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The following are excerpts of testimonials, interviews, oral histories and collected archival materials for a yet to be completed compendium, on Larry Clark's Kids. Although there's been only but a bird bath's depth of scholarship on Clark's eponymous work from the nineteen seventies, there's even less written on about Kids.
Clarks' photography's appeal derives equally from its postcards from the edge of kitchen sink realist candor and it's destitute voyeuristic narrative brio. With Clark's keen eye, his process of full immersion and integration into the lives of his subjects, his hard-life wrought aesthetic sensibility, and his use of traditional analog filmic medium (employing a camera that is somehow not attached to a telephone), more now than ever, only all but point to the inadequacies of the exacerbated digital photographic flatness of the current debilitating pluralism of everybody-with-telephone-as-producer - an over ornate, decadent, barbarian hoi polloi trammeling down the gate, posthistorical glockenspiel hell of art-does-not-die-from-not-enough-art-but-dies-from-too-much (Baudrillard) moment that we are now subsumed in, which now makes Debord's Society of Spectacle seem quaint and antiquated (and perhaps obsolete).
My aim is not to cull from the usual Epicly Later'd said sources for material that have been covered already, but to present lesser known accounts from nineteen-90's New York downtown scene, if not just to conjure an extended examination of the conditions and perspectives and atmosphere in and around this specific time that make up this film, but also to illustrate how it took precisely someone like Larry, an outsider magpie enfant terrible of outlaw otherness, with that of his, to say the least, precarious background and his dedicated face against shoe string mud junk muck methodology, to manifest such a convincing and captivating and very immediate distillation illusion mirroring fount of in-the-now crack cocaine realism.
This project would not have come to fore without the encouragement, enthusiasm, and generosity provided by those who have participated in what has become an extended and ongoing oral history project and research initiative. I wish to highlight the kindness and guidance of the following people: Paul Shrader, Ivan Perez, Andre Page, Mike Connolly, Patrick Guidotti, Bill Dade, Arthur Kessler, Kevin Candella, Dan Zimmer, David Salle, Jamie Story, Jeff Henrickson, Jack Bankowski, Luellen Jacobs, Robert Thornhill, Raphael Hurrera, Gio Estevez, Maribel Davis, Billy Valdez, Sean Young, Joey Alvarez, Tony and Johann Bultman, Martica Slain and Kenneth Tyler. Images were generously provided by Luhring Augustine, Interview Magazine and New York City Public Library Archives.
Love and respect to NY and all Zoo Heads.
Cinema Muse, Bridge of Nature
Anne Wiazemsky, in Robert Bresson's, 1966 Au Hausard Balthazar. Her character Marie, as Martyr suffering from the stupidity and cruelty of all the men around, like Jenny in KIDS. There's the readymade beauty of nature of women in cinema, where their image can only be read textually, as if no compelling narrative storyline can house or fully contain them. Bresson proposed to Wiazemsky several times and she refused, only to later marry Godard. Au Hasusard Balthazar possesses a documentary like realism similar to KIDS, and there's even also a beat down scene where the gang of local motorized bicycle riding bumkin-town hooligans descend on a local destitute alcoholic urchin.
