Categories
art

Toby Mott at Honor Fraser Gallery

I am at The Honor Fraser Gallery on La Cienega.

My old friend Toby Mott is hanging his show Loud Flash: British Punk on Paper.

While the Sex Pistols and the Clash wreaked havoc on Britain’s pop scene, their disciples were busy with glue and scissors, channelling punk’s energy and DIY spirit into hundreds of posters, fanzines and sleeve art.

Toby’s exhibition brings back these lost classics of the revolution.

Later on in the day Punk Archivist Bryan Ray Turcotte joined Toby at the gallery.  Bryan wrote the best-selling Fucked Up and Photo Copied.

Backdrop courtesy of Bridget Riley.

Honor Fraser Gallery, 2622 S La Cienega BlvdLos Angeles, California 90034

Categories
Gay

Transformers: Dark of The Moon

I can’t really write about yesterday morning.  Needless to say I will.  In time.  Maybe tomorrow.

Had lunch at the Mercer Kitchen with a friend.  There were many, many tired looking servers/shop assistants etc., in New York the day after Pride.   Grimly going about their working day at the mercy of rotten hangovers.

Only one of the twins arrived from LA.  Miles had to stay home and guard the fort.

Robby has never really been to NYC before; you should have seen his face!  He was delighted.  He had such a big Robby smile.  We wandered the East Village and as much as he complained that smokes were triple the price you could tell that no amount of money spent on ciggies was going to ruin his NYC state of mind.

We took the subway to 42nd Street.  Excited to see Transformers 3.  3D.

Tom’s film will have grossed more than 3 billion dollars by the time all is said and done.

I am not going to review the movie.   He’s my friend.  Watching a friend’s movie is not like going to the cinema and just sitting down and watching a film.

I am already invested.

OK, I’ll just tell you a couple of things.  Frankly the film was a bit confusing: the transformer goodies and the baddies melding into one heap of scrap metal with no clear battle, no defining heroic moment.

Even the casting was confusing; I thought John Malkovich was Gary Busey.  What has he done to his mouth?  His teeth?

There were too many quips and not enough story.

The special effects were remarkable and keep the tension levels high.  Somehow watching any well-shot fight captures the imagination even though in this case one might not know what they are fighting about.

The lead girl, a Victoria Secrets model, was appalling, all lips and hair and pout.   The camera fetishizing her lithe body.  The director forcing his camera into her face, her mouth.

Shia looked worse for wear and has certainly lost that youthful vulnerability that carried him and us through the first of this blockbuster franchise.

The parents who amused us and grounded us in the first film have become irritating non-secateurs.  Great actors and not so great actors deliver cheesy lines that segue into another well-crafted fight.  The disparity causing some general merriment in the room

Regardless of what Transformers has become Tom’s initial idea had integrity and poise.   It is important to remember that.

For the second time in as many days I wished I could have gotten fucked up.

This is getting crazy.

Everybody falls in love with Robby.  Robby, quite rightly, drowning in positive affirmation.   I am proud of the way he handles himself in these situations.

My big birthday party on Thursday night, there are people flying from Hong Kong, London and LA.  It’s going to be a blast.  I am really looking forward to it.  100 people.  Entertainment.  Hootenanny.

I have now re-written the end of the novel and await notes.

Determined that my party will neither depress or stress me.

Categories
Travel

Desert Flower Day Two

I have not written this diary properly for a few days.  A great deal is going on.   Traveling East.

It seemed like I said yes to far too many dinner invitations and ended up cancelling all of them.

I am talking to sales reps about The Picture of Dorian Gray.  Finally.  It is time.  David Gallagher is the breakout star in Super 8 so we may very well sell it.  With David looking so amazingly fit and grown up and Aleksa in Boardwalk Empire…perhaps we can sell it for what it is worth.  Anyway, I’m talking again to sales agents so let’s see.  I just want what it is worth.  Not selling it for anything less.

I am still not happy with the edit.

The desert.  We drive into the night.  The Freeway.  Homogenous America.  The same 6 restaurant chains, the same names…again and again.  Nothing to differentiate state by state.   The desert is beautiful.  Desolate, hot, 110 degrees yesterday.

I am now in Willcox Arizona, sitting in the Safeway Starbucks where coffee is twenty cents more than The Palisades.  To prove that people must be BORED beyond reason living out here I have been recognized more in the past ten minutes than the past ten months.

They are playing Nights in White Satin by The Moody Blues.

So, we left LA yesterday morning.  The previous day we spent dozing on the beach then had dinner at the rancid Taverna Tony’s.  Flayed shrimp.  The Beautiful Dane’s Swedish friend arrived and we all stayed in Malibu that night leaving early the following morning with Robby.

The Swedish friend (whose name I refuse to remember) is a clumsy idiot and I don’t expect revising my opinion any time soon.  They call each other Bagel.   Within ten minutes of meeting me he had knocked my phone out of my hand.

