Old Fag at the Movies

Gaye Dawn in Key Largo (1948)

OLD FAG AT THE MOVIES

CLAIRE TREVOR

I may be dumb—
But one thing I do know…
I was a chicken Claire Trevor

You know, Gaye Dawn—
In that moody 1948 classic 
Film noir KEY LARGO
_______________

The one with Humphrey—
Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Lionel 
Barrymore & Edward G. Robinson 

Yes, I may be dumb—
But I’ve got this strange
PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORY
____________

I can remember movies—
As if they were just yesterday
BINGO!  BIJOU IS BACK!!!

Even as a kid I was—
Hopelessly like an inveterate
OLD QUEEN AT THE MOVIES!!!
___________

I don’t know why and—
I don’t know how but that’s
just the way it was, honey

It was way back in 1948—
When I was 5 years old and
Living in Riverside CA

THE FOX RIVERSIDE THEATER

Talk about acid flashback—
It’s like just yesterday when
KEY LARGO just ruined me…

Not that anyone oughtta—
Really care my this old queen’s
Hollywood chicken filmography
_____________

But it all happened there on—
3801 Mission Inn Avenue in
schmaltzy ugly Riverside, CA

It happened so very quickly—
So unexpectedly and simply
Right outta the blue, dears
____________

Since nobody will ever do—
My stupendous autobiography
I’ll just have to write my own

My own faggy filmography—
Explaining & illustrating being
OLD FAG AT THE MOVIES
_______

My bumbling BILDUNGSROMAN—
Beginning that strange afternoon
When I became Claire Trevor 

It was just the briefest moment—
But it’s stayed simply emblazoned 
In my tres faggy imagination!!!

CADILLAC 

It was just a simple Sunday—
On a drive through Riverside
In my father’s new Cadillac

He’d bought it to impress his—
Wife’s parents who were there
Visiting us from Kansas City
____________

He was a wise-ass jet pilot—
Learning how to fly fast F-86’s
Before going off to Korea

He was showing off and—
Touring the town to assure
My grandparents he was #1
______________

I wanted to have some fun—
Continuously pestering them
I wanted to go to a movie

There were lots of classic—
Movie theaters back then &
They were all slipping by
____________

Finally Dearest Daddy got—
Sick of my childish whining
And faggy filmic kvetching

So at the next theater—
He pulled over his swanky
Sleek slinky new Cadillac

KEY LARGO (1948)

He was such a wise-ass—
He really didn’t much wanna
Have me & my brother anyway

It was more for Amy Jane—
Mommy Dearest and to keep
Her parents somewhat happy
_____________

Mother was a pretty redhead—
And her hormones were like
Already flowing like crazy

They figured that surely a—
Quickie marriage now was like
Better than a shotgun one later
___________

That way with a couple of—
Kids like me & my brother
It would make her a Mother

And she would become a—
Loving All-American housewife
Worthy of a Happy Marriage
_____________

Unfortunately, well, it didn’t—
Work out that way and there
Were lots of nasty bitch-fights

She was like Claire Trevor—
She’d picked the wrong man
It all got down and dirty

THE MOVIE PALACE 

So my wise-ass Big Daddy—
Reached into his pocket and
Handed me a lousy quarter

We were parked out front—
By the curb of this simply
Magnificent movie palace
___________

The Fox Riverside Theater—
With its suave Spanish Colonial 
Revival style so invitingly luring 

So West Coast Romantic with—
Its exquisite architecture simply 
A divine Hollywood Temple
__________

Famously it had screened—
A sneak preview showing of 
GONE WITH THE WIND

It had a long and esteemed—
History stretching from the
Vaudeville era up until now
_________________

Unfortunately like so many—
Palatial Film Palaces it later
Fell into disuse and ruin

But it’s been restored as—
The Fox Performing Arts Center
With performances, theater, movies

THE TICKET COUNTER

Dearest Daddy was like—
Daring me to go on in or
Like just fucking shut up

But regardless I grabbed—
The quarter and without any
Qualms or queer hesitations
______________

