Social Marmite
Archives for posts with tag: Duncan Roy
1.
Nope. Not any more.
I AM NOT GAY. I am OUT.
Unambiguous?
My New Years resolution: don’t call me gay.
I am The Other. I am simply… Out.
I have resigned my gay membership. I renounce the word GAY.
The Other is different from you. He is neither superior nor inferior.
He is not alone. He is out.
2.
Are you kidding? I still like sex with men… but I’m not interested in being gay.
Do you understand what I’m saying… gays? Yes you. I’m talking to you.
I’M TALKING TO YOU! Yes you, the gay in the bar, on the street, editing his Grindr profile.
Let’s face it. This separation will work out just fine for both of us.
I loathe you and you hate me.
I know, amongst other things, what galls you… you (particularly) don’t like when men in their fifties own up to having a rich and varied sexuality:
I’ve been called a ‘dirty old man’ by more gays than I ever have by straights for wanting or having beautiful younger men in my bed.
The gays write it anonymously. They post it all over the place, whenever they can. As If I should be ashamed?
You, you who have cornered the market in nihilism, immorality, homogeneousness, bitchery, selfishness, self-aggrandizement, self-obsession… in fact anything with the self prefix… apart from self-awareness.
I am peeling off the parade. I am letting the party wend its way elsewhere.
2. (a)
They told me at Triangle House in LA when we were making our documentary about older gay people: they say that old gay people end up going back into the closet because… it can get ugly… it can get dangerous.
They say that gay men are more likely to end up homeless than in any other demographic… because they have no community.
You gays are the very worst at hating yourselves. But you reserve more venom for the elderly homosexual than any other group.
It is a sickening idea to many young gays, that we (the elderly) exist.
Some young gay people believe that past 50 our penises shrink appropriately into our bodies. Retract.
In old age we become like wrinkly Ken dolls with smooth, pink groins.
No longer a threat to anyone.
I thought that when I became old… I would start wearing women’s clothes.
Where do young gay men learn how to be dignified old gay men?
I learned from older men in AA how to be an older man.
The respect that AA old timers get, applauded for their contribution to the community of AA stands in stark contract to the respect that older gay people don’t get from younger gay people.
Unless, of course, they are famous… or comical freaks… or rich enough to buy the boys they used to get for free.
Young gay people don’t want to be reminded that the party comes to an end.
2 (b)
So, today…
I resign my membership. I am no longer a true believer. I’m handing back my awards, my medals, my history, my pride.
It’s yours not mine. Take it.
I renounce: gay pride, gay film festivals, gay beaches, gay basketball, gay bars, the gay ghetto, the gay plague, gay marriage, gaybies, gaydar.com, gays in the military, gay cruises, cottaging, felching, gay news, gay voice, gay face, the gay sub section in the book/video store/Huffington Post.
I’m praying the gay away!
The terms of this divorce:
You can keep it all. The gay plays I made, the gay films I directed, the gay art I painted/etched/sculpted.
Take everything I ever made in your honor.
If you don’t want it? Burn it.
2 (c)
When I offered our award-winning film catalogue of gay films to The Legacy Project (the gay and lesbian film preservation project) based out of UCLA… the gays turned it down.
Even though AKA had won the LA Outfest audience award and opened (and closed) many gay film festivals all over the world with all of my films.
The Legacy Project said no to the free gift. They wanted me to disappear.
They don’t want any evidence that I existed. As a man or an artist.
“He’s trouble.” ”He’s angry.” ”He’s a parasite.”
Gays! Look at what you’ve become!
Examine, for just one goddamned gay second…. the mediocrity! Your righteous indignation! Your mock elegance!
Being with you is like drowning in cold tea.
3.
I don’t drink or take drugs. Tom blew weed into my face. He put vodka into my virgin mary. That’s how the gays bully one another.
Try wearing something unusual when your companions just want to be invisible.
“Who does he think he is?”
Their artificially deepened voices. The plaid shirt, the super hero tee.
The cloak of invisibility.
INVISIBLE.
Tom asked incredulously, “What are you wearing?” A man who wears nothing but ugly jeans, ill-fitting t-shirts.
Tom has an ‘opinion’ about individuality: He doesn’t believe in it.
These gays are terrified of being seen. Gripped by the politics of invisibility.
At least that grotesque, lying freak I used to date… he and his boy friend have some sartorial audacity.
Even if it is TOTALLY misguided.
Who are these gays? These invisigays?
Like Tom, they may appear normal:
4.
How can a gay man expect to age with dignity when nobody gay wants to age at all?
I saw it in LA… my destiny. If I chose to take it.
At first, Adam looked just like any other confident gay man claiming to be 48.
His gay parties are the talk of the town. Richer than most of his friends, though not very well connected … not to the real gay power in LA.
I mean, David Geffen wouldn’t be seen dead at this piss elegant, graceless house in the Hollywood Hills.
Adam invented the heart valve.
At one of his parties (to his chagrin) I photographed every single one of his guests.
A snap shot of LA gay life.
He has never been elegant, he has never been a great beauty. He will never be tall.
He is, however, manicured, botoxed, his teeth reinvented, his flawless skin, his demeanor… (that only great wealth lends you).
It was at that last raucous party I attended (as a plus one) I saw him upset (rattled)… why?
He looked like an old, vulnerable man.
“What happened?” I asked the gays.
They told me imperiously (as if it were obvious) that the young, chiseled boy he imported from NYC just wanted him for his money.
Adam looked… beaten. Crest fallen. His frail hands shook, the delicate skin around his eyes failing.
The gays stood around helplessly as their host fell apart. They stared into the plastic cups of vodka. They played with their nipples.
The pimps and the whores waited silently by the sodden beer pong.
He turned the music off. Finally, he threw everyone out.
They lined up on the steep drive. A hideous parade of grotesquely young boys, graded online or in public bars for their sexual prowess, their social fallibility, their youth.
The man who invented the heart valve, it seems, suffered from a broken heart.
5.
