What a frustrating night!

Of course, as time passes and I know that I have to see Jake again…I get more agitated, start protecting myself. Arm myself. Perhaps I am not myself? I just can’t bear the idea of being in the same room as that lying scum bag.

So, yesterday I waited for the storm but none came. It was so hot in Venice that I shed almost everything I was wearing. Robby and I drank coffee in Intelligentsia.

Chanced upon a great art show by an amazing young British artist Paul Insect. Strong graphics, good colours.

Apparently I was not alone…the previous show had been bought entirely by Damien Hirst.

I think I am frustrated because I met someone last week with whom I have a connection but do not trust myself to see again. Will not risk involvement.

So, I spent the day with Robby. He dropped me off in Beverly Hills. Met Matt ostensibly to go see Shame and Q&A with Steve McQueen. Didn’t go. Went, instead to see the Hedi Slimane installation at MOCA. Good crowd. HUGE crowd. Jonathon Brown, Miggy Hood, Gus Van Sant, Jeffrey Deitch..others.

Met cute, well dressed boys. Was not the only man with facial hair.

Boys wore Comme kilts. Girls wore red lispstick. Lots of black and velvet. NYC type crowd. Met ‘going to be huge’ photographer Aaron Stern and the kid who won the last survivor Judson Birza.

The show was hideously derivative. Reminded one of Larry Clark but without the compelling obsession. Black and white pictures of pretty, full lipped boys and girls, urban landscapes projected onto a huge cube whilst a shaggy haired band played discordant music.

Gagosian Gallery showing graphite work by Adam McEwan. Loved all most all of the show except the top gallery which offended me by being so dull and badly conceived. Particularly loved the shutter that divided the main space but caused major anxiety for the gallery assistants who had to stop people mushing their heads on this low slung sculpture.

Soho House to meet Nick Compton my South African cricketer friend. He was co-opted by the most awful drunk in the room. We left.

Then…bad, bad mistake followed Matt to gay party in North Hollywood at some writers house where I bumped into Robby, Miles, Tom, Toby, Fielder and Bryan Singer. I was the only man there with a beard. Most of them knew who I was and had an opinion.

God help me.

One particularly vile but pretty 21 year old started telling me how to dress.

This rancid, dreary waiter from Utah wearing a ubiquitous plaid shirt…ill fitting jeans telling ME how to dress. I was outraged.

He wouldn’t stop talking.

I said, “When I was your age I kept my mouth shut because I learned so much more.”

Which was true. Nothing he had to say for himself was either interesting or original. Unlike Fielder (same age) who is truly original and worth listening to. We left, drove home up the 101 in the pouring rain.

The storm had arrived.

There are pale, grey days by the Pacific that remind one of home.  Thunder clouds over Catalina.   A huge rain over the ocean,  blasting the surface, then fierce sunshine through the clouds like so many celestial arc lights.

There are more storms forecast for next week.   Just as the house fills with Thanksgiving guests and I prepare to leave for NYC.  Early December shopping and once again…him.

Usually, at this time of year, the mountain is parched and brown but last summer was unseasonably wet.   Everything is dark green, richly hued, sweet-smelling earth abundant with as much wildlife as I ever saw.

Last night at 2am I passed three young, regal bucks on Rambla Pacifico.  Their velvet antlers and fearlessness making them all the more beautiful.  There is a huge owl that now roosts in the palm tree on the drive.

I know why he’s here, to eat the squirrels and rats.  The Little Dog killed a rat yesterday.  It had a beautiful pale grey coat and a long black tail that squirmed like a snake minutes after he snapped its neck.

I have been going to events.  Small talk with strangers…boring.

AFM.  GLADD.  Etc.  Why would I ever want to leave my mountain?  I meet bumptious gay men with nothing original to say.  Invisible people, terrified of being seen, identified, different.  Straight acting.  God, that bores me.  I wore a Derby.  They couldn’t even identify a Derby.  That thought it was a Bowler hat.

Then a beautiful boy arrives and turns everything upside down.  I can feel him beside me now.

Last night I cooked dinner and, as it may be the last time before I sell it, I powered up the huge Sylvie Fleury neon piece that hangs in the parlor.

