This dates back a long way, but I've inadvertently deleted the post…
Way, way back, I met a young Russian waitress on a cruise ship in the South Pacific. She had a daughter, her husband was in jail, she wanted to go and live in Australia. I had contacts there and found her attractive…
Nivea smoothed the way on more than one occasion but it all took a predictable turn at the end. Since then I've been a good boy.
Saturday, 9 August 2014
A bit more from Los Angeles
The time in LA was great. Our theatre was the one used in the film Bodyguard, the Pantages, right next door to Capitol Records on Hollywood Boulevard. A little further down was a shop called Guns 'n' Knives. I don't know whether it's still there but it was a bit of a shock to see a place so brazenly devoted to such a controversial, er, pastime.
Aside from seeing Diane Keaton and Rene Russo I can't honestly say that my time in LA - either this or my subsequent one in 1998 - was star-heavy. There was a rather drunken woman in one of our performances who used the atmospheric, lights-down, pre-show moment to declare her seperation from her husband: 'I've put up with your shit for twenty years and I'm not doing it a moment longer. I want a divorce!'. Apart from that, the LA audience was very respectful, attentive and constantly on the lookout for celebrity arrivals right up until the beginning of the show, in the absence of which a freshly-declared divorce candidate is a good second-best.
My Los Angeles road map consisted of driving to the show from Barham Boulevard, south to the art galleries and west to the sea. We spent Christmas Day on Venice Beach, just a couple of years after I'd met Heidi Fleiss at her shop in Santa Monica and got her autograph (nothing else, though) and took other days out to various spots up and down the coast. My all-singing-and-dancing friend from London, Rita Moreno, was never in town when I was there, though she did phone and warn me about the Chicago winter. Her tone was typical Rita: 'M....., why didn't you phone me before, you little shit? I'm in New York, but watch out for the cold in Chicago; there's nowhere colder in the world. It's terrible'. Her husband, Lennie Gordon, has since died, but Rita carries on, more power to her elbow. We worked together on Sunset Boulevard in London. She lives just off that famous, eponymous road in Pacific Palisades. I've been to her house there, but I don't know how much time she spends in CA these days.
Funnily, we met up with friends from London in LA as well as meeting a Frenchman, Hervé, with whom I'm still in touch. A true Lebenskünstler, an untranslatable German word for someone who organises life according to their wishes, regretting nothing and enjoying everything. We spent time at the House of Blues, listening to George Thorogood amongst others, fraternising with Wendy, an English girl whose house in France, thanks to a gas leak, exploded with a few members of her family in it, providing her with the wherewithal to live a life of leisure in Southern California.
No scandal here, I'm afraid. Unless meeting Heidi Fleiss counts.
Aside from seeing Diane Keaton and Rene Russo I can't honestly say that my time in LA - either this or my subsequent one in 1998 - was star-heavy. There was a rather drunken woman in one of our performances who used the atmospheric, lights-down, pre-show moment to declare her seperation from her husband: 'I've put up with your shit for twenty years and I'm not doing it a moment longer. I want a divorce!'. Apart from that, the LA audience was very respectful, attentive and constantly on the lookout for celebrity arrivals right up until the beginning of the show, in the absence of which a freshly-declared divorce candidate is a good second-best.
My Los Angeles road map consisted of driving to the show from Barham Boulevard, south to the art galleries and west to the sea. We spent Christmas Day on Venice Beach, just a couple of years after I'd met Heidi Fleiss at her shop in Santa Monica and got her autograph (nothing else, though) and took other days out to various spots up and down the coast. My all-singing-and-dancing friend from London, Rita Moreno, was never in town when I was there, though she did phone and warn me about the Chicago winter. Her tone was typical Rita: 'M....., why didn't you phone me before, you little shit? I'm in New York, but watch out for the cold in Chicago; there's nowhere colder in the world. It's terrible'. Her husband, Lennie Gordon, has since died, but Rita carries on, more power to her elbow. We worked together on Sunset Boulevard in London. She lives just off that famous, eponymous road in Pacific Palisades. I've been to her house there, but I don't know how much time she spends in CA these days.
Funnily, we met up with friends from London in LA as well as meeting a Frenchman, Hervé, with whom I'm still in touch. A true Lebenskünstler, an untranslatable German word for someone who organises life according to their wishes, regretting nothing and enjoying everything. We spent time at the House of Blues, listening to George Thorogood amongst others, fraternising with Wendy, an English girl whose house in France, thanks to a gas leak, exploded with a few members of her family in it, providing her with the wherewithal to live a life of leisure in Southern California.
No scandal here, I'm afraid. Unless meeting Heidi Fleiss counts.
Saturday, 25 February 2012
Los Angeles, November 18th 1997 - January 31st 1998
In diving headlong into my Green Card period I've overlooked a couple of (innocent) cruises, a month as chief conductor of Sunset Boulevard in Germany and inducing a stroke in my mother-in-law when I finally met her at the end of October, 1997. She was so excited that her daughter was finally coming home (with new boyfriend) that she went the whole hog the day after we pitched up and had to be taken to hospital. Thankfully, she turned out OK and is going strong to this day, February 25th, 2012.
I'd been invited to join the music staff of The Phantom of the Opera on tour in the USA. First stop was Los Angeles (yeah, I know: bummer), a place whose legend was bigger than its reputation, but sufficiently honeypot-esque to nearly induce a seizure on the scale of my future mother-in-law's, so off I went. My ex was fabulous and played ball superbly so I could go. Courtesy of Air India (Extract of conversation with booking clerk: "Can I smoke on the flight?" "You can do anything on our planes") I landed at JFK, then Burbank, picked up my little Pontiac Sunfire which was literally waiting outside the door for me, and set off to find Barham Boulevard. "Head straight down to Warner Bros. on Olive and turn right". These seemingly anodine instructions containing words of legend took me to my new apartment, whose complex I then shared with Pierce Brosnan and Brad Pitt (for a while). Coyotes patrolled the car parks, high-octane porn stars showed up at the store for breakfast. I was a long way from home. And loving it.
