Duncan Roy's Blog[wpvideo f4zNSsKA]
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I had a lovely time today with you. You must have been twenty years old when I first met you. Now look at you. I like when you wear your jeans tighter. Cargo pants really don’t suit you. I like when you read poetry to me. I like when you crack my fingers.
Help yourself. You can have whatever you want. Take what ever you want.
I love Shoreditch too. I love Soho. I love rioting students.
I love (particularly) the paint splattered Rolls that the parasite Prince Charles and the hag Camilla were caught in the other day by the ‘off with their heads’ militant protestors. hahaah.
I am really loving being home. It has settled something in me.
After my fuck session (which will do me for some time I might add) I wandered happily all over Shoreditch.
I stopped in at a number of cool looking shops: like the funky Japanese run clothes shop that sold padded linen overwear, the odd man’s pop up shop that sold Swedish soldiers head-gear and ‘vintage’ socks.
A shop that sells second-hand mens socks. Eww.
I dropped into White Cube and resisted calling Jay. The show was spectacularly lame. The entire space devoted to a 37 year old artist called Rachel Kneebone. Lamentations 2010 is the name of the downstairs show. Huge white porcelain tangled/mangled/reconstituted genitals on huge marble plinths set against slate grey walls..beautifully lit. The usual soulless, inchoate nonsense you might expect to find in White Cube. They reminded one..obviously of the Chapman brothers and their obsession with the dark, chaotic imagery of the unconscious.
Jay is already showing new artists who cannibalize existing White Cube artists. Apparently Kneebone is expressing the ‘trauma of death, loss and grief’ and shown differently these works might very well have achieved her aim but so elegantly displayed they had the guts knocked right out of them. I went upstairs to see the rest of the show but was told to leave as I had the dog with me. I wasn’t leaving the Little Dog outside so I left.
I wandered around. I met a man in the street who offered to blow me but I hadn’t showered that morning after a night of sex… I declined more for his benefit.
I found a wonderful shop called Labour and Wait which can be found at:
This charming store is really worth a visit. I thought, when I found the 1940’s lilac, enameled milk-boiling pot pictured below: Oooh, I thought, my friend Marilyn Phipps would like this.
As if by magic..who did I bump into today?
Marilyn Phipps!
Marilyn has the most wonderful home in Seasalter called The Battery.
The Battery, a nineteenth-century naval building, is a huge, bright blue, wooden house that sits right on the Whitstable beach and faces onto a 120ft secluded sea-front. The Battery is a shrine to Forties ‘utility’. The kitchen was put in during the Forties when the house was used as a holiday retreat for disadvantaged children.
Marilyn has carried on the Forties theme throughout the house. The two huge wooden doors between the dining room and kitchen were made in the Forties for Ramsgate post office. The kitchen walls are lined with teapots, sugar shakers, vinegar jars, and salt cellars.
A huge kitchen clock was bought locally and the chunky table was already there.
The Battery can be incredibly hard to keep warm. Marilyn solved her problem by installing an enormous wood-burner for the dining room. She painted it midnight blue, making it more abstract sculpture than functional heater…she calls it The Beast.
The Battery has a fascinating history and features in the book Wooden Houses. It was built as two big wooden sheds at the end of the nineteenth century. The first housed two cannons, the second was a drill hall for sailors, and during WW1 it was a convalescent home for wounded soldiers.
Marilyn still get’s people visiting who remember it from their childhood holidays in the Forties, saying they had the happiest time of their life here.
Wait! Did I tell you that they found a strangled woman in the room I was staying in at Soho House NYC? I can’t wait to stay there again.
Innocentboy7 baring his ass..sent me a ‘wink’. That’s what happens when you sit on Manhunt long enough. Unlike the real city, this virtual city has no surprises. Asses and cocks on view before they risk you judging their ugly mug, their pretty face.
A mountain of heaving pink and brown flesh. Like some virtual concentration camp. A tangle of broken limbs. Faceless. Broken. Made to kneel at the edge of the pit before the single bullet to the head.
People like me and my friend Jon and his son. People like me and Ashley. People like me and my friend Rose. Made to run over ploughed fields. Naked. To the pit. To the single bullet. A woman in a beautifully cut coat and dress protecting herself from two big dogs. Her felt hat on her head. Where is her bag?
