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2nd September 2001
Why we all make a meal of dining out
At meal times I'm often the odd one out because there are so many things I choose not to eat. I'm suspicious of kitchens in restaurants - what do they chuck into the food? It's all very Howard Hughes but in this chemical age one has to be on alert. I never understand, for example, why chefs insist on cooking lovely rich green broccoli in sugar. I am quite happy to wait for my dessert, but I prefer that to be sugar-free too.
Eating out is a bind. Due to my upbringing, I am extremely polite and adaptable and rarely make a fuss. I don't sneer when someone orders veal, which is, in my opinion, the most hateful thing one can swallow.
At dinner the other evening, I was far from the oddest one out. My companion, Ian, scanned the menu and could not find chicken of any description. You see, Ian is a big fan - an obsessive even - of British grub and there are so many things he won't touch.
This started a debate between the other guests and, quite frankly, left them feeling decidedly sane. Ian ordered two desserts - a chocolate soufflé to start and a lemon sorbet as his main dish.
One of the guests suggested Ian's food fetish was merely a way of getting attention. I felt it was more about control. Internally, most of us are out of control and these strange but common methods are a way of controlling the outside world as compensation. Mind you, I am not a therapist; it's just a Kentucky Fried theory. However, once these subjects are raised, they tend to dominate the conversation.
A couple of bottles of plonk were ordered and proved to be the catalyst for all sorts of revelations. Suddenly it transpired we all had an issue with one or two food groups.
Here's where I bring sex into the equation - because food, being an oral concern, is related to our emotional and sexual conditions. My therapist tells me how to watch how someone eats and to see how they make love. What hope for me? I chuck it down. Boy Gorge, indeed. Come to my bedroom, be ravished and then forgotten.
Of course, I know that slowing down is my challenge, savouring every morsel for as long as possible. Sounds more inviting, yes?
The defining moment came when two portly Spanish chaps stood in front of the lobster tank and painstakingly chose their kill. "Ooh, I couldn't choose my lobster like that," announced one of my friends, whilst tucking into baby lamb. Perhaps the line "you are what you eat" should be changed to "you are how you eat". Choosing a potential love interest or a one-night snack at a dinner party is going to get more interesting from now on. Nibble, watch and learn.
How sad and distressing to hear of the air crash death of R&B singer Aaliyah, who I was with just a month ago at the MTV celebrations in New York. We'd never met before but she was charming and beautiful.
I asked if she would record a message on my video camera for a friend who worshipped her. It was an odd request but she complied with: "Hey Vassos, you ugly boot". My chum, Vassos, is in the habit of calling everyone "ugly boots" and I thought it would tickle him. Looking at the clip now seems spooky and sad because she is gone, her young life taken in a flash.
Apparently, the plane she was boarding was overloaded with baggage and, even though the pilot didn't want to fly, one of her entourage insisted: "We have important press in Miami." Since when are the press or your career more important than personal safety? I hope those who run schedules for young stars will realise that nothing is more important.
9th September 2001
It's Time To Check My Roots
It's coming up to the end of the party season here in Ibiza and, fun as it's been, I can't wait to see my plants. I've been here for almost a month and I'm too old for all this. Let me explain. No one in Ibiza goes out before 2am.That's when the clubs really get going and the top spot for a DJ is around 3am. On Thursday I went to Amnesia, where the crowd, mostly Spanish, looked bored. I needed some action so I found myself a car full of Russians, heading for the notorious after-hours bash, DC-10. Getting cabs in Ibiza is almost impossible and so we were forced to bum a lift off these Russians who said "We see you in Moscow at Club 13. Can you get us in to this place?" It would have been rude just to cadge a lift and then say bye-bye so a deal was struck.
DC10 is full of party freaks, observers, bemused Sunday Express writers while to add to the twist, big low-flying planes buzz overhead. Being a woman of dubious virtue, I was dragged along but hid behind Yoko-Ono-esque sunglasses and a cocked fedora (Philip Treacy style!). I haven't seen such chaos , dancing, joy, horror and melting makeup since the early acid house days. If you are an Old Skool member of the dancing fraternity, you will fully comprehend.
But back to the club. Imagine the bar scene from Return Of The Jedi and you'll be close. Two Hell's Angels, with hair that the Wella corporation would salivate over, propped up one end, while a cartoon facsimile of Dolph Lundgren flexed his muscles at the wonder.
I wandered around, mouth agape, and wondered what my mother would say. With mum in mind, I kept saying out loud: "It's not civilised," but that's the point. I encountered a chap called Billy who read last week's column and was surprised that I had become so reactionary. Angry of Hampstead, that's me.
Apparently my comments about underage drinking made me come across as a fuddyduddy. I hardly feel that is a fair description but one can be, well, wacky with morals. I was going to argue that had I been left to my own devices as a child, I would have gone off the rails much sooner but I kept a lid on it.
