Joan Didion
I remember a 1980’s commission to photograph the impresario and manager Dee Anthony. He was a modern Oz looming over dozens of performers (Grateful Dead, The Who, Peter Frampton…). The client he had in his fold that day was the entertainer from Australia Peter Allen.
His apartment collection of accolades that were plastered along his walls and ceiling was the best part of the session that afternoon. When I was finished, Dee suggested I go across the street to La Goulue. “Tell Jean Denoyer I sent you”.
The East 65th street La Goulue Restaurant was as trendy as trendy could be. On any afternoon between 3:00 and 5:00 You might see Jackie O, Catherine Deneuve, Joan Didion, Peter Frampton, Springsteen and a host of personalities from the townhouse set.
This first introduction for me had my eyes filled with stars. I suddenly felt like Bernard Malamud’s protagonist, Roy Hobbs. Roy stood admiring the field, dreaming and demanding to being the best the “Game” (Baseball) had ever seen. Surrounded by New York chic royalty, my camera in hand like Hobb’s baseball I thought I might be the next photographer…
Standing in the middle of the restaurant I began to dream a bit as I made like Baryshnikov in pointe shoes, spinning with a dream of destiny in mind. I quickly wiped away the fairy dust from my eyes. No Roy Hobbs here. All these years later, I realize that I am merely a good photographer who wouldn’t trade this impossible life for anything else.
Later that night on East 65th street and fifth ave. I was sitting in the library of the Shah of Iran’s physician’s son’s apartment.
I initially thought my evening could be a share about life with the Shah and Persian secrets.
The night was festive. My host noticed me swirling my ice sans scotch. He offered me a refill. He noticed I was staring at his library. “Are you pleased?”. That is sort of like asking a pig if he is pleased with his “sty”.
I was bug eyed over his walls of books about Hollywood. My host was ga ga over Hollywood.
A once very handsome man, he had stories about starlets, Orson Welles and more. A life/career in Hollywood was not to be had. The Persian hand back in Iran was mightier than the passion. It is not that he suffered, instead, homes in New York, London and more seemed to comfort his lost youthful dreams.
My host noticed that my eyes rested on Lillian Hellman’s “Pentimento”. I mentioned that it was Pentimento and later Gore Vidal’s Palimpsest that I wanted to marry in style to make my own book: Reflecting on a life lived, and the people that made life rewarding.
My host was so thrilled to hear Lillian was one of my favorites. Before I could begin sharing my enthusiasm, we were told to finish our drinks, because we had reservations at La Goulue. When I had told him I was introduced only that afternoon to the restaurant he looked at me as if we had been friends from another life.
Denoyer was very excited to see this group, and of course surprised to see me again.
The focus on Hellman was certainly a terrific dinner conversation. Hollywood and favorite personalities and movies also filled in the nights chat.
Later that night when all the guests began to leave, for some reason my host said, “I have a feeling one day you will have a menagerie of experiences to share. Your contribution to the evening was special. We will be friends for a lifetime”.
Jean Michel Basquiat
I never saw or heard from my host nor his guests again.
Today I might recall Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi. “Rumi” said “If you find all your roads and paths blocked, “He” will show you a secret way that no one knows”. Who knows, just maybe in hindsight that day and night experience might have been eerily prescient. Possibly part of an imaginary witches brew that set my destiny towards amassing my menagerie of dreams, people and experiences. Maybe that fortuitous evening was part of a larger plan. I have no god in my blood but just maybe “Rumi” in my heart.
When I walked home I began to dream about what it might be like to be photography’s Roy Hobbs. Youthful aspirations has a way of confusing dreams from reality.
Where do I see it all come together? Do I begin with Francis Bacon screaming on the phone where to meet him at the “F..kin bar. Maybe when the Surrealist Peter Blume peed in his pants from laughter when he heard me shrill in horror from the shock of lightning hitting so close to his studio. Maybe de Kooning greeting me like long lost friends. Maybe it was my Hockney and Tchaikovsky moment. Maybe the night I got stoned with Jean Michel Basquiat and shared a bottle of Russian Pepper infused Vodka with him. Maybe it was the novice in me believing I could drink five glasses of scotch by noon with the famed art critic Clement Greenberg. Maybe it was imagining photographing Philip Johnson naked posing for my camera. Maybe it was Oscar Niemeyer’s holding my hand down on the sheet of paper while while we made a drawing together. Maybe while standing in front of Louis Kahn’s Bangladesh National Parliament Building, or one thousand other pronounced moments when I realized my dreams of grand experiences can come true.
The maybe’s are legion and delicious to remember. They have allowed me to develop an empirical observation of the human condition and collect a menagerie of visual experiences that have supported a lifetime of dreams and recollections.
David Hockney
Louis Kahn’s National Parliament in Bangladesh
interior of Parliament