Robby and Miles returned from their wedding weekend, apparently the bride and groom washed each other’s feet in the Christian ceremony.  Robby looked great.  They are such sweet boys.

Very clean feet.

The Dane sings Riders in The Storm in Danish which is funny.

Picked up a huge SUV at The Dane’s insistence.  Expensive, gas consuming behemoth.

We drove to Glendale Station where we picked up another Dane, a girl called Lucie who used to work in the fashion and textile department at the Met in NYC.  We had a great deal to talk about.

It seemed like a good idea to fill the car with friends but as it turns out the idiot friend and the Dane have a very specific sort of relationship and Lucie is his ex gf who he took two years to get over.

I began to reassess.   My farts stink.

We drove from LA to Phoenix.  Dinner at The Royal Palm Resort which is incredibly beautiful.  Taco Tuesday.  Luxury on a budget.  The Swede nipped off with his good-looking friend and bought two dresses from H and M for him and the Dane which they changed into in the parking lot.

We stopped in a gas station and a man told his friend very loudly that the dress wearing men should be arrested.  As we drove deeper into Arizona the dresses caused me some panic as I really did not want either of them to get shot.

As you can tell from my voice.  I am trying a little too hard.

Stayed in a small motel with wi-fi and a big black dog.  The room cost us $60.

We are on our way to Marfa, Texas to the Donald Judd hangers.

If you want to see all of the videos from this trip…go to my YouTube channel.

We are off soon.  Long journey ahead.  They are playing Joe Jackson’s Stepping Out.  The Starbucks girl is blending caramel frapaccino and I will never see Willcox Arizona ever again.

Categories
Rant

$5 Walking Fee

Gabe Paradise Cove
“Don’t pester old film makers about your film making.   I don’t care about your process, your poverty or your inertia.   All I care about is that you make a film.   Just do it and make it good.”           Duncan Roy  June 2011

So,  here I am again.  Good morning hipsters!  I spent an hour in the garden at 7am weeding and watering.  It looks just dandy.  Then I came in and within two minutes I had broken a sugar bowl, a cafetière and jammed my fingers into a draw.

I AM ONE CLUMSY QUEEN.

Yesterday Gabe and I went to Paradise Cove Beach Cafe on the PCH for lunch.  We were charged $5 each for walking from the PCH where we parked into the restaurant rather than paying $3 to use their car park.  I thought they were kidding.  A $5 ‘walking fee’?  Rip Off USA.  It made me so mad.  Gabe just looked bemused as I let the manager have two barrels of shit.  In turn the manager just looked at the crazy man and  rolled over like a puppy.

He offered us a beach side table, a waitress with psychiatric training and a refund.

A $5 walking fee?  How can they get away with that shit?

We ate their mediocre ribs, drank their weak tea, sat on their grubby beach.  Thankfully we sat next to an attractive married couple from Hollywood who really were worth meeting.  He sells sex toys on-line.  They were like a gay couple.  Hot tub parties and three ways.  I really liked them.  She said that when they have a baby they might calm down a bit.

Gabe sat on my lap and held my hand, massaged my fingers.  It was so sweet.  We were the only gays on the beach.  The out of towners looked at us suspiciously.  Yet again I felt uncomfortable.  Fuck!  When I was with the Penguin/Matt/Jamie I didn’t care.  Because, I suppose, when I was with them I didn’t care what other people thought.  It was just us…and as I have said before:  I would have defended my love with my life.

After lunch we investigated the pier, the peace paddle (some hippy event) we talked for ages to a lady who had worked in India on an ashram who now sells South Indian food from a food truck.  She told us dolefully how the city of LA is targeting the food truck community (there are 500 of them) with all sorts of horrible rules.  What ever happened to American innovation being encouraged and celebrated?

(Even the sex toy guy is despondent about how small businesses are treated.  He is moving his cash to Brazil.)

Food trucks are a recessionary necessity.  A perfect response.

The previous day Anna and I had been on Abbot Kinney.  The first Friday of every month the streets has a kind of street party.  The galleries open late and every thirty feet there is a food truck.  It was so much fun.  We bumped into Meg Ryan and her friend Laura Dern.

Anyway, we ate all sorts.  We struggled through the crowds.  Some man who thought he knew me.  Said, “Hey!  How are you?”  I let him think he knew me.  At the end of the conversation he realised who I was and the meeting came to an abrupt ending.  This happened in Ojai too.  It seems to happen more and more.

Last night I was talking to a young film maker and gave him the advice quoted at the top of the page.  Very Ayn Rand of me.

Today I am hiking with Tom.  Gabe is coming over to relax.  Miles has recovered from his binge.  Cooking dinner for us all tonight.

