The Fictional Death of Heath Ledger

It becomes theatrically important, after you die, what your last few days are like. | For me, it was just like any other weekend in my life. I didn’t eat a last meal, I didn’t jerk off any more or any less, I didn’t climb a mountain or end up swinging from a noose with Mozart’s Requiem in the background. But suddenly it’s important exactly what I did, because they are the last few days, and what you do in the last few days, down to your last lunch, becomes a fairy tale.

So begins “The Last Days of Heath Ledger,” easily, the most intriguing piece of “journalism” I’ve read in some time. Penned by Lisa Taddeo, “The Last Days…” is subtly slipped-in towards the end of the April edition of Esquire magazine; though, not so subtly previewed in just about every major newspaper’s culture section.

Taddeo’s pseudo-fiction re-romanticizes Ledger, not in the image of the tragic artist, or the drug-fuelled starlet, but, in that of the self-deprecating narcissist, the apathetic - nothing so special, except that I’m fucking famous - agnostic, dressed in a ski mask - “That’s right, a ski mask… the kind of shit you can get away with when you’re a celebrity… and [] still get laid.”

No doubt the piece channels elements of Gonzo journalism - a consciously self-obsessed celebrity on a bender from London to New York - however, it was the déjà vu, I received, of having read Brett Easton-Ellis' American Psycho (clearly where the self-deprecating narcissism comes from), which drew me into its sinkhole.

I felt as if, that at any point Heath was about to plunge an axe into the Malaysian bodice that he had brought home from the Bar Beatrice to his Manhattan high-ceilinged apartment on his second-last night; just to prove to himself, well, that he could, and then, recollect afterwards, "Yes. Heath Ledger can."

But more potent to my point was the protagonist’s weariness, his disconcern and existential nonchalance, as if he himself was stepping through this so-called dream named Heath Ledger. Today I'm Bob Dylan, tomorrow I'm the Joker, but right now, I'm a guy in the Lower East wearing a ski mask and pretending to be Heath Ledger, whoever the fuck that is.

There is an idea of a Heath Ledger… somewhere between Monday 7:04 and 7:27AM:

[I] get out of bed in this naked body, and I am aware of the very physicalness of myself. I look in the mirror, and this is one of those lucky times when I don’t see the movie-screen face or the love-scene body, just the grease on my face, my not-great hair, a body that is in good form, a body for sex and for running, but just as much for one as for the other.

Or as Easton-Ellis once put it:

There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman; some kind of abstraction. But there is no real me: only an entity, something illusory. And though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable... I simply am not there.

Taddeo researched the short piece to quite an extent, tracing his movements down to the very last muffin. And so, what philosophical import am I to receive, safe in the knowledge that Heath Ledger's last meal on Earth was a dry banana-nut muffin from some café on Broadway, you ask; and, that if he were to do it all over again, he'd go out with “an endangered animal’s heart on toast with foie-gras crumbles and black-truffle shavings.”?

Taddeo certainly sees the nonsense in such superfluous observations, and the piece is partly a statement on the media’s psycho-journalistic habits when it comes to grieving over dead stars: “For those of you who will try to define part of my life by my death: Don’t.” This is, I think, where the first-person narration succeeds; that is, as a voice for the recently departed, saying, Hey, you, stop pissing on my grave and fuck off!

*Out now in the back of American Esquire with that other gay cowboy, George Clooney, on the front. I recommend it.

Dirty Dirty Auden

The recent anthology The Best American Erotic Poems – selected and annotated by David Lehman – begs the question of Americans and eroticism. As poet and literary critic Dan Chiasson puts it in his entertaining essay in the New York Times Book Review, such an anthology comes down to "best metaphorical labia! best profane blazon," which more or less pins down the existent of America's brazen erotic. And so in this contest, Chiasson gives it to the good old Anglo-American W. H. Auden's "Platonic Blow," which, as Chiasson proclaims, "is the dirtiest verse written since Rochester - I can't even talk about it here."

So for the sake of metaphorical labia and profane blazon everywhere, we shall talk about it... here:

The Platonic Blow
W. H. Auden

It was a spring day, a day for a lay, when the air
Smelled like a locker-room, a day to blow or get blown;
Returning from lunch I turned my corner and there
On a near-by stoop I saw him standing alone.

I glanced as I advanced. The clean white T-shirt outlined
A forceful torso, the light-blue denims divulged
Much. I observed the snug curves where they hugged the behind,
I watched the crotch where the cloth intriguingly bulged.

Our eyes met. I felt sick. My knees turned weak.
I couldn't move. I didn't know what to say.
In a blur I heard words, myself like a stranger speak
"Will you come to my room?" Then a husky voice, "O.K."

