"I mean, seriously, Asia? You framed an Asia poster? How hard did the people at the frame store laugh when you brought this in?"
"They did not laugh at me."
"Know why you're gay? Because you like Asia."
For the progeny of talented and acclaimed artists, there is always rocky terrain where one would suspect there should be rose petals. In public, perceptions of nepotism and favoritism must always be fought, and the legacy of one's elders is expected to be matched or trumped. In private, there is often the feeling that one is in a competition with the muse for a parent's time and affection. Some Hollywood families are hallmarks of balance and support. Others are more fraught with conflicted emotions that get transcended only after years of struggle. As the man once said, "Buffalo Bill's son couldn't shoot as well as he did," but few take the time or the concern to ask whether a) he was still a decent shot on his own; b) if he had other skills that he was better at than his father, and c) as long as they were a productive member of society, should these even be an issue?
Today is the birthday of one of my favorite second-generation artists. A lady who drew me in by the family name, but took her circumstances and made her own fortune upon them...and with whom, unlike
my hapless non-connections with another celebrity crush, I was able to share one all-too-short evening of convivial exchange. If you're reading aloud or sounding this in your head, the proper name pronunciation is "ahh - SEE - ahh"...as in a red door you want to paint black...but the moxie within is equal to the size of said eponymous continent: Asia Argento.
As stated previously, being a maven of the films of her father Dario Argento, I was essentially a fan of young Asia by default, watching her mature in a parade of Eurocult horror and the occasional arthouse crossover. So I got quite excited when in late 2001 America at large took notice of her, first as Vin Diesel's inscrutable love interest in
xXx, and then with the strategically-delayed-after-xXx release of her writing/directing debut
SCARLET DIVA. As is often my wont, I was finding myself alone in my enjoyment of her crypto-autobiography: patrons at my screening were mercilessly mocking what they perceived as her first world problems, and were hoping she'd be carried away by a "waaahbulanza" by movie's end. And as caustic friends have said countless times before, I have a fixation on brunettes with the appearance of severe emotional problems, so that partly accounts for my affection for this film. But what most see as pathological narcissism in this story I see as a heightened fiction; Asia is creating what people
think she is like for the sake of drama, while indeed addressing some of her real baggage - a goth chick spin on STARDUST MEMORIES. And I also simply enjoyed the random traveling nature of the narrative, one minute in historic Italy, the next hanging with pretty gay boys at a WeHo IHoP...maybe it's the cinematic equivalent of playing with
Colorforms ("Put her in France! Now she's in a disco!"), but dammit, it kept my attention. And from what few glimpses I've had at the demonic netherworld of reality television, it would appear an awful lot of those art directors have been copying this movie's aesthetic. It is a movie I somewhat enjoy more for its cheek than its coherence, but SCARLET DIVA demonstrated to me that Asia had the instincts of a good filmmaker, and since all my favorite directors have at one time been branded a
pasticcio caldo, I would be eager to see more.
I did get to see more, both in film and in the flesh, as I will unfold.
We now go forward to November 2004, during the AFI festival at the ArcLight Hollywood. Cult-bombshell-about-town
Lenora Claire was generous enough to tell me that her artist friend
Gidget Gein had passes to the premiere of the new film by my intended future ex-wife, an adaptation of THE HEART IS DECEITFUL ABOVE ALL THINGS by
JT Leroy. I had been wanting to see this film since I first heard about it, since I was curious about Leroy's work though I'd never read it (I liked ELEPHANT, which he produced and likely helped Gus Van Sant write under the table), and the concept of cosmopolitan Asia going to hard country Knoxville, TN to make a film made me very curious. But first, there was the matter of getting in.
Gidget met up with me and warned that he may not be able to get me into the sold-out screening, it would have to be wait-and-see. His '+ 1' for the evening as it were was filmmaker/author Kenneth Anger, who in odd circumstance was occupying the apartment previously held by Miss Lenora, who was not present. I hadn't spoken to her since the initial invite, so I did not know if she was just sitting out the show in favor of other things, or waiting at home to learn whether she could get in also. As for Anger, I'd met him a few times at work and other locations, and gotten a taste of his...ummm...how to be polite...his eccentric nature. And that evening he was walking around the yard on his own agenda while Gidget and I chatted and waited for Asia's manager to arrive and confirm whether more tickets could be freed up. Gidget found Anger, began to brief him, and it went something like this: [paraphrased quotes]
Gein: "We're still waiting on her management to arrive, see if there's tickets."
