CLOSELY WATCHED BLONDINES
MarLou DeLuna who works as a lawyer for the beleaguered State of California and her lawyer husband Hal Marenus fetched me yesterday evening and took me to a late night munch session at the celebrated Canter’s Deli on Fairfax Avenue. I haven’t eaten at the Jewish eatery in over 20 years. The place was packed to the rafters and brought back fond memories of club nite rituals and performances of the distant past. When I went to the lavatory I walked past the Mayor of the Sunset Strip legendary radio DJ with KROQ’s Rodney on the Roq and music personality Mr. Rodney Bingenheimer who is responsible for promoting the careers of groups like Blondie, The Germs, The GoGo’s, Duran Duran, Hole, and countless other rock bands too numerous to mention. It was a little sad to see such an important figure in the history of LA music and the underground just sitting all alone at a big banquet table waiting for his meal. I wanted to say hi to him, but he is a shy individual and so I thought it best to preserve his privacy. It was lovely catching up with Marlou and Hal. I’ve known Marlou since primary school when she was fresh off the boat from the Filipine Islands, and Hal I met at UCLA where he was a member of the Jewish Fraternity ZBT. Fertile LaToyah Jackson and I even DJ’d parties on Frat and Sorority Row if you can imagine that, so my DJane career goes back 30 years.
Jeffrey Hilbert of hip Silverlake ad agency Kustom Kreative took me to luncheon at the French Market Place on Santa Monica Blvd between Crescent Heights and Fairfax. I hadn’t eaten there since I left for Berlin in 2006 and all the staffers remembered me and were very sweet. Jeffrey told me a funny story of having lunch with comedian Rip Taylor at the French. Jeffrey was trying to woo the confetti obsessed comedy star into performing for one of Jeffrey’s high octane birthday parties a few years back, but so olde school he is gnu school Rip proved evasive. Jeffrey and I had a wonderous time together reminiscing about our favourite Hollywood hustler and tranny haunts like Yukon Mining Company, the once mighty greasy spoon where we spent many late nights chewing the gab fest. There is no one I adore more then Mr. Hilbert who is one of the most gracious, generous and talented men I know. He let me in on a little secret that when he was in Berlin recently he snatched the dick right out of the mouth of poor Paris scholar Marco Dellamodarme at Rosa’s Bar. Marco who was also visiting Berlin was on a date with this hot Italian lad, but the minute the kid saw Jeffrey it was later days for brainy Marco getting any horn action. The lucky Italian boy certainly got all his holes royally filled by Jeff’s wicked Idaho club spud. After lunch Jeff dropped me off in Funkytown so I could deal with the drama involving my poor relatives—namely my oldest sister’s terminal cancer and my other sister being a horder. My sister Teresita who turns 60 years old in December and lives in a cute but overly cluttered dingbat flat in Hollywood which is filled with Avon products that she neither sells nor uses and magazines and newspapers that she doesn’t read. You can barely walk in the place, but once inside there are always 3 TV sets blaring different channels, a radio tuned to sports talk and a record player that keeps repeating the same vinyl religious disc that skips over and over again.
The best feature of my sister´s apartment building is the mid century kidney shaped swimming pool that always has a bunch of hunky young Latino men lounging around it, as the so called straight and married landlord seems to only rent to twentysomething Mexican men with rather large chorizos and fat titty cavaties. My sister who is still a virgin and has never had a boyfriend always comments how the boys around the pool have such unusually large genitals.
Early in the morning I returned to the Original Farmer’s Market on Fairfax for those enchanting cinneman rolls at Bob’s Coffee & Doughnuts and wolfed down some scrambled eggs & avocado at Phil’s Deli. Was also able to catch a matinee at the Grove of the new Anna Faris comedy What’s Your Number? I only wanted to see this movie because of humpy Chris Evans, and he and his magnificent body didn’t disappoint. The boy should never bother wearing clothes. Ms. Faris is cute too, but if she doesn’t watch out, and start picking better vehicles she will wind up in no-mans-JenniferAniston-land starring in lame romantic sex comedies until the end of time.
O I forgot to mention that super macha Henry Rollins is writing a regular column in the LA Bleekly that is so tepid and dull that I thought it was a joke at first. What the folks at the Bleekly should do is run the comic strip Henry & Glenn Forever that imagines the homosexual misadventures of Mr. Rollins and Glenn Danzig of the speed metal band Danzig and hardcore pioneers The Misfits. Both Hank and Mr. Lucifuge have gay pasts. Who in music or film doesn’t. The handsome blondine actor Thomas Jane(star of an appropriately named cable program called Hung) who use to be married to my old punk rock pal turned TV actress Patricia Arquette, was very open in an interview in the LA Times about his days as a concubine to studio execs and earlier a rent boy working the gritty streets off of Santa Monica Blvd when he was a smoldering hot and buttery 18 year old in LaLaLandia.
I am still a bit exhausted from the back-to-back performing rigors of the Trespass Art Parade and Art Party Fundraiser. The parade was actually a hybrid mixture of parade and protest march and wound up joining forces with the Occupy Los Angeles legion that has been staking out a claim on City Hall for the last few days. Hopefully more people will join forces, build coalitions and radicalize, radicalize. Its the only hope for for god foresaken AmeriKKKa.
