Re selling Douglas pics to the e-/print tabloids, the demand had leveled off. They still paid okay, nothing like what they did in the six months after the Big C, but the $$$ was still okay, tho the prices had begun to drop the further the actor got in recovery. Still, they paid. The tabloids wanted a stockpile of the actor lookin good because the more shots they had of him lookin good, the bigger would be the fall (for their readers). They knew the fall would come — one way or another. They knew their readers (& non-readers too) were just waiting for a recurrence. How long had it been? A few years already? The actor was already overdue, it was time, he’d been cancerfree long enough, & their readership—public drama demanded a recurrence, only one that wouldn’t be so easy to be licked, Patrick Swayze-style, & one where he wouldn’t be able to keep his hair… public drama demanded a recurrence that maybe ended in a Roger Ebert-style mutilation. Jesus… if Douglas lost the whole lower jaw, whoever got that 1st photo of Catherine OBE holding a stained scarf over the missing bottom of his face — Jesus, that was probably worth $5 mill.
. . . . . Jerzy got another tweet from one of his twats saying Mary Murphy was there, at a different table. Jerzy never saw So You Think You Can Dance but knew that her thyroid cancer had supposedly been successfully ZAPPED. . . . . Jerzy still held to his personal axiom that whenever a celeb declared themselves cancer-free, the devil woke from his nap——
Sur, on Robertson. .
Big Sur, yessur.
Creeperazzi crowding & papsmearing the sidewalk.
“Paparazzi”—dumb word from another era, La Dolce Vita word, era of Cinemascopic glamour and arclights strafing Hollywood premiere nights, era of MGM oldschool grandeur/oldschool restraint (era before the internet), era before they sawed off Zsa Zsa’s feet, era before Liz became a rouged-up, roughed-up canteloupehead, era before a stoned nurse tamped his cock into Mickey Rooney’s cracklipped hundred-year-old mouth for webcam kicks. Reagan was still chopping wood for chrissake. . but time & TMZ wait for no man… & they’re very young, these jeepers-creepersazzi Jerzy uses — they’re, like, lone wolves with ADD, tense & smelly & fuckin crazy, with their SUPREME t-shirts, $500 hightops & threadbare vintage American Apparel——now, one of em who’s standing in front of Sur sees something — someone deliberately stepping out of a car down the street, seemingly to avoid the——RachelBilson RachelWeisz RachelMcAdams? LisaEdelstein LisaRinna LisaD’Amato? RyanGosling RyanReynolds RyanSheckler? AshleeSimpson (AshleeWentz) AshleyGreene AshleyTisdale Ashley——?—& one of the lone wolf creepers tears across the street, sweaty relay runner solitaire, infernal Olympiad….
Jerzy stands outside the restaurant. . in the world of creepers but not of it. Oxycodone-dreaming of being interviewed in Interview by Richard Prince: RICHARD PRINCE Talks To Art World’s Latest Bad Boy Genius, Papsmearanarchist SQUEEGEE/JERZY SHORES. But until then, to make the rent, he needs something tweet & potatoes, needs to start building up his photo archive for reasons of Gagosianocity. And if along the way he so happens to score some of that happy accident poon for Harry Middleton’s Private Stock Vineyard, well that would just be icing on Elle’s or whomever’s cupcakes, a big payday no doubt, Harry said he’d pay a premium, Jesus, might be high as fifteen-thou for a Hailee or a Chloë or a Kendall, but it’s very hit and miss, that kind of work. Jerzy knew enough to know you could never chase that kind of honeyshot! — you had to let them happen.
He didn’t talk about it with Harry, or really much with anyone, but he considered his specialization, that true calling, to be the sick celeb (that’s why Mr. Douglas à table @ Sur got his attention). He loved the moment that came weeks — or, if he was fortunate enough, days, or even hours — before death, when, with sniper’s telephoto viewfinder, he caught their eye. The moment they looked back. When Harry spoke of his own epiphany — that private moment shared with Emma Watson — tho the content was dissimilar, that was when Jerzy knew him to be a kindred spirit. Maybe the two Moments weren’t so different; maybe they were really just the same. In the wee, wee hours, when he was very stoned, Jerzy would google recent celebrity deaths [“About 90,100,000 results (0.06 seconds)”], clicking from site to site, scanning the ebituaries of the month & those from years gone by. He read with nostalgia, for some he’d captured & been paid a bounty for; most were lost for all Eternity, residing in honeyshot! Heaven. He usually checked www.deathlist.net/; last night, Kirk Douglas was #5 on the Top 50 of those most likely to expire.
The list comprises celebrities thought most likely to pass away during 2012. Candidates must be famous in their own right such that their death is expected to be reported by the media, however candidates cannot be famous purely for the fact they are likely to expire shortly. DeathList 2011 was a big disappointment, chalking up its lowest score for over a decade, but, with the performance in the latter half of the year, surely there are signs that the dry season is behind us.
That strange & special moment…
The beauty of his Moment with Farrah still haunted him.
For weeks, the vulturazzi camped outside her pre-cadaverous home. She was returning to St John’s in the morning, & (somehow) slipped out without being noticed. The night before checking into the hospital she would spend at her hairdresser’s, an old & dear friend. But Jerzy got a tip. (It wound up costing him $10,000, but was worth it.) He stayed up all night in the SUV, smoking crack & waiting. At 9AM, beyond the modest hedge of the modest house, there was a commotion at the front door: Farrah & 3 others. He readied himself to leave his truck. The others were already climbing into the station wagon that was in the drive. . suddenly, without warning, Farrah walked into the street. What was she doing? Jerzy was thrown off-guard. One of the group paused beside the car & called out to Farrah; from the tone of it, he wasn’t very happy. It wasn’t Ryan O’Neal. . but what was she doing? She looked — well—lovely—or — well — there were aspects of loveliness, easily reminding of the youth & great beauty that once was. She wore jogging pants — the hair of course was perfectly done up by her friend — and was leaning down at the curb. . to pick up a blue-wrappered New York Times from the gutter.
She looked all around her, as if seeing the world for the first time & knowing it would be the last, that she wouldn’t be returning from her morning trip to St John’s. Jerzy had tried a thousand times to remember those seconds during & after he sprung from the car with his camera. From the seconds he’d been watching her pick up the paper to the instant he found himself in front of her, only 5 or 6 feet between them. But he couldn’t — it was like a black-out. It was as if he had been teleported before her just so that he could look in her eyes. She startled for a moment, her instincts not knowing if he was an assailant — friend or foe — but when she saw his camera, she unmistakably Farrah-smiled, there was relief, not foe but friend, he was part of her tribe. He began to shoot her, & she was gracious enough to give him the shot — like a kiss — he recalled that after 30 seconds or so she said, “Is that enough? Do you have enough?” Then she said, “I’m tired,” but he kept shooting. And that was when it happened: every showbiz cell in her body bade her smile, graciously and valiantly, even during a rape such as this, & at the very end the swimsuitfamous smile collapsed into the tender rictus belonging to one already launched into oncoming oblivion. She fought it from happening, but sheer weakness of flesh, not of mind or of spirit or of heart, betrayed — that axiom of teeth & lips, timeless equation of Americana/girl-next-door majesty which had rallied (not just by decades-old celebrity reflex, but by impulse of simple humanity, & pretty girl/neighborhood sweetness) to hold in place (for him, for Jerzy) the curbside illusion of an icon still vibrant (which Jerzy in these seconds had believed, it had worked on him until now, until this very Moment) crashed into the grimace in a rotten death’s head.