Читать книгу L.A. Woman - Eve Babitz - Страница 8

PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION

At the time I wrote L.A. Woman, I thought that it was going to be the book that took over the world. Ya know, that got me everything. That everything in my life would finally go my way. It came out in 1982 – the exact same time John Belushi was killing himself at the Chateau Marmont. I had been trying to get along with John Belushi for a long time. My agent sent me to New York to write about Belushi and get an in at Saturday Night Live, but I didn’t know that at the time. He lived in a cement bunker and, you know, was famous for not being very much fun, except for his skits and everything. I tried to but could never get around him, because he was surrounded by guns and cement bunkers.

The person I ended up influencing instead was Steve Martin – who is also from the West Coast – so maybe I had more of a chance with him. I was the one who suggested that he wear that white suit. I got the idea from a 1906 Jacques-Henri Lartigue photo of a man in a white suit on the beach in Cannes titled “Cousin Caro.” Lartigue took these photos when he was ten years old. He started when he was seven and continued taking them throughout his life till he accrued 250,000 of them. The day after his wedding he took a photo of his wife on the toilet. It’s titled “Bibi,” which was his nickname for the high-society Madeleine Messager, mother of his only child. She’s smiling, because she knows it’s for fun. So the guy’s funny and that’s what inspired Steve Martin, because he “got” Lartigue and became an immediate fan. Lartigue kept taking pictures of his family and they are now on sale at the Museum of Modern Art.

I told Steve Martin that everyone else was going for darkness, but darkness doesn’t pay off. I was the one who convinced Steve with that picture. I tried to convince the Eagles to wear white suits, too, but their reaction was, “No way!” They would have looked good! Don Henley eventually wound up wearing white suits in the ’80s. So did the guy who was married to Melanie Griffith. Don Johnson. Remember that Miami Vice thing? I mean everybody wore white suits. I finally got my way. Or they wore pale, incredible pastel colors. I totally got my way!

Let me tell you: when L.A. Woman came out, it had the perfect title. Then Jim Morrison stole the title for his album. But I am the “L.A.” woman! I had some help from my friend Diane Gardiner, who was a publicist. She publicized me nonstop. She just quoted all my funny remarks and they wound up in Rolling Stone and that’s why people wanted to meet me. So Diane kind of made me famous. Her own remarks were even funnier, but she kept a lid on it. That’s how all that happened. So, when L.A. Woman came out, I was just positive that I was going to take over the world.

I got reviewed in the New York Times. I thought they would “get” me, even if I’m from Los Angeles. So with L.A. Woman I thought they were going to get me that time and just publish everything in the book, stick excerpts in the paper and it was going to be just great! But the critique of my book was titled “A Dull Girl.” I hate the New York Times! I thought it would be wonderful. P. J. O’Rourke didn’t like me. I couldn’t believe it – a bad review in the Times! It went against all my principles. It was just awful. The truth is, they only get me when I haven’t written a book in like ninety years, then they write a huge article about me and say how great I am in the Style section. But if I write a book they’re like, “Oh, this is horrible!” Unless I write nonfiction. Then the New York Times likes me.

So, I told everybody I was going to kill myself. But I woke up rested, damn it! After sleeping two days, I was up for eight. I was up with my mother. We were drinking vodka and couldn’t fall asleep. My father had also died, so we just went on a vodka bender. My mother managed to get a doctor to shoot her up with sedatives so she could sleep. But I had to take all these pills. I think it was Thorazine left over from my father’s deathbed. Most addicts kill themselves by just trying to get some sleep. I’ve always had an iron constitution and could never do it. That’s when John Belushi immolated himself in the Chateau Marmont. I was staying there at the same time, trying to kick drugs. Steve Martin and Michael Elias were paying for my stay. Carl Reiner said this thing: “Don’t all those drugs disguise your symptoms?” I thought that was the purpose. I had all these symptoms and, you know, they gotta be disguised. Like boredom. Or the usual alcoholic thing, like bad excuses.

I just totally drove every person crazy. Even Paul Ruscha said I had to quit. And Paul never says anyone has to quit. Because codeine. That’s the worst, most boring, and horrible drug. It had sabotaged all my relationships. Paul had to suffer with pain and misery because of the way I dated him. I was always on one drug or another. I thought, Well, if Paul can’t stand it (because Paul loves everybody no matter what they do or how horrible they are), I should consider getting sober.

And codeine makes you obnoxious . . . on three continents. I went on a last horrible binge and fired everyone important in my life. I didn’t realize they were trying to help me. I was so paranoid I thought everyone was against me. And that was just the codeine. I had to thank P. J. O’Rourke for the slashing review, because I owe my sobriety to him. It was either kill myself or go to Alchoholics Anonymous. The usual choice. I did thank him through friends, because that bad review got me sober. I ultimately met him and liked him, because calling me a “Dull Girl” was actually pretty funny.

—Eve Babitz, October 19, 2014Transcribed and edited with the assistance of Alexandra Karova