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! |