Point of Departure; Hickey left a Hickey
Ivan Perez: Hickey's name was in the new Artforum and what can I say, in his own Hickey way, he's, he's still winning, or no, no he's not still winning, but he is still though, still certainly still etched, etched into the symbolic order, the flying colors trainbands of Western Culture Spectacle writ large (or writ small, considering he a minor character in niche subcultural current - skateboarding was our punk), and like, like, there he is now, there in *Artforum* of all places. But Ryan was good at one thing, good at one thing only, or one thing, for the most part, and it really wasn't just his skateboarding, it was more just . . . it was just, what it was, was like his then immediate . . . his immediate . . . charisma his charisma, and also, his proximity to the burgeoning subcultural tributaries, through with which was impregnated with his ancillary player insertion of his own Hickey mark charisma. Hickey left a Hickey, a tenuous but robust eternal-like New York moxie he had, which, through the ages, has manifested in other different archetypes of the past, old New York, and through a cacophony, a myriad of historical network actor types (see Bruno Latour). It was like watching an old seventies movie set in New York and you could just tell that the main character, the actor, or that actor embodied a then current archetypal zeitgeist - sometimes (but certainly, not with Ryan), it was some shabby fellmonger with an of his time un-remarkability (think the main guy, Kotter, from Welcome Back Kotter, or think John Cazale) - their image, perpetuated and taken seriously, or taken still seriously in their non-seriousness at least, but becoming burned into the same kind of substrate that Ryan was now found embossed frozen in in the same, if only by virtue of Ryan's JUST, I don't know, just being there, like, JUST being down upon the scene (showing up, engaging, which is vital in itself). It's like Al Pacino in Panic in Needle Park, Pacino wasn't particularly that remarkable (and honestly, he's a pretty overrated actor in general) - but it was the propinquity to which Pacino found himself in with old new New York. Pacino in, in with, inside of brittle little Joan Didion (and Gregory Dunne's) 70's New Hollywood screenplay, that which, that played a key role in his ascent. But the innocuous body/chest strap of Ryan's back pack in the Metropolitan ad back then (the strap, which was a new unseen by me accessory at the time, and signaled something of a subtle cosmopolitan in the then now modernity), the back pack body strap provided a Lacanian screen, the back pack body strap, projecting some alluded pragmatic city dwelling foresight, some alluded to precaution that offset or justified the notion of the irresponsibility of casual street beer downtown on black and white weekday. Hickey down and around, checking in with heads lampin' at the weed spot.
Andre Page: Ryan (Hickey) could have been in Kids. But he wasn't about that, he was too proud, had a misguided sense that being in the movie would be 'selling out'. Which is admirable, I guess. Not selling out was a big thing in the nineties, or particularly with Gen Xer's in the nineties, in New York like. Back then, if we didn't like someone, we would just always call them out, a 'sell out' - so much, to the point of it being a general term used on even someone who didn't necessarily so easily ply and rough trade with whatever cultural cache they may have had, or thought they may have had. Though, imagine thinking working with Larry Clark is selling out! It does say something about a generation of skateboarding millennials and Gen Zer's now, who look as corporate sponsorship as purchasing in, economizing off their own little personality or realized proprietary little, and I do mean little, life hack they developed all on their own to generically self stylized video filmed in Manhattan apartment closet. Millennial and Gen Z pro skater you-have-to-remind-people-you-are-influential-by-calling-yourself-influencer, surreptitiously selling their now standard pro proforma uniform Red Bull sponsor's hat on E-bay in violation of the very terms and agreement with Redbull sponsorship, but nevertheless liquidating skateboarding autonomy, and a glaring symptom of skateboarding loosing it's autonomy. Preening Evan Mock mock Goth, and everything below Tenth Street is a RVCA flagship.
Mike Connolly: Lennie Kirk, Lennie was supposed to play Casper, I can tell you that much. Harmony said he wrote the role for, wrote it specifically for Pierce, but when I saw him say that, I immediately knew he was just lying. There was just, simply no way Justin was on Harmonie's radar, or even in such a way that would or should inspire such a commanding character. Justin ended up being happy accident, albeit one that was unhappy. Also, Telly was originally supposed to be played by Mike Carroll, but when Larry met Mike, he knew there would be no way Carroll could play a convincing heterosexual male. And in a way, it would have ruined the film, seeing Mikey is so firmly and widely associated with his company, Girl, the name Girl, that is an explicit double entendre.
Patrick Guidotti: So, Telly was supposed to be played by Mike Carroll, which that in itself seems to defy all logic completely. So, anyways, after that, it was going to be Quim Cardona, it was going to be Quim. Quim says he missed out on the role, because he couldn't get permission from his mom, but what it really was, was Larry found out Quim asked his mom for permission, and Larry felt such action was so antithetical to the overall spirit of the movie, which it really was, and then decided to go with Leo Fitzpatrick, who had recently auditioned and just so happened, had had his taped polaroids on the wall, and taken just so to remind Larry who Leo was. Anyways, you got to give it to Larry Clark, because Quim would have been about as believable as Carroll as Telly. Quim is a true beacon of positive energy, and can you imagine Quim lame acting out Telly's predatory manipulative corruption? It would not have worked at all, and such nuance really is make or break with this nature of cinema. It would have made the film seem obscure and dumb, instead of revelatory. He also lucked out with Justin Pierce, because Justin truly was a pretty terrible person, I mean, I'm afraid that's not exactly a trade secret. Kids was just filming Justin being his ghastly self in real time, just his usual terrible, horrible self.