During the parade I acted as a temple prostitute giving the procession a Druid Wiccan blessing in front of the Orpheum Theatre on Broadway. I was wearing a white Rick Owens column dress and Goddess Hera wedgie high heeled sandles also designed by Mr. Owens. The night before the parade I was so nervous that I was tossing and turning and didn’t start to fall asleep until 3:30am but that was circumvented by some ghetto bird helicopters flying overhead for nearly two hours. Normally I can sleep through ghetto birds, but living in quiet and relatively safe Berlin for so many years I am out of practise. With no sleep I looked and felt horrible the next day for the parade. Thank god sweet Louis, Louis did a great job on my make-up, hair and fashion styling. Also you can’t go wrong wearing couture Rick Owens. It was inspiring to hear the crowd chanting my mantra, “West of Rome, East of Azusa Art, Sex, Action, Revolution!” I also told the crowd that soon there won’t be anything to eat but the rich and powerful, and that seemed to resonate. After my bit with the parade Dr. Jennifer Doyle the famous feminist social critic and women’s sports writer who teaches at UC Rierside took me to a girlish lunch of Mexican food at a cute relatively new place on the Sunset Junction in Silverlake the name of which I don’t recall. When I got back to the Schindler Mackey Apt which are my modernist digs for this trip courtesy of a generous donation from the Republic of Austria I fell into a deep unabiding coma.
Thank god Sunday night I got a good sleep and felt refreshed for the West of Rome Trespass Art Party Fundraiser at Union Station. West of Rome is dedicated to making temporary public art and the monies raised will help produce my next project which is a commission piece through the Getty/Pacific Standard Time in Jan 2012.
My young and personable West of Rome assistant Daniel Flores Estrella is a Mexican kid who grew up a ghetto child just like me. He graduated recently from Otis Art Institute and is a smart and gifted young art talent to reckon with. He and his social outreach advocate best friend Louis who also produces Youth Radio programs for NPR have been literally Driving Ms. Davis all around LA and taking her to get her eat on. My favorite places are of course greasy spoon diners, but they also took me to a tasty pupuseria in the Guatalamara section of Korea Town on Beverly Blvd.
On the day of the fundraiser we grabbed some grub at the Fish Market on Central Avenue where I pigged out and felt pretty bloated afterward. During soundcheck at the Union Station ticketing ballroom I had a nice gobfest reunion with Phranc the legendary Jewish Lesbian Folk Singer and cardboard cobbler. Phranc looks amazing and was in fine voice. She is one of LA’s most brilliant local treasures, and gave me a pretty pink sticker from the old Women’s Building on North Spring Street that said, “Your Vagina smells fine now naturally.”
I am so looking forward to Phranc coming to Berlin in the Spring to perform as part of the Camp Anti Camp Festival at Hebbel am Ufer.
Glen Meadmore beat me one of his most elegant facesof all time and I looked divine. The other performers on the bill at the Union Station Fundraiser was Arto Lindsey the tropicalia dean from Brazil, Killsonic, The Brown Bunny and JD Samson of Le Tigre and MEN fame as DJane. The space looked incredible thanks to Pink Cloud Productions, with inventive lighting and projections that were outstanding. It was a bit odd having a stage built so high up from the audience, I found it difficult as a performer to connect with the crowd, but everyone was so drunk from the free booze that I guess it didn’t matter. If I was planning things I wouldn’t have used Union Station as there have been so many events held there over the years plus it’s a frequent movie shoot location. The space is gorgeous but just too large to fill and so there is no intimacy. The VIP cocktail party and dinner in the nearby Fred Harvey Girls Room was delightful. The Fred Harvey Room isn’t used as much and is a bit smaller. Actually the fundraiser and the VIP affair could have all been held in the Fred Harvey Room and that would have created a nice pulse to the event with people going outside in the long atrium for cigerette breaks. O its all water under Waterloo bridge now.
At the cocktail party/dinner Glen Meadmore and I hung out with beautiful Marnie Weber and her husband, Emi Fontana the sizzling founder of West of Rome was looking major Ms. Gorgeous in her diaphanous vintage gown and bright red hair flowing catching every available light. Emi and her sweet San Francisco based filmmaker beau Michael are the perfect couple. Emi and West of Rome are doing things in Los Angeles for temporary public art that harkens back to my artsyfartsy youth in the late 70s and early 80s. The roster of art shtars she brought together for the Trespass Parade seems almost inconceivable: Eleanor Antin, Lisa Anne Auerbach, John Baldessari, Chris Burden, Charles Gaines, Cheri Gaulke Amy Gerstler Mike Kelley, Barbara Kruger, Suzanne Lacy, Liz Larner Sharon Lockhart, Stephen Prina, Nancy Rubins, Jim Shaw, Susan Silton and Terry Wolverton.
At the dinner I greased the fat with Los Super Elegantes’ Milena and Martiano. Ms. Milena sung a very sexy song during the dinner where she was wearing a cute Liz Taylorish caftan. Milena is now the mother of a toddler son from a Southern Italian aristocrat. That Milena girl lives the life of a telenovela, and in this situation there is so much drama that I really can’t go into it all at this sitting.
Back to the dinner--- the food was yummy, and I especially delighted in the bearded muscles, crystaline junior pasta and horny toad arugula salad. Desert was a flanish teramiso.
It was great reuniting with Chris Kraus of Semiotext who I hadn’t seen since 2008 when Travis Jeppeson hosted a dinner party for her in Berlin at his Moabit compound. Ms. Kraus’ office is in the same space of my old LA Cheese Endique Trifecta at the Abortion Clinic Building at MacArthur Park. Looking as dreamy as ever was lovesexy Ann Magnusen with 80s pop artist Kenny Sharf and the My Barbarian gang of Jade Gorden, Malik Gaines & Alek Segade. At the art party fundraiser it was heaven to see Craig Roose and gal pal , artist Karen Lofgren aka: Kara Hunger and her studly beau, curmudgeony Dino Dinco and his latest Latin hungthrob, plus Sylvere Lotinger,Andrew Gould and his lovely new Lynwood husband Uriel, Marlou& Hal, Hector Martinez, Meesh Mills and mega successful Hollywood F2M film editor Billy Boy Rich who use to be Emily when we made Hustler White back in 1995. Yakuza the famous Japanese installationist ex boyfriend of artist Rirkrit Tiravanija got his drink on way before the party started and had to be escorted from the Union Station by his hot bulldagger gal pal---wild!

