Lady Sings The Truth - movie review

Sidney J. Furie's adaptation of Billie Holiday's memoir Lady Sings The Blues is, to use the kindest
word, a mediocre film. When it is not mediocre, it verges on the idiotic. But when Diana Ross, who plays Miss Holiday ( and does her own singing), is performing in character, LSTB is suddenly transformed into a better-than-respectable work of art. Diana Ross looks as much like Billie Holiday as I look like Morrissey. As a Motown artist, she was always my least favorite. But she has the wit to sing in the manner of Billie Holiday rather than do an impression of Lady Day's singing. If that was all they wanted, they should have cast David Sedaris. ( He does a really swell Lady impression on the audio version of, you guessed it, Holidays on Ice.)
When LSTB - book and film were newly released, there was a resounding chorus of "hey, that's not how I remember it" from friends, admirers, critics and ass scratchers. Holiday's Daily News
pal William Dufty cut, pasted and "collaged" material from decades of interviews, thus generating her best selling autobiography. For the researcher, the book is about as useful as Tennessee Williams' Memoirs, another popular work of fictional nonfiction. Regarding veracity,the movie is
even worse. I love to see Richard Pryor in almost any movie context but why was it necessary to
create Piano Man when Holiday had many accompanists in her all-too-short career. Why couldn't he have played Lester Young, the brilliant sax player who was also lady's closest friend?
Well, we sighed when we heard Diana Ross was being cast as Billie Holiday. Although Furie's movie requires tolerance and generosity ( and maybe half a joint) from its viewer, it's worth seeing for Diana Ross's musical performances and, to a lesser degree, her movie acting. After doing a couple hours of compare / contrast Ross vs. Holiday, Holiday wins. But I have to say Miss Diana Ross could have been a more than adequate jazz singer. Honest.

a personal note - SPOILER ALERT!

Rainer Werner Fassbinder made forty films - or more, depending on whose list you're citing - in a seventeen year period. I recently watched Fox and his Friends, an indictment of the German gay bourgeoisie. It's not as compelling as the epic Year of 13 Moons, but it comes close. I was surprised
to see Karl Boehm, ( Peeping Tom ,1960, Michael Powell) in the role of a posh antique dealer and possible smuggler. Fox wins 500,ooo marks on the national lottery. In 1975, this was enough money to buy an apartment, save a financially strapped business and enjoy the usual lifestyle crap. Fox's woes begin when he signs over the flat to his false lover so that it can be used as
collateral. We see him lying dead of a valium overdose in the Berlin subway. Peeping Tom and Fox's
old lover examine the body and leave. There's nothing they can do now.

as long as he lies perfectly still

In the spring I think of sex and means to end
summertime I like to sit upon the grass
autumn nights I go to parties with my friends
winter time I like to think about the past.
- The Soft Machine ( Volume 2)


- In summer 1979, the year Skylab fell, the queers of Rehoboth Beach speculated exactly where Skylab, as if it would survive its fall intact, would impact.
" It's headed straight for the Pentagon, honey."
" Oh, little Miss Amerika, when will you get your act together, girl?"
" The back yard of Paradise, on a Saturday afternoon, when they're all swigging vodka tonics and wrapping cucumbers in wet briefs."
" Right on Carter's goddamn head."
" Off the pier in Key West at the height of sunset, just as Henry's called a cop 'girlfriend' for the last time."
" Baby, this is some crazy grass. Hmm. It's gonna fall on that club in New York where Warhol and True Man Capott and them hang out. BLAM BABY BLAM! There goes some sorry ass excuses for ... well, hello sailor ..."
" Right on top of your roller skates, Herbert."

If I had an opinion, time and alcohol have worn it away. Memory's wall gets thinner.