Anger: "You tell those fucks I'm not going unless all my friends get in." (looking to me) "See, I only go to movies in parties of three." (looking at me closer) "You should smile more, you have such a stressed look."
Me: (trying to make light) "Oh, I'm just anxious to see if I can get in, I've been wanting to see this a long time."
Anger: "Oh fuck all of this, I'm going home!"
And with that, he just stomped off never to return. So it was just Gidget and myself catching the show. Very odd. But fortuitous, because the house was packed and we got on line at the right time; by the time they started admitting, the patrons waiting stretched from the upstais of ArcLight all the way down the stairs and practically to the gift shop. Thus was this an evening when Anger solved my problem, literally.
Things got even stranger when we got our seats. Directly in front of me was a former contestant from "BEAT THE GEEKS". And not just any contestant, but the one...I think you know who I mean...the blond circuit boy who got the tainted victory in the Geek-off by rattling off a couple horror titles and a bunch of numbers to get an impossible to beat score and pissing me off enought to curse him out on air and cause my mother to denounce the show and berate me for weeks in despair as to how she could raise such a son that would use the "F" word on national TV? Yeah, that one. To our mutual credit, it was a diplomatic affair, and we made nice and called truce. Seemed an interesting enough chap, we had mutual interest in exploitation films, and he said he rather liked my insult of him from the show, describing him as looking like what would happen if Crispin Glover had a one-night-stand with a Breck girl. I commended him for even knowing what a Breck girl was.
{You see, boychiks, years ago dere vas this shampoo company, and dey had the gemutlich blonde goils who were on the bottles like Ivory soap flake babies...wha?? What about the Ivory Flakes? Aaah, who needs you, putz!} I would later learn that my former
Breck bête was in fact comedian
John Cantwell, co-founder of the acclaimed sketch group
the Nellie Olesons, so it's probably a good thing we're on the same side now.
THE HEART IS DECEITFUL was not a pleasant evening's diversion, that's for dead sure. There is very little element of hope in this movie, barring the fact that what was a purportedly loose autobiographical story had a de facto happy ending because "
the real JT Leroy" was alive and writing now and had people looking out for him. I had to admit to feeling a sort of abuse fatigue, watching boy protagonist Jeremiah suffer one humiliation after another at the hands of his unhinged mother (played by Asia) and a long string of untrustworthy adults and thinking it's never going to get better, so is there any other point to this story? But yes, it was a good film. The child actors had roles with character arcs adult actors dream of, and everyone else managed to create scary people that were still human and rounded. I especially liked one scene with Peter Fonda as the ultra-pious grandfather grilling Jeremiah with questions and showing a bizarre, stoic sympathy to his plight even though he's going to ultimately make it worse by instilling an irrational fear of God. TARNATION was much better in the 2004 series of "resilliency of abused children" themed films, but this sophomore feature proved Asia had a distinct voice as an artist. And today, long after the revelation of Leroy as a creation of
Laura Albert and Savannah Knoop, the film that pseudo-scandal inspired is still worth your time if you're ready to get down with the sickness.
One month later, the weekend before Christmas, I had been assisting with hosting and closing a Friday midnight movie, a fairly regular activity for me, except for what would follow when I casually checked my email at 2 a.m. for the first time since before I left for the theatre, and saw a message from the ubiquitous Lenora...
"What time do you get off work? Asia's having a going away party tonight. Call me!"
My thought process worked remarkably fast.
Lenora Claire -> Gidget Gein -> Oh, snap: THAT Asia!
I grabbed the phone and dialed feverishly. Lenora was still up, but on her way out of the party, it appeared to be winding down. But she said if I hurried, I could catch the last gasps. I thanked her, punched up Mapquest so that I wouldn't be hunting like a fool around the neighborhood, and burned rubber to get there. Found parking and found the house much easier than I should have under my normal cloud of fuckupitude. Walked in, and yes, the house had the barren messy allure of a move. What I gleaned from Lenora was that Asia was going back to Europe, and a lot of what was left in the house would be up for grabs. Not many people were around, but those that were all looked like they'd been there a while.
Within a few minutes I was looking right at her.
NOT ACTUAL PHOTOGRAPH FROM PARTY;
LIKELY ACTUAL FACIAL EXPRESSION
Naturally, there was the brief awkwardness of having to explain how a solemn Dickensian street urchin in a black trench and a large soda cup wandered into her party.
"Helloow."
"Hello, I'm Marc. I'm a friend of Gidget's."
"Ah yez he iz upstairzz."
