I WAS A LIVE NUDE
9/19/06
(THIS COLUMN IS DEDICATED TO THE PHENOMENAL NURSING STAFF AT THE MOTHER/BABY UNIT OF BERKSHIRE MEDICAL CENTER. I promised I would give mention to those cool ladies, who by the way are bimbopolitics fans, and very tough yet kind broads who made my hospital stay nothing short of a really really painful vacation. YOU GUYS ROCK!! Thanks for everything.)
Two things I did within the past three months: Posed nude and gave birth. In that order.
But before I go any further, I should tell you that my whole life I've had a secret desire to pose naked in front of the camera. Yeah, that's right -- snicker if you must. Guffaw quietly to yourself. But it's true. I don't mean the kind of nude photos they have in Playboy or God forbid anything like what you find in those really horrid icky-poo porno rags. I'm tawking about something uber stylish by Annie Leibovitz where, for example, I'm draped over a red velvet chaise lounge (having spent the entire morning in hair and make-up, and with every possible good angle and lighting design working to my advantage) with a look in my eye that says “Someone please come feed me some Nicoise olives straight out of the jar.” You know -- high class nudity.
One of the biggest problems with this fantasy, however (besides the whole over-inflated idea that Annie Leibovitz would actually ever WANT to photograph me) is that I am incredibly shy in front of the camera. Okay, that's kind of putting it lightly. I'm pretty much certifiably awkward, self-aware (in a bad way,) and generally loathe to paste on a phony smile for anyone. It sort of makes me want to barf.
Which brings me to the moment, around three or four months ago, when I was hired on as casting director for a photo shoot Gregory Crewdson was doing in the Berkshires. In case you're not familiar with his work, he does highly evocative, cinematic tableaus that usually involve lower middle class America and the implicit question: “What the fuck does take-out Chinese food packed in Styrofoam, ugly shag carpeting, and a beat-up butt-ugly brown Ford Pinto have to do with the meaning of life?”
Another recurring theme: pregnant women with a look on their faces that speaks something to the tune of: “If I look like an enormous sad hippopotamus, why do people keep telling me that I look beautiful, and when they do tell me I look beautiful, why do I want to stick my head in the oven and turn on the gas full blast, but only after I chug-a-lug the huge bottle of Tab that's sitting on the top shelf of my refrigerator?” His photographs are exquisite.
So, as Gregory and I were having a casting meeting one happy day at a table on my front porch, he asked me, ginormously pregnant as I just so happened to be at the time, if I would like to cast myself as a really sad but beautiful (and naked) hippopotamus in one of his famous pregnant-woman photographs (he phrased it slightly differently.)
I, of course, had two thoughts: 1)Yes. And flashing through my head was my secret desire to pose nude, the Nicoise olives, and the whole bit. And 2) Beautiful? Me? Where's the Tab cola and will you excuse me while I go stick my head in the oven?
Mind you, I had no idea what I had just agreed to. The future of my nude image now rested in Gregory's hands. I really had no idea what I would be DOING in the photograph. Would I be lying on the floor of some slummy trailer with my face implanted in a plateful of Kraft macaroni and cheese, with empty Pabst Blue Ribbon cans strewn around me? Or would I be standing in the middle of some debris-strewn woods, naked (duh,) watching ravens gnaw apart a McDonald's Big Mac with a look on my face something to the effect of “Get away from my Big Mac, you nasty vermon?! I bought that with last week's welfare check!”
The possibilities were endless. The only thing I knew was this: I would NOT be spending an entire morning in hair and make-up so that my nude self could be gingerly positioned across a red velvet chaise lounge; and Nicoise olives - not a chance.
Naturally, after that day, I became busy working on casting for other photographs that preceded THE photograph in the schedule, and I hardly had the time to obsess much about the fact that I'd soon be bearing all in front of his entire crew. But then one day, Gregory and Cosi (his assistant) brought me to my "location" and explained the concept of the photo. I was to be standing in an overgrown debris-strewn backyard, gazing down at the ground, (possibly thinking about the lyrics to Madonna's song “Papa Don't Preach,”) while across the street, a young teenage couple sat on a ramshackle porch (either contemplating their future, the nature of war, or the fact that Justin should've won American Idol Season One.)
So the big day came (and just to let you know HOW pregnant I was, I was precisely two days shy of my due date.)
As per instructions from Cosi, I did not wash my hair for three days before so I would look more . . . in character. And I did feel sufficiently greasy, but apparently not greasy enough because my session in “hair and make-up” consisted of a having sun block rubbed into my hair. I made way to my position, flung off my huge tent-like red bathrobe, and sheepishly looked around for mouths to start dropping.
I had about a minute of déjà vu where I felt like I was in one of my showing-up-to-the-first-day-of-school-naked dreams. But then I felt oddly normal. After standing there motionless for nearly two hours, in fact, I kind of forgot I was even naked. All I felt was that my back was starting to hurt and man, did I have to go to the bathroom. I tried to use the feeling to the advantage of the photograph as I internalized the thought, “Maybe I shouldn't have chug-a-lugged so much Tab cola, which, by the way, I purchased with food stamps.”
As for the crew, along with the city fire department who had been called in for an off-set emergency,
and the every-so-often train engineer who happened to roll by in his ten ton diesel locomotive and notice that there was a very naked pregnant woman standing directly opposite the train tracks, they all showed considerable respect.
I'll have to admit, however, as satisfying an adventure this posing naked turned out to be, I still want my day in the pages of Vanity Fair draped over the red velvet chaise lounge. And as I fantasize about that, I think I'll eat some Nicoise olives out of the jar. Ahhh.
Stay tuned for part two of this little adventure: labor and delivery!!
9/20/2006
You are too funny, cousin. For the record, you and Scribby WILL be clothed at the wedding, right? I just want to make sure your Uncle Walt is carrying enough nitro with him. Ken
9/21/2006
And then you have to ask yourself, do any of us ever REALLY have enough nitro? And by the way, what the heck is nitro? --Jacuzzi
9/21/2006
Show us the naked pic! Sounds very impressive in a large way...
9/21/2006
Sorry, you'll have to wait until the photo is hanging in one of Crewdson's exhibits somewhere, but if you look really really close in the photo, you can see a tiny tiny blip of flesh . . . that's me. --Jacuzzi
3/3/2007
GO FOR IT JACUZZI.
