It was just a Monday night- the start of the week. So much potential, so much promise. Monday is an irreverent "potential junky's" favorite day. It had been a strange enough weekend filled with coincidences that might make me believe in "the universe" "The universe" is this bereft atheist's last attachment to spirituality. An atheist's dilemma is their ongoing dearth of hope- or rather the inability to logically chose to hope, for anything, much less a beneficent spirit looking out for them. But lady universe answered quite loudly. I was thinking how long it had been since I travelled and how this must mean that there is something terribly wrong when the phone rang and Daniele was on the other side. "hey B smoothie! Como Stai" He hadn't told me much - I hadn't heard much- just three words: "paid," "Genoa" and "edit." "Sure!" I said, "make it happen." After all, it wouldn't be me if I didn't dive in head first. I was told to meet him in front of a restaurant for a party.
I leave you with one last moment. As we spoke of Arbus and "the Circus" Larry had begun an insightful historical speech about the history of this 42nd street haunt. He marveled how in the 50s it had been turned into a Time Square peep show. In the 70s it was a place where women stood behind glass walls with single holes cut in the glass and for a buck you could stick your hand in and touch them . Larry's excitement about this place was uncontainable as he left us with one quote: "that damn Rudy shut it all down and it was so depressing. I just remember that if I hooked enough to make $20, well that just made my night- I coulda stayed there and touched those ladies forever!" A unison retraction of chairs occurred at the table as even the misfits have morals. Poor Debbie the math teacher had enough and they left. I tried to revive the moment by making fun of how Giuliani made Sensation the greatest show ever. What with his Catholic imperialism over the NY art scene, but it was unavoidable- somehow our philosophical connection over the perimeter of society and sex had now became once again a bedlam for nere-do-wellers and shame. Where is the safe space?
Franci and I kissed double cheeks and parted with affection and a promise. This spring - I'm off to Genoa to tell the story of the pornologist and his love of his town and life...and sex... and women. It wasn't just about the party, or the freaks. He was my country man. There was a strange familiarity to him and a wisdom that perhaps I had been hungry for. You never know where you are going to find your teacher or what you need to learn. But in this dire search for full time work and structure in my life I found a ticket out of dodge in more ways than one. I might just take it.
Oh And Dario? We have a date next week.
When I rolled up onto the corner of Stanton and Orchard all I saw was a small regular take out pizzeria with what I thought was possibly a delirious and/or mildly homeless senior citizen standing outside. The name of the place was correct so I wondered in. My heart sank, this is so typical B, you should just permanently count on being crestfallen at every juncture of your life. I shhhh'd my brain and tried to smile as I searched for Francesco. Suddenly a gentle hand grabbed me from behind. "ciao cara mia, Il mio suo." "Oh" I let out as I turned to find the the elderly shlumpy gentlemen staring up at me. Oh lord, what have you gotten us into??? He had the gentlest blue eyes I had ever seen in my life. He was shorter than I and had the scent of cologne and years lived long and hard. I looked down at him from my meager 5.4 stance as Italian Golum ushered me away from Rosario's and over towards Allan.
I was floating, In the usual place I dwell: a land of seedy and earnest behaviors executed by marginalized angels on the fringe. It was clear immediately. Italian-Golum and I entered the smallest Janky liquor store in the LES owned by a Russian, one day younger than God and even angrier.
Francesco chirped sharply that he wanted a bottle of red; no pricier than $9 dollars. What kind of an Italian is this? The Russian grunted towards a section of un-imbibable stuff. I grabbed a Corsican bottle and handed it to my tiny escort, but the Russian swiftly grabbed it from Francesco and slammed a new bottle down on the table. "What, what's wrong, what did I do? Oh I see we grabbed the one with the price on it." He smiled so sweetly and apologetically to the Russian, my heart warmed. We chatted at the counter when the Russian barked, "Take your change!" I escorted Francesco out and yelled, "I'm not coming back Jerk!" We floated down Stanton into the next liquor store. Our world flickered into another dimension as the beautiful oak shelves and brightly lit aisles cleansed us of our terrible peristroikan experience. The beautiful hipster sirens at the counter asked us what we needed. I decided to take control. No one was gonna mess with my weird homeless looking colleague if I could help it! (Even if I had just met him two minutes ago) " I need a good cheap bottle of red, no Yellowtail or Coppola! Something earthy and real." They gave us two $7 Cote du Rhones. My mind was at ease. Francesco chatted up the ladies. He was charming. They said they knew Rosario and ate there everyday. He invited them to his going away party. They excepted. Now three of us were on our way to who knows what.
