Lenny Called Me Today

My friend looks like Lenny Kravitz.

So that is going to be my code name for him. I have to admit that he's really cute and you would never guess that he is old enough to remember partying with Grace Jones, or house parties with Princess Stefanie and Prince Albert of Monaco, or seeing these strange crowns popping up around the East Village announcing the birth of Basquiat. I like him cause he usually calls my ass to remind me that I am an artist, and that I had a life over in Europe. He senses my depression I think. We get depressed by the same things, and angry about the same things, though I think we love differently. Completely different. I am the optimistic monk, sneaking a kiss in between the abbeys. He is the realist monk, devoted to his artwork and photography though his vision has not come to me yet. I wonder when it will be revealed.

I also wonder if I am going to evolve into a Lenny. Maybe I carry a little Lenny inside of me, and he a miniature Unbeached Whale, and, maybe they are both friends in some strange alternate universe that exist only between our belly buttons when we walk down Avenue of the Americas after dinner late at night.

Little does he know that my life in Europe was a very inartistic time for me and I spent my time with engineers and business people who did not have a real use for art. We are talking about large groups of people for whom language was a practical way of getting around in the world, and not meant for ornate things.

So.

He called.

I was a sleep.

I was very nervous about my doctor's visit the night before because I just did not have enough numbers on my glucometer. 4 times a day is a bit extreme, and I really don't feel like one of those perfect little cheerleader girls on the glucometer commercials. When I really want a pint of Guinness, I don't feel like apologizing for it. There is something about my self image and the disease that I have to reconcile. Not one doctor or nurse in almost 12 years has ever talked to me about that.

So, I went to sleep late, watching something on television. I think I got a total of 3 hours sleep. Lenny called about the time I was suppose to get up.

He called to tell me that 80 percent of the black folk of New Orleans can't afford to get back to the city, and that there houses will be bulldozed. . . or least the prospects of such a scenario were in play.

I kind of did not know what to do with the information. I was pissed. Lenny likes me because we see things similarly . . . but my stuff is a bit more 'round about, I am searching for some lost Creole world or where I might fit in despite prevailing notions that to be Creole is to be light skinned and have a certain last name. Lenny is a Caribbean person, displaced by his father's decision to move to this country sometime ago. His point-of-view is very pro-Black -- pro-Rasta -- play the game to get ahead -- but this shit is very unfair -- but you gotta fight not to be bitter -- but curse the Korean grocery bitch out if she keeps disrespecting you -- WBAI -- RedBlackandGreen -- calling on Zion from the Bronx and Hell's Kitchen (Harlem is only for shopping and going to the museum) -- kind of NYC politics. So, It amazes me that he is a fashion photographer. He is like most NYC intellectuals, socialist with close friends, but capitalist in practice. Lenny said that if you want to be a Socialist them move to a Socialist country, otherwise you will starve. He is self educated. He is struggling in New York cause the city he said he wanted to live and die in does not exist anymore. It has changed around him.

Lenny can ply and paste bra cups while balancing a woman on abnormally long stilettos (he calls them "fuck pumps") at the crack of the Northern light; then he can shot, edit, cut, invoice and deliver without an office. Everything is done with a mobile phone and 10 bucks.

He is a man's man with a soft side. I have seen him do his own plumbing for his own little cafe in Hell's Kitchen, back before the community's current incantation . . . The same for wiring. The same for cooking and making cocktails. The same for the tables, and the chairs. The painting. The whole thing. He is self-sufficient and a wander waiting, and waiting and waiting for the security to apply it.

Like me, he is sniffing out dry land, a safe harbor, fresh water.

So, along with New Orleans information, My Own Private Lenny Kravitz talked about NYC rents and possibilities for me to move back and get out of the hell hole of where I am. According to Lenny. Problem is, I am starting to like it here, and in a way, maybe he would too if he could get into the Country Music thing and film some of the "thangs" running around here with their Reserved Bourbon on the rock boyfriends and a Kir Royal in their charm bracelet hands. . . but who am I kidding . . . Lenny's politics and the South will only cause him to internally combust into a smoldering heap of bean pie compost. And since I pride myself on being an interpreter of Northern and Southern behavior thanks to my childhood of living in both worlds, I would probably be pained by it.

But screw it, Lenny could come and work for a couple of weeks, get an agent, and see what can happen.

Lenny said he is going to Germany and will meet a photographer in Hamburg. I want to meet this guy, he has done a couple of books. Then, there is this Fashion Show in Paris. Would love to meet him there. Don't know if I will.

We both work on a budget.

Without institutions backing us

And being skeptical to all offers

Cause we know we might get screwed in the end

We are like some sworn brotherhood of artistic autistics with one hand placed dangerously on

the hot

stone

and the other in reality.

I was there the evening of that party for the inaugural publication of "that" magazine, where "that" Korean woman did not want us to see samples of a book. She thought we were thieves. I was a working writer. He was a working photographer. We were upset. We argued with her. She argued back. We did not feel welcome. To this day I do not and will not buy "that" magazine. I am still a little bitter.

It is hard to follow my Private Lenny Kravitz's politics . . . or it was hard then.

I feel different now about it.

I just do.

Lenny.

You a crazy ass.