Take the gay man who gave up his 160k surrogate child for adoption because she had a small birth defect on one of her legs.
Yes, you heard me.
When we interviewed the doctor who makes hundreds and thousands of gay dollars from the gayby industry… he told us that the gays want perfection. Nothing less will do.
Take it all… this gay culture. This gay community. Take it.
Take the video of Bryan with 25 Bel Ami boys jacking off over him.
Moisturized with Czech sperm.
Or the man/boy with the huge cock who they pay to sleep with a hooker and unbeknownst to him… tape him.
This tribe of entitled, elitist gays clinging to gay marriage and their smart phones.
6.
I had lunch today with a 30-year-old man/boy who just came out. ”Why did it take you so long, ” I ask, “To tell the truth?” He said, “I didn’t… (he paused dramatically) …I mean I still don’t… I don’t want to be gay.”
“That’s ok,” I reassured him. ”You can describe yourself however you want.”
When, as frightened teens, blooming… prepubescent boys… infants… when we understand that we want to fall in love and fuck and suck and slide into another man… what choices do we have? To describe ourselves?
Gay is the only way.
And if you don’t know what you are. The gays will tell you exactly what you are.
The gays are so prescriptive.
He’s gay, they claim conspiratorially. They claim anyone ‘hot’ is gay. They all know someone who had sex with Tom Cruise or Hugh Jackman.
“He’s fucking his ‘assistant’.”
Oh Yes! He’s had sex with a man… he’s gay. He’s experimented… he’s gay.
Prescriptive.
6 (a)
Hollywood does not lend itself to morals.
CAA agent Kevin Huvane. When you first meet him, he shakes your hand and pulls you toward him. Trying to pull you off-balance.
The first time he met me… it worked (I was rocked) the second and third times I was prepared and we set to a gay tug of war, an argy bargy, him attempting to pull me and me attempting to pull him.
The fourth time I let him pull me onto him. I crashed into him. His tiny frame overwhelmed by 6′ 2″ me. He landed in a heap beneath me. ”Oh sorry,” I said. ”You pulled me toward you. I lost my balance. Sorry… Kevin.”
He’ll put you on a ‘list’ they told me. ”I’m on so many lists.” I murmured. ”More lists than Cathy Griffin.”
7.
After claiming on the Dr. Drew show that I wanted to make healthy decisions about sex. Somebody wrote to me or about me: If Duncan Roy doesn’t like gay sex… he isn’t gay.
He wasn’t far from the truth.
At first, I was outraged by their attempts to isolate, malign and lambaste me.
They had tried for years. Without success. Every time they try… they fail.
This last time… the jail. What the hell did they expect? That I would buckle?
Those who throw rocks at me are seldom innocent of that which they accuse.
8.
The Gays, have become so… bourgeois. Do you understand what that means? Let me refresh your memory:
Marked by a concern for material interests and respectability and a tendency toward mediocrity.
When I was young… gays like you knew their place.
They stayed in the closet. I mean. Coming out of the closet was brave! Now anyone can do it and become a fucking hero.
9.
Gays… why are you killing yourselves?
You kill yourself because you can’t take a joke, because you can’t hold your liquor, because you can’t say no to crystal… because you don’t want to be gay.
I don’t remember young gay people killing themselves in the UK.
It gets better?
What gets better?
Better than death?
10.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled when any oppressed group gets a bit of equality… but what will the USA gays do with their equality?
I’ll tell you.
They will make it even harder for the rest of us to be different.
There is a hideous conformity to which these young gays feel they must adhere.
Gay life in the USA. A blushing desire for ‘straight acting’ has become a tsunami of heternoramativity. The foundation on which this miserable gay monolith now stands.
Who are you?
A greek god, perfectly muscled, forever young… dressed to be ignored, as bland a personality as he can effect.
He is Peter Pan, he is Hercules, his personality as glittering as the Pillsbury Dough Boy.
Do you care about anything other than marriage equality? No.
He eats what his parents eat. He would vote republican if they could only find it in their neo con hearts to see that the gays are perfect conservatives.
So. We are divorced. I am no longer gay. I’m OUT. I’m out of here. I’m out but I’m not gay.
Happy New Year!
I thought you might wanna see this:
BTW, for those of you who have recently started reading this blog and want to catch up with the Jake B/Duncan Roy ‘relationship’ fiasco….
Here is a quick recap:
I was a patient on Dr. Drew‘s Sex Rehab which aired on VH1. I admitted that I found straight men desirable and re-traumatized myself with straight cock.
After the show aired I had many straight men contact me with a view to having sex with them.
They were rebuffed.
Jake contacted me via Facebook, he presented himself as straight. He lived with his girlfriend of 7.5 years. He told me he was a literary agent, interested in publishing my blog (he wasn’t the only one) we met and became friends and I agreed that he rep me.
After getting to know each other and working together Jake then revealed that he was gay. Not straight or bi but full on gay. He sent me pictures of his penis and ass. He told me that he loved me. I was confused and greatly attracted. I was flattered.
I lived in LA…he lived in NYC. He skyped a great deal.
I genuinely thought that he would leave his girlfriend for me. That’s what he said. I made it PERFECTLY CLEAR that I wanted nothing to do with him if he did not tell his girlfriend Jessie the truth…in fact, I forced him to tell her that he was gay.
He was petrified that I would out him.
He finally told her the truth. She, quite rightly, threw him out of their house.
He then started a sexual odyssey that did not include me…even though he called every day and accepted an expensive vacation to the South of France.
So, whoever it is (we can guess) that continues to send anonymous notes insinuating that I am somehow responsible for the Jake situation…go fuck yourself. Jake is fully responsible for not just ruining his ex girlfriends life by lying to her for the past 7.5 years but also busting his way into mine.
I insisted that he tell the truth.
I could just dump our entire email correspondence on here if you are interested in the chronology?
Regardless of why I decided to get involved with Derek or The ‘A’ List I’m glad I did. Our pretend boyfriend scam…it was fun. Even though I have been portrayed as a smelly old man.
