Bruce Wagner - Dead Stars

Jerzy stands outside the restaurant. . in the world of creepers but not of it. Oxycodone-dreaming of being interviewed in Interview by Richard Prince: RICHARD PRINCE Talks To Art World’s Latest Bad Boy Genius, Papsmearanarchist SQUEEGEE/JERZY SHORES.But until then, to make the rent, he needs something tweet & potatoes, needs to start building up his photo archive for reasons of Gagosianocity. And if along the way he so happens to score some of that happy accident poon for Harry Middleton’s Private Stock Vineyard, well that would just be icing on Elle’s or whomever’s cupcakes, a big payday no doubt, Harry said he’d pay a premium, Jesus, might be high as fifteen-thou for a Hailee or a Chloë or a Kendall, but it’s very hit and miss, that kind of work. Jerzy knew enough to know you could never chase that kind of honeyshot! — you had to let them happen.

He didn’t talk about it with Harry, or really much with anyone, but he considered his specialization, that true calling , to be the sick celeb (that’s why Mr. Douglas à table @ Sur got his attention). He loved the moment that came weeks — or, if he was fortunate enough, days, or even hours — before death, when, with sniper’s telephoto viewfinder, he caught their eye. The moment they looked back. When Harry spoke of his own epiphany — that private moment shared with Emma Watson — tho the content was dissimilar, that was when Jerzy knew him to be a kindred spirit. Maybe the two Moments weren’t so different; maybe they were really just the same. In the wee, wee hours, when he was very stoned, Jerzy would google recent celebrity deaths [“About 90,100,000 results (0.06 seconds)”], clicking from site to site, scanning the ebituaries of the month & those from years gone by. He read with nostalgia, for some he’d captured & been paid a bounty for; most were lost for all Eternity, residing in honeyshot! Heaven. He usually checked www.deathlist.net/; last night, Kirk Douglas was #5 on the Top 50 of those most likely to expire.

The list comprises celebrities thought most likely to pass away during 2012. Candidates must be famous in their own right such that their death is expected to be reported by the media, however candidates cannot be famous purely for the fact they are likely to expire shortly. DeathList 2011 was a big disappointment, chalking up its lowest score for over a decade, but, with the performance in the latter half of the year, surely there are signs that the dry season is behind us.

That strange & special moment…

The beauty of his Moment with Farrah still haunted him.

For weeks, the vulturazzi camped outside her pre-cadaverous home. She was returning to St John’s in the morning, & (somehow) slipped out without being noticed. The night before checking into the hospital she would spend at her hairdresser’s, an old & dear friend. But Jerzy got a tip. (It wound up costing him $10,000, but was worth it.) He stayed up all night in the SUV, smoking crack & waiting. At 9AM, beyond the modest hedge of the modest house, there was a commotion at the front door: Farrah & 3 others. He readied himself to leave his truck. The others were already climbing into the station wagon that was in the drive. . suddenly, without warning, Farrah walked into the street . What was she doing? Jerzy was thrown off-guard. One of the group paused beside the car & called out to Farrah; from the tone of it, he wasn’t very happy. It wasn’t Ryan O’Neal. . but what was she doing? She looked — well— lovely —or — well — there were aspects of loveliness, easily reminding of the youth & great beauty that once was. She wore jogging pants — the hair of course was perfectly done up by her friend — and was leaning down at the curb. . to pick up a blue-wrappered New York Times from the gutter.

She looked all around her, as if seeing the world for the first time & knowing it would be the last, that she wouldn’t be returning from her morning trip to St John’s. Jerzy had tried a thousand times to remember those seconds during & after he sprung from the car with his camera. From the seconds he’d been watching her pick up the paper to the instant he found himself in front of her, only 5 or 6 feet between them. But he couldn’t — it was like a black-out. It was as if he had been teleported before her just so that he could look in her eyes. She startled for a moment, her instincts not knowing if he was an assailant — friend or foe — but when she saw his camera, she unmistakably Farrah-smiled, there was relief, not foe but friend, he was part of her tribe. He began to shoot her, & she was gracious enough to give him the shot — like a kiss — he recalled that after 30 seconds or so she said, “Is that enough? Do you have enough?” Then she said, “I’m tired,” but he kept shooting. And that was when it happened: every showbiz cell in her body bade her smile, graciously and valiantly, even during a rape such as this, & at the very end the swimsuitfamous smile collapsed into the tender rictus belonging to one already launched into oncoming oblivion. She fought it from happening, but sheer weakness of flesh, not of mind or of spirit or of heart, betrayed — that axiom of teeth & lips, timeless equation of Americana/girl-next-door majesty which had rallied (not just by decades-old celebrity reflex, but by impulse of simple humanity, & pretty girl/neighborhood sweetness) to hold in place (for him, for Jerzy) the curbside illusion of an icon still vibrant (which Jerzy in these seconds had believed , it had worked on him until now, until this very Moment) crashed into the grimace in a rotten death’s head.

The man came from nowhere, pushing Jerzy to the ground, foaming & messy & hitting & lurching for the camera, but Jerzy hung on for life (the strap around his neck) plus who knew, maybe he could get a ¼ of a mill for the hairdresserhouse curb pics (well, not quite that, & he spent it all on drugs), Farrah was shouting at her friend to stop, can you believe it? Shouting at her friend to let Jerzy be, & by then the others were erupting from the car shouting “Shame on you!”/“You are an asshole! ”—Jerzy was only worried about his camera being seized, the man had homicidal fury in his eyes, but must have been worried if he kept it up his friend Farrah might be so stressed out she would die right there in the street. . . . . he understood him when Harry said he would carry that Moment with him forever — the Emma communion Moment — the looking at her nakedness — how they could never take that Moment away from him.

He was a master of the dead man walking shot: a recklessly unguarded Chris Reeves or Patrick Swayze, using walkers to drag themselves to the terraces of their hosp rooms. They would turn unbidden & look into the ether — Jerzy would be in a tree with his sniperscope — they couldn’t see him. They had sensed something out there. You could see it in their features, gaunt hopeless animal look, wounded gazelles who knew they would soon be culled from the herd by jackals. His only regret was not getting Steve Jobs, in any way, shape or form, not even close. Not getting to stare into those Da Vinci eyes. Jobs had been his grail, his Hermione: a good pic of the dying animal would have been historic. Apple might even have bought it directly, just so it wouldn’t be out there. Jesus, he hadn’t thought of that until now, they’d probably pay tens of mill———he was coming on to another speed biscuit, & it was as if it had been laced with regret. He said to himself, Jobs would have been the show-stopper, the centerpiece of my Gagosian. Jobs’d have been the draw. If I’da got Jobs, my name’d have been made. I’da done a mash-up/mixtape of the sorrowsfull Job poisoned app Gaze & my coven of barely legal papsnatch, called the show The Naked & the Dead. ….