Role Models
Page 24
If you’re too proud to beg, maybe you could peddle for me a prayer cloth I’ve designed. Decorated with sketches of dead film gods like Armando Bó (the Argentine Russ Meyer, who made an endless number of movies with his amazing sexpot mistress, Isabel Sarli) and Delmer Daves (the unheralded-in-America director of Susan Slade, in which Connie Stevens’s character’s baby catches fire and Troy Donahue’s puts it out), it should be an easy sell. This cloth really works. Touch it to your genitals and then rub it on whatever script or music CD you are trying to get produced and put it in the mailbox. SHAZAM! A deal will happen. I guarantee it.
Or better yet, maybe you could be the first on your block to sell a perfume I’m planning on marketing with my name attached. Don’t laugh: the actor Alan Cumming did quite well with his and the scent really was called Cumming. Whenever I say my name in Paris, the French laugh because to them it means in English “toilet waters.” So my perfume would have to smell like, what? The humorous absence of God mixed with the odor of a piece of 16 mm film getting caught in the projector gate and burning? Maybe we have to be ruder. I was amazed to see in a sex shop a fragrance called Bottom 20 that promised to deliver the smell of an asshole. Isn’t America a great country? Where else in the world could there be enough disposable income to make a wonderful product like this available? Maybe we could take the smells of leftover Odorama cards (especially #2 and #9) and mix them with the scent of Rosy Crucifixion Oil, which you used to be able to buy in voodoo shops in Baltimore, and buy out all the Bottom 20 leftovers that didn’t sell and mix them together. Eau de Waters—the smell of an obsessed film fanatic.
Like a fraternity that demands hazing, my cult religion would have its own rituals for newcomers. You would have to prove your dedication by taking risks. Stealing a Baby Jesus from a crèche at Christmas has always been popular with rebel teenagers, but to me it feels a little old hat. I am a big fan of the living crèche at Christmastime, when adults get in the costumes of Mary and Joseph and the Three Kings, a real baby plays Jesus, and actual farm animals take their place alongside for a Diane-Arbus-photograph-from-hell if there ever was one. Every year when I go out to visit my mom on Christmas Eve, I stop by one near her house and something about it makes me…well, horny. I just sit in the car with the windows rolled up and watch the pious neighbors holding their votive candles, but secretly I’m cruising. Does anybody actually “cruise” anymore? I don’t have the nerve to actually make eye contact with anyone because I’m afraid I’ll get recognized or arrested. Still, the idea of a quickie with a stressed-out Joseph or a sex addict shepherd has an erotic appeal I can’t deny.
If you are serious about studying with me, I would ask any potential followers to infiltrate one of these living crèches and get the part of Mary or Joseph. Better yet, dress your daughter as Baby Jesus (no one will check the Christ child’s crotch). Right at the height of the event, start suddenly speaking in tongues. It’s really fun! I speak in tongues at the drop of a hat. You should try it first at home. Just start hollering out nonsense words and I guarantee your mood will improve. Cinematic speaking in tongues is even more satisfying. Try “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo” in Pig Latin. Yelling “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” in the middle of a living crèche will create panic, joy, sexual relief, and cinematic anarchy. In other words: a sacrament.
Sometimes we’ll have to get more militant. I have always been inspired by the Catholic radicals commonly referred to in the press as “the Shouting Ladies.” Joan Sudwoj and Cynthia Balconi are two Pennsylvania women who have repeatedly burst into Catholic churches and “bellowed out the mysteries of the rosary so vehemently” that the confessions taking place at the time “had to be shouted to be heard.” Their acts resulted from “a sign from God who told them to pray often and loudly because the world faced imminent tragedy.” Sometimes they splashed holy water on worshippers and disrupted Mass with their loud praying. Sermons couldn’t be heard and choirs were drowned out by these fanatics screeching. Because of this “unholy racket” (and God, do I love that term!), armed guards had to be posted to block the doors of the church when the congregation saw the Shouters approaching. Unperturbed, these loudmouths for Mary simply went to another Mass and started bellowing their prayers again, forcing twenty-five worshippers to flee. Suddenly quiet, the Shouting Ladies reportedly moved to Ohio, and I can only hope their silence is temporary and an even louder comeback is in the works.
