I’m Losing You

by Bruce Wagner

  Goodbye, Columbus

  TO: SHARKEE@CLS.OHIO-STATE.EDU (STOCKER VIDRA)

  FROM: DOLPH@AOL.COM (KATHERINE GROSSECK)

  Looking for production offices. Can’t get it straight whether Cat’s for-real on board but Phylliss is milking it for all it’s worth. More power to her, I say. I’m changing the name of my corporation. What do you think of Method to Her Sadness Productions—too pretentious? Pargita’s a hoot: you have to see Janie Wong when you get back (you are coming back, aren’t you?). I’d send you a cassette but I want to see it together. You’ll like Parg—she’s kind of a cross between Nora Ephron and Wim Wenders. Just kidding. Her favorite phrase of the week is “zero-wannasee”…as in “Do you want to go to the Batman screening?” “Nah. I have zero-wannasee.” She’s lobbying PJ Harvey for the Stranger, isn’t that too fantastic? When you’re back we’ll have Boys’ Night Out. With Harvey (no relation to PJ) and Holly practically set, we’re just about green—could start early as June.

  How’s Phylliss’s book coming? Does she actually have a deal? Is she sending tons of pages? She’s coy with me about it.

  Maps to the Stars

  Jabba’s working nights at Planet Hollywood and is determined to marry ANYONE who is involved with it, financially! I’ve heard there are many, many investors, not merely Arnold, Sly and Bruce. I’m concerned she’s drugging again—she always seems to have an “allergy” when we go out SNIFF SNIFF. Life at Sweets is sweet; making MUCHO DINERO {I’d rather be “making DE NIRO”!!}. Flirted tonight with PETER WELLER and HARRY DEAN STANTON {he’s so old! but charming. And he sings at the VIPER ROOM with his own band!!!}. More importantly PAUL SCHRADER has come in. For the uninformed {namely YOU, Dearest D.!!}, PAUL is the famous screenwriter of TAXI DRIVER {CIRCA 1976}, CAT PEOPLE {CIRCA 1982}, RAGING BULL {CIRCA 1980}, etalia. He’s casting an ELMORE LEONARD movie and gave me his card! Interestingly, PAUL is married to the warpy, wonderful actress MARY BETH HURT, who shined in THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP {CIRCA 1982} and recently limned JEAN SEBERG.

  My life is very full!

  STATEMENT OF PURPOSE AND INTENT

  To change my professional name from KIM GIRARD to KIV GIRAUX {pronounced Juh-ROE}.

  Goodbye, Columbus

  TO: SHARKEE@CLS.OHIO-STATE.EDU (STOCKER VIDRA)

  FROM: DOLPH@AOL.COM (KATHERINE GROSSECK)

  …consolation calls all week for not getting Oscar-nodded. Thank God for the WGA and Spirit awards, they’re the ones that count (so I keep telling myself). Somehow it’s embarrassing to care but less so than pretending I don’t. One day (hopefully), I’ll be in the who-gives-a-shit group, smack-dab where you are—when you get the MacArthur at age twenty-nine, what other group is there? You are the big genius: genus Sharkay.

  Those rumors I heard about Donny were true: he’s fucking (and getting fucked by) boys, Phylliss Wolfe’s assistant, for one. You heard it here. Zowie yikes & jeepers. Gonna wind up with a rollicking case of AIDS, that kid is. So sad—not the gay thing, always had intimations of that, I liked that fearless, adventuresome thing about him—but how lost he is. Like this sad day player out of Sade (or Bret Ellis): the walking dead, just like his dad’s old movies. Fuck. Now there’s a frightening legacy.