Doesn’t it look beautiful?  CURIOUS!

Can you believe that Rachel Maddow, of all people, gets hate mail?  Hateful, terrible things.  Everyone who has ever been on TV gets hate mail.  Anonymous fools sitting at their computers, steeped in resentment, conspiring against the world.

Regis Philbin gets hate mail.

The storm is coming, there is nothing we can do except bring in the cushions, clear the drains, avoid falling rocks loosened by the deluge when we drive.

Can I tell you something?  I haven’t been here, to this blog…very recently, because I had other things I needed to write.  A film to finish, the essays to map, the novel is done with.

I met friends for dinner and ate far too regularly at Gjelina.  Breakfast, lunch and dinner.  I had meaningful assignations with beautiful men.  I walked the new road with the dog and did not fall down.

I removed the bulk of my blog archive because it was no longer appropriate to keep it there.  I kept the essays that seem to give you most pleasure.  Instead of writing this…I concentrated on other things.  The trash was put out on time, the Caster Oil Trees that grow by the spring were chopped down.  The trees that died last year must be felled and cut up for fire wood.

I travelled in convoy from one event to another and blended as much as I am able.

We are not expecting anything so inclement that our lives maybe risked.  The worst that could happen, after the heavy rain, is another slide.  That, my friends, is life on and off the mountain.

The storm passes over Malibu, leaving clear blue skies.  Catalina clearly visible on the horizon.

The garden dripping wet after the torrential rain.

The clouds were magnificent!

That’s all I can tell you.  Is that all I can say?

It has been a very busy month.  With more health issues on the horizon I retreat from normal living.  With art as my salvation I hunker down and do what I do best.

Day by bay, unfolding before me…life delivers one delightful treat after another.

I am glad I am not them.

Grapes from the garden.  Two bunches the raccoons couldn’t get to.

Hung with Tom Hardy last night.

Apparently he punched the producer of Bronson.  Good on yer lad.  We used the words ‘twat’ and ‘nonce’.

I was transported.

They are changing the succession laws in Britain.  Oh, now I remember why I left!

There is so much going on…but I can’t tell you anything.  So much...

The new road cost nearly $5,000,000 for the 70 member association.

They worked tirelessly to make something wonderful happen.  It is now there.  It takes just a few moments to get to the PCH from my house.

Awesome feeling driving down it yesterday.

Everybody seems very excited by Steve McQueen‘s new movie Shame.  Apparently about sex addiction.  Let’s hope that he got it right.  Strangely this was the theme and title of my sex addiction memoir.

The one that JB and I were working on.

It got me to thinking about shame and how most people (some people) have done things that they are ashamed of, unwilling to admit to, unwilling to own.   Even my Christian aunt admitted an unspeakable horror (to her mind) from which she still reels.

That’s how organizations like the Scientologists enslave their members…by getting them to admit their darkest secrets then threatening them with unsightly revelations unless the game is played their way.

I know a sex addiction ‘therapist’ like that.  He knows a little bit too much about powerful people…and lives a good life on the back of their venal sin.

As I have mentioned before…gay people tend, once out, to jettison or rather speak more freely about subjects others may find taboo.  We must have always been like this…hence shame based organizations like the church…out lawed us.  If they can’t shame you into submission…well, what’s the point of your existence?

Gay people in the christian warrior church, the republican party and signing up for the super chic nazis.   I am being ironic.

I never really understood the appeal.

Anyhow, lets hope that the film Shame is good…and not sensational or stupid.  I think Steve is the kind of guy who can get this right.  The trailer is very worthy….very serious.

Sex conduct is a touchy theme…as we found out.

I still feel…incredible.

Writing this novel has been so cathartic.  Not least because I get to exorcise a life time of demons.  I also act out crimes of atrocious ferocity without ever once having to lift a gun or a knife.

What keeps me from murdering those who give me pains?

Well, for a start, I am not (much to your irritation) a psychopath.  A sociopath maybe…but even that is doubtful.

After all these years of not committing vicious crimes against humanity.

I’m not about to start now.