Let’s all go “shouting”! How about pro-life meetings? Just imagine bursting in and splashing popper liquid on all the filthy men who dare tell a woman what to do with her body. Shout out Divine’s prayer and watch these fuckers run! Or how about the MPAA?! Let’s all burst in when they are trying to give an R rating to a film because it shows the smoking of a cigarette. Not because we believe in smoking. It does kill you! That’s the only true thing the government ever told you. But because people do smoke and why should that give a film a restricted rating? A new kind of censorship?? Great! Just what we don’t need! Start shouting vintage cigarette jingles at the top of your lungs. “Winston tastes good, like a cigarette should!” Get even louder! “You get a lot to like with a Marlboro!” Keep going! You know the chorus. Sing along! “Filter. Flavor. Pack or box!” Bring a portable generator so we can all have microphones! Make these fuckers deaf with our shouting!! BURST THEIR CENSORING EARDRUMS!
Now we can get serious. I will teach you how to levitate. It’s a private thing. You really have to concentrate. Pot helps. I’m not talking about a big rise up off the ground; I’m talking two to three inches. It’s possible if you believe. Just focus on something that makes you really excited, like the fact that the great writer and outcast alcoholic Jean (Sleep It Off Lady) Rhys’s own daughter fainted at the sight of her mother coming over to visit because she knew how mean she would be. Or remember great moments of evangelical style. Think of the black preacher Daddy Grace’s purple suits, his hideously long clawlike fingernails. See? You went up a little. It’s fun, isn’t it? Concentrate on the beauty of Dorothy Day, the Catholic left-wing activist who begged, “Don’t trivialize me by trying to make me a saint.” Wheeeee! You’re levitating! If you’re lucky you might stay up for three or four seconds!
Okay, you’re getting close to being able to perform miracles. Little ones. Pitiful ones. Like curing pimples. Or lowering price tags on designer clothes. But keep these acts a secret. It’s a personal power you’ve reached through spiritual study, but don’t expect the stupid little outside world to believe you. Scientologists call it “clear”; we’ll call it “cloudy.” Once we have identified and embraced our sickness, we’ll have strength! And that’s when we get dangerous. Identify the spots of guilt on your body and pluck them out like the chicken livers evangelists pretend is the cancer they cure in shills planted in the congregations of their tent revivals. Where are you feeling you’re not worthy? In your hair? Behind your ears? In your private areas? Well, cast it out! We’re Porn Again and we have no regrets! Repent? Hell, no! I HAVE A SCREAM! NO REMORSE! NO SHAME! ALL LAUGHING ALL THE TIME! CINEMATIC DELIRIUM!
There’s only one way we want to die—spontaneous combustion. The unexplained phenomenon of being so guilty and happy, so obsessed, so driven, and so fanatical that you just burst into flames for no apparent reason. On the street. At work. Hopefully, for me, in an airport. And if we work together, it could happen to us all at once when we’re out somewhere causing trouble. It’s a beautiful death, dramatic, scary, internally cleansing, and all you leave for the rest of the world to see is a really good pair of shoes. I have a lot of books on spontaneous combustion, or “fire from heaven” as it has been called, and all the pictures of the lucky dead are the same. Ashes. Shoes. Ashes. Shoes. So it all boils down to a religious lesson. Be prepared. Always wear stylish shoes. They won’t be comfortable. They shouldn’t be. It hurts to be this pure.
SOURCES
JOHNNY AND ME
The Baltimore Sun; The Wall Street Journal; The New York Times; The Herald-Dispatch (Hunting
ton, WV); Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; New York Post; Daily Mirror (U.K.); Daily Express (U.K.)
