Categories
Queer

Hunky Dory

Is everything hunky dory?

It better be.

Fern asked how I spent my days and I was hard pressed for an answer.  I didn’t have an answer for her.

I collect coupons.  I should have said that I collect coupons and write yelp reviews about coffee shop loyalty.  I should have said that I tinker with my script and have long conversations with my expensive, world-renowned lawyers about THE LAWSUIT.

I should have told her about the house I want to buy upstate.  I should have told her that I dream most of the day and that’s ok.

That my day is full of dreaming and dreaming and dreaming and that’s okay.

I should have replied that I have long lunches with beautiful men that I meet in AA.

I should have told her that I found this piece by Robert Indiana.

Robert Indiana

I should have said that I go stay in The Hamptons with show girls and equity trading billionaires.  Billionaires who say things like, “I saw them at Frieze and I bought all of them.”   Showgirls who, knowing someone else is paying, fills up the super market cart with pies and cream and cookies.  Knowing that someone else is paying.

[wpvideo 2d4KkkoM]

I should have told Fern that for the past month I have been seeing this man/boy who makes me laugh so hard I nearly pee myself.  That we dress up and take pictures of each other.

We have been hanging out in bars with models and freaks and transsexuals.   We have been exploring Williamsburg.  We have been to book launches and fancy lunches.

Flowers

Michael Costiff had a book signing at the Marc Jacobs book store on Bleecker St.  There was an after party at the Soho Grand.

Diego arrived from Paris and we ate lunch with Hamish in The Gramercy Park Hotel.

Ryan, Diego and Hamish

I should have told her that I met Orlando Soria who is a dream and has a huge, winning smile and writes a fantastic blog that you can read here.

Orlando Soria

My friends from New Jersey supported a young artist so I took Ryan.  Ryan comes everywhere.  Like a sweet puppy.

We saw Philomena last night at The Paris cinema opposite the destroyed Plaza Hotel.  After dinner we sat in their basement and ate bad sushi.  Or rather… she ate the sushi and I paid for it.

Philomena, starring Steve Coogan and Judi Dench, is the story of a teenage girl who gets pregnant, is sent away to a convent to have her baby.  The baby is consequently sold to rich Americans.   It is a gut wrenching film.  I cried nearly all the way through.  Fern stayed dry-eyed throughout.  I thought about my own mother and remembered that this was her story too.  Teenage pregnancy, sent away to a local convent to scrub floors until I was born into a pool of blood and shame.

After the film we sat 30 floors above Manhattan in a bar called The Skylark.  I met Sophie Kennedy Clark the girl who plays the young Philomena Lee.  We smoked rolled cigarettes on the terrace and she explained that Vivienne Westwood had dressed her.  That Vivienne had told her to take a pair of scissors to the dress if she needed or wanted to.

I met Philomena Lee and told her about my mother.  She held my hand.

Categories
Queer

Bradley Manning My Hero

Vivienne Westwood wears Bradley Manning

So, I’ve been spending time on Christian Mingle.

Looking for God’s match for me. Well, I’m sorry but… it’s shit.

God (not my usual God) made it quite clear to me whilst I was scrolling obsessively through acres of men who look like pedophiliac geography teachers… he made it perfectly clear that a life of abstinent solitude was probably on the cards or (if I was really lucky) being violently murdered by a crazy sex therapist or… luckier… a hit man sent by some crazier ex.

Which brings me illogically to:

Bradley Manning. My hero. What can I say? This courageous young man has revealed not only international truths triggering the Arab Spring and a hasty retreat from Iraq by the USA… but the truth about American, white gay men.

Fuck me. What a bunch of crazy, right-wing cock suckers.

I mean… these gay white guys are voting Democrat, so they get their miserable marriage equality then… as soon as they do… they’ll jump ship and vote Republican… if they aren’t already.

Gay White Men won’t feel like they are part of any minority once they achieve parity with their straight white male colleagues.

Powerful white men famously loathe sharing the stage with immigrants, brown people, poor people, ugly people, fat people, trans… and women. Fuck them. Especially women. Their natural enemy.

‘They don’t mesh with MY lifestyle.’ he said.  Yes, he really said that.

It fills me full of dread to imagine a world run by gay white men. But apparently, according to Elton John. It already is.

So Bradley, I had to draw a line in the sand.

It’s Anderson Cooper, Elton John, David Geffen, the HRC and any guests at a typical Hollywood pool party over there… and it’s me you and the brown people over here.

