Tag: Malibu

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
Rant Rehab

rain, rain, rain…

The heaviest rainfall Southern California has ever recorded. 8.5 ins last night.

The road to my house is impassable, strewn with boulders fallen down the mountain and smashed on the road. So…no go to the house. Thankfully, the roof was repaired exactly one day before the storm so even though my house is probably, at this very moment, sliding into the ocean…at the very least it will be dry inside.

I am staying with J and J and their lively children. Their lake overflowed and I had to wade through sewage water to my ride…where to? You may very well ask! Where would I be off to on such a rancid day?

We throw ourselves even harder into helping others when we cannot shift our stinking thinking. So, with this in my nutty mind, I volunteered as a night carer in a sober living in Malibu. Awake all night, chatting with recovering addicts.

This morning I felt loads better. A bit tired.

There is nothing better than helping those who cannot help themselves.

Look!! Loads of people searching for JB on the internet! Whatever for?

JB…dear Oh dear.

This morning I spent a few moments looking at a picture of us together and I can still remember what it feels like to kiss him. From the very first to the very last. Pity that what I was kissing was such a cunt….and not in a good way.

JB!!! What have you done to me? I felt loved and complete. I will never feel like that again. Ever. Should I feel happy to have loved or resentful that I am never likely to love again?

Today…my spirits are high. Not as high as this tide tho.

Overflowing Lake
Categories
Uncategorized

Resist This

So, yesterday evening after Barry and I hung out at SHLA watching yet another spectacular sunset we drove into Venice for dinner.

We ate at one of the food trucks parked on Abbott Kinney then decided to have desert and coffee at the legendary Gjelina’s.  Of course we ate all over again when we got in…the pork was particularly delicious.

The deserts are a little mundane but who cares eh?

The best and most unexpected thing happened as we were going in..on the pavement waiting for their table were Maia Norman and Simon Brown.

Simon cooked the first ever meal at the Oyster Company before it was even a restaurant.

These people are old friends and I was really pleased to see them.  We ended up having lunch together today in Malibu.  It was sublime.

I am really resisting writing about the conversation we had at dinner or at lunch.   There is no part of it what so ever that I want to divulge.  No indiscretion, no detail no nothing and the reason is this:  they are my friends. Even though I don’t see then very often.  Even though we never call.  Even though we seldom give a thought to what the other may or may not be doing…They are OLD FRIENDS.

Whilst I had no problem writing every gory, painful detail of my relationship with JB and with the same verve describe the inclement and the triumphant situations I find myself here in LA (with obvious negative consequences) all I can tell you today, to say my heart was brimming when we finally said our goodbyes.

I thought long and hard about why:  I don’t take anything I do here very seriously.  I don’t take the people I know or the relationships I have or the politics I engage in or the landscape I live in seriously at all.

I am a transient in a foreign land and therefore removed from the actual life and heart of the people who live here.  This is a wonderland, a delight, a fiction to be reported..like the past. The past where enough time may have elapsed for me to romanticise how it felt, what it looked like and make it mine.

I CANNOT betray my own.   That’s what it would feel like..a betrayal.  I guess that Jake might think that my writing about him here betrays his memory but (and this may shock you) I don’t care.

Jake isn’t real.

The only time he became real was when we were in the England.  When we were on the beach in Whitstable…when we walked up the King’s Road.  I wanted him in the world I had left behind so that I could get the measure of him, to see whether he was as substantial as I guessed.  The answer was of course a resounding yes absolutely which is why I fell so totally in love.

I don’t know the people I meet here in the same way I know my friends at home.  Therefore, they simply become part of what feels like a narrative fiction.  With old friends, our connections, our shared stories and obvious affection I become resolutely loyal and unshakably discreet.

Look at what has happened to me whilst I have lived here:  the TV show, the house, the ‘love’ affair…the life I have in AA.  None of it seems real.  Every tantrum, every assignation, every dinner, every lunch or breakfast just feels like a scenes written for some absurd Periclean phallic procession.

I reverentially adore those I have known all my life.  I have no expectations, no dissapointment…I am describing the only love affair I have ever maintained: with my home and my home is not here.  It is on the wet and windy streets.  In the ornate drawing rooms of Belgravia.  The galleries, the libraries, the train stations of my pseudo capitalist/socialist home.