I plunged out the door—
And went running up to
The towering Ticket Booth

Naturally, I couldn’t just—
Reach up to the Ticket Counter
So I did the next best thing
________________

I took aim with the coin—
And expertly tossed it up
Right through the glass hole

Then without a ticket—
Or any dizzy forethought
I ran right into the theater
__________________

I often wonder what—
It’s like for a tres butchy
No-nonsense military man

To end up getting stuck—
With a nelly little fag like
Yours truly was back then

SHOCK AND AMAZEMENT

I can just imagine the look—
Of total shock & amazement 
On the faces back in the car

My grandmother was simply—
Chagrinned with horror and
Chastised my father severely
___________

My leap into lovely cinematic—
Freedom was ever so brief
Though, it didn’t last long

I got halfway down the dark—
Meandering aisle heading for
The best fucking front seats
__________

Gazing hypnotically at this—
Simply beautiful movie actress
Up there on the Silver Screen

It was lovely Claire Trevor—
Singing her incredibly sad yet
Campy Torch Song just for me
_________________

She looked into my eyes—
They were the teary eyes of sad
Gaye Dawn crooning just for me

“Don't know any reason why
He treats me so poorly
What have I gone and done?”

TORCH SONG

Claire Trevor got an Oscar—
For Best Supporting Actress back
Then during the Academy Awards

So did Humphrey Bogart—
In TREASURE OF SIERRA MADRE
Walter Huston’s other film
____________

Even as my Daddy Dearest—
Whisked me up in his arms
Taking me back up the aisle

I couldn’t help myself—
Gazing up at poor Gaye Dawn
Over his shoulders then
_____________

It was truly a rather—
Filmic Epiphany Moment for
Me retreating backwards then

Entranced by her eyes—
Enthralled by her sad lyrics
Ecstatically hooked to Hollywood
_______________

Moanin' low—
My sweet man is gonna go
When he goes, oh Lordy

Though he's mean as can be—
He's the kind of man needs the 
Kind of a woman like me

Norma Desmond

INTERVIEW WITH NORMA DESMOND 

The intercom buzzed.

“Have Miss Jerk-Off come in now.”

“Yes, Mr. Smirk.”

The receptionist smiled at Miss Jerk-Off. 

“Mr. Smirk will see you now, Miss Jerk-Off.”

Miss Jerk-Off shrugged, putting out her cigarette. She tossed down the usual ratty beat-up National Enquirer magazine you still sometimes see in producer’s offices. El Primitivo check-counter jive stuff.

Miss Jerk-Off yawned. She was used to dealing with these slimy producer pricks in Hollywood—they were a dime a dozen.

“Ah, Miss Jerk-Off,” Mr. Smirk said without looking up from the dossier on his desk.

“I see here, Miss Jerk-Off, that you’re a writer from the Big Easy. Welcome to the Big Apple. We’re always ready to accommodate our fellow size queen colleagues from way down South, honey.”

Miss Jerk-Off yawned. “The smoothie type” she said to herself, lighting another cigarette.

“Hmmm, you’ve got quite an interesting dossier, my dear Miss Jerk-Off. Some really interesting biographies right up our alley.”

“I’ll bet,” Miss Jerk-Off said to herself, sizing up Mr. Smirk as a real jerk-off prick. 

“Let’s see now, you’ve written a charming memoir of your nice teenage Southern Decadent youthful years, CONFESSIONS OF A SIZE QUEEN. Quite an interesting story of bad boy bildungsroman gone wrong, sweetheart.”

Miss Jones shrugged, chewing her gum.

“And then, there’s this exquisitely engrossing, if not truly tres chic portrait biography of tragic middle-aged Euro-Queen Decadence, THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS. STONED.”

Miss Jerk-Off nodded, gazed out the window—getting bored real quick with these usual boring ho-hum interviews with these same old crummy mid-level management types schmoozing through her stuff.

