One bird, two fingers.., Julian Richards interviewed.

Image: Perkin Lovely.

Julian Richards is a "top tier" artist representative in New York City. After a mutual acquaintance introduced us, I thought it instructive to follow in MDM's footsteps, and start running "Dear Leader" interviews. I was not disappointed by his responses but rather felt that I, should have worked a little harder on the questions. But if you feel that the interviewer's job is to make the interviewee shine through, then I must have done a good job of it; or was it an inevitability, given the personality.

To put it mildly, few things are more entertaining than intelligence, eloquence, self confidence and comedy, all wrapped up in one lusciously human representative.

Begin here:

DL: Describe your kitchen sink?

JR: A single piece of concrete carved by our friend Trevor Heatherington into a dynamic reenactment of the Tiresius myth. He's prodding the fornicating snakes with a stick, mid-way through his metamorphosis. It's like a Bernini, but lumpier. The hot and cold faucets are particularly arresting - realistic arrangements of his male and female genitals, respectively. It's kind of a rite of passage at our home for visitors to be photographed drinking directly from the orifices (ordinarily men from the cold, women from the hot) whilst grinning libidinously at the camera. We have a gallery of polaroids on the wall by the fridge. Hilarious, eh?

DL: If you could choose to come back as a prairie, which one would it be, and would you let anybody till ye?

JR: I'm not really clear what a prairie is. If I were to come back as a fairy it might be WH Auden.

DL: What living person do you most admire, be specific ?

JR: It changes. There's this actress Natacha Regnier who is the right shape. She occasionally gets my aching admiration.

DL: Do you love all your children equally?

JR: Over an extended period, probably. But there are huge fluctuations over the short term. They offer very different challenges.

DL: Is there something photography is lacking, if anything?

JR: I can't help thinking that it lacks so much, simply because of its inherent limitations. In that sense you can't blame it. But you can feel a bit embarrassed observing it's importance being inflated to laughable proportions. Photography is the homeland that flocks of itinerant charlatans have spent generations seeking. It it so replete with the ordinary pretending to be extraordinary ... and I'm as guilty as anyone of lionizing mediocrity - my home-loan company requires it of me. I suppose there's an academic argument for it being the art form of our age ... shabby times, given to a relentless stream of product rendered quickly for an audience of glazed eyes and dull, lazy minds. As such I suppose it becomes relevant as a kind of cultural emblem. This relevance, however, doesn’t go far in offsetting the paucity of the experience of dealing with what is frequently required of us on a day-to-day basis. But like anything, if you suspend disbelief and confer special status upon material which is deeply banal, you can quickly build yourself a new hierarchy of value whereby bad is good and okay is wonderful ... and ten minutes later you can confidently pontificate upon such things as 'greatness' and 'beauty'. People will apparently know what you're talking about and nod accordingly. Maybe you can even sell some stuff.

DL: If you were to be given just one print to give to former Senator Joseph McCarthy, what would it be and how would you deliver it?

JR: I don't think I'd bother, really. Maybe if it was simply a matter of emailing him something off one of those Amatrice Francaise sites. It's nice to have a reason to poke about in there for a half hour.

DL: What do you dislike most about bakeries?

JR: Most of the women in them aren't naked.

DL: If you could change soft core pornography, how and who would it be?

JR: I guess make it less content to be soft. I like the tension between soft straining against the impulse to be hard. Who? Some of my friends' girlfriends, probably. I'm interested in tinkering with the unfamiliar/familiar equilibrium.

DL: Are you in it for the money?

JR: Yes, naturally. There are other ingredients, but the absence of any one of them alone wouldn't be reason alone to stop. Without money though, it would be over in a heartbeat.

DL: Any further penchants you'd like to reveal, unofficially?

JR: They are so prosaic I think it would be hard to stifle a yawn. I like to think I have my own unique niches in the canon of the commonplace, but perhaps I don't ... and anyway it'd take too much time and penmanship to state them prettily. They tend to wiggle about.

DL: Is there anything else you need, besides money?

JR: I need objects for the unholy bits of my imagination to alight upon.

DL: Favorite childhood cheeses?