My purpose in Ibiza has been in part to promote my latest dance tune, 'Freedom', which is a collaboration between myself, Amanda Ghost on vocals and DJ Tomislav and Andy Chatterly. I printed only 50 copies but they've been going like hot cakes. There seems to be these mad, pre-Ibiza conspiracies that tell us which dance tunes will be big but it's impossible to predict. One of the biggest hits has been a corny but clever version of that old Seventies ditty, Love Is In The Air. It's the kind of tune more serious DJs would never touch but the crowds love it.
Celebrity sightings have been meagre. Peter Stringfellow was apparently running around the Eden Club one night but I can't confirm. I did see ex Spandau Ballet crooner Tony Hadley who seemed rather in good form and handed me a rather good new track called Rain, which I've been playing.
The biggest night on the island is Gold, a retro evening which attracts the likes of Hadley, Jason Donovan and Limahl, who sang Karma Chameleon. Rather him than me. I have avoided it with a bargepole. The other big obsession is Hard House. Imagine the sound of 100 vacuum cleaners, add men drilling and a smattering of Country & Western and you'll get the picture. It's Nazi rally meets Hoe Down, trust me, and it ain't pretty. I predict that, next year, things will be slowing down me for one. Hard-housers will carry on but the new mood will be chill-out.
16th September 2001
High 'n' Dry at Ibiza's Biggest Soap Opera
Only one gig to go here in Ibiza, at the island's once notorious San Antonio. I think I've reported before that San Antonio is my favourite place to DJ. The crowds are far more down to earth, rough and ready - a mostly 18-30 holiday crowd determined to enjoy every minute of their trip.
This involves staying up until the early hours, heavy boozing and dancing until they drop. Keeping up with them takes its toll.
My yearly jaunts to the White Island are legendary now and, every year, the plan is always to work, play a little and grab a holiday in between. It hasn't happened yet and I've been coming since 1987.
Wednesday night was spent having a wild time at Amnesia. Yes, I went back, after dissing it in last week's column. They were much nicer this time, too; free drinks, the best table. Because they were so charming, I feel free to say that when Amnesia is rocking there is no club like it on Earth.
Halfway through the night, huge cannons release spurts of foam onto the dancefloor and the brave strip off and carry on dancing in a bath of suds. Watching with me from the balcony, my companion Vassos was feeling reckless and jumped into the suds, then spent the rest of the night shivering and demanding to go home.
At 8:30am I left Amnesia and ventured into Space, which is supposed to be the best club in Ibiza - or on the planet. I spent most of my time there on the terrace, which is exposed to the sun and rammed with dancing fools whose mothers have no idea what they are up to.
I'd had enough by 1:30pm, a voice in my head saying: "A week on a health farm." Yes, please.
Earlier in the day I was visited by journalist David Wigg and a Mike Mansfield camera crew who are over to shoot part of a documentary for the BBC on my forthcoming musical, Taboo.
In the evening, we were filmed at a dinner at Pike's Hotel with the owner, Tony Pike. He's a bit of a Hugh Hefner type but very nice and dry-witted.
The sight of event organiser and freak-about-any-town Philip Sallon sauntering into the restaurant in a Union Jack toga with shaving foam piled on his head left most diners speechless. The dinner was a riot, with more big-mouth personalities than you could shake a trifle at. I'm sure Mike Mansfield will have his work cut out in the editing room.
The combination of heat, no responsibilities and an endless stream of flirtatious straight boys has left me on the edge, to say the least. I've spent hours talking rubbish to geezers who probably have no clue that they are being sized up for a love affair of the century.
I was hopeful in Palma, when I met... let's call him Dream Warrior, since that's what he had tattooed on his arm. But, as always, he never rang. It was the most fantastic holiday romance (you've heard about those disastrous things), but this one only lasted four hours.
Then there was Clint, who took my number and gave it to a bunch of his football-loving chums who've been calling for a laugh. Sorry, I can't tell one Liverpool accent from the next. I might be a "Hetero-hag" but there are just so many so-called straight blokes who play along, flutter their eyelashes and get high on the attention.
Nowt as queer as the human race.
23rd September 2001
Life's A Drag Without A Song And Dance
Elton John knows a good drag queen when he sees one and so, apparently, does actress Julie Walters. Both are huge fans of Varla Jean Merman, who is doing a sting at the Soho Theatre in Dean Street.
Varla is a towering vision who looks like she spends hours putting on her face and bathes in ass's milk and she knows how to arch a brow. Varla sings live, too, in an oddly operatic tone, distorting classic songs such as Diana Ross's Reach Out And Touch into Reach Out And Touch Somebody's Man, or Doctor Dolittle's ditty into Talk To The Genitals.
In between songs, she imparts loopy but often sensible wisdom. In fact her show is a series of lessons, starting with the importance of hugging and ending with a corker about acting insane. This song was right up my street since I'm constantly complaining about how dreary everything is.
The show is long enough to provide value, short enough to avoid boredom. Right now London needs some snappy light-hearted distraction, and Varla Jean has it covered.
I popped along to check out London Fashion Week, which this year was abandoned by most of our major designers in favour of Paris. Traitors, or just fed up with the lack of support? Anyway, there are still plenty of Brit designers showing, such as Elspeth Gibson, who put on a proper girlie show very pre-Raphaelite with pastels, sparkles, beading and tall girls bouncing down the catwalk at high speed.
