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'I meet Woodlawn at her apartment in West Hollywood, Los Angeles' gay village or ghetto, on a sweltering hot day. In a few weeks she'll be in the UK to promote an exhibition of paintings of herself by the British artist Sadie Lee, showing her in a less glamorous guise than usual. "I said, 'Why don't you paint me as everyday me for a change, instead of all peaches and cream?'" she says.
'As we sit on her balcony talking, we're favoured with an ambient soundtrack that, appropriately, seems more redolent of Manhattan than of sleepy California: a fire nearby means that we're constantly interrupted by screaming sirens. "All right, already," howls Woodlawn. "Find the fucking fire and shut up. I swear, West Hollywood is breeding pyromaniacs today."
'The Holly Woodlawn of 2007 is a far cry from the sweet-voiced cross-dresser who made her first splash in the film Trash in 1970, fake-masturbating with a Miller beer bottle to considerable acclaim. Back then - during what we must inevitably call her 15 minutes of fame - she was one of the many drag queens and hustlers at the lower end of the Warhol social scene, congregating around his Factory studio and at hangouts like the bar Max's Kansas City. "The mole people," Factory manager Billy Name called them. "The amphetamine people." At the other end were the rich, famous and powerful: Jim Morrison, Yoko Ono, Janis Joplin, author George Plimpton.
'The 61-year-old man who answers the door today is out of drag, bent and frail, though indefatigably cheerful, using a Zimmer frame because of various slowly fusing discs in his spine that, he says, are unimaginably painful and incurable. "Oh no, this is IT, honey, downhill all the way from here on!"
'He rises at six; by 11 his painkillers have slurred his speech a little and fogged his memory. The outrageous spark is still there and the stories are as funny as ever, but delivered with a weariness and frustration he blames on the pills. I play nursemaid a little, fetching coffee and cigarettes from the nearby market, and getting the phone for him when it rings, treading carefully around his untidy, sparsely furnished apartment, with its bed and carpets covered in fag ash, and its one shrine-like photo of Andy, Candy, Holly and others in its most visible corner.
'I ask him about his alter ego, the boy born Haroldo Santiago Franceschi Rodriguez Danhakl. "I don't even know who he was," he says. "When I was younger, I was extremely shy and living in what's now Miami Beach. My father had a nice job. I guess we were middle income. I had good schools. I just was unhappy because I didn't know who I was. I didn't associate with the other kids in school, the suburban-minded ones. Plus I came out very young. I was raised in Puerto Rico for the first few years of my life, where the culture is more Caribbean. Everyone's naked, it's hotter, you come out earlier. I was having sex when I was seven and eight in the bushes with my uncles and cousins - of course, they were only 11 or 12 themselves. I was raised in a house full of women and my uncle was gay. We lived in a little tiny town, so those were my role models. Then Miami Beach. All the Cubans arrived after Castro took over, and that's where I really came out, on 21st Street in Miami Beach."
'The same month that Woodlawn hitchhiked north, July 1962, Warhol had his first major art show not 10 blocks from where we're talking, at Irving Blum's Ferus Gallery. Although the Campbell's Soup paintings didn't sell well at the time, Warhol had arrived. The night the show closed, Marilyn Monroe died three miles away in Brentwood, causing Warhol to work a poster image of her from the 1953 movie Niagara into his famous Marilyn screenprints - which in time turned him into, in the words of the American critic Wayne Koestenbaum, "our greatest philosopher of stardom".
'To some extent, Woodlawn was a product - or an exemplar - of his ideas. Although she didn't become a full-fledged Factory insider until 1969, she was very much on the same scene. She'd decided against the sex-change by this point, though: "Honey, once they cut it off, it's OFF!" And she didn't get to know Lou Reed until after A Walk on the Wild Side came out, but nonetheless saw many early shows by the Velvet Underground and Nico.
