Bruce Wagner - I’m Losing You

As I began this process, I had the desire for a professional person to be available as a bellwether or anchor. I set sights on the famous psychiatrist Calliope Krohn-Markowitz, but the doctor would not see me. I know from furtive Filofax peregrinations that she is currently Laura Dern’s ongoing therapist (I snuck a look while Laura was in the ladies’ room, post-Massage); and that Julianne Moore saw her for a three-week crisis, impromptu. Alas, a sad commentary, but in the pecking order of this town one must be a luminary in order to be seen by certain rarefied psychiatric types — très pathétique! I did talk to her, Calliope finally calling back after several days, apologizing for her tardiness, which was thoughtful if slightly rehearsed, as if covering bases in a routinary fashion. I told her stupidly that I had read various flattering profiles of her ( Vanity Fair and Mirabella ), and when she appraised I was an ‘unknown’ (I said I was a Miramax executive — first thing that came to mind. It wasn’t enough) she referred me to one Dr Erica Miller at the NPI. All this before I could even ask if her lesser husband could see me in her stead. (He sees his own patients in an adjacent guest cottage — or so I am told by the Mirabella profile.) Haven’t yet decided which course to take re: whole therapist notion. Lie low awhile. It is inevitable it would be a helpful tool, in conjunction with a working journal — the ‘Journal of a *** Thief of Energy.’ Perhaps I will call Dr Erica Miller after all. In therapy, which will enhance and focus my telling of this tale, I will discuss the Men/Women/Clients in my own life; growing up poor in Beverly Hills (shit happens); the death and subsequent kidnapping of my sister Wanda; and slowly building to the Great Rip-off — how Beverly Hills 90210 was appropriated from me by Mr Jeremy Stein and Mr Darren Star; how The X-Files and Mr Chris Carter will too have their day in court. How I let that happen, because I wasn’t a shark, and am ignorant of shark-like ways.

I know if I can massage Julia Roberts or Sandra Bullock (I have already been recommended by Laura to the latter — now there is only ‘one degree of separation’ between Sandra and myself!), one of them will eventually agree to play the *** Thief on-screen.

Hello, Columbus

TO: SHARKEE@CLS.OHIO-STATE.EDU (STOCKER VIDRA)

FROM: DOLPH@AOL.COM (KATHERINE GROSSECK)

Dearest Sweetest Sharkee (AKA Stocker Vidra, AKA Mi Vidra Loca, AKA Charlene the Tuna),

Miss you SO bad — the Dolphin misses her Shark. (Starting my period; miss your cotton-pickin’ mouth.) Hate you for going away to teach; live for our time together. The ban on phone calls so Victorian…and so mmmmm . You’re my e-mail fatale. Who ever thought freaking Ohio would be an erogenous zone?

Phylliss told me all about how you’re going to do her memoir. Mercy, I got steamed (mercy of a rude steam) — a writer’s jealous pang, a mercenary, knee-jerk thing about anyone thinking they can put pen to pencil, that it’s so fucking easy —but more, thinking about the two of you stoned, doing slow migration ‘crost a six-mile-high dark empty plane, with Greek chorus of Stepford stewardii in the wings. Hopes to Gawd there warn’t no hanky panky committed in dem aisles (dose lips, dem aisles). If so informed, Dolphina wilst surely speak her Greenpeace then swim away. Holy moly! the sacrilege I would have committed between the stretchy, stained headrest tombstones of those vacant seats…oh well. Comfort at least to know I’m the only one who takes your Red Eye, really takes it, salty cyclops, anytime, anyhow, anywhere. Jeepers creepers, where’d you get that peeper, anyway?