Pretending to be his boyfriend was absurd. A joke. I don’t know if that comes across on the show? That we were faking it?
Occasionally I throw myself back into being ‘gay’. I don’t have a very gay life on this mountain. Most queens are totally appalled that I live here, so isolated, away from the urban gay idyl.
Tom calls it my Shangri-La. Some men love it and for those I hold a special place in my heart. They get it. The dream of self-sufficiency, off the grid, chickens and home-grown vegetables.
When I pull off my country clothes (albeit RRL) and slide into something leaner I am dressed for the city. Whether it is WeHo or Chelsea, Soho or The Marais I am there to be seen, acknowledged and play that peculiar game of being ‘gay’.
I can live two distinct lives, maybe more?
In England my snooty friends called me a chameleon, meaning to insult me.
Surely being able to change ones color to blend in…is rather good? To adapt and change as the situation requires.
In England, my England I learned to speak with a different accent, merely to be heard.
I am a cock sucking homosexual but I wonder if others see it that way? What kind of gay am I?
Perhaps my lack of interest in sex makes me less gay, less human?
Remember when I was on Sex Rehab and admitted that the sex I had with men was traumatic? People wrote to me and told me that I wasn’t gay. ”If Duncan Roy doesn’t want gay sex, he isn’t gay.”
They tried to throw me out of the gay club…for having an opinion.
Meeting the cast of the ‘A’ List was memorable because they have become, in their own way, icons. For good or for bad. I met most of them just once. At least three of them have admitted drug and alcohol problems.
I really liked Austin and his husband Jake who I could very easily imagine seeing here or in London. They are good people. I like Austin’s authenticity.
The worst of the bunch has to be…Derek. As you will see tonight (if you can be bothered) I enjoy ribbing him on camera. I used stock lines, old jokes that an overly sensitive American queen did not find very funny.
When the food arrives I say, “That looks like something that came out of your nose.” That’s funny isn’t it? I used it before and my friends laughed.
We hung out a few times but really, his lack of sophistication, curiosity and insight were wonders to behold. He seems so incomplete. Derek’s consumption of alcohol masking a sadness at his core…like so many untreated addicts. A problem that a huge number of gays share but have no intention of resolving.
Derek has no business to be anywhere but where he was born. Like so many gay men he has been forced into New York by small-town prejudice and an insatiable desire for cock.
A bland, mid-western bag of meat and bones.
He had no truck with history, our history, any history…he knew nothing of the city where he lives, of commerce, politics or God. Eking out an existence with appearances at provincial gay clubs and gay pride.
Derek lives every moment in the moment, no awareness of where he had come from and no interest in where he is going.
Did he read Eckhart Tolle? I’m kidding.
The power of now and only now and God forbid that you make me consider anything other than right now.
I am without context. I am without past or future.
Damn! This Queen needs a drink!
He is the antithesis of everything the other was.
I looked at Derek as one might a monkey in the zoo. The gay zoo. Trapped like a miserable, half naked gogo boy in his techno cage. Evidence of his genus. The sub species of gay to which we must all aspire.
Cocktails with orange slices perched on the rim.
Moisturized, combed, overly tanned. The shrill laughter and meaningless conversation hurt my ears.
I can’t imagine what the viewers of the ‘A’ List will make of me but…we’ll see. I am old. I am not Peter Pan. I have a beard. I live on a mountain. I have no sexual traction…time has eroded my usefulness to the gays.
It was an adventure into a life I have only the barest knowledge. A sociological exercise. Ripping open the wasp’s nest.
I hung out at bars and in clubs. I questioned who I was and the choices I have made.
When I was approached I politely declined. When they spilled their drinks on me I didn’t say a word.
It’s sunny today and that might very well describe my disposition. We are sitting in the blazing sun eating breakfast. The dog senses that we might be going to the beach. He is jumping around, happy. He, like me, seems a great deal lighter.
Less at the mercy of my dark side.
Another very social, busy yesterday. Began with waking up next to Alex. Walked the dog. My 12am meeting at NYU, sat down next to super cute Danish boy who I ended up spending time with later. The topic was: obsession, the relief of. It made me laugh out loud. To complicate matters who was sitting in the room? JP, one of my great old loves/obsessions and someone I had not seen for 12 years.
He said, “Hello mate…” and gave me a huge hug.
After the meeting JP and I meandered down 10th street. We asked after our respective families, marveled at how we are both going to be on the island this summer. It was a God send. To meet someone with whom one has been seriously involved and now feels nothing. At least JP has not lost his looks. He looked strong. He is as tall as me and suits his stature.
I did not arrange to meet him again. To see him and smile was enough.
He said, “Are you still fighting the world?”
One day, after many years have past, The Penguin and I will bump into each other and the same will be true. Resentments and history turned to dust. We still have our September court appearance to get through. I kinda wish I hadn’t chosen that option. I should have just agreed to the terms. What was I thinking?
On FB looking at my friend Rose’s comments. I like what she posts from The Guardian and The Independent. She has a sensible view of life. She is a socialist, she believes that her principles are correct and proper. As you do, I found myself looking at her party pictures and there she was, one of many middle-aged lesbians dancing with all the lights on.
I thought rather uncharitably that even though she has good principles would I want to be her? The answer is, obviously, no. Would I aspire to be her? No.
We all have our own crosses to bear, our own opinions, mistakes, passions and ultimately death.
For months and months I have thought that death was a better option than living this miserable, unresolved life. Without much effort I am alive once again…so, I better get on with some living.
Dashed home (after a two hour steam) to get changed and meet Zach and his boyfriend Alex for dinner. Delicious pork chop at Back 40 on Avenue B. Conversation lively. Gawker party immediately after (met, kissed and fondled super cute blond) then Lady Rizo’s Rapture Eve event at Joe’s Pub.
Zack, Alex, Dan and the Danish Beauty sat in the VIP area with some moody dykes and Baz Luhrmann. Stephen joined us and everybody wanted his take on our Family Court Extravaganza which has very quickly become another mythic Duncan Roy adventure. Starring the poison dwarf, his unremarkable parents and a chorus of black and latino battered wives.
