went to buy myself a soda.  The woman at the checkout said, “That was really kind of you, they were homeless.”  She smiled and said,  “I’ll pay for your soda.”

I felt badly that I hadn’t been kinder to the homeless women.

On my way out of the service station I saw the most beautiful black man.  A solid wall of muscle.  He was walking up Lincoln Avenue.   I circled around until I found him.  I stopped the car and asked him what he was doing.

We had a chai latte at the Coffee Bean in Marina Del Rey.  He was from Chicago.  28 years old.  A personal trainer.  He had moved to LA a few months ago to help his brother.  He used to have dreadlocks.

I dropped him off at his apartment.  He invited me into his empty place.

At 5am I drove him to the gym where he worked.

Perhaps I should have given him more?  More than a chai latte?

As I drove home up the PCH.  Looking over the Pacific Ocean.  I thought about the previous day.

All that public money wasted.  All that time taken by highly paid District Attorneys,  Attorneys who could have been solving real crimes.

Money that could be spent repairing a local school. Money that could have been spent investigating white-collar crimes.

I was listening to John Martyn.  Solid Air.  Synthesized sea gulls.  A heartbeat.  My heart is still beating.

2.

Whatever may happen.  How ever bad it gets.  It is is up to you… yes you…  you can turn the worst things that happen into the most extraordinary adventure.

As anyone who has a creative bone in their body knows, to carve something artful out of wherever you find yourself… well.  It’s up to you.

So, it was no coincidence that, after I spoke to the reporter about The Trust Act, after my involved and specific conversation with the  lawyer, after I had recorded the Youtube video….

I sat down at my desk and rewrote the ending of my script.

What a killing crime this love can be.

This is for you Daddy.  You bad, bad man.

On Friday at 10am I will stand before you all again, on your televisions, in your newspapers, sparking up the internet.

Damning the authority.

On behalf of the brown people.

And after it is all over?  I am left on my own.  Well, that’s not entirely true.  Because I have you.

I want to tell you about my neck.  The arthritis in my neck.  The arthritis that makes my arms numb.  My fingers tingle.

I am pleased not to share that with anyone.

The audience is singing along with the familiar tune.

It is 2am.  The dog is farting.  He’ll want to go out in the middle of the night.

Categories
Gay Health Hollywood NYC

Gay AA

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Published today in The Fix and responded to in The Advocate….

On October 1st I will be 16 years sober.

That means that I have not had a drink or a drug for 16 years.

I got sober and I didn’t relapse.

Gay men find it impossible to stay sober. They relapse again and again. The reason is clear: sex. Sexual addiction. I am not suggesting that all gay men who claim that they are alcoholic are in fact sex addicts but most gay men who can’t stay sober cite sex as the primary reason for relapse.

The simple fact of the matter is that most of the time, readily available anonymous hook ups quickly take the place of alcohol and drugs. When a sober man walks into the apartment of a super hot man doing crystal meth, sobriety is quickly flushed down the toilet along with HIV status.

I hear the story over and over again. Yet, as a community, we think we can get away with this risky behavior. It is an arrogant vanity.

Gay AA is a sad affair. I go periodically—mostly when I flee the super charged straight stag meetings because I find the straight, young newcomers too triggering.

While many straight sober people create a new life with AA that involves abandoning bars and other locations that might lead to relapse, gay sober men often want a sober version of the life they had before, complete with dance parties, bars and gogo boys. Any reason to have a party will do—including the absurd “three-month anniversary.” Or, as one galling invitation I received said, “Help Joe S. celebrate his one-month anniversary.”

Forgive me if I’m wrong but anniversaries are a yearly celebration.

Many of these sober parties are indistinguishable from their non sober equivalent: scantily clad men line up for espresso machines manned by disco short-wearing super hot straight guys more used to shaking cocktails than dispensing coffee to gay guys jacked up on caffeine. Unable to attend drug-crazed gay circuit parties, many gay sober men in LA flock to the sober circuit parties, such as Hot ‘n Dry, which is held annually in Palm Springs. These events are more likely to take someone out than any other reason I’ve ever heard in gay AA. Yearly, after this event, bedraggled gay men turn up at meetings, their eyes blazing from excessive drug use, taking newcomer chips. Should I be surprised? After all, the Hot n’ Dry ticket salesman had assured me that it would be “a sex fest from the moment you arrive at the Ace Hotel.”

