Categories
Alcoholics Anonymous Gay

Yikes

I love this picture.  Francis Bacon and Lucien Freud in Wheelers.

1.

Waking up at Robby’s apartment.  West Hollywood.  Feeling like I have a hangover.  I haven’t.  I’m still not drinking.  Waiting for the right moment…but it never comes.  The sanctity of sobriety.

It’s hard after nearly 16 years to think about the right time to start drinking.

A woman I know from the programme called yesterday.  I told her that I had renounced AA.  “How’s that working out for you?”  She pried condescendingly.

I faked a dropped call.

2.

Saturday pre pride party.  Good fun.  The über gays.  The fake NYC producer I mentioned in an earlier post sitting at his table wondering how I manage to surround myself with such beauty.  He looked exasperated.  Staring over at us.

Pride was a great deal of fun.  On the streets.  The floats have not changed for 30 years: muscle boys and drag queens.  Not very inventive.

I stayed at the London Hotel courtesy of my Kuwaiti friends. They pitched up at 8am.  We ate smoked fish and Quiche for breakfast.

3.

Nothing is obvious.  Just when you thought you’d never kiss anyone meaningfully ever again.

I saw you in the bar and knew you were the one.  A brief conversation.  Kisses, glances, then you pissed on me.  That was new to both of us but so damned exciting.  A mouth full of piss.  Then we spent the afternoon talking.  Eating.  Each other.

You left an impression.   Creases in the bed sheets.

4.

Without me even noticing it LA is full of gay men with beards.

Does this mean that they/we are growing up? That men are trumping boys? The aesthetic is not only very pleasing but means I get looked at all over again. I have some currency…if you know what I mean.

5.

I don’t have time to write this very often.  There’s a great deal to do.

I’m helping those boys in the jail, even though they don’t know it.  Meeting lawyers down town who are investigating conditions in the jail.  They seem shocked.  Young lawyers.  Fresh faced.  Idealists.

I try balancing my complaints with a broader understanding of the jail dynamic.  The deputies are not just cruel…they are frightened.  They do not treat the trans population with contempt because they hate gays, they are confused by the feelings the girls bring up in them.

Ernest lawyers ask how I would change things in the jail.  I am always prepared for those questions.

Last week I sat with Senator Ron S.Calderon who is co-sponsoring a bill in the State of California that would basically abolish the situation in which I found myself.  Protocols would have to be adhered to.  States right to decide trumping the draconian Immigration Department.

I drive for hours to get to the meeting and speak clearly and concisely.  I know that I am speaking on behalf of thousands of wrongly incarcerated immigrants.

I go to cities I would never usually visit.  I am introduced to people I would never usually meet.  Immigrant rights advocates, Methodist ministers.  I am familiar with Secure Communities.  I hear terrible stories.  They tell me that ICE operate like the Gestapo.  They spread fear in the immigrant communities, wrecking homes, lives, marriages, separating families, sending children into foster care.

6.

Then, there is the other work.  Kevin, my incredible new assistant, and I…running all over town.  Putting this show together.  Holding things together.

Today I see the doctor.  No good news all over again. I’m sure.

Wish me luck.

Categories
Gay Love

Red Medicine

Woke up early. Wanted to get the daub onto the stove. It’d been marinating all night.

Then, something about the process, the action of stirring the pot, as it began to simmer…broke something in me. Like I was having a rare moment of clarity, sanity…and I felt a terrible guilt for the way I had treated…not him…but his parents…drawing them into our drama. Collateral damage.

I wanted to write to them and tell them how sorry I was.

They were innocent.

Then I found that Avadon picture of Ginsberg and his long-term lover Orlovsky. And I thought about them ‘long-term’ and what they were thinking, or not thinking when they kissed for the camera.

I thought about the way they, we…I…describe what we have as long term.

Long term insists that we take what they had seriously. Ginsberg had not just met some man on the street and taken him into the studio. He had made some sort of commitment. Long term.

And I thought that marriage would be just that…long term. That our beards would grow long together. That I would never ever tire of looking at you. Kissing you.

Then I remember that I am here in LA. You send me a picture of Washington Square. It’s all I need right now. A picture.

The whole house smells of beef in red wine, fresh herbs, fresh garlic.

I had lunch with Robby on Monday. We ate a lamb burger at Gjelina. I drank ginger and mint italian soda.

He has been having a wonderful time. Earning masses of cash, loving his man and roaming with his homies. Yes, I wrote that.

On Wednesday I met a friend for lunch, a lunch that didn’t end until 3am. He is 23, he lied about his age. He told me he was older. A masculine dilettante.