Bradley, in the USA the gays want to ignore you, demonize you, forget you.

The rest of the world thinks about you every day, rotting in that jail. They agree with me. They think you’re the bees knees.

Bradley, you won’t believe this but, yesterday Vivienne Westwood wore a laminated photograph of you pinned to her lilac, silk gown at the Metropolitan Fashion Ball.

Perhaps the gays might take you more seriously now?

I doubt it.

I’m really sorry that our community has let you down.

Apparently what you did… isn’t gay enough.

“What does Bradley Manning and his treason have to do with being gay?” That’s what they say Bradley.

You just ain’t the right flavor. And, of course, they (elite gay snobs) know you only joined the military in the first place to get a free education.

You ended up educating the whole world.

“You should have known better. You shouldn’t have broken the rules.”

That’s what the rich, white, gay men say.

Just Like You

Bradley, they were going to include you in the 2013 San Francisco Pride event. Did you hear about that? They were going to honour you.

But they lost their nerve after the rich, white gays persuaded the poor, black lesbian who runs the event that you were just a common thief.

There are well researched articles about you and what happened at San Francisco Pride. Bradley’s inclusion and outrageous exclusion.

After it happened I had to defriend over 250 affluent gay white men on Facebook. Yes, I did.

I felt like a Jew waking up out of a blackout at the Nazi Christmas party. Or a Muslim at the NRA National Convention. Or a Christian in the back room of a gay bar.

I had to make a big decision. I had to weigh up: the differences versus the similarities and… the similarities between me and the gays were negligible.

I had to redefine myself.

Bradley, for you… I am not gay.

I will have nothing more to do with them. Because of you.

Thanks for that Bradley. I owe you a club soda some time.

But, that’s only half the story.  I’ve been feeling very uncomfortable in my gay skin for a very long time.

It all began with that smile he gave me in the family court waiting area 3 years ago. He was with his dad.

That arrogant grin. You see… he thought he’d won the war.

Americans always think they have to win.

It was shocking because, until that moment, I’d only ever seen his ersatz humility. I did not recognize him any more.

But, I knew the smile. I’d seen it before… on the entitled faces of rich, white gay men.

Oh God. I thought. That’s who you are. That’s what you’ve been hiding.

The pain I felt around the gays. The revulsion I felt at the gay charity events, gay AA, gay white men, gays en masse.

The smell of them began to make me nauseous.

Perhaps, I thought, it might just be self hate? Internalized homophobia?

Just like I thought my gall stones were indigestion… it was the wrong self-diagnosis.

I am surrounded by millions of gay zombies.  In the perpetual search for fresh meat.

Zombies forcing other gays, gays with unnatural ideas to think like them.

Bradley, President Obama is on the TV right now… warming up his audience with a few self-deprecating quips.

The gays love him. They don’t care if they’re being used to shield what’s really going on.

Hey America! Look at this dancing gay who wants to get married… look… over here! Look over here whilst we torture these Muslims and spray the world with bee killing Round-Up.

If you ever get out of that prison… you’ll find a very different gay America. Oh yes.

But don’t expect a heroes welcome from the gays. It ain’t happening.

Don’t expect a GLAAD award.

Their ‘heroes’ are prescribed by good looking GLAAD president Herndon Graddick and his ilk. Heroes? A GLAAD ‘hero’ is anyone who comes out of the closet or a celebrity who says publicly that they like gay people.

Herndon Graddick?  Consider the source.

You know what, Bradley? The last time I saw Herndon (fascist star-fucker) he was sobbing in a gay AA meeting because he can’t stop doing meth.

The time before that I saw Herndon he was at gay traitor Ken Mehlman’s drinks party with his forked tongue shoved so far up Ken’s ass what he pulled out was scarcely chewed.

Bradley, you were very brave.

Most of the gays I know in LA and NYC are the kind of men who stayed close to the teacher at school because they lived in fear.

Fear has shaped their lives.

They are scared of you.  They used to be scared of radical homosexual Peter Tatchell.  Before Elton brought him in from the cold.

Bradley, you didn’t come from an affluent family, you’re not a great looker. You might not even be a man… that’s what they say.

But who ever you are, you are my hero. You made me rethink, reshape my life. Redefine myself as queer rather than gay… and I thank you for that… again. Because without you… things might have remained confusing for me.

But now… they’re not.