I feel rather wonderful.  Having fun.  At peace.

Categories
Gay

Fuck You Rapture

Quite by chance I have fallen in with a bunch of super cool, inclusive gay men.

Men who achieve.  Men who live fun, proud gay lives. Because of them I’m really enjoying my life here in NYC.

Don’t for one minute think I take any of it for granted. I know that a life like this can vanish as quickly as it appears. I’m really enjoying the opportunity to connect, feel supported and breathe.

There are many different tribes of gay men in NYC. There are so many of us here.

As usual I couldn’t stay in bed past 7.30am regardless of who is slumbering beside me. I need to get on with the day.

The apartment is being decorated so whilst the painters set up their ladders and pull down the light fittings we went for a long breakfast in the occasional sunshine. Sitting in the sun, eating scrambled egg. Reading the newspaper. Looking at the cute Saturday runners jogging by in their silky shorts.

Took subway uptown and by chance saw an old friend, an actor from my Dorian days. This is exactly why I loathe and love the Subway, you never know who you are going to bump into. Trapped in a subway car.

Anyway, we picked up his suit that needed altering and met up with the boys for lunch. Lunch from food trucks at Madison and 26th. Everyone seemed obsessed with this RAPTURE shit. I think people were half expecting it to be true. The storm clouds didn’t help.

Thankfully it didn’t happen. Or maybe it did?

My dog and Zack’s dog didn’t really connect.

Kaolin joined us in the park. He is so funny. We went shopping for shirts and other essential items for a wedding next weekend in Los Angeles. I bought a vase in ABC as a thankyou gift.

Walked home with Kaolin. Had nap then met Ian in an Indian restaurant on 27th. Delicious. I ate goat. Talked about Michael Jackson and how he had to take the stand during the Michael Jackson trial.

VIG 27

Birthday party at Vig 27. Very lively, good people. Met the sex columnist from Time Out, we bonded with over our respective health issues. We talked about gay men, how they behave.  Our self-destruction.  A daily fascination.

We talked about Dan Savage, he applauded Dan’s It Gets Better campaign…which, as you know, I think is a load of baloney.

It Gets Better? Better than death maybe…but not much better.

I had agreed to stay until 4 but bailed at midnight.

Stumbled, briefly, into The Eagle.

It is far too early in the year to wear white linen pants. I did anyway.

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Realness: Pony, Kaolin, Zach, Lil Dog and me in Martin Margiella
Categories
Fashion Gay

Beige

Day after day the sun shines and the people shed their winter clothes revealing their creamy skin.  The dog and I traverse the city, traveling from one exciting assignation to another.  Yesterday was no exception.

I woke early helping Dan with his luggage.  He is off to LA until Wednesday.  I really don’t like it when he leaves.  We get closer and closer.  He is kind, generous and appreciative.  We are the same age.  Our perspective is very similar.

I have been thinking a great deal about how I am going to spend the summer.  I continue to write my film.  Bumped into Paul Haggis yesterday who asked about my film.  He loved the story…as most people do.

Remember holding his Oscar at the Crash party at the Chateau Marmont wishing it had been mine?

I couldn’t go back to bed after Dan left so I walked the dog around the deserted East Village until I bumped into a young friend of mine.  A yoga teacher.  We drank coffee and ate pain au chocolate at Ost on Avenue A.  He is the sweetest young man.  Looks directly into your soul.

We are going to spend the day together tomorrow.

Met Lady Rizo for lunch (chopped salad) then we took a cab to my lawyer on Wall Street.  Driving the West Side Highway we passed office workers taking their lunch walking the water front.   A brief moment in the sun.

I had to sign a bunch of papers.  I signed them whilst Rizo bought us ice creams.  As we were in an unknown part of town we decided to explore and ended up in a tiny Italian Deli eating profiteroles and singing show tunes out loud.  She has a hugely exciting gig in June.  In the mean time come see her perform on May 20th at Joe’s Pub.

Took Subway (I never do) back home and rested for an hour.  Met Rizo’s friend Gilly on the corner of Tenth and A just as a skateboarder was nearly run down in front of our very eyes.   He escaped death by jumping over the hood of the car.

My second ‘scene’ for the ‘A’ List. Austin is throwing a ‘party’ at this cavernous restaurant called Almond.  It seemed designed for me to explain why Derek Lloyd Saathoff had wanted me to be his ‘Mister Big’.

I was uncharacteristically nervous meeting the other cast members.  They are all very charming.

Obviously they have their on-screen personalities.

TJ is very ebullient when the cameras are on.  Thrown directly into the ‘A’ List mix, TJ positioned me like an on set director and asked acerbic questions and about me and Derek.  I came clean.  He was quite strident.  Off camera he is affectionate and warm.  They all are.