We had lunch in Venice, tea in Beverly Hills, an odd party at The Sunset Tower (gays and girls), then dinner at Red Medicine on Wilshire.

Have you heard of Red Medicine? It’s that restaurant, Jordan Kahn’s place…that everyone is talking about.

We ordered far too much. Each baffling plate arrived covered in flowers or Dadaist condiment.

We ate: DUNGENESS CRAB / passion fruit, brown butter, black garlic, Vietnamese crepe, hearts of palm $32

We ate: HEIRLOOM RICE PORRIDGE / egg yolk, hazelnuts, ginseng, echire butter $17 and added Santa Barbara uni for a further $20.

We ate: BEEF TARTARE / water lettuce, water chestnut, nuoc leo, chlorophyll, peanut $15

We ate: AMBERJACK / red seaweed, buttermilk, lotus root, tapioca, succulents $16

Then, after dinner, we lay in the back of his SUV by the beach and kissed each other until my face was raw, my heart was racing, my legs were trembling. I was so completely overwhelmed that I could not drive for ne’er a mile before I had to stop and beg a cigarette from a passer-by.

He is beautiful. He gnawed at my neck until I could not bear it any more.

So, that’s what love looks like in a warm climate. For a moment. Not long-term. Not to be taken seriously. Just a moment. I have trained myself not to yearn for more.

So, the daub will cook for four more hours until it is tender. We will eat it with home-made noodles.

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Categories
prison

Willing and Able

Since I was released from The Men‘s Country Jail earlier this month I have noticed changes, changes in myself, changes in others.  Even though I have been occasionally combative and resolute when writing here…this may not be the whole story.

The story is revealing itself, the narrative unfolding in ways I did not expect.

There was an occasion in the jail when, after I heard that the immigration lawyers I hired previous to the wonderful Esperanza Immigrants Rights Project had fucked up.  I felt really desperate and powerless.  Carlton, the 24-year-old House Mouse. sat on my bunk and, seeing that I was beginning to flounder, took me in hand and firmly reminded me that The Country Jail was no place for desperation.  He reminded me that if I gave into weakness I would either go mad or die.

He said, “There are too many personalities in here.”  I knew what he meant.  I had lived in Los Angeles for a long, long time.

The other inmates understood that I had a greater purpose for being there and yesterday that purpose became apparent.

Crawling back into life has been challenging.  I feel tender, as if my whole body is bruised. I feel my age.  I am quieter, less prone to irritation, grateful for everything, trying to be kinder.  Becoming vulnerable for all to see, not just those who are the closest to me…everyone.

I had lunch at SH the day before yesterday, saw friends from London who are here for Oscar week.  I saw local friends who knew what had happened but were either too polite or worried to ask details.  If they asked where I had been I blurted out, “I’ve been in jail for three months.”  Then I tell them to read the piece in The Independent.

I sat down with those who needed to know and explained the whole story.

I am not spending every day on the mountain, I am making the effort to live.  I am not making the same mistakes.

Last night we went to a charitable art event in Beverly Hills.  I bumped into Paul Haggis, explained where I had been, the experience of jail.  I told him about Carlton and the men I’d met there.  I’ve no idea why, perhaps because he is a director, I told him things I had not previously mentioned. I painted a more complete picture.

Paul said, “There must have been a reason.”

My jail friend Steve reminded me daily that I was in jail for a purpose, he knew that someone like me doesn’t end up in a place like that without a reason.  That reason is being made clear both on a micro and macro level.

Steve told me, “You can help these people.”  So, it looks like I may very well be able to help.

That purpose will be made clear to you soon.

When I have my ducks in a row.

What is it to be vulnerable, kinder?  What will I lose?  What will I gain?

The boys are here, living here.  Three of them, taking their responsibilities seriously.  Occasionally they clear up without being asked.  Yet, their mess that would have previously pissed me off, scarcely affects me.  Who cares if there are socks all over the place, piles of towels in the bathroom?

What does that matter when I am so grateful they are here.

The life I lived before I was arrested seems like another time, like another place, like a different me.  I am wondering who he was, what interested him, what in hells name I was doing?

I was wondering how he could have got himself into such a mess?  Then I remembered that I left that Duncan back in the jail, the Duncan who was scared of being seen, the Duncan that made unhealthy choices, the Duncan who knew Jake.

When I write about death and suicide, I am really trying to articulate what it is to cast off something already dead. I am not interested in dying.  I have things, suddenly and without warning, that need to be achieved.  Things that before I was arrested never occurred to me.

Am I killing that part of myself that has bedeviled me for so many years?  Can you understand that?  Can you see what I’m talking about now?

Don’t fret my darling friends.  I am emerging from this experience with a different set of principals, new standards of living and unusual priorities.