As we strolled back to Rosario's, Francesco explained that he sailed on a boat from Ancona to New York 35 yrs ago with Rosario. They were like brothers. There could be no other place to say farewell. My hangups loosened. That old lesson clattered through my head: you got a good gut girl but stop making so many immediate false assumptions. As we walked, he told me about his long career as a producer and director, dropping names like DePalma and Lumet. And then the most fascinating word of the night was uttered: Pornologist. In his long career - the seedy underbelly of life lured him in and he began to direct pornography. He met a woman named Candida Royalle. I had just begun to learn about this wave of feminist pornography when we rounded the corner and arrived at the beginning of our introduction. But I had gleaned that he had been a major director and producer for her feminine erotica.
When we got back to the restaurant, tables were set up. Francesco disappeared to the back where he helped himself to silverware and glasses. He returned and we began to drink. He had hoped that we could have our business talk before the party attendees arrived, but as the minutes passed a carnival of sideshow lifers trotted through the door. Each time Francesco's introduction of me became more graceful and intuitive. He demanded kindly that we be allowed to chat. Francesco unearthed from me a lifetime of family history. He learned how my mother was a holocaust survivor from Bologna and how there was a famous film about her family called The Garden of the Finzi-Continis. I told him my parent's love story and how their desire to leave their homes and forge their own history made me the wonderer I've painfully always been. Rosario and Francesco kept speaking to me in Italian. Francesco's Italian was warm and smooth and slow and completely comprehensible. Ages of non fluent frustration melted. We joked he could be my Zio. And yet I felt it. I meant it.
I was floating, In the usual place I dwell: a land of seedy and earnest behaviors executed by marginalized angels on the fringe. It was clear immediately. Italian-Golum and I entered the smallest Janky liquor store in the LES owned by a Russian, one day younger than God and even angrier.
Francesco chirped sharply that he wanted a bottle of red; no pricier than $9 dollars. What kind of an Italian is this? The Russian grunted towards a section of un-imbibable stuff. I grabbed a Corsican bottle and handed it to my tiny escort, but the Russian swiftly grabbed it from Francesco and slammed a new bottle down on the table. "What, what's wrong, what did I do? Oh I see we grabbed the one with the price on it." He smiled so sweetly and apologetically to the Russian, my heart warmed. We chatted at the counter when the Russian barked, "Take your change!" I escorted Francesco out and yelled, "I'm not coming back Jerk!" We floated down Stanton into the next liquor store. Our world flickered into another dimension as the beautiful oak shelves and brightly lit aisles cleansed us of our terrible peristroikan experience. The beautiful hipster sirens at the counter asked us what we needed. I decided to take control. No one was gonna mess with my weird homeless looking colleague if I could help it! (Even if I had just met him two minutes ago) " I need a good cheap bottle of red, no Yellowtail or Coppola! Something earthy and real." They gave us two $7 Cote du Rhones. My mind was at ease. Francesco chatted up the ladies. He was charming. They said they knew Rosario and ate there everyday. He invited them to his going away party. They excepted. Now three of us were on our way to who knows what.
As we strolled back to Rosario's, Francesco explained that he sailed on a boat from Ancona to New York 35 yrs ago with Rosario. They were like brothers. There could be no other place to say farewell. My hangups loosened. That old lesson clattered through my head: you got a good gut girl but stop making so many immediate false assumptions. As we walked, he told me about his long career as a producer and director, dropping names like DePalma and Lumet. And then the most fascinating word of the night was uttered: Pornologist. In his long career - the seedy underbelly of life lured him in and he began to direct pornography. He met a woman named Candida Royalle. I had just begun to learn about this wave of feminist pornography when we rounded the corner and arrived at the beginning of our introduction. But I had gleaned that he had been a major director and producer for her feminine erotica.