A Night on the Town ( concluded)

Entering the Fantasy Room involved passing through something that resembled the transporter
deck from Star Trek. A rush, a push and you stood in a dark smelly bar whose main light source
was a jukebox. Some unkempt pool tables made it practically impossible to navigate the room without rubbing against someone " whether ya fuckinwannernut."
Todd's Grand and other refreshments were agreeing with him splendidly until the Chrysler Gallery intern he'd fucked a month ago walked by and cut him dead. In his own special form of retaliation, Todd had a confederate at the bar pour him a neat triple that he tossed off like a rent boy. Evan noticed this as he usually noticed Todd's pathetic attempts at subterfuge but decided to wait it out. At this rate, he and Marcus would have to carry him into the house after last call. He
might do his dog imitation and crawl up the front steps on all fours.
It was all very George and Martha.

"Havig fun?" slurred Todd.
"Yeah sure. Is there something about tie dye that gets y'all hot, like the matador dude's cape?"
"Naw it's, um, just that, you being a stranger to this scene and young and ginger and all, um, makes you exciting new meat." Marcus had turned down fifteen propositions in the last two and a half hours. Todd leaned against the wall, about to slide to the floor.
He slid to the floor. The bartender whistled loudly.

"Where we goin' now?"
"We're going home, Todd."
" I want a nice greasy breakfast."
"Maybe Marcus will whip something up for you."
" I'd like that. Can I have you for brekkers, Marco?"
" Aw man, shut the fuck up."
Todd fell asleep, awakened by the transcabbie.
"Time to wake up, honey."
" Ummuh, yeah, 'mkay."
Marcus and Evan steered him to the front door steps. He looked around like he couldn't believe his luck. Evan knew what usually the this-is-all-mine? look .
"Marco? Ev?"
They nodded.
" I love you guys. I don't deserve your friendship ..."
" Come on Marcus, let's carry him in while he's on this crying jag ..."
" Okay .."
" On three. One two three."
They carried their burden into the house like pallbearers in a hurry.

A Night on the Town

Marcus can't believe how long Todd and Evan spend in the bathroom, getting ready to go stand around in some dark smelly bar for six hours, only to go home disappointed or whoop it up with friends in a greasy spam and eggs joint. He's spent fifteen minutes with a bar of Tom's soap and felt like a new man who smelled slightly of mint. After being offered a succession of gay garments, he donned his tie dyed outfit. No one else at Club FracAss would be dressed like him.

When the boys finally descended the front stairs, they were as casually dressed as they'd been for yesterday's little afternoon party. True, the stench of cologne could paralyze an attacker at twenty feet but that's the desired effect. Evan's perfect blond hair stood up in unbreakable spikes. You could impale answered correspondence on those spikes. Although he was nearly thirty, Todd still believed that the hair-in-the-eyes moppet look worked for him. Actually, after a few lines and some pernod, it rarely failed.
They both knew rough Marcus would be a cynosure, especially sans underwear.

"How about a little drinkie for the road?"
"Who's driving?"
"I don't know. Some person from Transtaxi."
"Goody, that means I can have a Grand Marnier."
"Just watch yourself, Todd. I'll get you cut off if you start in with the ..."
" Okay. Okay. Okay. I only want a gigantic line of coke and some Grand."
"Marcus, what's your pleasure?"
" You don't have any paper, huh?"
" Usually, no." Evan reached in his shirt pocket and pulled out a tiny vial. He unscrewed it and knocked an almost invisible yellow barrel into Marcus' hand. " He said it was clean as a whistle and good for eight hours .... and you only need one."
" Thanks, man. We'll see about the dosage."
A burst of loud dance music in the street. "Your carriage awaits" announced a voice over a bad p.a. system.
" We'll have to do it in the cab. Todd, get the security module, let's go!"

When Freddie Argo was a farmer's son in Suffolk, Va. he never had the slightest longing to deck
himself in Frederick's of Hollywood and prance in front of the mirror. Sure, he was a typical queer farm boy who'd inherit his dad's acreage, find a likeminded companion and live a gentleman farmer's existence, far from the shrieking parrots of Homo Heights.
Freddie had no business sense and lost almost everything except the family manse. He sold it for a ridiculously high price, moved into town and took work as a dispatcher for Transtaxi. Freddie was a slip of a boy who could wear women's clothing convincingly. The talent spotter at Trans made him an offer - wig or welfare. He took the wig.
" I don't think I've ever met a tran who could discuss pork futures", Evan remarked after they'd arrived in darkest downtown.