Innocentboy 7 are you innocent? Are you a boy? I asked him. He replied, “Yeah dude, I’m a flight attendant.” He ‘unlocked’ the pictures of his face. Thanks for the introduction. I wasn’t interested in his ass or his face.
I love the city. That’s where I want to trawl for men, male encounters. The streets, we are all equal on the streets. We can be mysterious. We can be men. In the summer, sweaty kisses. Letting them undress you. In the winter warming your hands on their hot bellies under layers of coats and scarves. Strangers in virtual streets now wink at me. “Hello Ducky, have you got a light?’ “Do you know the way to Piccadilly?” or, if you’re feeling particularly fresh, “My boyfriend and I..well, we was wondering?”
What is the point of meeting anyone if you know exactly what you are going to find slumbering in their underwear? Where is the delicious mystery? I don’t want to see your cock…or your ass. Not until we have made a contract. Your hot breath on my face, on my neck. Kiss my eye lids. Kiss me. Seal it with a kiss.
Without doubt I have met some interesting people from the internet. But…they ain’t going to fit in. Will they listen to The XX? Do they have the ability to light a fire?
Can they stay? Did you ever think about just staying? Turning your back on the life you had? Just staying over and never leaving?
There are great forks of lightning dancing over the Pacific this morning. Like those elephants in the Dali paintings, you know the ones..the paintings? The real paintings. When he was painting. I think they are in Tampa, Florida of all places. Did you know that?
Fixed the hot tub spa thingy yesterday. It looks great. Can’t wait to get in it.
Gayboyforolder just sent me a picture of his cock. He is coyly pulling his underwear from his groin to reveal his meat, his cock, his prick, his weapon of war, his 8 and a half…well…sadly…it’s an ugly little thing. I can’t imagine doing anything with that. Not a girl like me. It needs photoshopping. It looks jaundiced. It looks toxic. It looks traumatized.
Do you know who I am?
I have songs to sing today in imaginary opera houses, in Carnegie Hall, on the South Bank. I have songs to sing.
Have not left the house for 8 days. Last night a friend popped by and he was playing with my lap top and there was a moment when I wanted to hit him on the back of the head with my heavy metal torch because I HATE people messing with my laptop. I would rather they looked at my soiled underwear.
Sunday, forgot to tell you, chatted with Lady Rizo. I love her so much. The call lasted all the way from West Hollywood to the PCH…giggling and analysing.
Spent the larger part of this morning in bed skyping with Tim Willis whose book about Nigel Dempster hits the shelves today in the UK.
When I was a small boy living in Stanley Road, Whitstable I used to just love reading his column. A window into another altogether more exciting world. A world with which my Mother was very familiar from her days working as a waitress in the Carlton Club.
I was secretly shocked and delighted by his salacious Royal gossip. Dempster’s code name for the Queen when he wrote about her in Private Eye: Brenda.
I think more than anyone it was he who inspired prepubescent me to search out the fun-loving aristocrat and the demi-monde. I alluded to him at the beginning of my film AKA.
Years later he wrote about me unfavourably after I was caught pretending to be ‘one of them’.
Nigel Dempster and the Death of Discretion published by Short Books. Buy it.
Today I am strangely at peace with myself. It’s been this way more often than not these past few days. I have no idea why. I guess because I am no longer in love. No longer pining. No longer focused on another. I am listening to Copeland, majestic strings elevating the view, the moment..this life!
Two good friends called for advice. Isn’t that strange? I can help others when I tend not to be able to help myself.
Now that my fantasy of loving another has been safely stowed in the overhead compartment or under the seat in front of me I can concentrate on what I do best. Dreaming. The dream of love is so much better than the reality. Good God it is so exhausting being in love. So consuming. Being in hate can be just as tiring. Thankfully I am neither.
I have named the lil maggot on my ball. A pain in the balls. I have a picture of my tumor. I will put it up when I can.
I spent the night in Hollywood. Had breakfast with John but didn’t go to therapy. I had the dogs with me and wasn’t going to leave them in the car whilst I was inside getting my head fixed.
Finally, just three months late, summer is here and despite all the drama of the past months I find myself feeling positive, upbeat, fearless.
I described it yesterday to Frank as no longer being possessed.
Frank and I had dinner with friends in Beverly Hills. We sat next to Stevie Wonder..which was kinda wonderful. As they were eating their desert he and his friends sang to each other so we were treated to an impromptu performance. This is LA.
