June 24, 2004
I wanting meaning to write. I narrate in my head and it gets way too overwhelming or sounds so goofy. I went to Cannes as a lot of ya’ll know. They kept me on a very tight leash, so I didn’t really do much asides press in Cannes, but they brought the party to me a lot. We were staying at the great hotel like an hour away, they really kept me away from trouble.
It was kinda perfect tho. It was Astor, Speedie, Thor and Martha and Vitale. Martha was someone I met when she emailed me and got to know on the Terminator grp and same with Vitale. She lives in France and we got to meet her in NY when Thistle played. Whenever anyone asks me bout putting my email address in my books, I am always incredulous that everyone doesn’t. Maybe its just coz I grew up in the punk world, were you could hang out with your heroes; there wasn’t this wall between someone that was into the music and the artist. That’s the way it should be. It does get hard to handle on a huge scale…. But I think having access without a wall to surmount is important. I mean after I read a book that moves me, I want to be able to say thank you, or just tell them what it meant to me, this book that was a part of my life for however long and will be continue to be … even if they don’t answer, I just need to express it. Anyways, I’ve got to have very close friends from the Terminator list… it is a family. We all stayed with a person in London that we met on the list. Anyways, we slept in the same room, one bathroom and mornings were a wacky rush, too many lady folks and one toilet...dang. At dinner the producers would bring all these folks from Cannes. The restaurant is very famous for coz all these artists traded art for food, so there are Picasso and Matisses. For me having amazing works of art in a dining room just does not work. When I come in I am too distracted, too HUNGRY to do anything else then say, “Very cool…can I order now?” And after I am usually too sick, I mean full to do anything but say, “fuck I ate way too much…yeah, cool Renoir. Where’s the gents at?” I had to make a special time to do my art appreciation, but it always made me hungry and I wondered how much food did these paintings get the artists? I related coz I do barter trades for my work all the time.
Anyways, there will be a whole page of photos in Interview Magazine, not the new issue, think the August issue. I did walk the red carpet for Shrek with Asia. Angelina Jolie was ahead of us. I felt like I was in an alternate universe. I was all dolled up in Costume National, I wore Asia’s grandfather’s hat, he was a cowboy, she gave it to me when I was with her in Italy. It is a treasure.
Here it now July 25th and its been near a month. I write this every day. Kai had a good suggestion for me. Don’t write a dang novel, just a few sentences… but I start and there is so much to say…
So much to keep myself from sayin. I just finished doing the liner noted for Bryan Adam’s new record. I did a story on Georgia Zaris and he shot it and she passed him my books and dug em… it’s a spoof. It’s funny coz him and me aint an easy connection ya know? The only ready thing is like guys in tights, ya know Robin Hood and his song from that film?
I done just got invited to write Nancy Sinatra’s bio for her new one on Morrissey’s label. I never reckoned I would see my name any wheres near the name Sinatra! Hope ya’ll got the new Morrissey, coz Lord that is one fuckin amazing cd. I cant stop listening to it. Well, we listen to some other stuff now and then, The Killers – like the CURE but taking it further, trickin out Interpol, which cops from Joy Division. First 3 or 4 songs on The Killers record are just the stuff of passion. Like that great piece Dave Eggers wrote in Spin bout his obsession with Big Country (a band I also felt very captured by), you are TRANSPORTED. I am not sure where to with The Killers. Maybe an 80’s England, even tho they are from Las Vegas… an 80’s of our making. Where we can be cheesy but fuckin rock. Keep those fuckin synths in their fuckin place, IN THE BACK, we got some bizness with our guitars still. Oh and this band called SMOOSH. Check em out. They are 10 and 12-year-old girls and they really really are swell! No shit. Thor has a crush on the 10-year-old drummer babe.
Let’s set the record straight some… like they say bout the truly suicidial, they don’t threaten, they just do it. If they are talkin bout it, they mostly aint really in the gonna really do it group. Just like them that really hang with the stars and are loaded. They don’t talk bout it, coz they are it. My life is not at all hangin with the bold face names… not outta any punk rock ethics, I just have a hard time with it. If I had money I would buy a house. I dream of that.
