the map of when

love in a time of war

HOLLY, GO LIGHTLY

A month or so ago I noticed my apartment building had a new tenant on the first floor. When I was walking my Polly beagle, I’d often see him sitting with several younger people on his balcony drinking wine and once I walked by and noticed one filming him with a video camera. “Huh”, I thought, “he must be some gay veteran who’s sharing his tales of coming out in the past.” A few times we chatted and introduced ourselves while I stood on the sidewalk below. He was very nice.

Weeks later, another (gay) tenant in my building and I were talking. “This friend of mine is a screenwriter and he’s writing a screenplay about Holly Woodlawn, the drag actress who worked with Andy Warhol, and he told me she lives in our building!” Immediately I thought of the new tenant.

Lou Reed immortalizes Holly in his song Walk On The Wild Side :

“Holly came from Miami, F-L-A,
hitchhiked her way across the U.S.A.,
Plucked her eyebrows on the way,
shaved her legs and then he was a she,
she says, Hey, babe, take a walk on the wild side…”

Naturally I was intrigued but it wasn’t until this week I saw Holly and a friend sitting on his balcony again. We struck up a conversation and he insisted I come up to his apartment with my dog to visit.

So it turns out I am friends with the infamous Holly Woodlawn and may now have become part of his entourage. I discovered the friend he was with when he invited me up is, in fact, a rather infamous artist (who is also charming).

Holly and I talk of many things :

Holly : “So I was doing my show at Reno Sweeney’s and was singing a song about sequins. So Andy said “Call Halston and ask him how to spell sequins”. This was when Halston was huge and had this whole big place on Madison. So I called and said “May I speak to Halston?”

“Who’s calling?”

“Holly Woodlawn” So he immediately gets on the phone.

“Halston? how do you spell sequins?”

“S-E-Q-U-I-N-S”

“Thank you darling” and I hung up. He called me right back and asked me to come to his showroom so I hopped in a cab and went and he made me two sequined gowns to wear for my show.”

Me : Too bad you don’t have them now.

Holly : “Oh darling, they weren’t really my taste. But I could buy this whole building with them.”

I’ve been back twice already. He’s sung, told great stories, I showed him how to use his remote and we exchanged phone numbers. I’m due to return Thursday as his artist friend takes photos of him for an art project.

  1. seriouslyflippant said: werque, bitch! love it. totes glam and totes deserving of you.
  2. hughman posted this