This is why I have elected to go to England and have my operation because it feels REAL.  I don’t give a fuck if they are the worst doctors in the world (they are not) they are my own and I trust them with my life.

Good God.  What happened to me these past few months?  What price was I prepared to pay to feel like I was in a relationship?  What insane compromises did I make?  I feel sick just thinking about it.  I Am Pathetic.

P.S.  I had acupuncture this evening to help heal my angry heart.   As I was laying there with the needles sticking out of me I began remembering our trip to France.  I remembered it as if I were alone.  He was erased from every memory.  Watching the fireworks on my own.  Buying peaches on  my own.  Laying on the beach.  Driving.   Loving every moment of my very own road trip.   Just me and The Little Dog.

Categories
Health Rant

closer and closer

The days between me and the operation dwindle.

The rain has fallen steadily over Malibu these past weeks.  As unseasonal as it may be it comes as a great relief to those of us who live up here during what is normally described as Fire Season.   One can only hope that it remains damp rather than tinder dry.

An encouraging weekend of old and new friends.  New friends include a charming Pepperdine student who came for tea on Sunday evening and another internet date who was almost perfect…but not.   He was intelligent, handsome and age appropriate.  Our unusual date started at Intelligensia on Abbott Kinney, a trip to Home Depo to buy chlorine tablets and  lunch at Sauce.

I replaced the cap that I lost at Stronghold.

I have no idea if we will ever see each other again but he made the possibility of meeting someone appropriate in the future very real and that in itself was a great diversion from my crazy head.

At lunch we both discussed our recent relationship issues and rather amazingly he became quite emotional:  he had been the Jake half of his relationship.  Eager to hold onto someone who loved him but wanted to sleep with other men.

Why?

Today there is another house viewing and I must make a start on my script.

Saturday therapy went well.  Today I went to an early session in the Palisades.   I emerge from these groups feeling stronger and more complete.  All in all it has been a very gratifying weekend.  I am somehow not prone to the great fear.  Perhaps this has something to do with the full moon or maybe I am just not taking any notice of the demons.

The house is so beautiful today.  The spa is working.  Ashley pays her rent on time.  The work on the road to the PCH has resumed.   The dogs are well behaved.  Why go and ruin it with invasive surgery?

I am making a huge oxtail stew for our dinner.  The sort of recipe that takes two days to do properly.  Every day I must do something creative in some sort of way.

Life is serving up a great and perfect opportunity.  I can feel it.  After the heavy rain, the plants are convinced it is springtime.  New growth, budding cacti and the great orchid trees in the garden are suddenly covered in succulent pink flowers.

Barry from Whitstable is on his way here to stay en route to his new life in Australia.  It will be fun to have him here.

Categories
Hollywood

New Beginnings/Happy Endings

I sometimes wonder if it is me or the planets that determine my relationship with the world?

With Venus in retrograde (huh?) I have a lightened spirit today.

Actually, regardless of the orbiting planets, nothing has really changed other than the volume of the conspiring demons in my head.

Let’s do a little inventory.

Firstly, having Ashley living at the house makes everything more fun.  The truth is if she can get to me with coffee and fags before I write my blog the whole tenor of this blog changes significantly.  I tend not to dwell on Jake for instance….who ever that (Jake) is…so much time has passed since we communicated I am just left with a few shards of unresolved resentments and a few hundred pictures of him in various states of undress.

What the hell were we doing together?  Two desperate renegades or two men who had a genuine connection that I should learn to honor?  If I compare him to the men I meet now, have met..then the attraction is obvious!  I loved his pickled brain, his logic, I was even attracted to the shadow in which he lived as it heightened the emotional chiaroscuro.

I hope I get to the point when I can think about him fondly, not skip over the many, many pictures of him in my photo library, not endlessly relive the betrayal,  get some perspective….some forgiveness.  What am I writing?  Have I forgiven him?

Today I absolve you Mr. B.  Just for today.

So, what forced me out of the hideous funk?

Getting out of the house sure does help.

Yesterday,  JA arrived after the therapy group that we were meant to go to together but I haven’t been to for some time.  We drove to PC Greens and bought a delicious lunch.  I saw Sarah.  We hugged.  I cooked two steaks on the grill and tossed organic vine tomatoes and spinach together with a salty vinaigrette.  We sat on the terrace overlooking the sea and ate it.