I am a fan ok? Just like some of y’all that wrote me, to say, really moving things you felt bout my work? Well, I feel that too bout other artists, just like you do. And I wanna share my work with them. And when they write me or call me, it is very exciting to me. Still. Sorry if that is uncool. And I wanna tell the world bout it coz it doesn’t feel real. It’s like if you walk down the street and see some celebrity, you usually tell someone. “Oh I saw Walter Conkrite rollerblading in the park!” I know its not cool, I should be blasé, play it off. “Oh, Madonna got me tickets to her show… yawn…” But I cant coz it is not an every day thing. I don’t live in Hollywood, I don’t go to parties, and I don’t spend a lotta time talkin to these folks on the phone either. I got books to write, they got records to make or movies or whatever… I am being heard by folks I really admire. And it is the same when I get an email from folks I don’t know. I just don’t know them to admire them yet. Debby Harry was in town and she just called to say hello. And that meant so much to me, coz when you are used to being so beyond invisible - to have someone whose work has leant a color to your own, so you can borrow their emotion that there is hope of being heard, being seen… for them to acknowledge you? For me that is still very moving. I don’t take it for granted. A reporter in an interview told me I was a bold face name and it made me laugh my ass off, coz that is very abstract. It is still me in dang sweatpants (and often a Gary Graham jacket when it is cold, that I will concede) with my bars of dark chocolate (that again is my developed past my pockets, palate on display) at my computer. Where is the glory? Coz I am ah’waiting!!! And I aint sayin this to show you I ain’t sold out. You show me where to sell out and if it gets me my house…. There are a lot of things I pass on… Ads for clothes I don’t like, scripts for books that suck, or stories I cannot find any redemption for. It would get me my house, but, well… even I have some limits I reckon. But like Robert Crumb talked about The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things in one of his strips and I got asked to send him signed books, am I suppose to be jaded and not be fuckin blown away by that? I reckon I do got a lot in common with Andy Warhol and that is cool as fuck to me… I always feel like the outsider, like I don’t fit in, like there has been a mistake when I do get invited somewhere, so there is that way I have to say look who said I am somebody, to kinda validate it. And I know that is lame. And it doesn’t work actually. Well, it kinda does. Sometimes it can be enough that I know Billy Corgan loves me, to get me through something. And it should be enough to have my family… but they are my family. And that I can even take them for granted is a step up. Fucked, but shows trust. But there is that element of, I don’t wanna belong to any club that would have me as member. I guess, this is all me sayin, look who has me as member. And I can’t tell Sarah any more… I cant tell my momma. That’s who I really want to tell and have her say, yeah, you are special. Me. Have her see me, and not just a mirror of disappointments. Know I remember why I don’t write this a lot. It is hard for me just to report. The stuff always feels so superfiscial, but then when I start to sink down, it gets painful… damned either way, but y’all are along for the journey aint ya? That y’all stayed… man I got an email from this gal, she’s workin with the publiscist that is doin Harold’s End. And she’s followed me since the Terminator days. And now we’re workin on this book together. Trippy how we get brought into each other’s lives aint it?
A lot of my days pass in this drawing together of moments that resemble functioning. I think I like doin the magazine writing and seeking out folks I admire, is it satisfies that addict in me that like immediate gratification. It is faster then a book. What I mean in, I finish some work and then… I am still alone with it. Its not like when we demo a song with Thistle LLC (yeah, we know use the LLC…) where we can do it pretty fast and ALL listen, send an MP3, have more folks all listen… writing is like watching a scab form, and then ya gotta rip if off once it gets hard and dig some dirt out and sit and watch it heal over again. Working on Harold’s End it like that. I wrote a new ending, fixed stuff. I look forward to the reading in Nov 12th. to hear it. I dig that, hearing it in from other folks, the cadence, the way they emphasis stuff, or not. I always learn so much. It keeps it alive, so it doesn’t reek of me. So it is not static…
The band is doin so much… we are playin a free show here in SF at a great club called SLIMS on Aug 2nd. Mattress was mixed and we are doin an EP. SO, there should be something out very soon. It is so very swell! God I love music. Beth Bactold’s been sellin Thistle shirts at the shows. They are very neato, they have a line from Enemy, “Trapped inside the outpost of the Enemy.” And then my name and Speedie and Astor and THISLTE LLC, all glittery red on black. You want one? $15 that includes shipping. Unless you are from overseas… then, $542. That is to cover shipping.
