stuff

A lot has happened in the past week.  In Uganda there was a bill that was brought to parliament that would make it illegal to be a homosexual, and in fact you would be killed for being one.  Thankfully,  on the last day of parliament this bill did not make it to the floor to be debated and so it was passed over.  Many think the weight of international pressure stopped something so insane being given credence and it was merely introduced into the parliamnetary session for political reasons with a small p, but nonetheless the very fact that something so barbaric could even be entertained at all at such a high level is just a sign of how far we have to go in the fight for equality.  And never forget it is a fight.

That is why I am very pleased to announce that my share of the profits of Second Cumming, my eponymous fragrance crafted by the genius Christopher Brosius, has produced about $2500 from its first quarter on sale and so I am sending that money to the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, or IGLHRC for short, to help their work on making places like Uganda safer and saner.  Tnanks to everyone for buying and please tell your friends to do the same because you will not only smell good, you will do good too! (Click on the box on the right to buy)

I got a ticket last week for not driving my bike in a bike lane!!! I was tailed by a traffic cop in one of those little electric car things and told that I should have crossed four lanes of traffic and avoided an ambulance with its siren blaring to get to the bike lane.  Now, I know there has been a lot of bike controversy since Robin Williams was let off from a charge for biking on the sidewalk and then the NYPD being criticised for being favourable to celebs and not hard enough in general on errant bikers, but come on!!  I think it is fine to be reprimanded for breaking the law, no matter how stupid the law is, but I think it is also fine for me to DEMAND that there be bike lanes on every street in NYC, so that I would not have to wonder if I was going to be potentially ticketed each time I go round a corner. Do you hear me, Mayor Bloomberg? Here is a picture I took of the traffic cop writing up my ticket.

In other news, Beige, the legendary Tuesday night party at B Bar in NYC has ended.  The picture at the top is of me there showing my respects. It was the very first place I ever went out to in NYC. I was asked by the New York Times to contribute to a report about its demise and to give my memories.  First of all I was on vacation when they asked, but second of all, my most vivid memories are much too dirty for the NY Times, or indeed this blog. But here is one little nugget: I once broke the bar at Beige. I pulled against it to do alittle stretch, perhaps to facilitate the alcohol to speed faster through my veins, and the rim of the bar came away in my hands and I fell to the floor. Happy days.

vacation

I'm on vacation in Marrakech.  After checking in to our hotel last Wednesday, Grant and I went for a walk and ate dinner at the Cafe Argana. We awoke late the next day with a start, jetlagged.  Again we walked into the main square. There we saw the Cafe Argana had been blown up by a bomb. That's what had woken us. The whole front of the restaurant was gone and we could see exactly where we had been sitting the night before, where we would have been killed had we been there when the blast happened.

It was a lucky thing we weren't crazy about the food and we had slept in or we might have returned that day.  There's something very sobering and chilling and also galvanising about a lucky escape like that.  I think I do live in the moment, treat every day as though it were my last, all that sort of stuff. But this very real and very violent reminder of what a thin string our lives can hang on has made me even more determined to appreciate what I have, and to never forget how much anger there is in the world.

We are in a beautiful hotel. This is the very calming view from the window of one of our rooms

A few things

I have been nominated for the Johnnie Walker Blue Label Great scot award for my outstanding contribution to charity. So there!

My friends Paul Cantelon and Angela McCluskey recently made this lovely little film inspired by George Harrison's song Here Comes The Sun to raise awareness and funds for the Sweet Relief Musicians' Fund, which heps musicians who are battling debilitating illnesses.  It was directed by Jason Beck and shot by Seamus McGarvey

You can buy the track here and donate some money to help our muso friends in need.

And in the video blast from the past category, here I am being interviewed by Mariella Frostrup in 1997!!!

talk show craziness

I have been in London for a few days doing press for The Runaway on Sky 1. I had forgotten how random and eclectic British Tv shows can be. For example I found myself on The One Show doing my interview between a piece about a bride with lots of warts on her hands and a man who can engrave words on tiny surfaces like pin heads and paper clips! Seriously! Then on Fern on Channel 4, in addition to chatting with the lovely hostess, I judged a cake contest for the Royal Wedding and then had to guess which of the five strangers that were paraded in front of me were obsessed with George Formby (rather surpirsingly a little girl), who had changed their name to Manilow after their hero Barry (a lady who had not only done that but also had the man himself tattooed on both of her arms) and finally who had a large collection of truncheons, as in the things PC Plod would bop you on the head with in a riot!! I mean, really!

Here I am chatting to Phillip and Holly on This Morning. Seconds later the cast of Mamma Miaperformed Money Money Money as part of the show's twelfth anniversary celebrations, mere feet from the sofa on which I am sat. Crazy!

Crazzee

I have had a crazy week, and here below is some visual proof. I also went to see the opening of Once, the new musical at the New York Theatre Workshop, directed by my friend John Tiffany who is going to be working with me on Macbeth next year.  Once is amazing, just so beautiful and heart wrenching and open. See it in this intimate space before it gets snapped up by Broadway!!

Right now I am in the mountains sitting watching the snow fall. It seems a very long way from all the crazy stuff below. And it is. How lucky I am to have such contrasts in mylife.

Here I am with my Good Wife ex wife Parker Posey, with Lance Horne peeping over our shoulders. Lance played for me at the Cyndi Lauper Home for the Holidays event for LGBT youth on Sunday evening

on the topic of wardrobe malfunctions....

Fashion is not style. Nay, we can say more: Fashion is instead of style. Style is an idiom springing spontaneously from the personality but deliberately maintained. If you have no personality, you may be able to save your face and, possibly, your entire anatomy by following the current fashion, but all we shall know about you, when we see you coming down the street, is that you had enough money to buy a glossy magazine and were sufficiently cunning to work out the cut of the garments shown therein.

QUENTIN CRISP, New York Magazine, Nov. 20, 1978