The story of S.F. Pride versus Bradley Manning and S.F. Pride versus the activist community of San Francisco is an ugly one that illumines the maggoty underside of assimilationist politics and policies. In the quest for straight acceptance that has propelled the LGBT community headlong into the arms of two of the most historically repressive institutions, marriage and the military, dissent has become anathema. The values of ads that used to pepper the personals in queer newspapers and magazines “seeking straight-looking, straight-acting, no fats, no fems” have become internalized within the community. The controversy over Manning highlights what has happened in the juggernaut move toward equality — there’s no room for outliers. Either you are a Lisa Williams-style straight-acting, straight-looking martinet with no temper for dissent or you are like the people who signed the complaint — activists all — who recognize that our queer story is not going to be told simply through marriage equality and being able to enlist openly in the military. Marriage and military equality are important, but they aren’t our only issues. Manning took the actions he did because of his outrage over DADT, which was still in effect throughout his deployment. But he also acted like so many patriots have over our nation’s history — out of loyalty to American democracy. Manning thought the government was lying to the people. So he told them the truth.

VICTORIA A. BROWNWORTH is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist who has won the NLGJA and Society of Professional Journalists Awards for her series on LGBT issues. She is the author and editor of more than 30 books, including the award-winning Too Queer: Essays From a Radical Life. She lives in Philadelphia. Find her on Twitter at @VABOX.

Categories
Gay prison

Two Weddings

Unusual and wholly unexpected events witnessed at the Men’s County Jail included two weddings held in the gay dorm.

The first within days of my arriving at dorm 5300.

Madeleine and Oscar were married before first count one Saturday evening.  A popular couple.  There was a great deal of excitement in the dorm from both the incarcerated and the deputies.

Madeleine, trans, 23 years old, white skinned, full-lipped, long dark hair, sexy voice marrying Oscar, a madly jealous, beefy Mexican boy with a huge bull-dog under bite.

Hedi Slimane…this is the sort of thing you should be photographing.

Madeleine wore a long white dress and veil made for her that week by a gaggle of excited trannies.  It was fashioned from two shredded tee-shirts.  It looked like a Vivienne Westwood gown.  Madeleine held a bouquet of toilet paper flowers as she walked between the bunks toward her nervous groom.  The rings were woven for them, their names inscribed on both. Oscar had re-purposed his pale blue jail uniform to look like a prom outfit from the 1970’s…complete with bow tie.

The ceremony was very moving, the deputies videoed it and then took pictures of the happy couple through the bars of the observation booth.

The House Mouse officiated.

Later, I discovered that Oscar had married 4 other boys whilst he had been in dorm 5300.  On the streets he’d also married two real girls and had several real children none of whom he was allowed to see.  This was Madeleine’s first time.

After they married they fought all the time.  Domestic violence.  “We fight hard and we love hard.”  Madeleine told me.  They sure loved hard…you could hear them all over the dorm huffing and panting.

The second wedding, held a month or so later in dorm 5200, was very different.  A double wedding for 4 black boys, Juan and ‘Baby Boy’, Reggie and Steve.   The service was very moving.  Ex Marine Juan and ‘Baby Boy’ really loved each other.  Reggie and Steve…not so much.

Juan and ‘Baby Boy’ made their vows and cried.  Juan read an extravagant love poem. “Baby Boy’ cried some more.  A huge cheer erupted as they were pronounced husband and husband.

After the short ceremony we ate a huge nacho spread on an abandoned top bunk.  I was the only white guest.

That night bunks are pushed together creating comfortable double beds, illegal ‘tents’ made of old sheets are hung around the bottom bunk for privacy and voila, the happy home is complete.

Reggie and Steve separated after a violent clash.  Bleeding noses, being torn apart by opposing groups of friends, then separated for ever into different dorms.

‘Baby Boy’ was released, leaving poor Juan to mope about the dorm until he found another boy to bunk with.

As I mentioned before, the bond that exists between these jail house gay boys/trannies can lead to unexpected consequences.  Unable to leave their loved ones behind couples reunite by forcing an unnecessary arrest.  Occasionally, however, by the time the released returns…their boy friend, the love of their life, has found someone else.

There sure was a great deal of fucking in the dorm.  The craziest couple, Kenyatta and Andrew, could not keep their hands off each other.  They fucked all day and all night.  She was a fun, feminine black trans accused of hit and run, he was a masculine latino boy with no personality.  She fucked him.  He couldn’t say no.

Coffee in Venice yesterday.  Lunch with lawyer.  Cooked dinner, boiled brisket, Brussels sprouts, snap peas and quinoa.

