Forrest Has a Shoot With Virgin.

As part of the Parfum Chantal campaign, Evers finds himself in a giant Chinese bed with a megastar.  The following is an excerpt from Silverstone (aka Spin in the US))                     

        She was wearing a satin robe with a sash and 1940's movie-star silver shoes. Her red cupid mouth spread wide in a grin when she saw me.  She pirouetted once, stopped with her back to me and let the robe fall, looking over her shoulder to be sure I was watching. 

         Of course I was watching.  I was watching the Ginger Rogers spike heel shoes and the long slim ankles the backs of her calves, the blue vein pumping in the back of her knee, the lavender satin nighty.  She pursed her lips in a little camp kiss, turned around again, kicked off her shoes, pulled back the sheet and snuggled in alongside.
         Up close you could see the outlines of her real mouth, the large pores around her nose and the lines and dark circles showing through the make-up under her eyes.  She closed those big grey eyes and switched off, a trick she had, I was later to learn, of tuning out the world and grabbing a few seconds rest. 
    Instantly a hairdresser and her assistant were bending over her, pulling and smoothing her hair with their hands and combs, finishing off with a few deft puffs of hairspray.  

     "OK," Scatuzzi said from behind his Hassleblad on a tripod, "bend over Virgin, why don't you Forrest, and see let's how it looks; the Prince wakes Sleeping Beauty with a kiss."
    Virgin said, her eyes closed, "Hi."
    "You come here often?" I said.
    She gave me a professional little smile.  "You still pissed off?" she said, her eyes still closed.
    I bent over and kissed her lightly. 
    Scatuzzi said, "hold it there a sec. Forrest.  Let me get another spot reading.  Willard, can you move that reflector up a notch.  I need more fill on Virgin's mouth."
    Opening her eyes, looking up at me, the bogus lover six inches away, Virgin said, "when was the last time you were in bed with a stranger?"
    "OK,"  Scatuzzi said.  "Another little smacker, Forrest."
    "It's hard to remember," I said, kissing her lightly.  "A long time ago.  Before we knew sex could kill you."
    "I was just thinking everybody I've ever been to bed with was a stranger."
    Scatuzzi called out, "Wipe the lipstick off Forrest would you please, Larry?  Can we get a little more of that fill on Forrest?  And move that second Dienst.  I'm getting a bedpost shadow across his eyes.  Don't move Forrest."

    "Including me," I said.
    "Well, now that you mention it, we've known each other two days and we've had our first fight and our first kiss.  In this business that qualifies as old friends."  She put her hand behind my neck and pulled me down to her.
    "Great," Scatuzzi called out.  "Just pretend we're not here."

    It must have been like this in Hollywood years ago when they shot silent movies.  The actors talking shopping lists, gossip, and acting passionate while a man in riding pants cranked the camera. Except we weren't talking movie star gossip.  Conversation with Virgin was like passing hand grenades back and forth.  You never knew if she had pulled the pin. 
    "You're a nice kisser," she said.