When we got back to the restaurant, tables were set up. Francesco disappeared to the back where he helped himself to silverware and glasses. He returned and we began to drink. He had hoped that we could have our business talk before the party attendees arrived, but as the minutes passed a carnival of sideshow lifers trotted through the door. Each time Francesco's introduction of me became more graceful and intuitive. He demanded kindly that we be allowed to chat. Francesco unearthed from me a lifetime of family history. He learned how my mother was a holocaust survivor from Bologna and how there was a famous film about her family called The Garden of the Finzi-Continis. I told him my parent's love story and how their desire to leave their homes and forge their own history made me the wonderer I've painfully always been. Rosario and Francesco kept speaking to me in Italian. Francesco's Italian was warm and smooth and slow and completely comprehensible. Ages of non fluent frustration melted. We joked he could be my Zio. And yet I felt it. I meant it.
Ironically, the first couple who entered the party were a nordica outlet wearing boating duo who lived up in Connecticut. The man, a friend who watched Francesco's boat on 79th street, and his new girlfriend post divorce: an innocuous math teacher and social worker whose face I would return to often in the evening as a mirror to the other side of the world. They sat patiently chiming in and blending like troopers. It became clear that what Franci wanted was a storyteller. He shot 80 hours of footage of Genoa. He wanted to tell the story of his home town and the underworld that thrived beneath but as his shooting unravelled he became the center of this piece. He wanted me to come to Genoa: paid, housed and fed to live there and help him edit this into a film. He already had a big famous Italian editor but he felt I would be better. That guy showed up as well...
So we shelved our discussion of work and decided to enjoy the night and get to know each other. A motley cast of Felini-esque fringe dwellers rolled in.
The freak shows do not exist anymore. Modern science figured out how to cut apart limb connected twins. Reality television idealized dwarfism and non conformism is middle America's network television fodder while they eat their tv dinners. The new freaks are just humans: The Hilton sisters, Lindsey Lohan, Charlie Sheen. The freakiest thing in America is our collective loss of sanity and the need to show it out loud.
A financier named Terry wearing Prada and Gucci pranced in. He was a post operative woman and the backer to Francesco's film. Her buddy Larry, a porn enthusiast with a mullet and a bald spot was her hanger on. Larry never leaves the LES. Dario, the original editor sat next to me. He was handsome and had a sexuality that was so undetermined it aroused me and confused me all at once. Dario was writing a script about a single mom in the 20s in Italy who was promiscuous and therefore harangued by her town and eventually killed herself leaving an uptight teenage daughter to tell her tale. These were the stories I wanted to hear. These were the people whose lives I wanted to know. My own book lingered in my head. So much of my book is about my sex, not just the act but the organ and the spiritual creature it inhabits. I felt so at home. No longer uncomfortable explaining its genesis.
Porn stars, photographers, transvestites, hopeful actors all streamed in. I was impervious to their marginalized status. I and the math teacher were the freaks. And as I glanced at gentle Debbie's face here and there I saw two things: a wonderment at it all and the hidden relief in her head that tonight she would go home to bed and return to a life filled with normalcy and structure in a microcosm where whenever the undercurrent of freakishness leered, it would be smoothed out like wrinkles on a silk table cloth by the unspoken moral authority that protected her little Connecticut town. I could not share the latter thought. My life would continue to be like a scifi movie wondering through one vortex deeper into the next getting further and further away from the cookie cutter life my parents had thought they had bred me to live.
So we shelved our discussion of work and decided to enjoy the night and get to know each other. A motley cast of Felini-esque fringe dwellers rolled in.