What stops me from commiting the vilest crimes?   The very worst of my vengeful nature?

Well, my dears, I am an artist.

When I made Clancy’s Kitchen (essentially a film about my wanting to kill and dismember a homophobe) when the prosthesis arrived…boxes of beautifully made hands, feet and other body parts…I thought to myself…good god…you really are one sick mother fucker.

Looking at descriptions for both psychopath and sociopath…they are strikingly similar.  But what is more striking is that they describe almost perfectly…most Americans.

In particular those who work on Wall Street.

A blatant disregard for the well-being of others.  

Here some other Wall Street traits…this could apply to most talent managers in Hollywood. In fact…any American ‘agent’.  Talent, literary, real estate…

These sociopathic character defects are perceived as virtues/coping mechanisms on Wall Street in Hollywood.

Here are some of my favorites:

• Glibness and Superficial Charm
• Manipulative and Conning
  They never recognize the rights of others and see their self-serving behaviors as permissible. They appear to be charming, yet are covertly hostile and domineering, seeing their victim as merely an instrument to be used. They may dominate and humiliate their victims.
• Grandiose Sense of Self
  Feels entitled to certain things as “their right.”
• Pathological Lying
  Has no problem lying coolly and easily and it is almost impossible for them to be truthful on a consistent basis. Can create, and get caught up in, a complex belief about their own powers and abilities. Extremely convincing and even able to pass lie detector tests.
• Lack of Remorse, Shame or Guilt
  A deep-seated rage, which is split off and repressed, is at their core. Does not see others around them as people, but only as targets and opportunities. Instead of friends, they have victims and accomplices who end up as victims. The end always justifies the means and they let nothing stand in their way.

• Need for Stimulation
  Living on the edge. Verbal outbursts and physical punishments are normal. Promiscuity and gambling are common.
• Callousness/Lack of Empathy
  Unable to empathize with the pain of their victims, having only contempt for others’ feelings of distress and readily taking advantage of them.
• Poor Behavioral Controls/Impulsive Nature
  Rage and abuse, alternating with small expressions of love and approval produce an addictive cycle for abuser and abused, as well as creating hopelessness in the victim. Believe they are all-powerful, all-knowing, entitled to every wish, no sense of personal boundaries, no concern for their impact on others.
• Irresponsibility/Unreliability
  Not concerned about wrecking others’ lives and dreams. Oblivious or indifferent to the devastation they cause. Does not accept blame themselves, but blames others, even for acts they obviously committed.
• Promiscuous Sexual Behavior/Infidelity
  Promiscuity, child sexual abuse, rape and sexual acting out of all sorts.
• Lack of Realistic Life Plan/Parasitic Lifestyle
  Tends to move around a lot or makes all-encompassing promises for the future, poor work ethic but exploits others effectively.
• Criminal or Entrepreneurial Versatility
  Changes their image as needed to avoid prosecution. Changes life story readily.

Scintillating few weeks.  I am happy.  Even though I shouldn’t be.  I have no idea what is keeping me so buoyant…not smoking, not eating wheat, full moon, going to AA meetings?  I really have no idea.

So many little things are giving me a great deal of pleasure.

The ripe figs I picked yesterday morning, the aubergine and tomatoes, the trips into Beverly Hills with Robby.  The California sunshine, the hot nights, the pool lights that I managed to fix so the water glistens at midnight.

This too will pass.

The weather has been gorgeous, the company stimulating.  The future a glorious mystery…the past not jumping up at me like a badly trained dog.

A great deal is going on…but my energy is being used creatively.  Will let you know asap.

Anyway, just as you all seem to think I have vanished…

Here I am.

As I embark on my 15th year of sobriety are things as I imagined they would be?

Well…they are as they are.

In God‘s perfect world there is nothing I can’t handle.

I have enough.

Enough is all I have.

What was it like before I got sober?  It was a daily, living hell.

This is the day I that I yearly recommit to sobriety and this is the day that forces me to take stock and move forward unburdened.

The day where I take a thorough inventory, both good and bad.

Some things need left behind.  You know what I am talking about.

Some things need embracing.

Life needs to be lived.

