Just wait till tomorrow. I guess that’s what they all say.

Posted on April 3, 2017 by Exile on Pain Street

When I was young I only ever had a murky vision of what success might look like. My vision didn’t include the Port Authority bus terminal on 8th Avenue and 42nd Street 2x a day, five days a week.

Victo Dolore did a post about how much she enjoys her work. I sat down and made a list of all the things I wish I had tried. Things that would’ve been far more gratifying than being an office drone.

Photographer
Playwright
Reporter
Rare book dealer
Novelist
Letterpress publisher
College graduate

I was such a mess for such a long time. A deadly cocktail of paralyzing doubt and crippling self-loathing with a lethal chaser of lethargic indifference. I had no idea how to go about achieving any of those things. I convinced myself that any attempt would result in abject failure, so I never tried. I needed a proper boot in the ass but none were forthcoming. I hope my daughters don’t inherit my neurosis. Just the good bits.

I just noticed that those are all solitary professions. I thought I kind of liked people. I guess not so much.

If you’re <35 years old, for fuck’s sake, don’t just sit there. Get started.

Wake up every day that would be a start
I would not complain of my wounded heart

I was a short fuse
Burning all the time

~~~~~~~~~~

July 2, 1992

I ate dinner at Carib last night. I had a tuna steak that was out of this world. Went with John and Howie, who left their wives at home. We looked like three gay investment bankers. Our waitress was a downtown snob who hated our guts and didn’t bother to mask her contempt but we left her a tip anyway because we’re better than that. Those guys are light years ahead of me in the career game but they don’t make me feel bad about it. I appreciate that.

At the end of the meal, after the plates were cleared, a little black kitten appeared. John picked it up and put it on our table. The waitress was disgusted because we had a kitten on the table. Howie was afraid of it. When it got near him, he would recoil in horror and yell at us to get it away from him. He wasn’t playing around.

I had it doing laps around the table chasing a straw. John held its tail and I would tease it with the straw just out of its reach. It turned out it belonged to the restaurant. His name was Bernie. He stayed with us for quite a while. Then, two little black kids walked in and we handed Bernie to them.

Sitting next to us was a black couple on a date. The girl was very pretty and the guy was a mass of muscle. I saw a second kitten under their table and noticed it was playing with a mouse. I leaned over said to the black guy, “Hey, there’s a kitten under your table playing with a mouse.” He looked down, turned to his date and said, “Honey, there’s a kitten under our table playing with a mouse.” She looked, screamed, got up and ran out of the restaurant. Then we called our nasty waitress over and said the kitten under the table is batting a mouse around and she had the exact same reaction. We were laughing our asses off. Finally, a busboy came over with a broom and dustpan and scooped up the now-dead mouse. The kitten was frantic looking for it. It was funny but it spoiled my appetite for dessert.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Absurd this is. I can’t think of two things that have less to do with one another than Yoda and SpaghettiOs. And “Healthy Kids Entrée” and “NOW EVEN MORE!” is also wildly incongruous. Who are they trying to impress with that accented é? This label is fraught with contradictions.

~~~~~~~~~~

Guggenheim ramp. Frank Lloyd Wright treasure.

Despair: Mine and Roy Lichtenstein’s

Posted on February 16, 2017 by Exile on Pain Street

bins

December 20, 1991

I went to the Empire Diner on 10^th and 22^nd with Lucy for a holiday turkey dinner. Golly, she sure is pretty. We picked up her friend, Lynn, along the way who’s even prettier than Lucy. I was the meat in a hot, wealthy girl sandwich. Lynn is a self-described spoiled rich girl. Her parents have been divorced for a long time. Her father is an executive who confuses love with money. She knowingly manipulates him. She said all she has to do is turn on the tears and he’ll throw $500 at her.

Despite this, I found her charming and engaging with more self-awareness than most New Yorkers I meet. She’d never get involved with someone who wasn’t wealthy but I still thought she had a certain lack of pretense. She has a boyfriend in London but chases boys here in New York. Why not? She’s only 23, looks like, and is worth, a million bucks. Why settle down?