'"I was just one of the audience," he says. "I used to go to the Exploding Plastic Inevitable at the Dome, with all that colour and insanity, with Gerard Malanga [Warhol's assistant] brandishing a whip and Mary Woronov from Chelsea Girls dancing. So I was very happy when I gradually became a Warhol superstar. I felt like Elizabeth Taylor! Little did I realise that not only would there be no money, but that your star would flicker for two seconds and that was it. But it was worth it, the drugs, the parties, it was fabulous. You live in a hovel, walk up five flights, scraping the rent. And then at night you go to Max's Kansas City where Mick Jagger and Fellini and everyone's there in the back room. And when you walked in that room, you were a STAR!"
'Trash, a film improvised and shot in 1969 in the basement apartment of its director, Warhol's manager Paul Morrissey, was the nearest Woodlawn came to broader fame. A kindly, soothing presence on screen, Woodlawn certainly had acting ability: her horny, drug-happy character is the film's highlight. "That beer bottle scene is to my career what eating dogshit was for Divine in Pink Flamingos!" The gay director George Cukor is said to have tried to get Woodlawn nominated for an Academy award, but the issue floundered, perhaps predictably, on whether Woodlawn belonged in the Best Supporting Actor or Actress category.
'Since then, Woodlawn has published her autobiography - the toothsome and scandalous A Low Life in High Heels - and made a cult career in drag. Although based in New York until a couple of years after Warhol died in 1987, Woodlawn has lived on the west coast ever since. And she'll be in London shortly. "It's all blossomed into this week of Holly Woodlawn. I'll be busy every day, at parties and shows. Who knows? Hopefully I'll come home with a whole bra-full of money!"'-- The Guardian
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Stills
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Further
Bring Holly Woodlawn Home
Holly Woodlawn Website
Holly Woodlawn @ imdB
Holly Woodlawn @ warholstars.org
Holly Woodlawn @ Facebook
Book: 'A Low Life in High Heels: The Holly Woodlawn Story'
'warhol superstar holly woodlawn came from miami, fla...'
'TRASHING 'TRASH' WITH HOLLY WOODLAWN'
HW interviewed @ Powder Zine
Holly Woodlawn @ mubi
'Trash' re-reviewed @ Slant Magazine
Podcast: 'A Low Life in High Heels, part 1'
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Sings, etc.
Holly Woodlawn sings, "You Can't Be Friends with Me"
Holly Woodlawn - "Do Re Mi" from The Sound of Music - production number
Holly Woodlawn in Berlin
Holly Woodlawn sings, "La Salsa Gucci Frita"
Holly Woodlawn "Walk Right Up To Him"
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Talks, etc.
Holly Woodlawn Interview
Holly Woodlawn "Low Life in High Heels" Stephen Holt Show -Xmas '91
Holly Woodlawn Nervous Breakdown on the Set
Holly Woodlawn & Jackie Curtis Party 1970 (Holly passes out!)
Holly Woodlawn vs. Madonna
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Interview
from Bright Lights Film Journal
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Holly Woodlawn: Gary, I’m smoking a cigarette and having a glass of wine and watching Sabrina. So the rest of the world will know I don’t have emphysema. My lungs — god only knows what color they are. And my liver? Forget it. I don’t think I even have one anymore. I’m 57. I’m a kreplach. That’s Jewish for, you know, you’re an old douche bag! My face is still flawless. You know why? Because I hang upside down, from my bed.
I have a wonderful apartment in West Hollywood with a little balcony so I can scream “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina!” I have my dog — a little tarantula. A Chihuahua-terrier mix. She looks like a tarantula. She’s black. Colored. But I digress. When I first heard about The Color Purple, I thought they meant “The Colored People” — my biggest faux pas. I will never live that one down. Oprah, forgive me!