Rizo’s performance was sublime. A Nina Simone tribute. Divinely sophisticated. Less camp. Gorgeous. Her Kurt Weille moment was so beautiful it was almost beyond description.
The audience went wild…ecstatic.
Back to Gawker party where Zach got into a huge fight with another guest about a psychic. An altercation ensued and Zach called the host’s best friend ‘Swamp Trash’ so we threw our metaphorical scarves over our shoulders and left the building.
Walked to Bedlam for a last glass of club soda. I ditched the crew and walked home alone. Anonymous amongst the throng of drunken, late night revellers.
Lunch with Joan L at The Standard Grill. Last time I was there? This time last year, I ate the rabbit pappardelle and was as sick as a dog. This time I managed to keep the fondue in my belly.
This time last year I was with The Penguin about to celebrate his birthday. We stayed at The Jane Hotel. I don’t know if we had a good time, I can no longer differentiate between what was good and what was bad. All I remember for sure was just how uncomfortable I felt, trying to keep that relationship alive even though I knew he was lying to me.
Loving without trusting is a bitch.
After lunch Joan and I looked at $800 leather bracelets and I bought a globe from Martin Margiela.
I could not find beard wax anywhere in the city. Consequently, I combed conditioner into my beard and it held for the duration of the shoot. What shoot? What are you talking about Duncan Roy?
Yesterday I dipped my toe back into the murky waters of reality TV.
As you may know I have been ‘seeing’ this boy. Did you know that or have I been very discreet?
Yes, you betcha I’ve been discreet.
I met Derek Lloyd Saathoff a few months ago. A cast member on a torrid reality show called the ‘A’ List. I’d never seen it. The show is, I am told, a sort of gay version of the ‘Houseives Of…’ franchise.
I’m sure Andy Cohen would be pissed if I describe it like that.
Ironically, when they were casting the first series The Penguin suggested jokingly that we would make excellent cast members.
Everyone who has seen the show is appalled that I agreed to be on it. Everyone is always appalled at every decision I make. That’s par for the course. They describe the show as a ‘train wreck’ they tell me that Derek is a ‘bitch’.
I don’t say a word. He’s just a different kind of gay. All we really have in common is cock. Anyway, we have an arrangement. I’m going to be his…Mr Big.
I am not doing this show for me but to support Derek.
As much as they say they hate it…they seem to watch it, watch it enough to know who everyone is and have an opinion about all of them.
I think appearing on the ‘A’ List will be fun.
Last night I pulled on my McQueen pants and my trusty Paul Smith jacket and walked to 24th Street where a small but well-organized crew were waiting for Derek and me to go on a ‘date’.
Actually, the crew wasn’t that small. Lesbians mostly, which was great. The ubiquitous straight boy producer who everyone finds very attractive. If he were gay would they?
I hadn’t seen D since my last trip. He’s been in the gym. No longer super slim (too thin) and boyish he has put on some very well needed weight. His arms are fleshy, firm and muscular. His ass has filled out very sexily. He feels great.
The last time we met, he was a hot mess.
We picked at the weird-looking food and sampled the virgin cocktails. We discussed our ‘relationship’ and his tanning product. We discussed his imminent trip to LA. I gave him a beautiful watch. Fans came up to him and had him hug them for the camera.
“We are great fans of the ‘A’ List.” One very attractive woman said.
She pushed her fat, gay friend at Derek who hugged him willingly, smiling that winning smile for the camera.
It was all very amusing. A video camera validates ones existence. How can that be? I remember that feeling from Sex Rehab. Just how thrilling everything was. Just how much I loved being filmed.
I was probably a little too bumptious for Derek. Too…rude. Not deferential enough. I made some joke about his Mother being in prison which seemed to shock him.
We talked about getting involved with an LA based charity. I suggested The Triangle Center for the elderly in Hollywood. He liked that idea, he said. Actually, he looked appalled.
We talked about monogamy. He looked baffled.
After the shoot Derek returned my Cartier watch and I popped it back on my wrist. I like acting.
I walked home alone after the shoot as I had to fetch the dog. I came crashing down. The intensity, the joy of being ‘on set’ the focus that one requires. I felt nostalgic…but I have no idea for what.
Perfectly adrift I called Stephen and chatted about his testicular lump. He is scared.
Then, quite by chance, we bumped into Aaron who invited me and The Little Dog back to his apartment on Avenue B where he sang songs and serenaded us with his guitar.
I would usually hate to be sung to but I wasn’t embarrassed because Aaron has a gift, he can really sing.
Bed at 2.30 am.
Related articles
- The A-List: New York Recap: “Tell Me About Your Tanning” (queerty.com)
Gary Winick (Tadpole 2002) died. He was 49-years-old.
Gary once introduced me to Mark Ruffalo. Mark wouldn’t remember me, Gary would.
Gary was one of the forward thinking guys who set up the ground breaking film production company InDigEnt. He was a really, really sweet man. No news as to how he died but I think, from what I can remember, he may have had a serious illness that he kept quiet about.
He was very discreet.
Crikey, so many deaths! I just diligently report them. It’s rewarding to find something nice to say about the recently departed like poor Wally in Whitstable.
In Jean’s case, it was quite hard. We hadn’t spoken for ages because we had a money issue that neither of us wanted to resolve. He was a terrible drain on his friends and family. Let’s put it this way: it was very hard for Jean to enjoy his gifted life without endlessly complaining or taking drugs.
People die. I just put on my bombazine shift and write the bleeding obituary.
Perhaps I should try writing my own?
I would entitle it: WEAK TEA or LOUD AND DIM or NOTHING REMARKABLE.
To be run in the Whitstable Times in the event of my death:
Surly Duncan Roy (65) found dead in his Swalecliffe bed sitting room. Former Lord of The Lies refused medication for obvious mental illness and made unremarkable films. Campaigned for the Red Spider Cafe. He will not be missed.