We will post pics of them soon. Tell me where you live at and we will figger then shippin.
Yeah so Harold’s End out in November, with a very limited number of prints by Cherry Hood for sale. The show with be Nov 12th at the Jeffrey Deitch Gallery 76 Grand St. THISTLE LLC will play, readings, and the paintings by Cherry from the book will be on display as well as other artists work that is inspired or related to my work. Tryin to say work stead of stuff. Or crap… I so love Cherry and her work. Or I love her work and her. We are doin other books, so get ready coz this is the start. Today is Gus’ birthday. I just sang to him.
I am workin on a video for the band Earlimart. Their new record is great, and we are doin a mini-film video it…
Yeah, so this has been posted but check out the new INTERVIEW mag, August issue with Beastie Boys on the cover. Second to last pages is a photo spread thing called JT’s Cannes Diary. Ever time I see it makes me want a hot croissant. Oh man… like now.
I gotta write a special thank you for my assistant Nancy Murdock for workin her ass off to keep me, well I cant say on top of anything, but so my heels are still in the stirrups.. she slows the horse for me to so I ain’t dragged to badly. She is workin hard on the new book. Nancy… oh Nancy. You knocked me up too…
Now about that film… look, I like my taste. I trust my taste. To be very very honest with you, if I thought this film, The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, blew.. ya know what? I would move way like my foster parents trained me to do when someone passed wind. There aint nuthin I signed, no extra dollahs I will clock, no reason for me to take the back of this film, cept for that IT IS A GREAT FILM. I love Asia, but if she made a crap film… ya know what? I love ya, but I cant fight for something that goes against every cell of my being. This guy who is the editor at Film Comment, Chris Chang, he just saw the film and he loved it. He is very very picky. As is my agent. He was all kindsa ready for it to suck… And he loved it. I take the back of this film just like I would any art that I DIG, that I love and feel deserves a long life in the world. I do that ya know? I always talk bout work I love. I support it and if I don’t agree with negative reviews of it, I am very adamant about it. When folks talk smack about Dave Eggers I am the same way. I take his back and fight back. Coz what I find, is most folks talk smack bout folks when they don’t know them, and it you wanna talk smack bout a film or record, or book, well then, at the very least, at the very least you should have seen, heard or read the material. There were two negative reviews of The Heart and a lota great ones. The folks that didn’t like The Heart also, didn’t like Fahrenheit 9/11, which tells me a hecka lot. What I don’t like is folks quoting a review as if they saw The Heart, when they are really taking the lame way out. Coz it is to sound clever when your being snarky. I know some might not love the film the way I do. But if the are not liking it coz they have a hard time with a young woman director who is a foreigner, who has been a sex symbol, and they judge her film with a bias coz of that… I have the right to argue with a review, just like I argue with an editor. I’ve had editors that want to cut whole lines, whole paragraphs. They tell me their reasons and then if I don’t agree, I argue back with mine for keeping it. It is wonderful to have a dialogue in any forum of criticism. I’ve loved reading the response Michael Moore has had to the intense criticism campaigns against his film. I look forward to interviewing him soon about this very thing for the DVD release. This ain’t a replay of my childhood where I have to take a slap. And someone talkin shit about a film that I believe in that they have not even seen…? Yeah, it happens to be my book.. so I’ll spend more time defending it when called upon. But I would do so for the Morrissey record too. For Billy Corgan, for our Termie list. For my family. I protect what I value. Don’t you?
I really believe that once this film is out there, it wont need me to protect it. Y’all will be out there, and I know, I know y’all will be deeply affected and love this film and want to spread the word on it. It is an infant now and until folks see it… There are powerful critics, wise learned folk (Harry Potterish eh?) that have seen this film and just adore it. And while I am grateful for that, it doesn’t surprise me either. The film will be at the Toronto film festival in Sept. The film is gonna have a wondrous life… I just cant wait for y’all to see it. I cant wait.