FracAss was a huge building with poorly lit entrances. Once inside, you were briefly doubled over by the bass in the dance music and unnerved by the near illegal bpm. A boy wearing a frilly apron
emerged from the crowd.
"Hi, I'm Eric. Do you want a table or banquette?"
"Do we look like a table?"
"Banquette. I always know. Please follow me." His apron did a poor or excellent job of barely concealing his heartshaped thong - bisected ass. He seated them and took an elaborate drink order.
"I hate this fucking place", Todd said, staring at a passing basketball player, or someone in a basketball uniform, it didn't matter. " I only come here for the Fantasy Room."
" It's like an acid trip for scaredy cats, Marcus. They recreated one of the putrid old downtown sailor bars, complete with real sailors working off the books as, er, taxi dancers. You can play pool and have a conversation without screaming."

to be continued

THE SEX SCENE Part 2

for ns and all the real sex scene writers

TODD i've got him i've Got Him! in my mind i'm jumping up and down like a little boy who's burst the pinata, smiling while its garish guts flutter down. he leans back pouts as i roll his cock between my slicked-up palms, squirting drops of juice between my fingers. His shaggy balls jumped. I must get down to business

marcus aw fuck how am i going to explain this? the other times i was so fucked up dude or i just deny it completely or once or twice i needed the money how many times before you become quear?

it feels good of course i mean the faggots are right, a guy knows best how a guy wants his thing sucked and ow migod

TODD I want him to sodomize me, fuck me, whatever. i have a blackmarket vial of oxymyl inhalant, that ER drug that was banned the same week it hit the streets.
Wriggle my ass closer, rub against his hard bony hip and scrawny thighs. The upper part of marcus is porn quality definition for the shaved twinko muscular type, smooth naturally smooth chest, a dusting of belly hair, a twisting trail that covers a scar...
he's on his back looking up at me and i offer him the sniffer he takes it i descend my ass all slicked up OH he slides up into me like an alien probe but warm and pulsing
it can't be but i swear my ass feels the vein in his dick throbbing his eyes are closed i do all the work he clenches his fists and then grabs my legs he comes

marcus sleep i need sleep

The Deadhead - SEX SCENE part one

SEX SCENE

Marcus opens his eyes and winces. We learn that he's in bed with Todd, who's still asleep. A look at the clock - 412 am.
/was i that wasted?/

Todd's bedroom, four hours ago. T and Marcus are sitting on the edge of the bed doing long sloppy
lines. The boys take turns furtively peeping at each other.
- well Marcus what do you say?
- yeah uh sure ummKAY wow todd hold up a second.
The clang of that ridiculous hippie belt as Marcus' jeans hit the floor and get kicked out of the way.
In the intervals of Todd's ministrations, Marcus wonders how he can breathe with such a large object in his throat.
- whew Marcus i need some air. Yeah, smile for your humble servant and official cocksucker.
- official huh
- yeah i know this subdom ...
- sub - dum??
- submit or dominate
- m and s okay
- the bottom boy is slave to the top at least that's the facade he has to submit to
- aw man shut up and suck my goddamn COCK NOW..
- yeah you get the idea
- no i fuckin mean it
Marcus grabs a handful of Todd's hair and pulls him back into oral sex posture. They are both naked now that Todd's wriggled out of the ridiculous striped underwear he wore for the occasion.
He picks up where he left off, feeling happier than usual.

The Deadhead - a very short story

for M.B. and C.R.T.