Backstage there was a handwritten sign for the models, urging them to smile and be "up". Understandably, with the current tragedy in New York, many feel that worrying about clothes is a little futile but even in times of great heartache you need something to take your mind off feeling like jumping off a bridge. The mood at Fashion Week was most definitely sombre but there was a "keep ya chin up" attitude which I found refreshing.
Later, I went to the launch of Vivienne Westwood's Gold Brand at her shop in Conduit Street. For the second time in 20 years I got the look of indifference from the great lady of frock 'n' roll. When I was 16 I bounded into Sex Viv's punk store on the King's Road in studded Teddy Boy drape jacket with Elvis emblazoned across the back, and she asked, "Why are you wearing that?"
Back then, trying to pick up boys with my spiky hair and ripped clothes was a no-no. So I had an alternative rock 'n' roll look that made me appear butch and did the trick. I wasn't being a traitor to the punk cause, I just needed a bit of loving. I wonder if what I was wearing caused offence again because Viv gave me that damning look. But it carried greater weight because she looked like a cross between a glammed-up Margaret Thatcher and Queen Elizabeth I. Off with his head!
Next stop was the Metropolitan Hotel, where a whole floor has been turned into a showroom for some very interesting designers, such as Spanish designer Nino Bauti, who gave me a lovely T-shirt featuring the Virgin Mary.
Watching PR guru-ess and Met Bar hostess Nicky De Metz purchasing new clothes left me breathless. She swept through the showroom like a prizefighter, grabbing glittering tops and bottom-hugging skirts with the prowess of a youthful Muhammad Ali. She shops and she knows.
If it's the new designers that predict the fashion mood of the future, things are going to get very colourful, spiky and frankly ridiculous. Yes please!
30th September 2001
Sorry, I wasn't all white on the night
Just when you're feeling good about yourself, some random stranger pops up on TV as you're about to slip into a deep sleep and kicks you in the eye. There I am watching the late-night Channel 4 programme about Ibiza following current superstar DJ Yousef , and other lesser gods on their White Island exploits.
Clubbers were picked from the crowd to tell us who they thought was the best DJ. Lots of worship for Yousef and , from what I hear on the disco grapevine, well deserved. Then some guy I've never met (with some big nose, which I usually find quite sexy) says: " I saw this geezer at the DC 10 club, in a big hat, face covered in make-up but looking older & fatter, and I went up & said are you Boy George?" "Later on I saw him at the decks with John Kelly (a lovely chap) and I realised it was him."
Well firstly I had a glowing tan in Ibiza and was wearing Screen Face tanning powder to enhance the glow. Not a touch of foundation went near my face for the whole month I was there. White foundation in the Balearic heat is not a good look and considering I have lost more then 3 stone on my macrobiotic diet and kept being told by everyone how good I looked I can only assume bitterness or homophobia was the root of his unkind and frankly pointless comment.
I'm the first person to be hard on myself, but equally I will slap myself on the back when required. I'm happy to say that I feel rather sexy at the moment. There is still work to do but my sex life has improved and I'm tearing through my wardrobe finding gorgeous things to wear that have been lonely over the past few years.
I'm the first person to be hard on myself, but equally I will slap myself on the back when required. I'm happy to say that I'm feeling rather sexy at the moment. There is still work to do but my sex life has improved and I'm tearing through my wardrobe finding gorgeous things to wear that have been lonely over the past few years.
Andy Warhol was right when he said: "Everyone will get their 15 minutes of fame." Unforunately, this twit blew his. As did Jo Pinkleton, the producer who, up until that moment, had impressed me with the quality of her dance documentary, I have to ask, what has the size of my ass got to do with DJing? And will her next programme contain a Joan Rivers style commentary on the way most DJs dress?
As far as I know, I'm the only one who bothers to dress up and I was very pleased with my looks in Ibiza. I managed to get to sleep after fuming for a few minutes and dropping a sleeping pill. I guess if Jo can only find negative things to say about me, then she should join Anne Robinson on The Weakest Link and add to the glut of hatred and spite currently churned out on TV. Maybe my insulter was tripping? More than likely: he was as Buddhist as a kebab.
Talking of Buddhists, if you feel like chanting for a good cause, please chant that Westminster Council agrees to give us a licence to perform my musical Taboo at the Notre Dame Hall in London's Leicester Square, because it's a great show.
I will, of course, be chanting all weekend, but a bit of reinforcement might help. In the past, I have avoided chanting for material things, but this is such an important celebration of the early Eighties and the cast are loving it. Any more delays and we fear losing our actors who need to eat.
The show ends with Bow Down Mister, my tribute to Lord Krishna, so there will be a blessing from the skies, but a bit of earthly rumbing could give it that extra kick. So grab your beads and get to work. I'll even offer a discount to card-carrying Buddhists - or a cushion, at least. Right everyone, Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. After that, you can get back to chanting for world peace.
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