What was previously important is now worthless.  Clothes, possessions, jewelry, power and prestige.

In jail I learned to get used to the idea of nothing and in nothing I found something I never guessed existed: that very thing after which I had been hankering a whole lifetime.

In nothing I found a peace of mind.

Categories
Gay prison

House Mouse

Every dorm in the Men’s County Jail is represented by one elected inmate, that inmate is the dorm’s House Mouse.

Originally called the House Mouth his role is to liaise between the dorm and the police.   He fixes problems, discovers when holds are lifted, dates of release, learns when the police are likely to come into the dorm for unusual reasons and generally makes life easier.

If there is a fight in the dorm it is up to him to get the truth of the fight and make appropriate punishment decisions.

A fight may result in the loss of ‘Programme’: TV, vending machine, late night privileges, even access to the commissary or when things really get out of hand…and the police raid the dorm and rip everything up…we end up without blankets or mats sleeping on ‘steel’ which never happened when I was there but we sure came close.

The House Mouse is a tough job, he has to command total respect from both the inmates and the police.  He needs to understand who he can ask for favours and who he needs to leave alone.

The first dorm I lived in was a mess.  The 5300 Mouse was disrespected.  When he called for silence during the time set aside for dorm business nobody took a blind bit of notice.  When silence in the dorm is required he would call ‘Radio!’ I’ve no idea why but that’s what they do in jail.   It means, shut the fuck up.

In the second dorm 5200 our House Mouse Carlton, a young, great looking black man.  An ex gang member, all he needed to do was call ‘Radio!’ once and there was silence in the dorm.

I made friends with Carlton when he learned how good I was at playing Spades.  After a couple of weeks he moved me into the bunk next to him.  Intelligent, wise and stylish he really shouldn’t have been in jail.  If he’d been white he wouldn’t have been.

The language of jail has to be learned quickly.  If, for instance, we were walking outside the dorm and found ourselves approaching a deputy we would be obliged to call out, ‘Walking!’  which alerted the deputy that an inmate was behind him.  Once, I was being escorted to the attorney room and told that I should always be more than five foot from a deputy.

Many of the the younger deputies came to California to pursue other dreams but those dreams had to be set aside because of the recession…here they were marshaling men who simply hated them.   Marshaling the disenfranchised, feeble-minded, surly, mental patients…I mean…there were so many people in the jail with severe mental health issues.  They needed nursing…not policing.

Many inmates were just nuisances rather than criminals.  It’s an expensive way to look after the mental health of the state of California.

Some of the cops, of course, are unapologetic sadists.  Yet, even though I witnessed unsavory behaviour I had sympathy for those men and women.  They are, after all, in jail too.

We were allowed out of dorm 5200 a great deal.  School of course, outside on the roof once a week for three hours, church on Sundays and AA.  The AA meetings were not like any AA meetings I had ever been to in my life.  Imagine 300 trannies from 4 gay dorms catching up on gossip, not giving a damn about the ‘experience, strength and hope’ of who ever was brave enough to come into the jail and share it.

Some of those tranny hookers were really convincing.  Like really high-end chicks with dicks.  Some of them were just really ugly men with make up and long hair and over weight, crafting some sort of cleavage out of their fat pecs.

The tranny hooker market is so huge that most of them put very little effort into looking like real girls.

When Rosemary walked into the dorm the less attractive, more masculine tranny hookers looked very perplexed.

Rosemary was 5 foot tall, well cut hair, perfect tits, hips…a really pretty girl.  Even the deputies looked at her askance.  Obviously intrigued.  She commanded a huge amount of attention.  Good and bad.  She was caught telling another tranny in Spanish what she thought of a particularly fine-looking deputy.  Unfortunately he understood her, pulled her off the line, bawled at her, frisked her and threw her against a wall.

A big man throwing a small, delicate girl against a wall is not a very heartening sight.

The gay dorm in the County jail is unique, I have no idea if beyond California these dorms exist.  I know that they don’t exist in prison.  Which, by the way, was where everyone wanted to be.  Prison rather than jail.  Prison condition are a million times better.  Nobody wanted to do their time in jail.  There are three kinds of prison, the jail (run by the police) the state prison (greater freedoms) and the federal prison which by all accounts is like a country club.

The problem with the Los Angeles County Jail is that is it falling apart, it is over crowded and technically condemned.  There is no money to replace it and no political inclination.  During the boom time the jails were a luxury used to lure voters to vote for those who promised to fill them.  Now the prisons and jails are a huge financial burden and nobody has the guts or political gall to face this crippling problem head on.