I picked the name Holly from Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. And then my friends were up on speed one night and I had met Andy Warhol at a party, and he said what’s your name, and I said Holly, and I didn’t have a last name. So we went home that night and we were watching Lucille Ball in I Love Lucy where she had this thing, this trophy, stuck on her head. And it said Woodlawn Cemetery. So my friends and I decided on Holly Woodlawn, and I would be the heiress to the Woodlawn Cemetery fortune!
I was at Max’s Kansas City, and Fred Hughes came up to me and said Paul Morrissey is doing a movie and he wants you to call him. I called him up and Paul said, I’m doing a movie with Joe Dallesandro, are you going to be available on Saturday? And I said sure! I’m going to be a movie star! Lana Turner. Elizabeth Taylor. Cleopatra! And I showed up and he said, You play this trash person, you pick up trash. And you’re supporting this junkie. I said gee, that’s a stretch. I don’t know if I can do it! So I showed up with my boyfriend, little Johnny, who I shot up in the movie. When I went to the set, which was Paul Morrissey’s basement, I was terrified. I had never been on screen. But I knew that I was the next Elizabeth Taylor.
When I saw Joe Dallesandro, so fucking gorgeous. I said, Johnny, get outta here. Go buy something! I was at the Cannes Film Festival with Joe. He’s still such a gentleman. He’s like Greta Garbo, he wants to be alone, but if you call him up, he’ll speak to you. He’s like me — shut her up! He’s a guy’s guy — he likes to hang out and watch ball games and drink beer and smoke cigarettes. He’s very bisexual. That’s why he’s such a gentleman. He’s got a very soft side, he loves giving, and hanging out.
That was not a Coke bottle, it was a beer bottle! I would have preferred Dr. Pepper.
George Cukor wanted to nominate me for an Academy Award. And all these people signed a petition — Paula Prentiss and her husband, Richard Benjamin, Robert De Niro. They didn’t know what category to put me in. They had no clue. Is this a man being a woman, or a woman being a man? I preferred Best Actor in a Supporting Role. Actor — because I didn’t have a pussy. So I’m an actor. I still don’t have a pussy. It [the operation] hurts too much!
As far as pioneer is concerned, I don’t know. I did what I had to do because I had to do it! If you can make sense of that. When I was a kid, I didn’t know what I wanted to be, but I knew what I had to be. When I was 16 years old, living in Brooklyn with this guy who wanted me to have a sex change, I thought that was what I wanted. We had the money, and I was at Johns Hopkins Hospital and they said I had to wait a year, so I said honey, I’ve been living as a woman for the past eight years — don’t tell me! So I took the money and I went shopping. My boyfriend was very disappointed. I blew $3,500 at Saks Fifth Avenue. Fabulous gowns but no pussy! Once you cut it off, it’s off. I like me having a hard-on. I love having sex. I like what I have.
I’m going to make a complete idiot of myself. Heklina said I could just stand up there and blow kisses. The hell with that. I plan to do an entire concert. I plan to do “Hello San Francisco.” Then I’m going to do songs that nobody ever fucking heard in their life. Like “Princess Poopooly Has Plenty Papayas.” Yes, I’m going to take you around the world. And I’m going to sing a little French song called “Once Upon a Summertime.” That’s the only ballad. It’s a pretty song. It’s going to be Marlena, Barbra, Bette, Beulah, Mona, Lola, and Falana! And Holly. All the girls.
My future? Gary, don’t laugh. I have a dream. My dream is to open up a bed and breakfast in of all places the Pacific Islands, Pago-Pago or somewhere, and have everybody just run around half naked, in grass skirts, run amok with no clothes. I’ll call it Holly’s Whorehouse. And I will feed them, and make sure they have a bed, or a straw mattress to sleep on and fuck on. I just wanna watch!