The chirper folks at Invisible Exports Gallery in New York who took part in the LA Platform Art Fair just told me they sold some of my paintings from their New York exhibit: Notes on Notes on Camp. My makeup paintings went under the title No One Leaves Delilah.
Cute Risa Needleman of Invisble Exports sold a bunch of my paintings at the art fair and wanted me to meet the art collector the next day. There is no rest for the wicked doll
Last night Emi Fontana and her filmmaker beau Michael took me and my assistant Daniel to a nice dinner around the corner from her South Pasadena home. The food was incredible. I ordered the layered catfish and Emi had the shrimp & grits which looked like an amazing combination. The staff of the restaurant were nice but there was something a little bit odd and off about them which I kind of like as it was certainly an adventure in LA realness. While we were sitting al fresco, a woman taking a walk with a man heard my hearty cackle of a laugh and started to chittle chat to us. She said she was super bi-polar, which was evident immediately but she actually seemed more rational then most people in Los Ang.
The next day my sweet assistant Daniel picked me up and whisked me to South Pasadena to Emi Fontana’s compound where we had a meeting about the upcoming Jan 29th Getty/Pacific Standard Time presentation. After a torrential downpour the other day the city is basking in sunny clear skied brilliance. After our meeting Emi and her boo Michael took Daniel and I to lunch at Las Cazuelas – Figueroa at Avenue 57 where we chomped down on the best tasting pupusas imaginable. Daniel was making us very hungry by talking about a plethora of southland restaurants like MyDears the soulfood café on 78th and Western, Hals also on Western which is known for their salmon croquettes and Bertha’s at Century & Western who specialize in Cat Fish and Red Snapper. There is also Cook’s Tortas in Monterey Park, Lillianas aka: Lesbianas Tamales in East LA and the World Famous Taco Cart that appears nightly at 52nd Avenue and York in Highland Park where the corn tortillas are made fresh in front of you. Doesn’t it make your brown mouth water blue?
Returned to the Schindler Mackey Apt in time for my appointment with the personable Westside art collector Pamela Robinson who bought some of my paintings from Invisible Exports Gallery at the LA Platform Art Fair. Miss Pamela and I had a girlish visit talking about all the important things like art, politics, makeup, fashion and men with large genitals.
Met some very young architects and artists from Austria who are staying in the other flats at the Mackey apartment. They will be in Los Angeles for half a year. So i invited them to join me and a few friends for a little soiree later that night. The place was jam packed with Frank Rodriguez and his artist lover Patrick Lee, Jeffreyland Hilbert, Hector Martinez and his longtime companion Ericla Pierce, Michele Mills, Dr. Jennifer Doyle, Andrew Gould, my assistant Daniel and his friends Louis and John Wayne is big leggy Tony.