The deadhead pushed his red hair out of his eyes and pulled a smelly bandanna from his rear pocket, the one that wasn't torn and patched. Probably an ordinance about ragged attire here in Homo Heights.
He felt like a housebreaker going up the little townhouse steps. The place was a castle. What did
Todd and Evan do for work nowadays? The last time he'd seen that little blonde motherfucker Evan
he'd been manning a falafel booth at an Alternative Party rally. Falafel must pay well.
- Oh heyy. It's the renegade scumbag.
Todd smiled and opened the screen door. He was skinny again, or at least not fat verging on obese. If Todd's skin didn't hang off him like a Shar Pei's , he would get laid more often and not be a park pervert. Talk about picnics under the trees.
- You got a pubic hair on your nose, dude. Check me out.
He was wearing a vivid tie dyed ensemble: white tee shirt, painter's pants and ugly boots. No underwear, of course. He capered around the living room, shaking his ass and wriggling his arms in some deadhead dance.
He was very tired but maybe if he gave horny Todd an exhibition now, the fat cocksucker might keep his hands to himself after the partying. The word "PARTY!!" with neon pink exclamation pts.
had been scrawled all over the back of Evan's museum shop postcard. ( The photo on the front would not have been legal under the old regime.)

Evan walked down the street like he owned the neighborhood. In a sense, he did. Welcome to the hub of homo heights, Marcus. The guy was a sweet fool and clown who had sold them marijuana, cocaine, gas in balloons ( once),primo hash and bootleg ludes made of pulverized Canadian diazepam. Marcus probably didn't have anything with him ( who knows when you live in Free Key Zone, once called Florida) so Evan had called his "caterer", a despicable person with links to the best a thriving pleasure industry could offer. Even his boy whores were relatively fresh.
He smiled proudly at his blonde curls as he mounted the steps and shrieked: there's some kinda hippy creature in my living room.

Tableaux: Marcus, rubbery legs intertwined, sitting back on the yellow sofa near the window. Evan and Todd napping in their personal chairs like someone's grandparents. A disgusting mess littered the coffee table. Small mirror, stray rails of powders, an odd pipe, metal straws, crumpled
bag of smoke, beer bottles, glasses with melting ice. An unopened bottle of champagne sat tilted in a gleaming pail.
Marcus awoke and took a quick survey of the room. Nap time, eh? You used to be able to main - tain. Must be all that liberated dick and ass making you soft and light. Marshmallow men. Todd had a bit of a hard-on in his sleep. Evan was still as a cadaver on a slab.
His head hurt. He hoped it wasn't another redheadache.
- Todd. hey Todd.
Todd opened one eye. - Yeah? He was hoarse from smoking.
- You got anything good, I mean good, for a headache?
- I have these new things, um, oxyhydrocodone that the doctor gave me for my ass. Then he opened his other eye and laughed.
- Sicko. Does one, you know ...
- I'll give you one cause they don't grow on trees except maybe in F.K.Z. If it still hurts afterwhile,
well, tough. I'll give you another one if you let me fuck you. It won't hurt as much haha.
- Man, do we have to ...
- Can't you take a joke? If I wanted a pay date he'd be cuter than you. Sorry. Here.
He shook two big white lozenges from a narrow vial and dropped them onto Marcus' upturned palm.

to be continued

.

A note on Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox

FANTASTIC MR. FOX( Wes Anderson co/w Noah Baumbach) An animated Wes Anderson film? The Darjeeling Limited had not seemed animate except for the Kinks song at the beginning and those kooky OTC Indian meds. But, dear me, FMF is hardly a feelgood movie but it certainly made me feel good. And I'll cuss up any one who says different. I've always loved puppetry and stop action animation ( I'll sit through any old cuss if Ray Harryhausen's name is on it). Anderson had me. My opinion of his other movies, except Bottle Rocket and The Royal Tenenbaums has always been mixed. Sometimes greatness, sometimes a cuss of a lot of visual frou -frou. For now, however, he and his fantastic cowriter Noah " son of Georgia Brown" Baumbach can do no wrong.

Shame - a memoir

This post is a fictionalized account of a true event. Many details, large and small, have been altered for the sake of artistic effect.

Newark, De - March 1978. Sir Angus Wilson, author of A Bit Off The Map, Kipling, Anglo Saxon Attitudes, Death Dance and, most recently, As If By Magic is a visiting professor of English literature
at the University of Delaware's Newark Campus. - Wilmington News Journal, 3 March 1978.