My friends are film finance wizards from the UK so, after we deconstructed the British Film Industry, we talk love lives. They were fascinated by the Sex Rehab show.
Two women with very differing pathologies. One said that when ever she falls in love she becomes unrecognisable. The effective, fully functioning business woman becomes needy, obsessed and emotional. Huh..I nodded a lot as she described the symptoms of obsessive love. The other woman couldn’t be more different, trusting her man to the point where she becomes suspicious of any man who asks her randomly what she is up to. She, of course, is very happily married. The other woman..is not.
Dinner was BETTER than therapy.
I ate a small cobb salad. They very kindly paid for dinner. So sweet.
I spent the day in Malibu being that handyman I had wished daily would just come with a screwdriver and do all the things I had been putting off ever since I first got here four years ago.
I put up a mirror in the bathroom, a shelve in the hall and a hat rack too. I hung curtains over the double doors and whilst I did all this Ashley cooked the most delicious breakfast which we ate on the back terrace. I had scrubbed the huge, wooden table with vim and a scrubbing brush like a mad man until it was a delightful silvery grey color.
This morning I filled the truck with books and draws and cushions and the remainder of my shoe collection and here we all are at the house. It’s 80 degrees. The dogs are slumped on the marble floor…panting.
This morning we ate breakfast in the Farmer’s Market on Fairfax and Third. Ordering scrambled egg and sausage…the deal is you sit down and they call your name when it’s ready. They called my name very loudly. I was aware that some people thought they knew who I was but having my name operatically yelled over the terrace confirmed their suspicions.
I chatted with a young fan. He was adorable.
Anyway, very excitedly expecting my box of meat and veg from Jennifer’s organic delivery service.
P.S. Forgot to mention that I went to the Prism opening (vernisage). The gallery belongs to my friend Jared. I had a lovely long chat with Stavros Niarchos about Spetses and the Russels and Engenio Lopez. Bumped into Degan Pener who wants me to write something about art for The Angelino. Saw Kevin from W but he was frosty. You can’t win them all.
The problem with Prism is that there is no frisson. It needs to take itself seriously rather than be the gallery ‘toy’ of two rick kids. Remember going to Tracy Emin‘s White Cube show? There were a thousand people in Hoxton Square..even class war demonstrators?
Where’s the audacity? The verve? Those boys need to cut a dash.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM7-PYtXtJM&feature=player_embedded]
This is far better than the original…
I JUST REREAD THIS POST. IT IS SO BORING!
Hahahaha
Without intensity and drama what becomes of me?
I woke up feeling really positive. I am really beating this one. Really.
A simple day. I am losing weight. I saw my reflection. It gives me great pleasure to see a flat tummy.
I decided to give Manhunt a try as I had paid for that account to snoop on u know who. It was good to get some interest from cute looking men but I felt as if I had come full circle since I was last living here. At least I am being myself on Manhunt rather than disguised by some fake profile just to hear the reassuring ping of interest.
Almost immediately two men recognized me from the show and two friends. It was fun.
Talked to realtor about what he wanted me to do to the house before we put it on the market this November. He said nothing. He said whoever bought it would probably tear it down.
I made jam. I made a jam. Strawberry jam. Tomorrow I am going to finish up after the gardeners. Today the little dog ran around after me in the garden. We drove to Venice and ate breakfast at Sauce. How quickly the staff get to know me. They remember after just two visits what I have and how I like it.
I like that. I like being taken seriously.
Scrambled, tomatoes..grilled.
I need something from you. I need closure. Don’t take this the wrong way. Moving at the wrong pace. I love you but…
You told me that you could not give me what I wanted-but I think you misjudged what I wanted. What I wanted more than anything was that we could do all the things we said we wanted to do when we weren’t in a position to do them. We had some really great ideas about what it meant to be together, time together, excitement together, exploration together.
You said you would fly to see me if only you could, then when you could..you couldn’t.
You may have become less free rather than more free, less brave rather than more brave and complain all the time about your lot without ever taking action to improve it. Darling Lamb Head: get a job you love and a place to live and make yourself available. Stop wallowing in self-pity and false promises. How long is this charade going to last where you pretend not to be having a life because you don’t want to be found out?