The two biggest unions in California are the police officers and the gaolers.  Even if crime numbers fall the police make sure that the jails remains filled.  Consequently, There are a huge number of parole violators and drug offenders inside the jail squandering precious tax dollars.

Even more galling?  Whilst the police arrest and the judiciary hand down custodial sentences the LA schools are falling apart.

There is a correlation between these two facts.

A fearful tax payer would rather pay for more police and prisons rather than educate their kids.

Just look at the draconian Californian three strike law that keeps many, many men inside who really shouldn’t be there.

It is a totally broken system with too many vested interests.

The twins are living here with me in Malibu once again.  They are dancing downstairs.  Their friend Kevin has moved in too.  It’s raining.  I have to see my lawyer today.  Blah, blah, blah.

Categories
Auto Biography Immigration Malibu prison

Jails, Institutions, Death

Duncan RoyBefore I tell you.  Before I make it public.  Before I describe the beauty and the beast…before I feed the children, before I take the dog for a walk I want to say thank you.

Firstly, from the bottom of my heart, I want to thank Robby who never missed a visiting day, who sat behind the bullet proof glass and smiled hopefully and never gave up.  He tirelessly searched through many, many boxes for essential documents.  He put money on  my ‘books’ so I could eat decent food.  He called friends, wrote emails, paid bills, drove between far-flung offices in different parts of Los Angeles in his windowless Miata delivering those essential documents to essential lawyers.

He answered my calls on a Friday night when most beautiful 21-year-old boys should be out chasing equally beautiful people, places and things.

He never gave up.  He never let go.  He told me he loved me when I felt unloved.  He proved, once and for all, that God exists.

I want to thank Dee and Nicola for their extraordinary generosity by paying my lawyers bills.  I want to thank Jason, Jennifer, Anna, Dan, Zelcho and Joan for picking up the phone, for listening, for laughing and caring.

I want to thank Mel for paying the mortgage.

The people on the outside, those good and honorable people complimented those I shared the majority of time inside the Men’s County Jail.  The men who convinced me that everything would work out.  The men who taught me how to play Cribbage, Spades and Feral (my brain REFUSED to learn Pinocle)  and made me join in when all I really want to do was sleep away the day.  Every day.

I want to thank my convicted friends Ivan and Steve, two men my age who sat with me daily (like the council of elders) laughing gently at the antics of the young.

1.

So it began…

The day I was arrested in early November 2011 heralded the beginning of the end of possibly the worst two years of my life.

The end of the mid-life crisis that had well exceeded its sell by date.  It was the end of the madness that had determined far too many bad choices.

A series of catastrophic decisions made after the The Big Dog was torn up in front of me: a relationship with a man who could not possibly give me what I needed and from whom I should have run as fast as I was able…as soon as he revealed the truth about himself. An appearance on a TV show that merely underpinned the rancid thoughts I had brewing about my self.

Finally the reason, that reason…the reason I cannot explain at this particular moment because the lawyers have told me to keep my big mouth shut and on this occasion I have agreed.

This morning at 3am, after a 6 hour wait,  I pulled on the musty clothes I had stowed in a clear plastic bag nearly three months before, from a different year.

For the first time in 3 months my  arms were covered.  My legs felt warm.  My feet enclosed in fur-lined Marc Jacobs boots rather than flopping around in Chinese, black cotton pumps.

The glass door behind which I had been escorted and left, changed out of my baby blue smock and elasticated pants.  On that door the deputy had written in clumsy, black letters K6G.

I was on my own.  On my own for the first time in 3 months.  I could take a shit on my own.  I didn’t.

I pulled on the black knitted Ralph Lauren cardigan.  It smelt as it looked.

Opposite me, a similar room crammed mostly with Mexican immigrants.  Pulling on their terrible street wear.  Their grinning, greasy, fat faces pressed up against the glass.  They knew what I was, they had seen me in the distinctive costume, they knew what K6G meant. I stared back at them.  I wasn’t afraid.

I had not expected to be released.  The narrative I had long accepted included: 4 more months in Men’s County Jail, a further 6 months at a Santa Ana Immigration center and a lengthy deportation.  I had long given up on ever seeing my home, my dog, my view…ever again.

This was the judgement of my expensive but woefully inadequate immigration attorney.  Imminent catastrophe.  God, as it turns out, had other plans.

Frustrated by their miserable prognosis I set about firing them and contacted the Esperanza Immigrant Rights Project.  A Catholic organization run by two super smart, compassionate women and paid for by the Mexican Government.

I had my first meeting with them two weeks ago.  They made representation last Friday.  Today I was released from the immigration hold that had polaxed me these past three months.

Of course there were people who were very happy that I had been arrested.  Thrown into jail.  I was told that some were gleeful when I was arrested.  “He’s going down!”  they screamed.