Millennial, Gen Z NEVERHITS, Romance Thrives on Uncertainty
Bill Dade: Gen Z, Millennial skatevideos that cause a visceral cinematic reaction are about as scarce as hen's teeth theses days. And well, Strobeck too. Only after Dylan died, could we then now sentimentalize what was otherwise INXS' more obvious single. Music rights in skate videos has been a eunuch's neutering affect for the medium, but even if music rights wasn't an issue, you still get the idea that thousands of spare bedroom skart videographers as wannabe directors still couldn't pick a song that really hits. To think, awareness, troupes of the aesthetic and formal innovations of say something as essential, as ostensibly well known as the French New Wave is for the most part completely lost on an entire generation's skate video production. To make matters even more apocalyptic, millions of videos a day get uploaded, posted by skateboarders, regular person who is not a skateboarder but who skates, everyone else on the planet and even your mom's least favorite sister, with a trivial, superficial use of some song plug in, any song they can plug in for thirty second disposable jingle and thus cheapen to obliteration the medium of music itself ad infinitum and writ large. Just finished baking a cake and gave it a mean custom icing job? Plug in Nas' The World Is Yours. Film yourself filming yourself getting dressed at the beginning of the day? Plug in Sade's Smooth Operator! Plug in Who Let The Dogs Out. That exacerbation, and decimation and abuse to triviality of music, is significant in a way that cannot ever be overstated. Skateboarding has always at it's best, thrived, been wedded to other progressive media forms (attached and innovation of the apotheosis of graphic design, team and board co. and video hybrid conceptualization, articulation of something abstract not able to be reflected any other way than employing greater sum of parts of heterogeneous media utilization and integration). And also, music is wedded to skate in an undeniable, essential way. And I don't mean Matt Hensley playing accordion in Flogging Molly or like BFF Caballero who can't even hold chords on a guitar cosplay punking to Faction. Metallica, Agent Orange when they were vanguard(ish) in the 80's had their own boards. 'Skate Rock' was a thing for a long time. Hokus Pokus was, depended on its soundtrack. Virtual Reality is wedded to its soundtrack. Wu Tang Clan carried the torch and did a significant amount of heavy lifting on sustaining skateboarding's buoyancy at the end of the nineties. Same with those images that Larry produced in Kids in his own specific way and also cinematographer Eric Edwards, who also worked on Gus Van Sant's My Private Idaho. And remember, the work doesn't even ever have to realize promise, it just has to express the possibility of promise and Romance thrives under uncertainty.
Arthur Kessler: Photography is a precarious medium or discipline in terms of the seat it occupies in the art sphere or realm or whatever. Clark was by the nineteen nineties in the black volcanic ash heap of shadows beneath, of a subset perhaps occupied primarily by Nan Goldin, say. Maybe outsider renegade photography had reached it's apotheosis in terms of the attention paid to Mapplethorpe and Clark already. And maybe what was left in regards to representational tendencies in post pictures generation, only had room now for more affirmative identity based trajectory now, with like the Whitney Biennial of '93 focusing on the emergence of a new form of politicized self-photography and video by African-American artists, you know Carrie Mae Weems, Lorna Simpson, Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Yinka Shonibare. So it would now seem to make sense that he would depart to move into more commercial mass media forms, like the major release motion picture. [He] still was employing the same tools in his tool box though, and to his credit, you almost never get to see a certain 'art world' voice translate, transpose through to and haunt onto another media landscape like it did with Clark. I mean there was Schnabel, yeah there was Julien Schnabel, but whatever, his movies are bourgeois Hemmingway wannabe Coppola family clan packing material fluff, inconsequential, have had little, no effect like Larry did, in terms of documenting, or, and, like not to mention even reinforcing subcultural identity of skateboarding culture like Larry did.