I am afraid of the huge difference between us. You see, I am not scared of all that life has to offer! When I was your age, at the merest hint of an invitation I would have been on that plane, that boat, that train, I would have been in Paris and London and Rome! You put all the reasons why NOT to before the reasons why you should.
If it had been me I would have come home triumphant! Armed with stories I would have told my grandchildren.
Darling, I need you to not call me when you are lonely and make cooing noises that just makes me love you all over again. I need you to set me free from the hope that we could ever be anything other than friends. If that!
It simply isn’t fair or considerate-in fact it is down right cruel because I cannot call you when I am feeling lonely not least because you are not very good at being compassionate. I don’t think we should see each other at all until we have got ourselves settled with other people.
I am going to meet this guy tomorrow and I am going to take him to dinner and then I am going to ask him if he will come to Paris with me. You had your chance and all you could say like a willful, petulant child is NO!
I think we really did exhaust things this time. We really may have pushed the right button. Please, please lets hope we did.
So, as a delicious post script to the man I loved:
You know, the days we spent in NYC together were some of the best I ever spent with anyone..ever. Lamb Head, you never let me write about that. You kept me silent. I wasn’t allowed to describe the joy, the love and the kindness. Never allowed to describe our tender kisses just in case it hurt other people. Our perfect moments sullied by your fear of what others might think. Like holding hands in the street. I can’t hold your hand in the street because I can’t bear the thought of the disapproving glances. No wonder your mother thinks so badly of me because I never get to write the beautiful things..because you told me not to. So, I want you to know that we had beautiful time. I had a beautiful time with your son. That he is capable of great love. He knows how to love a man. He knows how to make a man happy.
Just as it is meant to be.
The last thing he said this evening was that he didn’t make the huge changes in his life to be with me but that, I’m afraid, is the lie he tells himself. He left the other for a relationship with men, not this man, not me, but with men and we must honour him for that, for it was his bravest hour.
We are tired of the conflict, tired of the unresolved feelings that causes so much distress on this roiling sea of emotion. We must say goodbye now-help me. Help me say goodbye.
I needed to stay in home alone tonight. I feel sad. Sad about Kristian, sad about my friends who died this year and sad that once again I am on my own: the vacuum left behind after a wonderful weekend with a great friend.
I have always had and certainly will continue to have a serious problem with goodbye. Saying goodbye permanently or even temporarily brings up huge feelings of loss, vulnerability and then the anger-the anger overwhelms me.
The genesis of these feelings: I was ripped from my mother’s breast and put up for adoption. These are primal fears of life and death. The most profoundly affecting goodbye after my mother’s abandonment was the death of my Darling Big Dog.
When my dog was violently killed the resulting anguish unleashed a torrent of sadness, a great wave of misery that may have resulted from not ever having said goodbye-ever to anyone I loved. I did not go to my grandfather’s funeral nor my grandmother’s. I have rigorously avoided any ritual goodbye and for that I am a lesser man.
Whenever I leave a party I just slip away as if saying goodbye will somehow humiliate me.
The same feelings overcome me now after the deaths of three friends in as many months. Yet the very act of writing about them lends me immediate solace.
The end of relationships causes me unrelenting heartache.
Stoically accepting the end of a relationship? No, not for me. Nearly all of the relationships I have had have ended badly. I never, it seems, get to write that scene in the movie of my life where two people say a dignified goodbye.
The end of my relationship with Joe ended thus: I knew that I was going to leave but it took me 2 years to end it and when I finally did I tried to do it with tenderness and compassion but he was so angry that he made my life miserable for a full year after I left him-ending up in court fighting over property.
In my mad head I forget that I have choices, the choice to remember that the past no longer runs the show, choices to say goodbye without the reenactment of traumatic and ruinous scenarios.
Today I waved goodbye to a new friend who has come to mean a great deal to me. Whether there is any romantic future between us is really not up to me-unless I behave in such a way that he would never want to see me again. This morning I began to get angry, angry that he was leaving but knew that it was for the best.
Even though I was only momentarily angry-until I could identify what was going on in my mad head and break the cycle of abandonment and despair by telling him that I would miss him, that I was feeling sad, that I had no mechanism for making those feelings go away…and by telling him the truth I was freed from behaviors that would alienate him from me forever.
I will say goodbye to Kristian this week, say my heartfelt adieu. His death has brought up all sorts of STUFF. I sorted out pictures of us today and will post them as soon as I can.
