My Morning with Joe Dallesandro

Archive: Gay Themed

Give or take a half an hour my bladder impels me out of bed at 4:00 a.m. almost every morning. Duchess wanted to go out. It took a while for her to find the right spot and orientation (against the magnetic north pole?). Charles is still gone and I didn?’t feel like I could fall back asleep. So I put Flesh in the VCR and watch Joe Dallesandro peddle his ass for ninety minutes. Paul Morrissey and the cast made up the $1,500 film as they went along. Probably why Flesh feels like a documentary. Maybe when interest in the ?‘reality?’ shows flags FOX will air Hookers & Johns.

A boy in makeup and dress, Jackie Curtis, was probably my favorite scene. I?’d never heard of Curtis but will see more of her when I rent Women in Revolt (?“Paul Morrissey's tour-de-force of drag queen feminism!?”).

After Flesh I made my usual scan of the news looking for foolishness to post in my other Live Journal.

Then it was time to try Heat. I?’ve never seen Sunset Boulevard but the story of aging actress and boy toy has been told often enough. Heat was too ordinary for my taste. There were a fair number of unhappy, unappealing people who prattle pleadingly along. Sustained my interest but I suspect would kill most people?’s. (Chronologically this is the third of the movies and you can tell Joe had been in the gym steadily, his arms and chest get bigger with each movie.)

Without rewinding Heat I jumped to Trash . This was the only one I?’d seen before (1977). Trash was as hilarious as I remembered it. You have to feel sorry for Holly Woodlawn though. Junk has left Joe impotent and she has to make do with a beer bottle. As always Joe is looking for money, this time so he can buy his next fix. In the best scene Joe, in the nude (Morrissey never missed an excuse to get Joe out of them), shoots up while upper middleclass newlyweds watch. Afraid he?’s going to O.D. they toss Joe and his clothes out in the hall.

Trash is the movie that made me a fan of Dallesandro?’s body. The proportions still strike me as just right. The frisson isn?’t there anymore. Not really a surprise. Unless you have the bad luck to become fixated on a particularly bodybuilder, boy band member or whatever the irrelevant attractions are bound to fade. Unless, maybe, their look corresponds to some personal ideal.

Part of the pleasure I found in Trash must come from the couple of years I spent when I was just away from home. Much of that time I was hanging out, guess I at times was, street trash. It was satisfying distinct from the life I?’d left in Savannah. And I?’ve never been much at home with the suite-and-tied moneygrubbers. Often don?’t thaw to the educated and artistic. But I didn?’t make the lapse of idealizing the often stupid, greedy and sometimes violent people I met.

Watching three movies almost nonstop was a little stupid of me. That many hours in front of the TV leaves my brain and eyes tired. Aside from taking out the trash it has been a hard day to fill up. Wish Charles had been able to come back this morning so I could?’ve spent the day loafing with him.