For all the love/health/death/aggravation of the past year…today I am strong and secure.  Today.

It seems that although forgiveness is key…it is a hard thing to swallow.

Ate dinner at Sauce on Hampton. Home by 9.30.

Couldn’t stop myself from compulsively watering pots, checking the apparently broken (wasn’t) irrigation system. Nipping downstairs to the newly vacated rental apartment…the mess was dealable with.

Nothing a few hours on my knees scrubbing couldn’t handle.

Much to Michael’s amusement I found a pair of shears and, at midnight, hacked at the month’s worth of hedge growth I just couldn’t go to bed thinking about.

On the plane home I had a terrible revelation about my novel. It was written from the wrong point of view.

To my tremendous relief, this morning, everyone agrees with me.

So, I immediately began work rewriting the entire thing.

The gardeners came and restored order. Swept the paths and stowed the trash. Robby came by and we had lunch at the Malibu Country market. Robby is soooo adorable.

Took dog to vet..he has a hot spot. No idea what that is. Anyway, the gorgeous Dr Victor tended to him. Gorgeous and recently married. He gave me a powder I have to squirt on his wound. Don’t you just love the word squirt?

After my reference yesterday to ‘activist’ Dan Savage…who did I chanced upon being interviewed by Keith Obelman?

Our great friend and apologist: ‘Activist’ Dan Savage.

He was raving about critically acclaimed musical The Book of Mormon. That was OK. It’s good. Then he started in on Christian America and how everyone who critiques/damns the gays is either in the closet or jealous of our freedom.

As you know by now…I believe that our so-called freedom seems to enslave most of us.

I am not convinced that Dan Savage is radical or dangerous. He seems mediocre and conformist. He is married and has a kid. He wears boring clothes. He has a predictable hair cut. He probably lives in a gay ghetto.

Benoit introduced me to Dan Savage after I was on Sex Rehab. ‘Activist’ Dan Savage refuses to believe that sex addiction (any addiction?) exists. Why? Because it doesn’t suit his view that we should be able to do anything, whenever we want…without censure.

He can’t believe that something he enjoys so much should ever be labeled as addictive.

Yesterday, there he was on Obleman’s Coutdown tearing into bi-sexual folk who had ‘chosen’ to be straight rather than gay.

Pompous Dan apparently…damning their choices. The arbiter of your sex conduct.

Dan calls those who believe in choice, the ‘choicers’. Dan continues, revealing his limited (Judeo-Christian) understanding of contemporary sex and sexuality…you are either one thing or the other.

People like Activist Dan keep bi-people/people who experiment sexually away from being honest and open about the sexual choices they make. A straight man will rarely, if ever, admit to having sex with another man…because people like Dan Savage will claim him for the cause.

He suggested that bi-sexual people have made a ‘choice to stay in the closet’. Bi-sexual people fuck with Activist Dan’s head.

Is Dan pro-choice? Well…if it suits him. Choose to be gay or straight, choose to fuck out of your gay marriage, choose to live by Dan’s rules. Choose sexual liberation! As long as you choose the gay way.

I mean…I’m just asking. Don’t take it the wrong way…If you have a choice…why not chose a straight lifestyle? If Dan is so damned opened minded and sexually liberated…why shouldn’t that same hetero choosing bi-man also choose to see men on the side? I mean…what’s so different from that and the gay men I know who see other people outside of their relationships?

It’s their choice!

Bisexuality, sexual fluidity, acknowledging our right to choose an evolving sexual continuum.

Why not?

Dan may very well find those sort of bi-choices personally threatening.

Yet, in my experience, those bi-men who fuck other men outside of their straight marriage..are perfectly happy, not conflicted, secular…and of course…EUROPEAN.

If, ultimately, these men choose to ‘come out’…so be it. People leave each other all the time!

Many bi-men have a community of like-minded men and women around them. These men and women are often more closeted than the gays…not because they live in Christian shame but because those who live at either end of the sexual spectrum make it impossible for them to speak freely and honestly about who they are, what they want and the experiences they have had.

The choice to express themselves has been stunted by people like Activist Dan.