Gidget was indeed upstairs with his girlfriend and other appropriately glam types. He was happy to see me, asked me about an upcoming reissue of ON THE WATERFRONT, and we talked of favorite moments from the film. (His is, of course, "I coulda been a contender," mine is Karl Malden's eulogy for the dockworker, "This was a crucifixion!") A monitor aired what appeared to be a poor tape of some '70's-era film, and naturally I was occupied with trying to identify it. Asia came upstairs looking for her camera and a light. By the time she found her lighter, I correctly identified the movie: it was the documentary MARJOE, about former child evangelist turned B-movie actor Marjoe Gortner. I asked if playing that tape was her idea. She was impressed that I was the only person to correctly identify the movie.
"No one elze here knowwz Marchoe." A somewhat dazed lady friend of a handsome fellow lying on the nearby bed seconded the right-on for Marjoe. When she found her camera, she asked to take my picture. I set down my soda cup but she insisted that I hold it in the picture. She pulled a couple curtains behind me, positioned me...next best thing to being directed by her in an actual film. Gidget told her the story of the packed AFI premiere of THE HEART IS DECEITFUL ABOVE ALL THINGS, and I provided the color commentary on how I wound up with Kenneth Anger's ticket. She was amused and not surprised at the curious turn of events.
Sadly, fate was kind but time was not: practically everyone disembarked around 3 a.m. She entreated the bed-sitting couple to stay a little longer...
"We could zit a while and talke abowt muuzik."...but they had to go, and if
"Fab iz leeving", everyone had to leave. And as I tried to think of musicians with that name since he did not look familiar to me, I thus came up with the double-edged thought,
"Was I in the room with a Stroke?" So in making my goodbyes, I was able to do the following:
1) Tell her I had been looking forward to meeting her since moving from Ohio 5 years before, and was quite thankful to get this first/last chance;
2) Proclaim that I enjoyed both of her directorial outings and that I hoped to work on one with her in the future. She asked what I did, I told her that I wrote, and had at least two scripts with her in mind;
3) Gave her a quickly-improvised going-away present, a copy of the now out-of-print
2002 Sins o' the Flesh calendar. I figured she would appreciate some lovely cheesecake photos of L.A.'s ROCKY HORROR shadow cast, and since she would be leaving the next day, I would not be able to lure her to an actual performance as I had hoped. Embarrasingly, the calendar had gotten wet from an errant partygoer (along with some CDs I had brought from the car because people had been taking turns DJ'ing), but she found it amusing and adding of character.
4) As she said goodnight in Italian, it led me to riff a bit clumsily in Italian and French in turn, explaining my mother's mixed background. She liked the fact that my mother still only speaks French to me to keep me from losing it.
I can't call the night a total smash, because it was all over much too quickly and I didn't get to ask any of the things that I have wanted to ask for years. Had I access to the web 2 hours earlier, I could have arrived there in a timelier manner to enjoy a more substantial party. But 20 minutes with a subject of admiration is better than none at all. And while I doubt I made any large impression, she was quite nice, admitting that she is shy by nature despite the exhibtionistic public persona out there.
"Please don't stay away from here too long. I want to meet you again." I said.
"Then we weell have to do so," she replied.
I contentedly walked back to the car, clutching my slightly-soaked CDs. Water damaged jackets would normally annoy me, but now I have a story behind them: instead of just a household accident, it's "Oh yeah, that's one of the CD's that got damp at Asia's going-away party." I take my memory touchstones where I can get 'em.
After almost 7 years, things have changed for us both. Happily for her, Asia has married and dotes over her children like any good old European mamma. Happily for me, I started this blog and have slowly begun to reclaim some degree of public validation for my otherwise dubious body of knowledge. Sadly for us, Gidget died a couple years back, much too young. Asia has not directed another movie, but she still acts in plenty of them and they're always provoking curiosity. I have not been lucky enough to have that promised second encounter, but the first one took long enough so patience is worth maintaining.
What has not changed is that Asia has not had to do anything she is not passionate about; no paycheck gigs to pay a mortgage, no Hollywood dreck to please an agent. She's an all or nothing kinda woman, so here's a little tribute to all that:
Buon compleanno e buon viaggio, donna Asia. A giorno quando voi rittorno e mi videre ancora.
2014 POSTSCRIPT
In February of 2013, during an otherwise ordinary afternoon, I found myself in an eclectic and electric Twitter conversation with Ms. Argento, which led to reminiscence about the night in question documented above...
About a month later, during another conversation, the photograph came up again:
And then, just this past June...
Thank you, Asia. For your art, and your heart.
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