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14 of Holly Woodlawn's 23 films
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Paul Morrissey Trash (1970)
'The wonderfully tawdry ‘plot’ of Trash sees Holly Woodlawn playing long-suffering girlfriend to super-hunk Joe Dallesandro. They live in a grubby cellar on the Lower East Side: Holly sustains them by selling garbage she finds in and around the local streets. Alas, Joe can rarely satisfy her rampant lust due to impotence caused by his heroin addiction. In one particularly memorable scene, Holly gets ‘intimate’ with a beer bottle, after Joe yet again fails to get a stiffy. Despite having no formal drama training, she dazzles with an improvised performance throughout the film. So much so, in fact, that the prominent Hollywood director George Cukor petitioned the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for Holly to be nominated for an Academy Award. Unfortunately, there was no category into which a man playing a female role could be slotted. Furthermore, Holly was unable to attend the film’s glitzy premiere, as she was in prison at the time, banged-up for embezzling money from the bank account of the wife of the United Nations’ French Ambassador!' -- Ponystep
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Gene Ayres Bad Marien's Last Year (1971)
'Andy Warhol superstar Holly Woodlawn teams up with jazz superstar Asha Puthli for a weekend romp in the Hamptons, in which they play two angels rescuing a bored, wayward heiress from herself. Holly and Asha, two tacky fur angels crawl out of the sea in Southhampton in order to rescue a fallen angel, Gillian, who is boreda with life and has taken to taking up with strangers (Frederick). They hang out in her rich daddy's beach house, get even more bored together, until finally after a dinner party for their also bored friend Dominick, Holly and Asha take Gillian away to Neverland. It's all for the best.'-- collaged
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Paul Morrissey Women in Revolt (1971)
'The film went through various name changes. Documents found in Andy Warhol's Time Capsule No. 40 indicate almost 80 possible names including Pearls Before Swine, Make Date and Andy Warhol's Earthwomen. On June 25, 1971, a payment of $1,000 was made by Warhol's company for the rights to use a song titled Give Me the Man in a film titled Sisters, apparently another name for Women in Revolt. Paul Morrissey was filming Heat in Los Angeles when this payment was made, while Warhol stayed in New York. On July 22, 1971 Variety reported that the film was ready for release - now titled Sex, the same name that was used when it premiered at the first Los Angeles Filmex film festival in November 1971. However, when it later opened on December 17, 1971 at the Cinema Theater in Los Angeles, it was called Andy Warhol's Women. It was first shown in New York on February 16, 1972 at the Cine Malibu which Warhol had rented because no distributor was interested in taking the film. In 1978, author Patrick S. Smith separately interviewed Holly Woodlawn and Jackie Curtis for a book he was writing on Warhol's art and films. Jackie said that it took two and a half years to make Women in Revolt whereas Holly told Smith that it took approximately a year to film with "about three weeks of filming days," but "months in between."'-- warholstars.org
Excerpt
Deleted scene
Holly Woodlawn talks about WOMEN IN REVOLT
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Dallas Broken Goddess (1973)
'Broken Goddess is a revival of silent cinema - silent in that there are no spoken words; rather the story is told in title cards drawn from the lyrics of Laura Nyro's songs against a soundtrack of Debussy's music. The project was conceived around a then-fledgling starlet named Better Midler. And it would have worked. But one night while I was photographing Tally Brown's act at the Continental Baths, a strange thing happened. Tally introduced me to her then co-star in a film Scarecrow in a Garden of Cuncumbers (which willl be forever remembered if only for the fact that its title song was performed by Bette Midler and there was a fleeting cameo by Lily Tomlin as a telphone operator) - one Holly Woodlawn. La Woodlawn, you will remember, was riding high on the smashing success of Warhol's Trash [directed by Paul Morrissey] and an unprecendented write-in ballot to secure this new film personality an Oscar nomination. We had all seen that bizarre snaggled-toothed creature's poignant performance. And when the thundering applause that night subsided, the number one Warhol star of then and now rose in the presence of a shy, curly haired boy in farmer overalls. I, like everyone else present that night, was floored. The flash was instant. I would turn Holly Woodlawn into a silent film siren - the new Gloria Swanson/Theda Bara.'-- Dallas