I produced some beer and we talked. Like a little boy
He told me his story. Present address: next door.
Half Polish, half Irish. The youngest. From Illinois.
Profession: mechanic. Name: Bud. Age: twenty-four.

He put down his glass and stretched his bare arms along
The back of my sofa. The afternoon sunlight struck
The blond hairs on the wrist near my head. His chin was strong.
His mouth sucky. I could hardly believe my luck.

And here he was sitting beside me, legs apart.
I could bear it no longer. I touched the inside of his thigh.
His reply was to move closer. I trembled, my heart
Thumped and jumped as my fingers went to his fly.

I opened a gap in the flap. I went in there.
I sought for a slit in the gripper shorts that had charge
Of the basket I asked for. I came to warm flesh then to hair.
I went on. I found what I hoped. I groped. It was large.

He responded to my fondling in a charming, disarming way:
Without a word he unbuckled his belt while I felt.
And lolled back, stretching his legs. His pants fell away.
Carefully drawing it out, I beheld what I held.

The circumcised head was a work of mastercraft
With perfectly beveled rim of unusual weight
And the friendliest red. Even relaxed, the shaft
Was of noble dimensions with the wrinkles that indicate

Singular powers of extension. For a second or two,
It lay there inert, then suddenly stirred in my hand,
Then paused as if frightened or doubtful of what to do.
And then with a violent jerk began to expand.

By soundless bounds it extended and distended, by quick
Great leaps it rose, it flushed, it rushed to its full size.
Nearly nine inches long and three inches thick,
A royal column, ineffably solemn and wise.

I tested its length and strength with a manual squeeze.
I bunched my fingers and twirled them about the knob.
I stroked it from top to bottom. I got on my knees.
I lowered my head. I opened my mouth for the job.

But he pushed me gently away. He bent down. He unlaced
His shoes. He removed his socks. Stood up. Shed
His pants altogether. Muscles in arms and waist
Rippled as he whipped his T-shirt over his head.

I scanned his tan, enjoyed the contrast of brown
Trunk against white shorts taut around small
Hips. With a dig and a wriggle he peeled them down.
I tore off my clothes. He faced me, smiling. I saw all.

The gorgeous organ stood stiffly and straightly out
With a slight flare upwards. At each beat of his heart it threw
An odd little nod my way. From the slot of the spout
Exuded a drop of transparent viscous goo.

The lair of hair was fair, the grove of a young man,
A tangle of curls and whorls, luxuriant but couth.
Except for a spur of golden hairs that fan
To the neat navel, the rest of the belly was smooth.

Well hung, slung from the fork of the muscular legs,
The firm vase of his sperm, like a bulging pear,
Cradling its handsome glands, two herculean eggs,
Swung as he came towards me, shameless, bare.

We aligned mouths. We entwined. All act was clutch,
All fact contact, the attack and the interlock
Of tongues, the charms of arms. I shook at the touch
Of his fresh flesh, I rocked at the shock of his cock.

Straddling my legs a little I inserted his divine
Person between and closed on it tight as I could.
The upright warmth of his belly lay all along mine.
Nude, glued together for a minute, we stood.

I stroked the lobes of his ears, the back of his head
And the broad shoulders. I took bold hold of the compact
Globes of his bottom. We tottered. He fell on the bed.
Lips parted, eyes closed, he lay there, ripe for the act.

Mad to be had, to be felt and smelled. My lips
Explored the adorable masculine tits. My eyes
Assessed the chest. I caressed the athletic hips
And the slim limbs. I approved the grooves of the thighs.

I hugged, I snuggled into an armpit. I sniffed
The subtle whiff of its tuft. I lapped up the taste
Of its hot hollow. My fingers began to drift
On a trek of inspection, a leisurely tour of the waist.

Downward in narrowing circles they playfully strayed.
Encroached on his privates like poachers, approached the prick,
But teasingly swerved, retreated from meeting. It betrayed
Its pleading need by a pretty imploring kick.

"Shall I rim you?" I whispered. He shifted his limbs in assent.
Turned on his side and opened his legs, let me pass
To the dark parts behind. I kissed as I went
The great thick cord that ran back from his balls to his arse.

Prying the buttocks aside, I nosed my way in
Down the shaggy slopes. I came to the puckered goal.
It was quick to my licking. He pressed his crotch to my chin.
His thighs squirmed as my tongue wormed in his hole.

His sensations yearned for consummation. He untucked
His legs and lay panting, hot as a teen-age boy.
Naked, enlarged, charged, aching to get sucked,
Clawing the sheet, all his pores open to joy.

