Holly Woodlawn.



I stumbled across the site of the famous Holly Woodlawn last night. She was in quite a few of Andy Warhol's films and Lou Reed wrote a song about her, "Holly came from Miami, FLA, Hitch-hiked her way across the USA, plucked her eyebrows on the way, shaved her legs and then he was a she, she says "hey babe, take a walk on the wild side", said "hey, honey take a walk on the wild side."


Actually, it wasn't the first time I found her site, if you check out the guest book, you'll find a previous post by me. (It's strange. If you do a search for my site, this post to her site always comes up!)

Well, anyhow, here's the story...

first some of her own words..


I SURVIVED ANDY WARHOL



A Walk On The Wild Side with the Legendary Holly Woodlawn

By Tom Garretson

TG: What year was that?



HW: That was 1989. But Andy died in 1987. I just stood around a couple of years, and during his memorial I realized that I didn't want to hang around the elephant's burial ground.



TG: I left New York in 1989 as well.



HW: You did? We probably took the same plane!



TG: I moved down to New Orleans.



HW: N'WALINS! Oh my God, honey! I was there doing a play . . . yeeuch! . . . in July! Don't ever! (laughs) I used to hop from bar to bar to bar . . .



TG: And stay on the same block!



HW: . . . because they had air conditioning! And by two o'clock in the after noon I was palatzo !



TG: I've always called it the "Adult Disneyland".



HW: Oh, but it's so fucking fabulous! It's beautiful. The old architecture. But the thing is that I had to work at eight o'clock and actually remember lines for the play, but by two o'clock I was crackola ! I would go home and just die, and then wake up at seven and slap my pussy together, get it all together to do the show.

N'awlins , you have to call it N'awlins . My lawyer comes from there. He represents Micheal Jackson, Barbara Streisand, and of course they handle, me. And that's a toughie! Especially when the only difference is that I have no money and they do!

If you look carefully at the pic, it's from 1991 and she was staying with some very smart theater friends of mine who lived across the street from my deli in the Quarter. She was staying with Carl Walker, who was producing and directing "Women Behind Bars" at the time, and the budget only allowed for her to stay in his spare room. So Holly came into my store everyday, just like all the other theater people who used to live across the street in that row of 1850's three story buildings.

We got to know each other a bit and we talked about Andy Wahol, and all the legendary stories about her and all the very delerious people she hung out with.

There is this interview from her site; it's a great read, I recommend it highly, especially if you have no idea what it was like back then.

One day, she was short of funds, so I cashed her check, (wish I had just kept it now...). She was so much fun to hang around with!

She just loved Bill... and she autographed that 8 x 10 photo that I took a pic of just now for the top of this entry. . she wrote "Hi! Boys, let's do it again! Holly Woodlawn!"

hehe, I wonder if she would like to join a scooter gang...





...durlx

O.K. I'VE BEEN VERY, VERY BUSY.

The new job has been a very wonderful challenge so far, an interesting puzzle, and I'm having a very good time with it! Four days... hehe.

Already they notice. And it's wonderful to be back on such a beautiful street, where the trees meet above..



SO, anyway, I wrote an e-mail to a friend from Baton Rouge, (you might know him...)

He sent me a note about a site called Gallery Of Eccentrics (of New Orleans)

Ah, my dears... I have stories to tell... about the Eccentrics of New Orleans!



First of all, The Lucky Bead Lady!

I ran into the bead lady for the first time one night when I was new to NO. I had heard about her and had seen her from a distance, but one drunken night, I turned a corner and there she was blocking my way! "Buy a lucky bead?" she said. I pulled out all the change in my pocket, a little over a buck and handed it to her. "Is that enough?" I asked. As she handed me my lucky bead, she shrugged and said, ", Ah, it's O.K."

For a while, there was a group of delirious gay men who gave her the outfits she used to wear; they would all find things of interest and then get together once and a while to select the best to present to her and then wait to see what she actually wore. They weren't really mean about it, they were just terribly curious.

She often showed up in the buffet line at the La Pavilion hotel (where my friend Margaret was CEO) mixed in with a group of French or Italian tourists, and Margaret would have to weather a stream of curses as she escort the Bead Lady out, at least on those occasions when someone else noticed it... otherwise, Margaret would let her be.

One time I saw a group of Japanese tourists go up to her and ask her where Bourbon Street was. (Why they chose her as a source of information, I'll never know!) She screamed, "You found Pearl Harbor easy enough!" and walked away.

She started coming into my store in the Quarter. She always bought a stick of butter and a banana. She would stand outside and eat the banana and throw the peel on the street. Then she would eat the stick of butter, and use the wrapper as a sort of moisturizer wipe. Then she'd toddle on down the street, muttering to all she met in that strange glossalia...

