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queerbrownfox · 6 years ago

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Another Queer Bites the Dust at This Year’s Golden Globes

Awards Season!

If you’re like me, you’re probably suffering right now with an existential quandary, somehow caught in the space between knowing that award shows do not matter in the scope of things and only represent the Hollywood establishment which is only a tiny portion of the arts and being glued to your TV set to see who wins best picture this year.

And if you’re also like me, by which I mean queer (or care about queer stuff), you were probably pretty psyched for this awards season. The Favourite, The Green Book (not to be confused with The Green Mile), Bohemian Rhapsody, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, Boy Erased, Rafiki, Colette, Lady Gaga’s existence, and more . . . there have been so many queer films to come out (heh) in 20gayteen.

At the Golden Globes this past weekend we saw an array of queer films nominated, and, I’ll be honest, I was pumped. It looked like it would be a great year for representation.

But then.

So without further ado, here’s the piping hot dish of queer erasure casserole that was the 2019 Golden Globes, folks.

Thought this year was a success for queers everywhere after the Golden Globes? Well, in point of fact . . . nope. Despite wins by The Green Book, Bohemian Rhapsody, The Favourite, and The Assassination of Gianni Versace, which all told queer stories, this year’s Golden Globes failed queer audiences massively. Let’s break it down.

1. The Green Book? More like The Story Book.

The Green Book is a film that tells the story of Dr. Don Shirley, an insanely talented black pianist, and his white driver, Tony Vallelonga as they travel through the deep South on tour. Shirley, who happens to be a queer black man, and Vallelonga, despite their early differences (like Vallelonga’s being super racist), navigate issues of race and class throughout their journey and eventually end up as friends and comrades.

Sounds great. Except.

First off, the movie was adapted and directed by Nick Vallelonga, the son of Shirley’s driver, who wrote the book that The Green Book was adapted from. In other words, it was the white man’s version. The film has come under constant fire since its public debut from none other than Shirley’s family, particularly his brother. Mhmm. Bad news.

Next, the trailers released for the film and other promotional materials don’t even nod to the scenes in the film in which it is revealed that Shirley’s oppression is criss-crossed with his identity as a queer black man. True, the preview shown during the Golden Globes ceremony did include a clip that revealed the pianist’s identity, sandwiched between shots of Vallelonga beating up people who were attempting to assault him.

All in all, the movie smacks not only of queer erasure, but an elixir for white guilt. We as white people love to eat up feel good stories about white people who reach across culture and race boundaries to form “color-blind” relationships built on true empathy and compassion (see The Help, Shawshank Redemption, Hidden Figures). Stories that often take place, (coincidentally?) in the 1960s at the height of segregation. Which is funny, because it perpetuates the idea that race issues are all resolved now, as a result of the compassion shown by white people to black folks Way Back When. As anybody who’s got a sense of what’s going on in the world—or their own backyards—that’s far from the case.

Just sayin’.

2. The Assassination of Gianni Versace: Or, Another Straight Gets a Golden Globe for Playing a Gay and Everyone Eats it Up.

Ah, Darren Criss. This isn’t the first time we’ve been down this road. Have we.

It started with Glee. Criss played Blaine, opposite Chris Colfer’s Kurt Hummel, an adorable baby gay with an impossibly effeminate singing voice that was ear candy if I’ve ever heard it. Criss, of course, very talented too. I lived for their relationship as boyfriends on the show, and tried to suck it up and pretend not to be disappointed when I found out that Criss (somehow???) was not queer in real life.

Then there was Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and now, Gianni, in which he plays the famed designer’s killer, Andrew Cunanan. All gays. All roles he was praised the hell out of for performing. He even won a GG for best actor in a limited series last Sunday.

And sure, Criss recently stated in a Bustle interview that he will no longer play gay characters so as not to be “another straight boy taking a gay man’s role” as the actor said.

That’s all fine and good, but that article was published in December. And at the GG’s this year? No mention of it in his acceptance speech. At all. If it weren’t already too little, too late for the guy, that last snub certainly makes it so.

I mean, I sort of forgive him for Glee though.

And finally. The worst offender of them all.

3. Bohemian Rhapsody, But, Like, Without the Part Where Freddie Mercury Dies from AIDS.

This one pains me. I don’t want to admit it happened. But it did. And it was REAL bad.

Rami Malek. Even as a lesbian, I love him. Okay, I said it. He’s a cutie, and he’s extremely talented (See Mr. Robot), and his voice sounds like how coffee would taste (I imagine) if I liked coffee. And when I saw the first trailers for Bohemian Rhapsody, I was PUMPED. Thank God they got an actual person of color to play Freddie Mercury who, most people don’t even know, was also a person of color (yeah, his name was Farrokh Bulsara). The likeness, too, was pretty impeccable.

Freddie Mercury was one of the most famous bisexuals of his time, rivaled only by David Bowie, perhaps, who together produced perhaps the greatest and gayest moment that rock music ever saw when they collaborated on “Under Pressure.” Malek, always an enigma, I’m not going to jump to conclusions about his sexuality since he’s never stated it publicly, but, let’s just say he’s only ever dated women.

Which is all fine and good on its own.

But Bohemian Rhapsody had already come under scrutiny for “straight-washing” after the release of its first trailer, which completely masked Mercury’s queerness, quickly followed up by another trailer that gave audiences a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it dose. As an article featured on Into stated regarding that sprinkle of queerness, “It’s the kind of passable moment that straight audiences wouldn’t take offense at and gay viewers could feel like they had some semblance of representation.”

Needless to say, we were off to a rough start.

So while I was watching the Golden Globes, watching Rami Malek walk on stage and accept his Best Actor award, of course I was nearly praying in my head that Malek would mention Mercury’s queerness. That would have made things better for disappointed queers. And honestly, Mercury’s memory deserved it, along with all the others who had their lives cut short during the AIDS epidemic.

So what brilliant lines had he to say about that? Nothing. Not a mention of AIDS or Mercury’s queerness was uttered by Malek or the production team who accepted the GG for best Drama.

Frankly, I wish I could say I was surprised. Or enraged. Or something. But as the 2019 Golden Globes ceremony came to a close half an hour late, I just had a kind of half grimace on my face.

As my mom would say about every fashion choice I made in high school: Disappointed, but not surprised.

It was looking like it was going to be a good year for queers during award season, but we’re really not starting off on a great foot. Yet, I should add, we queers and allies should take courage, and tell ourselves that it’s not over until the last white guy receives an Oscar. Our fates are not yet writ. With a little over six weeks left, we have two options.

First, for those of you who are staying tuned in, have hope. There are a lot of queer films, TV shows, and artists in the running at this year’s award shows. The Golden’s are pretty indicative of how the Oscars turn out, but they’re not a direct reflection. And there’s still time for people, (Ahem, Rami Malek and Darren Criss) to do justice to the queer community as potential allies.

Second, for those of you who don’t care about awards shows, take pride in knowing that you’re probably right. It probably doesn’t matter. Nothing really matters, after all . . . ♫

#lgbtq community #lgbt writers #awards season #golden globes #bohemian rhapsody #film #queer films #queer culture #the green book #american crime story

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justforbooks · 6 years ago

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Anthony Bourdain, Chef, Travel Host and Author, Is Dead at 61

The travel host Anthony Bourdain, whose madcap memoir about the dark corners of New York’s restaurants made him into a celebrity chef and touched off a nearly two-decade career as a globe-trotting television host, was found dead on Friday at 61.

Mr. Bourdain was found in his hotel room at the Le Chambard luxury hotel in Kaysersberg, a village in the Alsace region of eastern France, according to a prosecutor in the nearby city of Colmar. The prosecutor, Christian de Rocquigny du Fayel, said the cause of death was hanging. “At this stage, we have no reason to suspect foul play,” he said.

Mr. Bourdain had traveled to Strasbourg in France, near the country’s border with Germany, with a television production crew to record an episode of his show “Parts Unknown” on CNN, the network said. “It is with extraordinary sadness we can confirm the death of our friend and colleague,” CNN said in a statement.

The United States Embassy in Paris also confirmed his death.

“Anthony was a dear friend,” Eric Ripert, a celebrity chef and restaurateur who appeared with Mr. Bourdain on several of his shows, told The New York Times. “He was an exceptional human being, so inspiring and generous. One of the great storytellers of our time who connected with so many. I wish him peace. My love and prayers are with his family, friends and loved ones.”

In everything he did, Mr. Bourdain cultivated a renegade style and bad-boy persona.

For decades, he worked 13-hour days as a line cook in restaurants in New York and the Northeast before he became executive chef in the 1990s at Brasserie Les Halles, serving steak frites and onion soup in Lower Manhattan. He had been an executive chef for eight years when he sent an unsolicited article to The New Yorker about the underbelly of the restaurant world and its deceptions.

To his surprise, the magazine accepted it and ran it — catching the attention of book editors. It resulted in “Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly,” a memoir that elevated Mr. Bourdain to a celebrity chef and a new career on TV.

“Do we really want to travel in hermetically sealed popemobiles through the rural provinces of France, Mexico and the Far East, eating only in Hard Rock Cafes and McDonalds?” Mr. Bourdain wrote in the memoir. “Or do we want to eat without fear, tearing into the local stew, the humble taqueria’s mystery meat, the sincerely offered gift of a lightly grilled fish head? I know what I want. I want it all. I want to try everything once.”

He first became conscious of food in fourth grade, he wrote. Aboard the Queen Mary on a family vacation to France, he sat in the cabin-class dining room and ate a bowl of vichyssoise, a creamy mix of leek and potato. What surprised him was that the soup was cold. “It was the first food I enjoyed and, more important, remembered enjoying,” he wrote. He did not remember much else about the trip.

Mr. Bourdain became an instant hero to a certain breed of professional cooks and restaurant-goers when “Kitchen Confidential” hit the best-seller lists in 2000. He is largely credited for defining an era of line cooks as warriors, exposing a kitchen culture in which drugs, drinking and long, brutal hours on the line in professional kitchens were both a badge of honor and a curse. Mr. Bourdain was open in his writing about his past addictions to heroin and cocaine.

Before he joined CNN in 2012, he spent eight seasons as the globe-trotting host of “No Reservations” on the Travel Channel, highlighting obscure cuisine and unknown restaurants. “No Reservations” largely focused on food and Mr. Bourdain himself. But on “Parts Unknown,” he turned the lens around, delving into different countries around the world and the people who lived in them. He explored politics and history with locals, often over plates of food and drinks.

Mr. Bourdain famously appeared with President Barack Obama on an episode of “Parts Unknown” in Vietnam in 2016. Over cold beers, grilled pork and noodles at a restaurant in Hanoi, they discussed Vietnamese-American relations, Mr. Obama’s final months in office and fatherhood.

Celebrities in the food and entertainment worlds expressed deep shock and disbelief Friday morning. Nigella Lawson, the British cookbook author and television personality, tweeted, “Heartbroken to hear about Tony Bourdain’s death. Unbearable for his family and girlfriend. Am going off twitter for a while.”

Andrew Zimmern, the television personality and chef, had much in common with Mr. Bourdain. The two met 13 years ago and were friends who often spoke of the pressures that come with fame and who both worked to overcome addiction.

“We shared a very, very deep feeling of wanting to get off this crazy roller coaster, but at the same time knowing that this was our work,” he said. “The world has lost a brilliant human being and I’ve lost one of the few people I could talk to about some of this stuff. When I did see him he and I would walk off into a corner or have dinner together and share our deepest darkest stuff.”

He last spoke with Mr. Bourdain about a month ago. “He told me he’d never been happier. He felt that he had finally found his true soul mate in Asia,” he said, referring to Mr. Bourdain’s girlfriend, the actor Asia Argento.

But Mr. Zimmern had some indication that perhaps there was more going on.

“Things on the surface never seemed to add up or make sense,” he said.

“We have lost someone who was in my opinion the sharpest and keenest observer of culture that I have ever known,” he said. “When we were alone his hopes and dreams extended into amazing areas.”

Anthony Michael Bourdain was born June 25, 1956, the oldest son of Pierre Bourdain, who was an executive in the classical-music recording industry, and Gladys Bourdain, who was a longtime copy editor at The New York Times. He grew up outside New York City, in Leonia, N.J., and his parents exposed him to fine cuisine, taking him often to France.