THE WHITE LEGION AND THE PURPLE POODLE

My city of birth Miss Los Angeles can be simply lovely in the Fall, but on this trip it feels more like Indian summer. Even the flight from Berlin was wonderous in that I was upgraded to business class because of some icky tiny plastic surgery victim who had an aisle exit row seat and wouldn’t give it up to someone who clearly needed it more. The trolley dolly’s are very powerful these days post 9/11 so you have to be extra nice to them. I was, and got rewarded big time with comfort and extra food. Sitting next to me was the handsome nephew of Martha Stewart--Christopher Herbert who is a Yale graduate and speaks fluent Arabic, Hebrew and Mandarin Chinese just like Jewish Muslim Daniel Hendrickson. Hector picked me up at the airport and whisked me to the MAK Center for Art and Architecture at the Schindler Haus at 835 North Kings Road in West Hollywood where I was greeted by the sweet and love sexy staff members who were busy putting up their latest show Sympathetic Seeing: Esther McCoy and the Heart of American Modernist Architecture and Design that runs from Sept 28th to Jan 8, 2012 curated by Kimberli Meyer and Susan Morgan. I was given the keys to where I would be staying on this trip at the Pearl M. Mackey Apartments in the Miracle Mile District. The apartment building was designed by Schindler in 1939 and is beyond gorgeous. After dumping my luggage Hector took me to Jan’s Coffee Shop on Beverly Blvd near La Cienega for some haute greasy spoon cuisine. Jan’s is owned by the same family that operates The Silver Spoon(formerly Theodore’s) on Santa Monica Blvd in WeHo and The Astro Family in Silverlake. Later in the evening my British husband and Bricktops at the Parlour Club partner Andrew Gould came by and we drank vino and noshed until the wee hours to help me get over my jet lag.