Yours, Jt
It was kinda perfect tho. It was Astor, Speedie, Thor and Martha and Vitale. Martha was someone I met when she emailed me and got to know on the Terminator grp and same with Vitale. She lives in France and we got to meet her in NY when Thistle played. Whenever anyone asks me bout putting my email address in my books, I am always incredulous that everyone doesn’t. Maybe its just coz I grew up in the punk world, were you could hang out with your heroes; there wasn’t this wall between someone that was into the music and the artist. That’s the way it should be. It does get hard to handle on a huge scale…. But I think having access without a wall to surmount is important. I mean after I read a book that moves me, I want to be able to say thank you, or just tell them what it meant to me, this book that was a part of my life for however long and will be continue to be … even if they don’t answer, I just need to express it. Anyways, I’ve got to have very close friends from the Terminator list… it is a family. We all stayed with a person in London that we met on the list. Anyways, we slept in the same room, one bathroom and mornings were a wacky rush, too many lady folks and one toilet...dang. At dinner the producers would bring all these folks from Cannes. The restaurant is very famous for coz all these artists traded art for food, so there are Picasso and Matisses. For me having amazing works of art in a dining room just does not work. When I come in I am too distracted, too HUNGRY to do anything else then say, “Very cool…can I order now?” And after I am usually too sick, I mean full to do anything but say, “fuck I ate way too much…yeah, cool Renoir. Where’s the gents at?” I had to make a special time to do my art appreciation, but it always made me hungry and I wondered how much food did these paintings get the artists? I related coz I do barter trades for my work all the time.
Anyways, there will be a whole page of photos in Interview Magazine, not the new issue, think the August issue. I did walk the red carpet for Shrek with Asia. Angelina Jolie was ahead of us. I felt like I was in an alternate universe. I was all dolled up in Costume National, I wore Asia’s grandfather’s hat, he was a cowboy, she gave it to me when I was with her in Italy. It is a treasure.
Here it now July 25th and its been near a month. I write this every day. Kai had a good suggestion for me. Don’t write a dang novel, just a few sentences… but I start and there is so much to say…
So much to keep myself from sayin. I just finished doing the liner noted for Bryan Adam’s new record. I did a story on Georgia Zaris and he shot it and she passed him my books and dug em… it’s a spoof. It’s funny coz him and me aint an easy connection ya know? The only ready thing is like guys in tights, ya know Robin Hood and his song from that film?
I done just got invited to write Nancy Sinatra’s bio for her new one on Morrissey’s label. I never reckoned I would see my name any wheres near the name Sinatra! Hope ya’ll got the new Morrissey, coz Lord that is one fuckin amazing cd. I cant stop listening to it. Well, we listen to some other stuff now and then, The Killers – like the CURE but taking it further, trickin out Interpol, which cops from Joy Division. First 3 or 4 songs on The Killers record are just the stuff of passion. Like that great piece Dave Eggers wrote in Spin bout his obsession with Big Country (a band I also felt very captured by), you are TRANSPORTED. I am not sure where to with The Killers. Maybe an 80’s England, even tho they are from Las Vegas… an 80’s of our making. Where we can be cheesy but fuckin rock. Keep those fuckin synths in their fuckin place, IN THE BACK, we got some bizness with our guitars still. Oh and this band called SMOOSH. Check em out. They are 10 and 12-year-old girls and they really really are swell! No shit. Thor has a crush on the 10-year-old drummer babe.
Let’s set the record straight some… like they say bout the truly suicidial, they don’t threaten, they just do it. If they are talkin bout it, they mostly aint really in the gonna really do it group. Just like them that really hang with the stars and are loaded. They don’t talk bout it, coz they are it. My life is not at all hangin with the bold face names… not outta any punk rock ethics, I just have a hard time with it. If I had money I would buy a house. I dream of that.