I have no idea when this will end.  No release in sight.  No plea deal.  No, no, no.

Perhaps I will never see the Ocean from my mountain ever again?  The abrupt loss of life, like a suicide, coming here is like committing suicide.  I cannot imagine, dare not imagine returning to that glittering life.

The dream of some future is dashed.

2.

I was arrested on the PCH.  I can’t tell you why.  You’ll have to find out for yourself.  All in good time…more will be revealed.

All I can tell you is this:  I was arrested and charged, when I attempted to bail out I was told that due to an ‘immigration hold’ I was to be kept in custody.  Sent to jail.  I made frantic phone calls, I cried until my face was wet.

At that very moment the line would be drawn between those friends who were able to help and those who turned their back.

After being processed like a bad meat pie out of The Hidden Hills Police Station they drove us to the jail.  They took the scenic route.  They drove along the PCH, past Tom’s house, David’s mansion, The Malibu Inn where I had watched Pink perform a few nights after I met her.

They drove the same route I had driven many, many times since I had moved to Malibu in 2007.  I was in the back of the police bus looking at the hazy dawn, the rising sun over the ocean. The greasy waves flopping lazily over the sand.

They picked up other newly arrested men from an assortment of locations all over Los Angeles.

Those first few days away from home were unpleasant but, thankfully, I remained teachable.  I knew that the harder I struggled the deeper the hook.  I sat behind my eyes, doing as I was told.  Finally, after hours in the bus, we were processed into the jail.  A theatrical experience designed to frighted and malign.

“Look at the floor.” they screamed.  I looked briefly into the blue eyes of the startlingly handsome officer.  He growled, “Don’t look at me.” It was hard not to eroticize his demand.

Flipping from aggressor to victim.

We were given sandwiches and told to sit on metal benches.  Nothing you can do will hurt me.  You cannot hurt me.  

We were interviewed.  “Are you gay or suicidal?”  He asked.  I knew that I hadn’t lied about my gayness, not now or ever.  The moment I told him I was gay I was torn from the line, the general population.  My name called out.  “Roy 066!”  A huge black deputy cut off my wrist band, looking spitefully at me.  “Gay?” he spat.  I nodded.  He attached another band to my wrist.

A yellow wrist band, it said: K 6 G.

My life in jail would now be as different as my life on the streets.

Another few days of being ‘processed’.  Peered at, prodded, questioned.  Many men opted for the gay dorm, straight men, but few achieved their aim.

The straight men want to fuck the convincing trans boys.  The straight men didn’t want the ‘politics’.  The ‘politics’ in the California jail and prison system means living in the racially divided dorm.  If you are black you speak only with the blacks, if you are white or latino you do the same.  If you are caught fraternizing with a black, latino or white (or those who have chosen with whom they will run) you’ll get beaten, stabbed or worse.

Even if you know people on the streets…your best friend even…your affiliations mean nothing, could be deadly.  You keep to your own.

Sadly, this racial divide is perfectly mirrored on the ghetto streets of Los Angeles.  If you weren’t a racist before you went to jail or prison you’ll be one when you leave.   Lessons learned, not easily unlearned.  Tattoos on face and neck.  Tattooed collars, graphic letters…numbers on sculls and forearms.  Boys become men when they hold a gun, shoot a stranger, murder their enemies…BK=Black Killer.

I didn’t experienced the ‘straight’ dorm so I can’t tell you what it feels like to make others invisible because of the colour of the skin.  I can tell you however, that the majority of the white men I met in the gay dorm were despicable, homeless freaks.  Consequently, I hung with my new black buddies.  Most of whom, incidentally, had been co-opted into gangs as young children.

When I arrived they were suspicious, when I left the dorm yesterday evening they surrounded me and held me and cried.

When it was time to settle down and open my bunk to another man it wasn’t a white man I chose.

In the observation tank I met my first latino ‘green lighter’.  He was hiding.  In organized crime, gang and prison slang to green-light a person is to authorize his assassination.  Jose. We talked for hours.  I found him very desirable.  He told me that someone had once paid him 3o bucks for a blow job.

After a harrowing day or so in the vilest of cells waiting to be officially classified as gay they take me to a small office and a distinguished senior officer interviews me.  The officer tries to determine how gay I really am.  “Which gay bars do you go to?”  He looks at me suspiciously when I tell him that I don’t drink.  I tell him that I make gay films.  “Porn?” he chuckles.  Finally, I am determined as a convincing homosexual.  My dark blue ‘straight’ uniform removed, exchanged for a pale blue ‘gay’ uniform…I am sent to the relative safety of the gay dorm.  Dorm 5300.