The next day I was picked up by my West of Rome assistant Daniel Flores Estrella who just recently graduated from Otis Art Institute and was a student of Dr. Robert Summers. Daniel is a dream child---cute, smart and wickedly funny. He grew up in Inglewood so he is a funkytown ghetto girl just like me. Daniel took the doll for breakfast at Homegirl Café a division of Homeboy Industries a restaurant business assisting at-risk and formerly gang involved women and men to become contributing members of the community through the culinary arts and restaurant services. Homegirl serves incredible breakfasts, lunch and Saturday brunch with a menu featuring contemporary Latina fare and fresh baked goods from the Homeboy Bakery. They also offer full-service catering for events. If you are visiting LA rush to 130 West Bruno Street in Downtown just north of Union Station and across from Chinatown. Believe me you won’t be disappointed, and if that isn’t enough there are plenty of hot humpy latin thug looking boys in various states of undress lounging about in the parking lot. After getting stuffed in more ways then one we reconfigured with hot mama Caren, the most organized woman in the world and her juicy staff and interns at the West of Rome Pasadena headquarters. I really was impressed by the energy of fellow LA native Miss Caren and crew, they are able to create miracles on a daily basis and keep their whimsy and fun loving spirit. Believe me that can be a daunting task in negotiating with institutions and bureaucracy associated with city government and the art world establishment.

Later that afternoon Daniel took me to the Fair Oaks Pharmacy and Soda Fountain for a snack and ice cream. The FairOaks has been around since 1915 and is like stepping through a time continuem vortex. Plus there were some hunky soda jerk’s behind the counter. When I am not trying to sniff out some roughneck sweet meats, my other favorite flavour is dirty white boy. In the evening my pretty baby ella paisana Emi Fontana la Contessa di West of Roma had a little dinner party for some of the artists and staff working on The Trespass Party and Parade that included the legendary Tropicaliast alpha male Arto Lindsey and his saucy and personable Brazilian collaborator Leticia, mellow Thai/Argentine artist extroidinaire Rirkrit Terabanja who uses food as a medium, with his sizzling Chicano artiste right hand gal Cathy, and sizzling muscular former college wrestling champ and Chicago transplant Chris who looks like he could really fill out a singlet to perfection. The food and drink never stopped flowing at Emi’s amazing South Pasadena compound. Later we were gagging on the lovely extravaganza and doing some fundraising brainstorming with Emi’s brilliant consulting magnet gay boyfriends and her mini Dom group fearless group leader. Daniel drove me back to the Mackey Apartment via USC Fraternity row where we macked on some nubile Greek co-ed fleshpots.

