Looking at the calmness of the eerie seascapes was sort of like looking at a chimp an hour before (or after) it tore off the zookeeper’s face. Maybe that was the artist’s point. The chimp was chill. It didn’t take a giant leap of the imagination for Jerzy to see his pix on the walls (his “abstract” snatcherazzo c-scapes hahahahaha) and that instantly made him feel better. Reputation did not precede him, but revelation would. He had already begun to comb thru his image bank — thousands of verité celeb pix taken over the last 5 years. He was looking at the little batch of honeyshot!s too, taken to date.
A soft alarm went off in his head: time to leave the gallery.
(Bad karma to overstay his welcome.)
He was just on his way, when canned-sounding laughter raucoused the air, growing echo-louder as it attached itself to the flurry of bodies walking thru the entrance. A white-haired man of sunny disposition & ruddy, play-doh features emerged from the back & strode briskly toward the entourage as it entered the main room. Jerzy had a Special Moment: it was the man himself: Larry G.
Larry around the Gagosian. Larry Gaga…
Jerzy instinctively rapid-shrunk into wallflowered loseraazzo invisibility as Gaga greeted Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, & a close-shaved middle-aged black in button down shirt & Mr. Freedom jeans. King Larry shook hands with Zeta-Jones, Douglas & the black but did not with the two who hover/dangled on the nervous periphery. (They of the Serfdom/Personal Assistant Class; they of the Disposable Intern fortunate enough in these times of financial hardship & gluttonous starfuckery not just to be employed {even if paid nothing or next to nothing} but lucky to be breathing the same fucking air as the celeb employers who rescued them from the shame of their go-nowhere lives; they of the Indentured Class who sign contracts forbidding them to disclose via lawsuit or memoir whatever lame, embittered, perceived perceptions of the famous hands that fed them they might claim to have conjured, enumerating said benefactors’ rudeness, frivolities, unsanitary habits, sexual quirks, unsolicited come-ons, sadistic vulgarity, et alia whilst in defamatory pursuit of financial gain or plain revenge by leakage to TMZ, the DMZ, the NAACP, Triple A or any other outlet including of course blogs & webloids, print tabloids & dying pub houses still trafficking in the hardbacks & paperbooks of yesteryear. They of the parasitical Tolerated Class who eat the chores & errands bacterium that colonize hourly around the mini-industry of any celeb: dry cleaning fetchery, stopped-up toilets, party e-vites, phone sheets, sending of flowers, packing of suitcases, ghost-twittering &tc. For accomplishing those very things, their congenital purposelessness is {amply} rewarded by being lent purpose & {more importantly} identity via the privilege of being allowed a priceless, special education wherein they may vicariously experience what it’s like to have an actual life, meaning one that is fuller, richer & more exciting—more lifelike—in every way than theirs could or ever will be.*
Jerzy, skulking in a corner, watched the sexily muzzled, panicked-obsequious intern-lice crawl upon the skin of whatever host they were grooming, now & again lifting covetous heads to pause in their feast of bacteria, to observe with gimlet eyes the skilled quadrille of the gallerist & his visitors, the easy chummy social network of the rich, famous & powerful; that certain way they have of being googoo gaga for each other, each anticipating the others’ emotional needs. Douglas said he was in town filming, adding that Catherine was shooting a Glee. (Gaga told them he & Shala were googoo for Glee.) From his post, Jerzy quickstudied Larry ’round the Gagosian as best he could, because one day he would be selling himself to the Man — to the impresario, ringleader & tastemaker, to the one-man Gagosian’s 11.
Ogling Douglas’ wife, who looked trampily deep into bipolar meds & high-end anti-aging crêmes, Jerzy thought: Now that is a hot fuck. He wondered if Douglas got his C by being wayback viral throatstroked by papilloma. . . seems like a person would have to go down on a boatload of broads to get the HPV in the gullet (well, do the math), if the actor scarfed half as much pussy as dimpled dad Kirk — King Leer, Kirk the lyin’ King — then he just might have qualified.
Gagosian twice cast an aware eye Jerzy’s way, which the speedballing ratsorizzorazzo took as his cue to exit. On the way out, he came within 5 ft of the entourage, both ships passing gas in the night.
“We want to show Antwone how to spend money,” said Douglas. “Cause I think he’s too close with a buck. Don’t you, Cat? Don’t you think Antwone’s too close with a buck? He’s not flashy enough. Fishburne & I are gunna take him under our wing & teach him how to be flashy. He’s gunna learn how to play with the big boys. We’re gunna show him how to spend, how to spend money & influence people.
“Cause it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that bling — right, Antwone?”
~ ~ ~
‘Treasure’ hunt ends
432PM PDT by Debi Rheng-Vatos
Douglas set for comedy
“The Treasure of Sierra Leone” locked its final principal lead in Antwone Fisher’s helming debut. Megastar Michael Douglas joins Will Smith, Sandra Bullock, Laurence Fishburne and Hailee Steinfeld in what Fisher calls his “black comedy.” Michael Tolkin penned, from an idea by Frederik “Biggie” Brainard III. Ishmael Beah consults. Ooh Baby Baby It’s A Wild World Films’ Brando Brainard produces. International sales are being handled by MGM/Paramount/Lion’s Gate. The story, taking place in 1995, centers on a con man who needs to raise money for his daughter’s heart surgery. He teaches an African American runaway how to impersonate a ‘lost boy’/child soldier from the Ivory Coast — they hit the lecture circuit and make a bundle. Things begin to go terribly wrong when an Oprah-like character enters the picture and insists on flying the boy back to his Ivory Coast home in order to reunite with friends. (The producers would not comment on the rumor that Oprah Winfrey has privately expressed interest in a “cameo” role, as herself.) Tolkin wrote Robert Altman’s The Player; his last novel was
The Return of the Player
Fisher’s recent credits are
Let’s Go To Work!
, a doc about the black entrepreneur Leon T. Garr, and the bestseller,
A Boy Should Know How to Tie a Tie: and Other Lessons for Succeeding in Life
(Simon & Schuster). Brainard recently produced the megahit
Turndown Service
, has just formed a television division, Just Upon A Smile TV.
Contact Debi Rheng-Vatos at debi.rheng-vatos@thehollywoodreporter.com
EXPLICIT [Rikki&Tom-Tom]
Call Me Ishmael*
*AKA Konyshots!