Mr. Bourdain graduated from high school in 1973 and attended Vassar College, dropping out after two years, where he spent long nights drinking and smoking pot. “I was — to be frank — a spoiled, miserable, narcissistic, self-destructing and thoughtless young lout,” he wrote in “Kitchen Confidential.”

But at Vassar, he met Nancy Putkoski before he left school for a chance at a culinary career. Mr. Bourdain spent a summer in Provincetown on Cape Cod with some friends. There, he started working as a dishwasher at a seafood restaurant and closely watched the cooks, men who dressed like pirates, with gold earrings and turquoise chokers. “In the kitchen, they were like gods,” he wrote.

The experience solidified his determination to make cooking his life’s work.

“I saw how the cooks and chefs behaved,” Mr. Bourdain told The Times in 1997. “They had sort of a swagger, got all the girls and drank everything in sight.”

He then enrolled at the Culinary Institute of America in 1975 and graduated in 1978, stepping away at times to work at restaurants in Greenwich Village in Manhattan. He started at the bottom in the kitchen hierarchy, with stops at the Rainbow Room, the W.P.A. restaurant on Spring Street and Gianni’s at the South Street Seaport. He reached the top in the 1990s, becoming an executive chef at Sullivan’s, the restaurant next to the Ed Sullivan Theater on Broadway, and at Les Halles.

Mr. Bourdain’s first marriage ended in divorce in 2005. In 2007, he married Ottavia Busia, who appeared in several episodes of “No Reservations,” and they had a daughter, Ariane, who is 11. The couple divorced in 2016. He had been dating Ms. Argento for about two years.

Mr. Bourdain had emerged as a leading male voice in support of the #MeToo movement in the wake of rape and abuse allegations against the film producer Harvey Weinstein and others.

Ms. Argento, 42, said in a lengthy story in The New Yorker that she endured multiple attacks and manipulation by Mr. Weinstein, and that he sexually assaulted her in a hotel room years ago, when she was 21.

She said she had left her native Italy and moved to Berlin to escape the tension and victim-shaming culture she said she experienced at home.

Last month, she gave a speech at Cannes that stunned the room. “In 1997, I was raped by Harvey Weinstein here at Cannes,” Ms. Argento said. “This festival was his hunting ground.”

In an interview with IndieWire magazine this month, Mr. Bourdain called her speech a nuclear bomb.

“I was so proud of her. It was absolutely fearless to walk right into the lion’s den and say what she said, the way she said it. It was an incredibly powerful moment, I thought. I am honored to know someone who has the strength and fearlessness to do something like that.”

Mr. Bourdain continued speaking out boldly on the subject of sexual abuse and harassment, taking on everyone from Alec Baldwin to the chef Mario Batali, who is under investigation for sexual assault charges. Several women have come forward and described repeated incidents of Mr. Batali groping them and of unwanted kisses and sexual propositions.

When news of Mr. Batali’s plans to attempt a comeback were exposed, Mr. Bourdain kicked down the idea.

“Retire and count yourself lucky,” Mr. Bourdain, a longtime friend of Mr. Batali’s who had not spoken with him recently, said. “I say that without malice, or without much malice. I am not forgiving. I can’t get past it. I just cannot and that’s me, someone who really admired him and thought the world of him.”

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acsversace-news · 7 years ago

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He seems barely changed from his Living La Vida Loca days, but almost two decades on, the entertainer is married with kids, in proud possession of his wrinkles and back with the acting role of his career. Words by Nicole Mowbray...

Being granted an audience with Ricky Martin is no mean feat. There are hoops to jump through, calls to be made and many emails to be sent to his gatekeepers in Los Angeles. Usually, none of this bodes well, but when I do get to speak to the 46-year-old Latin superstar - very late at night - the Living La Vida Loca star couldn’t be more charming. Calm, funny and with a thick Spanish accent (he was born on the Spanish-speaking Caribbean island of Puerto Rico) Martin is about to again be propelled into the nation’s consciousness but this time as an actor, with a starring role in the hit American Crime Stories docu-drama The Assassination of Gianni Versace, airing on BBC2 alongside Edgar Ramirez and Penelope Cruz.

Martin plays Antonio D’Amico, an Italian model and the long-term partner of fashion designer Gianni Versace who was gunned down on the steps of his Miami mansion on the 15th July 1997 by wanted serial killer Andrew Cunanan. What attracted him to the role?

‘I lived in Miami in 1997 when Gianni was killed,’ Martin tells me, ‘I had actually been invited to Versace’s house and events there many times but I had a campaign with Giorgio Armani so I didn’t ever go. Gianni’s death really affected me. There was a lot of fear, knowing that there was a man on the run who was on the FBI’s most wanted list. Cunanan was in Miami - a very small city – he was not even hiding and still he was not caught, and that's what’s so frustrating. There was a feeling that, because this was a gay man killing another gay man, you know, just turn the other way. We wanted to bring light and justice the story – Cunanan didn’t just kill Gianni Versace, there were at least four other victims.’

The show is based on the controversial book Vulgar Favours by journalist Maureen Orth, whose version of events leading up to Versace’s death have been vehemently disputed by members of the Versace family. Indeed, since airing, various people close to the deceased designer have spoken out, calling the show ‘a work of fiction’ and saying the family ‘never authorised nor had any involvement whatsoever’ with it. Was Martin daunted to be playing a real-life character in such a traumatic situation?

‘This was an amazing opportunity for me as an actor… but of course I felt pressure, I think everyone did,’ says Martin. ‘However, I was able to talk to Antonio D’Amico a couple of times to prepare. He was very generous, very kind, he shared with me some specifics about his relationship with Gianni and it was very beautiful to be able to talk to him. It took my performance to another level. I told Antonio that we were not doing a photo of events, we were doing a painting and by that I meant we can add colours and get rid of colours, but it is a big responsibility. When I first saw Penelope [Cruz] as Donatella it was very powerful. Her transformation has been one of the talking points of the show – her voice, her accent. It was very impressive. Donatella sent Penelope an arrangement of flowers because of the amazing job she’d done with the character.’

Despite gruelling daily starts of 5 or 6am for almost eight months, Martin says the cast hung out with each other every Sunday at a barbecue at his house. He looks in great shape in the show, and seems to have barely aged since 1999’s La Vida Loca days. How does he do it? ‘On the road, you've got to treat the body like you’re an athlete. I walk on stage every night for an hour and 45 minutes, sometimes 2 hours, and it's full on cardiovascular performance, so I have to sleep and I have to eat well. We all get judged by our looks in Hollywood - women and men, and now with social media even more so - one bad picture and everyone is commenting; “you look tired”, “you look old”... You've just got to go with the flow and enjoy it. I am 46 years old, I don't want to look 35. I don't use Botox, I like my wrinkles. I think age is a beautiful thing and I feel strong.’

One element of the Gianni Versace story which strikes a chord with Martin, he says, is the politics around being gay in the late 1990s. Having found fame at the age of 12 in Latin boyband Menudo, Martin spent years dodging questions about his sexuality before coming out in 2010, in a letter posted on Twitter. Now married to Swedish artist Jwan Yosef, with twin 9-year-old sons Matteo and Valentino born by surrogate, Martin says he is ‘so happy’ but admits there are parallels between his and Versace’s struggle to be their true selves in the public eye.

‘Coming out for me was very difficult,’ Martin explains. ‘Just like Gianni, I had people around me - people that I love - saying “are you crazy? If you come out, it will be the end of your career.” I had to deal with that for many years until I couldn't take it no more and I sat down and I wrote a letter and I posted it on Twitter.’

‘To keep living as I did up until today would be to indirectly diminish the glow that my kids where (sic) born with,’ he wrote, declaring himself a ‘fortunate homosexual man’. Was he afraid, posting that letter?

‘Yes, I was afraid, but the amount of love that I received after I sent that letter came from every direction. I had my haters, but I learnt that you gotta love yourself and what people think of you is none of your business. It took me a minute to get there, but I did it and if I only knew how easy and how amazing it was going to be, trust me, I would have come out much earlier. But I was afraid - the same thing that Gianni Versace went through, and I am sure there are a lot of very powerful men and women out there still struggling with their sexual identity and not knowing how to come out. They are victims of internalised homophobia, and I was a victim of internalised homophobia as well. Gianni Versace wanted to come out and even though he was an icon and owned a fashion empire, he couldn’t - or he was afraid to… That says a lot about where we were in the 90s. We lived in an era of “don't ask don't tell” and if Versace was afraid of coming out, imagine the fears of other people in the world? But at the end of the day he did and [by doing so] he stopped Antonio living in the shadows, as he had been for many years.’

While he admits things have changed in the last 20 or 30 years, Martin says there is still a lot to be done in terms of finding LGBT equality, but he’s up for the fight. A vocal ‘human rights defender’ and a UNICEF ambassador, he is supportive of the #MeToo campaign (‘how can you not be part of this movement which at the end of the day is protecting women?’) and has his own eponymous charitable foundation which he set up after witnessing child sexual exploitation over a decade ago in Calcutta.

‘More than 10 years ago I travelled to India because a friend of mine in the music business was building an orphanage. When I landed, we went straight to the slums to start rescuing girls who could be forced into prostitution. These girls were five years old, or eight years old… I was shocked. When I got home I realised I could not stay quiet, if I stayed quiet I was allowing it to happen, so I created the Ricky Martin Foundation and for more than a decade we have been rescuing sexual slaves and rehabilitating them. Right now, we have a holisitic centre with 136 children at risk of human trafficking and we educate them and give them options.’

Martin’s foundation has also done a lot of work in his homeland which was devastated by hurricane Maria at the end of September 2017. ‘It is very frustrating that still, today, four months after the hurricane, almost a million people have no power and no running water. It's something I get enraged and frustrated about. But we do our part and talk to incredible and very generous colleagues of mine - the Leonardo Di Caprio foundation donated,Jennifer Aniston gave a million dollars… we are making an alliance with Habitat for Humanity to start building homes as soon as possible.’

So… Ricky Martin 2:0. An actor in the middle of a four-month musical residency in Las Vegas. Given the choice between acting and singing, which would he plump for? ‘Acting has always been incredibly important to me,’ he says. ‘I started acting when I was 15 years old with television series in Latin America. But I’m not embarrassed or ashamed to consider myself a pop star, on the contrary. I love performing and the immediate reaction of the audience – there’s something magical about a sold-out arena with 25-30 thousand people singing and dancing to your music. The audience is like a drug, it’s my favourite vice. I started performing at 12 and I love what I do and am still inspired to find cool rhythms and sounds to share with the audience, and I love being on the road. I don't want to sound dramatic or cheesy but I want to die on stage and as long the audience is there I am going to keep giving them what they want.

#acs versace #ricky martin #red magazine #interview #article #may 2018

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227snewfacebookfries · 6 years ago

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227's™ TRAGEDY ALERT! #Eatery'Spicy'Chef Anthony Chili' Bourdain, Dead! Suicide Hanging! Trending News! Anthony Bourdain, Chef, Travel Host and Author, Is Dead at 61 #Walmart'Spicy'Eatery #Nike'Spicy'Eatery Spicy' NBA Mix!