“It seems, my dear, you were quite the connoisseur of cock back then in the ‘70s during the late great Gay Lib Lit Period—just oodles and oodles of dainty little poetic ditties in all these various and sundry early gay lib queer journals and anthologies.”

Miss Jones frowned. “They always wanna bring up the same old used has-been queer-angle stuff it seems,” she said to herself. 

“That was then but this is now,” she said.

“Hmmm. It seems your latest manuscript here dips into a rather interesting fictional account of the fabulous faded film star Norma Desmond? The great campy film noir Queen Bee actress of Billy Wilder’s famous flick SUNSET BLVD (1950)?”

“You got it, Mr. Big,” Miss Jerk-Off said rather nonchalantly, looking at her watch. She had a luncheon date for cocktails with Miss Capote downtown and she didn’t want to miss it.

“Let’s see now,” Mr. Smirk said, thumbing through the filmscript. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but your idea is to ditch William Holden and put in this other gigolo actor that’s extremely well-endowed.”

Miss Jerk-Off stared at him, chewing her gum.

“Yes, a kind of Size Queen take off on the original ‘50s Gloria Swanson movie about a fading film star struggling to make her grand dame Hollywood Come Back, right?”

“You’ve got it, Mr. Right,” she said.

“With the new twist—pardon the pun—that Norma Desmond likes well-endowed young gigolo boys there by her swimming pool on Sunset Blvd, right? Or rather, if I may be so bold, Norma Desmond is a Size Queen and prefers big dicks?”

“You got it, Mr. Smart,” she said.

“And the working title for you filmscript is SIZE QUEEN OF SUNSET BLVD?”

“You got it, Mr. Smirk,” she said.

Mr. Smirk tried to conceal a smirk, but it kind of crept out of his smirky, jerky rather lubrugrious lips rather apparently.

“Here we go again” said Miss Jerk-Off to herself.

Mr. Smirk leaned toward his intercom. “Miss Yack-Off? Please get me Mr. DeMille on the phone right away. I think we’ve got a real winner filmscript possibility here today in my office.”

Miss Jerk-Off smiled. “By the way, Mr. Smirk. Please tell lovely Mr. DeMille, I’m ready any time now for my latest charming Close-Up, will you please?”

Mr. Smirk nodded. “And tell Mr. DeMille that she’s back again, will you?”

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Capitol Hill Block Party

WHAT I SAW WITH 

MY GOOGLE GLASSES 

AT THE CAPITOL HILL 
BLOCK PARTY 2013 

“Cities look to me to be

our most characteristic

technology. We didn’t really

get interesting as a species

until we became able to do

cities”—William Gibson

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nv4uY01_VoU&list=PL2B72287A3F8F765A

UBIK 

—for Philip K. Dick

1

Philip K. Dick didn’t—
Write science fiction
It wrote him

He kept falling—
Down this deep well
A bottomless pit

Dick had this—
Favorite storyline
“I’m just letting go”