I have not written a last will and testament so the fuckers can squabble over what is left. I may leave it all to that little girl or to a bat charity or Jake’s ex-girl friend. That would be funny.
Watched Oscars. Was James Franco stoned? No! He’s been sober for YEARS. He just looked a bit unprepared. I would have preferred if Social Network had won best film. It deserved to. The Kings Speech is constipated TV tosh. Tom Hooper is a director of no importance. Why does Colin Firth KEEP telling the world how important Tom Ford is to him and how he wouldn’t be receiving these awards without having met him? I thought that Firth had a rather long and distinguished career before meeting Ford? Are they or have they been…fucking?
It occurred to me why Portman trumped Benning…Portman has more mileage in her and will generate more cash for CAA. Poor Annette Bening so obviously deserved that Best Actress Academy Award but she’s an old mare and who writes great roles for old mares that Meryl Streep isn’t getting first refusal?
Clip Clop Annette.
Duncan Directing The Method
Duncan Roy, Elizabeth Hurley and Jeremy Sisto
It was a piss poor, irritating day yesterday. Nothing, it seemed, was going to rescue me from the thankless groaning of harassing renters and the yearning I have to get home..and quickly.
I left my card in the ATM and have mislaid my beastly driving license.
All in all it was pretty ghastly until I went to therapy at 8pm where I sat with my peers and bathed in our shared misery.
Suddenly I felt a whole heap better! There really isn’t anything more exhilarating than listening to those who have had a worse day than you.
Look, I could sit here and write about my financial woes. I could entertain you with the menopausal ranting of Irene from Hawaii or I could just let it go. The worse a person complains and harasses the less likely I am to deal with a situation. It’s just the way I am wired.
Many years ago I made a very bad film in Romania called The Method starring Elizabeth Hurley. It was not the best experience of my life (probably one I would rather forget) but it seems I am not going to be afforded that luxury.
The chaotic making of The Method has inspired the Producer of The Method to write and direct a film about the chaotic making of The Method. The premise is thinly disguised. I was prepared to be irritated but after having had a look at the trailer it all looks rather fun.
Anyway, I am looking forward to seeing it and am sure that the press will come knocking once they realize that his film is based on our experience of creating what must be one of the worst films ever made.
It heartens me to think that out of strife and stress art can be made. I am not at all worried by how I may/may not be portrayed. I am merely flattered that the very enterprising director/writer moved a mountain to make a film based on our shared experience. We know how difficult that can be, don’t we?
Time passes and tightly held resentments lose their steam. Fruitless anger, the spirited defense of nothing worthwhile, all this ultimately becomes the secret joke we tell ourselves in later years.
Today I am feeling loads better and have better things to think about than Irene or my return to Great Britain. There is June Gloom in LA which makes the light very English, all the colours in my house come alive when the sky is gray.
Apart from our gray British skies I miss just how damned rude we can be. All these years of living in polite America! I am looking forward to the bawdiness of my country men. Rapier wit coupled with a good wank joke.
I love that we can both be extremely polite and totally vile within seconds.
The first book I ever bought with my own teenage money was the collected works of Hogarth. Bawdy.
Related Articles
- Elizabeth Hurley to appear in “Wonder Woman” pilot (reuters.com)
Duncan Roy and Wendy Asher
Oscar Wilde enjoyed the extravagant promises of the Victorian Age, capturing the imagination of London’s aesthetic elite. However, beyond the enlightened few, everything about the man provoked consternation to the prudish, hypocritical Victorians—from the green carnation in his buttonhole to his sensational novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Like his suits, Wilde, a tireless self-promoter and purveyor of the unforgettable bon mot, was exquisitely tailored. While young, he was best dressed in bold plaid, plus fours, starched shirts with high, tight collars or gabardine suits cut short above the hip. Wilde traded his own slender, youthful visage (French
pleated hair and Cupid lips) for a bloated middle age rife with extravagant capes and voluminous fur-lined coats.
In his revisionist biography of Oscar Wilde, Who Was That Man?, Neil Bartlett describes how Wilde became a huge man with a penchant for young, willowy boys. He was an intriguing mass of contradictions: The love letters he sent to his wife, Constance, are as beautiful as the letters he sent to the dark-hearted “Bosie,” his lover. The innocent stories he wrote for his beloved children were a counterpoint to the pornographic tales he created from his forays into London’s dank underworld.
The pornography attributed to Wilde in the British Library, under the pseudonym “Teleny,” reveals his sado-pedophilic fantasies. Young boys figure highly in these violent, disturbing texts. The virginal youths are deflowered by older, cruel men, their innocence torn from them.
In The Picture of Dorian Gray, it is the reworking of these same themes that lead Wilde to his pessimistic and wholly modern conclusions about our shared horror of the loss of youth and how we might reclaim it.
When casting for a perfect Dorian, I was not interested in hiring a great beauty, but rather, a young boy. After all, beauty is subjective, youth indisputable.
For the movie’s Dorian Gray, it was imperative that our actor, David Gallagher, look effortlessly chic. David is very much the stick-thin look of right now and Dior Homme (as reinvented by our costume designer, Hedi Slimane). Dressing the literary youth icon of our age was a perfect solution for us and Dior: Slimane set his homoerotic boy-man aesthetic against the new Puritanism of American mainstream culture.
It is Lord Henry Wotton who appeals to the youthful Dorian Gray and speaks for the moisturized 40-plus generation, when he says to Dorian: “I wish that I could change places with you. To get back my youth; I’d do anything in the world. You are the type that the age is searching for and is afraid that it has already found. The world has always worshipped you—and it always will.”
If Wilde’s sensational sodomy trial had happened today, would the acclaimed wit have ended up in prison? Given that we find it hard to throw celebrities in jail, perhaps not. But Wilde’s predilection for sex with underage boys? I am sure that his hard drive would have been littered with unsavory images of children.
Once in prison, Wilde was given a thin gray cotton shirt and pants. Issey Miyake—or Kim Jong Il—might have gotten a kick out of this minimal Bauhaus look, but Wilde loathed it and woefully described his prison uniform in the poem The Ballad of Reading Gaol. A couple of years later, he was dead. (“It’s either me or the wallpaper.”) But as hard as I look, I cannot discover what he was buried in. Except, of course, shame.