When Vivian walked in, all I could see where her breasts. They consumed all of her 50 yr old body. She had the wardrobe of an upper westside mom and was in fact late because she had to drop her daughter off at the airport to go back to Brown. She was an affable yet jittery lady who immediately dove into her time working for Penthouse Forum. While Rosario and Francesco distracted me with talk of the history of Tortoloni (created in my mother's birth town), I eaves dropped on Vivian's genius discourse on the herstory of Porn and her film that she had produced: Freaks Uncensored! Vivian described a world of dwarfs, giants, transgender people, nudists, and circus freaks performing for parlor societies in the 20s to fullfil their hidden fetishes and the sideshows that became home to the mutant humans. My mind wondered to images of Diane Arbus and her love for the unloved. Vivian had been a major player on the talking circuit in the 90s for social reform for women and pornography.
The freak shows do not exist anymore. Modern science figured out how to cut apart limb connected twins. Reality television idealized dwarfism and non conformism is middle America's network television fodder while they eat their tv dinners. The new freaks are just humans: The Hilton sisters, Lindsey Lohan, Charlie Sheen. The freakiest thing in America is our collective loss of sanity and the need to show it out loud.
I loved Vivian. She slurred her speech through her missing teeth and hinted at her own acting past. She drank water most of the night. Her film was written up in the times and played at Sundance. I guess we all want to learn more.
A financier named Terry wearing Prada and Gucci pranced in. He was a post operative woman and the backer to Francesco's film. Her buddy Larry, a porn enthusiast with a mullet and a bald spot was her hanger on. Larry never leaves the LES. Dario, the original editor sat next to me. He was handsome and had a sexuality that was so undetermined it aroused me and confused me all at once. Dario was writing a script about a single mom in the 20s in Italy who was promiscuous and therefore harangued by her town and eventually killed herself leaving an uptight teenage daughter to tell her tale. These were the stories I wanted to hear. These were the people whose lives I wanted to know. My own book lingered in my head. So much of my book is about my sex, not just the act but the organ and the spiritual creature it inhabits. I felt so at home. No longer uncomfortable explaining its genesis.
Porn stars, photographers, transvestites, hopeful actors all streamed in. I was impervious to their marginalized status. I and the math teacher were the freaks. And as I glanced at gentle Debbie's face here and there I saw two things: a wonderment at it all and the hidden relief in her head that tonight she would go home to bed and return to a life filled with normalcy and structure in a microcosm where whenever the undercurrent of freakishness leered, it would be smoothed out like wrinkles on a silk table cloth by the unspoken moral authority that protected her little Connecticut town. I could not share the latter thought. My life would continue to be like a scifi movie wondering through one vortex deeper into the next getting further and further away from the cookie cutter life my parents had thought they had bred me to live.
I leave you with one last moment. As we spoke of Arbus and "the Circus" Larry had begun an insightful historical speech about the history of this 42nd street haunt. He marveled how in the 50s it had been turned into a Time Square peep show. In the 70s it was a place where women stood behind glass walls with single holes cut in the glass and for a buck you could stick your hand in and touch them . Larry's excitement about this place was uncontainable as he left us with one quote: "that damn Rudy shut it all down and it was so depressing. I just remember that if I hooked enough to make $20, well that just made my night- I coulda stayed there and touched those ladies forever!" A unison retraction of chairs occurred at the table as even the misfits have morals. Poor Debbie the math teacher had enough and they left. I tried to revive the moment by making fun of how Giuliani made Sensation the greatest show ever. What with his Catholic imperialism over the NY art scene, but it was unavoidable- somehow our philosophical connection over the perimeter of society and sex had now became once again a bedlam for nere-do-wellers and shame. Where is the safe space?
Franci and I kissed double cheeks and parted with affection and a promise. This spring - I'm off to Genoa to tell the story of the pornologist and his love of his town and life...and sex... and women. It wasn't just about the party, or the freaks. He was my country man. There was a strange familiarity to him and a wisdom that perhaps I had been hungry for. You never know where you are going to find your teacher or what you need to learn. But in this dire search for full time work and structure in my life I found a ticket out of dodge in more ways than one. I might just take it.
Oh And Dario? We have a date next week.
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