Dan’Bi Now, Gay Later‘ Savage.

Dan’s limited and sophomoric opinions about sex are frankly…dangerous. He does as much damage as Tony Perkins the Family Research Council president who denounces the idea that kids suffering from “abnormal” homosexuality kill themselves because they are bullied.

Dan is the equal and opposite of Tony Perkins. His passive aggressive, liberal, sexual free-for-all is as damaging to us as the hate spewing from the Christian right.

Whether we like it or not…Christians have the right to disagree with our lifestyle…why? Because they can. Because sometimes they are right.

Sometime they say things that I agree with.

Am I a self loathing homo? Am I jealous that you are young and getting some? Am I just bitter?

Is this how I can agree with SOME of the things our enemies say about us? Because I am jealous?

As for Dan’s notion that the moment we step out of the closet and embrace gay life we suddenly ‘live with integrity’.

Bull shit Dan.

Obelman asks a reasonable question about men and women trapped in the closet for 50 years. Savage, yet again, blames Jesus.

I have met men who didn’t come out of the closet because of what the gay community had on offer, couldn’t imagining themselves fitting in. The lifestyle simply wasn’t for them.

Can some of us believe that what we have isn’t everyone’s cup of tea? Jesus wasn’t keeping those guys in the closet..we were.

I have no experience of the closet…but I do have experiences as a gay man which include choosing to sleep with and have emotional bonds with women. I presented myself as a gay man to those women and choices were made. Get used to it.

There is something mithering about Dan’s tone. He believes as surely as Tony Perkins that he is right about everything. He is as sure as the preacher who damns us all. The gays here in the USA love Activist Dan. He is their saviour, their dog in the manger, he is their apologist, their very own MMA fighter prepared to get down and dirty defending the gays.

Sometimes I agree with him. Mostly I don’t.

Compared with a true activist like Peter Tatchell this buff hack is just another money spinner, whipping up the gays to buy his stuff so he can live the dream. He is as bad those in the GOP who hate us in public so they can run for office.

Have any of you read Right Wing Women by Andrea Dworkin? It’s worth the read. She doesn’t go after the clan leaders, she goes after their wives. It reveals the experience and motivation of women like Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachman, Anne Coulter.

Right wing women who attack feminism even while they are the beneficiaries of its work.

I am not interested if Presidential hopeful Rick Santorum has, as he claims, gay friends or a gay head of staff. I am interested, however, in those gay friends and head of staff who have subordinated themselves to Rick’s cause…are willing to overlook his hateful rhetoric, set aside their integrity (magically bestowed upon anyone who steps out of the closet in Activist Dan’s world) and make a pact with the devil.

Dan has made a great deal of money out of being our gay saviour. Many in the gay community are devoted to his unquestioning beliefs, his naive rhetoric, his easy answers (blame the Christians) and his dashing good looks.

Straight liberals like Obelman love him because he’s just the kind of gay friend they would like to have.

He makes me puke.

See the interview with activist Dan here.

Related articles

• It Gets Better founder Dan Savage: Gay boy’s suicide after making video ‘utterly heartbreaking’ (miamiherald.typepad.com)

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

The man was leaving as they arrived.

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

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

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

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

He had been lied to.

I was shaking with rage.

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

On each occasion the liar had tried to make it the victim’s fault. ” You shouldn’t have believed me.”  ”You must have realized.” “I can’t talk about this right now, you are complicating my life.” “What kind of straight man doesn’t play sports?”

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

“How do you feel about the guy who infected you?”  I asked.  ”He’s evil.” he replied.  ”Misguided?”  I suggested.

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

My phone rang, I made a plan to see a friend the following morning.  The boys looked at me askance. What?  I said.  ”I’ve never seen anyone make an arrangement like that on the phone.  We text each other.”  I felt suddenly dislocated from life.  How come I didn’t know?

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

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

Look at the pictures.  Strapping, healthy boys living with HIV.  Big Pharma shaping this generations attitude toward HIV as a livable with disease…just like diabetes!  Turn your back on health education, embrace ignorance and a life shackled to Big Pharma.  Enslaved at 25.  My heart bled.