Thursday morn Daniel fetched the doll for a walk through of the parade route on historic Broadway, but before that he took me to breakfast at Nick’s Café the most heavenly little greasy spoon at 1300 North Spring Street. I thought I had eaten at every diner in LA, but somehow I missed this treasure that is now owned by two proud bull daggers who inherited the place from the crusty depression era owner. It was like going back to the early 1930s. Excellent coffee, homemade salsa, and hashbrowns with just the right amount of spunk in them. After meeting with Emi & gang on Broadway where I told them about my parade from the early 1990s on Melrose Place called the 5th Annual Judy Garland Post Queer Parade & Festival with the doll as Snooty Garland and Judy LaBruce as grand marshalls. My impromptu parade was only two miniscule blocks, but this Trespass Parade project is a huge deal with street closings and everything. Later we went to the Art Platform Los Angeles Art Fair at the LA Mart to check in at the West of Rome space and I bumped into Javier Peres & Company of Peres Projects Gallery. Emi & I pulled down Javier’s pants and played with his hairy buttsicle as he screamed and desperately tried to get away from us. I love causing havoc to middle class people. I also flirted and giggled with the loveable rock steady crew of Invisible Exports Gallery of New York, who besides showing paintings by the Vagimule doll also has work up by the great Genesis P-Orridge and a slew of other smoldering artists.

Friday I woke up early and walked to the Farmers Market and had one of those incredible fresh out of the oven cinemmon rolls, read the LA Weekly which is more a newsletter and the LA Times which has also shriveled up and had to wait till 9:30 when the post office now decides to open up.

At noon Dr. Joe Bristow of UCLA took me to luncheon at Aunt Rosa Lee’s Mississippi Soul Food joint at 2781 South Western Avenue off of West Adams in an ugly mini mall. The food was heaven, we both had smothered chicken with black eyed peas & collard greens and peach cobbler for desert.

Then we were off to the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library which was built by the sexually fluid William Andrews Clark Jr. in the middle 1920s to house his growing collection of rare books and manuscripts. The founder drew up a deed of gift donating the five acre estate to UCLA in 1926 and in 1934 the University formally began to administer the library. The Clark specializes in books printed between 1640 and 1800, Oscar Wilde and his circle, fine printing and the book arts plus other collections that include French literature, the American West and the work of Pietro Aretino. The place is stunning and the staff warm and extremely knowledgeable. Dr. Joe and I were escorted by the great Carol Sommer who is the Senior Catalogue Specialist. Carol is retiring at the end of December and is a complete treasure of personality plus. We also had a lovely time with Scott Jacobs the Reader Services Officer,Jenny Basstienne, Cataloging and Patrick Keilty who teaches at UCLA lecturing on Women’s/LGBT Studies and Library and Information Sciences. His dissertation was on the timely tome of Porn on the Net.

I want to use the Clark Memorial Library as the site specific location for my Getty/Pacific Standard Time piece that will premiera in January. After a long fascinating time with Dr. Joe I returned to the Mackey Apartment to digest over everything and was joined by Hector Martinez and Dr. Jennifer Doyle, Andrew Gould and his smoking hot young lover who besides being extroidinarily beautiful is a sweet and engaging young man with deep soulfull eyes. I am so glad that Andrew is enjoying true love in all its permutations. He deserves it more then anyone.

Saturday morning back downtown in the parking lot of the LA Mart to go over necessities for the parade on Sunday. Of coure the weather now is hot and humid, the worse for a drag queen having to be performing in the bright glare of daylight hours. Sweet Daniel took me to breakfast after the meeting to Astro Family Coffee Shop in Silverlake where I was given a queenly welcome by the staff who all really miss the Vagimule doll. Michele “Meesh” Mills joined us and we not only ran into Jackie Beat & Mario Diaz but also Cadillac Joe Donnelly the former deputy editor at the LA Weekly. Joe was looking very sexy with a new lady friend in tow. He still has that mega ass that has a mind of its own. He will be promoting a new book at the West Hollywood Book Fair on Sunday at the WeHo Library. My webmater Larry Bob Roberts is also going to be at the book fair with his tome The International Homosexual Conspiracy. In the evening Larry dropped by the Mackey apartment where I was hanging out with Michele Mills who is looking so incredible, Glen Meadmore and Hector Martinez. I had to send everyone home so I could get plenty of rest before my parade performance, but of course I was tossing and turning all night and the ghetto birds were flying high. Glad that some things in LA never change.