This article was edited by Black Book for whom the piece was originally written. It has been pointed out to me that Hedi lent us the clothes for Dorian rather than designing them for the film. I have also been asked what happened to the film. How did it do? Well, in my own estimation it did OK. It closed the London Lesbian and Gay film Festival, opened the Miami G&L film festival and opened the New York G&L film festival amongst others. It had a small life and then vanished.
I think that it’s best that I don’t write about relationships. It tends, as so many people read this blog, to upset the very people I love most.
So we must bid adieu to the continuing adventures of Lamb Head and the 18th Century Man. We must set aside our interest in the comings and goings of my complicated love life and concentrate on politics, goats and all things beyond my immediate inner circle.
So, let’s talk about George Rekers.
You know, well most of you do who read this blog regularly, that I am all about individual choice. Particularly, the choice to determine our own sexuality and how we choose to describe it. Sadly, there are so few words to describe the extraordinary range of sexual choices on offer to the average man/woman.
And, of course, we all tell so many lies about our sexuality. Let’s put it this way, most of the men I know who describe themselves as straight have had their fingers in the gay honey pot. I have no reason to doubt their description of their sexuality so why don’t they just celebrate their sexual diversity?
Well, we all know just how narrow-minded people get when they are asked to describe themselves sexually, mainly from fear of how they will be treated by their peers. The gays are all too willing to accept anyone who has occasional same-sex relations into their gay camp and the straights are just as eager to throw that same anyone out of their frat house.
If George Rekers wants an erotic massage from a rent boy does this make him gay? If a man drinks to excess does this make him an alcoholic? The answer to both of these questions has to be NO.
As I have said many, many times before: we live in sexually prescriptive times. It is not up to me to tell you that you are either gay (or an alcoholic) it is up to you to make that choice and deal with the consequences.
It has to be up to the individual to decide what he is and how best to describe himself. If you are a man who loves men and their bodies and all things homosexual would the word gay properly describe what you are?
If I had another choice of word rather than gay to describe myself would I? YES. This is not about me being a self hater, this is about me feeling like I am a bit too old to be gay, a bit too sober, too few sexual partners, a vague interest in the gym and not in tune with the collective who describe themselves as gay.
Just as I now no longer call myself an alcoholic preferring to call myself a sex addict. It best describes the specific disease of addiction from which I am in recovery.
Of course I find George Rekers despicable, not because he vacations with pretty rent boys or refuses to be associated with the gay word but because he so virulently attacks the unalienable rights of others. He makes life uncomfortable for those who choose to describe themselves as gay. He peddles hatred and disinformation.
He has been described as a hypocrite. Does the fact that he likes erotic massage make him a hypocrite? No. If he were living with his husband and children in suburban Tallahassee and telling others that they shouldn’t now that would be hypocritical.
I’m not sure that he is gay. Is he? He’s certainly not living a life I would describe as gay. He is probably just desirous of erotic massage.
Being gay is surely not simply about sex? Is it?
Are we doing ourselves a disservice calling George Rekers gay? By claiming this man as one of our own are we throwing the net too wide?
After I was on Sex Rehab somebody wrote to me telling me that if ‘Duncan Roy doesn’t like sex with men then he isn’t gay’.
I felt rather reassured by this. It was a complex accusation and one that I had oft considered myself. Am I gay if I don’t like sex with men? Am I gay if I believe in monogamy? Am I gay if I don’t drink or take drugs or, and I expect to be hounded for saying this, if I am not HIV positive?
Very recently I HAVE started to like sex with men-well one man who I no longer have sex with. I still don’t like the word gay.
So, George Rekers vacations with rent boys. Elena Kagan looks like a lesbian but is she? And, in the UK the Liberals and the Conservatives and making a very big bed to share after the inconclusive general election.
Interesting day yesterday-after a good twenty four hours of stinking thinking-God delivered to me an old fashioned day of wonder. Began in Hollywood drinking Turkish coffee. My mood dramatically shifted from the day before when I felt so utterly wretched. I could have climbed Runyon but didn’t. I could have bought a pack of cigarettes but didn’t.
Peter arrived and took 20 works of art and furniture for sale and you know what? So crowded with stuff is this apartment that as quickly as he removed things I hung stored paintings in their place. After he left I felt relieved that so much had gone-all part of my less is more project. I can now walk all the way around my bed! My bedroom was crammed with too many things. As well as a queen sized bed there was a huge Jasper Morrison sofa stuffed in there. Frankly, I hadn’t really liked most of the sold work. I bought it for all the wrong reasons. Things were mostly collected to show off my great knowledge of contemporary art. Yeah right.
Jenny A not Jennie K (we are still avoiding each other) called me from Solar de Cauenga on the corner of Cauenga and Franklin to drink more coffee. The little dog and I sauntered down Franklin to see her. The weather has been spectacular, warm and spring like. Daffodils sprouting up all over the place, the trees budding, the birds singing, the air is fresh and clean after all the glorious rain.
I hadn’t seen Jenny A for a couple of years-not since I stayed in her beautiful home in Todos Santos. You can stay there too if you visit her WEB SITE it’s now THE most perfect hotel. Anyway, we hadn’t spoken since I climbed onto that dusty Mexican bus-but it was only a matter of time before we did. We are both incredibly fractious and proud so when we spend time with each other have tended toward the dramatic. Anyway, that was then and this is now: two calm, evolved human beings having a quiet latte together in a noisy café. She looks wonderful.