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Jeffrey Arsenault & Matthew Patrick Night Owl (1993)
'This odd, independently produced horror film features performances by Warhol-era legend Holly Woodlawn and the versatile performer John Leguizamo. In the story, the handsome young man (James Raftery) who picks up women at a disreputable neighborhood bar is a real lady-killer; in fact, he's a vampire. When his sister doesn't come home one day, Angel (Leguizamo) tries to find out why. Meanwhile, the vampire is having a love relationship with a young woman he would rather not kill.'-- collaged
Excerpt
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Tommy O’Haver Billy’s Hollywood Screen Kiss (1998)
'Director O’Haver tries to flesh out his otherwise lightweight story with numerous subplots and familiar queer icons. Paul Bartel weighs in as a jolly, sinister underwear photographer, and the glorious Holly Woodlawn is wasted in a party scene where for some unknown reason we barely see her face. There’s a sexy but annoyingly stereotyped Latin hunk named Fernando, no doubt inspired, to use the filmmakers’ analogy, by Fernando Lamas or Ricardo Montalban in any number of 1950sMGM tropical melodramas. And while Sean P. Hayes and especially Brad Rowe are easy on the eyes, the film’s inability to breathe life into them beyond the snappy dialogue and campy narrative intrusions eventually capsizes the film. Using Sandra Dee and Doris Day comedies as blueprints for a 1998 comedy can be diverting but has one fatal drawback; you may end up with characters as foolish and forgettable as they were.'-- Bright Lights Film Journal
Trailer
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Michael Polish Twin Falls Idaho (1999)
'Although Michael Polish is credited as the sole director here, it's fairly obvious that he made this picture in tandem with his identical twin, Mark Polish. The two, in fact, play a pair of reclusive conjoined (or so-called "Siamese") twins, renting a room in a shabby hotel as they try to track down the birth mother who abandoned them years earlier. They soon befriend a young prostitute who starts falling for the healthier of the two brothers (played by Mark, who does most of the heavy actor lifting in the film), even as the sicklier brother (Michael) grows more and more ill. (The oddball cast, from cult icon Holly Woodlawn to once-famous leading lady Lesley Ann Warren to long-forgotten Saturday Night Live alumnus Garrett Morris, suggests that either the Polishes were having a laugh or simply desperate to increase their low-budget film's marketability with a handful of recognizable names.) A tender spin on sibling responsibility, Twin Falls Idaho is what all American indies should aspire to be: original, well-crafted, sophisticated, and heartfelt.'-- Cassava Films
Excerpt
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Allan Mindel Milwaukee, Minnesota (2003)
'Having lived his entire life under the watchful eye of his overbearing mother, Albert must fend for himself when an unidentified automobile suddenly kills her. Free for the first time, Albert quickly responds to the bait dangling in front of him, putting his aggressors against one another in a race for his trust. Using his skills that make him a gifted fisherman, Albert turns the tables on his seemingly doomed fate, capturing the heart of the woman most eager to deceive him, and fooling the man most intent on destroying him.'-- imdB
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Robert Feinberg Heaven Wants Out (2009)
'Once a hot spot, the Bowery Follies Cabaret is now just another broken down New York City nightclub populated with the last vestiges of vaudeville entertainers, misfits and a headliner known as Heaven. She, like the club, has been there too long. In a drunken reverie, she wanders through the lives of the men who watch her sing night after night, looking for love ...trying to make sense of how she got there in the first place, hoping, for a ticket out. The film stars a bevy of Warhol Superstars including Holly Woodlawn, Mary Woronov, Ondine, and photographer Francesco Scavullo.'-- collaged
