Scott Capurro

I’d forgotten I did this, but then when asked my favorite film, book and piece of art, i was eating a sausage roll and running for a bus, neither of which is a euphamism, because a.) i can’t spell and b.) the glamour never ends.

These are a few of my favourite things: Scott Capurro, comedian
The Scotsman

Published Date: 21 March 2009
FILM
REAR WINDOW
THIS is easily my favourite film – it’s really well acted, I think Grace Kelly’s angelic, and I love the way there are all these little stories and they all tie in. I also think it’s really amazing how you get to know so much about so many of the characters without even hearing most of them speak. It’s a great way of using film. Often I see films and I think, “why am I watching this in a cinema? Why isn’t it a play or a book?” But with Rear Window it’s almost all completely visual, which I think is great. I saw Slumdog Millionaire and it’s visual too, but it’s an MTV video, you know? The recent film Doubt, starring Merryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman, was also very clever in the way it worked visually, but to be honest, neither of those films is really in the same league. Every time I watch Rear Window I see something in it that I didn’t notice before.

BOOK
THE SECRET HISTORY, BY DONNA TARTT

I was absolutely captivated by this book and after years in the Hollywood wilderness it now looks like it’s finally being made into a film, with Gwyneth Paltrow as producer and her brother Jake as director. The writing’s really strong – in fact that’s the thing that makes it stand out: some of the passages are incredibly smart and canny.

WORK OF ART
GUERNICA, BY PICASSO

This is a huge, gorgeous piece – very moving and very modern but also quite traditional, in the sense that it’s a narrative painting, telling the story of a terrible atrocity. I saw it in Madrid when I was about 21 and I just stared at it for hours. I think it’s still as powerful today as it was when it was painted. A lot of people protesting about the Iraq war have used it because it still affects people in the same way.

• Scott Capurro Goes Deeper is at the Tron, Glasgow, on 27 March, tel: 0141-552 4267. Capurro will be hosting American Homecoming at the Stand Comedy Club, Glasgow, on 28 March, tel: 0870 600 6055. Both events are part of the Magners Glasgow International Comedy Festival. For more details, visit www.glasgowcomedyfestival.com

But then that’s the benefit of a good editor. He put my thoughts together beautifully. i think when he asked me these questions, i was eating a sausage roll and running for a bus. So the glamour never, ever ends.

These are a few of my favourite things: Scott Capurro, comedian
The Scotsman
Published Date: 21 March 2009
FILM
REAR WINDOW
THIS is easily my favourite film – it’s really well acted, I think Grace Kelly’s angelic, and I love the way there are all these little stories and they all tie in. I also think it’s really amazing how you get to know so much about so many of the characters without even hearing most of them speak. It’s a great way of using film. Often I see films and I think, “why am I watching this in a cinema? Why isn’t it a play or a book?” But with Rear Window it’s almost all completely visual, which I think is great. I saw Slumdog Millionaire and it’s visual too, but it’s an MTV video, you know? The recent film Doubt, starring Merryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman, was also very clever in the way it worked visually, but to be honest, neither of those films is really in the same league. Every time I watch Rear Window I see something in it that I didn’t notice before.

BOOK
THE SECRET HISTORY, BY DONNA TARTT

I was absolutely captivated by this book and after years in the Hollywood wilderness it now looks like it’s finally being made into a film, with Gwyneth Paltrow as producer and her brother Jake as director. The writing’s really strong – in fact that’s the thing that makes it stand out: some of the passages are incredibly smart and canny.

WORK OF ART
GUERNICA, BY PICASSO

This is a huge, gorgeous piece – very moving and very modern but also quite traditional, in the sense that it’s a narrative painting, telling the story of a terrible atrocity. I saw it in Madrid when I was about 21 and I just stared at it for hours. I think it’s still as powerful today as it was when it was painted. A lot of people protesting about the Iraq war have used it because it still affects people in the same way.

• Scott Capurro Goes Deeper is at the Tron, Glasgow, on 27 March, tel: 0141-552 4267. Capurro will be hosting American Homecoming at the Stand Comedy Club, Glasgow, on 28 March, tel: 0870 600 6055. Both events are part of the Magners Glasgow International Comedy Festival. For more details, visit www.glasgowcomedyfestival.com

I think it’s nice. It seems mostly supportive. I dunno, I’ve been very emotional lately, so everything I hear or see leaves a pinched imprint. And I have a hard time reading reviews of my own work. I focus on one word, or wonder why the critic discusses my outfit, which this reviewer doesn’t do, and now I’m totally tangential.
So this is from Chortle, a UK comedy website. Steve runs it, and he saw the first show of my new live chat thingy I’m hosting at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern. Come, it’s light and fluffy and crunchy sometimes, and loads of celebs are stopping by. I’ve called in lots of favors. It runs every Tuesday until April 21.