Anthony Bourdain, whose madcap memoir about the dark corners of New York’s restaurants made him into a celebrity chef and touched off a nearly two-decade career as a globe-trotting television host, was found dead on Friday at 61. Mr. Bourdain was found in his hotel room at Le Chambard, a luxury hotel in Kaysersberg, a village in the Alsace region of eastern France, according to a prosecutor in the nearby city of Colmar. The prosecutor, Christian de Rocquigny du Fayel, said the cause of death was hanging. “At this stage, we have no reason to suspect foul play,” he said. Mr. Bourdain had traveled to Strasbourg in France, near the country’s border with Germany, with a television production crew to record an episode of his show “Parts Unknown” on CNN, the network said. “It is with extraordinary sadness we can confirm the death of our friend and colleague,” CNN said in a statement. The United States Embassy in Paris also confirmed his death. “Anthony was a dear friend,” Eric Ripert, a celebrity chef and restaurateur who appeared with Mr. Bourdain on several of his shows, told The New York Times. “He was an exceptional human being, so inspiring and generous. One of the great storytellers of our time who connected with so many. I wish him peace. My love and prayers are with his family, friends and loved ones.” ADVERTISEMENT In everything he did, Mr. Bourdain cultivated a renegade style and bad-boy persona. For decades, he worked 13-hour days as a line cook in restaurants in New York and the Northeast before he became executive chef in the 1990s at Brasserie Les Halles, serving steak frites and onion soup in Lower Manhattan. He had been an executive chef for eight years when he sent an unsolicited article to The New Yorker about the underbelly of the restaurant world and its deceptions. [Read more: Mr. Bourdain spoke in 2017 about his favorite books.] To his surprise, the magazine accepted it and ran it — catching the attention of book editors. It resulted in “Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly,” a memoir that elevated Mr. Bourdain to a celebrity chef and a new career on TV. You have 4 free articles remaining. Subscribe to The Times “Do we really want to travel in hermetically sealed popemobiles through the rural provinces of France, Mexico and the Far East, eating only in Hard Rock Cafes and McDonalds?” Mr. Bourdain wrote in the memoir. “Or do we want to eat without fear, tearing into the local stew, the humble taqueria’s mystery meat, the sincerely offered gift of a lightly grilled fish head? I know what I want. I want it all. I want to try everything once.” He first became conscious of food in fourth grade, he wrote. Aboard the Queen Mary on a family vacation to France, he sat in the cabin-class dining room and ate a bowl of vichyssoise, a creamy mix of leek and potato. What surprised him was that the soup was cold. “It was the first food I enjoyed and, more important, remembered enjoying,” he wrote. He did not remember much else about the trip. Mr. Bourdain became an instant hero to a certain breed of professional cooks and restaurant-goers when “Kitchen Confidential” hit the best-seller lists in 2000. He is largely credited for defining an era of line cooks as warriors, exposing a kitchen culture in which drugs, drinking and long, brutal hours on the line in professional kitchens were both a badge of honor and a curse. Mr. Bourdain was open in his writing about his past addictions to heroin and cocaine. EDITORS’ PICKS What We Learned From the Videos of Stephon Clark Being Killed by Police Behind New York’s Housing Crisis: Weak Laws and Uneven Regulation Deciding to Change My Body ADVERTISEMENT Before he joined CNN in 2012, he spent eight seasons as the globe-trotting host of “No Reservations” on the Travel Channel, highlighting obscure cuisine and unknown restaurants. “No Reservations” largely focused on food and Mr. Bourdain himself. But on “Parts Unknown,” he turned the lens around, delving into different countries around the world and the people who lived in them. He explored politics and history with locals, often over plates of food and drinks. Mr. Bourdain famously appeared with President Barack Obama on an episode of “Parts Unknown” in Vietnam in 2016. Over cold beers, grilled pork and noodles at a restaurant in Hanoi, they discussed Vietnamese-American relations, Mr. Obama’s final months in office and fatherhood. Anthony and Anderson talk Vietnam, dining with ObamaCreditVideo by CNN Celebrities in the food and entertainment worlds expressed deep shock and disbelief Friday morning. Nigella Lawson, the British cookbook author and television personality, tweeted, “Heartbroken to hear about Tony Bourdain’s death. Unbearable for his family and girlfriend. Am going off twitter for a while.” [Read more: Fans and friends reacted to Mr. Bourdain’s death.] Andrew Zimmern, the television personality and chef, had much in common with Mr. Bourdain. The two met 13 years ago and were friends who often spoke of the pressures that come with fame and who both worked to overcome addiction. “We shared a very, very deep feeling of wanting to get off this crazy roller coaster, but at the same time knowing that this was our work,” he said. “The world has lost a brilliant human being and I’ve lost one of the few people I could talk to about some of this stuff. When I did see him he and I would walk off into a corner or have dinner together and share our deepest darkest stuff.” He last spoke with Mr. Bourdain about a month ago. “He told me he’d never been happier. He felt that he had finally found his true soul mate in Asia,” he said, referring to Mr. Bourdain’s girlfriend, the actor Asia Argento. ADVERTISEMENT But Mr. Zimmern had some indication that perhaps there was more going on. “Things on the surface never seemed to add up or make sense,” he said. Image Anthony Bourdain sampled Appalachian cuisine in West Virginia in an episode of “Parts Unknown.”CreditCNN “We have lost someone who was in my opinion the sharpest and keenest observer of culture that I have ever known,” he said. “When we were alone his hopes and dreams extended into amazing areas.” [Read more: Last year, Mr. Bourdain offered his advice for what to take when traveling and what to avoid.] Anthony Michael Bourdain was born June 25, 1956, the oldest son of Pierre Bourdain, who was an executive in the classical-music recording industry, and Gladys Bourdain, who was a longtime copy editor at The New York Times. He grew up outside New York City, in Leonia, N.J., and his parents exposed him to fine cuisine, taking him often to France. Mr. Bourdain graduated from high school in 1973 and attended Vassar College, dropping out after two years, where he spent long nights drinking and smoking pot. “I was — to be frank — a spoiled, miserable, narcissistic, self-destructing and thoughtless young lout,” he wrote in “Kitchen Confidential.” But at Vassar, he met Nancy Putkoski before he left school for a chance at a culinary career. Mr. Bourdain spent a summer in Provincetown on Cape Cod with some friends. There, he started working as a dishwasher at a seafood restaurant and closely watched the cooks, men who dressed like pirates, with gold earrings and turquoise chokers. “In the kitchen, they were like gods,” he wrote. ADVERTISEMENT The experience solidified his determination to make cooking his life’s work. “I saw how the cooks and chefs behaved,” Mr. Bourdain told The Times in 1997. “They had sort of a swagger, got all the girls and drank everything in sight.” He then enrolled at the Culinary Institute of America in 1975 and graduated in 1978, stepping away at times to work at restaurants in Greenwich Village in Manhattan. He started at the bottom in the kitchen hierarchy, with stops at the Rainbow Room, the W.P.A. restaurant on Spring Street and Gianni’s at the South Street Seaport. He reached the top in the 1990s, becoming an executive chef at Sullivan’s, the restaurant next to the Ed Sullivan Theater on Broadway, and at Les Halles. Mr. Bourdain’s first marriage ended in divorce in 2005. In 2007, he married Ottavia Busia, who appeared in several episodes of “No Reservations,” and they had a daughter, Ariane, who is 11. The couple divorced in 2016. He had been dating Ms. Argento for about two years. Mr. Bourdain had emerged as a leading male voice in support of the #MeToo movement in the wake of rape and abuse allegations against the film producer Harvey Weinstein and others. Ms. Argento, 42, said in a lengthy story in The New Yorker that she endured multiple attacks and manipulation by Mr. Weinstein, and that he sexually assaulted her in a hotel room years ago, when she was 21. She said she had left her native Italy and moved to Berlin to escape the tension and victim-shaming culture she said she experienced at home. Last month, she gave a speech at Cannes that stunned the room. “In 1997, I was raped by Harvey Weinstein here at Cannes,” Ms. Argento said. “This festival was his hunting ground.” ADVERTISEMENT In an interview with IndieWire magazine this month, Mr. Bourdain called her speech a nuclear bomb. “I was so proud of her. It was absolutely fearless to walk right into the lion’s den and say what she said, the way she said it. It was an incredibly powerful moment, I thought. I am honored to know someone who has the strength and fearlessness to do something like that.” Mr. Bourdain continued speaking out boldly on the subject of sexual abuse and harassment, taking on everyone from Alec Baldwin to the chef Mario Batali, who is under investigation for sexual assault charges. Several women have come forward and described repeated incidents of Mr. Batali groping them and of unwanted kisses and sexual propositions. When news of Mr. Batali’s plans to attempt a comeback were exposed, Mr. Bourdain kicked down the idea. “Retire and count yourself lucky,” Mr. Bourdain, a longtime friend of Mr. Batali’s who had not spoken with him recently, said. “I say that without malice, or without much malice. I am not forgiving. I can’t get past it. I just cannot and that’s me, someone who really admired him and thought the world of him.” [If you are having thoughts of suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 (TALK) or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources. Here’s what you can do when a loved one is severely depressed.] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/08/business/media/anthony-bourdain-dead.html https://www.prlog.org/12712741-227s-tragedy-alert-eateryspicychef-anthony-chili-bourdain-dead-suicide-hanging-news-nba.html

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thegiannichronicles · 7 years ago