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

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

It is another gay lie.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Just like Jake.

The only reason I have to come back to NYC so frequently is to meet Jake in court.  Prolonging the inevitable.  Forced, yet again, to indulge his tantrums, his ego, his selfishness.

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

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

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

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

Oh how beautiful it was….

A fairly obvious NYC taste making, career determining gay crowd skillfully imported for the screening by Adam Kersh, the eager beaver publicist.

I arrived with Benoit Denizet-Lewis and the Little Dog stuffed into his traveling bag.

I had heard ahead of time that The Weekend by Andrew Haigh was ‘severely flawed’, so not to expect much.

Immediately it started I was drawn (homesick) into the spare, urban, British landscape.  Set in the east Midland town of Nottingham.  The neo-brutalist, ex-council estate provides a gritty working class back drop for this very British film.

The concrete tower blocks and congested ring roads determining the drama as much as the delicious dialogue.

It’s Friday night and Glen and Russell have met for the first time.   They do what so many of us do…pack an entire relationship into one weekend.

Russell, late twenties, is a charming, meticulous man who likes ‘old things’.  He never came out to his parents because, as a foster kid, he never knew them.  Glen, a more experienced, angry man (also in his late twenties) has been severely hurt by a lying, cheating ex lover and is unwilling to let himself believe that he can love again.

They burn through the weekend with passion, drugs and frantic conversation.  They fuck and suck and talk and snort and smoke and gaze.  Like so many gay men they are just trying to work it all out, what it means, where they are going…who they are.  In less adept hands these long, rambling conversations might have seemed pretentious, stilted or boring but Andrew Haigh is a skilled film maker and there is a palpable tension throughout the film that made it compelling and at times…glorious.

Americans have exalted the performances which are indeed pitch perfect but as a Brit I really wouldn’t expect anything less.  These actors are trained at what they do.  It never amazes me when I see a good British actor do his thing.  I expect it.

Americans slaver over the ‘realism’.

When the film ended Benoit introduced me to the nay sayer.

“You thought the film was bad?’  I asked him.  He nodded.  ”You’re an idiot.”  I snapped.

The Weekend is an elegant, charming portrait of something many of us do and few of us bother remembering let alone shaping into a work of art.  The film could be defined by the small amount of money that made it.  Static shots, minimal coverage etc. but it shouldn’t.

If you have the inclination, please see this film.

We headed to Spring Street where the after party took place at ex pat Nick Denton‘s (owns Gawker) large Soho loft.

The gays settled into their cocktails.  They talked about the film, were amused by the differences.  ”Nobody ever made me a cup of coffee and brought it to me in bed.”  one sneered.

I thought to myself, how sad, I love a cup of tea or coffee in bed after a long night of passion.

The gays noticed the instant coffee.  I noticed the saucers.

They didn’t understand British drug nuance.  Bowl verses rolled joint.  They were a little taken aback by the real bodies of two ordinary men who obviously don’t spend hours in the gym.

Nobody really talked about the conversations these men were having.

I met the director Andrew Haigh who knew my films and was very sweet to me.

We talked about The Film Council, BAFTA etc.  It is a delight to see him doing so well.  Being so well received.  We talked about how they gush over you when you first arrive in America.  Their compliments seem disingenuous.

We laughed that at home in Britain both of us were told that our work wouldn’t ‘mean anything’ to anyone other than ourselves. That’s what they say at home…then suddenly you’re at Sundance and they change their minds.

We both won the Outfest audience award.

I was proud of him.  I know what it feels like to make that first film.  To have it well received.

There is a moment when the two men, in bed facing one another, role-play a ‘coming out’ for Russell who doesn’t have parents.  It is touching and beautiful.

After the after party I took the Little Dog home and then uncharacteristically decided to go out again.

I hung at The Standard with Benoit’s gorgeous friends and drank expensive diet coke.  It was total freak night at The Bain.  Like a Nina Hagen tribute party.   I flirted with the beautiful blond, met a photographer I thought I knew.  Two black boys came up to me and asked if I was ‘Duncan from the ‘A’ List New York’.

The view over Manhattan from that roof top is sublime.