JR: I remember discovering that camembert sometimes smells like semen. Still tastes good though. I've since noticed that day-old pancake mix has a similar quality.

DL: Which talent would you most like to have and how much would you pay to get it, Euros please?

JR: I can't afford to shop in euros, I earn my crusts in dollars which are currently equivalent to the Namibian Lucky Bean. I have always aspired to possessing talents which might alchemise me into a state of irresistibility. Hypnotism, manufacture of persuasive pharmaceuticals, knot-tying, those kinds of things.

DL: If you were one of those emoticons, which one would you be, and how big?

JR: The sunny vagina, 1:12

DL: What is your most treasured possession and would you give it to me, if I asked nicely?

JR: If I lived in a land where spouses were still considered goods and chattel I might entertain a loan or a swap under very special circumstances. What you got?

DL: What is "clam happy"?

JR: See response to emoticon question above.

DL: What are the upper body qualities you most like in a woman, or a man, if that doesn't do it for ye?

JR: Modest dimensions, please.

DL: What is the greatest love of your life and will it love you back, eventually?

JR: Overall I'm happy being the less loved in the greatest love equation. The inequality keeps the horizon line in view and the mystery of the other side intact. Who knows (or wants to know) what the landscape looks like once you crest the hill? Some fetid bog pocked with slag-heaps and sulfurous chimneys? Or just a flat expanse of featureless nothingness, like fucking Holland? Even if it's better than that, it's hardly likely to outdo the euphoric pornography of my imagination. So better to keep panting and chasing.

DL: How many horse-ladies in your Apocalypse?

JR: A brace of small-breasted ones.

DL: Who are your heroes, and do they even know you exist?

JR: I'm not sure I have any. Which isn't as cynical as it sounds, it's simply a matter of age and cheerful skepticism. Given time, most heroes seem to acquire feet of clay. Possibly I have a few dead ones, but I'd be irritated to see them stated as such, especially by me. Obsessions, however, would be a different story, although they might not be whole human beings. Just bits.

DL: Is this mildly annoying?

JR: Not at all, it's mildly flattering to be asked.

DL: Chicken or fish?

JR: I'm afraid I need a url to answer this.

DL: How's thing?

What I fucking do all day when I am not earning my man.....

Let’s see, I usually wake up between 6 and 6:30. Feed Raphael breakfast and drive him to the bus stop in the Haight, I salute him and off he goes to get some educated. That little bitch better get me some return on my money. With my personality, someone’s gonna have to pay for my old age. I park the XC70, you see, I really need it to haul the gripage (and BTW, I ain’t no bobo, if that’s what you’re thinking!). That ’s right I paid my dues way back in 86', in that Far East village, gentleman gentrifying C and D for the the rest of yous bohemian bitches. Remember Bernard ? that's right, I built that kitchen organic shit, but that’s another, more interesting story, we'll save it for later, in between morning lattes. I even got threatened by a man vet with TNT. Who the fuck tries to stop someone from hammering away; drunkenly pulls the pin and holds the safety, with a fucking hand grenade?; greatest generation, aye?).

What was I saying, oh yeah, I park the lease and slowly walk over to get me some Cafe. Every day I get a latte, I used to get cafe au lait but the coffee at Tullys is so shitty™ I have to get a latte to drown the taste. Since I spend most of my days alone, as freelancers often manage, I stick around for an hour or so, generally abusing those around me, by, as the brits used to say, “take the piss” out of they. If they don’t like it they usually sit somewheres else and ruminate. Of course I fully expect those who stayed to “take the piss” out of me. With any luck it’s funny, otherwise it’s just hate, and what’s the point, aye?

If I don’t feel like socializing or those who don’t mind “a pissing” can’t be shaken from their early morning grumblays, I’ll check ye olde email on the mobil-ay, point one finger, and go to it. Check stock prices to see how rich some people are getting and harangue the poor fools waiting for the google buses; a stone’s throw away. Those are the worker bees who didn’t get stock optionated and are now forced to commute greenly every day. These big black buses come by 2 or 3 times a day and swoop them up and away. They have those quirky cubes designed to highlight their individualities, a couple real live pooches and some snurf guns, for when the inner child needs a break. That's some cute and funny shit I have often been asked to “portray”. Some of them actually build themselves habitats for the work a day; they use a mixture of spit and clay which they store in pouches, in fleshy pouches, along with the volley balls, they receive on: “Explore the day”. They do this, like africanized honey bays; but all in one day...