If any chat show is only as good as its guests, Scott Capurro’s new live venture looks promising indeed, with the likes of Ken Livingstone, Julian Clary, Brain Paddick and Graham Norton all lined up to join him at South London’s Royal Vauxhall Tavern.

But guests are only half the equation, and Capurro wouldn’t perhaps be most commissioning editors’ first choice as host, particularly when causing offence is a paralysing fear. Not only is his stand-up act so thoroughly filthy that he’d make the pre-Sachsgate Jonathan Ross look like Mother Theresa’s maiden aunt, but also his persona is so narcissistically self-centred that you’d think it would be well nigh impossible for anyone else to get a word in edgeways.

It turns out that he can be generous with the limelight, and in conversation with Jo Caulfield prompted plenty of anecdotes about her family – especially her brother the Catholic priest (cue lots of sniggering paedophile gags) – and opinions on the perceptions of female stand-up. This opening segment was amicable and moderately entertaining, but with his lascivious wit neutered, there was little to separate Capurro from any other attentive and confident interviewer.

In the second section, all changed. As Capurro interviewed cabaret artist Dickie Beau – following his mesmerising and moving turn lip-synching to a tragi-comic interview with a drunkenly defiant Judy Garland – the tables were turned as the host did more talking than his subject. We learned much about Capurro’s hang-ups, family and relationships - all told with the deliciously biting wit for which he is rightly known, but the talk-show aspect was all-but forgotten as the catty San Franciscan held court.

The balance was better with Jerry Springer: The Opera composer Richard Thomas - not a natural on stage but clearly an interesting interviewee, and the devilish star of that controversial production, David Bedella, who sang powerfully but gave nothing away in conversation.

In the final section came the man most had surely come to see: Graham Norton, hotfooting it from his changing room in La Cage Aux Folles. Waiting for him to travel in from the West End made for a long night - but the wait was worth it, as the ever-charming Irishman proved as cheekily entertaining as an interviewee as he is as an interviewer, regaling the audience with his impishly indiscreet showbiz confessions and pithily expressed opinions on the nature of his job.

The banter here flowed the easiest it had all night; with the well-matched Capurro and Norton batting the conversation back and forth like Forrest Gump playing ping-pong. This might have been Capurro’s first bash at a talk show, but by the end he had found his feet.

The Royal Vauxhall Tavern, however, might not have been the best choice of venue for such an experiment. Much of the well-lubricated audience at this predominantly gay bar, perhaps more used to seeing rambunctious cabaret here, found it difficult to keep schtum, proving distracting at best, disruptive at worst.

But maybe they - like Capurro himself - haven’t yet had time to quite adjust to the mechanics of this format.

Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
March 19, 2009

I’m not necessarily proud I Yogayed, but I did. And I want my friends to know about it.
Actually, I am proud. It was fun to be a hippy again. Wait. I was never a hippy. I grew up in Marin, sure, but I was less organic farmer, and more an Yves Saint Laurent closet case. I was far too pinched and tense to be a tennis playing skate boarder, which, if you haven’t guessed, is what all the guys I had crushes on were. Oh Frank and Martin, where are you now?
Playing on a yoga mat with naked gays was like re-visiting my childhood, only with better lighting. And a lot more cock.

GT
April 2009
Scott Capurro

Yogay beckoned. I had such an adverse reaction to flamboyant balancing gays that my friend Vincent accused me of homophobia.

“What does a Vegan Buffet have to do with asana?” I asked, begrudgingly sipping soy.

“Why not boil some lentils and find out?”

When I arrived at the sprawling Victorian home on a quiet street in San Francisco, I was nostalgic yet apprehensive. I knew the house was a hotbed of gay radicalism. And though I’d attended Solstice parties there, and heated up a few beds myself, I’ve never been victimized. I mistrust sloppy political expounding and I think mythology is for druggies. Yet as I walked up the rickety stairs to the main floor, Radical Fairies, those gender bending, tambourine playing, mother earth loving gay heathens darted about like forest nymphs. My palms perspired. Am I too hip to strip? My yoga mat is by Paul Smith!