Text

WOTD

Noun [chin-wag] 1. Slang. an idle chat Verb 1. Slang. to chat idly; gossip. Sentence construction courtesy of Christian Gianni: Lori's daily scheduled chinwag with Tonja took to unchartered waters: casual pleasantries exchanged in the realm of all things beautiful. Her painted lips made mention of his name, catching Tonja off guard. The ghost of his memories scattered about the shelves adorned with fragrance, skin care, and endless products to mask the insecurities and imperfections of the countless, deemed "aesthetically unappealing," and urged to buy instant beauty in a bottle. His name escaped her sharp tongue and plastered itself upon the mirrors where his reflection once manifested, "he would tell me what to do..." Moments later she found herself engaging in her daily therapy, relaying the unexpected words to the best friend of the voiceless. Unphased, Lori conveyed that such words have suddenly become normal, but the ghost remains as such. A change of the seasons and the sound of silence, became the evolution of the voiceless ghost to the incarnation of eloquence, poise, patience, love and acceptance of ones self. For she was the catalyst to his souls wanderlust. For she was the end of the beginning. He, was the catalyst to her haphazard verdict. He, was the once in a life time love her soul shall always crave. She spoke too quickly, that cold February evening that left him gasping for air as his decimated heart bled dry. It was May, and the tears no longer fell from his green eyes, his frown became a toothy grin, and he no longer sat awake awaiting. The lifeless heart, became full and humbly, began his journey to the best version. Silence came to an end on the 6th day, of the fifth month. The silence broken the same way their story began. A brief message of inquiry extended, "I was wondering..." her voice a mere whisper. Five months to the day, at the very same bar. A glance to check the time, he sat between two souls who gathered the countless pieces of his heart she left behind, her name appeared. A moment passed as he pulled himself closer, and he questioned what his eyes fell upon. Once more, he gazed, and her name scrolled across his screen. Her presence, present. In disbelief, the only words his mind could utter, "WHAT THE FUCK?" he said, as his face evolved from a smile to confusion, as his eyes met with the two souls. Words, escaped him. The voiceless ghost bellowed above the articulate gentleman. His phone remained in his left hand a two taps and the screen illuminates, unveiling a most unexpected name. His eloquence remained silent. As they looked upon his phone, their words began to drown out and his eyes fixated straight ahead. His eloquence remained silent. Once acclaimed as a man of always having something to say, his journey to self discovery became the blessing to the speeches that he always seemed to regret, and silence remained. A day later, he opened the message. His eloquence remained silent. He wasted no time in analytics. Another message found itself once more. "I wasn't trying to bother you, I'm sorry." He could hear her voice speak the words. By himself, he spoke to her. The months accumulated, and once upon a time, these very moments were all that he imagined - just to get him through the sleepless nites. Every scenario imaginable was played out. A smile would wash over his face at times, only to be trumped by his tears and heart ache. Those moments of fantasy became far and few.... and he began to forget her touch, her kiss, her scent. Her voice became silent. The moments that once kept him afloat, became muddled and fragmented. He forgot how her skin felt beneath his hands, the way her touch seemed to calm everything. He soon forgot how she felt like home. "Why now?" he spoke to the silence. He sat, his eyes dancing from left to rite, mimicking the search he commonly would find himself engaged in when he sought answers. "No." He stopped. He turned his phone to silent, closed his eyes, and slept. He read it the next morning as he got to work. His eloquence remains silent. The sunset was mesmerizing while he drove home, and his mind stopped on her. Her words. Her. The stories he had been told by countless people over the months. Her. He felt her. Something he had felt in a long time. He shook his head, he refused to waste time on someone who disposed of him like garbage. As he prepared for bed, he felt a sudden urge to put his phone on silent. He had not done that in quite some time. As he was setting his phone to "do not disturb," it happened. Once more, her words scrolled across his screen. He was only able to read the first few words... and he sat, stone faced. "I hope that one day you will be able to speak to me." He turned his phone on silent, and closed his eyes. The next morning, he read the entirety. "....Until then, I hope that you are happy and well." Those eloquent words that have remained silent? Fight to be heard, daily. Those articulate thoughts that he has been able to process? Fight to remain silenced. Weeks ago Lori had accused him of engaging with Andrea. She had heard rumors. He spoke to his best friend without worry, without filter, without a care. His eloquent words no longer silent. She no longer filtered. She calls, and he divulged that he's had a difficult 2 weeks at work, and at home. His choice to better fulfill himself with medication became the nitemare he feared, ending in a panic worse than before - sending him into anxiety. After deliberation with his doctor, they changed his meds, and called for a test. He had worked 14 hour days, the last 3 days. Exhausted, the clock read: 645pm and Lori was calling. He apologized and asked to call her back - he was still working. 2 hours passed, he called, no answer. Abruptly, she called back. He divulges his life....Lori engages. She speaks her name. Andrea. Tonja. Buying or leasing a car. If Christian were here he would tell me what to do. I sat in silence. Stunned. What is it you want, Andrea? I leash my urge to respond, to give in to what I was so easily manipulated to do: respond. My silence is the choice you made. Your last words to me, "it's for the best." It took me a long time to believe that. There are moments in passing conversation with Lori that make me think "is it for the best?" She speaks about how I was the best thing to happen to you. She says that you'll one day realize my heart was always yours, and you'll regret your choice. She says that she thinks you are realizing your mistake, now. She says that you would compare me to Luis, something that shows you aren't ready for another soul to couple your own. She says you talk about me, she hears it from our friends we consider mutual. She says she told me so. She says just wait: there's more. I say, to myself: Words i will not utter to another. Words that needn't a reality. Words that will only create confusion. Words that I still feel connected but refuse to recognize. I read your messages, often. My autocorrect still corrects "and me," to Andrea. My phone emptied of you. My iPad, emptied of us. The day following your last message, I took the bag that held the shadowbox, the most thoughtful gift I've ever received, from the corner that it was sat untouched, since the day you left. It collected dust, and it made its own outline in the carpet. I picked it up, and I removed it from the bag and gazed. I sat, emotionless, unmoved, and stiff. I looked it over, studying it. Our smiles. My smile. Your smile. The ghost on the shore. I sat, remembering the day I took it off the wall, hysterical and panicked. I couldn't even look at it without losing myself in tears. I put it in the bag, and never looked at it again. I thought to myself, "I'm keeping this for when she comes back." So she can ask "did you keep it?" And I'll smile and say, "how could I get rid of it? It's our story." followed by kissing her painted lips that i can no longer remember how they felt against mine. I remained hopeful, until I wasn't. You once lit a fire in my soul, and then it was extinguished. The more I heard your name, the less appeal you carried. The more I remembered us, the more I wanted to forget. I arrived home the day after you sent the last message and did something only to be considered "without warning." My eyes met the untouched bag that sat in the corner since 06 January 2017, and I knew. After I looked once more at the love story that wasn't my fairy tale, it returned to the bag, but not to its corner spot. I opened the dumpster, and without a misstep, I placed the bag that housed the last of us, in its riteful place. I closed the dumpster, and took a deep breath. Exhaled. The silence isn't deafening. It's what you wanted. So now I ask, Five months later, do you wonder? Wonder if the choice you made was by your own fruition, or if it was a choice you made under panic? Do you wonder about the milestones on my HRT? Do you wonder what my voice sounds like, how my touch has changed? Do you wonder what kind of man I become? Do you wonder about my job, and its impact in my life? My friends, and are there women? Do you wonder? My question? Have you realized the love I gave you was one that can never again be encountered? I miss loving you, and all of you. But i do not miss being made to feel like a second class citizen. I do not miss the intrusion by your parents - have you realized they will never accept anyone for you? Their perspective should not matter in matters of your heart. I do not miss slinking around the hotels. I do not miss the fights brought on by my desperation to see you. I do not miss the endless tears. Most of all: I do not miss the man I was. Insecure, emotionally unstable, careless and angry, bitter, negative, without goals, the yelling and failure to listen, the impatience, prideful, selfish, hurtful, and felt that I was defined as a human by another soul. You. How unfair to you - the pressure must have been stifling. I can only apologize for my indiscretions, my omission, and the above. It was, for the best. For my soul. I am on a journey of self love far greater than you can imagine. One that I hope you someday can experience without fear. I am happy, and I am well. Immensely. Graciously. Whole. While I am not fixed, I am a work in progress, always room for change and growth. I love the things I once hated. I do not hate, only dislike and dislike the things I once loved: the darkness, the analytical capabilities, the writing. Instead, i seek light, refuse to analyze, and while i still write, I refuse to dabble in its darkness. Only the things that bring me joy.

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bookgasms-bookboyfriends-blog · 8 years ago

Text

He was the leader of the mafia. I was about to fall in love with him, and his name…Cole Mauricio.

Cole by Tijan is NOW LIVE!

Amazon US: http://amzn.to/2leLlzL

Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/2lpfblG

Audible: http://amzn.to/2kZTpJ6

Paperback: http://amzn.to/2lYr2uU

iBooks: http://apple.co/2mxd67F

Nook: http://bit.ly/2msavwx

Kobo: http://bit.ly/2msd9SX

Full Blurb

I shouldn’t have remembered him.

He was just a guy who walked through a restaurant. I didn’t know his name. We never made eye contact. There was no connection between us at all.

But I could feel him.

The tingle down my spine. The command in his presence. The snap of tension in the air around him. That was the first time I saw him, and I was captivated.

The second time was different.

He was in the mysterious back elevator of my apartment building. Our eyes met for a fleeting second before the doors closed, and I was staggered. My breath was robbed. My senses on high alert. My body hummed.

That was just the beginning.

He was the leader of the mafia. I was about to fall in love with him, and his name…

Cole Mauricio

Excerpt

Once inside the elevator, I stood to one side, watching him. He returned my gaze.

We still did not touch.

My chest tightened, hoping no one would call the elevator at that moment. We sailed past the lobby, the second floor, and stopped at mine. I put in the code, and the doors opened to my home.

I drew in a breath, filling my lungs again. God, it was time.

Stepping out with shaky knees, I bypassed the light switch. The full moon lit up my entire floor. I went to the kitchen and paused at the island. “Did you want something to drink?” I caught sight of the tequila and wine on the counter. There was more than enough.

Cole stepped up behind me and followed my gaze. “Were you going to have a party?” he asked, his breath coating the back of my neck.

I shivered, closing my eyes for one delicious moment. “I stocked up. I thought a friend was coming over tonight.”

His hand rested on my back, nudging my sweater aside to touch my skin. “He?”

“She. Sia.” I looked over my shoulder. He was so close. “She stood me up for a date.”

A faint smile showed. “I need to send her a thank-you card.”

“Please don’t sign it.”

“Why not?”

I turned around, easing my back against the island. Cole placed his hands on either side of me, trapping me in place.

“Because she’s slightly obsessed with you, though she’s in love with someone else now. She could circle back,” I joked.

“Me?”

“We saw you one night.”

“When?” He leaned away, but his hands remained on the counter. It was like he was giving me breathing space on purpose.

“At Gianni’s. We went there the night I moved in.”

He didn’t move, but I could feel him pulling away. A protest started in my head, but I bit back the words. He didn’t reply. He was waiting for me instead.

I continued, “You came in with a bunch of men and went upstairs. That was it.”

His eyes narrowed. “Did you talk to anyone?”

“What do you mean?”

“The staff?”

“About you?”

“About anything.”

My forehead wrinkled. “Sia networked with the hostess. They exchanged cards. Sia said the girl was a model. She recognized her from the Gala. That was it. Oh, well, another server sat with us for a drink later on. But they mostly talked with Sia about the Gala and about photographers—stuff like that.”

He relaxed, his hands loosening their hold on the counter. I was scared to ask what he was so worried they’d told us.

“I don’t know who you are.” I lifted a hand, placing it on his chest. His heart was racing, just like mine. My mouth parted in surprise. “If that’s what you’re worried about.”

He glanced down at my hand and held still. He was thinking something over. I held my tongue, worried it was me, that he was second-guessing this night for us. I wanted to tell him there was nothing to worry about, but it sounded ridiculous. I really had no idea. So I waited it out, my heart pressing against my rib cage.

When he looked back up, the hunger was in his eyes again—dark, primal, and more evident than ever. He took my hand and leaned in, closing the distance between us. With his other hand, he cupped the side of my face. “I wasn’t second-guessing this. I want you to know that.” His touch was tender.

“What were you thinking about?”

“Something else, but it wasn’t you.”

“This is one of those moments where you wish you could tell me, but you can’t? Not yet?”

The corner of his mouth lifted. His eyes moved from mine to my lips. “Something like that, yes.”

“Mmmm-hmmm,” I started to tease, but then his head dipped down, and his lips were on mine.

I gasped. The pleasure was immediate. His mouth was gentle, but as he felt my body’s reaction, he applied pressure. His touch grew more demanding, then I was kissing him back. I wanted more. Someone groaned. That was me.

His hand slid around to the back of my neck. He held me in his grip as his mouth explored mine, opening over me and slipping inside. My hands grasped his shoulders, just holding on. All I could focus on was his tongue. I met his with mine and reveled in the sensation. But it wasn’t enough. Need shot through my whole body.

My hands slid under his shirt and moved over his back and shoulders. His body was just as powerful as his presence. I felt the shift of his muscles. They trembled under my hands. The feeling was intoxicating. I had power over him, and I wanted more. I wanted to see how much power I actually had.

Pulling back, I studied him.

He was panting lightly. So was I.

I could see him wondering what I was going to do, so I reached back to the counter and started to lift myself. His hands caught the backs of my thighs, and he lifted me the rest of the way. Now sitting on the edge of the island, my legs parted, and he was back between them. His mouth went right to mine.

I couldn’t get over what I was doing. I didn’t care.

I didn’t think I would care the next day, the day after, or however long this lasted. I had no clue. I only knew I had one night. One long night.

Author Information

I didn’t begin writing until after undergraduate college. There’d been storylines and characters in my head all my life, but it came to a boiling point one day and I HAD to get them out of me. So the computer was booted up and I FINALLY felt it click. Writing is what I needed to do. After that, I had to teach myself how to write. I can’t blame my teachers for not teaching me all those years in school. It was my fault. I was one of the students that was wishing I was anywhere but at school! So after that day, it took me lots of work until I was able to put together something that resembled a novel. I’m hoping I got it right since someone must be reading this profile! And I hope you keep enjoying my future stories.

Stalk Her: Facebook | Twitter | Website | Goodreads

Cole-Tijan He was the leader of the mafia. I was about to fall in love with him, and his name…Cole Mauricio.

0 notes

lifebooksloves · 8 years ago

Text

Cole by Tijan

Life, Books, & Loves Presents: Cole by Tijan

He was the leader of the mafia. I was about to fall in love with him, and his name…Cole Mauricio.

Cole by Tijan is NOW LIVE!