Dan Zimmer: In spring of 1994, Larry Clark shot a movie using kids in the downtown scene I was hanging out in at the time, a movie distributed by Miramax, or like New Line Cinema or whatever, was about the connection between sex and death, and like the movie, the movie, was called Kids. The screen play, written by this kid who was on or like used to be on ATM Click or Evol flow or something, this kinda erudite bug eyed bugger Harmony Korine, drew heavily upon, was inspired specifically by the surrealist ideation (Andre Breton's in particular), of sex and death to be like linked, inextricably linked, inextricably wrapped intertwined and bound mortal coil. As the mythos surrounding the female archetype, represented in the surrealist milieu, as castrating female mantis - here, here, in this movie, in this film or whatever, a reversal was deployed - that of AIDS infected male teenager preying upon soon-to-be innocence lost New York City teenage girls who still live at brownstone home with parents. The modern day banality of evil in modern day New York. This also seemed to be an update on Clark's portrayal of troubled unsupervised youth, suburban abjection in 1970's seminal photography from Oklahoma, Teenage Lust, Tulsa.
David Salle on Kids: Larry knew the potency of space, of empty space, and with the loose script, well casted actors (that which, who, were key), let the setting breathe and reveal, unfurl itself unto the audience. This was so very effective, precisely that the film seemed very real, the [film] was received as if it was exploitive documentary . . .
Jamie Story: At the time I was experimenting, taking heroin. I ate a Scooby snack with Frank Natiello at Liquid Sky on Broome, thinking, just thinking, it was just somehow regular day trip ecstasy, but it wasn't. It wasn't. And within twenty minutes, it was defiantly the best I ever felt emotionally and physically, though. I thought this was the way it should it have felt like, to exist like this all the time - I would breathe, breathe in deep and fill my lungs up, up with velvety air and it was unbelievably satisfying in a way I could never have ever predicted.
Lets go, lets go, try to get, a clip, garrulous, feeling absolutely energized and optimistic and thinking nothing else worthwhile, having nothing to do on a week day in the city.
Frank bristled as he walked out of the shop, I ain't even trying,
Trying to,
Trying to, you know, forget it,
Forget what man?
Yo, I got to go, cutty
With a twirl of skag like pharmacy, Frank suddenly left for whatever reason, dissolved and disappeared into the sprig and forest of machinery of activity of the streets, and left me, shed the dross of my presence, and right there when I was tripping on heroin in fit of peak. It seemed at the time he may had had something to attend to, but he may have, I suspect, I don't know, may have just plum abandoned me.
But then I forget about Frank and am comforted by the sublime power of the Halloween purple heroin. If anything now, Frank was just a distraction. I move myself along the river of people on the sidewalk, letting myself be pulled into their stream, as if erasing my identity. I love the crowds, like I love the sea, sailing further south in the direction of the SOHO banks.
My feet weigh heavy against the very same concrete that exists in purgatory dreams of mind's field. I feel like I'm wearing wooden shoes, you know the kind of wooden shoes that clomp and come from the place, that land far away, that, whatever that place, the same place that invented Christmas? I passed Astor Place, the Metropolitan Opera House, there was once a riot in New York, where two hundred people were killed on the concrete, outside of the opera house because an English actor had taken the place of an American one. When you move to New York, you are no longer a part of your immediate family or where you came from, you lose any individuality you had ever had had, any innocence vanished by becoming a moving body in this center of eternal river Euphrates of godless pagan time. Because you were seduced by the glow that was actually a glare, you think moving out here makes you ambitious, a striver, a go getter, but once you get here, the superficiality of your instincts could now never be more apparent and you become disgusted by yourself, loose any essential confidence you thought you ever had had, the same confidence requisite for attaining what you so cheaply and unoriginally wanted. I stood at the intersection as the yellow light grew stale.
I looked at the sky between the buildings. I didn't know who it was at the time, but I saw hundreds, hallucinated tiny Wu Welsh action figures drizzling like snow globe, visions of some Future Wu Welsh patriarchal Celtics'-legacy-of-racism jersey white wash wiggerisms, self entitling and allowing for itself the specific self indulgence camp and kitsch and surplus audacity of ghastly muffy blanket quilt thick sweat pants, as hip hop will careen and feed and feast upon itself eventually and oh so soon.
Painting was dead since the 80's, the towering skyscrapers gloomed and loomed and cut shards of clouds into the welded sky, and there was no where in there for me to be inside them now.