  Trying to read Proust again—still can’t get beyond the hundred-page mark and that’s so frustrating, Veed, because I really do love it. There’s definitely some weird glass ceiling thing going on (or is it the floor?). Now, listen up, says Jayne Wayne (I’m sure you know it—reminds me of the way you write)…

  When we have gone to sleep with a raging toothache and are conscious of it only as of a little girl whom we attempt, time to time, to pull out of the water, or a line of Molière which we repeat incessantly to ourselves, it is a great relief to wake up—

  *** The THIEF of ENERGY

  Saw Calliope K-M (the incredible shrinking starfucker) for the first (and last) time and actually bespoke of disappointment over not being nominated for an Academy Award! I should win one myself. My plan was to discreetly absorb the energy she takes from her pet-celebrities, a la Robin Hood. While in the waiting room, I put several magazines into my Prada bag—a Vogue and Marie-Claire; I know these periodicals had been scanned by Laura, Julianne, Demi, Juliette and countless others (I can absorb minimal amounts from their exudate); once inside, I bespoke the murder of my beloved sister, Wanda, and my subsequent kidnapping by the distraught man barely recognizable toward the end as our Father. Calliope seemed to listen with great concern. Then! Mrs SangFreud of a sudden smiled, rather prim yet cantankerous too—nervously, it seemed—I saw her energy spasm then irradiate, like small animals do (i.e., the old Ribkin woman’s raccoons) as she suddenly asked, ‘Who are you?’ Just like that. I feigned surprise but she was insistent, challenging, alleged I was not Katherine Grosseck and began calling 911! I hit her cashmere chest with a paperweight and bolted. Her breath was knocked out. I still have the purloined curio: a beautiful Lalique turtle with multi-faceted shell. Oddly enough, I believe all the energy I was after may well have been harnessed in the paperweight itself, because it had obvious talismanic power, hypnagogic, having sat on her desk for God knows how long, each patient (famous or not) obsessing over and gazing at, greedy of her possessions, focusing upon. The energy released and absorbed by the blow to the aging, fashionable chest has, in a fell swoop, accomplished a goal I’d intuitively thought of achieving not for three to five months from this day, at least. Triumphant!

  After long wrangling of logistics, I have accomplished but another goal—a rub with the consummate thief Jeremy Stein. Here is how I achieved: I positioned myself near his home when he left for work. I engineered it so to be gliding by in the Mustang as he pulled from the driveway. I made sure the massage table was highly visible—top down, in backseat, much as a boogieboard might be placed. I was clean and fresh-scrubbed and said I was late for a rub, giving a classical pre-ordained ‘wrong address’ which he said must be south while I, mistakenly, was on the more expensive north side. Banal and alluring conversation ensued. He said I was up early for a rub. I told him I had many clients who demanded I be available on the twenty-four/seven. This, purposefully yet without innuendo. He said that was unusual and I said, not really, that is how we do it in New York where most of my clients hail from. Such as who, he asked, and I said, these things I do not discuss—with a smile, so that it was friendly and benign and alluring. He asked for my card and I knew he was in my web. Jeremy Stein is, of course, creator of Palos Verdes, a position he achieved by his skyward rung-by-rung climb on a ladder positioned in my groin. (Chris Carter and X-Files, you are on my back burner: 2good 2be 4gotten.) I am hard at work determining how close the inimitable Mr Stein was to the original 90210/Melrose core group—i.e. Mr Darren Star & cabal—who ran roughshod over innovative concepts stolen from the diary I kept with my beloved sister, Wanda. Perhaps Stein & Co. were in cahoots with the beleaguered man who was ostensibly, but did not resemble toward the end our Father. Must sift fact from fiction. All the energy I’ve worked so hard to buttress/harness has helped me come this close. Keeping our appointment, I came to Mr Stein’s sprawling ranch-style home only days later and masturbated his cock, his wife was in the other room—an unexpected occurrence, happening without effort or constraints, baby crying all the while, Mother shushing and cooing, so Jeremy and I knew she would not disturb us, even if she did, the way I managed it, stroking under sheets, all actions would not have translated to the eye as vulgar or illicit. Hope I didn’t come off too much the ‘pro’; I wanted him to believe this was a somewhat blushing rarity. He, like so many husbands of women with newborns, was needy that way. A calculated risk from my end, considering the high stakes, but time is running out and Jeremy Stein is a player in my own tragic opera bouffe. His penis is long and pretty, unmarred by the marbleized years-old accumulation of herpes scarring that characterize ‘the Donny Ribkin shaft.’ As in my first session with the agent, Mr Stein mirrored thus and was hard mere moments into rub and stayed that way, it jumping lik
e a flag on a dog at a dogtrack! I let him go like that nearly an hour until touching and he came a subsequent gallon, the irony being, milk fed to baby not far from where where JS’s own curdled ‘low-fat’ dribbled onto paunch! He made another appointment of which I know he will keep.