Amazon US: http://amzn.to/2leLlzL Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/2lpfblG Audible: http://amzn.to/2kZTpJ6 Paperback: http://amzn.to/2lYr2uU iBooks: http://apple.co/2mxd67F Nook: http://bit.ly/2msavwx Kobo: http://bit.ly/2msd9SX

Full Blurb

I shouldn’t have remembered him. He was just a guy who walked through a restaurant. I didn’t know his name. We never made eye contact. There was no connection between us at all. But I could feel him. The tingle down my spine. The command in his presence. The snap of tension in the air around him. That was the first time I saw him, and I was captivated. The second time was different. He was in the mysterious back elevator of my apartment building. Our eyes met for a fleeting second before the doors closed, and I was staggered. My breath was robbed. My senses on high alert. My body hummed. That was just the beginning. He was the leader of the mafia. I was about to fall in love with him, and his name… Cole Mauricio

Excerpt

Once inside the elevator, I stood to one side, watching him. He returned my gaze. We still did not touch. My chest tightened, hoping no one would call the elevator at that moment. We sailed past the lobby, the second floor, and stopped at mine. I put in the code, and the doors opened to my home. I drew in a breath, filling my lungs again. God, it was time. Stepping out with shaky knees, I bypassed the light switch. The full moon lit up my entire floor. I went to the kitchen and paused at the island. “Did you want something to drink?” I caught sight of the tequila and wine on the counter. There was more than enough. Cole stepped up behind me and followed my gaze. “Were you going to have a party?” he asked, his breath coating the back of my neck. I shivered, closing my eyes for one delicious moment. “I stocked up. I thought a friend was coming over tonight.” His hand rested on my back, nudging my sweater aside to touch my skin. “He?” “She. Sia.” I looked over my shoulder. He was so close. “She stood me up for a date.” A faint smile showed. “I need to send her a thank-you card.” “Please don’t sign it.” “Why not?” I turned around, easing my back against the island. Cole placed his hands on either side of me, trapping me in place. “Because she’s slightly obsessed with you, though she’s in love with someone else now. She could circle back,” I joked. “Me?” “We saw you one night.” “When?” He leaned away, but his hands remained on the counter. It was like he was giving me breathing space on purpose. “At Gianni’s. We went there the night I moved in.” He didn’t move, but I could feel him pulling away. A protest started in my head, but I bit back the words. He didn’t reply. He was waiting for me instead. I continued, “You came in with a bunch of men and went upstairs. That was it.” His eyes narrowed. “Did you talk to anyone?” “What do you mean?” “The staff?” “About you?” “About anything.” My forehead wrinkled. “Sia networked with the hostess. They exchanged cards. Sia said the girl was a model. She recognized her from the Gala. That was it. Oh, well, another server sat with us for a drink later on. But they mostly talked with Sia about the Gala and about photographers—stuff like that.” He relaxed, his hands loosening their hold on the counter. I was scared to ask what he was so worried they’d told us. “I don’t know who you are.” I lifted a hand, placing it on his chest. His heart was racing, just like mine. My mouth parted in surprise. “If that’s what you’re worried about.” He glanced down at my hand and held still. He was thinking something over. I held my tongue, worried it was me, that he was second-guessing this night for us. I wanted to tell him there was nothing to worry about, but it sounded ridiculous. I really had no idea. So I waited it out, my heart pressing against my rib cage. When he looked back up, the hunger was in his eyes again—dark, primal, and more evident than ever. He took my hand and leaned in, closing the distance between us. With his other hand, he cupped the side of my face. “I wasn’t second-guessing this. I want you to know that.” His touch was tender. “What were you thinking about?” “Something else, but it wasn’t you.” “This is one of those moments where you wish you could tell me, but you can’t? Not yet?” The corner of his mouth lifted. His eyes moved from mine to my lips. “Something like that, yes.” “Mmmm-hmmm,” I started to tease, but then his head dipped down, and his lips were on mine. I gasped. The pleasure was immediate. His mouth was gentle, but as he felt my body’s reaction, he applied pressure. His touch grew more demanding, then I was kissing him back. I wanted more. Someone groaned. That was me. His hand slid around to the back of my neck. He held me in his grip as his mouth explored mine, opening over me and slipping inside. My hands grasped his shoulders, just holding on. All I could focus on was his tongue. I met his with mine and reveled in the sensation. But it wasn’t enough. Need shot through my whole body. My hands slid under his shirt and moved over his back and shoulders. His body was just as powerful as his presence. I felt the shift of his muscles. They trembled under my hands. The feeling was intoxicating. I had power over him, and I wanted more. I wanted to see how much power I actually had. Pulling back, I studied him. He was panting lightly. So was I. I could see him wondering what I was going to do, so I reached back to the counter and started to lift myself. His hands caught the backs of my thighs, and he lifted me the rest of the way. Now sitting on the edge of the island, my legs parted, and he was back between them. His mouth went right to mine. I couldn’t get over what I was doing. I didn’t care. I didn’t think I would care the next day, the day after, or however long this lasted. I had no clue. I only knew I had one night. One long night.

Author Information

Stalk Her: Facebook | Twitter | Website | Goodreads

Disclosure: This information was provided by TRSOR Promotions and Tijan. This is NOT a compensated post.

The post Cole by Tijan appeared first on Life Books & Loves.

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acsversace-news · 7 years ago

Link

Andrew Cunanan was cool.

Like, really cool.

Sincerely, legitimately awesome.

That’s the tragedy of “Creator/Destroyer,” the penultimate episode of this extraordinary season of television. By the time we see Andrew in his full glory as one of the wildest guys at his high school, we’ve also seen his father Modesto, who debuts in this episode, get his hooks deep into the kid. Andrew has seen his father harangue and assault his mother. He’s borne the weight of all his dad’s dreams, knowing this comes at the expense of his siblings, sensing on some level it’s not right to have this kind of pressure placed on him but, because the pressure is couched as praise, not knowing how to fight back. He’s been…well, the show is cagey on this, but saying he’s been molested by his father would not be out of bounds.

And even now, as an ebullient and confident teenager, he’s begun certain behavior patterns that will get him in trouble in the end: he has a sugar daddy, and he becomes fast friends with Lizzie, his future bestie, because she shows up at a high-school house party pretending to be a kid rather than the married adult she really is. (“I’m an impostor.” “All the best people are.”) He’s picking up little tidbits on how to deceive (including his go-to pseudonym, DeSilva, the name of the people who own the house where the party takes place) and why (because “when you feel special, success will follow” as his father teaches him).

But for a brief time, he’s just a cool, slightly weird, slightly obnoxious, slightly closeted teenager, and if you weren’t at least two of those things during your high school career I don’t wanna know you. He stands up to homophobes in a familiar way, by camping it up even further, going so far as to pose for his class photo with his shirt all the way unbuttoned to show off his (impressive!) torso. He’s prophetically chosen to be “Most Likely to Be Remembered,” and equally prophetically selects “Après moi, le déluge” as his yearbook quote. He rolls into the parking lot like a refugee from Less Than Zero (complete with that movie’s soundtrack staple, the Bangles’ cover of “Hazy Shade of Winter”; the film was his IRL fave) and shows up at the house party in an Eddie Murphy red-leather jumpsuit. (Finally it’s clear why so many of his music cues over the course of the ‘90s portion of the series were anachronistically ’80s: The ’80s were his time.) This Andrew could be loved. This Andrew could be saved.

In that sense, Andrew’s not so far away from our episode-opening glimpse of Gianni Versace as a kid, though that’s the least successful segment of the episode, if not the whole season. This has been a bugbear of mine all season long, but for real: Anytime native Italian-speakers start talking to one another when there’s no one else around, those conversations scenes reallyshould take place in Italian. It’s next to impossible to feel a connection to young Gianni and his mother when they’re talking in absurdly accented English like they’re doing a nostalgic spaghetti-sauce commercial. The old-country lighting and color palette doesn’t help either, nor does the dialogue that Mama Versace and Young Gianni are forced to spout — an uplifting, after-school-special lesson about not letting bullies and homophobes and sexists stop you from pursuing your dreams, the importance of hard work, yadda yadda yadda.

Knowing this show, the excess schmaltz here is probably deliberate, intended to drive home the contrast between Gianni’s genuinely supportive mother, who instills in him the belief that effort, talent, and success are all interconnceted, with Andrew’s faux-supportive parents, who treat him like a god when they’re not terrifying him with pressure and spousal abuse and who brainwash him into believing that success is handed out to innately special people like a party favor. I get that, I appreciate that. But in a time when shows from The Americans to Narcos can spend half an episode or more using another language — or when shows like Game of Thrones shoot scenes in languages that are completely imaginary! — going with the “when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza-pie” approach displays a baffling lack of confidence in the audience. (This is the only episode where Tom Rob Smith shares the writing credit with another person, Maggie Cohn, and I wonder if that’s got something to do with it.)

Fortunately the show is on firmer ground with Andrew’s father. As Modesto “Pete” Cunanan, Jon Jon Briones faces the daunting task of airdropping into the series in its penultimate episode, in a role with no more or less responsibility than revealing the foundational traumas that turned Andrew Cunanan who and what he is. He makes it work so well that it starts to feel like he’s been there all along. He inhabits the era perfectly, for one thing: With his impeccable coiffed hair, double-breasted suits, tight-fitting leisure ware, and grown-ass-man mustache, he looks like every uncle in your family’s old faded photo album. He has a fireplug physicality and a crisp vocal cadence that can project confidence and dynamism one moment, then weirdness and menace the next. Frequently he’s called upon to shift between modes almost within a single sentence, as when he chokeslams Andrew’s mother Mary Ann to the ground and then immediately starts celebrating the purchase of his son’s new car once again.

And like many Horatio Alger cases, his belief in pulling himself up by his own bootstraps (as his superiors at Merrill Lynch put it) comes with undue contempt for those he considers weak. He brings up his childhood poverty in the Philippines as a talking point; he brings up Mary Ann’s postpartum depression and hospitalization as a weapon. Unsurprisingly for such a figure, at no time does he seem capable of addressing or even acknowledging his own weaknesses, his own pain. For one thing, he’s clearly experienced anti-Asian racism; that’s the unmistakable subtext of his interview with Merrill, where he’s the only candidate who isn’t white, as well as his relentless drive to assimilate and Americanize. It’s hinted at in the way he refers to his family home as a place his would-be employers could purchase with the cash in their wallets; when we finally see it, it’s not a mansion to be sure, but it’s no hellhole either. It’s a house, but it happens to be a house in a place other than America, which makes it a hovel in his eyes. He passes this self-hatred on to his son, who when asked by a relative in Manila if this is his “first time home” can’t even bring himself to respond. Only by concocting the legend of his father the pineapple magnate (plantations “as far as the eye can see,” he tells his Filipino boss at the pharmacy, for whom he holds nothing but contempt) can Andrew reconcile his heritage with his and his father’s hunger for the American dream.

Moreover, while Modesto’s justification for why the feds are out to bust him for theft but not his bosses — “They’re all stealing. My crime was that I stole too small…If I had stolen $100 million, they would have promoted me” — is pretty much completely accurate, it doesn’t explain why he left his family holding the bag. Watch him when he returns to his cubicle after learning his fraud has been uncovered: He grips the desk, grimaces, puts his head down for about two seconds, and by the time he raises it again he’s decided to buy tickets to Manila and abandon his wife and children. Not even his wall full of photos of Andrew (the style of which should look familiar at this point given all of his son’s similar shrines to Gianni Versace, and what does that tell you about this relationship) prevents him from telling his travel agent to book that flight.

I think there’s a moment that portrays the damage Modesto does to his son more clearly and powerfully than the car incident, than the bit where he pretends not to have gotten the job at Merrily Lynch and then berates Mary Ann for believing him, than his escape and exile, than his homophobic confrontation with his son when Andrew (in a rare and genuinely impressive display of hard work and emotional uncertainty) tracks him down in Manila, or even during the bedside scene that very heavily implies child molestation (implied again when, in ostensible reference to becoming reaccustomed to the Manila heat, he purrs to Andrew that “You can pretend you belong somewhere else, but the body knows”). And Modesto’s not even on screen for it at first.

In a scene that’s achingly familiar to any former young overachiever waiting for confirmation that they’ve gotten the thing they’re supposed to want, Andrew grabs the days mail directly from the postal worker and flips envelopes to the floor until he finds one from Bishop’s School, the prestigious secondary school Modesto has made it his life’s mission to get Andrew into. The next time we and his mother Mary Ann see him, he’s in tears. “Why are you crying?” Mary Ann asks, her toothy grin shaping the words. “You got in!”

Andrew is crying the way you might cry when you hear a certain test result came back negative, or receive word that your kid is alright after a bus accident. The pressure of being Modesto Cunan’s special son — so special that his father literally gets down and kisses his feet upon hearing the news — was slowly crushing him. Now that he’s made it, he’s sobbing from the decompression. What misery it must have been for him a few years later, then, when he realized he’d fought all his life to live up to a fraud. “I’m the world’s greatest opportunist,” his father once told him. We’ll see about that, Dad. We’ll see about that.

#acs versace #decider #2.08 #recap #review #article #march 2018

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July 15, 1997. Andrew Cunanan slo-mos down the just-rained-on sidewalks of Miami Beach, accompanied by Ultravox's "Vienna." He passes people in friendly conversation; he passes a pair of beat cops. He comes upon Gianni Versace's mansion, the sun now shining, and as Midge Ure wails, "It means nothing to me / this means nothing to me," we see Cunanan draw on and murder Gianni again. Gianni's fingers twitch again. Cunanan looms into the sun and blocks it out to look down Starman-ishly on Gianni's body.