I inspected his erection. I surveyed his parts with a stare
From scrotum level. Sighting along the underside
Of his cock, I looked through the forest of pubic hair
To the range of the chest beyond rising lofty and wide.

I admired the texture, the delicate wrinkles and the neat
Sutures of the capacious bag. I adored the grace
Of the male genitalia. I raised the delicious meat
Up to my mouth, brought the face of its hard-on to my face.

Slipping my lips round the Byzantine dome of the head,
With the tip of my tongue I caressed the sensitive groove.
He thrilled to the trill. "That's lovely!" he hoarsely said.
"Go on! Go on!" Very slowly I started to move.

Gently, intently, I slid to the massive base
Of his tower of power, paused there a moment down
In the warm moist thicket, then began to retrace
Inch by inch the smooth way to the throbbing crown.

Indwelling excitements swelled at delights to come
As I descended and ascended those thick distended walls.
I grasped his root between left forefinger and thumb
And with my right hand tickled his heavy voluminous balls.

I plunged with a rhythmical lunge steady and slow,
And at every stroke made a corkscrew roll with my tongue.
His soul reeled in the feeling. He whimpered "Oh!"
As I tongued and squeezed and rolled and tickled and swung.

Then I pressed on the spot where the groin is joined to the cock,
Slipped a finger into his arse and massaged him from inside.
The secret sluices of his juices began to unlock.
He melted into what he felt. "O Jesus!" he cried.

Waves of immeasurable pleasures mounted his member in quick
Spasms. I lay still in the notch of his crotch inhaling his sweat.
His ring convulsed round my finger. Into me, rich and thick,
His hot spunk spouted in gouts, spurted in jet after jet.

Gastro-Religion and Why Salmonella is Not My Friend

Apologies for my recent lapse in Spooning. I have been in the midst of one rather phantasmagoric salmonella plunge, as well as a bliss binge (though I expect only a handful to comprehend that reference).

Some thoughts. Why are food poisoning dreams so certifiably deranged? Do neurotoxins trigger some primordial partition of the brain, causing my otherwise insignificant memories to spill over into my sheets? Several times I woke up in a sweat last night, thinking, "God, what ever happened to that guy?" Individuals I hadn't thought of in well over a decade suddenly ascended to the surface of my cavernous mind pool attempting to feign some greater meaning. Yet there is none. Believe me, I tried to psychoanalyze this one out. But even in my withered, debilitated and ripe-for-bullshit state, I could not find any associative significance.

So it got me thinking more about food poisoning, as well as religion, which of course, I am consistently trying to debunk.

Long before civilization's understanding of hygienic food preparation practices, food-borne illnesses must have been as common as "divine inspirations". As an analytical species, we have, I think, attributed too much signification to the delusional fucked-up states that we've at times found ourselves in after gulping down a half-a-dozen Sydney Rock oysters?

"Ah... Guys. God said that if we want to stop defecating from every orifice, we Jews gotta stop eating shellfish!" Mix that in with a couple of fancy hallucinations, add some historical Hebrew references et voila, you have yourself a sermon. When the mechanics of the body don't work the way they're supposed to, we question the material world and answer with transcendental explanations.

So, perhaps we can compound monotheistic religion to a series of gastro-medico-fantastical trial and errors. After all, if something's bad for you, then God purported it to be so. He made the sky blue, the Earth round and the cows look like our grandmothers. "Mooo, don't eat me. I'm your cousin."

We could go further to suggest even, that a culture which has refined its culinary practices to the point of being able to cook and consume anything and everything, is far superior than a culture that, say, has a nonsensical taboo on specific ingredients, such as pork or beef.

And so, enter the Chinese! Bird's nest, turtle blood, whale sperm, yam... an all-encompassing diet for an all encompassing economy. As China rises, the rest of the world will go hungry.

Carry Grant is Rolling in his Grave

If the great Alfred Hitchcock were not so rotund he would probably be rolling in his grave. Vanity Fair, in their annual Hollywood Issue decided to recreate the auteur’s most iconic images, replacing his rolodex of Hollywood’s Golden Age with the current flings of the month (this month being the Oscars).

Whilst the ambitious project has some flavourful touches, for instance a chiselled Javier Bardem that makes one wish Jimmy Stewart’s character in Rear Window was Latino, as well as La Vie en Rose’s Marion Cotillard being Psycho stabbed in the shower (which is also happens to be a current flavour of the month), the recreation also destroys some classics: that's right, Seth Rogen’s beer-belly tripping over itself whilst being chased by a swooping bi-plane in North By Northwest.

Correction. Carry Grant is rolling in the grave.



See the whole Hitchcock recreation here.

