Six o’clock already
I was just in the middle of a dream
I was kissin’ Valentino
By a crystal blue Italian stream
– The Bangles (written by Prince)
De Longpre Park boasts two gorgeous statues of Rudolph Valentino, one of which reads:
Presented by his friends and admirers from every walk of life — in all parts of the world, in appreciation of the happiness brought to them by his cinema portrayals.
I do find serenity and solace in this park. And the Valentino sculptures calm and soothe me. Unfortunately, the only knowledge I really have of The Sheik is from Ken Russell’s frustrating biopic starring Rudolph Nureyev. Still, his mystique isn’t lost with me. Valentino in many ways is the apotheosis of old Hollywood legend, once being worshiped on the level of God and dying prematurely, creating an all day riot amongst an estimated 100,000 hysterical mourners. He personifies movies as religion to me, both in a good way and bad. Pictures and posters give me a hint of his brooding sexuality, but his legacy is amazing proof of what movie stars did and still do to the collective populace. We fantasize about them in ways we may never tell and long, sometimes desperately, to coexist with them in real life and even on screen. It’s sick, right? I mean, has it ever really been healthy for us? It’s just all so illusory.
Let’s get personal. I would love to French kiss Brad Pitt and roll around naked with him. Who wouldn’t? But when I saw him strolling through Prospect Park years ago while taking a break from filming Meet Joe Black at the Park Slope Armory, I found him decidedly unattractive…and he was even wearing that tux he wears in the flick! “Skinny and pimply” is what I wrote in my journal that day. And yet I’m so bombarded with his image I can’t help but desire him. We’re a culture of envy, as Rupert Everett says. Well, at least I’m past wanting to be a movie star. At my age I’d better be past it! But it still calls to me from the distant horizon. Idolization, immortalization, sexual adoration, free designer clothes….
And I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t like to make love to a movie star. Even if it’s only on set.
Another heart throb of yesterday’s silver screen, whose place of murder I had to visit at 8965 Holloway (macabre, I know), is Sal Mineo. There’s a riveting new biography on him just out that helped me fill in the gaps for what I think is the most interesting part of his career: the late 60′s & early 70′s when his work both on stage and on screen was always envelope-pushing. He directed the LA premiere of Fortune & Men’s Eyes — a prison drama about male sexual brutality & hierarchy — and had the balls to write new scenes (much to the playwright’s consternation) that brought the off-stage sexual violence onto the stage, right in front of the audience. You go, girl! He then cast unknown, teenage Don Johnson in the “fresh meat” role and replaced the lead actor with himself to sell tickets. They were both naked onstage for the entire new rape-in-the-shower scene. You can check out the biography or Google for pics ;-)
After his break in Fortune & Men’s Eyes, Don Johnson went on to make one of my favorite movies of all time entitled The Magic Garden Of Stanley Sweetheart, which is sadly unavailable on video or DVD. Andy Warhol said it was the best representation of 60s Counterculture put on celluloid. Indeed, it is a searing portrait of the Bohemian sexploration experienced by that generation. Toward the end of the flick, Don’s character discovers everything and nothing about himself while shacking up with two college girls for what turns out to be much more than one night. Emerging from the extended orgy, one of the girls asks “What day is it? I’ve lost all sense of time….”
I remember having similar experiences in college, losing myself with others in an apartment for days on end. It was always a beautiful, bittersweet, wild diversion from life. Would I do it today if I could? One has to be in a certain state of mind to plunge into that kind of freedom. And very careful. So I experience it vicariously through Don Johnson as Stanley Sweetheart. Just as a previous generation watched Sal Mineo and an even earlier generation watched Rudolph Valentino to fulfill their need for existential excitement.
Under everyday rigors, such passionate abandon remains elusive, so we escape by watching others live it. Age old story, really. And we like to think these actors on the screen live it all the time. We love them and hate them for living our fantasies.
(Madonna’s Justify My Love video comes pretty close to what I would like to be living, at least from time to time: “Poor is the man whose pleasure depends on the permission of another.”)
So.
1) In a culture that allows us to watch others play out their fantasies, how do we reclaim our fantasies for ourselves? More specifically, how do we achieve our own sense of cosmic/sexual freedom?
2) How do we live within that kind of mutual abandon?
3) Is it reserved only for some kind of elite (like movie stars)?
4) Are sex parties the only answer?
Please advise.
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