The absurd idea that we can behave like we have always behaved as long as we have a deluded and lackluster understanding of the 12 steps just doesn’t work. Two years ago, after I appeared on Sex Rehab With Dr. Drew, I suggested that within the gay community, we might have a sexual unmanageability problem and was flooded with vitriol. But that’s not going to stop me from sharing what I believe to be serious issues.

The other serious issue within gay AA, in my opinion, is the resistance to God or a Higher Power. Most of my gay sponsees are understandably wary of God. The Christian God—the religious God—hasn’t made them feel very welcome in the past and has actually steeped them in shame and misery. To find that at the heart of AA is a God—even if it’s one of their own understanding—is anathema to most gay men. From what I can determine, most gay men just ignore the God part of the 12 steps—a relevant fact when the God part, in my estimation, accounts for roughly 90% of recovery. Working through the God options with gay men can be excruciating. Why bother looking for spiritual validation when they can get immediate validation on Grindr?

I used to love AA in LA; my love for it was actually the reason I first moved to LA. Now I hate it. It’s like a cult—sober grandees ruling over desperate men, the film industry providing the sickest of backdrops: men flaying themselves before agents and film executives in the hope of catching crumbs from the sober table I see this everywhere from the straight stag meetings, where misogyny and homophobia are expressed freely, to the sickest meetings of all: Gay AA in LA.

For all of these reasons and more, last November, after nearly 16 years, I stopped going to AA meetings. I was exhausted, disillusioned and utterly miserable. My last meeting in LA, at the iconic Log Cabin on Robertson in West Hollywood, was a gay meeting attended by 300 gay men.

I couldn’t walk away fast enough.

And yet yesterday, after a nine-month hiatus, I walked into a co-ed meeting in Park Slope, Brooklyn. I was an hour early. I helped set out the chairs in ten neat rows and then I made the coffee. During the meeting, I shared my resentments and my fears and afterwards, a tiny woman called Dianne came up to me and let me have two full barrels of her tough love wisdom.

“It’s time for you to get fucking humble,” she said. “Come back and do fucking 90 in 90 like a newcomer.”

She was right. After months away from AA, I felt spiritually bankrupt. I stopped fighting and did what we are all meant to in the rooms of AA: I gave in.

Later that evening, the young man I helped set up the meeting took me for dinner. We talked recovery. This morning, we had sex. There I was, doing the walk of shame, doubled down. I had once again fucked a newcomer, counting days. It’s my story in AA. The younger men find my honesty irresistible and I can’t say no.

When I first got sober in London, the only gay men I met in AA were old queens at the Eton Square meeting. I met a couple of gay men in NA but within the deluded gay community, at that time, there was a mantra I heard over and over that “quitting was for losers.” Several years later, after celebrities like Boy George got sober, the rooms of AA and NA filled quickly with what we now recognize as gay recovery.

Back then I was accused, by my drinking friends, of being a contrarian—of rocking the boat and spoiling it for the others. As it happened, I was in the vanguard. I remember being hounded by drunken gay men who were outraged that I might, just by being sober, challenge their powerlessness and un-manageability. Of course those very same men now thank me for introducing them to the 12 steps.

After a few months away from AA, I am ready to start again but, as Dianne said, I’ve got to get humble, forget all those years of sobriety and do 90 meetings in 90 days. For the first time in a long time, I value my life. I should have left LA years ago but I’m a tenacious old queen; I didn’t want to let go. Just one more meeting might fix me. Just more line, one more Vodka Tonic and the crazy opera playing in my head might stop.

Walking back into AA in New York was a relief, a joy—just like it used to be. I want to be sober. The only problem getting in the way of that is me. But I know that if I’m going to be able to do it, I’ll have to learn how to say no to sex. As a single gay man, the consequences are dire if I don’t.

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Categories
art Fashion Gay Hollywood Photography

Merle Ginsberg

A perfect Sunday lunch with old friends: the wonderful Merle Ginsberg and Orian Williams… producer of Anton Corbijn‘s Control at  The Chateau Marmont.

Followed by a walk up Abbot Kinny with Tristam Summers.

