Ronald Reagan was f***ing evil. When he was shot, I was in a catholic school. We were having lunch and the news came and I said aloud that I hoped he was dead. A Sister heard and made me write a �get well� note to Reagan. I got some form postcard back. Lost it long ago.
Openings: that�s how I survived with no job and no money in LA. Would look in the LA Weekly and go to all the openings I could cos there�s always plenty of free food and booze. I used to steal from the gallery when I left as well. Oh youth! Most of the openings usually involved really shitty work and icky art people � LA ones are the worst because they actually pretend that LA galleries have a big influence on the world art market.
When I was 17, I suddenly had a hard time playing the piano. Mainly, it was almost impossible for me to separate left and right � almost impossible to play with both hands at the same time.
At this age, I worked for a period of time at Tower Records in LA.
The actor who played Hoodoo in Syd and Marty Croft�s �Lidsville�, Charles Nelson Reilly, used to come in all the time. Hysterical man and such a queen. He used to go stand next to people in the store and fart. One day he was really hitting on me � it was gross, like I�d have sex with this old man, yuck. But the sensation of being chatted up lewdly by someone I watched on TV as a child � that was strange.
Ken Russell also used to come in, and be completely outrageous. Still hard to believe he�s not gay cos he seemed like a big queen to me, and very much fun. I went out with him a couple of times and got drunk, and it was like an hours long piece of performance art. I still can�t believe the insane and hysterical things that came out of his mouth.
The night I met Jim Jarmusch, I told myself that this would probably be the only chance I had to ask him stuff, and knowing that he was a friend of Sam Fuller, I asked him to tell me stories. He did and it was great. One example � instead of yelling �Action!� Fuller would fire off a pistol and then yell it.
David Hockney used to come into the record store too � he was a huge flirt. Very nice guy. Liked to come in with really beautiful boys. Subconsciously I always wanted him to ask if he could paint me! But obviously that never happened!
I hafta love Hockney � I find it impossible not to � even though he has done some total dreck.
I care very deeply about the state of the world. In my younger days I was a radical leftist. Toward the end of December 1989, I marched with the Italian Communist party, to protest the US� invasion of Panama. Felt great. Very powerful. As I got older, the caring intensified, but I grew frustrated with the world and how no one was doing anything to help. Slowly I began to get what Thoreau and Cage (and others) were talking about � how the conventional ways that people try to help, change, aren�t any good and wont work at all. What we need is a mass transformation, a series of transformations. Move what we see and feel, to make something new. Change isn�t possible in the world we live in today. We need a clean slate more than anything else � to move beyond the conventional social and political ways of thought and action. Only then will it be possible to transform the world, which by the way, was a favourite thing of Marx to say. And that�s what the world needs. In my humble opinion! |