  Sight Unseen

  Holly Dearest,

  Wonderful having you here—Samson loved it so. Ain’t he somethin’? Hope this gets to you before you leave Wales. I think that’s where Jan Morris lives; she’s the glorious travel writer who used to be a man. Did you know I was there for my honeymoon? Wimbledon, then Wales…all that sand and Victoriana. Jeremy and I saw The Naked Gun at a theater there, can you imagine? Leslie Nielsen’s big with the Welsh.

  I was so thrilled your friend enjoyed my letters. Ashamed to say I hadn’t heard of Stocker Vidra until you mentioned her but promptly ventured to Borders and picked up Bleek Haus. (They didn’t have The Brontë Reader and Other Novellas, the one you recommended.) I sat with my latte and read. Your friend has a beautiful style that is difficult to penetrate; I’m not the reader I once was. Which one of her novellas did you option? I loved the picture of her on the back. She reminds me of a young Germaine Greer, but more delicate-boned. Whatever happened to Ms. Greer? Maybe she lives in Wales with Jan Morris.

  It’s fascinating she’s also an editor at the place that publishes her work—that has to be high on the list of writers’ fantasies! I’m flattered someone of her intellect and reputation could find late-night scrawlings to my dream-guy of any interest at all. Are you sure she isn’t indulging you, Holly, just a little? Because of the friendship you share? Her work seems so experimental and I’m wondering why she’d be drawn to something so…You said Vidra thought the letters were a potential “publishing phenomenon.” In the wee small hours, the ego starts primping and preening, trying on clothes for Charlie Rose; wondering if someone might please slip the galleys to Julia or Jodie or—yech! See how little encouragement it takes? Funny having the letters “out there” too—makes one feel a little nekkid…not the panic-public nakedness of a dream, though, at least I don’t think so. Sorry I’m being such a wet blanket, I really am thrilled, Holly, you’ve got to know that. It’s just that I hope the whole enterprise won’t be construed as, I dunno, morbid. What I’m really saying is, I don’t want to get self-conscious and start editing myself with an eye toward a Book. (See how nutty I am? The Sara Radisson you’ve never known!) Maybe I’ll keep writing on this parallel track and the book can be our correspondence intercut with “Letters to Samson.” Do you like that idea, Hol? You’ll help keep me sane. It’d make a neat little safety valve, if you’re game—’cause there’s so much I can’t put in Samson’s little missives…things only for you, godmom and galfriend true-blue.

  How can I bear telling him his father doesn’t want to hold him? Dr. Mitch says I should let it go, that Jeremy will “work through it,” and I hope he’s right. But how do you “work through” abandoning your ball of butterscotch, your firstborn, your Life? And how do I “work through” his cold contempt, bordering on the sadistic? How does Samson “work through” all the crap Jeremy’s sending his way through the ether? He can’t help but pick up on it, as a sentient being—that he’s blind, Hol, makes him even more so. He’ll “work through it”…through the door and out of our lives. And I’ll slam it shut behind him. Why, Holly, does he hold sightlessness against him, against us? We don’t even sleep in the same room anymore. When I brought Sam to the Palos Verdes production office, Jeremy hid away in a meeting. I know now he is embarrassed, insane as that sounds! Oh, Holly, I hate him for this! You saw Samson! Is he something to be ashamed of, or stigmatized by? To discard with a wince and a shrug? The horror of it colors my life. But I will not let it. I cannot.

  Sorry to dump on you—see, that’s what you get. A funny thing happened on the way to best-sellerdom: Holly got slimed!