A young filmmaker came visiting after I returned form my time with Jenny. Josh, a Persian Jew looking for an internship somewhere. Oh God! He sat there and I just couldn’t wait for him to leave. No life, no experience, no opinions, no point of view-no heroes! How could he ever expect to be a filmmaker? He told me that he wanted to ‘change film making’ yet, as usual, when you ask who his favorite filmmakers were he was hard pressed to tell me. Like so many wannabe directors he was just a kid who liked movies, the difference being that this kid was raised in LA yet knew nothing about the city in which he was raised nor the industry that he says he wants to be part of-in fact he had no interests in anything apart from soccer and his girlfriend. I told him I could not help him and he left. It was like meeting a 40 something married guy. Do any of these kids have heroes? What happened to boys having heroes? I had all sorts of heroes when I was a boy.
I dashed to my car and headed to Malibu.
When I arrived Patrick the gardener was hanging around doing I don’t know what but it was nice to see him. I cleaned the house, laid a couple of rugs that had been sitting around in H’wood and then decided to go to Nina Hagen’s listening party at the recording studio next door.
Nina Hagen must have used the word Jesus at least 20 times to describe her new life as a Born Again Christian-she has renounced Buddhism. She told me that Jesus was guiding her, that Jesus was showing her the way etc etc. With flowers in her trademark two-ponytail hairstyle this slight mother of two is haggard but vibrant. She avoids looking directly into ones face. I ate a delicious cream puff. However, I didn’t stick around to listen to the album, as I was worried that the constant references to Jesus would make me laugh out loud.
At 3pm I met Stephen Fry at the Peninsular Hotel. Bumped into Donall McCusker who had worked on AKA but is now one of the producers of The Hurt Locker. Stephen and I ate scones and silly finger sandwiches and the staff made a terrible fuss about the little dog not being allowed-which we ignored. Stephen is writing the second part of his autobiography. Since my therapy I have walked into most situations free of shame and I am glad to report that today was no exception. I am usually so ashamed of my lack of formal education, my slight career, my meager achievements that sitting before this intellectual giant can shrivel any attempt I may have at a passable attempt at being anything other than a good natured baboon. Today I just felt like a man with nothing to prove-just enjoying him and his extraordinariness. In fact, I felt so comfortable I told him my great app idea, which he really liked.
As we left I introduced Stephen to Donall who was sitting with a group of execs-Donall called later to say that as Stephen and I walked away he was excited to have met Stephen Fry but his guests were more excited to know if I was really me (Duncan Roy). Funny eh? The power of reality TV. SF drove away in his mini.
Met John and Jamie at Phyllis Morris for more diet coke and discussed my previous days misery. They gave me three yards of heavy oyster colored upholstery silk from Osborn and Little to recover the chair JB didn’t buy.
Dinner with Chrissie Isley and Michelle Collins amongst others. We ate delicious chicken, asparagus and green beans. Strawberries and real whipped cream-Hungarian chocolate with pear. Our hosts had vegetables growing in tiny garden. Nearly fell asleep at the table even though conversation was good, Michelle very funny. We discussed Lulu, Soho House, Obama and David Cameron-apparently he isn’t going to win the general election.
Brought home fresh bananas, lemons and tangerines from my trees.
No dreams.
Christmas Eve in Beverly Hills last year was a mass of heaving bags, frantic women and dissolute men. This year there was scarcely a soul on Rodeo Drive. ‘Deck the Hills’ Beverly Hills tacky shopping slogan-hadn’t worked. Tim, Amanda and I walked briskly from shop to shop nere another shopping bag to be seen.
In the spirit of Christmas Past I was wearing a pair of black cashmere pantaloons with pink socks and buckled shoes. I had both the dogs with me. All eyes on Duncan. It is possible to be a chic farmer-as Martha Sitwell proves. I am so sick of dressing DOWN. Bland, dreary jeans, meaningless sweats: how can a man of any sexuality express himself sartorially?
Women, for that matter, don’t seem to have it any better. Note the tribes of identically dressed club girls waiting in line on Ivar. Shivering, tiny, rectangular micro-mini dresses and boucle crop tops, emaciated spikes of pink/brown flesh once born as arms and legs.
Since my rehab experience I am having a cris de coeur. A real one. A bone fide cris de coeur. Well, not so much a crisis of the heart but of the cock. A cris de pallique!
I am having an unplanned, unwanted, unloved revelation about my sexuality. I really don’t know if I am gay anymore. I think I might not be. Genuinely. I am having a MOMENT about my gayness. Somebody wrote on some board somewhere, “If Duncan Roy doesn’t like gay sex-he isn’t gay.” Well, as it happens, that might be true.
Lets face it; my sexual relations with man are based on recreating earlier abuses. I seldom get excited-if ever. I don’t get no-satisfaction. Perhaps if I trained myself to be present during sex with men but…even…even that seems like nonsense. I just don’t enjoy men. I lay there wondering, unengaged, what the hell am I doing here? Out of body. Thinking about Delia’s thick bean and bacon soup.
Wearing pantaloons does not make you a gay. Nor do pink socks.
Justin Bond
There’s something about dressing up, wearing wonderfully exotic clothing that makes me feel complete. Frankly, at my age, I can wear what ever I damn well please. I could wear make up if I wanted-and have been considering it.
I don’t want to be a star cross dresser rather a star-crossed lover of beautiful things. After all, there’s a tranny deep inside of me-who’d like to be deep inside of you.
Somewhere along the way I became confused, disillusioned or just plain bored of GAY. It used to be fabulous; it kept me coming back, the mere spectacle of GAY..but now look..it’s crazily banal. The bars, clubs, private parties are all the same. The same ghastly narrative, the same Benny Hill type chases, the same miserable, vacuous queens. I didn’t sign up for that. I signed up for glamour and individuality.
Would any of you mind if I just stopped the gay bus and got off?
Yesterday, I found myself in conversation with a woman whose life I had been at the periphery for many, many years. We met at lunch with Amanda and Tim and, as so often happens, we had both been caught in the same social cobweb. But, whereas the spider had already sucked me dry-my friend is in the process of being eaten alive.
I am incredibly attracted to a certain kind of woman as I am attracted to a certain kind of man. However, a man’s intellect does nothing for me. I don’t wake up thinking about his brain-I wake up thinking about his cock. His story is a means to an end. A woman’s story can, and often does, lead to intimacy.