    "Is that a complaint or a compliment?"
    "I'm talking to you.  Talking to you is a compliment."
    "Lucky me."
    "Yeah, lucky you."  Pause.  "Okay, it was a compliment.  Call me Janice."
    "Janice is a lot easier to say with a straight face than Virgin.  Is that your real name?"
    "Janice Corlowski.  Is that real enough?"  She was leaning over me now, one of those famous breasts threatening to break loose out of the silver satin, the other famous breast crowding in, trying to get a peek. 
    "Virgin," Scatuzzi called out.  "We're seeing a little too much of Forrest in the camera.  Can you shift up a bit, sweetheart?  Give me just a touch more chin?  Thank you that's perfect.  Harold, I'm picking up a little moisture on Virgin's chin."   
    There was another conversation going on under the covers.  Out of sight.  Unspoken.  Straight face.  When we rolled into another position Virgin's hand would brush against my cock.  Lightly.  Almost by accident.  Lingering for a beat.  The silk pajama bottoms they'd given me made her touch slippery, sexy.  And the fact that the cameraman, the three lighting guys and two electricians the makeup girl and the people from the Canadian advertising agency were watching us and had no idea what was going on made it even sexier.  We were facing each other and she had just held my cock for a moment, with her fingertips, under the sheets.  "Just checking," she whispered in my ear. 
    Emily Post does not offer guidance for these situations.  `Hey cut that out,' seemed like the wrong thing for a grown man to say.  I wasn't her little plaything.  And I wasn't angry, far from it.  But I wasn't relaxed either.  Several of the shots were no good because of the male model's attempt to hide his erection. 
    The great manipulator, as she was called in the record industry, took on a new meaning.  Naturally my cock loved the attention.  Cocks as you have no doubt noticed are dumber than dogs.  Show the little dangler the slightest bit of attention and its up there with its tongue hanging out, wagging its tail.  The old rising cock couldn't see that this normal, gentle and loving creative act between lovers had been turned inside out into a cheap publicity trick.  But you try saying that to a cock.
    Then, while Scatuzzi loomed over us on a step ladder, she grabbed my balls and squeezed.  Hard.  `Call me Janice,' she said. 
    This was real pain.  Maybe Virgin thought it was superstar courtship.  I thought of hitting her to break her grip.  I reached up with the hand tucked underneath me and pinched her nipple.  "Let go, Janice," I said.
    She let go.  `Next time,' she said, her lips just brushing my ear, `why don't you try kissing me like you mean it.'
    There wasn't a next time.  We did a few establishing shots; me getting into bed, Virgin in different underwear, our naked feet sticking out of the sheets.  But that was it for sacktime under the lights with a former superstar.  At the stroke of noon, Virgin was out of the bed, dressed, and on her way back to Montreal to catch a plane back to the coast.

      `See you in a couple of weeks, Foreplay,' she said smiling sweetly and waving to me for the benefit of the crew as she went out the door.  `Don't wait up.'

Pheromone Dreams and the bedpost test: Forrest Evers touts a sexual attractor

                        From the opening of Silverstone (aka Spin)

Panaguian look alike

                       Panaguian, Chantal's Director of Marketing, leaned towards me and spread his hands on his glass desk, pink buffed nails, long narrow fingers and heavy, glossy black hair shading his pale skin.  His face had a sheen of aftershave and gave off a scent of animals and flowers.  "What I want," he said with a French accent, "is to make you the most sexually attractive man in the world." 

 He smiled a carpet dealer's reassurance at me while his eyes roamed the room.  He was dressed with the heavy expense of the modern French executive; tousled razor cut, jeans, a casual  jacket over a black silk shirt.  Behind him, on glass shelves, lit from underneath so that they glowed with light, were the crystal bottles of the fabulously expensive perfumes that made Parfums Chantal rich.  FIX, (`Just This Once,' the advertising said).  LUXU (`Purely Primitive').  CALM (`Before the Storm').  CLIMAX (`The End.  And the Beginning.') and of course the classic CHANTAL (`The Essence of Success').  Small monuments to the power of marketing and packaging.  Bottled dreams.  Icons of wealth and desire. 

    . 

               "Do you know what pheromones are, how they work?  Never mind.  Just take it on board that this sexual attractor is a very important new product for us."

              Obviously it was important.  They had flown me from London on their corporate jet, given me a suite at the George V.  The least I could do, I thought, was hear him out.  Paying attention, is getting harder these days.  The world burns and men in suits still talk of marketing.  He was still talking.

               "So we don't want it macho.  What it has to be is new, contemporary, a kind of high-tech secret weapon," -- his voice lowered to the level of a secret briefing -- "unnoticeable, unavoidable, and absolutely irresistible to women.'

              "Is it?" I said. 

   

             "Is it what?"

 

              "Absolutely irresistible."

             "Legally what we can say is that it is `attractive.  It is definitely attractive." No doubt you've already guessed what it is."

                 I shrugged. 

                He held his hands up in surrender to the power of the idea. "We are going to call it, `FORMULA ONE.'

              "What a good name," I said without enthusiasm.  "But it doesn't have anything to do with me.  And I don't have anything to do with Formula One any more.  I don't drive."