She asked me—a total stranger—what she could do to improve herself. I said read a book and she gave me a puzzled look. I didn’t understand until later but she was referring to cosmetic surgery. I think she was fishing for compliments or looking for me to validate the fact that her body and face are perfect and can’t be improved upon. They are and they can’t be.

She knew I was smitten and was toying with me. After dinner, while walking down 23rd street, she took my arm, told me her birthday was next week and playfully asked what I was going to buy for her. I asked what she wanted and she said, “Something expensive. Something from Chanel.” She’s like a living, breathing cliché. She’s a perfect physical specimen.

I got a surprise Christmas card in the mail this morning. The last time I heard from Sheila was back in October at the George Michael concert. We saw his “Cover to Cover” show at the Garden. He sang Fame better than Bowie. I liked Papa Was a Rolling Stone, too.

After the concert she turned to me, looked me dead in the eye and said, “What do you want?” Asked it twice and made it sound like an accusation. I sat there in stupid silence and felt foolish. There’s no answer because I don’t think she has anything to offer. I didn’t call her after that. I hate confrontation and will do pretty much anything to avoid it. Her Christmas card said to keep in touch. It was kind of upsetting, to tell you the truth.

Klinger and I saw Denis Leary’s “No Cure for Cancer” at the Actor’s Playhouse. I had comps. He and I are a couple of sad sacks. We have no idea what to do with our lives. He has a little more direction than I do, but not much more. I asked how his investor’s party went and he said it amounted to a cast party with some bums that wandered in off the street, but no investors. He didn’t ask me for money, thank God. I told him I had to work and couldn’t attend out of fear he’d ask me to a contribution. I let it slip that I went out that night and had to scramble to come up with a plausible lie to cover my tracks. It was a cold, rainy evening. Blue Christmas.

~~~~~~~~~~

Roy Lichtenstein
Despair
Est: $1,500,000-2,500,000
Sold for: $1,927,500

I didn’t see the arm and hand until quite some time after I stared at this. It wasn’t so obvious in person.

~~~~~~~~~~

Inner Torment

Posted on February 6, 2017 by Exile on Pain Street

The Inner Torment of Vice President Mike Pence

Look what I stumbled across:

Thus says the LORD:
Share your bread with the hungry,
shelter the oppressed and the homeless;
clothe the naked when you see them,
and do not turn your back on your own.
If you bestow your bread on the hungry
and satisfy the afflicted;
then light shall rise for you in the darkness,
and the gloom shall become for you like midday.

Isaiah 58:7-10

How about that, Pence? You good Christian soldier? You devotee of scriptures? You sinner but only say the word and your soul shall be healed?

Is that guy able to sleep at night? Or does he stare at the ceiling wondering how he got himself into such a mess?

My Inner Torment

One of my favorite Sunday afternoon traditions is reading the obituaries and wedding announcements in the New York Times. They offer a litany of extraordinary lives lived and the joining of couples with unsurpassed professional credentials. These achievements always make me feel subhuman which is, apparently, my comfort zone.

Although…the Vows folks usually have long pedigrees. Most of them were born on third base and only breed amongst themselves. So there’s that to consider. But I try not to let that spoil my self-pity festivál.

~~~~~~~~~~

New this month on your newsstand:

This is a serious lack of originality. These are major publications. Don’t they collaborate? Couldn’t one claim the thumb/phallic motif one month and the others follow suit the following months? Fail.

~~~~~~~~~~

I took these with my iPhone 7 using the depth effect.

It gently blurs the background, which makes the foregrounds pop.