US Weekly; Time; Billboard; LA Weekly
www.wikipedia.org
www.classictvads.com
http://blogs.indiewire.com/eug/archives/Meserve_Island
www.IMDB.com
www.classicbands.com
http://constantmusic.com
Say, Kids! What Time Is It? by Stephen Davis. Little, Brown, 1982.
Cry: The Johnnie Ray Story by Jonny Whiteside. Barricade Books, 1994.
Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 14. Melbourne University Press, 1996.
The Case of Mary Bell by Gitta Sereny. McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1973.
Cries Unheard by Gitta Sereny. Metropolitan Books, 1999.
Jackal by John Follain. Arcade Publishing, 1998.
Monster Mash by Bobby Pickett. Trafford Publishing, 2005.
THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS
Memoirs by Tennessee Williams. Doubleday, 1975.
LESLIE
New York Daily News; Los Angeles Times; The Washington Post; The Baltimore Sun; New York Post; Goshen College News (Goshen, IN); Press Enterprise (Riverside, CA); The Associated Press
National Enquirer
www.charliemanson.com
Leslie Van Houten parole hearing transcripts, 1991, 1993, 1996, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2007
Charles Watson parole board hearing transcripts, 1990, 1998
Charles Watson psychiatrist report, 1971
Patricia Krenwinkel parole board hearing transcripts, 1990, 1997
Steve Grogan parole board hearing transcripts, 1978, 1979, 1980
Susan Atkins, parole board hearing transcripts, 1993
Court TV
CNN
When Women Kill, HBO documentary, 1983
Most Evil: Cult Leaders, Investigation Discovery series, season 2, episode 1, 2007
The Mind of Manson, NBC, Today, 1987
Turning Point: The Manson Women: Inside the Murders, ABC TV, 1994
Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi with Curt Gentry. W. W. Norton & Company, 1974.
Helter Skelter (Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition) by Vincent Bugliosi with Curt Gentry. W. W. Norton & Company, 1994.
Talk About Leslie (working title) by Connie Turner (unpublished manuscript).
Will You Die for Me? by Charles “Tex” Watson as told to Chaplain Ray. Fleming H. Revell Company, 1978.
The Long Prison Journey of Leslie Van Houten by Karlene Faith. Northeastern University Press, 2001.
Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth by Gitta Sereny. Alfred A. Knopf, 1995.
REI KAWAKUBO
The New York Times; The Baltimore Sun; The Washington Post
Vogue; The New Yorker; Women’s Wear Daily; Newsweek; DNR; British Vogue; Washington Blade
www.blog.charmcityscene.com
www.wikipedia.org
Guerrillazine No. 5—Extracts of a Corporate Nightmare, June 2006.
BALTIMORE HEROES
The Baltimore Sun; Herald-Journal (Spartanburg, SC); Baltimore City Paper
Baltimore Magazine
http://cityguide.aol.com/baltimore
Baltimore Sounds: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Baltimore Area Pop Musicians, Bands and Recordings 1950–1980 by Joe Vaccarino, MJAM Press, 2004.
BOOKWORM
The New York Times; The Sunday Times (London)
The New Yorker; The New Republic; Time
www.wikipedia.org
Denton Welch: The Making of a Writer by Michael De-la-Noy. Viking, 1984.
In Youth Is Pleasure by Denton Welch. Vision Books, 1950.
The Journals of Denton Welch, edited by Michael De-la-Noy. Penguin, 1987.
Denton Welch by Robert Phillips. Twayne Publishers, 1974.
Denton Welch, Writer and Artist by James Methuen-Campbell. Tartarus Press, 2002.
We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver. Counterpoint, 2003.
The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead. Simon & Schuster, 1940.
Christina Stead: A Biography by Hazel Rowley. Henry Holt, 1994.
Two Serious Ladies by Jane Bowles. Alfred A. Knopf, 1943.