Later, Cunanan waits to cross the street, smugly watching cop cars scream past him before hustling over to the houseboat on the other side. Looking strangely apprehensive given everything else he's done with it, he grips the gun barrel and uses the butt to break the houseboat door's lock, then lets himself in and creeps towards the kitchen in the dark. More confident now that he's established nobody's there, he browses the cabinets, then helps himself to a bottle of champagne with an entitled puss on, typically dropping the detritus from the bottle neck onto the floor without a second thought. He switches the countertop TV on to enjoy Dan Rather's somber report on Gianni's death, then leaps over the back of a deep white couch to keep watching on the big TV in the living room (flanked, hilariously, by gold sphinxes). He hasn't quite settled in when the champagne, shaken up by its journey, self-pops on the table and scares the shit out of Cunanan.

He flops back on the couch, laughing at himself, but sits forward again when the broadcast shows side-by-side pictures of Gianni and the prime suspect in Gianni's murder -- himself (Criss, Photoshopped relatively poorly for this production onto one of the real photos often used in the wanted posters). "Oh my god," he murmurs, not stricken or fearful but almost surprised that it happened at all, much less because of him, then repeats, almost triumphantly, "Oh my god!" As the broadcast continues in VO, Cunanan climbs to the rooftop balcony of the houseboat, a curtain (I think) slung around his neck like a tuxedo scarf, drunk and turned on by his own infamy as he watches helicopters search the streets farther down the shore. He slumps into a lounge chair and swigs champers with a contented smile.

Tampa. Marilyn Miglin is packing her case before a broadcast when there's a heavy knock at her hotel room door. It's the FBI. "Is it that man?" she asks, then confirms that her children are safe before letting them inside. The agents explain that they believe Cunanan shot Gianni. Shaken, she sits down, wondering almost to herself, "When will this end?" Then she repeats it, more firmly, before proceeding to clock them for not catching Cunanan in the two months since he murdered her husband -- how many more people will die? how much more pain do they think she can take? what has Cunanan been up to all this time? "We don't know yet," the lead agent is obliged to admit, as well as that Cunanan "evaded capture" in Miami. Marilyn's are-you-fucking-kidding-me face

is particularly impressive work from Judith Light given that her fake lashes in this scene have their own congressman, post office, and vegan bakery.

The Republic Of Lashistan is decidedly unimpressed with the agent's suggestion that, given Tampa's proximity to Miami, she should leave Florida. (As am I; it's nearly 300 miles, and whatever else you might say about Cunanan's state of mind at this point, the idea that he would double back to kill a spouse, whom he would likely find at a television studio, is a non-starter.) A tear rolls down Marilyn's cheek, but she's like, incompetent says what? They want her to run, to hide "from him," but she's never missed a broadcast and she won't start today, so they can provide whatever security they want to: on with the show. On the set, Marilyn marches up to the display, chuckling forcedly about her ability to break sales records under pressure. Her co-host gently tells her she's sorry. "I need it to stop," Marilyn grits.

The next morning, Cunanan wakes up to a news broadcast describing him as a "male prostitute" serving "an affluent clientele." He puts on his glasses as the VO continues that he's articulate, well-dressed, armed and extremely dangerous, and the newest member of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List. He peers expressionlessly at the Wanted card on the TV screen, then pads into the owner's walk-in closet to shop for an outfit, settling on an all-yellow number as, in the next room, Marilyn's voice talks about Lee as "a man who exemplified courage, honor, and dignity." Cunanan doesn't seem to hear this as he looks in the mirror, smirking. "We had a fairytale marriage," Marilyn tells the press, faltering just slightly. "He was…my prince." I don't know why it's here that I find myself thinking about those lost two months between when Cunanan murdered Miglin, then William Reese, and when he fetched up outside La Palazzo Versace and killed Gianni. American Crime Story really hasn't dealt with them at all, unless you count the Ronnie interlude, which only seemed to last a day or two at the end, and it's not that I think the show should have tried to fill in that gap, or that anything particularly noteworthy happened, or might have. Perhaps the Orth book has more insight, although my sense is that nobody really knows what Cunanan got up to during that time. But ACS did a great job imagining Cunanan's time with David Madson after the killing of Jeff Trail, and Darren Criss and others have said that some episodes started out twice as long as what we see on broadcast…I don't know. If there's ever a director's cut of the season, I'll certainly watch it, whether or not it contains a theory or fantasia on the missing weeks.

Anyway: back to what is covered. Cunanan heads out in his sunny ensemble, complete with yellow ball cap, and reads the L.A. Times coverage of Gianni's murder while waiting for an unsuspecting driver to drop her keys into an easily heistable purse, which she does. He tails her to an outdoor café and lifts the bag easily, walking past a wanted poster with himself on it in the café window and helping himself to her Mercedes. He's listening to, and giggling delightedly at, radio coverage bemoaning the instinct to blame the murder of a prominent Italian on the Mafia when he's forced to stop for a police checkpoint. When it's clear the cops are taking more than a cursory glance at the cars ahead of him, Cunanan U-turns it on outta there, cursing. He's parked on a side street, perusing a map, when an older guy comes out from between two houses and says Cunanan looks lost. He is; does the older guy know any way off the island besides the causeways? They seem really crowded. Older Guy sighs that every road off the island has police checkpoints at the moment. Riiiight, right, Cunanan acts: "Andrew Cunanan. It's terrible, I hope they catch him." Bold move. Older Guy asks, "What's your name, young man?" Cunanan gives the Kurt DuMars alias, then bustles as casually as he can manage back into the front seat, thanking Older Guy for his help. Older Guy watches him go.

Cunanan, in a snit, parks the Benz under one of the causeways, pitches the keys into the water, and bellows in frustration.

Back in San Diego, Mary Ann Cunanan is hunched under a blanket she's draped over the TV, I guess to hide her smoking, although she doesn't seem to have cared about that before? In any case, the effect is of a twisted ritual of prayer, especially with the saints candles and crosses on the same table.

She's creepily stroking the TV screen when there's a knock on the door. It's the cops. She unfastens the chain slowly, then opens the door to clasp one officer's shoulder and ask, "Have you killed my son?"

Cunanan, limping back to the houseboat, comes across a wanted poster altered to show him with lipstick, and with lipstick and a blonde wig.

Back at the houseboat, he peels off his shirt and slings it over a chair, then guzzles a Coke and continues to marinate in the coverage of his misdeeds.

What's more American than Coca-Cola and gun violence. Sigh. He's admiring the wanted posters of himself he's apparently collected when the coverage changes to footage of Mary Ann getting taken out of her apartment under the same blanket as before. She deer-in-headlightses at the jostling news crews and photo flashes before she's eased into the back of a cruiser. Cunanan watches, taken aback.

At the Normandy, Detectives Lori and George roust Ronnie, accusing him of lying to them about knowing Cunanan -- he stayed there, and he and Ronnie were friends. Ronnie lies again that Cunanan told him his name was Kurt, and he only just now saw Cunanan on the news; he was totally just going to call them. Det. George is like, cute; you can come with us. As he's led out of his room, Ronnie grumps to Det. Lori, "We weren't friends."

In an interrogation room, Det. Lori continues to nope Ronnie's version of events, saying Cunanan had been hiding in Miami for two months. Ronnie snorts that he wasn't hiding, "he was partying," and Lori's like, great. Where? She lists a few gay clubs, and Ronnie snarks that ohhh, okay, "the only lez on the force" must have been looking for Cunanan. Lori pulls one of her patented "bye bitch" faces

as Ronnie sarcastically muses that the other cops, they didn't care so much about finding Cunanan when he'd only killed a handful of "no-name gays." Why might that be? George snaps that they have over 400 people looking for him, and Ronnie's like, yeah, now you do, now that he's offed a celebrity. There's a little more salty back-and-forth, with Ronnie not having Lori's bluff that he's an accessory to murder and George not having Ronnie's contention that they don't really care about catching Cunanan, before George asks if he never mentioned Versace. Ronnie takes a swig of coffee and says he did nothing but, then muses that "we all" talked about Versace, about what it must be like to be so rich and powerful "that it doesn't matter that you're gay." He adds that "you were disgusted by him long before he became disgusting," which is true, and a good line, but like the rest of this speech not super-credible despite Max Greenfield's estimable efforts. Ronnie goes on that George et al. would prefer "them" to stay in the shadows, "and most of us, we oblige." People like him just drift away…get sick, nobody cares…"but Andrew was vain." He wanted to be heard, wanted people to feel his pain, "wanted you to know about being born…a lie." Lori flinches a little, possibly at the clumsiness of this writing compared with the subtler work we've gotten the rest of the season, as Ronnie concludes that Andrew isn't hiding. "He's trying to be seen."

Well, metaphorically. Literally, he's trying to get out of town, but his next effort -- breaking onto a boat at the marina in the hopes of sneaking out of Miami by sea -- is stymied when a dock "neighbor," mistaking him for the owner, comes onboard looking for "Guillermo." He's in the head, gun cocked, as the neighbor comes below decks calling for Guillermo, and when she pushes on the door and it's pushed forcefully closed in response, she knows something's hinky and hurries away. He exhales, then grabs his gear and bails, hopping from bow to bow as he tries to get out of the marina.

Which he does manage to do, and by the time he returns to the houseboat, the neighbor is leading Dets. Lori and Luke to the boat he tried to take, as he sees through a pair of binoculars. No time to feel truly trapped yet, though, as he can hear Lizzie Coté delivering a statement on the bedroom TV. She's addressing herself directly to him and saying she knows he's not the "despicable" person portrayed in news reports. He sinks to his knees, staring plaintively at her, as she goes on that she knows who he really is and loves him, "unconditionally." The Cunanan she knows isn't a violent person. "I know that the most important thing to you in the world is what others think of you," she adds (emphasis hers); he still has a chance to show everyone else what she "and your godchildren" know. It's time to end this, "peacefully." We go to the ad break on Cunanan's furrowed brow.

When we return, it's another news show, this one about Jeff Trail and David Madson, the voice-over wondering a little too pruriently, "What did these two men do in their days on the road?" This is an understated dig at the salacious coverage, and investigative judgments, that a so-called gay serial killer received -- that, somehow, the possibility that anal intercourse occurred is the most important thing to suggest and the chief aggravating factor in the case -- and is completely in line with the tone of the reporting at that time. When I say that Ronnie's dialogue speaks the truth but lands with a thud, I'm contrasting it with material like this, which is used perfectly whether it's contemporaneous footage or a bone-dry recreation. The newsmag goes on to interview Madson Sr., who defends his son as a victim, not an accomplice, as Cunanan sits and listens, sweating. It doesn't take long before Cunanan can't hear anymore, and begins lunging at the various television sets to turn them off. He stops before switching off the last one, though, to look at a picture of David that's now onscreen.

As with the Lizzie presser, and with Mary Ann as she watched footage of him, it's as though they're there with him, speaking to him. It's the only companionship he can really manage, an idea of it, a picture of it that he can turn off. And when Madson Sr. says his son is a good man -- was a good man -- that's just what Cunanan does, kicking at the off switch to silence a version of life and manhood he can't access.

Later, he sits on the beach, alone, listening to the hectic sounds of nightlife on the boardwalk, before returning to the now-emptied fridge at the houseboat. He goes through the trash and makes sure he's gotten every last blob of yogurt from a discarded cup, then spots some dog food. The attempt fails, as he can't hold down a single spoonful before horking it back up, onto the wanted posters on the counter. He's scraping his tongue with a paper towel (which he then throws on the floor, where he's also left the upended garbage) when Marilyn Miglin's segment comes on the home-shopping channel he's got on. Marilyn tells a sweet story about the perfume she's hawking, about how she wanted to go back in time and give her mother one of the luxuries she couldn't afford, working so hard after Marilyn's father died and putting every penny towards their room and board. Cunanan pulls up a chair and stares at the screen, ensorcelled by Marilyn's tale of her wonderful dad and his early death, of her wishing she could go back in time and give her mother this thing she made…"as a way of saying how special you are."

Now Cunanan's at a pay phone, calling Modesto. A cousin brings Modesto the cordless; Modesto, an array of articles about his son on his desk, wonders how much he should charge for an interview "this time," and looks horrified to hear who's actually on the phone. The second he hears Modesto's voice, Cunanan starts bawling like a child.