I have this idea for a film.  The sort of idea that I know will end up on the screen.  I may not write it myself or even direct it but I sure am going to be its midwife.

I tentatively discussed the idea with JA.  He loved it!

So, after we talked it through I offered to write the treatment and finish it by the end of the week.  A little research..but mostly it’s there in my fingers waiting to be written.

I spent a little time on a gay hook up site and arranged to meet a particularly attractive young man in West H’wood.  We shall call him Manhunt date No. 8.  JA also invited friends.  One of his friends turned out to be a small, timid, New York Jew.   29-years-old.   Talent agent.  Very intelligent.  SOUND FAMILIAR?  I laughed at how God plays games with the heart.  I was very nice to the NYC Jewish guy and knew that had I not gone through what I had just so recently been through I might have gotten further involved.

After all..a good brain is worth a thousand abs.

No.

My hook-up arrived, tall, willowy, perfect face and body..lovely demeanor.   The attraction was mutual and before very long we were headed toward Malibu.  I invited him home on the understanding that I did not want to have sex but after a few hours asleep I woke up feeling like breaking that particular promise.  The problem is: the passion that Jake and I shared in the bedroom/forest/shower does not transfer easily to another.   Our passion was based on knowing each other.  A magnetic attraction.  A profound level of connection.

Sexually, I am very aggressive.  I am not interested in being taken.  Never have been.  I know what I wanted at dawn but I also knew what I was doing: bringing the passion I shared with Jake into another bedroom…it simply does not work.

By the time Ashley brewed the coffee this morning the beautiful stranger was gone.  Will I see him again?  No idea.  Up to him really.

Birthday party today.  I WILL go.  Eli Roth etc.  Maybe fun.

Of course I am thinking about the treacherously intelligent agent.  Funny little man.

I did not hear back from my old love yesterday.  He is in Vegas so probably very busy.  I would adore to see him but strangely just having a brief chat on the phone gave me confidence that there is always closure however long it takes.

Then, when the resentments have been laid to rest, only love remains.

I have a treatment to write.  Let’s see if I can write the diary of a film getting made with the same verve as I have Jake these past nine months?

A film getting made rather than a doomed love affair?  I don’t doubt that some of you will be interested in this process but not nearly so much as you were in my imploding relationship.

Everybody loves a train wreck..

Categories
Health

Isolating Can be Fun!

Woke up too late for therapy.  Haven’t been for days.  As my leg heals and I begin to face the onslaught I feel myself edge toward isolation once again.   A perfect prison.  This house is so beautiful..why leave?

Isolation: the great and enduring refuge of the addict/alcoholic.

I have a bunch of Billy Childish paintings that I am going to sell, apparently there is now a market for them.  I am limping through this economic disaster like so many people.  I have paintings for sale in two major auctions this winter.

I’ll get by.  Just like all the rest.

The economic situation will not kill me.  My balls may.

Jennifer popped by yesterday as I lay on the couch with my leg elevated wrapped alternately in ice and thick socks.   This morning it feels a whole heap better but I don’t want to test it by jogging down the hill now do I?

Everything in the valley is green once again after the heavy rain.  It takes no time at all for nature to change its clothes.  It’s going to take a few weeks to dry out over here in Malibu.  Now, now that it’s California Autumn.  My deck is still damp.  As Jen pointed out within one week we have had a 50 degree temperature slide.  This time last week it was 110 degrees.  I always think about the firemen when it rains heavily.  Just how happy they must be.  Perhaps we have escaped the fires once again this year..yet..as the rain falls the fuel grows around me for the next big fire.

Watching home buying/selling/renovating shows on TV.  Houses back East are OK.  The further West, the worse the interiors.  Until you get to LA: The Land That Taste Forgot.  I watch one show after another..unless the houses/people are too ghastly then I look at the food network.  Chefs battling with each other to win thousands of dollars.  Chefs as gladiators.

Funny.

I have no interest watching anything even vaguely dramatic.  I dip into TV drama occasionally but the acting is stilted.  The stories are dull.  The lighting, more often than not, too dark and moody.   Less light seems to equal serious to the average director/DP.

The dogs are totally bored.

Ashley and Aaron took Willie out yesterday but The Lil Dog refuses to leave my side.

They have stopped grading the Rambla Pacifico road repair.  There is some small legal issue that they need to solve.  It depresses me when I can’t see them working down there.  Rapunzel up here needs that fucking road finished.