After slipping off my brogues, and noticing the wood paneled, cock painted, fern hung homage to the 70s that surrounded me, and which, like most childhood memories, I found both charming and suffocating, I strolled past dark closed doors and a large circular glass shower into a larger room that contained, in the center of the shag, a naked, undulating, bearded white guy. He was on his belly, and his hairless, pale body writhed from top past bottom to the brown underside of his bare feet. He was humping the ground. I wondered how fast I could make it back to my car.

“Hey Scott, what are ya’ doin’ here?”

Around a corner came Richard, a teacher raised in Texas whom I’d cruised locally for fifteen years. Blushing with arms akimbo, he appeared annoyingly fit, even in black socks.

“Vincent sent me. I’m really here for the free booze.”

“Don’t tell that to Yoga Daddy.”

“I brought lactose-free brownies.” I was trying to acclimate, organically.

“Very kitsch. Put them in the fridge but mind the bullets. They make a lot o’ noise when they spill, and this is a safe space.”

Matty, the home’s owner, is a cop who’s ready for the Revolution. That night however, he was disrobed and in full Lotus. Others ambled in, sporting tiny shorts, chatting quietly.

I unzipped my cardigan, then looked around for a hanger.

“I’ll put that on my bed.”

Richard lives here? Can I move in?

He turned back. “Shall I take your tie?”

“Do you need one?” I trembled with angst. I became Julie Christie. I pouted.

“Yoga Daddy’s watching you.”

I turned and saw nothing but a kitchen scene on a laptop screen. Then I heard his solemn, monotonous voice.

“Hello. Can anyone see me?”

A red bearded face pressed itself against twelve inches.

“Uh, yes. I can.”

“Hey Scott. It’s me, Carl.”

Carl the builder? We went sailing together once. He has a tail. Well, an extended spine ending with a patch of hair. So…a tail.

The other boys chimed in, praising Skype and greeting Yoga Daddy, who was in Portland on a gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgender-questioning AIDS yogic healing circle.

“I’m sautéing spinach now.”

Yoga Daddy led us bumpily through a series of poses. The sound crackled. So did the wood fire. The room grew very warm. Eventually almost everyone was exposed. Eyes were half closed as glistening bodies swayed and swooned through headstand, shoulder stand and downward dog. Each practitioner moved at his own pace. Some even skipped a pose or two. With Carl in another city, discipline lagged.

Starfairy Trilogy (AKA: Henry.) kept his red jock strap strapped. I retained my white unitard, but then I studied modern dance for one semester. We watched each other without eyeing one another, moving cautiously beneath the stained glass. As we both lay panting at the end, I could almost taste the sweetness of his youth. He smelled like straw.

Yoga Daddy mumbled goodbye and we eagerly ate rabbit fodder. Gays disappeared to the Jacuzzi, then reappeared embracing, giggling and much hungrier. Somehow we all wound up in the triple headed shower, rubbing mint gel on one another’s damp, sinewy backs. Starfairy leaned on my arm, and I caressed his smooth balls.

“I shave them in support of our Muslim brothers in Palestine.”

Genuflecting, I pleaded silently that this might be the evening’s final protest. His lack of circumcision surprised me. He smiled. I thought, ‘He’s kind.’

“Are you Canadian?”

“Yes,” whispered Starfairy, “but don’t tell the Fairies. They’re boycotting Maple syrup. Sapping is territorial.”

As my head bobbed, also in agreement, mandolins strummed softly on the outside deck.

So many people have said they can’t tell the difference between my old (mangled, deformed, shockingly awful) nose, and my new (vastly improved, much more useful, both aesthetically and in every other way) nose. But then that’s the point. That’s good surgery bitches, live it - learn it.
Actually, right after I got the bandages off, a minor friend asked if I’d had a face lift. That’s a compliment. Of sorts.

Scott Capurro
GT
March 2009

Next day, post-op:

It’s done. I’ve been cut. My vanity embarrasses me, but my doctor told me the growth would only grow stranger. Soon the nostril would be blocked, I wouldn’t be able to breath properly, and I’d die in my sleep. Actually, the death part I added, but we all die. We’re all the same. We all distrust our noses. Or is that the painkillers talking?