  P.S. I’m a free woman! I gave Warners my walking papers and Shelby said I’m in. Adios to the Vorbalidian System—up, up and away, warp speed! Isn’t it wonderful to be working together? Can’t wait for rehearsals to begin. Harvey Keitel’s back from Copenhagen, mid-week. Anxious to start working soon.

  P.P.S. What do you think of the title Sight Unseen? Overused? And please don’t tell Vidra what I said about her writing; I really think she is an amazing talent. Too exquisite for lowly me to apprehend, that’s all. XXX OOO

  Maps to the Stars

  Kiv Giraux here. I’ve become embroiled in a minor soap opera at work. I share my shift with a girl named Ursula from San Diego. I think Ursula’s trying to be an actress but she never quite comes out and says it. She’s pretty but a little gaunt, reminding one of Sondra Locke. She has a daughter named Tiffany. I get the feeling Ursula is of a spiritual bent because of her frequent talks about camping trips and outings taken in the past with families that don’t seem to quite be Christian but have a New Age leaning. She’s encouraged me to go on a “study” weekend based on the teachings of a book of URANTIA that she brings to work and keeps in her purse. {She hides it from Rodrigo because he hates that, he’s probably the most UNSPIRITUAL being on the planet. Not that Ursula would get on a soapbox or anything, she’s not that way. She’s really very smart.} URANTIA, she said, is actually about the planets themselves and our relationship to them. There may be some UFO stuff in there and that makes me leery. It’s all very California—and very Hollywood too, by default!

  Anyhow, all the mucky-mucks from ICM come in and that would include a red-haired gentleman named Donny Ribkin, who is, I believe, a veep there. {In Hollywood, VEEPS are as plentiful as actors and screenwriters {{sounds like something on a UFO: VEEP! VEEP! TAKE ME TO YOUR AGENT!!}}.} Donny is MUCHO flirtatious, which certainly isn’t unusual—ALL agents and lawyers are, with some more aggressive than others. Donny got a hold of my home phone (Rodrigo the manager gave it to him) and started calling at very late hours, I might add. He’s a very seductive man who has been through the ringer; his mother recently passed on and that really tore a hole in him. We talk for hours and sometimes don’t even say anything—or much, anyway—just like high school {don’t be jealous, Diary! I will ALWAYS luv only U}. He will be the first man I have dated in L.A. {if it comes to that and I still don’t know if it will though it’s pointing in that direction}. Trying hard to play my cards right and hope that doesn’t sound too contrived—don’t want to appear “available” and let me tell you, that’s a struggle! Donny is an extremely powerful man, accustomed to getting what he wants. “WHATEVER DONNY WANTS, DONNY GETS…AND LITTLE GIRL, LITTLE DONNY…WANTS YOU!!” When he said he could easily secure an audition for TEOREMA, I could hardly contain myself. {He’s old friends with its producer, Phylliss Wolfe.} And now, I must move my story along: I was having a drink with him at Dan Tana’s {no, we still haven’t done anything yet, not even really kissed} and suddenly, from out of the blue appears Ursula Sedgwick! And she is LIVID. It seems they {SHE and DONNY!!!} have or HAD something GOING and Ursula FOLLOWED Donny to Dan Tana’s from the agency—a bit weird. I didn’t like being put in that position at ALL, because I would NEVER have agreed to see someone who was still seeing someone—“as IF,” as ALICIA would say. According to Donny, it was a fling that ended months ago and I tend to believe him. It’s not like they were married or anything. The next day at work, Ursula wasn’t there and Rodrigo said she was sick. He didn’t smirk, so I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know what happened, unless Ursula the Sometime Drama Queen told him, which is more than possible. She can be quite the loose cannon. Ursula hasn’t been back all this week and I think she’s pretty much moved on to greener pastures. I hope she finds something even better, jobwise, for the sake of Tiffany—the child’s the part I feel bad about. I have no other reason to feel guilty, not that I even do over that because there is no just cause. Though the incident HAS left me feeling a notch on the scarlet side {AS ALWAYS!}. It shook me a bit but if that’s as choppy as the Hollywood waters have got so far then I have to count myself lucky.