I took these at Kinokuniya Books on 6th Avenue @ 41st Street, across from Battery Park. It’s a brick-n-mortar bookstore (one of few left in NYC) that specializes in Japanese anime and cultural touchstones. These statuettes are in a glass case. They’re true works of art and not inexpensive. Many of them are based on characters from anime books and movies. The girls are highly sexualized bordering on pornographic. Lots of schoolgirl stuff. Japanese porn is odd. But not as odd as German porn.

~~~~~~~~~~

Mr. Sensitivity strikes again. I read these journal entries and can’t believe what a clown I was.

May 8, 1992

I called Kathie in Phoenix to wish her a happy Mother’s Day. She was upset because Brad got into an auto accident. I guess he’s not seriously hurt—there are no broken bones or damaged organs—but his face got pretty cut up. Kathie said there are “hundreds” of stitches and they’re thinking of plastic surgery. Gross.

Brad has incredibly low self-esteem, despite being a successful attorney. That guy works for one of the most powerful law firms in Phoenix but he’s crushed by a massive inferiority complex. How can you have it both ways? Now that his face is all bashed to shit, he’s REALLY going to have some problems. He’s never said or done anything bad to me. I wish him a speedy recovery.

Cars are pure evil. Half the reason I stay in this cruddy city is because I don’t have to own one. This was the week I was supposed to fly out there for a visit. I had to cancel because Ethan is going to Israel and Rome for a week, so I have to stay in the office. Imagine if I’d gone out there. Kathie never would’ve slept with me with Brad laying in the hospital all fucked-up. What a waste of money that would’ve been. Another close call.

~~~~~~~~~~

Robert Gober
Untitled
Beeswax, cotton, leather, aluminum pull tabs and human hair
Est: $1,000,000-1,500,000
Sold for: $847,500

You can’t see it in the pic but human hair is embedded. It’s a little girl’s leg. Dreary.

White guilt

Posted on January 26, 2017 by Exile on Pain Street

Here’s the Oscar nominations announcement from the New York Times.

I bristled when I read this. It’s clumsy and inelegant. Nevermind all those other nominations. How about those BLACK ACTORS? We’ve officially solved Hollywood’s diversity problem. So easy! Or is “Black Actors” the title of a movie that received six nominations?

It makes them look like bargaining chips in a score that needed to be settled instead of accomplished actors, which is what they are. These issues should be treated in two separate stories; one a congratulatory list of nominations, the other a deeper conversation about diversity in Hollywood. They’re mashed together in a distasteful and unintentionally comic way. Congratulations, black actors. Oh…and you other guys, too.

~~~~~~~~~~

Currently at the Sperone Westwater gallery on the Bowery are these three astonishing pieces by Emil Lukas. Entering the softly-lit gallery space you are greeted by these gentle gradients.

It’s not until you’re up close that you realize they’re not acrylics or oils or watercolor. They’re made of THREAD.

Thousands of strategically-laced threads stretched over a wooden frame. I wish I could buy this one.

I can’t imagine what a painstaking, laborious, time consuming process this must be.

~~~~~~~~~~

bins

June 8, 1992

I went for a bike ride over the Brooklyn Bridge and stopped at the World Trade Center to look at the towers. Architectural snobs say bad things about the towers but I love them. They have a grandness and nice, clean lines.

Went to Battery Park, sat on the lawn under a tree, took my shoes and socks off and rubbed the bottoms of my feet in the grass. I started A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. I watched the tourists board the ferries for the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Someone off in the distance was playing an accordion. I could smell the salt water. Sometimes I read and sometimes I just looked at the sun through the trees. I am grateful for these empty days.

I went out with Lucy on Saturday night and had a nice time. I had comps to see Dreamtime at The Ed Sullivan Theater. I had a sneaking suspicion we weren’t going to like it and, boy howdy, was I right. It was dreadful. After the show we went to the Applejack Diner on Broadway and 55th and split a big plate of fries. I walked her home from there. We stopped at Tower Records.

Lucy is so beautiful but she won’t have anything to do with me. We got to the corner of 70^th and Broadway and I asked if I could walk her to her door. She said no. She was afraid I’d try to kiss her goodnight. It was pretty humiliating. The fact that we put up with each others’ company must mean that we are two terribly lonely individuals.