Did you know my ex has been helping Phylliss with financing on Teorema ? (He was the one who put her together with Oberon Mall before the, ahem, dental mishap; I still think that’s bullshit cover for drug-induced coma.) Have the sneaking suspicion he’s doing it to somehow still be involved —Donny needs to know there’s some kind of connection between us, even if it’s indirect. He’s very fucked up, Vidra. I’ve heard weird rumors about him that I’m trying to confirm. I think his mother dying unhinged him; this thing he has with me totally relates back to her. He always tried to be low-key about Serena, but I think he was… obsessed somehow. Oh God, did I tell you his father’s supposedly back in L.A.? That is so freaked . This old guy, trying to flog his zombie franchise! I think it’s been a bit too much for Donny the Rib.

Adored your short story; envy your facility, freedom, mastery of the form. Loved “Desi”—it was Phylliss, through and through. All the nuances, conversational rhythm and then some — Phyll would shit in her DKNY! You’re so good, you scare me, Sharkee…I get lost in your sentences the way I get lost in your cunny (and other places). Sometimes I’m angry at les mots for seeing more of you than I do (lately, anyhoo). I get possessive of your participles and subjugated by your future-perfects; your prose poems make me tense. Here I sit with my big dumb screenwriter crayons: “EXTERIOR. HOUSE. DAY.”s and “INTERIOR. AUTOMOBILE. NIGHT.”s. Retardo. So you’re Susan Sontag and I’m Kathie Lee Gifford. Uh, like, I can deal. Goddammit girl, I want your fin inside me NOW. I’m a good Ethel Mermaid and I go where I’m kicked (splash, splash). I wannabe your C-food (cock)tail. I yam what I yam what I yam: Sharkee’s Machine.

Showbiz update: UTA keeps saying I’ll be nominated for Imitations , but I don’t want to think about it. The studio’s supposedly gearing up for a big push behind Emma, so maybe I’ll leech along. On the Teorema front, Phylliss heard about a young director (woman) who’s showing a film at Park City called Janie Wong Eats Cum . (Promising title!) Her name’s Pargita Snow (heard of her? Hard name to forget) and she’s actually a known painter in NYC (kiss of death?). That was enough to make me instantly loathe her — you know your Dolphin Lung-Grin can be a heartless bitch — when I heard she hadn’t done any rock videos, not-a-one, I softened. Phylliss said Pargita is supposed to be a combo of Jane Campion and Q. Tarantino and that sounded hot but I’ve since been puzzling over what the fuck it means . (How ‘bout Wim Wenders and Nora Ephron? Martha Coolidge and Todd Haynes?) Once we get a directress, Ms. Wolfe has convinced we’ll nab our lead. I’m pressing for Jennifer Jason (as are Saul and Shelby) but Phyll’s oddly resistant. Says whenever JJL appears on-screen, the audience begins a “tacit countdown to the rape”; that’s glib and unfair — sometimes the Wolfe sound-bites more than she can chew (which makes for best-sellers, lucky you!). An unknown isn’t being ruled out, if we can get exotic ingenues for the kid parts and a coupla international art-house heavies to play their folks. Shelby talked about reuniting Harvey Keitel and Holly Hunter; I thought that was a way cool idea. Anyhoo, Phyll’s a soldier and a schtarker, every inch the sweet-fanged kike depicted in your towering prose Inferno!

Wish just wunst in a while you’d let Dolphina take care of you: let her book us some time at the Doral Saturnia — or SST to Gay Paree for a super-luxe R&R wkend between the sheets at the Montalembert (don’t Frette). We could yacht to Capri for some clam (aw shucks. Nothing like a little sexual molluskation). Come on, Sharkee, what they pay me is obscene , so why not do obscene things? Seriously, Veed, whenever I give you things or even want to give, you resent it….I understand and respect your reticence and independence but sometimes I think you carry it too far. Par example, the Jag. I know I should have gotten something more practical, something you could drive from L.A. to the University — like the old Town & Country Wagoneer you had your eye on. Well okay, that one was my big boo-boo. (My heart was in the right place; wish your head was.) I see now the error of my ways, and why I did it; it was obvious I didn’t want you to go! So I got you something old and delicate and elegant and temperamental, like the Dolphin herself. So the damn thing sits in storage like Donny’s damn Impala, waiting. I take it out for a spin, once a month. Just like my hole(s)…