Nowhere where there are deputies is anyone gay…safe.  I have abandoned my cloak of invisibility. They can see exactly what I am. The deputy whispers threateningly, “You gays have a sick life style.”  He can’t say it loudly.  They can’t beat us, not like they used to…not since the controversial undercover FBI sting that lead to the end of ritual beatings and institutionalized homophobia.

The night I arrived I watched the flat screen TV Robert Downey Junior had bought the gay dorms after his stint at The County Jail.  The inmates watch Law and Order.  CSI.  Anything by Tyler Perry.  By the time I left 5300 I had watched everything Tyler Perry had ever made.  He makes really bad films.

Dorm 5300 was like an insane and exotic freak show.

There are four gay dormitories, each holding 90 men.

80% pre-op transsexual, 90% HIV+, 50% homeless, 90% meth related crime, 80% parole violators.

The gay white boys had Supreme White Power written on their alabaster bodies.  They had badly drawn pictures of Norse Gods.  Claiming their white supremacist, Odinist heritage whilst fucking chocolate coloured trannies.

The tranny hookers, the homeless white boys, the squabbling couples who indulged nightly in domestic violence.

I watched in awe as a young man, caught by his fierce tranny wife fucking another ‘girl’, throw a chair through the flat screen TV bought by Robert Downey Junior.

I knew that I had to keep my mouth shut.  I had to learn quickly.  I listened.  I learned.

Statistically, there is more violence in the gay population (inmate against inmate) than in the rest of the 6000 plus general population.

3.

When they finally slept I walked between the serried bunks.

If I stroll between the bunks at dawn I remember what it is like to be at home in England.  I can smell the sea, the shingle on the beach crunching under foot, wrapped up warm against the bitter easterly winds, just me and The Little Dog.  We don’t need anyone else.  Did I tell you how much he loves the snow? Leaping carelessly into the great drifts.

One day I will see you again England.  I will walk gratefully in the rain, on the London streets and country lanes.  If I am able (if I can get back to you) they will drop us at the edge of the valley and we will walk to the house, past the stream where we would play, the pasture, the forest of rhododendrons, along the drive flanked by ancient Douglas Fir.

The door will open and they will be pleased to see me, hug me, feed me.  They will let me sleep until I am recovered.

More tomorrow.

Categories
Gay Health

It Gets Better? Better Than Death?

Yesterday a pair of young film makers turned up at the apartment to work with me on their well written but unfocused script.

The man was leaving as they arrived.

They said, “Wow, he’s gorgeous.  Where do you meet men like that?”

Not in clubs or bars, not grindr or Manhunt.  I meet men like that as we pass in the street.  He said, “You looked mean.”  I am…I suppose.  I do.  Keep the fuck away from me.

Anyway, the film makers sat down and we talked about their script.  It was revealed, during our conversation, that one of these young men had recently found out that he was HIV+.

This is the third time I have heard this story, or one like it this past month.  His sex partner had not told him the truth about his HIV status before he agreed to have unsafe sex.

He had been lied to.

I was shaking with rage.

Like J risked J’s life when he was fucking HIV+ artist Pal S behind her back, like X had been lied to…these innocent folk had made bad decisions based on the lies they were told.

On each occasion the liar had tried to make it the victim’s fault.

” You shouldn’t have believed me.”

“You must have realized.”

“I can’t talk about this right now, you are complicating my life.”

“What kind of straight man doesn’t play sports?”

He is 25 years old.  A young man dealing with a huge problem.  He told me that he feels like he has ‘gone back into the closet’, that ‘no one could possibly love him’, that he is ‘damaged goods’.

“How do you feel about the guy who infected you?”  I asked.

“He’s evil.” he replied.

“Misguided?”  I suggested.

No, I told myself, not misguided.  I knew he was right.  Deliberately infecting or risking the lives of others…is simply evil.

My phone rang, I made a plan to see a friend the following morning.  

The boys looked at me askance. What?  I said.  “I’ve never seen anyone make an arrangement like that on the phone.  We text each other.”  I felt suddenly dislocated from life.  How come I didn’t know?

The kid with HIV is now at the mercy of the pharmaceutical companies who stand to take millions of dollars from him as he tries to stay healthy.

The same companies who promote their products in our gay publications… paying top dollar to do so.

Look at the pictures.  Strapping, healthy boys living with HIV.

Big Pharma shaping this generations attitude toward HIV as a manageable/livable with disease… just like diabetes!

Turn your back on health education, embrace ignorance and a life shackled to Big Pharma.  Enslaved at 25.  My heart bled.

“I never knew anyone who died of AIDS.” he said.