                  His face relaxed into the patient smile of a man who has a fully funded corporate retirement plan.  "You are dangerous, Evers.  Controversial, still mildly famous.  You'd be surprised at your recognition profile in the Far East as well as across the US and Europe.  And, thank God, you are single.    And you look, excuse me but it is a phrase that came out of the research, like a walking crag.

             “We need to show that it works.  We don't want someone so handsome like a Pitt or a Cruise he doesn't need it. Please don't make that face.  With a little retouching we can make you quite handsome enough.  But really you are perfect, Evers.  Absolutely perfect.  You have a certain street cred.  A little down on your luck, there is a touch of scandal hanging around you isn't there?”

           "So you want me to walk around wearing this stuff."

           "Do what you like.  Naturally as a company we would prefer you would wear Formula One every day, but that would be your personal choice.  I think you might find your life more interesting.  Personally" he said, waving the thought away, "I don't give a fart whether you wear it or not.

     

         "We have scheduled a global roll out with a sequential 19 country launch timed to feature you in each of the 19 countries on 5 continents during the week of the host country's Grand Prix.  Start in Bahrain in March, finish in Brazil in November.  The month prior to the week of the Bahrain Grand Prix, we will shoot two sixty second commercials  for cinema and TV.  We will also do newspaper and magazine advertising in 48 countries, but the majority of our media mix is allocated to PR.  So we will be asking you to do your share of the PR.  With some of the most desirable women in the world I might add.  You'll love it, believe me.  And them.”

            Evers is marketed as  "involved" with a different beautiful and preferably famous woman in every country.  It's grueling work and as Evers later points out, there’s an ethical dilemma attached to wearing a sexual attractor.  How do you know if a woman is attracted to you or the chemical?  If you spray it on the bedpost, would she prefer the bedpost?”  To be continued.

Wasted Genius on E. 3rd Street

My house on left.  Dispensary is now an empty lot.

                        
              We were sitting around telling lies and drinking wine after dinner in my next door neighbor, author Steve Cannon’s house when the front windows started glowing red.  Then there were cop sirens and fire engine sirens so I went out on E. 3rd street to see what was going on.  “Some little yellow Datsun is on fire,” I said. 

           “Omigod,” Christopher said, “that’s our car.”  So we all went out on the street.

           I have no idea when the gang showed up on our block.  One day they were there.  It was a peaceful block.  People sat on the front steps of the old brownstones in the evening, drinking beer and looking out for each others kids.  Blacks tended to live on the west end of the block that ran between Avenue C & D.  Puerto Ricans on east end.  They didn’t mix much, but they didn’t fight either. We were among the very few palefaces scattered up and down the block.

           

              One hot summer day Jo-Don, a big black kid used to run circles around me on the basketball court, was walking up the middle of the street with a six pack of Ballentine Ale under his arm, singing, “Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy, Sunshine on my penis makes me sad.” He sat down on the stoop to share a beer, talk about this girl he was seeing over on Second Avenue.

                 

               Another morning my old ‘53 Chevrolet would not start.  Nothing.  So I looked under the hood to find the battery was gone.  Which made me mad not just because it was stolen, but also, it was so stupid.  Who could ever use a 6 volt battery?  The hood was still up when Cat Eyes came up. 

               He was a beautiful cinnamon color with  green eyes.  “Dude stole your battery,” he said. 

                  “I noticed,”

                  “Yeah well he wasn’t from around here so we stopped him.  I said dude that owns this car is OK. He lives here.  We got your battery in the alley.  I'll go get it."

        So we got along with the gang of about 25 kids, the oldest in his mid twenties, OK.  They lived in the abandoned apartment building down the block, we lived in our half of a 1820s brownstone.

          Out on the street, it turned out that it wasn’t Christopher’s car after all.  One of the gang kids was talking to a cop.  When he was done, Chuleta, the little scrawny 14 year old leader of the gang put his arm around the bigger, older kid.  “You don’t want to talk to cops ‘cause then they gonna think we know somethin.’ Dig?”

          You have to wonder where Chuleta (Pork Chop) is now.  He was a 14 year old genius running a gang of 20 mostly homeless kids on the force of his will and brainpower and he was sniffing glue.  “Chuleta,” I told him, “you’re gonna have no brain if you keep sniffing.”