Documentary about the finishing of the film 'Heaven Wants Out'
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Joshua Leonard The Lie (2011)
'When they first met, Lonnie and Clover were young idealists, but an unplanned baby forced them to flip the script. Lonnie put his music on hold and got a shitty job. And now Clover is abandoning her activism for an “opportunity” in the corporate world. Drowning in disappointments, Lonnie decides he needs some time off work to reexamine his life. He calls in sick, but his abusive boss demands he sh…ow up or get fired. Lonnie panics and tells a shocking lie to justify his absence – and once the lie is out, there’s no going back. Now, it’s only a matter of time before the grenade he’s thrown on his life explodes and Lonnie is suddenly pushed to figure out who he is, what he wants, and just maybe, what it means to be a father.'-- collaged
Trailer
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Richard Carroll The Ghosts of Los Angeles (2011)
'A series of monologues written by Godfrey Hamilton. The overlooked and forgotten souls consider missed opportunities and what might have been. Holly Woodlawn plays herself.'-- Carroll Film
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Trailer
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Gary LeGault East of the Tar Pits (2012)
'Two months ago, I ran a post about a movie I'd seen on DVD—Gary Legault's East of the Tarpits, starring drag icon Holly Woodlawn as a chanteuse who worships Streisand—and was outraged that in all its fruity glory, the film had been rejected by every single film festival in the world. I mean it's an "intoxicatingly funny Douglas Sirk-ian campathon" and there were no takers, not even at Cannes, which will show anything, even that Norah Jones flick! Well, someone from the illustrious New York Underground Film Festival read that item and instantly booked the kitchen-sink comedy for tonight at 1030pm at Anthology Film Archives (32 Second Avenue). They're promoting it so heavily they've even gotten someone very special to introduce it onstage—the same person who said it's an "intoxicatingly etc etc." You're reading him! See you there!'-- Michael Musto
Excerpt
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Zachary Drucker She Gone Rogue (2012)
'“Darling” (played by Zackary Drucker) attempts to visit her “Auntie Holly” but instead falls down a rabbit hole, encountering trans-feminine archetypes (legendary performers Holly Woodlawn, Vaginal Davis, and Flawless Sabrina) who are in turn confounding, nebulous, complicated and contradictory. Engaging a world of dream-like magical realism, SHE GONE ROGUE references Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon, utilizing a space where singular selves multiply and expand, offering windows into parallel dimensions, with time and space collapsing into a whirlpool of divergent possibilities. When Drucker finally finds the white rabbit, the process of identity construction completes a full circle, offering more questions than answers.'-- ZD
Titles
Excerpt
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Adam Dugas & Casey Spooner Dust (2012)
'“I have a spa fetish, and this scene is based on a honey treatment I did at Liquidrom, an amazing coed naked spa in Berlin,” gushes Casey Spooner of today’s clip of Dust, the feature-length that he wrote and directed with his creative and romantic partner of 13 years, Adam Dugas. Spooner, frontman for electro-pop duo Fischerspooner, and Dugas, co-founder of performance troupe The Citizens Band, envisioned their debut film as a Skype-age re-telling of Chekov’s Three Sisters, with cohabiting dysfunctional siblings colluding and colliding as they wrestle with their individual dramas. The cast includes Ssion’s Cody Critcheloe, artist and photographer Jaimie Warren, and fashion designer Peggy Noland, plus Warhol superstar Holly Woodlawn as the family matriarch. “In the tradition of early John Waters and the films Warhol made at the Factory with Paul Morrissey, Dust defines its own era by reveling in and rolling around in the 21st century’s sadness, audacity and flashpoint laugh-out-loud directness,” says R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe, who produced the tragi-comic collaborative effort.'-- Nowness
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Trailer #2
