Bruce Wagner - I’m Losing You

Been re-reading the Keats letters.

Going to the Ivy again with Phyll (seeing too much of her lately) for lunch. It’s full of fags, meaning everyone in the Business. I call it the H-Ivy!

Maps to the Stars

by Kim Girard

Often, at the strangest moment {usually smack in the middle of reciting the Specials}, my mind toggles back to Vancouver and the friends and family I left behind; and I am temporarily sidetracked by that sinking homesicky feeling — penny dreadful! After five months, I was certain I’d be more inured. Today was a bad day in that regard. First thing off, I spilled sauce on my slacks and had to work the whole shift like that which I HATE; I cannot tolerate being unkempt, especially for the public. Kevin wouldn’t let me go home and change. I don’t know what he has against me. Coupled with the fact one of my heels is coming unglued and my cuffs were GRAY because the stupid dry cleaners could not find my other blouse — well, I almost broke down right there during an order. {No, Diary, it didn’t help that I’m majorly PMS.} Instead, I had to swallow my emotions and focus on the matter at hand: the Soup of the Day {I’m trying to make that Soup of the Night. Jabba says the tips are so much better}.

Jabba’s a complicated, VERY interesting girl who’s lived a hard life — I feel privileged in comparison. Yet she’s far beyond me in street savvy and SO beautiful, she looks like a combination of ALANIS MORISSETTE and that nurse from ER . She was almost given the lead in Showgirls or so she said; and I choose to believe her. I WILL not be cynical, like so many of my fledgling compatriots. Jabba’s real name is Molly and she apparently took her nom de stage {a cute and exotic conversational icebreaker} from STAR WARS {CIRCA 1977, 1980, 1983}. Another interesting detail about Jabba is that her father “is-was” a “personality.” CHET STODDARD, according to her, was a relatively famous talk show host in the early seventies. I’ve run this past Kevin and others and indeed they knew the name. That impressed me because GARRY SHANDLING, SHARI LEWIS, KELSEY GRAMMER and one of the FOO FIGHTERS aside {I saw them at Von’s, within a one-week period!}, this is my first “personal” connection to somewhat of a blueblood. She said she doesn’t talk to her dad much {“not because he molested me, which he didn’t,” which I thought was a peculiar way of phrasing}. Jabba has modeled and lived in Europe — my first REAL friend since I came to this town.

And now, without further ado, it’s time for…

GIRARD’S LIST — PANTHEON OF THE ELITE!

With this New Year, I restate my goal: to forge a career in the vein of the following: MICHELE PFEIFFER, UMA THURMAN, LAURA DERN, ANDIE MacDOWELL, SANDRA BULLOCK and LINDA FIORENTINO. {JULIA ROBERTS, you MAY return to the List in coming months but I CANNOT for some reason relate to you just now {{could it be the dream I had of you and your brother, ERIC? He was falling from a rock and you would not extend a hand — would not let bygones be bygones}}. I DO love you for your camera-beauty {{you are like the ceramic white-and-gold plastic horses I kept on my bureau as a lonesome child}}, your regal independence and ability to unapologetically command a male star’s fee so important to all of us working {{and unworking!!}} actresses. Did I mention your quirky taste in men, which is exactly MINE? For me, LYLE is neck and neck with TOM WAITS. I know you were meant for each other and hope you will find your way back again; it is hard to be strong in the ceaseless glare of Media; love is always better the second time around.} If I fail to achieve in my own trajectory as artist, surely it will only be for having set my markers too high — of that, I cannot be ashamed.

You’ll Never Eat Me During Lunch …

Park City exhausting but worth it. Janie Wong Eats Cum was beyond anything I’d hoped for (title refers to gang graffiti; Nexus had to censor and will release as Janie Wong ). Funny, fierce and made me cry — three days in the snow with Pargita (Snow): she’s the one, the one, the one! And, E, the most unbelievable thing is I actually own a painting of hers! As Orson Welles said, it’s all true. I evidently moved into her loft in the East Village about a hundred years ago, inheriting a canvas she left behind in the fury of decampment after her split with Kelvin Grotto. He, the Mad Collagist of NoHo. I remember finding it in the closet — Pargita said she deliberately left it but I kind of doubt that — E, you will never believe — it’s the oil on the wall of my study. Haven’t you seen it? Do you know what it’s of ? It’s the image of the accompanist — the piano player standing at the window in Pasolini’s Salò ! You know: the pianist goes over to the window and you think she’s taking a break or something but she just steps out to her death, walks into the air like a sleepwalker. Pargita Snow left it and I’ve always hung on to it. Not too bizarre. I offered to return, and she refused. Made a few calls — it’s probably worth about twenty-five thousand. She is obsessed with Pier Paolo and was planning a movie of his life called The Agony of P 3. She tried to get Malkovich interested and you know, I think he’d be great for the dad. Serendipity doo-dah! Kismet and kizz me too, oh cum-drunk Janie Wong! The girl is wild . Smoked tons of hash (been twenty years) and went midnight range-riding with Oliver Stone and a horde of Nexus execs (I call ’em “Nexex”). Heard all kinds of gossip: like Arnold Vega’s fucking his fourteen-year-old stepson! (Put that in your Prince Albert and smoke it.) And …that while she was making her documentary, Gaby Silverman masturbated a prisoner — a multiple murderer, no less! Did some masturbating myself, won’t say with who::::::::::Here I am again. Boy, some cliffhanger. You won’t get it out of me; let’s just say he’s famous and young enough to be the son I never had…and you , sweet guy Friday, would gleefully rim Al Sharpton after a marathon run for a chance at thirty seconds of tongue-in-cheek with unsaid paramour. Oh what the fuck, it’s Cat Basquiat. There, I said it. Now, unstick your tongue from the floor and keep typing. Sez he wants to see me when we’re back in L.A. but there’s::::::::::Eric, do I have a Calliope today? That new pill is giving me cotton mouth. It’s called Zoloft; Katherine Grosseck’s on it too ‘cause she’s been having love problems — that’s right, with my very own editor. (Not too incestuous, this town.) She calls it “Zoloft, been good to know you.” Don’t you just love it? That’s why she’s a writer and I’m a talker. Or am I?

Hello, Columbus

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

FROM: DOLPH@AOL.COM (KATHERINE GROSSECK)

Am cut to the bone. What did I do to invoke such rage? That was a love letter, anyone could see! The only “hidden agenda” was how I hate that you’re in Ohio, Vidra — hate being apart. Staring at the stupid laptop for hours, wondering where I went wrong, pathetically looking for my hidden agendas. So tired of being the victim…sitting here with my Wheat Thins, Cherry Coke and Percocet, Powerbook a gray grave, headstone scrolling its digital glow-in-the-dark epitaph. Does that make you happy? Isn’t it obvious that I feel nothing toward Donny? And I was teasing about Phylliss. Hanky-panky with Phylliss Wolfe? Jesus, Vidra! “Dolphina will swim away” was flirty and frolicsome; to you, it was a “passive-aggressive doomsday scenario.” Hel- lo? Are you seeing someone else? Kinda sounds like it, no? Like you’re looking for the egress. If it’s true, Vidra, let me know; I’ll stay on my perch awhile before climbing down. Tough finding trapeze work these days.