Modesto reminds him that "men don't cry, remember?" Cunanan tries to ignore this, sobbing that he's in trouble; he needs Modesto to come get him. Modesto says without hesitation that he'll fly right over, and to hell with the charges still pending against him. Cunanan tells Modesto where he is in Miami. Modesto repeats that he's coming, and when he does, "I will find you. And I will hug you. And I will hold you in my arms, like I used to. And it will all be okay." Cunanan leans his head against the top of the pay phone wistfully, then asks, "You promise?" Of course Modesto promises! Cunanan is to pack some clothes and get ready to go as soon as Modesto arrives. The operator breaks in to ask for more money, and Cunanan, nodding, so eager to believe his salvation is nigh, burbles that he's out of time. Modesto says again that he'll be there soon.

Cunanan puts a cassette in and packs: clothes, books, a French passport. Not sure what the music is -- sounds like Gershwin; could be Debussy; let me know in the comments, as Shazam didn't come through for me here -- but whatever the case, Cunanan is dreamy and hopeful as he lies in bed, watching the water's reflection play with the fan on the ceiling, then as he puts his backpack and a stolen garment bag by the houseboat's front door the next morning, and settles in next to them to read.

That night. No Modesto. Cunanan checks the water; he checks the entrance; nothing. Coming back in the house, he hears Modesto -- giving a TV interview in which he first and foremost denies that his son is gay, then brags about Cunanan evading the cops, then claims they've discussed the rights to Cunanan's story and Modesto is acting as the broker for those rights. As he's blathering about the life-story title that Cunanan and Modesto agreed upon -- "A Name To Be Remembered By" -- Cunanan goes from pained to angry to just...dark.

That title is really bad, almost as bad as Modesto is a parent/person, and Cunanan shoots the living-room TV rather than listen to Modesto BSing that the charges keeping him out of the U.S. "are bogus," or any other of Modesto's horseshit that probably smells a lot like Cunanan's own, even to him. And while I'm up, man has Darren Criss killed it in this role.

July 22, the day of Gianni's funeral. Waiting uncomfortably in a salon, Donatella grouses to Antonio that Gianni should be alive, that "if everybody had done their job," he would be. Antonio takes a beat, then tells her he heard the shots, and he knew -- because his heart stopped. Donatella looks down, briefly shamed in her attempt to put Gianni's death on Antonio, as he goes on that he knows her heart is broken too, but she and Santo have each other. Antonio had Gianni, only Gianni. Donatella doesn't apologize or return the sentiment, just asks what he'll do now. Antonio sighs that he'll stay in Lake Como; as Donatella knows, Gianni set it up so Antonio could stay in "one of the houses," and he just wants to stay close to Gianni. Donatella frowns, but is clearly not quite unhappy to inform Antonio that Gianni no longer owns any of the houses -- he "spent too much money," so the company had to take control of all the properties. The board of Versace now governs them. Antonio regards her with a dull "this bitch" stare until she finally meets his eye again, pulls a "…what?" face, and tells him to go to Lake Como and recuperate for a while. "And after that?" Antonio grunts. She non-answers that today is the day to say goodbye, and then both of them will start a new life. This expert "now isn't the time"-ing is too much for Antonio, whose eyes fill with tears as he says he guesses that's it, then; Donatella can just throw him aside like a piece of trash. Ricky Martin loses control of the accent, regrettably, as he pleadingly says he loved Gianni, Gianni was his life, and suddenly he doesn't matter? Donatella's look is hard to read, but I suspect she's thinking, "Not 'suddenly' for me, no," as Antonio says he has no home, no rights, nothing. She comes back toward him, saying firmly that the houses and the finances are controlled by the board. "You have a say," he presses, but he's not getting shit. "I'm sorry for your loss. I'm sorry for all of us!" She leaves the room in tears, not one of which is for Antonio.

The houseboat. Cunanan is kicking back with a can of dog food on the kitchen floor. Still the trash is scattered about. A huge roach scuttles across the floor, no doubt attracted to the sty-ish conditions currently prevailing, and Cunanan traps it under his drinking glass and picks it up to examine it as it sits on his palm under the glass. Little too pointed as survivor symbology goes, but Cunanan's soon enough distracted by footage of Gianni's memorial service, and all the glittery guests in their mourning attire. He hauls a huge projection system into the living room so he can watch it writ large (and because he shot the TV that was in there earlier). He projects it on the great-room wall above the doors, obliging him to look up at it, a supplicant, a worshipper, one of the congregation.

As Cunanan watches Princess Diana and Elton John dabbing at tears, Antonio numbly follows Donatella and the rest of the blood relatives into the family pew. The priest does not mention him along with the other family or loved ones, and snubs him after blessing the others in the pew; at the houseboat, as a boy soprano begins the 23rd Psalm and Antonio rises belatedly with the rest of thatcongregation, Cunanan crosses himself and kneels before the simulcast, singing along and weeping at the lines "yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death / I will fear no evil." Rain sprinkles the floral tributes outside Gianni's house, and the wanted posters of Cunanan tucked between the mailbox and its flag.

Cunanan buzzes his hair short, like a penitent, while elsewhere, a caretaker (I assume?) tells someone on the phone that he'll take care of it and writes down the houseboat's address. Not sure if he's responding to a complaint about the bugs or what, but he grabs some keys and a gun holster and heads out. Cunanan is napping next to a magazine with a Versace ad on the back when he hears the caretaker let himself in, the broken lock falling clean out of its housing. The caretaker creeps in gun-first, calling, "Is anybody here?" The only voices come from the TV, still on in the living room. "I am armed!" the caretaker calls. Cunanan appears in the hallway upstairs, also armed, and withdraws behind a wall, then fires a shot into the ceiling. The caretaker's not about sticking around, and tuck-and-rolls out of there.

Det. Luke is having a smoke when the police radio comes on with an "occupied burglary" call for all units. He and Det. Lori head over. SWAT gears up and moves out. Cunanan comes downstairs to hear a breaking-news update on "the siege at Indian Creek," which is a siege of…him. As the anchor describes the perimeter set up by the FBI and Miami police, Cunanan, coated in sweat, gawps at the screen.

After the commercial, more news reports. The cockroach, still under the drinking glass, is now dead. Cunanan sits primly on the couch in his underpants, watching the chopper shots of the houseboat from the outside, and the rattling of a close pass of a helicopter right overhead seems to make him only curious, not afraid -- but when the phone starts ringing, and the hostage negotiator outside gets on a bullhorn and tells him they only want to talk, he starts freaking out for real. The team leader outside, flanked by Dets. Luke and Lori, tells everyone to hold positions, as we see sniper set-ups, news vans behind the perimeter, and the houseboat and its fountain looking very small.

In the Philippines, Modesto crouches, childlike, in front of his TV as a newscaster notes that efforts to draw Cunanan out have failed. Cunanan locks himself in the bedroom, panting, and turns to see his younger self on the bed. If any recent narrative could hope to get away with this pasteurized processed trope food, it's ACS, but when you co-host a Beverly Hills, 90210 podcast, all you can think about is Dylan and his gooberama inner child at his father's funeral.

I know it's unfair to ACS, this reference, but you can see why it's tough for me to take this visual cliché seriously. It's nicely acted by both Darren Criss and Edouard Holdener -- with the TV calling Cunanan "a known gigolo; a man who loved the spotlight," Li'l Cunanan looks pleased with the attention, regardless of its origin; Grownanan is staring at his younger self with a mixture of confusion and fear, with perhaps a bit of relief mixed in -- but we certainly did get it without this provol-onsense. The broadcast talks about Cunanan's schoolmates voting him Most Likely To Be Remembered, and Grownanan beams at his boy self,

but when the broadcast returns to the police tape around the houseboat, Li'l Cunanan vanishes, and a light goes out in Cunanan. He's utterly alone; he doesn't even have himself. There's no there there.

Outside, it's decided that if Cunanan were going to come out, he would have. "Cut the power," the team leader says. The TV goes off inside, and the fans. The SWAT team sends a handful of smoke bombs in ahead of themselves, and breaks the door down. Cunanan scootches up to the headboard and sits in that prim way of his, officiously removing his glasses. He cocks the gun and puts it in his mouth, far back, his lips not an inch from the trigger. He's wearing no expression, but something makes him look over at himself in the mirrored sliding doors beside the bed. I took a screenshot of the moment, which is profoundly unsettling along a number of axes -- the deadness of the eyes, the way the barrel of the gun pushes his face out of shape, the visual nod to fellatio and the Möbius of self-loathing and despair then implied, in this case, at this time; the grotesqueness of this last thing Cunanan saw, which was himself -- but it felt wrong to use it. Not to mention that Cunanan in fact shot himself in the temple, but in any case, let's leave it at Cunanan finally killing himself while staring into the camera and the bang coinciding with a smash cut to Cunanan and Gianni's night at the opera, Cunanan saying in voice-over, "I'm so happy right now."

Gianni is taking his leave of Cunanan. He chucks him flirtily on the chin and starts to make his way down the stairs from the stage when Cunanan asks, "What if -- you had a dream your whole life that you were someone special? But no one believed it…not really." Gianni looks at him with compassion as Cunanan goes on about persuading people he'd do something great. Gianni tells him gently that it's not about the persuading people; it's about the doing of that great something. Cunanan should finish his novel. "Or something else!" Cunanan Manson-lampses. "Do you think I could be a designer?" Gianni's like, uhhhhh, so Cunanan adds that he knows "literally everything there is to know about fashion." Maybe he could assist Gianni, or be his protégé? Gianni isn't looking for that, but Cunanan feels that his being there, "like this, with you," is destiny. Can't Gianni feel it? When an answer isn't forthcoming, Cunanan tries to kiss him, and is put aside -- sweetly, as Gianni strokes Cunanan's cheekbone and says it's not that he isn't attractive; he's a "very interesting young man." But he wanted Cunanan to take inspiration, nourishment from the opera, and if they kiss, it's not about that anymore. Cunanan is still selling, offering dinner the next night, club-hopping…Gianni can't, he's too busy with work before he leaves town. "Another night. Another stage. Yes?" Cunanan is almost physically crushed by this courteous rejection as Gianni heads down into the orchestra pit, and the lights go out on Cunanan with a pointed thrunk.

Dets. Lori and Luke ID Cunanan's body. Luke asks if he's what Lori expected. "He's just a boy," she says. Cunanan's body is loaded into a medical examiner's van, and Lori watches sadly.

Marilyn Miglin is packing up from her broadcast when she's informed by the FBI agents that Cunanan has taken his own life. "Good," she says. "It's over." But it isn't, quite; her co-host comes upon her reading letters from viewers, letters about Lee and his acts of generosity towards them, paying their bills, career mentoring. Lee never told her "about any of it. Why…didn't he ever tell me?" Without waiting for an answer, because she doesn't want to think too closely on Lee's things not told, Marilyn says she answers all the letters, and tells the authors Lee is alive in their correspondence. She beams at a photo of him on her dressing-room vanity, adding that she's so very proud of him.

Lake Como. Santo stares out at the water, then goes in to tell Donatella the lawyers have come. Before the meeting, she has to confess to Santo that, the day Gianni died, he called her about a show she was putting together in Rome, and he had a lot of questions, and she got annoyed that he didn't trust her judgment -- so when he called back a half hour later, she didn't answer. She begins to ugly-cry. The Albinoni from the first episode of the season begins.

Antonio pours a bunch of pills onto a plate and looks at them sadly.

Bodyguards escort Donatella onto a balcony, an umbrella held over her, in slo-mo. At the edge of the balcony, she takes the umbrella without a word and heads towards a small mausoleum at the end of the property.

A metalworker brushes a brass nameplate, and polishes it with a cloth.

Antonio jams all the pills into his mouth and washes them down with wine, which we see from below, reflected in the mirrored tray holding the wineglass.

Donatella lights a candle before a photo of Gianni, under the box holding his cremains.

Antonio holds an item of Gianni's clothing to his face, then subsides into bed to wait for death.

The cemetery worker takes his bag of tools into a crypt and screws the nameplate -- which appears to belong to Cunanan -- onto the front of one of the marble cells.

A maid comes upon Antonio on the floor. "No, no no no," she gasps, shaking him and patting his face. He opens his eyes, and seems destroyed by having survived.

Donatella puts her hand flat on the box, as if to gather power from it. She looks into the etched mirror above the urn, whose design cuts her face into pieces and pulls it out of shape.