I woke up during the surgery. Twice. Unexpectedly, there was a second man standing over me. Not only standing. Digging. Both doctors looked as though they were scraping away at my face with putty knives. They were leaning forward, grimacing, like it was hard labour. I felt a great deal of pressure against my cheek bones, but my hands were tied to the table, I couldn’t move, so I moaned, “I can see you. I can feel that.”


When I met with my doc this morning, I asked if I’d dreamt the assistant.

He said, oh no, that’s my technician.

Right. And were you both scraping away?

“Might have been.”


Weird the trauma one must go through in order to return to whatever one was. Or thinks he was. I’m not sure if the surgery was successful. I’m still bandaged like the invisible man. I really thought it would be a ’slice and plaster’ kinda thing, where I’d be dancing and drinking at Daddy’s in the Castro that evening. But I’m not going anywhere. Apparently there were more obstructions than had been presumed.

Typical. I love building walls. Then walking into them.

Actually, I went out for a meal last night with my sister, and if there were anyone that enjoys seeing me bandaged, it would be her. Not that she’s malicious, but I have won a lot of arguments.

On the way into some Vegan Trendy Hell restaurant chosen for proximity’s sake, a guy skateboarding by said “Skateboarding?” He’d assumed I’d injured myself flying off four wheels.


I said, “No, I’m 46.”


His reply: “So am I.”


Me: “Then stop skateboarding!”

San Francisco is full of people seeking their youth. Either through baggy shorts or sinoplasties, we want back what we think we missed out on. I’m viewing a photo of myself at 19, so sweet, fresh, girley; and one of myself this morning, 27 years later, battered and bruised. It reminds me my nose is a bridge to nowhere. I can’t go back.

Two days later:

I’m still bandaged and drugged. I’m on steroids to reduce the swelling, and my apartment has never been cleaner. I’ve cleaned it three times, starting from three different angles because dust is clever.

Spoke with my doc today. He has a lovely, melodious, reassuring voice. I’m honored to have shared a putty knife with him. Anyway he offered more surgical details. Secure a barf bag, if you haven’t already.

He started by filleting my nose, then peeling it back. Look at me, I’m a trout. Finally. Then he scraped grooves into one side of my septum - the lucky side, obviously - so it would bend easier.

“You know, the way you do with a piece of cardboard.”


Yeah, whatever hot stuff. 
 Then my septum, which was pointing one centimetre to the left, he bent straight. There goes my French film career. He then secured my septum in place by sowing it to the bone behind my upper lip. Hence the stitches in my gums, which I thought had magically appeared because I’m - what? - evolving.

Then - oh yeah, there’s more - he grafted cartilage onto my air holes, where bone had grown over. That sounds dirty, which I like. Of course he had to GRIND down the bone first. Hence the pressure on my cheekbones that woke me up, further reducing my dignity because I peed.

Immediately after the procedure, I demanded I be allowed to piss some more. Lots. The nurse called me at home to suggest I get tested for diabetes.


“You urinated before, during and after the surgery. Is that normal?”


You mean, do I pee a lot when I’m having face work done? Who wouldn’t? It’s so exciting to be renewed. Fact is, BITCH, I’ve never had work done. If I had, do you think I’d voluntarily resemble Kevin Bacon?

Actually, this surgery seems to have worked. I’m inhaling easier, and soon, once my nose is unpacked, it’s off to a gay sauna, to see if all this has worked to my cock-attracting advantage.

If only breathing clearly were enough!

I was just so so offended by some culturalist retard’s reaction to my little area, that I wrote the following. Actually the end result was much improved, an appropriate, lovely man is now looking after my flat, but at the time of this violation, I turned violet with rage. Hand to pearls, I was so hurt, I wanted to kill the below mentioned Kraut cunt.

Gay Times
February, 2009

Some Belgian sounding cunt that was supposed to drop by my top floor flat for a look-see, with the possibility of subletting, just called my cell.

“Yes, well, we’ve had a walk around the area, and we’re not impressed.” Apparently he has a girlfriend, probably a toothless concubine. “We did not want to waste your time, or ours.”

I wanted to yell, “Not impressed?! By what? The fashionable Brick Lane? Or the lovely Columbia Road Flower Market, five minutes north? Or the park I overlook? Why don’t you go back to whatever fucking off-ramp you drove in from, you chocolate promoting, language flipping, EU loving leeching piece of shit.”

However, because I’m middle class, I hung up on him and instead scribbled a lazy, slightly racist retort.

