The Arkansas Arts Center had a party the other night to kickoff it's exhibition entitled "Andy Warhol: 15 Weeks of Fame." The exhibition features paintings, silkscreen prints, videos and other objects. How they talked the Warhol and Carnegie Museums into loaning some of this stuff is beyond me. But there it was, the Marilyns, the Liz Taylor and the creepy screen tests of the various drugged out sycophants that popped up in his movies. Being the well known patron of the arts that I am, I decided to check it out. Besides, the Red Sox-Rays game would still be on by the time I got home.
I'm glad that it will be here for 15 weeks. It was all kind of overwhelming to take in all at once. Maybe it was the fact that the place was packed to the rafters with other patrons of the arts such as myself. Maybe it was the free Absolut vodka. Maybe it was the fact that Warhol really cranked it out and there was just a lot of stuff to look at.
Or maybe it was the, largely unbidden I suspect, and slightly malevolent presence of drag queens at the party. Nothing can tend to draw your eye away from what you need to be looking at like a muscular male transvestite wearing a B-52 on his head, white gloves and affecting a cigarette holder. I am a tall man. The assist from the heels and the big hair made this flower of the evening at least 6'5". He was accompanied by a woman with whom I am acquainted-refreshingly enough a biological member of the species-who I did not recognize at first because she had cut her hair short like a boy and dyed it platinum.
This was too fucked up for me. So I headed out to the main gallery in search of a refill.
My neighbor Betsy-who hails from Warhol's hometown of Pittsburgh-was there with her 11 year old daughter Caroline. Caroline used to figure somewhat prominently in this space until she got older and grew bored with me. Alas. Sic Semper Old Farts.
Now I know Caroline and I could tell that she was fidgety and distracted. She saw me and came over. She pressed up to me. I put my arm around her and bent down.
"What's up?" I asked.
" I don't like all the drag queens here," she said. I looked around. There was a gaggle of them, black and white, some built like your average running back, yoo-hooing at each other from the bar area.
" I think they're weird," she said. "Did you see the 2 guys in there? One of 'em is huge." She pointed to gallery where the Warhol exhibit was being shown.
Under such exotic circumstances I easily pass for normal and so I tried to comfort the poor lamb.
" Well, one of the two interesting people in there is a girl," I said.
" Really? She looks like a boy. I mean, even more than the boy dressed like a girl."
" No. She's a girl. She used to be married to a psychiatrist."
" A psychiatrist?"
"Um-hmmm."
By this time her Mom had come over.
" Caroline is kinda weirded out by the screaming queens in our midst," I said. "She is not old enough to drink yet which helps me manage the visual stimulation better."
" Well, she is really gonna be weirded out by what I'm gonna be this Halloween."
"No," I said,seeing the light bulb hovering over her head.
" Yeah, the guys at the station want me to go as a drag queen. It wouldn't be that hard. I'm 6 foot tall. Put on some bad clothes and makeup, stick some fake nails on and lower my voice. I think it will be fun."
I have not inconsiderable experience with six foot women. They tend to be sufficiently "out there" if only due to their stature. But this was too much for Caroline who put her hands over her ears.
" Ewwww, gross! You're going to pretend to be a guy pretending to be a girl! Yuk!"
Good thing I had a couple of drinks in me. This was all getting too complicated.
I looked at my watch-given to me by a biological woman I have seen with her clothes off-and decided that watching baseball, where strikes are strikes and-forgive me-balls are balls, was a better use of my time.
Before I left Betsy grabbed my arm and slinked up to me.
" I want you to take my picture on Halloween." She had dropped her voice into a lower register. She gave me a wink that Edie Sedgwick would have found positively lurid.
I left. Like I said, this was too fucked up even for me.
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