Sir Angus gave a reading one Thurday night. Craig and I decided to go and invited the smitten Scotty to join us. " He sucks with absorbent lips", Craig had nicknamed him after a middle-of-the-night nude tussle in the flash of a dying fire. " My dear, it's utterly Women in Love." We were friends again, taking turns playing Anthony Blanche and Lottie Crump and our other favorite literary characters.

The visiting novelist cut a Victorian figure with his red face and luxurious hair. He commented during the reading that no reviewer had seen fit to mention Wilson's homages - quotes, really - from Beardsley's Under The Hill and Sade's 120 Days of Sodom. " Mr. Wilson, I haven't read de Sade but I did read Under The Hill and I didn't catch the .."
Wilson gave us a meaningful look and said " It's a chapter heading. ' ... how they tousled them and mousled them ...the rorty little darlings."
"Our little friend has never been mousled," Craig said, indicating Scotty, who was helping himself to yet another glass of bad sauterne.
This conversation occurred, not in some den of iniquity, but in a hastily decorated "social room" across the street from the auditorium where Sir Angus read. Everyone seemed half tanked except Craig, Sir Angus, his tough looking companion Joe and your humble correspondent. I don't know if Sir Angus was a reformed drunkard or the victim of some dreadful malady whose treatment required abstinence from alcohol. There had to be some good reason for him drinking Fresca.
"Well, someone should teach him the mechanics of mousling."
Craig nodded. "Have you ever been to Rehoboth Beach?"
" Oh dear. No, I haven't. Joe, what was the place with the lads who had a shop?"
" Lads? Them old queens? Llhooze, there's a ferry to New Jersey."
" Lew-es. It's a nice historical town but all the action is in Rehoboth. You should come back home with us. My wife went to visit her sick mother. We'll have casa Craig all to ourselves."
"Ah, well.."
"Craig."
"Yes, er, Craig, that's a very exciting invitation. What do you think, Joe?"
"Angie, if it suits you, I'm all for it. Are there clubs, Craig?"
" There's a dance pick up club that's busy on weekends and there's a place called the Nomad. The fishermen drink there all day and after they're gone, it transforms itself into a gay bar."
The half quaalude Craig had given me must have kicked in because there's a deep ravine of forgetfulness until I wake up, fully clothed, in bed with Craig.
"What happened?"
" I'm not sure but judging from the noise Scotty got mousled last night."


Sir Angus and Joe spent the weekend with us. You won't find any references to this impromptu orgy in Margaret Drabble's exhaustively researched biography. You can learn more about Sir Angus' dirty weekend but only if I get enough comments.

Fame - a memoir

In May 1977 my friend Craig and I went to an Ann Beattie reading in D.C. We'd been reading her stories faithfully in the New Yorker, these tales in which little or nothing happened, usually written in the present tense. If she can do it, so can I. The audience at the reading were kind of sickening and precious. They made little noises of appreciation when Beattie said," I decided to call this story 'Distant Music' ... I guess because we were reading Dubliners in class."
After the reading, there was the usual signing flurry. It was a Sunday evening but people had places to go.
I accosted Beattie and her husband David Gates on the street, outside Second Story Books.
" I wanted to ask you something .... but there were so many people."
"Yes?"
" The New Yorker's a pretty staid magazine. Don't they get upset about the pot smoking and stuff in your stories?"
" Actually, my editor Roger Angell is really good about that sort of thing." The bearded guy cleared his throat.
"Do you feel like a spokesman for your generation?" ( I was really obnoxious in those days.)
" Oh, no no no, absolutely not. I have to get my dinner. It was nice talking to you", Beattie said and zipped around a corner and out of sight.
I glared at Craig. " Why didn't you talk to her instead of hanging around like that? She probably thought you were a purse snatcher."
" I just went alienated all of a sudden."