One day she came into the store after not having been in many weeks. I asked her how she had been and said that we hadn't seen her in a while. She said, "Well, your prices are a little high, and I want an extra bag!" I gave her one, but she was off and running in that strange weird language at the top of her lungs. She meandered out the door and never came in again. I haven't seen her in years.





Ruthie, The Duck Girl!

I used to run into Ruthie, The Duck Girl fairly often, as she frequented many of the gay bars in the Quarter. She would ask you for a cigarette, and "one for later" and then ask for a beer, which the bartender would usually provide as it was much easier than refusing her. One day, I had taken a puppy that we had just got to show to my friend Danny, the bartender at Tiger's. (I had a cloth shoulder bag that the puppy was very happy to ride in and he enjoyed going out where he got lots of attention. ) Ruthie came in with this enormous! white duck, took one look at the puppy, plopped the duck in my lap, snatched the puppy, lovingly cooing sweet nothings to it and walked away saying she would bring the dog back in a few minutes. I tried to get up, but this 25 pound duck wasn't having any of it! I could drink my beer and light a cigarette and talk to my friends, and this huge duck was perfectly content, but if I tried to get up or move, the duck would bite me! And hard! Of course, this was hysterically amusing to all my dear friends and I must admit, to me as well. She eventually came back, returned the puppy and took her duck and left.

A couple of weeks later, I saw her in line ahead of me at the A & P on Royal Street, and I asked her how her duck was doing. She hauled off and slapped me in the face! and hard!
...and then she asked me for a cigarette, and one for later.

I once saw Ruthie get on stage at some French Quarter thing. She was wearing her usual costume of a wedding dress and roller skates and seemed to be as drunk as usual. She careened about the stage skating dangerously near the edge, one time even backwards waving her arms and all the while laughing hysterically. The performance reminded me of Charlie Chaplin in that film where he spends the night in a department store; she was that flawless. She spent all day on skates, and I never saw her fall.

A couple of years ago, she was put into a home, very much for her own good... She hated it, of course. She has been the subject of thousands of photographs and one documentary for PBS. A true French Quarter character.


My ex, from years ago, knew the Chicken Man... but I never actually spoke to him...





Of course, I know Becky Allen;

... everybody knows Becky Allen! She used to come into my store all the time when her theatrical cohorts, Ricky Graham and Sue Gonzy both lived across the street. She is the quintessential New Orleans party girl, and probably the only actress in the city that can guarantee a hit production just by the fact that she is in it. She is always appearing in everything, everywhere. She is Mardi Gras, the French Quarter and the ninth ward personified; always over the top and always tremendously amusing to run into.

She is a force of nature.



Other things...

Like I said, the new job is great; I am having fun rearranging things and making new things up! Amazing things will happen...

I just got off of the phone with someone who is buying a house in Las Vegas! I'm pretty sure I'll get the catering position for next years gathering.. (I'll certainly have the best cheese!) hehe!

My Dad had a good Father's Day, even though he didn't get the keys to the car back... (Good work, my sis and Chris; love you both! I talked to him after you left him back home. We talked about the big old wooden barns in our old neighborhood, and especially the ones that we owned, and played in as kids. He told me about things that happened in the forties and fifties... it was sweet.)

I am still thinking of Noah, in Australia. He's having a hard time right now, and I also starting thinking of his mom, Bronte, she must be having a hard time also. She seems to be an amazing woman, and so I add my affirmations to her.

Bryan from ChaosInAustin just had a "birfaday", hehe. He's a fellow Gemini; his day is the day after mine...

And Dazed has dazzeled us all! Dazed has found true love! Perhaps there is hope for us all.

The ever lovely, and totally amazing FORD! just returned from London Town. Ah, when he makes his trip to NYC, I will prolly have to use up some of my frequent flier miles...

And next week, I think I will finally get my scooter! And I will join one of those scooter gangs... eat my 49 cc dust, binch!

Yes indeed, cher, I will be livin' the wild life now...

teehee,



durlx

A birthday.



Leave it up to Nina to send me the oddest and most wonderful birthday pressie! You might remember when Intel launched it's Pentium II chips and they had those commercials with the guys in the silver space suits with the Intel patch... well maybe you don't, but anyway they spent zillions on the ads! (And for those of you who are keeping count, Pentium 4 is the standard now...) Anyway, they apparently made these little silver space suit dolls! And, of course, Nina would have found one; she has a house full of fascinating objects. (When I told her that I was looking for a saxophone to put on the wall so it would show up on my cam during Jazz Fest, she said, "OH! I wish you had told me sooner! I have three of them! I would have brought you one!") She really is amazing.

Robert brought the amazing object back from St. Louis, as he had recently visited Nina on his way up and back to visit the family in Fort Wayne. Robert also produced a lovely pressie; a set of crystal globe lights for yard or patio! They look stunning around the pond, but they do provide enough illumination to point out that I need to do some serious work on the yard... it's gotten a bit jungle-like back there again...