I'd been invited to join the music staff of The Phantom of the Opera on tour in the USA. First stop was Los Angeles (yeah, I know: bummer), a place whose legend was bigger than its reputation, but sufficiently honeypot-esque to nearly induce a seizure on the scale of my future mother-in-law's, so off I went. My ex was fabulous and played ball superbly so I could go. Courtesy of Air India (Extract of conversation with booking clerk: "Can I smoke on the flight?" "You can do anything on our planes") I landed at JFK, then Burbank, picked up my little Pontiac Sunfire which was literally waiting outside the door for me, and set off to find Barham Boulevard. "Head straight down to Warner Bros. on Olive and turn right". These seemingly anodine instructions containing words of legend took me to my new apartment, whose complex I then shared with Pierce Brosnan and Brad Pitt (for a while). Coyotes patrolled the car parks, high-octane porn stars showed up at the store for breakfast. I was a long way from home. And loving it.
Sunday, 29 January 2012
One of these days…
…I'll get around to talking about touring the USA with The Phantom of the Opera and sharing a house in Providence, RI with ex-cons and heroin addicts, bumping into Diane Keaton on Rodeo Drive and appearing on the Jerry Springer Show. No extra-curricular shagging, though; I was a saint in God's Own Country. How could I behave otherwise, knowing my Green Card may be at stake, arf arf. That year was split between Los Angeles, Providence, RI, Chicago and Minneapolis, and a great time it was, too, not least because our time in Illinois coincided with the very last Seinfeld episode, a deal up there with the capital city's all-conquering Bulls team, led by no other than His Airness himself, who were also crowned champions that year (1998). He retired fairly soon after and seems to have since descended into obscurity. Sport is not kind to its stars.
Saturday, 21 January 2012
Some time soon…
There are a few holes to fill, metaphorically speaking, in this story, so do keep abreast of developments should you be so inclined. We've not yet addressed anal sex in the Pacific or appalling shenanigans in the Azores, so don't give up if you've a life to spare or time to barter on eBay; I just need to be ready…
Saturday, 19 November 2011
Now it gets serious.
Meeting the lady who has been my better half for the last fifteen years was a sea change in my life, even if the early period wasn't without its ups and downs. Complete and utter fidelity started a little later but has been unchallenged since 1997, so there. The composition of my blood will determine how candid I manage to be in the coming months, so it's in your interests (if there's anyone who reads this) to send me a few crates of the best cuvés available. No return without investment, as you all well know (unless you live in France, where you get everything for nothing anyway, or so it appears).
Sunday, 7 August 2011
Andrea and Maria
Must just mention these two before leaving Singleworld. Andrea took a shine to me during my time at Les Mis. I told her I wasn't interested in any type of commitment, having just seperated from my wife but she remained undeterred. It was easy and uncomplicated: Andrea loved every type of sex you could imagine and was easily the most uninhibited girl I've ever known. In the tradition of a fine plasterer it seemed her motto was 'All holes are there to be filled' and her appetite to live this credo was insatiable. She wanted it to go further but I resisted and she ended up backing off, but not before we'd had a wonderful 'one for the road' in my new flat in Highgate which resulted in my having to phone the landlord to replace the bed. Whoever is with Andrea now is a lucky man, indeed.
In a dark and lonely hour at Les Mis I'd contacted Maria, she of Antarctic fame. She replied almost by return, berating my silence, calling me every name under the sun but including a recent photo of herself, all the same. A few days later I picked her up at Heathrow Airport. I'd just left Les Mis and Sunset had still not reared its head, so there was nothing to do all day except...you've guessed it. Maria still refused to have penetrative sex until she'd seen a crispy, new HIV-Negative certificate, so we spent the days finding a hundred other ways to skin a cat. I woke every morning to the most gentle and sensual alarm clock you could imagine and it wasn't long before it was me going off. Maria was incredibly resourceful and permanently thirsty for anything I could provide, so I acted like a perfect host should and kept her glass topped up as often as I could manage it. It was only when I let slip that I'd had another affair since last seeing her that she clammed up, called herself an idiot and promptly flew home. Everything in this London period seemed apocalyptic, nothing seemed destined to endure and I was majorly responsible for that. It was only after meeting my future wife at Sunset that things started to stabilise. Everything in its time, really. We were all adults and we all knew the rules. I might not always have acted honourably but I never lied.
In a dark and lonely hour at Les Mis I'd contacted Maria, she of Antarctic fame. She replied almost by return, berating my silence, calling me every name under the sun but including a recent photo of herself, all the same. A few days later I picked her up at Heathrow Airport. I'd just left Les Mis and Sunset had still not reared its head, so there was nothing to do all day except...you've guessed it. Maria still refused to have penetrative sex until she'd seen a crispy, new HIV-Negative certificate, so we spent the days finding a hundred other ways to skin a cat. I woke every morning to the most gentle and sensual alarm clock you could imagine and it wasn't long before it was me going off. Maria was incredibly resourceful and permanently thirsty for anything I could provide, so I acted like a perfect host should and kept her glass topped up as often as I could manage it. It was only when I let slip that I'd had another affair since last seeing her that she clammed up, called herself an idiot and promptly flew home. Everything in this London period seemed apocalyptic, nothing seemed destined to endure and I was majorly responsible for that. It was only after meeting my future wife at Sunset that things started to stabilise. Everything in its time, really. We were all adults and we all knew the rules. I might not always have acted honourably but I never lied.
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