I am a fan ok? Just like some of y’all that wrote me, to say, really moving things you felt bout my work? Well, I feel that too bout other artists, just like you do. And I wanna share my work with them. And when they write me or call me, it is very exciting to me. Still. Sorry if that is uncool. And I wanna tell the world bout it coz it doesn’t feel real. It’s like if you walk down the street and see some celebrity, you usually tell someone. “Oh I saw Walter Conkrite rollerblading in the park!” I know its not cool, I should be blasé, play it off. “Oh, Madonna got me tickets to her show… yawn…” But I cant coz it is not an every day thing. I don’t live in Hollywood, I don’t go to parties, and I don’t spend a lotta time talkin to these folks on the phone either. I got books to write, they got records to make or movies or whatever… I am being heard by folks I really admire. And it is the same when I get an email from folks I don’t know. I just don’t know them to admire them yet. Debby Harry was in town and she just called to say hello. And that meant so much to me, coz when you are used to being so beyond invisible - to have someone whose work has leant a color to your own, so you can borrow their emotion that there is hope of being heard, being seen… for them to acknowledge you? For me that is still very moving. I don’t take it for granted. A reporter in an interview told me I was a bold face name and it made me laugh my ass off, coz that is very abstract. It is still me in dang sweatpants (and often a Gary Graham jacket when it is cold, that I will concede) with my bars of dark chocolate (that again is my developed past my pockets, palate on display) at my computer. Where is the glory? Coz I am ah’waiting!!! And I aint sayin this to show you I ain’t sold out. You show me where to sell out and if it gets me my house…. There are a lot of things I pass on… Ads for clothes I don’t like, scripts for books that suck, or stories I cannot find any redemption for. It would get me my house, but, well… even I have some limits I reckon. But like Robert Crumb talked about The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things in one of his strips and I got asked to send him signed books, am I suppose to be jaded and not be fuckin blown away by that? I reckon I do got a lot in common with Andy Warhol and that is cool as fuck to me… I always feel like the outsider, like I don’t fit in, like there has been a mistake when I do get invited somewhere, so there is that way I have to say look who said I am somebody, to kinda validate it. And I know that is lame. And it doesn’t work actually. Well, it kinda does. Sometimes it can be enough that I know Billy Corgan loves me, to get me through something. And it should be enough to have my family… but they are my family. And that I can even take them for granted is a step up. Fucked, but shows trust. But there is that element of, I don’t wanna belong to any club that would have me as member. I guess, this is all me sayin, look who has me as member. And I can’t tell Sarah any more… I cant tell my momma. That’s who I really want to tell and have her say, yeah, you are special. Me. Have her see me, and not just a mirror of disappointments. Know I remember why I don’t write this a lot. It is hard for me just to report. The stuff always feels so superfiscial, but then when I start to sink down, it gets painful… damned either way, but y’all are along for the journey aint ya? That y’all stayed… man I got an email from this gal, she’s workin with the publiscist that is doin Harold’s End. And she’s followed me since the Terminator days. And now we’re workin on this book together. Trippy how we get brought into each other’s lives aint it?
A lot of my days pass in this drawing together of moments that resemble functioning. I think I like doin the magazine writing and seeking out folks I admire, is it satisfies that addict in me that like immediate gratification. It is faster then a book. What I mean in, I finish some work and then… I am still alone with it. Its not like when we demo a song with Thistle LLC (yeah, we know use the LLC…) where we can do it pretty fast and ALL listen, send an MP3, have more folks all listen… writing is like watching a scab form, and then ya gotta rip if off once it gets hard and dig some dirt out and sit and watch it heal over again. Working on Harold’s End it like that. I wrote a new ending, fixed stuff. I look forward to the reading in Nov 12th. to hear it. I dig that, hearing it in from other folks, the cadence, the way they emphasis stuff, or not. I always learn so much. It keeps it alive, so it doesn’t reek of me. So it is not static…
The band is doin so much… we are playin a free show here in SF at a great club called SLIMS on Aug 2nd. Mattress was mixed and we are doin an EP. SO, there should be something out very soon. It is so very swell! God I love music. Beth Bactold’s been sellin Thistle shirts at the shows. They are very neato, they have a line from Enemy, “Trapped inside the outpost of the Enemy.” And then my name and Speedie and Astor and THISLTE LLC, all glittery red on black. You want one? $15 that includes shipping. Unless you are from overseas… then, $542. That is to cover shipping.