He’d let the story—
Slowly write itself
Chapter by chapter

2

For example, his—
THE MAN IN THE HIGH
CASTLE winning him

The Hugo Award—
Early in his sci-fi
Writerly career

He’d toss the—
I CHING to guide
Him thru the story

He liked to be—
In a constant state
Of free-fall scripting

3

He’d be writing—
Along like some
Detective novelist

Waiting until—
The last chapter
Before figuring it out

Who’s the murderer—
How’s it going to end
And all that stuff

The why’s and—
Whodunits that make
A sci-fi story tick

4

P. K. Dick—
Collaborated with
The I CHING

Counting on it—
To show him
The way out

It worked okay—
Until his very
End as a writer

That’s when—
EXEGESIS became
A vast Black Hole

5

The fabrication—
Of retro worlds
Around the hero

Didn’t worry—
Dick while writing
All his stories

He let the Oracle—
Make all the
Decisions for his book

The setting—
The characters
The plot…

6

Like Abendsen—
He tossed the
Three Chinese coins

Coming up with—
The Hexagram 61
CHUNG FU

“Inner Truth”—
Wind blows over
The lake

The Visible—
Effects of the
Invisible

7

The horror of—
MAN IN THE HIGH
CASTLE though

Germany and—
Japan having actually
Won the war

Even after—
Dick had written
That Novel

He still just—
Couldn’t quite face
The awful fact

8

Trying to write—
A sequel to the
HIGH CASTLE

Leading him—
Down this deep
Endless hole

A rabbit hole—
Of hypothetical
Horror possibilities

EXEGESIS—
As Lovecraftian
Living nightmare

9

No kitschy—
UBIK ads to guide
Him anymore

Like the—
I CHING with his
HIGH CASTLE

He always wrote—
Last chapters of his books
In a state of panic

Not knowing—
How the real story was
Going to finally end

10

Like Joe Chip—
Ending up as a
Dead Half-Lifer

Stuck in some—
Cold cryogenic
Casket of death

P. K. Dick’s—
Surprise ending
Has Runciter

Holding a coin—
With Joe Chip on
Its profile side

11

Eventually—
Writing a Novel
Is a process

Like a program—
It has to shut down
Sooner or later

After awhile—
No I CHING-like
Aphorisms help

UBIK ads can’t—
Let P. K. Dick
Off the hook

12

The problem with—
Surprise endings
Is sometimes they

Can surprise—
The author with a
Surprise ending

Even Dick’s brief—
Short stories can
End up with awful

TOMB OF LIGEIA—
Horrible nightmare
Terrible endings

13

It’s like reading—
“Faith of Our Fathers”
a nice little mind-fuck

The magic antidote—
The anti-hallucinogen
The so-called “lucidogen”

Revealing so-called—
Reality as nothing but
A nightmare Simulacrum

Worse than any Orwell—
Or Hanna Arendt dystopia
Could ever imagine

14

Ever get the—
Feeling that Kipple is
Like really doing you in?

That entropy state—
Of decomposition and
Things falling apart?

Does it take—
A can of UBIK to get
You back on track?

Gluing the plot—
Back together again
For readers and writers?

15

Does it take—
Runciter’s paranormal
Counter Surveillance Inc

Telepaths, precogs—
Anti-telepath chicks
And anti-precog guyz

To get outta poor—
Joe Chip’s bad luck
Awful paranoia trip?

Joe Chip’s always—
Falling down into these
Evil parallel universes?

16

Dreary aversions—
Half-formed memoires
And schizo-dreams?

Joe Chip thinking—
That he’s inside some
Cryogenic dead dream?

Making his electro—
Encephalogram seem
Like it’s always going flat?

Take a quick whiff of—
UBIK right away and
Have a Nice Day!!!

17

Glen Runciter—
Turns up when
The phone rings

His handwriting—
Scrawled like graffiti
On the bathroom walls

There in the chic—
Beloved Brethren
Cryogenic Moratorium

“I’m the one—
that’s alive and
you’re all dead”

18

But that’s not—
How Dick’s UBIK 
Novel really ends

A coin in Runciter’s
Pocket turns out
To have the face

Of Joe Chip—
On it which means
That it’s a fake

Which means—
That Runciter is a
Living Dead Man too!!!

19

This is the kind—
Of shifting endings
Half-Lifers live

The hyped-up new—
Household product
UBIK is just a fake

Everybody’s like—
Already dead and
Cryogenically asleep

All of us are just—
Lucidly dreaming our
Android endless dreams

20

Re-reading P. K. Dick’s—
MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE
UBIK AND EXEGESIS

It’s like waking up in a—
Dream thinking we’re awake
When we’re really not

We’re just having a dream—
Inside a dream, thinking
we’re all awake again

When actually we’re just—
Some cryogenic Half-Lifer’s
Doing our slow-mo routine

The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stoned

THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS. STONED (2013) 

Paolo di Leo: “Rome is a very old city. Three-thousand years. How old are you? Fifty?”
___________________

Most remakes of classic Hollywood films are usually the same old sad, boring, vapid, vacuous versions of once scintillating Silver Screen Magic Movie Classics gone stale…

But occasionally, my dears, a sudden surprising  shocking remake unexpectedly pops up and turns me on—especially if I feel like making out with the remake’s young male star. 

