Fourth Sex Florence
January 2, 2003
Ciao Manhattan —and ciao Brooklyn too. Leaving now to catch a plane and live La Dolce Vita in Florence. Hey Jas, will you please water my plants when you get a chance? I know how you hate to see them suffer.
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January 4, 2003
Ok, so I made it. No pictures yet—maybe I can figure out a way to post some eventually. I couldn't sleep on the plane—one of those dopey red-eye flights where, before you know it, it's the next day..
The Florence airport is a tiny little thing, where you walk off the plane like the Beatles. I got to my hotel, and all I wanted to do was sleep, but I had to work. After all, that's what I'm here for. So a quick check of the map, a squat on the bidet to freshen up, and off I went.
Sussed out the job site—wasn't too much to do really—just figure out what needs to be done and meet some people, so I was only there for a few hours. I headed back to the hotel, took a quick nap, and then went in search of dinner. As lonely as it is wandering around a strange city and eating dinner all alone, it's also nice. There's no one around to remind you of who you are.
I went to bed early. Watched an Italian version of America's Funniest Home Videos—or Foul Ups Bleep And Blunders—or some such garbage. What did he say? Did that guy just blunder? Did that actress foul up? The laugh track told me it must be funny.
Today I overslept. Rushed to the exhibit hall, but the paint in my exhibit area still isn't dry. That’s a common problem with Day-Glo paint. It’s rather transparent and takes a million coats to get a flat finish. And since I’ll be adhering giant “stickers’ to the walls, the paint has to be completely dry. I'll have to start tomorrow, which leaves me free time this afternoon to wander around aimlessly like I always do. I can’t complain about having free time in Florence, but it’s less time for me to do what has to be done.
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January 5, 2003
Where am I? Little Italy? Err—no, it's big Italy. Got the picture thing going—except that it is a long-distance call to connect—so I can’t linger. I'll figure this shit out before I'm gone. Probably the day I leave. Oh yeah, and there are plenty of Italian girls on scooters just like I imagined—except they're all wearing helmets. Oh well. I blew my per diem last night on a single minibar beer and discovered why the Italians aren't known for their beers—it was terrible. And guess what else? I had a slice of pizza yesterday, and it sucked, too! The wonders never cease!
January 5, 2003
This is what I'm working on over here. I don't know how these Italians get anything done—they are so laid back and their attitude is, “Good enough—let's go have a cappuccino.”
“Umm—yeah, ok—but—this is still kinda fucked up over here.”
"No, I think is ok/“
“No, really, check it out, it's fucked up—"
“I dun unnerstand whatchou saying.”
Sigh.
Oh, and I met a cool Scottish guy working on an exhibit here, too. He's staying at the same hotel.
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January 6, 2003
Ok, so I told you about having bad pizza, but get this:
The restaurants don't open for dinner until 7 pm, and I was hungry at 6, so I found another little pizza shop and decided to give it a go. I pointed to what I wanted, and an old guy put it in the oven to warm it up. Then he started asking me all sorts of things in Italian. I told him in my best broken Italian that I didn't understand. Americano? Yes. But he continued to try to talk to me. From what I could gather, he wanted to know how long I was in town for. I told him one week—he didn't understand me, and he pulled out a calendar and walked to my side of the counter. He wanted me to point out the dates of my stay. Why? He kept brushing the back of his hand against my stomach. Ok, so he's an old Italian dude with a different sense of personal space than I have, fine, I can deal. But then his hand dropped, and he started brushing his hand up against my crotch. I somehow convinced myself that it wasn't intentional. I stepped back a bit. He stepped right along with me. Did it again—this time there was no way the old perv wasn't doing it on purpose. Fuck that. I took a few steps back and gave him a dirty look. He just smiled, took my pizza out of the oven, I paid him, and left. I mean, sure, I'm a lonely guy from out of town, no doubt giving lonely-guy-from-out-of-town vibes, but c'mon.
And guess what? The pizza was still cold, and it sucked. Ok, it didn't suck—but considering I had to get molested to get it, it wasn't that good.
Look at this funny sculpture that's in the show. It's a life-sized Japanese anime-type character jerking off with a magical spuge coming out of his Japanese anime dick and swirling around his Japanese anime head. The contractors are getting a kick out of this one. There are all sorts of decadent and pervy artworks in this show. I'll try to get more pictures. But pervy art is nothing new in this town. I saw Michelangelo's David the other day. It’s something like 500 years old, and it's pretty pervy too.
Here's my new pal Gregor, the Scottish dude. He works for the artist Jim Lamby and his job is to lay these tiny strips of vinyl on the floor, working his way to the middle. I stop by his exhibit area and bother him now and then. He takes a break, smokes, and complains.
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January 7, 2003
I feel like shit. It’s as if the ghosts of Florence have been nipping at my spirit like rabid piranha all night long. Wait, do piranha get rabies? Surely not. But there's no such thing as ghosts either, so just play along.
Long story short: I think I'm getting sick. I don't know if I'm sick because I couldn't sleep, or if I couldn't sleep because I'm sick. Either way, my muscles are sore. I found myself complaining to the hallucination lying next to me about how I was only sleeping in two-minute bursts. They said they were, too. I need aspirin. Maybe a bath.
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January 7, 2003
I have nothing to say. Which is fine, because my connection is so crappy here that I get disconnected every 3 minutes anyway.