Look, I know Bethnal Green Road is the ugliest high road in Central London. From the defunct Walgreens to the beat up Tescos, and every browned fruit and wilted vegetable stand in between, the street looks like Wales. It’s grim and it’s shit. It has sixty – yes, SIXTY – sari shops between my front door and the tube, which is a seven minute stroll. I might be missing some, since I wouldn’t dare set my Paul Smith encased foot inside any of those narrow, terrifying little ‘malls’ that dot the long runway toward Liverpool Street. There might be eighty or a hundred sari shops nearby, but wouldn’t three be enough? It’s not like the fabric or styles change. Ever. Once you’ve seen one shiny white plastic torso wrapped in thin orange cotton, you’ve seen too many.

But the area has its charms. Pelucci’s, an old, camp Italian restaurant with ancient woodwork and a red neon sign that sometimes buzzes, is cheap and good and the food is prepared by a woman as gracious and old as – might I say it, although the comparison is silly, since this lovely lady cooks well and so offers pleasure - the Queen. And speaking of queens, the staff is as mincing as the holiday tin pies above the cash drawer.

After a hearty meal of chicken parts and tomatoes, if you’re feeling emasculated, you can stumble around the corner and buy steroids from any one of several beefy street vendors outside the last remaining “Rocky” inspired gym within thirty years. Whenever I see bloated sweaty mammoths barely jogging through Weaver’s Field, I know where they’ve been rubbing armpits recently, and that’s as reassuring as the warm pinkness of a stuttering local discussing, with austere respect, his first encounter with Reggie Krays.

“He stabbed my eye.” The guy lifted his fringed grey patch to show me the hole. It was late, I was in a pub called The Sun, which is dark and dingy and owned by an old queer, like so many of the pubs on BG’s strip. The hole left behind was more of a wrinkly cross. The type cartoon characters have when they’re intoxicated, which seemed appropriate.

“You’re lucky he didn’t shoot you.” I was distracted, wondering where I could get more cocaine. The bartender was singing ‘Don’t Cry Out Loud’ with a tiny Moroccan near the Karaoke Machine. Everyone was smoking cigarettes, two years after the ban. It was like the Blitz, without the gay sex.

“Naw, mate. He needed me. I found him boys.”

Pause. Back up. Cancel previous remark.

“Did you ever have sex with him?” I felt risky. Bombs were dropping.

“Not here. In prison, but he broke my arms and legs after, to prove a point.”

Like the British economy, this guy was barely standing. The walls of The Sun were damp, they seemed to be leaking, and the music had morphed into an ABBA rant, so I buttoned up my cardigan and headed home, sure I could find a Bangladeshi groom from Whitechapel on line and desperate for a Valentine’s night blow job.

I watched several young Pakistani gentlemen bang their fists into a Barclay’s cash machine. Suddenly I heard a screech, and when I turned quickly (ish) I saw a D3 bus stop suddenly, hitting a stray dog so hard the canine’s head flew off and rolled to within two inches of my nearest gutter. Its tongue hung out of its head, and it smiled up, relieved I think to be spirited to a warmer, kinder place. A fast food employee took pity on the beast, and gracefully swooped its skull up with a blue plastic bag, disappearing into his work. The customers at the counter eyed each other warily, but ordered burgers nonetheless.

I was just so so offended by this retard’s reaction to my area. Actually, the end result was better, someone much more appropriate and lovely is looking after my flat, but at the moment when BG was criticized, I felt attacked. Violated. And Violet colored with rage. Hand to pearls, I wanted to kill that fucking Kraut cunt. Read on.

Gay Times
February, 2009

Some Belgian sounding cunt that was supposed to drop by my top floor flat for a look-see, with the possibility of subletting, just called my cell.

“Yes, well, we’ve had a walk around the area, and we’re not impressed.” Apparently he has a girlfriend, probably a toothless concubine. “We did not want to waste your time, or ours.”

I wanted to yell, “Not impressed?! By what? The fashionable Brick Lane? Or the lovely Columbia Road Flower Market, five minutes north? Or the park I overlook? Why don’t you go back to whatever fucking off-ramp you drove in from, you chocolate promoting, language flipping, EU loving leeching piece of shit.”

However, because I’m middle class, I hung up on him and instead scribbled a lazy, slightly racist retort.