While waiting for Lucy outside the Ed Sullivan a homeless guy walked up to me and demanded money. I didn’t give him any so he became belligerent. He was yelling at me, “Where would you eat if you were homeless?! Where?!” People walking by pretended not to hear. He got right up to my face and repeated it over and over, expecting an answer, becoming angrier, more agitated and animated when I ignored him. He was waiving his arms around and got so close I could smell his breath. Lucy and I must’ve been hit up for change a dozen times while we walked up Broadway. It’s an epidemic.

This was AIDS

Posted on January 6, 2017 by Exile on Pain Street

bins

Would you look at this? Exactly 25 years ago to the day. Almost. Where were you?

January 7, 1992

Had lunch with Kat at The Brasserie. It’s as close as I’ll ever get to the Four Seasons. I had a club sandwich. She had a spinach salad. $43. I picked up the tab. I have to once in a while. It’s emasculating to never pay.

I don’t think she’s happy with her girlfriend, although she claims she loves her very much. She doesn’t think she likes having sex with women and all she ever wears is sweats. They’d better get that shit sorted out before they do any more house hunting. She told me about a house in Lido Beach they’re interested in. She said it’s an up/down and the bottom half can be rented out. In describing the bottom unit, she kept saying you have your own entrance and you walk out the door onto the beach and you have your own private terrace. You, you, you. I don’t think I was imagining it. I’d have to give it some thought. Commuting from Long Island has never been a dream of mine although wearing sweats 24/7 is.

I visited Elvin last night. It’s the first time I’ve seen him since his mother passed. He doesn’t seem to be taking it well. He’s lost a lot of weight and didn’t have much to start with. I mentioned how sorry I was for his loss but he clearly didn’t want to discuss it so I dropped it.

He had a friend over I’d never met. Tim. I think I’m the only straight person Elvin knows personally. That goes for ALL of my gay friends. It seems gay people ONLY hang out with other gay people. I think I’m a token. One of Oscar’s friends called me a breeder. Nice.

We sat in the living room and chatted like a bunch of mature adults. Elvin lit a fire. One day, I would like an old Brooklyn brownstone with an old Brooklyn fireplace that still works. There’s a photo of Victor on the mantle just before he passed away and he looked really, really bad. Elvin and Tim listed all the people in the neighborhood and friends of friends who are sick with AIDS. It was a long list. I was thinking to myself how lucky I am to be straight. Not that I’m immune, but I like my odds. For dinner he made chicken marinated in teriyaki sauce. It was very good. I left a little heavy-hearted because of all the talk about death.

Oscar threw a party for a friend who was just accepted into law school. I’ll tell you what…my gay friends sure know how to host a shindig. Loud, thumping music, dancing, scrumptious food and lots of laughing.

The next day I was watching the Cowboys/Lions playoff game and the two guys below me were having loud sex. It’s annoying. I cranked up the TV so I couldn’t hear them. Listening to gay sex while watching the NFL left me discombobulated. I don’t understand gay sex. There’s no part of a man that I find even remotely enticing. Poor women.

When I lived in Arizona my apartment shared a thin wall with newlyweds. That’s was pretty great. They went at it day and night. The girl was a screamer. I remember once, between moans, she said, “You shouldn’t. Remember what the doctors said.” That didn’t stop him. Can you imagine if he’d dropped dead right in the middle of it? I’m certain that it happens all the time.

Lucy and I saw a play at the Walter Kerr. Crazy He Calls Me. About a Brooklyn mama’s boy who falls in love with a Polish immigrant. It was just awful. Lucy didn’t like it either. It’s a two-hander and I felt bad for the actors. Polly Draper from thritysomething is in it. Lots of Hollywood folks come out here slumming on Broadway to burnish their resumes. She should run right back to LA.

~~~~~~~~~~

I would display this in my grand foyer if I had one.