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Tasting the Blood of Chrissy Hynde
By Conrad Romo
I called Susan about hanging out Saturday and catching the Hockney show at the Museum of Contemporary Art. “Thanks,” she said but had plans already. We talked for a while about music among other things. I mentioned Patti Smith, whom I consider to be the high priestess of rock and roll and she said she idolized Chrissy Hynde from the Pretenders. I thought about telling her to just cancel her damned plans, and that we really oughta hang out together, and that she could taste the lips that tasted the lips that tasted the blood of Chrissy Hynde.
But, I didn’t say anything, because we were supposed to just be buddies. Just friends, is all but, that didn’t stop me from mentally projecting the thought, taste the lips that tasted the lips that tasted the blood of Chrissy Hynde. See, I used to know another woman that was a huge fan. And one day at a Pretenders concert, she worked her way through the mosh pit, to the very front of the mob. She was dancing with her arms overhead when Chrissy reached down into the audience from the stage and grabbed the hand of this woman and gave it a squeeze. And amazed at her luck at having been touched by a genuine goddess, she brought her hand close to her face to admire it, and that is when she saw the blood. Chrissy’s blood! She knew she hadn’t sustained any sort of injury, so the blood had to be Chrissy’s very own. And feeling inspired by this realization, she licked it off of her hand. So that’s how it works, see? And one day, this woman and I were talking shit about music and Ann Rice and vampires, when she told me what she had done at that concert and I just had to kiss her right away. I had no choice. And so, we became more than just good friends, see? So taste the lips that tasted the lips that tasted the blood of Chrissy Hynde.
But I didn’t say anything to Susan. And all my projecting didn’t change her mind, or for that matter, her plans, so that afternoon I was on my own at MOCA. Mose Allison was playing the piano in the courtyard and the museum doors were open free to the public. It was crowded as hell so I just settled for listening to a couple of songs before going into the museum to take in the exhibit.
There was a vibrant buzz of people in the gallery space. The photography show had a couple of Hockney classics, “Pearblossom Highway” and “Brooklyn Bridge” among others. One whole room was dedicated to big 5 or 6 ft high photographs of people. A touch of hand tinting had been added to each of the works. They were good, but didn’t engage me and I just didn’t care very much for them, so I walked quickly through the room, reading the names of the people in the portraits and glancing at their faces. Names and faces, over and over until I came to a name that gave me pause. It looked familiar, but out of context so it took a while to connect the picture with the name until I realized that I knew the woman. There had been a short lived, but nasty relationship with her years earlier. Actually it wasn’t a relationship at all, just a lot of fucking, plain and simple. We skipped over any pretense of dating, even though I once brought her a nice bunch of flowers and tried something sorta like a real date, but just when I started acting like she was my girlfriend, she called one afternoon saying she did not want to have a relationship with me, buuuut, she said, she did want to fuck me. I didn’t say anything for about a minute, until she asked if I heard her, and I said, yes, and she asked what I thought, and I said I’d be by her place about 11:30 or so. Wouldn’t you know it? Patti Smith was playing at the Roxy, that same night and I already had a ticket, so I told her I’d drop by afterwards. Something you should know, that she didn’t know, was that my attraction to her in the first place came from her resemblance to Patti Smith. Anyway, I became her glorified dildo for a while, and though this may have been a fantasy for a lot of guys with its abandonment of pretense, it didn’t feel nice, her sending me on my way when she was done with me. I knew my way out. I hadn’t thought of her for a while except everytime I heard a Patti Smith song. Then there she was, big as life on the wall, smack in the middle of this art experience.
She looked cute and I got snapped into some weird connection to Hockney that I couldn’t have planned, and the idea that I had sex with art just cracked me up. I wanted to point to her picture and announce something to the room. I mean, it’s not everyday, right? And you know the saying that goes, “I’m not much but I’m all that I think about”? Well I couldn’t stop smiling and wondering about everyone else’s intimate relationships with some of the subjects on the walls. The damned perverts!
After a while I walked into another room that held the permanent collection. Among the works there were some black and white pictures by the great photographers Robert Frank, Helen Leavitt and John Friedlander. I felt like I’d been socked in the solar plexus. That’s what it feels like to me, a strong shot to the body, when I see great art.
I turned a corner and there was a Pollock painting. It pulsed with rhythm and energy. Its vivid swirls and splatters of paint tweaked the right chakras that gave me an almost out-of -body experience. I had to sit and catch my breath. Its intoxicating effect was near overwhelming. And I sat, for art’s sake, for love’s sake, for fucks sake, forsaking love, I sat, knowing I’d be there a while, and allowed piece after piece of art to do its will and have it’s way with me.
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