HELLO DEAR FRIENDS,
HOW TIME FLIES! Barely a few months ago I celebrated my 79th birthday in June and now we are already approaching yet another New Year: 2023. This time no major party is planned, except for some private meals with good friends!
Talking about get-togethers... At the end of this summer, Philip and I decided to treat the sweet mother of Kester (from Scotland), whose handsome son has been living with his sweetheart Hannah in our house in Amsterdam for a few years now - to a delightful cosy musical party, that took place partially in our garden, but mostly inside. There were amongst others, musician/composer Frank Affolter on the piano, David Kopsky, acupuncturist on the saxophone, with wife and their cute one-year-old baby boy, Henk Bakboord, a sexy breakdancer and author from Surinam, playing the drums and... a great and fun Chinese bed and breakfast guest, called John, on the guitar. Boy did he have a great voice as well, while our friend Tom de Jong sang along with most of his songs.
There were no more than 30 people and some lasagnas were delivered by a darling young and very vivacious sweet new transvestite friend Toine, who came with Paul Hofman. Paul produces an interesting gay monthly magazine and used to manage the Gay Newspaper and now does monthly interviews with dozens of gay people from Amsterdam. Even Dia, my yearlong loving lesbian girlfriend and well-known swim coach who trains people, no matter what sexual preferences, as well as I myself, were interviewed for this magazine.
In the meantime autumn was around the corner... changing of the leaves and also some major dramas took place in our life. My husband Philip's younger brother, a well-known piano tuner and Buddhist and his wife of the last 40 years, both committed at the same time euthanasia, as they suffered from incurable cancer. You can imagine what a horrific impact that had on my man, his other brother and their mother. But I won't write any more about that.
In the meantime, the weather in Holland turned gloomy and our sweet now older doggy Suzy of 14 years had apparently reached the end of her rope and had to be put down by the veterinarian; Philip lovingly put her in a blanketed basket, which our Greek housemate Alkis held on his lap, while Philip drove the car; when they came back, our housemate Theo buried her frail body in the garden.
Soon after, barely three weeks later, our cute little female Siamese pussycat Mini stopped eating and died 5 days later on her own, when we found her in the wet grass in our garden... dead. For 5 days we tried everything to keep her alive. Lots of tears ran down our cheeks! To think that all these animals came from Spain around the same time, 15 years ago!!! The only living cat who is still in great shape is her twin brother Maxi, who switches laps to sit on between Philip and me when we watch TV.
A few months went by and one afternoon, while I was having my daily siesta, as I sleep only a few hours at night, I heard Philips's voice calling out for me to come and meet someone I had not seen for ages... and well there was this handsome Asiatic man, all smiles and extremely happy to see me again and meet my husband. It was CHRISTOPHER, who had been my Singaporian houseboy for a few years, while living in our lovely garden chalet, where he took some gorgeous pictures of me, but also of several handsome male friends of his! He barely had changed in all those years except that his once pitch black hair had turned totally grey!! Christopher enquired after some mutual mostly gay friends he also had missed, so I invited him to come and join us for a luncheon with them. He insisted to do the shopping as well as the delicious Asiatic cooking in a few weeks' time when he would be back from a vacation in Italy he had booked.
I was so glad to see him again after so many years, and that big smile on his happy face! The reason he had to go back from Holland where he had a great time, was the fact that the law in Singapore and some other Asiatic countries for single sons is as follows: when the mother in that family is alone and her husband has died or disappeared and she gets older and even ill, the SON MUST GO BACK HOME TO LOOK AFTER HER UNTIL SHE DIES.
Well, it took Christopher almost 20 years to look after his mom, but now at last, once she died a few years ago, he had inherited quite a bit of money his mom had left him and his intention was to look up his old friends like Me, Dia, Tom and Norbert, the gay artist from Haarlem. He insisted to treat us and refused Philips's offer to go shopping with him and so... herewith are some fun pictures of all of us on that lovely afternoon in Amsterdam. He was still of the same slender shape with a permanent happy smile.
Well, in the meantime I have been working on finalizing my latest two books XAVIERA'S WALL TALK I - PRUDENT BIRD OF PARADISE AND WALL TALK II - HAPPY HOUSE. But I don't want to make this X mas newsletter much longer now... and keep the rest for next year's springtime when I hope to have published both my books in Holland as well as in the USA!!!
One sad note for the end of this book is the fact that one of my oldest (79) and dearest Jewish American girlfriends, Sheila Gogol, who lived around the corner from us, has recently died from lung cancer and that, while she has never smoked a cigarette or joint in her life. We watched her Jewish burial ceremony via a zoom on our computer and had a good cry, or should I say sad cry, SHALOM DEAR SHEILA. WE SHALL MISS YOU. Seldom have I met such a positive woman, who so did her best to beat this horrid disease.
AND FOR ALL OUR OTHER FRIENDS WORLDWIDE... WE WISH YOU IF YOU BELIEVE IN CHRISTMAS AT LEAST, A GREAT TIME AND OTHERWISE A HEALTHY HAPPY NEW YEAR 2023, with your family and or friends.
Another dear yearlong friend, who died this last autumn is our longtime friend VICTOR VAN SCHENKHUIZEN, who was married to Marita and both lived in Amsterdam. You can read about them in my next book. He used to smoke a lot and consumed quite a lot of alcohol, mostly wine, so... he first got lung cancer, which he survived after a year of treatments, but then he got oesophagus cancer and quickly lost a lot of weight, then died in hospital late this autumn. Victor had created an interesting group of artistic intellectuals called AMSTERDAM AND THE REST OF THE WORLD. That story can also be found in my next books. The aim was to have some fine meals together, and talk shows or small parties: eat, drink and be happy!
PHILIP AND I ARE STILL VERY HAPPY TOGETHER!!! The fact that I lately seldom go out anymore, does not bother me too much; after all, we still gave ONE HELL OF A FUN NAUGHTY FILM NIGHT AND PARTY at our beautiful home, called DEEP THROAT. That shows that life never seems to get really boring. This was the famous first major pornography film in the world with Linda Lovelace as the girl who had her clitoris in her throat etc. etc. The son of the original producer DAMIANO and his SISTER spent a week at our B&B while I had invited around 30 people between the age of 19 and 86. They all had a terrific exciting time watching this world-famous porno film on our big silver screen in the living room.
Soon I will publish my two new books with the help of my US Public Relations connection from Los Angeles Valerie Gobos. She is the one, who introduced me to a famous American publishing agent in New York who will publish my two new books next year. Valerie is now also working on a lot of other projects to make my name popular again in the USA.
Well, it looks like I have reached the end of this lengthy newsletter. I plan on launching two of my new books in the next few months, both in English as well as in Dutch. Of course, I will let you all know WHEN this will take place; be this via my Mailchimp list or by mail at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . HURRAH HURRAH. I just signed my final contract for my two newest books with a major book Agent in Manhattan, so it looks as though these new titles Wall talk I and Wall talk II should be published next year in AMERICA as well as in HOLLAND by Coen Borgman in Amsterdam.
With love,