I took a cab home at 2am.

I was glad that I had met Russell and Glen.

I had identified with both of them and had healed for doing so.

Whenever I return home I am relieved.

Leaving the distractions and the doubt behind.

Cruel thoughts, many miles away.

Whitstable, it takes me a day or so to crawl back into my own skin.  The scale of the town needs adjusting to.  I feel like a giant towering over the small, clapboard houses.  I cannot fit into the tiny shops.

The vitrine has not changed for many years.

The town has kept its original character.

Good and bad I know everyone on the street.  Now I see people who I knew formerly in London.  Gallery owners, actresses, commercial directors.  They strut around thinking they own the place, which of course, they do.

“What are you doing here?” They say.

Last week I was dwarfed by skyscrapers in New York, today I am shrinking rapidly into my Whitstable self.  No coyote to eat the dog, nobody to distract me from my task.

The children sit at their desks on tiny chairs in the same infant school where I learned about the autumn leaves, the saints and the sinners.

This morning we walked the grass paths on the freshly mown downs.  In the thin sunshine the skin on my arms and hands looks brown and weathered.  The fierce Californian sun, long forgotten.

Tomorrow we are driving to Dorset.  Past Stonehenge, to the sea.  Staying at The Bull Hotel in Bridport.  Traveling the well maintained motorways.

I may just keep driving.  I have everything I need.

Just head north through Bristol to Wales where I want to walk Offa’s Dyke.  Find me a B&B in Clun.  Eastward from the unspoiled Welsh counties to Shropshire.  The Stiperstones, this earth is my grave.

Fried eggs and thick bacon, marmalade.

Northward again through the black country.  Cheshire, Lancashire, Yorkshire,  Cumberland to the borders.   I love you England.  I love you.

I bought a pair of secondhand, brown velvet trousers and an ebony cane with an engraved, silver knob.  I found a dark green cashmere and silk scarf, channeling Fanny and Stella in Burlington Arcade.  It is cold enough to wear a beautiful hat, an autumn gown.

I am willing the winter moonlight.

I don’t want anyone else with me. This is mine.

I could not be further from the madness.  England!  Where my heart lies.

Whitstable. September.

My brother Martin’s 35-year-old, long-term partner Juliet has died. A sweet-natured, complicated woman who wanted a baby very much, finally conceived two years ago.

She was a wonderful mother to my nephew Oscar. A really lovely child.

We heard the results today (13th Sept) of the autopsy. She died of acute kidney failure which lead to a heart attack.

Not one to complain she may have been in some discomfort for months but failed to tell anyone.

She lay dead on their kitchen floor for a very long time before my brother found her body. My infant nephew sat by her, maybe for 24 hours.

The neighbours heard him crying but did nothing.

My mother told me that the little boy had opened cupboards looking for something to eat. He found a pot of yogurt.

My brother broke down the door. He found her. Found them.

There are no suspicious circumstances.

Oscar has gone to live with my mother, his grandmother. My mother is a really great-grandmother.

The local newspaper report here.

Henry

This summer has not delivered the early morning, glittering sea views we are used to.  It is gray and wet.  The dew is so heavy that it drips like tropical rain off the plane trees.

By 10am the sun has burned off the marine layer but somehow never really recovers.  The weather is totally messed up.  The garden thrives although I worry about the cacti.

We lost three this year, rotting in the damp air.

I have huge and beautiful squash growing on the terrace.

Henry is dropping by today.  He is taking me to the doctor.  My foot is still very painful.  Swollen.  I can see that it gets better.  Slowly, slowly.  I take a stick with me into the garden.  Ever since the coyote attacked the little dog he stays close to me.

There is a very destructive squirrel chomping on anything and everything but mostly he/she picks oranges and peels them very carefully.

The plums have all been harvested.  The figs are ripening.  There are so many this year.

Tomatoes and beans, lemons, limes and grapes.

I cooked dinner for Andrew last night, we sat eating it watching Ted on Chopped.  I rarely veer from watching HGTV or MSNBC.

Late last night the dog started howling at the moon.  It’s impossible to get back to sleep.