The New New ZOO York School: Dematerialized Mark Making Action Practice/Judson Church off BQE Expressway
Luellen Jacobs: No, I saw the doc, or the documentary the Hamilton [Harris], that one. And yeah, I mean, I don't know, ya know. Harold and Justin come across, very much, present themselves as like, as though, somehow slighted by Larry Clark, as if, as if after shooting was done, they somehow weren't looked after by, shepherded by him afterwards like muggy den mother, as if normal actors in movies are not simply just contract employees responsible for finding their next gig or like project, everyone for himself. Kids made like 22 million?, and there was no agent arbitration say, in regards to how much they got paid, in terms of taking percentage points, which is unfortunate, but that is also the, I don't know, the effect of using un-known, obscure actors, the very nature of the indy project. And especially with a mutton chop like Larry Clark. So they only got paid a grand each. It was a risk, the movie was a risk, and it just so happened to pay off, however unlikely its success ultimately was. The documentary makes no emphasis on how Harold and Justin were actually on ZOO York, and yeah how about, like how about maybe now instead, they so unoriginally wanted to be actors or celebrities now after Kids, but the fact is is they really were on the top team of the East Coast - they were very well otherwise connected to an extremely privileged situation, on a company any serious skater would have filmed a thousand video parts to get on. Harold had the part in Mix Tape after Kids, and I'm sure he sold more decks because of Kids. And Justin, Justin could have said, ok, now I'm going to put out even if just a little supplementing part in the wake of Kids and see what happens to build up my own hype, because really he only had one or two clips in Mix Tape, so that was clearly in hind sight an opportunity blown. I mean wasn't Justin on Independent. I'm just saying they could have situated themselves in the context of being affiliated with Supreme Zoo York, instead of I don't know, what they would otherwise seem to naively pursue. Harold on a cordless phone taking money from anyone one who approached him. Watching the documentary, it could not have been more apparent neither Harold or Justin had a knack for acting. They clearly lacked any interiority it would require to cultivate, in order to hold themselves steady in, into conviction of character. They could seemingly be cursed only to exist as effective and intriguing 'actors' under the direction of Clark anyways. But, like that's the difference between Kids and Jason Lee in Mallrats. I think it's precisely a testament to the talent and eye and instinct Larry possesses or did possess. Anyone else seemingly would not have pulled it off like he did, because no one has since, with the exception of maybe Gus Van Sandt and whomever else I don't know about. If somebody else could have done it, they would have, and especially in New York.
Robert Thornhill: The criticism Clark faced, the backlash, or the outrage or whatever, is not too surprising, it's predictable really, especially when dealing with the blunt object logic of the general public. The pedestrian's instant take of how somehow the photographic subject also becomes a partner or even co-author in the project, and thus should receive equal compensation. Nevermind, Clark spent his early years clipping his chipped teeth, developing his whole process, and all the syringe bleeding lows that come with forging and developing some oblique discipline into a body of work, and then cradling it, getting it out into the world and somehow being able to cotton on some interest somehow. And the other person just has their photo taken. I mean, yeah, no, yeah, yeah, there is the aspect, the aspect, the notion of how like taking a photo of someone is exploitive, further back than Walter Benjamin's dictum of the reproduction of photography will lead to decimation of aura. But what Clark, essentially, inadvertently achieved was creating a cadre cast that is akin to Warhol's 'superstars' from the sixties. Justin Pierce as spiritual heir to Joe Dallesandro.
Raphael Hurrera: Justin [Pierce] had a tragic Neal Cassady like quality. I mean how did Cassady die, from lying low down dep in the reeds, blow beneath the erupting train track rubble right on the edge of commerce?
Gio Estevez: What Hamilton [Harris] or anyone scrutinizing the sense of some perceived exploitive aspect of Larry pre-production hanging out with Kids, was was: that that is like, like his methodology, his methodology, the thing that separated him from the armies of John and Jane Q. shutterbug,who where otherwise, their process, their boring old process, like everyone elses' involved carrying a camera, inching around the city and waiting to catch something, anything mundanely interesting on the street - Larry is about fully integrating himself into a group, penetrating hidden worlds, and living immersed with them and for years, all behind the scenes. So close to his subjects, he became himself one of his own subjects. Similar to Hunter S. Thompson when he wrote that Hell's Angels book, except now Larry is wearing an OG Zoo tag logo embroidered hat krook't backwards. There's even the Gonz story of Larry bombing a hill drunk and stoned in Los Angeles and breaking his clocked collar bone, I mean, does that not count for anything?