Ate a cup cake at midnight…bad mistake…up all night vomiting.  Can’t eat rich food yet.

Categories
art Fashion Gay Love

Fuck You Penguin/Love You Lee McQueen

Alexander McQueen Fall 2008
Alexander McQueen Fall 2008

After a late breakfast I met Michael L at Mud. He was wearing a DIVINE pair of Prada shoes…an extraordinary wing tip/espadrille hybrid with Nike soles.

I LOVE YOUR SHOES.

I told him that I had seen JP at my AA meeting.

On the spur of the moment we decided to go to Savage Beauty, The Alexander McQueen retrospective at the Met. Sunday afternoon, it was OVER RUN with people. JAMMED.

Jammed with people who may or may not love fashion but certainly not enough to line up for two hours!

Thankfully we were Met members so went directly to the front of the line.

I didn’t give a damn how many people were there. I just loved the show from beginning to end.

This enchanting, inspiring exhibition gave me a great deal to think about.

Firstly, let me tell you that I hadn’t seen McQueen’s work up close like that. Why would I ? I don’t know Daphne Guinness.

Not a single photograph anywhere does his work justice. It really has to be seen to be believed. I was utterly dumfounded by the drama, the workmanship, the unexpected depth of emotion it inspired.

There were a million  obvious references: Balenciaga, Vivienne Westwood, Jean Paul Gaultier (fucked him once after the IRA bombed The City of London).  Regardless, it was uniquely beautiful. Uniquely Lee. Westwood without the bustle.  Balenciaga without the cassock.  Gautier without…

I loved the fabric woven for the Plato’s Atlantis collection.  Fabric woven to look like the re-imagined skin of mythical serpents.

The Razor Clam dress was exquisite.  The dress sprayed by ballet dancing robots…heavenly.

My most favorite costume were from the spring/summer 2005 collection,  It’s Only a Game.  Using burlap, hessian, raffia, leather, crude mechanical embroidery.  I loved, most particularly, an appliqued Japanese inspired, floor length dress.  Lilac tulle softly billowing out of the structured bodice around the feet.  Sublime.

This entire collection (as curated) left one breathless.

Eshu 2000, a simple shift made of tiny yellow beads and black horsehair. The yellow beads spread like caviar on crisp toast, dripping provocatively onto the horse hair.

McQueen bejewels the constellation of dead couturier that include Christian Dior, Yves St Laurent, Paul Poirot, Madame Gres etc.  Twinkling stars inspiring us from above. Isabella Blow is sitting right there beside him laughing with her protégé at how mortals now wait in line to worship at his alter. They were never meant to.  The world of high fashion, like the world of high art, is exclusive by design and inclination.

I thought about the very few times we met. Check on Wire Image for the picture of me, he and Lucy Ferry. If you don’t believe me.

I thought about his suicide. How lonely being that much of a genius can make you. How protected he was by the women in his life who never really approved of any of his boyfriends because they felt ‘married’ to him. Lucy, Sam, Naomi, Kate, Isabella, Daphne, Anna etc.

No one was ever good enough for Lee so he became more and more isolated.

Too embarrassed to introduce the kind of boy he wanted to those grand arbiters of taste. How could he spend all day designing beautiful things and bring that home.

Fag hags think they are doing you a big favor by keeping trashy boys out of our lives…in fact…all they did was keep Lee McQueen lonely. I hold all of those women partially responsible for his death. If he had only been allowed to fall in love…but those kind of women are little bit too eager to have an opinion about a gay love life thinking that Lee was just one of the girls.

Straight women really don’t understand gay men as much as they claim they do.

After McQueen we stopped in at the Ben Cohen event at Boxers. Flirted mercilessly with wrestler Hudson Taylor. Will post pics asap.

Ben Cohen is a straight British rugby player who is making a name (and a great deal of money) for himself by championing LGBT causes.  Beloved by the gays he has a cherubic face and huge chest.

“I can’t understand a word he’s saying…but he’s gorgeous.” One man cooed.

Ben was making an impassioned speech about bullying and homophobia.  The gays just looked on in awe.  Objectifying poor Ben and gorgeous Taylor.  They didn’t give a fuck.  “Take you shirt off!”  They screamed as he appealed to them for a more tolerant world.

GLAAD gave him some award.  ‘Cute Straight People Who Like Us’ award…or something.  Michael (?) the head of GLAAD NY was there last night.  “It’s not political.”  He reassured me.