Reichen Lehmkuhl seemed reticent and quiet.  He has a troubled soul.  Very beautiful, great story, gentle.  I liked him.  His brother lives very close to me in Malibu.   I spent the most time chatting with him.  We talked a great deal about how one can get ones needs met in a relationship.  I told him The Penguin story as my very own reality cast member cautionary tale.

Crazed fans who think you are what you are not.

We talked about how we are edited, how one is perceived.  The reality and the fantasy of ones on-screen and off-screen persona.

I really enjoyed meeting Ryan the salon owner.   Blond, sweet-natured and very genuine.

This is their second season.  They have become very adept performers.

I have no idea if I will ever see any of them ever again.

Stephen joined us and Rizo, Gilly and I ate dinner at Westville.  I bought The Little Dog a chicken breast as he had been so good all day.

Tonight is the very last night of Beige the long running weekly party held at The Bowery Bar.  It must be twenty years old.  I went there first when I was still drinking so it must be ancient.  Remember dragging Joe there?  I think he enjoyed it despite his protestations.  I will be there tonight if anyone wants to serve papers.  Zach said, “Nobody gets laid at Beige.”  which was never my experience.

I have had amazing Tuesday nights on The Bowery with Boy George, Issie Blow and Leigh Bowery.

I remember staying at The Mercer and dragging a drunk straight boy back from Beige for oral gratification.  Oh God, that was many years ago.  I remember…do you?

Categories
art

Numbers

43 minutes to write this post.

14 days left to enjoy this month.

33 days until I face The Penguin in the court.

83 degrees at the beach club.

811 emails from him.

16 days left in California.

7 is a beautifully directed film.

10 feet of Bougainvillea to chop down.

3 loads of organic matter carried to the end of the drive for composting.

7 dollar sandwich for my lunch.

3 dolphins swam past us as we lay on the beach.

1 of the twins helped me with the garden.

4 of us sat in the sun.

23 dogs past us as we sat in the sun.

9 minutes to write this so far.

2 visitors from LA.

460 dollars owed to a renter.

6 months on the market and I didn’t sell the house.

13 years spent in my last house.

3,582 blog views on my busiest day.

531o days sober from drugs and alcohol.

2 days content.

1 day is all I need to think about.

24 hours is all I need to get through.

10 pages a day.

1402 Facebook friends.

90 days I want of sexual sobriety.

1 room with a perfect view.

Categories
Health

Heat Wave

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Gorgeous day here in Malibu.  Another day on the beach with the twins.  They are dragging me out of the house and making me laugh.  More to come.   A heat wave with record-breaking temperatures.  I may go into rehab sooner than I thought.  Long chat with therapist/admin at Pinegrove Mental Health Facility in Hattiesburg Miss.

The film is progressing.  We have a title at last.

Categories
Love

Monday

Great weekend in Malibu.  Loads going on.

Therapy Saturday.  Lunch with filmy people.  Another lunch with Gabe and Toby in Venice.

Met two very sweet Redondo boys in coffee shop.

Writer arrived at 1pm.  Twins came home on Sunday as I am working with writer.   Both of them had a great night in Hollywood.  They got so drunk and sick and in trouble but separately.  They lay down looking worse for wear.

The writer left.  I vacuumed the house.

Miami Henry popped over.  Made dinner for the four of us.  Twins surprised that I made the salad dressing.

Henry left after dinner.  Bed at midnight.

Nothing more to report.  I have been writing like a crazy person.

I am thinking of checking into rehab.  Seriously.  I can’t go on like this.

Categories
Malibu

Twins

The young twins arrived last night.  Spent a couple of hours making beds and sorting where they are going to stow their things.

Because of the terrible storm I could not get up to my house until late yesterday so as I was staying over at J & J’s house.  I drove with Jason to Venice through the Santa Monica Mountains.  The storm has caused huge amounts of damage.   Thankfully CalTrans have dealt with the worst of the mess.  Did I mention that during the storm we saw 5 Pepperdine boys surfing the steep lawn on their campus.  Wetsuits in the rain.  Looked like fun.

I dropped Jason off at work then arranged to meet Sinatra and Hilary at Intelligentsia on Abbot Kinney.  After an hour and some extraordinarily expensive Rwandan blend coffee and an ‘artisan made’ orange and cranberry muffin I picked Lily up from school in Malibu and drove her home.

The logistical nightmare that is having three kids in different schools all over LA.

Found myself alone with Max, we sat at home discussing rap music.  He is 13.

My stomach ached all day.  A mixture of anxiety from having JB at the forefront of my thoughts once again and exhaustion from staying up all night at the Sober Living facility.

This morning I woke early and made tea for us all and set about doing long overdue desk work.  All three of us are tapping away quietly on our macs.   Must go buy loo roll.  These boys sure get through it.

I find myself in limbo once again.

However beautiful the twins are I am discombobulated.   Absent.   Sad.