          “Yeah,” he said. “ So fuck off.  It’s my brain.”

Flying with the gods

           

          So she’s not guilty after all.  Continental Airlines has a film that’s supposed to show she was on fire before she ran over that titanium strip.  The French court didn’t believe it and I don’t want to believe it either.   She was so beautiful.  Yes, she was ridiculously expensive, high maintenance and profligate with fuel. I didn't care.  I was in love with her.

                    

                        The Ford of Europe account was in ruins at JWT the world’s largest ad agency.  After much agony and chopping of heads and fees, Ford had allowed JWT to keep the account but they weren’t relaxed or happy.  Ford was the largest account in Europe and JWT needed a creative director to run "the creative side of things."  It was a terrible job with a life expectancy of a few months.  Maybe weeks.  It was a wonderful job, combat on the front lines.  France, Italy, Germany, Spain a total of thirteen countries to keep happy at the same time.  Tremendous responsibility, no authority. Based in London, day trips to Rome. If somebody powerful wasn’t pissed off at you, you weren’t doing your job. Would I fly to London for an interview?  On the Concorde?

                      The plane was ego with wings.  It took off with a thunder that shook the earth but not you.  You were sunk into soft, deep maroon leather.  Dom Perignon champagne in a crystal flute, caviar in a little silver dish, dinner on the way.  To be served at 2,200 MPH.

She rose in an arc, cruised up the coast and then in a display of power that seemed impossible for such a small plane, accelerated like a 4th of July rocket until the sky was black overhead the earth curved like a green and blue and white ball below and the big mach meter at the head of the cabin read Mach 2.2.  The sonic boom was long gone, trailing miles behind us.  Inside we were an intimate little club of wonderfully bright and happy souls, telling stories, making friends. 

                    She was so small inside, only 88 seats,  the flight attendants had to crouch a little as they served and soothed, pampered and smiled.  Isn’t this fun.  Aren’t we lucky.  Oh yes, yes, yes.  Just a little more, please.  No, I'll keep the glass.

           The flight, with its long glide down over Ireland and Wales into London’s Heathrow was over way too soon.  I gathered up my luggage got a cab and headed for London, demoted now to another jet- lagged working stiff..  But for a while, I had flown up among the gods.  I would flew her again and again (OK twice again), but that first flight is the one I remember.

How Film Director Morgan Hutchins got his name

Me and my Allard, watching traffic outside the new flat

         I'd never realized until I was shuffling through some stuff and saw the photo on the left. I thought I'd just made it up, had had an idea for the incoming kid's name out of the blue. 

        Laurence must have shot that picture with my camera that sunny afternoon when we drove over to see Laurence and Pat Hutchin’s new flat on Pond Street across from the Royal Free Hospital.   Pat was expecting their first child in a few weeks and their new flat in Hampstead was a big step up. Pat was beautiful and Laurence was handsome. They were both gifted artists and the kid was going to be a great kid.

Karen twirls her Isadora Duncan scarf as
Bob gets the cover out of the boot in case of rain.

         Pat was on her way to being famous for her first children's book, Rosie’s Walk and world famous for her more than 25 books, novels and plays .  Laurence was an art director at JWT and would be famous as a commercial film director. Here’s a beauty called The Red Balloon he did for a new town called Milton Keynes.

           So they were just beginning careers that would take them all over the world and happily expecting their first child.  But they couldn’t agree on a name.  They knew the baby would be a boy, but John or Alan or Henry or William, or Keith . . . they’d been squabbling  about names for months and getting nowhere. Both of them stubborn as mules.  Or, more accurately, as stubborn as artists. 

Proud Daddy making a silly face. Pat with Morgan a wee bump.

             Their flat had a spectacular view and a small terrace where we looked out over London as had lunch and wine.  They both kept trying to get us to choose a name that the other one didn’t like.  And out of the blue I said, “how about Morgan?”  Pat liked it because morgan means morning in German. And Laurence liked it because it was the name of a roarty British sports car. 

           But who knew that the London Film Director, Morgan Hutchins, who is working on his first feature (‘The Postman’ Written by Harry Hill,) was named by a car that was blue.