A Little Original Sin by Millicent Dillon. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1981.
Ivy, the Life of I. Compton-Burnett by Hilary Spurling. Alfred A. Knopf, 1984.
Darkness and Day by Ivy Compton-Burnett. Victor Gollancz, 1951.
Ivy Compton-Burnett by Kathy Justice Gentile. St. Martin’s Press, 1991.
Ivy Compton-Burnett: A Memoir by Cicely Greig. Garnerstone Press, 1972.
The Life of Ivy Compton-Burnett by Elizabeth Sprigge. George Braziller, 1973.
LITTLE RICHARD, HAPPY AT LAST
Playboy; Jet
The Life and Times of Little Richard by Charles White. Harmony Books, 1984.
Father Divine by Sara Harris. Collier Books, 1971.
OUTSIDER PORN
Los Angeles Times; The Baltimore Sun; The New York Times; The Press of Atlantic City; Philadelphia Daily News; The Plain Dealer (Cleveland); Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; New York Post; The Washington Post; San Luis Obispo County Telegram-Tribune; The Eagle-Tribune (Andover, MA); The Independent on Sunday (UK)
Details; Adult Video News; Advocate; People; GQ; The National Enquirer
www.warholstar.org
www.rainbowhistory.org
www.wikipedia.org
Meat: True Homosexual Experiences from S.T.H., vol. 1, edited by Boyd McDonald. Gay Sunshine Press, 1981.
Speeding: The Old Reliable Photos of David Hurles, written and designed by Rex. Green Candy Press, 2005.
The Big Penis Book, edited by Dian Hanson. Taschen, 2008.
Lovemaps by John Money. Prometheus Books, 1986.
The Great Deluge by Douglas Brinkley. William Morrow, 2006.
The Andy Warhol Diaries, edited by Pat Hackett. Warner Books, 1989.
Ich, die Autobiographie by Helmut Berger. Ullstein, 2000.
ROOMMATES
Los Angeles Times; The Washington Post; The New York Times
Art & Auction; Vanity Fair; British Vogue; Parkett; Frieze; Vogue Hommes International; Time Out New York
Cy Twombly: Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings, Volume 1, 1948–60. Schirmer/Mosel, 1992.
Letter of Resignation by Cy Twombly. Schirmer/Mosel, 1991.
Lee Lozano: Seek the Extremes, vol. 2, by Sabine Folie and Lee Lozano. Verlag für Moderne Kunst Nürnberg, 2006.
Cy Twombly: Photographs, 1951–2007. Schirmer/Mosel, 2008.
Cy Twombly: Das graphische Werk by Heiner Bastian. Edition Schellmann, 1984.
Cy Twombly: “Bacchus.” Gagosian Gallery, 2005.
Airports. Edition Patrick Frey, Zurich, 1990.
Fischli/Weiss: Flowers & Questions. Tate Publishing, 2007.
The Art of Richard Tuttle, edited by Madeleine Grynsztejn. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art/D.A.P., 2005.
A Short Life of Trouble by Marcia Tucker. University of California Press, 2008.
The Problem of Reading by Moyra Davey. A Documents Book, 2003.
Long Life Cool White: Photographs and Essays by Moyra Davey. Yale University Press, 2008.
CULT LEADER
The Wall Street Journal; Daily Mail (UK); The Baltimore Sun; The Independent (UK); USA Today; San Francisco Chronicle; The Seattle Times; The Washington Post
American Atheist Press
www.catholic.com
www.wikipedia.org
Simpson’s Contemporary Quotations, compiled by James B. Simpson; foreword by Daniel J. Boorstin. Houghton Mifflin, 1988.
The Karl Lagerfeld Diet by Karl Lagerfeld and Jean-Claude Houdret. PowerHouse Books, 2005.
Love Sex Fear Death by Timothy Wyllie, edited by Adam Parfrey. Feral House, 2009.