So, around eight in the morning, Adrienne, drives by coffee and drops off Gabriel, number two, that way I can walk him to school. I shower him with kisses, make fun of him, he curses me and on we go, hand in hand, we walk to school and shoot the breezes. I love those monkeys and I LOVE being a daddy; I love boys especially but I am sure that if I had girls I would quickly turn into a drooling papie. Kids are humanity’s answer to all those douches we have to deal with everyday, unless of course they have early joined those masses, in which case, well, that’s a real fucking shame. Am I to presume that they were born that way? Feel free to lump me in with all other afore mentioned idiots, after all, one man’s fool is another man’s tool. Stands to reason, don’t it?

Also around 8:30, if my leg is aching up, which it usually is; it’s not called chronic pain for nothing, ain’ it? (read previous entry), I pop a couple Vicodins to shave that snake; but fear not, the rest of him keeps on kicking throughout the day, to remind me its not quite done with me. Afterall, who wants to run around like a fucking caged monkey, thinking about nothing else but how much freaking nerve pain a primate can endure in a day. Thank you opiates, and yes I have a prescription, and no, you can’t have it, and no, I am not fiended; I have actually reduced and never increased the dosage. As previously explained, I am very slowly getting better, lots of steroids and Botox injected, twice weekly physical therapies; and oh yes, once again, thank you opiates; without you I would have been freaking desperate . Surviving the last year without these beauties would have been far too manly for my taste.

Anyway, around 8:40, I slowly walk back to the XC seventies and pop in some African CDs, I am a big fan here, let’s say 30 years; turn on the ignition and peel off like the French born that I is. On the way home I curse California drivin’; by far the worst goddamn cretins on Gore’s not so green earth; ain’t it? Worthless bunch of inattentive, self righteous, passive-digressive, incompetent clueless douches. Give me New York City or Paris any day, that’s my kind of tootin’ anyway; where men drive like clown monkeys and women bray like camel riding donkeys . If ever I have guests, I try to tone it down but “es-startlement happens” ! (new word here, means: Spanglish to describe the startling processes).

Not to spare you the tedium, I take Belvedere or Cole to 17th and Market and then down the hill to the Castro, that’s where I live with my girl, and the progenated. Up Douglass and up up and away. You see, I am a divorcé, so off I go to live communally. Clicker in hand I open the brand new garage door and ram the cardboard flotsam to the back of these here garages. Step out of the car, disrecollected, close the roll ups and walk up, up and away. Back down to get recollected and back up again’. Open the door leading into the deck, trip over the Bar-B-Qued remains and drop the keys that opens the kitchen gates. Wheel the dishwasher back in place and to the home offices; it’s more feminine that way. Tap the keyboard and wake up the CPAs, “Good day”! To show cheer and show my good graces by animating objects, is an important part of my day to day.

I check email one more time and snurf the dailies: the Jackanory, aphotoeditor, Heading East, 2point8; these are all people I either know, or we communicate; sometimes every day. I like them, and their energy and efforts are always greatly appreciated. When I feel less pressed, like today, I roam the interneted, and less well known tottering blog-aided…. I comment, but shouldn’t, too much time away from these bitches! Thankfully I can finger type with great rapidity.

If I am feeling friskay, I’ll write my own entry, usually consisting of what this blog generally disseminates with great identity, which it’s supposed to portray, or a least try to communicate, what a slightly older, effeminate esthete, British and patrician academic might think. Well crafted, defined, opinionated, ideated; ideas, tidbits, wisdoms and recollections collected while traveling with the Queen and her majesty’s secret services; all the while, throwing in, a few contemporary rabbits and expletives, to appear younger than I might actually turn out to bees. I have tried to have that come across with greater clarity and voice-hover all my entreaties, but that was way too time consuming, I had to put that one to sleep. Enough for right now, I have actual work to do, but fear not, more’s a coming your way…..