A close-up on the nameplate, which is indeed Cunanan's, pulls away, then down the long silent hall of the crypt. It keeps pulling further back, further back.

Dozens of others interred here, hundreds perhaps, behind featureless marble, with identical nameplates. Cunanan's gets smaller and smaller. The light at the end of the hallway gets further and further away. And then it's over, and then it's gone.

And so is American Crime Story's second season. It didn't work for everyone, but despite a couple of occasional quibbles, I liked it a great deal; I admire its ambition and I think that ambition is mostly realized. Fantastic performances all around, and a dimensioned meditation on what is born and what is made, on how much is destroyed when a destroyer is created.

Thanks so much for coming on this journey with me, and for supporting Previously.TV's Epic Old-School Recaps. I'll see you in the forums. Ciao, bellas.

#acs versace #previously tv #2.09 #recap #review #article #epic old school recaps #march 2018

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acsversace-news · 7 years ago

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Today, platinum-haired powerhouse designer Donatella Versace is one of fashion’s most powerful women, but 20 years ago, she was a bereaved sister fighting for the future of her family’s Medusa-emblazoned megabrand. “Wow, Donatella!” is the first thing Penélope Cruz says to me when I mention her critically acclaimed role in American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace, and the exclamation could well serve as the show’s unofficial subtitle. “To keep the company going in the middle of that huge, deep pain she was feeling – that’s real strength,” reveres Cruz.

Proximity to her own siblings is just one of the reasons that 43-year-old Cruz – dressed down today in a gray cashmere hoodie and blue jeans – is happy to be back in her native Madrid. London, where she lived last winter during the filming of Kenneth Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express, reminded her that she is constitutionally unsuited to gray days and “a 4pm nighttime – it affects the brain,” she says in her accented purr. It was worth enduring a little seasonal affective disorder, though, for the bespoke performances she was able to coax from her co-star Josh Gad, aka the voice of Olaf the snowman in the Disney smash Frozen. Stored “like treasures” on her smartphone, she plays the audio clips to her kids when she’s in need of parental kudos. “I know Olaf, and that makes me the coolest mom in the world,” she beams.

For the rest of us, ‘Friend of Olaf’ doesn’t quite compare to Cruz’s other achievements, such as becoming the first Spanish woman to win an Academy Award, for her role in 2008’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona. As she pointed out in her acceptance speech, this was the stuff of dreams for a girl from the working-class Madrid suburb of Alcobendas, who headed to New York at the age of 19 to study dance. The film also reacquainted the actress with fellow Spaniard and Oscar winner Javier Bardem, who had, once upon a time, played a bullfighter and part-time underwear model opposite Cruz’s feisty factory worker in her breakout film, Jamón, Jamón. The pair married in 2010. So now there are two Oscars to polish – and two children to consider.

Naturally, that phone call was to Actual Donatella. As a red-carpet regular, Cruz has been dressed by the house of Versace on multiple occasions. “I said to Donatella, ‘This is keeping me up at night because it’s such a big responsibility to play someone who’s not only alive, but someone I respect so much.’ And she told me, ‘If somebody’s going to do it, I’m happy that it’s you.’ Her words gave me the freedom to do this. I think she could hear in my voice that everything was going to be done from a place of respect.”

Mastering Donatella’s voice, of course, was a key part of characterization. This was Cruz’s second Italian job – she starred alongside Sophia Loren in the 2009 musical Nine – but the designer’s distinctive manner of speaking was a departure. “Her voice is much lower than mine, and I worked for months and months with the voice coach Tim Monich. I was not interested in doing a caricature, an imitation; I want you to feel her there. Everything about Donatella is rock and roll – even when she’s just sitting in a chair, she does it with an attitude.”

To keep the attitude alive in the breaks between their scenes together, she and Édgar Ramírez, who plays Gianni, turned to music: “We listened to a lot of Prince, and a lot of opera. We thought that both were very Versace.”

Whereas attitudes towards race churned at the core of The People v. O.J. Simpson, sex and sexuality pervade this sun-drenched second season of American Crime Story. Gianni Versace was killed outside his Miami mansion by Andrew Cunanan (played by Glee alumnus Darren Criss), a fantasist who preyed on gay men during a time of widespread homophobia, and whose fascination with celebrity culture morphed into a murderous obsession.

“We’re telling a story that makes you think a lot about the craziness that’s going on in the world today,” muses Cruz. “It makes you question the concept of fame, and how some teenagers and very young people grow up idealizing something that is poison.” She’s concerned that social media is exposing us to pressures that were previously the exclusive preserve of celebrities who are, she says, at least somewhat better prepared. “It doesn’t matter if you are exposed to 200 people or two million – if you’re not equipped to deal with the pressure of opinion, manipulation and bullying, it’s dangerous.”

It’s impossible to touch on the topic of fame’s dark side without alighting on Hollywood’s recent sexual harassment scandal. After all, Cruz won her Oscar for her performance in a film written and directed by Woody Allen and produced by Harvey Weinstein.

I feel her hand tap my kneecap. “I know that you are going in that direction,” she says, before adding that she had no inkling of the scale of Hollywood’s problems prior to the revelations in the New York Times. She was aware, she clarifies, that certain high-profile men were “difficult to deal with on a professional level; that they were tricky, or did some bullying – that much was clear. But these other things that have come to light…” Her eyes widen.

She knows, of course, that Hollywood has very different attitudes towards men and women. “Since the age of 25, [journalists] have been asking me if I’m afraid of aging. It’s a crazy thing to ask, and I’ve always refused to answer. They would never ask a man such a question.

“Obviously that kind of thing is on a different scale to what we were just talking about, but everything builds up, and I consider it to be part of an overall suppression of women,” says an impassioned Cruz.

She’s emphatic that the recent disclosure of widespread abuse via the #MeToo movement must result in actions as well as words. “It has to change the rules of our industry and all the other industries in which women are being repressed in so many different ways. It cannot just be something that’s there to fill the news for a few months before we move on to something else.”

With her own daughter and son, Cruz says she’s found a novel way of shifting the gender narrative, quite literally. “Fairy tales matter so much because these are the first stories that you hear from the mouths of your parents,” she says. “So, when I read fairy tales to my kids at night, I’m always changing the endings – always, always, always, always. F*****g Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty and all of this – there’s a lot of machismo in those stories. That can have an effect on the way that kids see the world. If you’re not careful, they start thinking: ‘Oh, so the men get to decide everything.’”

Cruz’s subversive fairy-tale heroines, she says, are prone to declining proposals of marriage, or making the proposals themselves. An example? “In my version of Cinderella, when the prince says, ‘Do you wanna marry?’ she says, ‘No, thanks, ’cos I don��t want to be a princess. I want to be an astronaut, or a chef.’” Cruz laughs wickedly and closes an imaginary book.

No doubt, Donatella would approve.

#acs versace #penelope cruz #porter magazine #interview #article #february 2018 #.thanks fallenjunkie for the heads up

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acsversace-news · 7 years ago

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LOS ANGELES—“What about Donatella? That was my first question—would she be happy with this?”

Penélope Cruz initially balked at playing Donatella Versace in “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story,” because she has known the designer for many years.

What Ryan Murphy, who directs and produces the FX miniseries, told Penélope convinced the Oscar-winning actress to take on the role. Penélope, looking like a beautiful bride in a white floor-length dress by Burberry, with her hair swept up, talked to us about playing Donatella, who remarkably took over her brother Gianni’s fashion empire after he was killed by Andrew Cunanan.

From a teenage fan of Gianni who dreamed about wearing one of his creations someday, Penelope now has dresses designed for her by Donatella, with the fashion sketches bearing the actress’ face, no less. That was why Penelope hesitated at first to accept Ryan’s offer to play Donatella.

Now, the Spanish actress is deep into filming “The Assassination of Gianni Versace” with Edgar Ramirez (as Gianni), Darren Criss (Andrew Cunanan) and Ricky Martin (Antonio D’Amico, Gianni’s longtime boyfriend). We interviewed Penélope inside Versace’s former mansion in Miami where some of the crucial scenes were shot.

Excerpts from our chat:

Is it more intimidating to portray someone that you’re friends with? I don’t know if I’d say we are friends, but we have seen each other on different occasions, on and off, around the last 15 years. I worked very closely with the House of Versace. Every time I’ve been with Donatella and everybody who works with her, they’re some of the most generous people I have ever met.

I always liked Donatella. She’s a strong, affectionate, generous woman. When Ryan called me, I was very excited because I love Ryan. Everything he does is successful because he’s so good. Everybody who works with him loves him. I met him when he was working with Javier in “Eat Pray Love.”

When he called to say that he wanted me to play Donatella, I was completely shocked because I had no idea they were going to do this project. There were 20 seconds of silence, with my brain going like, would Donatella be happy with this?

I listened to what Ryan wanted to do. He said, I don’t think there has ever been a project that shows what a heroine this woman is because of everything she went through. When she had to face a situation she wasn’t prepared for, when everything happened with her brother, and she was going through pain and loss, she had to get strength from where she didn’t have it.

Everything that her brother created, she kept it going. I’m sure that was because she has so much love for him. But here she is, and the House of Versace is stronger than ever. It’s incredible what she has done.

Now that I know more details about their relationship, it’s a beautiful love story. They were brother and sister who were close to each other from when they were little kids. I want to do this with that passion, dedication and respect for the truth.

What do you think makes Donatella an admirable woman in these times? Donatella had to handle the pressure of managing the House of Versace and making major decisions at a time when she was going through so much grief and desperation. She lost one of the people she loved the most. That’s why I call her a heroine, because not everybody can handle that amount of pressure.

In the script, it’s very beautiful the way Donatella talks about the way Gianni created this House and how it started from a little store in Milan. It’s so emotional because she says she wants to continue what she had created with this man.

They created from nothing, and they were very poor. That’s where she gets the strength to continue, for him. Because in a way, he’s alive. What he created continues to be alive. She fought a lot for that.

You were 18 when the murder happened. I remember the day very well. I was studying in New York and starting to work in movies, but I was really there to keep working on my English. I was a huge fan of Versace. At the time, I didn’t know him or Donatella. He has always been one of my top three favorite designers…and Donatella, too.

I heard that news and couldn’t believe it. He was young and full of life. It was sad and horrible. This (show), at least in the way I’m experiencing it, is a dedication to him. He’s present in every corner (of this house).

What was your relationship to Versace? I knew every single piece from Versace when I was 15 (laughs). I was a big fan. I was thinking, maybe one day I’ll get to wear his [creations]. Now, when they make things for me, by Donatella, they put my face on the sketches.

How does the show portray Donatella’s relationship with Antonio? In the script, Donatella and Antonio don’t have the best relationship. I’m not going to give you too many details, but there’s tension there.

Ricky Martin mentioned reading a scene in which there’s “hate” between your character and Antonio. Not hate, but there was a big distrust. She wanted more from Antonio in terms of what he gave to her brother. But I wouldn’t say it was hate.

Can you talk about the hair and make-up process you have to undergo to play Donatella? I don’t wear prosthetics because in the ’90s, I don’t think Donatella had done any work. There are different wigs and colored lenses, because my eyes are brown. She has a little more green honey color.

The eyebrows are important, too. Her eyebrows are so white that you almost don’t see them. That changes the eyes a lot. It’s like a three-hour process. It’s the same as when I was playing Virginia Vallejo in Colombia, with the wigs and that much makeup.

Can you talk about the film you’re going to shoot after this, the untitled Asghar Farhadi project? At the end of August, we’ll start shooting in Madrid. I consider Asghar Farhadi a genius. That shoots for four months.

My character suffers so much. There’s a very important thing that happens to her. So I feel OK, then I’m dressed in a way that is very different, almost without makeup.

What else do you have coming up? We finished “Escobar.” They’re editing it now. We’re very happy with that. A load of tough scenes because imagine what goes on in that world. There has been a lot of movies that have the character of (late Colombian drug lord Pablo) Escobar in them. I’m not saying it’s better, but it’s different because you see the whole thing from the beginning.

“Escobar” is focused on his relationship with my character Virginia Vallejo, who was a journalist who trained him to talk to the people and educated him on how to connect with the press. Then, they started a relationship. When she wanted to get out, it was too late. I think the movie is going to be good.

#penelope cruz #interview #philippine daily inquirer #acs versace #article #july 2017

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