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January 8, 2003
Can you tell what this picture is? It's a fucking finger! Some old saint’s finger in a fancy display case. Having been raised Catholic, I know how nuts they can be, but c'mon! A fucking shriveled old finger? I saw all sorts of relics—jaw bones, thigh bones, little bone chips, half skulls—all set in fancy glass and silver cases. But I think the finger wins the prize.
I feel a lot better today, though still not great. Gregor and I went out to eat last night, and he suggested a drink afterwards,
“I’m pretty tired and not feeling too well.”
“Yeah. me too—just one drink—"
Never believe a Scottish guy when he says "just one". (Come to think of it, never believe anyone when they say, "Just one.”) But man, that guy can drink. I told him about an Irish pub I discovered, and he was all over it. We drank and flirted with the bartenders and made the regulars mad. You know the guys—they go to that pub every night, hopelessly in love with one bartender or the other—drinking all night, looking at the girl they love with their lost puppy dog eyes, hoping that one night their dreams will come true. And then the two of us show up—fresh blood—a break in the routine—the girls were happy to have someone new to talk to, so we talked and drank and got the evil eye from the regulars. I left Gregor in the wee hours and came back to the hotel. Slept like a baby finally. I don't know if it was all the Guinness that cured my cold, or if it was the tap water in the hotel. That shit is so chlorinated, my breath is like a swimming pool
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January 8, 2003
Funny stories from tonight—if they're still funny tomorrow, maybe I'll fill you in. Why bother? No one reads this shit anyway. I am drunk. Another night drinking with Gregor, and I'm done for.
That reminds me, I asked Gregor if he’d ever been to Italy before. Yes, he said. He’d been to Turin for work. He said he was working a lot and didn’t do much sightseeing. “I didn’t even get to see Jesus’ pajamas.”
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January 9, 2003
The show is making slow, steady progress.
Last night involved me, Gregor, an English tourist whom we met at the bar, and the two cute Italian bartenders from the other night. It also involved drinking lots of Guinness and a glass or two of Grappa, which tasted like the multi-use spray cleaner that I’d been using all day. I began to wonder whether the janitor who had given me the cleaner had been filling his spray bottle with grappa so that he could have a drink or two or three while he worked. Either that, or the bartenders were pouring us paint solvent. Which would've been okay because with all the paint fumes I've been inhaling, I could probably use a shot or two to clean me out. Fuck me if I'm still not drunk from that shit.
The art show opens tonight—a big gala affair with famous and fancy people. A fashion show afterwards by two nutty Dutch designers—and then a big party after that. Italian disco style. DJs, spotlights, and fancy Italian shoes.
I've been thinking I must be the worst-dressed person in Florence, but it's not true. Gregor is. But he's Scottish, so he had a head start.
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January 10, 2003
If I didn't know better, I'd think that all Italians are gay. With their pristine black wool outfits and their studied hair-dos. Their expensive glasses and umbrellas. And the shoes—it always comes back to the shoes. The party was fun. It was exactly as you would expect. Fancy people telling fancy stories and being very serious about silly things and very silly about serious things. I wish I could transcribe the snippets of conversations that I overheard, but of course, I have no idea what they were saying. I'm pretty sure the word 'fabulous' would show up in the translation quite a bit, though.
Gregor and I had met ahead of time to get something to eat, so we were fashionably late. We wandered the party and looked at the people who looked at the art. We were both so exhausted and dizzy that we felt caught in the swirls and a little unable to cope. We left before the party was over and headed back to our favorite Irish pub. Another cute bartender. That bar has got the formula down, and we were hooked. We drank and talked about all the funny things we'd seen that night and that week. About the cool people we'd met, and the assholes, the poetic, and the ridiculous. We talked of art and Scotland, New York and Italy. Italy, most of all. We tried to impress the bartender but were only moderately successful. The bar closed, and we were done. Stumbled home possessed by the power of Grappa.
Today was a pain in the ass. Loose ends. I sent something back to New York by FedEx, but somehow it just doesn't feel like it's going to get there. I ran into Ed Templeton and told him how his work was the best in the show. I meant it. He was nice about how I mistook him for someone else the other day. When I had finally wrapped up all the loose ends, I wandered. The cobblestones were wet, and the city shone. The cars hissed, and the people were hushed. A few hours of perfect moments where time turns in on itself and you're there and everywhere and nowhere and in the exact right spot.
Tomorrow I leave Florence. I take a night train with a cuccetta just like they do in the movies, and I wake up in Paris with nothing to do. Ooh la la.
By the way, in case anyone was wondering, yes, the Stephen Sprouse installation I worked on was supposed to include clothing. Raf Simmons, who co-curated the exhibit, had assumed there would be clothes, but there was never any mention of it. He had only ever specified that he wanted a recreation of the “Hardcore Room” from Stephen’s SoHo store. (And had appeared in the movie Slaves of New York,) Raf had assumed it went without saying. So Stephen, who has stayed behind in New York, scrambled to find three items to include — a dress and two coats — but they didn’t arrive in time to be included. Well, that’s not exactly true. The clothing arrived on the day of the opening, and theoretically could’ve been included, somehow. But they arrived as a greasy mess and smelled like they’d been shipped in the engine room of a container ship. There was no time to clean the grease, if it’s even going to be possible. Que sera sera.