Then something rather irritating happened. Zack’s really dull friend arrived. The sort of boy who thinks he’s attractive but hasn’t got two damp sticks to rub together to get any fire started….anywhere. He pissed me off sufficiently to make me shout at him.

Apparently my present anger is quite healthy. I am so…fucking angry. With myself. I have NO ONE else to blame.  I used to be angry with The Penguin.  Now I am angry with me.

Livid that I let myself be duped. Blinded by love. Blinded by compassion. I don’t blame him. I can’t blame him. There’s nothing to blame. Other than the CON. I don’t blame him for making me fall in love with him…he is just a child, as was evidenced when I saw him with his parents. Bouncing on his mother’s knee.

Enmeshed.

A sad situation existed in that house. I realised why I found the father so interesting…he reminded me of someone. Rather than concentrate on his son and wife, he was staring at us. Not because he was trying to intimidate…he was just…more interested.

Emotionally absent father, more interested in solving his patients problems than focusing on the needs of his son. The Penguin wanted his father’s love so badly. It’s not his fault. Shame on them! I can imagine that he wasn’t just absent for The Penguin but for the entire family.

Mother and son thrown together in some emotionally incestuous swamp. Hanging onto each other for dear life.

If I can’t have you my husband….I will have him. My darling son.

Enmeshed.

He looked…like an aspergers boy when he was with them. Which is odd because isn’t that his father’s speciality?

Let me tell you how things have changed since I saw him. I blame myself for being so damned stupid. I blame myself for letting a petty conman/thief run rampant through my life. I blame myself for constantly letting him off the hook. I blame myself for convincing anyone who would listen that I loved him. I blame myself for thinking he was beautiful. I blame myself for not running out the door the moment he took heavy drugs from under his bed and asked if it was ok.

I have been a fucking idiot….and I am really, really pissed off with myself.

Hudson Taylor and Duncan Roy
Categories
Gay Hollywood

Date Night

My date last night was perhaps the first proper date that I had ever had.  We were meeting to see if we could sustain more than a moment of initial attraction.  Isn’t that what a date is all about?  I had been looking forward to it all week not least because I am so eager to get over the hesitant, unwilling Mr. NYC…should I start using his name rather than some acronym?

Whenever one is transitioning from one relationship to another it is almost impossible not to compare what was with what is on offer.  So, in order to beat that particular demon we talked about last loves and expectations.  Frankly it was wonderful to just be in the same room as a man who one found attractive rather than the constant yearning of the past 6 months.   The more I sat with this strange new boy the more at ease I became and the more attractive he seemed to me.  But unlike the last I would have to work a great deal harder to capture this butterfly.

For a start-I am not and will never be his physical type.   If we have types…I suppose I may surpass types.   I am the charismatic, art collecting, goat rearing, F150 driving, Vivienne Westwood wearing anomaly so getting to have dinner with me is just about me and who I am.

Of course he knew more about me than I him as my life is flayed all over the Internet.   He looked at me with curious blue eyes.  At times he was deliciously coy. This man/boy is incredibly well-educated with a compelling story and good connections.   A bit deaf-or maybe I was mumbling.  Our recent experiences with men have confused us.  I urged him not to let these last encounters destroy what we love most about men…anyhow it is the very essence of jade that is peculiar to gay men and is as attractive to me as rat poison.   It is true to say however that we are both a little bruised by recent loves, a little reticent.   I want to meet men unfettered and with abandon.  It is my aim.

He is a recent émigré to LA so enjoying all that the city has to offer.  Irritatingly, unable to stop myself, I began a tirade against my adopted home and found myself saying things to him that I didn’t even believe anymore-it’s just easier to gripe about Los Angeles rather than take ownership of it.

Of course he is strikingly good looking…a willowy boy, tall, and slim like an 18th century romantic hero.   An extraordinary gait.   Floppy blond hair and the most beautiful nose.  He drank one glass of white wine, which scarcely seemed to affect him at all.   We ordered three courses because I knew that today I was going to go on a diet and start my gym training with David at Gold’s in Venice.

Rabbit good.  Bratwurst bad.  Cakes divine.

I have no idea if I will kiss his neck or sweep the blond hair out of his eyes.  I have no idea if we will meet in Paris or drive to San Francisco on a whim but there’s a chance that we may and if we don’t, well…I know I made good choices tonight.  Good for my brimming heart.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q4foLKDlcE]