Okay, more of that later. Some other day. More will be revealed etc. etc.
I voted round one for the Academy Awards. My personal shortlist (films I had seen) was three times longer than 2008. The Academy will be thrilled to hear that I took my voting duties very seriously this year.
The best actor category was the hardest vote to cast. Gordon Levitt from 500 Days of Summer left a lasting impression-but really, that was IT. So much easier to vote for the women! There seemed to be real choice. The role as written for women hasn’t gotten any better but women seem to have fun with their performances. Whilst the men seem imprisoned by introspection the women are having a fucking blast…think Up In The Air.
Finally for Christmas! My Christmas cheer:
If you have the chance, time or inclination do please check out Fanny Cradock. Fanny, a 1970’s TV chef of the British snob variety became a ‘camp ’ legend, rude, funny and disparaging she predates Simon Cowell by thirty years. Fanny had all his savvy but in those genteel days was fired for being a bitch whereas nowadays she would be given a pay rise.
My Grandmother couldn’t stand Fanny because she’d wear long sleeves whilst say, stuffing a goose.
I always wanted to create a mid-century modern TV bitch type character based on Fanny Cradock but Justin Bond got there first with his Kiki in the award winning show Kiki and Herb.
Johnny Cradock after eating a freshly made doughnut once said, “Mmmm, delicious. I hope all your doughnuts taste like Fanny’s”
Tim Willis Duncan Roy Ryan Fox
Today, Luna chewed three huge holes in the passenger seat of my truck. So, by 9am I was a little glum even though I am wearing a cheerful pink shirt and rather attractive cardigan. It’s really hard to train a Pit pup though I think I am doing OK in the circumstances.
My Jasper Morrison sofa is a wreck and needs recovered. Saw some gorgeous blood orange velvet on Labrea below 1st street but irritatingly had just missed the 70% off sale. This sofa is a fucking mess. The leg keeps falling off too. This is exactly what happens to nice furniture when you share your house with a 70lb Pit.
Frankly I don’t care about the truck. I bought it exactly for this reason: so I didn’t have to worry about odd bumps and scratches. The holes are in the passenger seat-not my problem. If the dog had eaten the Porsche however…
I’ve really enjoyed the past few days after the GHASTLY gay/lesbian/cuckold dinner party debacle. Did I mention..and I’m sure I did..that Brett Easton Ellis watches SEX REHAB. Worth mentioning twice as there are few people I am totally awe-struck by but he is deffo one of them.
Saturday was no less interesting. Lunch with Dom at American Rag. Still, I find it hard to trust him as he is prone to reveal that he takes a little bit too much interest in my life-in a rather creepy way. The fact is, the fun part of our friendship is over.
Had early evening nap then Justin and I took a cab to the 30 years of MOCA event. Drank cans and cans of diet coke at the 30 years of MOCA after party at my friend Jerrod’s gallery on Sunset. Chloe Sevigny, Todd Eberle, some ‘a’ gays, Dom’s snobby up her own ass arts publicist friend Bettina Korek. An enthusiastic Sex Rehab viewer woman approached me and told me how much she loved the show. The Asian man in the HSBC bank also ‘loves’ the show. Until last night I ‘loved’ the show. Last night’s show was less lovable.
Anyway, Justin woke up with a magnificent hangover on Sunday morning. I drove to Malibu and let the dogs run around the garden that has been transformed by the new gardener. It is so incredibly beautiful there. Paths, vistas, secret gardens, Bananas, figs and strange green pears still on the trees.
Justin and I napped on the hammock overlooking the sea then drove to Amanda Eliash’s brunch in Beverly Hills. Saw Sharon S with Hamish McAlpine. Love Sharon. I warmly congratulated Hamish for his recent wedding. I didn’t know he was a Kent boy, I said cheerfully, ‘I’m from Whitstable’. He turned his fat face toward me like a crude papier-mache doll and with a vicious sneer said: ‘I hear that people smashed your windows.’
I was tempted to deny it. I didn’t want to remember what had happened nearly 20 years ago but it was true-there was a time in Whitstable when my windows were being smashed and anti gay graffiti was being daubed on my walls. AIDS AVAILABLE HERE. As I have written before, growing up gay in a small town anywhere in the world has its drawbacks. It was a very dark time. I was scared, vulnerable and had nowhere to run. To have this nasty, badly dressed, rich boy reminding me, mocking me-it was too much to bear. I wanted to rip his over sized head off his flabby shoulders. Frankly he couldn’t have done much about it. He looks about 65 even though we are prob the same age.
I was in no mood to let this creep diminish me so I let him have both barrels and felt a great deal better when he finally slunk away. Reptilian, homophobic Hamish McAlpine you are a very nasty little men.
We stayed at Tim and Amanda’s for a few more hours enjoying the cast of odd characters running around the house. Ryan Fox very sweet young director, Finley Quaye’s girl friend screaming at him on the phone for the better part of an hour. Justin looked happy. I don’t think that he has ever lived like this. I am going to dress him when we go to swankier events.
Jay Rayner, Clair Rayner’s son also there. A jolly, piano playing food writer, long hair and full belly. A little resentful of others making more money than he does but hey, most people are. Jay lives in Shakespeare Road, Brixton in the house directly next door to where Jay Jopling used to live-where Jay and I would have the occasional tryst. Rayner was also well acquainted with Whitstable. Missed out on buying there when it was cheap. Apparently a great friend of the chef Steve Harris and family. Jay Rayner, another acerbic Brit on US reality TV. We talked about his mother and he made me quite teary-reminding me of Clair Rayner’s reassuring a whole generation that everything was going to be okay..she was the British Dr Drew Pinsky!
Amanda invited me back for Christmas day. I accepted.
I loved seeing Tim. I always do.
Saw SEX REHAB show. Like most people I am irritated by glut of Kari Ann material. It’s a pity that VH1 made her the spine of show. Poor meth head. However, I won’t hear a word said against her, as she is very, very sick little girl.
In bed by 10.30pm. Up at 5.30…etc. etc.