Sean Young: The screenplay, story line are nothing too terribly spectacular, and the movie has a lot of lethally dumb moments or like, unremarkable moments, dumb gags. Like the little girl throwing the stolen orange that Casper Pierce creepily gives her. The thing, but the thing, that makes Kids, or at least the thing that appeals to me is, is the travelogue like quality that the on location shooting permits. Instead of visiting NY, or like if you can't like visit, the movie just transports you there. Also, since they used real street kids, the storyline doesn't even really matter. You are just interested in seeing the weeping beech authentic interiors, what they happen to be wearing (like in a Godard film), how they are talking. It's almost like you become implicated as voyeur. The movie does very much seem like a documentary though, but instead of visiting New York, you can watch Kids.
Joey Alvarez: It's the photography that makes the film so intriguing. I remember seeing the press before it was released and was immediately drawn into the now classic photo of them strolling down on the climbing shadows median of the boulevard. It's not about the plot, you could miss the plot, it's more about, more about, what becomes attached to the image by the viewer instantly, or over protracted time. So in that aspect, of contemplative internalization, the image- it's kind of participatory, just like reading a book is participatory. The sunset pre-gaming walking in triangular scrum, with beers and meadow swilling, and with available to hang alluring girls in the thick of the jungle, pass past marshy lined montezuma pines of Times Square sex show marquee, past the barrage of garbage, the flea market bazaar of the lowest dregs of free market commerce, the vomit and excrement, the vandalism, fraud and class hatred. And what makes wild bluebells wild? The Independent shirt Pierce was wearing was the first thing I noticed and then also Michele Lockwood holding a liter. I feel so old now, that I often wonder if this kind of this anticipation is even possible anymore. The image is now about the shadow of unrealizable promise. Even when I was a teenager, it's hard to imagine having a social life that was this alluring, this satisfying if only for a snapshot, I know for a fact I never had one fully satisfying night as a scuzzed-up teenager - even when I was out having sex. Even when I was with a girl, it was never the one I wanted, they were always just a concession. Or when you were introduced to two girls, the one you least preferred was the one who was possible, the one you wanted was never, never interested. But I guess for me, the photo, that Larry Clark image, its the banality of twilight pregame possibility, and the otherwise far off and unattainable Cleopatra living in an Italian palace splendor of Michele Lockwood, the vaulting possibility of impossible New York.
Paul Shrader: That's the thing about heroin. You ever heard of stoned immaculate? That means stoned Jesus, stoned son of God, that means God was stoned, God is stoned. But God wants to be the only one who is stoned, so that's why he knocks you down, and you're always going to comedown - always going to come down because it's Jesus' fault. Jesus never really died for our sins, because if he did, we would be able to still turn on. And God wants to be the only one on junk, and that's why God made heroin illegal.
You came to the big city and found out things about yourself you didn't want to know. Coming from your hometown, you regarded yourself a certain way, originally saw yourself a certain way - but the city knows you now, the real you, and it's certainly not the first time this has happened with transplant, and in fact it's all really quite cliché. The faces of the city contain the eyes of the city and the faces with the eyes express how the city really regards you, regardless if it is fair or unfair. Your middleclass background is not your fault, but here it may as well have been your fault. Ditto with your physical make up. Your personality is indeed within the bounds of your control. You are a Lush, an egomaniac with an inferiority complex, a person with outsized self regard, a coward in certain likely situations, a person who's not a historical figure in the making who thinks they are one, a dope fiend, a flake, a shit talker of friends, a sex addict, a looser with a loosing attitude, a small time victory winner with a loosing attitude, a fair weather friend, someone who's not as smart as they think they are.
The city reduced you to a lost enterprise, unfaithful to the human spirit, now reduced by both circumstance and the instinct of your own self will to indulge in degenerate things.