I must admit that I spend more and more time looking at unsavoury, addictive web sites.  The less time I spend in therapy the more time I am at my computer screen..looking…wondering…thank GOD Ashley is downstairs.

Categories
Hollywood Rant

Goodbye Hollywood

So, all packed and moved out.  I left the apartment empty and covered in dust. I have to go back tomorrow to collect deposit and hand over the wi-fi thingy.  I am pleased not to be going back there.

When Jennie and I moved into The Chateau de Fleur we did so to escape the lives we had and wanted to change when we went into rehab.  For Jennie it was the beginning of a life away from being a porn performer.  For me it was to escape the exquisite monotony of Malibu, the pornography, the internet hook up sites and the gruelling symptoms of sex addiction.

Amazingly, for the longest time, I steered clear of the worst of my sex addict tendencies.   Until, of course, I met Jake and collapsed..once again..into active addiction.  As much as I try..I cannot forgive him.  I was doing so well.

I tell you, I hate him now more than anyone I have ever been wronged by.  More than the vile people who ran over The Darling Big Dog and more than I ever harboured for my step-father.

Masquerading as an innocent, timid boy JB knows exactly what he is doing.  I would urge anyone that gets involved with him never, ever believe a word that comes out of that mouth.  His lies are not even very amusing.  An amusing liar, like Leigh Bowery or Diana Vreeland can enhance a dull world but a tepid, self-serving liar like Jake can only make the mediocre a paler shade of taupe.

The only good thing that came out of his mouth was my cock.

I though I might write about the day my dog was killed in front of that building, in front of me and the little dog..but I can’t, not least because the memory of her written on the same page I write his name would sully the memory of her.

To think, he left his gf and flew to me.  I tended him, looked after him, cooked for him, dabbed at his tears.  I reassured him again and again that things would work out fine..and I am sure they will for the conniving little cunt.

Goodbye Hollywood.   Hello New York City.

Letter from Susan:

I drove my father to the Stiperstones last Saturday  – creamy golden late afternoon sunshine lighting all that hilly beauty – he was so happy. But all I could think of was the time we drove up there in his little Mini – I rammed the car off the road at a funny angle and we then draped ourselves around the seats and dashboard. Do you remember how much we laughed when people came to help and we woke up ? I still find it quite funny.

I do remember..and it was really funny.

Categories
art

Too Much Stuff

I have complained before about owning too much stuff.  Unable to throw things away.  Yesterday was no exception.  I moved more stuff into the Malibu house from Hollywood and find it impossible to let things go.  Throw things out.  Dump the junk that in some cases I have dragged twice around the world.

It amazes me that I have now sold over thirty works of art and you really would not notice the difference.  Every spare space on every spare wall is covered with art.

I have just one small box of knickknacks that I have left on the drive waiting to be sold when in fact they need to be thrown away.  I need that TV intervention show where kindly looking therapists gently pull ‘precious’ things away from me and throw them into a dumpster/skip.  I am not, obviously, a 3rd degree hoarder but my inability to let things go one might use, at this crucial time with Jake,  as a metaphor.

What’s the difference between shame and embarrassment?  I am embarrassed by the things crammed into my cupboards, closets and wardrobes.   Under the stairs I keep an archive of every film and theatre project I ever worked including two 35mm prints of AKA.  I attempted to donate this thorough personal collection to the Outfest Film and Television Archive but at the last moment did not get around to.

I have a shelve, a rather deep shelve, in the kitchen where I have put things that I know need to be thrown away.  Every time I open the cupboard door these things look at me pathetically, ‘please don’t throw us out’ they plead.

All this stuff from Hollywood fucks up the aesthetic.  Cluttered, overwhelming and all the wrong colors.  I am trying for less and all the time have to deal with more.

Yesterday Ashley and I cooked dinner for Frank and Stephen.  Delicious. Both Frank and Stephen didn’t know what St Tropez was.  I was mildly shocked. The Architect text messaged me asking, in lieu of dating, if he could be my slave.  I am considering my options.

I am so happy that Ashley lives here.  She brings such verve and life to the house.  This Sunday she is inviting friends over for lunch, it’s going to be a great deal of fun.

Yesterday I realized that in the post Malibu Hill Billy from last December was the first time I heard from Jake.  Compare the lightness and optimism of those early posts.  I wish I could reclaim that mood.  I will eventually.