Look, I know Bethnal Green Road is the ugliest high road in Central London. From the defunct Walgreens to the beat up Tescos, and every browned fruit and wilted vegetable stand in between, the street looks like Wales. It’s grim and it’s shit. It has sixty – yes, SIXTY – sari shops between my front door and the tube, which is a seven minute stroll. I might be missing some, since I wouldn’t dare set my Paul Smith encased foot inside any of those narrow, terrifying little ‘malls’ that dot the long runway toward Liverpool Street. There might be eighty or a hundred sari shops nearby, but wouldn’t three be enough? It’s not like the fabric or styles change. Ever. Once you’ve seen one shiny white plastic torso wrapped in thin orange cotton, you’ve seen too many.

But the area has its charms. Pelucci’s, an old, camp Italian restaurant with ancient woodwork and a red neon sign that sometimes buzzes, is cheap and good and the food is prepared by a woman as gracious and old as – might I say it, although the comparison is silly, since this lovely lady cooks well and so offers pleasure - the Queen. And speaking of queens, the staff is as mincing as the holiday tin pies above the cash drawer.

After a hearty meal of chicken parts and tomatoes, if you’re feeling emasculated, you can stumble around the corner and buy steroids from any one of several beefy street vendors outside the last remaining “Rocky” inspired gym within thirty years. Whenever I see bloated sweaty mammoths barely jogging through Weaver’s Field, I know where they’ve been rubbing armpits recently, and that’s as reassuring as the warm pinkness of a stuttering local discussing, with austere respect, his first encounter with Reggie Krays.

“He stabbed my eye.” The guy lifted his fringed grey patch to show me the hole. It was late, I was in a pub called The Sun, which is dark and dingy and owned by an old queer, like so many of the pubs on BG’s strip. The hole left behind was more of a wrinkly cross. The type cartoon characters have when they’re intoxicated, which seemed appropriate.

“You’re lucky he didn’t shoot you.” I was distracted, wondering where I could get more cocaine. The bartender was singing ‘Don’t Cry Out Loud’ with a tiny Moroccan near the Karaoke Machine. Everyone was smoking cigarettes, two years after the ban. It was like the Blitz, without the gay sex.

“Naw, mate. He needed me. I found him boys.”

Pause. Back up. Cancel previous remark.

“Did you ever have sex with him?” I felt risky. Bombs were dropping.

“Not here. In prison, but he broke my arms and legs after, to prove a point.”

Like the British economy, this guy was barely standing. The walls of The Sun were damp, they seemed to be leaking, and the music had morphed into an ABBA rant, so I buttoned up my cardigan and headed home, sure I could find a Bangladeshi groom from Whitechapel on line and desperate for a Valentine’s night blow job.

I watched several young Pakistani gentlemen bang their fists into a Barclay’s cash machine. Suddenly I heard a screech, and when I turned quickly (ish) I saw a D3 bus stop suddenly, hitting a stray dog so hard the canine’s head flew off and rolled to within two inches of my nearest gutter. Its tongue hung out of its head, and it smiled up, relieved I think to be spirited to a warmer, kinder place. A fast food employee took pity on the beast, and gracefully swooped its skull up with a blue plastic bag, disappearing into his work. The customers at the counter eyed each other warily, but ordered burgers nonetheless.