Warren Beatty didn’t particularly turn me on back then in the ancient days of 1961—back when he played this so-called Italian gigolo bent (and I do mean ‘bent’ my dears) on seducing Vivien Leigh and taking her for everything she was worth. And then some.

Disillusioned, dejected, depressed—once vivacious Vivien Leigh comes to the rude realization that her beauty and charms are fading rather quickly. And like so many of the same old maudlin queens of Tennessee Williams’ classic melodramas—she realizes that time is running out.

Vivien Leigh says “You see... I don't leave my diamonds in the soap dish... and when the time comes when nobody desires me... for myself... I'd rather not be... desired... at all.”

It happens to the best of us, honey—despite our millions, our relentless cosmetic surgery, our puffy Botox lips injections, plus our various and sundry illicit secret organ transplants and tummy tucks to keep the silly façade going on…

Surely a remake of ROMAN SPRING is sort of like that, I suppose. A kind of wretched resurrection of the Living Dead—a feeble last-breath attempt to catch once again the faded charm of a Roman Holiday, being somewhat young and carefree once again. Ah, the folly of it all, my dears…

But low and behold, every once in awhile—some fickle foppish fool down there in Los Angeles might decide to attempt the tired old possibility of a Classic Remake all over once again. 

Hollywood Babylon is known for those kinds of flirty fabulous fabled Fantasy “Come Back” Nostalgia games—just like poor forlorn silent screen star Norma Desmond plotting her great “Come-Back” Film once again. 

You know, like some incredibly insane Gloria Swanson—there in the rotting wreckage of her huge tacky Sunset Blvd moody mansion. Dreaming away her own personal Dickens-esque return to Fame and Glory—GREAT EXPECTATIONS coming back again!!!

Of course, Director Billy Wilder knew the usual motivating underlying Secret of the aging Hollywood Movie Heroines—like lovely Norma Desmond, beautiful Karen Stone and bitter old reclusive Miss Havisham.

After all he was a Weimar dancehall gigolo and kept man—not much different than William Holden who played Joe Gillis the down & out Hollywood scriptwriter who ends up dead in Norma Desmond’s Sunset Blvd swimming pool. 

Billy Wilder was a lot like Lotte Lenya—except he went beyond being merely just a Weimar pimp and instead became a Hollywood madame for millions and millions of American moviegoers.

Now it’s over fifty years—since the original THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS STONE appeared. My how time flies!!!—and now Hollywood has come out with a new version of this sexy sad sullen film classic: THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS. STONED.

Classic movies are usually just antiquated films from some long-ago bygone Hollywood era—more like old pawn shop second-hand has-beens and used items when compared with their once brand new, beautiful, well-acted, well-written, gem-like dazzling debuts before fading into obscurity. 

Truly, my dears, Hollywood just doesn't make 'em like they used to!!! And even when they try to make a decent come-back attempt like Norma Desmond dreamed of doing—it usually ends up like some tawdry descent down some ratty old staircase like Gloria Swanson in SUNSET BLVD, looking out at the camera pitifully saying “I’m ready for my close-up now, Mr. DeMille!!!”

Then Norma Desmond gets driven off to the insane asylum in a limo—like they did to poor Blanche (Vivien Leigh) in A STREETCAR NAME DESIRE or that other gimpy Blanche (Joan Crawford) in WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?

How could one actually rediscover once again and bring back the magic moments of THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS. STONE—without turning that once meaty, adult-themed, trashy tragedy into a fruitcake fake Ed Wood Jr. Freak Show failure of what was once truly a magnificent Film with all the Fame and Glory of Decadently Delicious Ravaging Rome? 