I have a date for my operation.

Categories
Hollywood

Keeping Close

Keeping close to friends seems to make this better:  I panic when I am on my own.  A very recent problem.  One that started after I began to loathe you know who.

Yesterday I had my fourth and fifth Manhunt dates.  The first was a youngish Asian who didn’t have a car or a conversation and giggled nervously.  He had been to the gym but I have no idea what he was doing there unless he goes there to eat doughnuts.  He had ‘attitude’ which was amusing.  He knew he was totally out of his depth.  Even though we were totally incompatible he still insinuated that we should fuck.  We didn’t.

Listlessly waited for the watch to arrive.   The moment I left the house it arrived.  I will get it on Monday.

I drove into Hollywood and packed several more boxes with essentials.  I had coffee with Michael B in Solar.  He can be very tricky.  Met a charming Brazilian called Frank who is here with me now in Malibu helping me and Ashley with the endless moving chore.

I tidied the larder organizing the pulses, baking (flour, baking soda etc.) and cans into neat rows.

So, had dinner with Manhunt date number 5.  A black man from Miami.  Very intelligent, great company.  Not very sexy.  He too wanted to have sex.  What is wrong with these people?  Didn’t they read my profile?  I am flattered but Christ Almighty…give a man a break!

The only man I could or would consider making anything happen with was the first man..the one I couldn’t look at in the eye.

Categories
Rant

Moving Back to Malibu

I did not go to therapy this morning, instead I stayed at home and did my chores. The faster I can complete everything here the sooner I can get back to London and deal with this problem.

I am in a sparklingly good mood.  I tell you, being single, not having to worry about Jake and being here on the temperate mountainside is just perfect for lifting the spirits.   I don’t want this to sound embittered but I feel like I have woken up after a very bad dream.  As if for the past eight months I have been watching myself act out the charade of being in love.  Deluded old fool.

Just finished reading an advance copy of Tony Blair’s riveting memoir.  A JOURNEY.  The age explained.  I voted for him and was pleased to see him elected.  I was upset when Will Self told me that he hated him.  I was saddened when his occasional speech writer Stephen Fry told me that Blair would go to his grave with the word Iraq engraved on his heart.  Like Mary Tudor had Calais engraved on hers. (“When I am dead, you will find Calais lying on my heart“)  Yet, I am afraid, they were both quite right.

What did I like about the book?  As a recovering alcoholic I loved that he admitted that he drank too much..that was rather inspiring.  Is he an alcoholic?  Perhaps.  Drank on his feelings.  Reading the British press I am a little confused, as I think they may be.  Why should this book be such a revelation to most British political commentators?  Most seem to think that the moment you become a leader you stop being a man.  That all human vagaries should be set aside.  How naive.  They wonder at his childish spats with Brown, that Blair admits to self-doubt, frailties, manipulation and the like.   They marvel at how frank he is.

They seem embarrassed and caught off guard.  However poorly I may now think of him, however he will be judged by time and further revelations..I was impressed by his book..how very candid and relaxed he seems.  Although I am sure he will be further reviled and doubted by most for this entertaining memoir, I rather enjoyed it.

There is, as my granny would say, no peace for the wicked.

I must remind myself of that sometimes.

I forgot to mention just how wonderful the last renters were.  A sweet couple and their gorgeous dog.  Vegan, into meditation and rebooked immediately for next year.

I am slowly moving back into the house.  Brought a bunch of things with me from Hollywood yesterday.  I am enjoying ironing the linen and folding it neatly and making piles of sweet-smelling pillowcases.   Putting everything away.  Lovely.

Simple pleasures.

Not much to report other than a very funny story I heard from my six-year-old and very beautiful god-daughter Lily.  She loves acting and singing and three times a year performs as part of a local theatre group. At the end of this summers performance she told me that an old lady in a fur coat came up to her and told her how wonderful her voice was, that she had seen her in the last play and how delightful she was.  Her parents giggled, the old lady in the fur coat was Barbra Streisand.  That’s Malibu life for you.  Just a little community of regular beach dwelling folk who are, for the most part…billionaires.

Had dinner with Eric at Sauce in Venice.  I love that little restaurant.  The waiter had huge hair and a cheeky smile.  I ate pulled pork.  Delicious.

I am going to get dressed and walk to the new road.