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p.s. Hey. The unspeakably great Holly Woodlawn, subject of today's homage and fest, is very ill in hospital and in serious financial straits. Her friend and fellow performer Penny Arcade has set up a Go Fund Me campaign to raise money in order to bring her home, cover her nursing care, and, if it comes to that, to pay for her funeral expenses. If you're in a position to help, or if you're in a position to alert people to the fundraiser, please do. It's here. Thank you. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. Yeah, as Steevee said, everything I've read has said the film is doing surprisingly well at the box office, but I don't know. It just opened here, and I'm excited to see it. Excellent news about the Greenaway! I'll view it at the soonest opportunity. Thanks! ** H, I think you might find Metcalf really interesting, but see what you think. He's a singular writer, no one like him, and his work is very sorely underrated to my mind. The new Amy Gerstner book is fantastic! Yes, she's one of my oldest, dearest friends. We met in college where we were fellow aspiring young poets. And I published her first book, 'Yonder', with my Little Caesar Press a million years ago. ** Tosh Berman, Thank you, Tosh! ** Sypha, Hi, James. What's the status of that possible graphic novel project you were being solicited about? Well, that mainstream pop stuff plus the French equivalent is all the radio plays over here too, so that's no excuse, ha ha. That's very interesting about the circumstances, influences, and your reflections re: 'Subhuman'. Maybe in the future it will begin to strike you as a cool period piece, and maybe that period/mindset will be of inherent interest to readers too. Me, I'm already interested. Congrats on finishing the novella and on its acceptance! Man, you just finished a novella. Time to give yourself a short time to refuel and regroup, no? I know you enough to know you'll be headlong into a new project ere very long. ** Chilly Jay Chill, Hi, Jeff. Thanks. Yeah, the continual avalanche these days of theoretically must read books makes it very hard to keep up. I'm trying. What an absolutely incredible time for American lit. I'm so ongoing-ly amazed. I remember thinking Opal was only okay, but I haven't tried them in ages, and now I'm intrigued to find out. Best of the best! ** Steevee, Hi. I'm not finding the Dr. Yen Lo to be overly Wu-Tang-y, but it's a collaboration, so maybe that's it? Or else it is too WTC, and I'm just not minding? Curious to hear your thoughts. ** Thomas Moronic, Hi, T. Yeah, have a blast! No, still didn't hit PdT. Just looking for the right moment. Today was a possibility, but Zac and I have just been urged to make a trailer for our film asap, which we've been meaning to do for a while, so we'll be buckling down making that all day, I suspect. News on the PdT show as soon as it's in my memory bank. You do need that Gerstler book, I so agree. ** _Black_Acrylic, Yeah, isn't it? ** Kyler, Hi. Glad you liked the Gerstler poem. She's the best. Hm, potentially interesting, the Valli thing, I see. Anything can become anything, god knows. ** Bill, Hi. Such an excellent work! New Gary Lutz makes that Caketrain a must-get. Not to mention the others you mentioned. I read somewhere back a ways about a new, forthcoming Gary Lutz book that will be something like his writer lexicon or something? I can't remember exactly. It made me very excited. I wonder what's happened to it. Anyway, thanks, I'll get that. ** Cal Graves, Hi, Cal! You won't be disappointed with the Amy Gerstler book, I swear. I've been good. Good-ish. Hot temperatures and a temporary back problem, both solved for the moment. Otherwise, good stuff. Ah, just your normal mall clothing store employment then. I'm glad it's easy at least. Does the mall have a nice food court? There's a new Gabby Bess book coming out this month, I think, and I'm very excited about that. Summer causes nothing to go on. It's the culprit. Blame it. It sucks. Fuck it. (I'm a summer grouch.) Giddy-ish-ly, Dennis. ** Douglas Payne, Hi, Douglas. Yes, she does! She is one of the truly greatest, sweetest, best people in the world, Amy is. Oh, sorry if I spaced about 'The Weaklings' interview. I do space out, it's bad. Yeah, we can do it mostly anytime you like. How and when do you want to do it? I'm game. The LACMA 'Ventriloquists Convention' gig got postponed due to, they say, funding issues in the performance department of LACMA, so I guess it'll happen there next year sometime. Sucks. ** Right. I hope you will enjoy my humble grouping of things to do with the legendary and precious and amazing Holly Woodlawn. I'll see you tomorrow.