I’ve finally done it. I’ve finally taken care of my nose thing. My septum had become twisted after a nasal infection 6 years ago. Then in 2003, rushing to buy a pair of jeans at Harvey Nich’s in the UK, I ran into a glass door. My nose bled a lot, but the jeans were on sale. My doctor seems to think that injury might have left scaring as well. Or not at all. Who knows. Doctors say so little. They just want to cut first and diagnose later, so I was wary of any surgical procedure.
Then I saw some promotional photos, taken in a comedy club in Soho, and my nose just looked so, i dunno, swollen. Like I’d been punched, but only at the very tip, where the septum ends. I’d never loved my tiny nose, it had always seemed to small for my face, but suddenly I found myself obsessed with the end of my nose, and the worry that this growth might take on a life of it’s own, like Karl Malden’s schnoz. I mean, he did lots of TV. He must have been rich. Why didn’t he fix that thing?
My doctor told me the growth would only grow stranger. Noses grow. That’s what they do. And soon the nostril would be blocked, I wouldn’t be able to breath through it, and I’d die in my sleep. Actually, the death part I added, but we all die. We’re all the same. We all distrust our noses. Or is that the painkillers talking?
Doc wanted to break my nose, making my bridge bigger, and then reshape both nostrils, bringing the tip of my nose down. He’s basically Picasso with a scalpel, and he become almost exhuberant about the possibilities of what he and i might achieve. But I didn’t want perfection. I didn’t want a classic profile. I just wanted my old nose returned to me, without the twist.
I woke up during the surgery. Twice. Oddly, there was a second doctor standing over me. Well, not standing. Digging. Both doctors looked as though they were scraping away at my face with putty knives. They were leaning forward, grimacing, like it was hard work. I felt a great deal of moving pressure against my cheek bones, but my hands were tied to the table, I couldn’t move, so I moaned, “I can see you. I can feel that.”
When I had my consultation with my doctor the following day, I asked if I’d dreamt that a second doctor had assisted. He said, oh yes, that’s my technician. Right. And were you both scraping away?
“Might have been.”
Weird the trauma one must go through in order to return to whatever one was. Or thinks he was. I’m not sure if the surgery was successful. I’m still bandaged like the invisible man. I really thought it would be a ’slice and you’re outta here’ kinda thing, where he’d cut me, sow me up and i’d be out dancing and drinking at Daddy’s that evening. But I’m not going anywhere. Apparently there were more obstructions than had been presumed. Typical. I love building walls. Then walking into them.
Actually, I went out for a meal last night with my sister. If there’s anyone that likes seeing me bandaged, it would be her. Not that she’s malicious, but I have won a lot of arguments. Anyway, on the way into some Vegan Trendy San Fran Hell restaurant chosen for proximity’s sake, a guy skateboarding by said “Skateboarding?” He’d assumed I’d injured myself flying off four wheels.
I said, “No, I’m 46.”
His reply: “So am I!”
San Francisco is full of people seeking their youth. Either through baggy shorts or nose surgeries, we want back what we think we missed out on. So I’m including a photo of myself here at 19, and one of myself yesterday, 27 years later. It reminds me my nose is a bridge to nowhere. I can’t go back. Breathing clearly is as much as I can ask for.

Update, a few days later:
I’m still bandaged, but less drugged. A bit less. Actually I’m on steroids to reduce the swelling, and my apartment has never been cleaner. I’ve cleaned it three times, starting from three different angles because that dust is clever. However I always finish up naked in my bathroom. So who’s the cleverest? I guess that would be my tiles then. My shiny, clean tiles. And my grout.
So, yes, I spoke with my Doc yesterday. He’s handsome, 60 ish, with soft, confident hands and a lovely, melodious, reassuring voice. I’m honored to have shared a putty knife with him. Anyway he offered more surgical details. Are you sitting? Have a barf bag nearby, if you don’t already.
He started my surgery by filleting my nose, then peeling it back. I know. HOT!! Look at me, I’m a trout. Finally. Then, he scraped grooves into one side of my septum - the lucky side, obviously - so it would bend easier.
“You know, the way you do with a piece of cardboard.”
Yeah, whatever hot stuff.
Then, my septum, which was pointing one centimetre to the left, he bent so it’s straight. There goes my French film career. He then secured my septum in place by sowing it to the bone behind my upper lip. Hence the stitches in my gums, which I thought had magically appeared because I’m - what? - evolving. I’d always wanted gills. Oh well.
Then - oh yeah, there’s more - he grafted cartilage onto my air holes, where bone had grown over. That sounds dirty, which I like. Of course he had to GRIND down the bone first. Hence the pressure on my cheekbones that woke me up. And the lack of dignity.
Immediately after the procedure, I demanded I be allowed to piss. And boy, did I flow. For about 3 minutes. The nurse was concerned, she called me at home to suggest I get tested for diabetes.
“You urinated before and after the surgery. Is that normal?”
You mean, do I pee a lot when I’m having face work done? Who wouldn’t? it’s all so exciting to be renewed. What a bitchy question: I’ve NEVER had work done to my face. if I had, do you think I’d look like Kevin Bacon? I mean, voluntarily?
Thing is, I didn’t urinate before the surgery. I just told them that. I pooed, but I was too shy to mention my poop. However, being drugged into complete passivity so I could have my face sliced open and then raked, that’s fine. Go for it. Severe my sinuses, but I’d rather never discuss my brown star.
Actually, the doc’s job seems to have worked. Already I’m breathing better, and my nose is still packed. I’ll report more on thursday, after my new face is finally revealed for all the world to see. Then it’s off to a gay sauna, to see if all this has worked to my cock-attracting advantage.
Oops. My nose is oozing. I’m sure there’s a chat room for that.
x
  