 
Footnote: ACTING SCHOOL RULZ!!!!! MUST go to Samuel French and pick up Tenn. Williams play, Small Craft Warning {?}

  GIRAUX’S LIST—PANTHEON OF THE ELITE

  I wanted to write about SANDRA BULLOCK but I think I may be too tired. I am asking you, dearest Diary, to forgive my brevity. SANDRA is on a Cinderella trajectory and does not need my help, of that I can assure. She is a dream story for all of us who struggle. We must not forget that before the brilliant blockbusters SPEED {CIRCA 1994} and WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING {CIRCA 1995} there was WHO SHOT PAT? {CIRCA 1990}, THE VANISHING {CIRCA 1993}, THE THING CALLED LOVE {1993} and LOVE POTION #9 {CIRCA 1992}. Sandra reminds me of MARISA TOMEI, in that both have such changeable looks—like well-tanned chameleons, they go from blue-collar “broadiness” to Audrey Hepburn delicacy without a hitch. Sandra’s nose and mouth sometimes remind me of LAURA SAN GIACOMO {SEX, LIES AND VIDEOTAPE {{CIRCA 1989}}. Sandra is legendarily loved by film crews {frequently dating members thereof but not promiscuously}; a notorious junk-food junkie {that’s because her mother, a German opera singer, was a health nut. Sandra has been known to slurp Fresca through licorice straws}; and, I believe, is receiving twelve million $$$ for her next outing. I hope one day she gets over Tate {Donovan} and finds her Prince Charming. {Probably someone on the camera crew! That’s what Holly Hunter did!} {TWO IF BY SEA {{CIRCA 1995}} will do her no harm.}

  You’ll Never Eat Me During Lunch…

  Taping this on the plane back from Illinois. Wish I hadn’t gone to the funeral. Good to see Mom, though. Calliope talked me through a lot of it, long-distance. I am such an asshole. Better watch out or she’ll fucking fire me. Even therapists have their limits::::::::::Airline food never gets better. There’s a Billy Crystal movie on. God, how I hate him. What is he?::::::::::Think we’re over Kansas—a mid-air collision with Dorothy’s house would be a beautiful thing. That’d be a busman’s holiday; the house already fell down on me. Father died the day I arrived. Three years since I’d last seen him—cancer made him all gray skin and sharp bones. I kept a distance from the bed. Carrie kept going through my mind, the part at the end when Amy’s at the grave and the hand reaches out to grab her—just looked under my seat with a shiver, then remembered the sonofabitch wouldn’t be caught dead in First Class::::::::::Donny Ribkin’s on the plane, coming back from the John Hughes thing. We talked about Obie. (She was supposed to leave the hospital but now she has pneumonia.) He wanted to know what was happening with Teorema and I said Nexus wasn’t involved anymore, that the Gisela Group was financing. Hopefully. Then he gets this creepy agent look on his face and says he heard one of the major Gisela partners was murdered in Milan—someone just told him that on the Airfone! E, my life is insane! I remain cool, awaiting a vacant phone. Of course my credit card won’t work so I borrow Donny’s, oy vay. I call Saul who isn’t there but his assistant says it’s all over CNN::::::::::Vidra’s gonna be pissed. She’s a mercenary cunt—likes the personal shit to offset ShowbizWorld and thought the funeral would be great for some poignantly savage musings on the Bad Father (has anybody actually had a good one?). Maybe I need to get home and, uh, process::::::::::To the Spirit Awards, with Cat-boy. Our very own Katherine won for Imitations! We—Katherine, Pargita, Becky Johnston, Holly and husband, Buck and Gus and like fourteen others including this Hungarian animator Gabor (as in Zsa Zsa) and his girlfriend (a total match for Polanski and Sharon T—she’s Jeanne Crain’s granddaughter. Never mind, you’re too young) limo’d to the Sunset Plaza digs where we talked cybersex (yawn) and Luddites (yawn yawn), drank Stoly and scarfed cups of microwaved cioppino while I called my shrink from the media room and wept. Upped my Zoloft to three-quarters a tab.