You, given the opportunity, are not beyond going on a spree and leaving a trail of sensitive violated hearts, but that would come to an end when you ran up against someone who buckled you, a person who one on one, made you fall to pieces and eat dirt. You were brainless, no doubt about that. She played with you and teased you with her happy-go-lucky ways, she was easygoing and cheerful, unbothered. She heckled you, made fun of you, accessed how she really saw you, and you went all along with it the entire time, you didn't so much say anything in your own defense, because you though this badgering by her meant you were reaching the other side with her. Only when you realized you weren't even close to making it to the other side of her, did you realize that you were complicit in her bullying and belittling you, if only just for her entertainment. It soured, even completely ruined rap music for you, you no longer deserved to align with the sense of self resolve that was the theme in all of those songs.
She sized you up, she was captivating and shrewd and lousy with lies. Oh, yeah, you were an absolute blockhead beyond a shadow of a doubt, and never before have you so self-exposed yourself as an imposter. You got caught up in a feeble-minded game and you were consumed. With what began with a sportsman's resolve and a gamely sense of humor attitude, ends with you never really having a chance. And if you ever did have a sliver's chance, it was gone quickly when you on your own, without prompting by anyone, put your Sal Etnies in your mouth all on your own.
You retreat, run and seek shelter. To be in the presence of her, with she who would regard this total dimension of reality without your existence being her actual preference. That she would rather reality be best without you, is too much to bear and you must retreat away and hide and recover.
Larry Clark: So, anyway, before too long I'm seeing my parole officer down on 40th Street and Eighth Avenue, right? Between Eighth and Ninth on 40th Street. And I got a small job, and I got a place. Meanwhile, I'm trying to finish the book. See, I've got the dummy of Teenage Lust now, and I pasted it down until the time I got out of the joint. And I know I gotta do something to finish the book. I've gotta get from the joint to now. So I go to see my parole officer, I got off the subway at 42nd Street. And I got my camera. And I've always loved 42nd Street. It's always been my favorite street in New York. I've always liked it. And so, it was natural, and I start hanging out. On 42nd Street. I didn't want to do any kind of corny photojournalistic thing. I wanted to see if there was something there I could get into. If there was something there, I would have done it. There wasn't. I mean, if there was something I could've gotten into, that would have been interesting, that I could photograph, you know. But I don't know. It's one thing to say you're going to do something different and start a new life, people say that all the time: "I'm not going to do this anymore." But what else do you know? The 42nd Street thing seemed to turn into . . . I mean, there I was photographing a ---- ---- again. It all come around. That's why the picture is in the book. It seems like it had come around back to photographing a ---- ----. That what I was finding on 42nd Street was not what I wanted to find, was not what I wanted. I mean, I was finding what was there, but maybe that's not what I wanted, that's not what I cared about so much. It was just a dead end. My photographs weren't going anywhere. My photographs weren't going anywhere on 42nd Street. What I had started out to do I had done, and that was about it. What else is there? You know what I'm trying to say? Everything gets old, and . . . But I think the kids don't know that. I mean, some of the pictures of the ---- when I first met' em and they were looking at me with those come-on looks, you know, the way they would look at the old men who would come and try to hustle them, the old homosexuals, just with their eyes. I mean, I was kind of embarrassed to have some of the pictures of them grabbing themself 'cause I thought that was maybe a little too much. I still, I mean, I have a tendency to take all those pictures out, but then I get down to nothing but one picture of this kid looking with his eyes. But if I simplify it that much, I mean no one's going to understand what I'm saying. The picture of the kid in front of the bookstore, Stud, where you can see his basket, right? The picture wasn't even in there. I thought that was so obvious, that I'd never use that picture, and I only put that picture in as the last picture to put in because no one understood what the fuck it was. Nobody has a clue these kids were hustling. I don't know what they thought, but people didn't get it. I put it up in the gallery, no one got it. "This ain't 42nd Street, boy. This is a ripoff, man." I mean, I got a lot of people, they just don't understand. But the kids understood it, the younger people understood what was going on. Because the main thing about 42nd Street, I mean about all those pictures, the main thing is just about one or two pictures of the kid's eyes, the way a kid looks at a man, and the way, when he's looking at the camera, he's actually looking at a man. That's mainly what's happening. See, I'm trying to simplify. What would be the use of showing an old man ------ and maybe ----- with him? It's what ----- is offering. The ----- is offering himself. He's selling something. It's more a look than anything. It's a look, right? It's an entire attitude. It's a way of seeing things, but it's all polished up. It's point of sale.
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