First of all, some new genius director needs to get real and find a simply refreshingly young handsome vivacious truly chicken Hollywood actor to play the part of a new Paolo di Leo—the sullen, moody, heartbreaking haughty Hustler preying on the usual wealthy Tourist Trade Crowd hustling the Eternal City of Rome today.

And I don’t mean just another worn-out, jaded, old wrinkly Warren Beatty look-alike either—since in my own rather jaded humble (down-on-my-knees) tres queer opinion, Miss Beatty was much too old in the first place back then in that early Sixties Skin Flick to be playing the part of some young choice Roman chicken gigolo on the make.

Taking a clue from all the tacky Twitter sex gossip mongers and Scandal Sheet peeping-tom paparazzi pics—I can only come up with one possible Clueless Chicken of my choice to play the moody sullen role of the new chicken Paolo hustler I’ve got envisioned in my dizzy decadent diseased brain.

This new Paolo was suggested to me by a rather louche Lotte Lenya look-alike that recently called me the other day. She’d just been resurrected again, she said—thanks to the latest magic of modern secret scientific stem-cell research along with the skuzzy wonders of the latest ratty Frankenstein genetic reverse engineering blackmarket. 

As you probably remember from the earlier film—Lotte Lenya is in the business of providing handsome young men to needy wealthy widows of a certain age like me. As the Contessa Magda, she makes calls to various lonely Madame Stones here and there—providing them with the love and consolation that rich fading lonely ladies of means sometimes crave rather desperately.

The Contessa gave me this ring—knowing that I’d been drifting through life with nowhere to go lately. Lotte Lenya has always been the most absolutely divine Procurer of Prick I’ve ever known. She simply oozes and oozes the most lascivious sleaziness!  

She’s the most experienced pimp/madam in the whole evil City of Fallen Angels. She even still resides, most appropriately, in the recently remodeled Sunset Blvd mansion of the late great Norma Desmond herself. Still managing her entourage of young men to do her bidding, Lotte is  so exquisitely evil, she simply makes my skin crawl!

Lotte Lenya said she had a surprise for me…

And guess who? When I opened the door to my swank Palm Springs getaway estate that evening—who else but the nation’s biggest Boy Toy Star prodigy himself was standing there smirking at me?

It was none other than cute JUSTIN BIEBER!!!

He was accompanying the Contessa—bored, rather desultorily pouty as usual, but nevertheless I was simply amazed and exquisitely pleased to meet her latest young cute accomplice and pouty partner in crime.

After all, Justin was none other than the latest Pretty Boy Toy of all Hollywood itself—constantly in the gossip news and scandalous headlines so very much lately.

Justin Bieber soon became my obsession...but then he started flirting with other women and, instead of words of love, he spewed forth diatribes of tres tacky cruelty; adding to my lingering angst that was already lurking around me as my days of being a Wrinkle Queen were beginning to slowly creep up on me. 

Did Justin really love me?  Or was he just using me?  Would Lotte the Contessa continue to wait patiently for Justin’s payment—for milking me blind?  Would I be able to stop "drifting through life" and gracefully accept the fact that I’m sadly growing older?

These are the questions which will play out in juicy details—throughout the remainder of this new suspense-filled film version of THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS. STONED…

THE ROMAN SPRING OF MISS THING 

“For a homophobic place, 
there’s a lot of gay art 
at the vatican.”—QUEERTY 

http://www.queerty.com/for-a-homophobic-place-theres-a-lot-of-gay-art-at-the-vatican-20130731/
____________________

Visiting the Vatican—
my dears, can be such
a thrilling gay Fling!!!

Lovely Lotte Lenya—
Contessa Magda Terribili-Gonzales
takes Vivien Leigh (Karen Stone)

On a quickie tour—
of the scandalous Vatican
with all those simply

Shocking male nudes—
up there on the ceiling
of the Sistine Chapel

While all the women—
come and go politely
clucking of Michelangelo