Last night Reese asked if we could watch The Bad Seed, the camp classic with Patty McCormack as the perfect child who murders her schoolmate when he wins the penmanship award instead of she, and sets on fire the creepy gardener who knows too much. Reese has been listening to the songs from a musical based on characters from The Bad Seed, Gypsy, and Pippi Longstocking, and was eager to learn about the original characters. We went up to BC’s to watch it on the big screen. I don’t remember it being such an interesting film. Little Rhoda, the bad seed, seemed to represent a transition in feminine identity, or an extension of the anxiety that one saw personified in the femme fatale of the previous generation. After dropping off my little Step Seed at his moms’, BC and I hightailed it to the “Beautiful Losers” opening at Yerba Buena. I bumped into Larry, back in town after his stint at the Whitney to promote more bland art on this coast, Victor, who was a knockout in his cute cap, camel jacket and open-neck shirt, (really Victor, you need to dress like that all the time), Davide, melting in seamlessly with the other 20-somethings, and absolutely none of the art–way too crowded to see anything, but who goes to openings to see anything? And how many times are they going to show Barry and Chris? They are very interesting artists, sure, but there is something other than the Mission School aesthetic happening in this town–take off those curatorial blinders, critics. We then sashayed over to the Lone Star, to bond with all the truly beautiful losers, those few stuck in town while everybody else is engaged in drunken belly-bucking on the shores of the Russian River. I chatted up Misha, who is just about the sweetest thing there is this side of syrup, hugged Drunk Girl, and again the sad Davide and the dashing Victor. I didn’t get to pee in the trough. Chris insists that it’s the only way to get over my paruresis (pee-shyness). Last week at the RR Eagle trough, as things were just about to move forward, a guy walked in and of course my bladder clamped shut, as he sided up next to me, and of course there was a mirror hanging right over everything, amplifying my exposure, and his unabashed google search, so I just blurted out “I’m sorry, I’m pee-shy.” He said, “Oh, I’m sorry,” very gravely, and bowed his head as I gathered up what I could of my pride and shuffled off into the stall.
“What would you give me for a basket of kisses?”