A Movie I Wish I'd Missed

Tim Burton has a handful of impressive movies to his credit - the Batman duo ( one great movie might be cobbled together out of Batman / Batman Returns) Ed Wood ( a genuinely quirky biopic with what could be Johnny Depp's best Performance) Edward Scissorhands ( a messiah movie on a level with Roeg's The Man Who Fell To Earth) The Nightmare Before Christmas, Beetlejuice and Big Fish. I used to be a real cheerleader for Mars Attacks! but it hasn't aged well. Sweeney Todd is visually gorgeous but doesn't warrant a second viewing. Even though the trailers looked hideous, I took in a matinee of Alice in Wonderland.
Vladimir Nabokov said that "some odd scruple" prevented him from alluding, in Lolita, to Lewis Carroll's "pathetic perversion." Tim Burton is apparently more scrupulous than old VN. He obliterates any trace of Carroll from his loud brutish film. Not only that, he can't be bothered much with the events of the titular book and its sequel Through The Looking Glass. Instead of a dreamchild, he gives us an insipid nineteen year old out of a bad Merchant Ivory film who apparently needs corrective eyeglasses.
I'd be dishonest if I said there are no laughs ( there are a couple real snorters) and no real visual jazz ( a few of the 3D stunts are truly impressive) in Burton's travesty. It's just that these odd glints of beauty don't compensate for a dull eyesore of a movie. Let me put it this way. Anyone who takes you to this film with designs on your person is probably the worst sort of perv. Just say " Not tonight. These damn glasses have given me a headache."

Films I Missed or Fell Asleep Watching 1

My favorite movie of summer 2009 was District 9. I was really excited and pleased that it got a Best Picture nomination, although I knew it hadn't a chance of winning. I saw D9 in a theatre. I didn't see Tarantino's Basterds until tonight. The idea of a QT WW2 movie didn't really excite me much. Deathproof had been so talky and awful that I really wasn't much interested in what our national film lummox had to say, or make of, the second World War European Theatre.
I was happily mistaken.
True, Tarantino's characters still talk too much. Some of his concessions are odd. He seems to have agreed to let Brad Pitt do his character in a bad George W. Bush voice. But it's the ways in which he makes this unmistakably a Tarantino film that are actually, well, almost enchanting.
The rest of the casting is good to fine, like the contents of a bookseller's catalogue. Christoph Waltz, even in his Springtime for Hitler moments, is a fine actor who's also great fun to watch. I was glad to see Julie Dreyfus again. She makes the most of a tiny role. Melanie Laurent ( cineaste Shoshonna) really surpasses Uma Thurman. Her character is as tough and noble as Jackie Brown. I actually did a little fact checking before writing this piece. Rod Taylor, who plays Churchill, is that Rod Taylor, the one known to scifi movie fans old enough to remeber The Time Machine and First Men in the Moon.
Basterds is a really satisfying, even elegant film. It's not as good as Verhoeven's Black Book but it's good enough to mention in the same sentence. I'll have to withhold judgement on Tarantino's next project, even if it's a gangster version of Firbank's Sorrow in Sunlight.

Book Proposal - CONTAINS SPOILERS

Didn't someone write a book about contemporary male identity as seen in the popular / semipopular films of 1999? I just watched Fight Club after not seeing it since its' release. Forgot how comic it is and also how davidcronenbergian. Really. Elements of Dead Ringers, Scanners, Crash etc. are compressed into one film. As I watched Tyler and Marla watching those buildings collapse, I tried to remember if there was really that much fin de siecle' anxiety in 1999. Who am I kidding? The televangelical / teleprophetic crowd was working the Y2k angle for all it was worth. I worked in a bookstore and filled plenty of orders for some truly worrying survivalist books. We didn't know how good we had it.

Schoolboy Cinema : Another Country

Another Country poses the following question: did the English public school system, with its' cruel little hierarchies and fledgling young-boy-networks, turn Guy Burgess against Western capitalist heterosexual civilisation? Guy Bennett ( Rupert Everett) and budding Marxist Tommy Judd ( Colin
Firth) despise their school. Judd sees the school as a training academy for the bourgeois status quo. Bennett regards it as the enemy of homoerotic feeling and love.


They're both right.