DREI KOENIGE DREI
The handsomest man in all of Europa Uli Ziemons was celebrating his 30th birthday Saturday at this little underground restaurant space called Merkezi on Adalbertstrasse in Kreuzberg.When I arrived the place was already packed with youngsters and Uli was behind the turntables playing from his excellent vinyl collection. On hand was Arsenal Empress Stefanie Schulte Strathaus who is Berlin’s number one birthday lady subscribing to the cult of birthdayism, Daniel Hendrickson and his gorgeous ItalioGerman lover Piero Bellomo, Nadja Talmi of Haus of World Cultures, Canuckian Andre Mark Pennock, Little Alex of Macedonia, DJ Olga Damnitz and Nanna Heidenreich of Arsenal Experimental.
In the morning I took Daniel Hendrickson and his beau Piero to breakfast at La Femme the KreuzKoelln Turkish boite to celebrate his birthday. Miracle of miracles Daniel and Uli were both born on the same day just decades apart.
Monday morning I had a charming breakfast date with Jan Klesse of Tenderloin at Builder Buch Café on Akazien Str in Schoeneberg. Jan never fails to delight me. He is such a sweet, loving young boy and I am a lucky wo-man that he is in my life. He prepared for me a CD of Tenderloin demos that I can peruse while in Los Angeles in preparation for Tenderloin’s big performance debut as part of Camp Anti-Camp in April. The Camp Anti-Camp festival at HAU 2 in April is curated by CHEAP’s Marc Siegel and Susanne Sachsse and will feature musical performances by punk legend Jayne County, goddess Kembra and her Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black and Warhol starina Miss Holly Woodlawn.
After breakfast with Jan I had to rush across town for luncheon at La Sachsse’s which was also a pow wow meeting for the upcoming tour of Communist Bigamist. Almost everyone connected with the piece was there including kJohnny and Tim Blue, Nazli Kilerci, Nebojsa Tabacki and the voice of communism Daniel Hendrickson.A lovely time was had by all and the food was out of this world including a delicious linsen salad, Pumpkin Shzataki Casserole and Lamb of Jena.Yowza!
Borrowed a most unusual book from Marc Siegel called Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool by Peter Turner who was the last young lover of Hollywood Film Noir legend Gloria Grahame who died age 57 of stomach cancer in 1981. It’s a very short tome only 143 pages but completely riveting with its Denton Welch like strident prose. Mr. Turner was a young British Actor who had an affair with the star that lasted about two years after they met in the late 1970s in England. He was around 26 and she was in her 50s.They had broken up but he and his decidedly lower middle class family wind up taking care of her when she becomes gravely ill in England while doing a play. She refuses to go the hospital and his entire extended family gets wrapped up in the house of her deluded Hollywood reality. Its sad, yet somehow joyous at the same time. Did Mr.Turner ever write anything else? He should have gone on to write an entire novel or memoir about his clan in Liverpool. I would read his grocery list.
Miss Gloria Grahame, like silent film star Louise Brooks was quite an iconoclast. Like me she was born in Los Angeles a true LA native in every aspect. She first received major attention in Hollywood in the 1946 Jimmy Stewart holiday classic It’s a Wonderful Life playing a floozie and received her first academy award nomination for Crossfire in 1947. She won the award in 1952 for Vincente Minnelli’s The Bad and the Beautiful. Her Hollywood career in big budget films began to wane after she appeared in the musical Oklahoma in 1955 as Ado Annie the Girl Who Caint Say No. But what solidified her fame besides her numerous roles as intense femme fatales was her LA horndoggedy heart. She was married to director Nicolas Ray (Rebel Without a Cause)who directed her in In A Lonely Place with Humphrey Bogart. Well the director caught his young wife in bed with his oversexed 13 year old son Anthony Ray(from a previous marriage) Tony Ray was a smoldering little boy flesh pot if ever there was one. There must have been something there in their Mary Kay LaTerneaux conjoining because a decade later she married the boy when he was in his early twenties and she was around 37. The marriage was her longest and they produced two sons together. She also has a child by Nicolas Ray named Tim Ray which makes Anthony Ray his brother and step father-sounds confusing? well it is Blanche.

I love this announcement from Machaca warrior about my visit back to Los Ang:
The Gaping Art Hole will be Patched for a few weeks!

The media is holding Public prayer sessions in the Hopes that Jesus will
intervene on all the Mass suicides by Hot Young Big Peniled Men...killing
themselves in Public over the Void the Vagimule has left in their Holes..