When this young man was being bullied at school for being gay he may very well have been reassured by the biggest deception of all:  It Gets Better.  Dan Savage‘s message of false hope.

It is another gay lie.

We don’t treat each other very well.  We don’t talk about not treating each other very well.

They stop bullying us…we start where they left off.

If they don’t damage you…we will…with my lies and infected sperm.

It’s not getting better for the young man I met yesterday.  It’s getting a whole heap worse.  Straight bullies didn’t lie and infect him with HIV.  Gay men did.

Gay men lied to three of my friends…confirming that it is not just an HIV epidemic, it is an epidemic of lies, betrayal and life threatening denial.

Uneducated, shamed, arrogant, drug fucked gay men with no principles.

Just like Jake.

The only reason I have to come back to NYC so frequently is to meet Jake in court.  Prolonging the inevitable.

Forced, yet again, to indulge his tantrums, his ego, his selfishness.

Without me in his life to define him as the victim…what is he left with?  Without me and his appearances in court…he returns to the mundane fixtures and fittings of the life that was…if one can call it a life?

Yet, when I am here in NYC, I make the most of it.  Happily wiling away the days, finishing my novel, seeing movies, hanging with my buddies, walking the dog, enjoying the humid nights tangled in your arms.

When he left this morning we both said, almost in unison, ‘I don’t do goodbyes’.   I don’t.  He had his bicycle over one shoulder, he didn’t look back.  I can still smell him on my fingers.

I will have a shower when I get back to LA.

Categories
art Health

Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945–1980

I have spent the past day or so in bed.  The dog is less sick, eating again.  We have to get his drain removed.  He is wearing the Elizabethan collar but hates it.

My left leg is getting better…my right ankle isn’t.  Robby stayed over last night.  Today he watered the garden, filled the hot tub, went to the supermarket and ran around the house as I finally caught up on all the various tasks that could be accomplished from my bed.

Jen and Jason were incredibly helpful.  Anna brought supper.

Surrounded, as usual, with love.  Occasionally it is hard to recognize just how lucky I am.

Robby and I have a wonderful relationship.  We talk and play and the more I know him…the more I trust him.  In fact, I might trust him more than any person I know right now.  He has been a perfect antidote to JB. I feel hopeful again because he brings me love.

Crippled and confined to the couch he was pottering about the house making everything look good.

We were talking about how private one needs to be in life.

He is a tentative soul.

He wondered why I write every personal detail here in this blog.  Make public what most people keep private.  Something that delighted Jake until (of course) he was part of it, part of the narrative…then it wasn’t quite so alluring.

Learn this lesson:  If you don’t like your private life being scrutinised…avoid public figures…you will lose your anonymity.

The reality guy who killed himself this week?  He had no idea just how pernicious reality TV really is.

We mused about what remains private and what should be public.  I am quite clear why I write everything here.

If, like me, you have lived an audacious, notorious life then for every eager friend there is a fool desperate to pull you down.

It is best to live without secrets.  Many years ago I was taught that we are as sick as our secrets.  What does that mean?   If you are cheating on your wife you will be defined by your deception.  If you are lying to your friends you will be hindered by self-doubt.

If I have made mistakes, told a lie, cheated a friend or been generally disreputable then I write it here.  My part in what ever unfolding drama is worth noting. We tend to focus on who to blame and rarely acknowledge our responsibility.

Keeping my side of the street clean.

That is why I have struggled so badly with you-know-who.   It has been incredibly difficult to own my part.  I don’t want to admit my short comings.

I make him responsible.  I blame him.  I say:  He lied to me.  He cheated.  He duped me.  He did drugs in front of me.  All of this is true…of course, but has to be balanced with:   I am responsible.  I lied to him.  I chose somebody inappropriate.  I allowed myself to be duped.  I had no boundaries.

When I point at him three fingers point back at me.

What is the answer?

I aim to be ashamed of nothing.  This leads, inevitably, to peace of mind.

You, dear reader, know everything!  There’s nothing I’ve not written about.  You know every insane thought, every defect, every leak and misery.

You know everything…so I fear nothing.  Not one of you has anything on me.

When you live a lie you are vulnerable.  I don’t want to be vulnerable.

Back to NYC next month to see JB in court but it’s fashion week and I’ve been invited to a slew of fashion week events.  Robby will be in town so we can do some fun shit.  I love that boy.  Jenny will be there too and wants to come to court with me.  Before we vanish to The Hamptons.

There is a great deal to do these coming autumn/winter months.

LA will be hosting Pacific Standard Time the culmination of a long-term Getty Research Institute initiative that focuses on postwar art in Los Angeles.

Through archival acquisitions, oral history interviews, public programming, exhibitions, and publications, the Research Institute is responding to the need to document the historical record of this vibrant period.