Cotillard's French-American Conspiracies

If you have not seen Marion Cotillard’s galvanizing, Oscar-winning, back-wrenching performance (literally) as the French chanteuse Edith Piaf in La Vie En Rose, stop reading now and come back later.

For she has said some p-r-e-t-t-y ridiculous things of late after having swindled the Yanks by raping and pillaging Los Angeles (deservedly so) by co-authoring and co-conspiring the acquisition of the Academy Awards’ top four gongs for Europe. This recently indoctrinated darling of the Hollywood elite puts Matt Damon’s idiotic composure to shame.

She is quoted as saying – God knows why – on the topic of the 2001 September 11 attacks:

"I think we're lied to about a number of things… We see other towers of the same kind being hit by planes. Are they burned? They was [sic] a tower, I believe it was in Spain, which burnt for 24 hours. It never collapsed. None of these towers collapsed. And there [in New York], in a few minutes, the whole thing collapsed."

Questioned as to why the government may have wanted to destroy the towers and manifest an elaborate cover-up:

"It was a money-sucker because they were finished, it seems to me, by 1973, and to re-cable all that, to bring up-to-date all the technology and everything, it was a lot more expensive, that work, than destroying them."

O...K.… Where to start? First of all, congratulations for making Matt Damon not look like the biggest retard in Hollywood for the first time since Good Will Hunting. And points for originality on the real-estate angle. Look. Conspiracies are fine. I mean, I have my own.

For instance, I don’t believe that Keira Knightley is remotely English. She has San Fernando written all over her. The Valley Girl got her accent from re-runs of Thomas the Tank Engine and that black English butler from The Fresh Prince... But the thing is, I don’t tell the Poms that. They would have my head and put it on display at the London School of Economics with that Jeremy Bentham fellow. By the way, how does one go about acquiring a black English butler?

Ms. Cotillard could have stopped after that kick in America’s metaphorical nuts, however she went further, adding:

"Did a man really walk on the Moon? I saw plenty of documentaries on it, and I really wondered. And in any case I don't believe all they tell me, that's for sure."

Shhhhh. I’m doing this for you. I like you as an actor. You’re tops! I love French women. Truly. However, this morning three of your North American representatives, who are probably Jewish, just fired themselves after reading your insipid bullshit.

And all this, especially considering that Cotillard comes from a country where Holocaust denial is punishable by restrictions on your yearly intake of wine and truffles. Mais non! But I must feed my children.

Seriously, it’s like Michael Moore winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes and then telling Le Monde: “you’re all fat, ugly and stubbly, just like me - just like America. Muahahahaha. Now give me some money and truffles bitches méchantes!”

Admittedly, the comments were made last year before she received the award she probably didn’t think she’d get for being French anyway. The interview was recorded in French for the program Paris Premiere - Paris Derniere and so her words were not intended for American ears or eyes. Besides, who makes money translating French into American?

We can only hope that this doesn’t taint her acting career, particularly in her upcoming role as the lover to Johnny Depp’s gangster in Michael Mann’s Public Enemies. Wait. She’s crossing the Atlantic and playing an American! My recommendation is consult Keira Knightley on this. She’s much experience in the transatlantic category.

NOT English!

Jack of All Trades Gives Clinton An Elderly Nod

Jack Nicholson is probably that much more qualified than his fellow thespians to endorse a Presidential nominee. After all, he did play one in Tim Burton's Mars Attacks! and... almost save us from impending doom.

And so in this latest endorsement-cum parody of the faux-politik of Hollywoodland, Jackie goes against the fur and bats for Hillary.



In fact, during his five decade tenure amongst the ranks of Hollywood royalty, Jack has charmed and spoiled us with an iron-fist full of politically charged undertakings. Certainly no one can say that inexperience is his downfall.

For example:

He proffered US-Chinese economic relations in The Departed by selling military hardware to Guangdong merchants. As the Joker he provided welfare benefits to the good people of Gotham City, as well as put on a parade worthy of an Academy Achievement in Art Direction.


In the touching About Schmidt he tackled the issue of America's aging and depressing population and courageously represented a nation's innermost fear of fat people in swimsuits. His exemplary work in A Few Good Men outlined procedures to be followed in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Jack bravely tackled the corruption that lay behind the LA County's debilitating water mismanagement in Chinatown, as well as cop one in the nose.



And as every "honest" politician, Jack has even openly discussed his '60s experimentation with marijuana and stint in jail in Easy Rider.



Add to this that he tore down a haunted house in the Colorado Rockies (The Shining), reformed the authoritarian treatment of mental patients (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) and made the world safe once more for old quirky arrogant men - who really outta get checked out - everywhere (As Good As It Gets).

Jack you have my nod!