We will post pics of them soon. Tell me where you live at and we will figger then shippin.
Yeah so Harold’s End out in November, with a very limited number of prints by Cherry Hood for sale. The show with be Nov 12th at the Jeffrey Deitch Gallery 76 Grand St. THISTLE LLC will play, readings, and the paintings by Cherry from the book will be on display as well as other artists work that is inspired or related to my work. Tryin to say work stead of stuff. Or crap… I so love Cherry and her work. Or I love her work and her. We are doin other books, so get ready coz this is the start. Today is Gus’ birthday. I just sang to him.
I am workin on a video for the band Earlimart. Their new record is great, and we are doin a mini-film video it…
Yeah, so this has been posted but check out the new INTERVIEW mag, August issue with Beastie Boys on the cover. Second to last pages is a photo spread thing called JT’s Cannes Diary. Ever time I see it makes me want a hot croissant. Oh man… like now.
I gotta write a special thank you for my assistant Nancy Murdock for workin her ass off to keep me, well I cant say on top of anything, but so my heels are still in the stirrups.. she slows the horse for me to so I ain’t dragged to badly. She is workin hard on the new book. Nancy… oh Nancy. You knocked me up too…
Now about that film… look, I like my taste. I trust my taste. To be very very honest with you, if I thought this film, The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, blew.. ya know what? I would move way like my foster parents trained me to do when someone passed wind. There aint nuthin I signed, no extra dollahs I will clock, no reason for me to take the back of this film, cept for that IT IS A GREAT FILM. I love Asia, but if she made a crap film… ya know what? I love ya, but I cant fight for something that goes against every cell of my being. This guy who is the editor at Film Comment, Chris Chang, he just saw the film and he loved it. He is very very picky. As is my agent. He was all kindsa ready for it to suck… And he loved it. I take the back of this film just like I would any art that I DIG, that I love and feel deserves a long life in the world. I do that ya know? I always talk bout work I love. I support it and if I don’t agree with negative reviews of it, I am very adamant about it. When folks talk smack about Dave Eggers I am the same way. I take his back and fight back. Coz what I find, is most folks talk smack bout folks when they don’t know them, and it you wanna talk smack bout a film or record, or book, well then, at the very least, at the very least you should have seen, heard or read the material. There were two negative reviews of The Heart and a lota great ones. The folks that didn’t like The Heart also, didn’t like Fahrenheit 9/11, which tells me a hecka lot. What I don’t like is folks quoting a review as if they saw The Heart, when they are really taking the lame way out. Coz it is to sound clever when your being snarky. I know some might not love the film the way I do. But if the are not liking it coz they have a hard time with a young woman director who is a foreigner, who has been a sex symbol, and they judge her film with a bias coz of that… I have the right to argue with a review, just like I argue with an editor. I’ve had editors that want to cut whole lines, whole paragraphs. They tell me their reasons and then if I don’t agree, I argue back with mine for keeping it. It is wonderful to have a dialogue in any forum of criticism. I’ve loved reading the response Michael Moore has had to the intense criticism campaigns against his film. I look forward to interviewing him soon about this very thing for the DVD release. This ain’t a replay of my childhood where I have to take a slap. And someone talkin shit about a film that I believe in that they have not even seen…? Yeah, it happens to be my book.. so I’ll spend more time defending it when called upon. But I would do so for the Morrissey record too. For Billy Corgan, for our Termie list. For my family. I protect what I value. Don’t you?
I really believe that once this film is out there, it wont need me to protect it. Y’all will be out there, and I know, I know y’all will be deeply affected and love this film and want to spread the word on it. It is an infant now and until folks see it… There are powerful critics, wise learned folk (Harry Potterish eh?) that have seen this film and just adore it. And while I am grateful for that, it doesn’t surprise me either. The film will be at the Toronto film festival in Sept. The film is gonna have a wondrous life… I just cant wait for y’all to see it. I cant wait.
Yours, Jt
posted by JT LeRoy at 3:10 AM
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