My natal day was a bit so-so. I tend to down play the whole birthday thing lately; the last two years it's been a solitary affair. I thought of taking Robert out for dinner and a movie, but since I didn't remember to ask him until the day before, he already had something scheduled. I worked the early shift and came home. For about two minutes, I felt sorry for myself; poor lonesome me... Then, I got out a bunch of new material from the regional office and started making lists for the new job that I'm starting this Monday. As I read through the stuff, I typed notes on the PDA using the extremely cool fold-up keyboard. The whole thing sat comfortably on the arm of my chair and it's about ten times more powerful and has ten times more storage capacity than my first huge desk top computer. This kind of thing makes me wet.

And the new position is very interesting; I get to rebuild and remodel a department in the original store here in New Orleans and I get to develop some new retail items. I think it's a very good place to be right now.

And there is one other thing that I found out on my birthday. The company is sending me and my ATL (luca, not a word) to San Francisco for the American Cheese Society Convention! It is going to be so incredible! Three days of seminars and tastings! The president of the Association is our national cheese buyer and WFM is sending people from the Specialty departments from all the stores nation-wide. We will be attending seminars, meeting cheesemakers, working at the convention and touring the SF area stores.

I mean, this is the Super Bowl of Cheese and I am going to be there! Yeeeees! This is so great... I couldn't be happier about it.

Other bits.

My brother got back from Japan after a wonderful time, but had the worst jet-lag...

My Dad's license to drive was taken away after this latest series of tests. This is all for the good, as he has done some seriously dangerous things in a car over the last six months, but he doesn't like it much. Not being able to drive is just part of the loss of control he feels over his life as the Alzheimer's progresses, but it's a significant part for him, something he tends to focus on, and it's causing some unhappiness and sadness for all of us.

I considered for a few minutes, doing a sort of nakie pic of me for my birthday journal like Bry, of ChaosInAustin does every year, but I got over that notion thankfully for all concerned, hehe. (BTW, Happy Birthday Bryan, a fellow Gemini...) I really admire Bryan for the raw honesty he puts into his journal sometimes, and as I have told him, his journal was the inspiration for me to do mine. I just don't think I am ready for that kind of close-up yet... Maybe next year. You've been warned.

The recent message board thing; well I made a decision and so far there seem to be more posts and so, I think most people are more comfortable with the situation now. The decision that I made was not easy, but I thought it was necessary after stating what I felt about what was happening, and after getting a lot of e-mail from regular posters who were unhappy with the way things were going. There were a few people that were unhappy with my decision and left the board and one of these people I miss dearly. I think we will remain friends, but I miss the daily bits. Still, I remain firm in my decision; I just don't want anyone on the board who posts with a sense of superiority over the others while hiding behind the icon and never letting anything real out. Some mystery is wonderful, but when one attacks or demeans others from behind that mask, well that's just... well, it's just not right.

I am sending daily affirmations to Noah. He's going through another nasty patch... If you have been following his adventures over the past year or two, you know. I know from experience, after working for a very charismatic chef for many years, that a person can enter a room and change the way people feel in a matter of seconds. (And everyone knows what it's like to walk into a room where everyone is unhappy; you can feel it right away.) So, I think you can send good feelings to someone, I just don't know how far, but I'm willing to try...

I still haven't sent that picture CD to Zilla! I have got to do this... why haven't I done this!

I should be getting the scooter in another two weeks.

So, I am very busy. I sometimes feel very lonely, but only for a short while. My career is going just fine, thank you. My family loves me and I love them back. I am doing a great deal better than I was a year ago when I thought I was going to sell out and leave New Orleans. And, also very important to me, I have this wonderful group of on-line friends, who were there for my birthday. Thanks everyone: GC (famous Las Vegian!), szel and Beppo (San Francisco,here I come...), Fruity-P (red has always been my favorite color), Dag (Motor City boi!), r@! (but, I'm a clean fogey!), Chip (one who knows Rochester), Ford (the pic was divine!), luca (a very nice card, thanks, but where was the check you promised), tejaz (I loves my jazzy), CarltonFL (yes dear, age and wisdom always prevail...bwahahaha!), buddha ( after all these years, you are still a trip, darling), Trip (who knows his way around the beltway), Felix (long time meow), unokhan (my home state librarian and keeper of the faith), cajunjeff (come on, cher! When you gonna visit?), ABJrGuy (one of our old buidlings collapsed during renovation, I must get a pic for you), lucy (looo-sie!), ETinNY(Jet Blue has some really cheap fares right now...), SonicZephyr (my early morning commentator), sippi (who is not the only one who had an imaginary friend), mass ( my musical dancing cheese pal), Dante (yes, you can stick your fingers in my mouth) and joop (the most artistic of us all)! You are all my favorites!

And a special thanks to a special auntie...

That's it from the desktop...


durlx