Categories
art Fashion Film Gay Hollywood

Fuck you Konstantine Kakanias

Cocksucking Fame Whore

Continuing my occasional ‘Fuck you’ series of LA essays I nominate the ‘award winning’ illustrator and elderly Greek queen Konstantine Kakanias as my latest Fuck You.

Konstantine threw a party last night at Soho House.

Who put the kaka into Kakanias?  This guy has tried it all.  Artist, writer, illustrator, jewellery designer.   B’jesus with this much talent this homo should be a household name!  He’s tried so hard to be something but for poor old Koni, nothing seems to stick.  He’s  just a socialite with a great talent for persuading other socialites to take him seriously.

You know, I have known the rancid Konstantine for many, many years.  We first met with Manolis Mavrakis and Fred Hughes in New York in the early 80’s.  Fred loathed him.  Manolis laughed at him.  Koni painted my portrait then tried to have sex with me.  I declined.  He was smelly and creepy.  I left the portrait on the easel.

We periodically bump into each other all over the world.  Much to his chagrin and my infinite amusement.  It was he I referred to as Nona Summer’s vile Greek escort last week.  Konstantine attracts the WORST sort of people.  Nona, Peter Dunham, Justin Kern, Alex Hitz etc.

As his last incarnation he was calling himself an artist.   He had a laughably sophomoric show at The Light Box Gallery in LA before it closed down.  Kimberly Light (heiress) rues the day she ever let this cretin have his own show at her gallery.  He was the only artist who did not sell at the Angel Food project auction at CAA several years ago.  That’s how seriously the art elite take him.  Look for his work in the collections of important collectors and you will not find his name.  His work is absurd.

Yet, within that sub-world of dodgy socialites and rich kids looking for a purpose he has carved himself a ‘career’.   Some how he persuaded Swarovski to manufacture his designs.  Silly rings, “Inspired by Byzantine royal jewels.”  He brays.  Did they sell?  They were a total disaster and can now be found on the Swarovski website knocked down to a fraction of their original price.

Last night Konstantine was up to his old tricks.  Konstantine is now a film maker.  He has made a ‘film’ and to launch this seven minute animated masterpiece he assembled LA’s elite…  including ‘designer’ Justin Kern and his pretty side kick Stephanie Danan for whom the ‘film’ was commissioned and QVC favorite… fried chicken go to guy and Coca Cola heiress Alex Hitz and a gaggle of loafer wearing euro trash.

“They’re very collaborative people and they’re really creative. They like playing with other creative people and that’s where it all crosses over,” Indeed, Danan and Kern enlisted the efforts of friends like Tatiana von Furstenberg (heiress), “They’re not in a singular mind-set and they can pull from other mediums.”

I walked in and immediately saw twenty people I knew well enough to kiss and twenty people I knew well enough to ignore.  I waved at Konstantine… he flew out of his chair…

“Who invited you…”  he trembled.  His voice deserting its usual treble… escalating into a Maria Callas soprano.   Alex Hitz who I kissed lavishly (after all he had paid for a wonderful dinner at the Sunset Tower) said, “This is Konstantin’s party.”

“I know,” I said, “And I am the wicked fairy.”

Alex shrank into the shadows.  I turned to face the outraged Greek.  Like his country… in debt and struggling to save face.    He held out his fingers like 10 wands and told me to get out.  I left, greeting people on the way out with smiles and kisses.  Clo Perrin (heiress) looking gorgeous in white silk jersey.

Justin Kern waved.  Justin is proof that there is life after modeling… just.

“I’ll be writing about this!”  I grinned cheerily!

Before I left one of the guests, a beautiful young Parisian laughed, “Darling, what a waste of time.  You didn’t miss a thing.   Poor Konstantine.”

Dinner at Laurel Hardware with a cute jew.    Great kisser.

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Hollywood

Birth Day

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Such a lovely day yesterday.

Thank you all for your kind wishes and wonderful gifts.

Everything was perfect. The people, the locations, the birthday greetings.

Breakfast at home with one remaining child, the others are away at camp.

Lunch at the club with Tom et al.

After lunch more friends arrive. We decamp to the Chateau Marmont.

I inadvertently drink half a bloody Mary they serve instead of a virgin Mary.

Feel totally buzzed.

A short time at the Abbey on Robertson with more buddies.

Dinner at Gjelina with Gabe and his bf.

Bed time welcome. Sleep like a log. Dreaming of my burgeoning script.

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