Between October 2011 and February 2012, a major exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum will present a survey of postwar painting and sculpture in Los Angeles.

It will be a great deal of fun.

In tandem with PST,  Art Platform—Los Angeles, the west coast cousin of The Armoury,  is collaborating with Pacific Standard Time to organize an extraordinary series of events and services to highlight this historic period and unprecedented weekend of art in Los Angeles.  Rather wonderfully I am part of their VIP Programme.

Tonight Eric is bringing supper.  The little dog will get better.  I am willing him to.  Help me think him right.

Categories
Gay Malibu

Sunday Hollywood/Malibu

Such a perfect day…see more here.

Categories
Uncategorized

The Garden

It was perfect this evening in Malibu, I thought I would share it with you.

Alex and I hung the bronze lamp this morning.  I found it in a Beverly Hills dumpster..where they throw this sort of thing away.

 

Categories
Hollywood Malibu

The Bus

My calves ache.  Why?

As an experiment I took the bus from Malibu to Hollywood.

It was much easier than one imagined.  I walked off the mountain, leaving the dog in the house.  I walked the long way down the steep Las Flores Canyon in the blazing midday sun causing blisters and bruising on both feet.

At the bottom of the hill there’s a very convenient bus stop.

On the way there the bus was crammed with migrant workers and mental patients.  By the way, even mental patients have smart phones that they check compulsively every ten seconds.

What could they be possibly checking?

I liked the ride along the PCH…looking out to sea, watching cormorants bombing the waves and dolphins making their way west.  Everything looked very pretty and southofranceafied.

On the way back, the bus was full of homeless people keeping out of the unusually evening cold.  Bad move.  The air conditioning made it colder inside than outside the bus.

On both trips I met a few disgruntled European tourists who were shocked by the patchy public transportation: how long everything took and general lack of information, schedules etc.

Had I not used my iPhone travel app I’m sure I would have gotten very lost.  Maybe that’s what the the mental patients were checking…their route.

Surprisingly I still have a huge amount of shame around taking the bus in LA.  Nowhere else do I feel it.  Anywhere else it’s just the way things are.

Getting back to Malibu later that evening was miserable so I aborted the mission and caught a cab from Sunset and PCH waiting in a smelly fish restaurant called Gladstone’s until a jolly Georgian cabby picked me up.  $30.

On the way home two large dogs dashed across the PCH.  They were not killed but I don’t know how they survived.  They survived the mad dash.  Thank God.  The cabby started shouting incoherently at the owner in Russian and English.

“Fuck you!”  He screamed.  “Fucker!”

As he dropped me off he said, “You can never depend on a man but a dog will never let you down.”

I spent yesterday morning in the garden, planning to hang this huge bronze lantern I found on the street.  I need a sturdy chain and a butchers hook.

Capitalizing on my confidence surge I arranged to see my Important Producer Friend.  It worked out really well.  Before I leave LA/USA for good I have to achieve more than a couple of reality TV shows and a revenge novel…oh, and a beautiful garden.

Perhaps I’m being a little hard on myself.

Anyway, after a few moments of timidity I burst into the pitch with passion and verve.  He wants to help.  He is able to help.  Real power in an illusory town.  I felt safe.

Whilst I was with him it was easy to identify what has been missing these last two years.

Let’s look at the facts: I can write an interesting script, develop a great idea, direct a compelling movie.  Sell it, promote it, open film festivals worldwide.  I can really do that.  I’ve done that with all but one of my films.

Because I’ve had the wind punched out of me I just couldn’t find the huge strength required to force the film off of the page and into the world.  Perhaps I can?  Now I have the energy and focus.

Walking down the mountain to the PCH rather than staying at home and weeding the garden…well, that’s the advice I would have given a good friend.  Get off your ass and do the deal.

The miserable veil, today…for the past few days has lifted.  Let’s see if it will last.

Watching that evocative twenty year old video enthused and invigorated me.  I remembered just how much I have to be proud of.  At the time I was making theatre, living an idyllic, simple life in Whitstable.  Just returned from six months in Sydney, about to go to Film School, hanging with cool people, making love to beautiful men and mostly very happy.

My early thirties were great fun.

I think that’s obvious from those images.

I wondered what it would take to get back to that place.  That happy place?  Well, I have to think seriously about this blog.  Because of you know who I kept this thing alive and by doing so I kept my connection with him alive.  Like a daily letter to him.

It’s hard to imagine not writing this blog.  It’s hard to let go.

The personal details that I pump daily into the world must stop.  I have to get serious.  This blog has become a destructive addiction, just like everything else I do compulsively.