Can’t wait to get back to California. I’m way, way too white right now. I need sun and fresh…something. And of course there’s my homophobic president to contend with. ‘Change I can believe in’? But I already knew black men hated queers. That might never change.
Oy.
Oh, and holiday suggestion number 236: Watch The Thing. It’s great. The 1981 version of course, with HOT Kurt Russell, where some guy gets his head eaten. Delicious.
xx

Gay Times
January 2009

The enormous popularity of rhinoplasty indicates that pretty much everyone hates their own nose. Add to mine a bit of scar tissue left over from a staff infection in my left nostril, proving rimming is actually dirty, and I’m left with what feels like a bruised, broken big toe hanging from the center of my face. My childhood was rushed, and I’ve never had the patience for flaws. Ass holes I can lick, but I throw away holed socks and chipped plates; naturally, and perhaps “because gay men are filthy”, to quote my psychiatrist, I crave facial repair.
A visit to a California plastic surgeon was both inspiring and alarming. Dr. Hoover proudly showed me a photo of his five daughters.
“Lovely girls,” I said, as I handed it back.
“And their noses?”
I looked again. They had identical noses.
“When I did the first, I knew I’d have to do all five. Or else people know.”
He transferred my digital image onto his computer, creating a three dimensional revolving me. And as my cranium spun, slowly, he enthusiastically revealed all he could do to improve my nose. He wanted to break my bridge, and make my nose, in effect, larger, to sit better on my large head.
“I have a large head?”
“Look at it!” He wore a bow tie and was gray and slender. “It barely fits on my screen!”
I winced.
“Don’t squint. Your nose looks smaller.”
He also wanted to push down the tip of my beak, and make my nostrils the same size and shape. I trembled with excitement. It was as if he’d read my mind. These were the exact adjustments I’d always imagined doing, yet never attempted, lacking the professional expertise and sterilized instruments. Naturally whist stoned and crying in front of my bathroom mirror I’d pinched and pulled my nose into the image he’d created. It looked wonderful, like a doll’s nose, or a pig’s snout. Still, I wasn’t sure I deserved such permanent magnificence.
“For $6,000, I could just slice open your septum and scrape out the twisted cartilage, but what price perfection?”
$2,000 more, apparently. I was practically writing out the check for 8,000 big ones when I saw a photo of Faye Dunaway over the doctor’s desk.
“I did her. Her nose, I mean.”
She looked like an old cat. I paused.
“Don’t worry,” the doctor assured me, “she’s past her prime. But nobody will ever know you’ve been changed. They’ll think you’ve been on vacation. Or on a diet.”
Still, I settled for the cheaper choice. A young nose doesn’t look good on an older face, no matter how many Oscar nominations you’ve accrued.
We set a surgery date for January, and after having my nipples tortured in the October sun at the Folsom Street Fair, I returned to London.
Following a performance in Leicester Square, I made the mistake of telling friends who’d stayed for a drink that I was looking forward to a new year with a new nose. An actor, eyebrows plucked into submission and clothed ten years too young because he’s a gay asked me “Why would you alter the one thing that makes your face unique?”
“Would you fuck me?” I asked, because I really wanted to know. He has soft hands.
“No, but not because of your nose. Because of your age.”
I’d forgotten he’s a pedophile.
Then Pete, a really large filmmaker on steroids who’s also a very good friend, piped in.
“Clearly you don’t love yourself enough.”
“You’re right. I’ve got a fucked up nose.”
“No.” His shoulders are so large he was practically exploding out of his jacket. “This is about your choices. Like that boyfriend of yours.”
Pete doesn’t think the Brazilian is right for me. He thinks I’m a catch – “A difficult, complicated catch” – and I can do better. But when? With whom? Until recently, I’ve been single for six goddamn years. Whilst Pete has rejected a hot Persian architect, several British nerds and two delicious Germans, merely because they fell in love with him, I’ve been on the sidelines, playing the ugly stepsister and nursing my swollen muzzle. He’s changed occupations, bought a gorgeous flat in South London. I see him less and less, and he wants me to stay the same. Maybe I remind him of his youth. I’m his constant. His consistent broken wing. And for that reason, I’ll always need him, whether or not he needs me.
And that’s why I’m joining a gym.