Waiting for Hockney Page #4

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Right off the bat.

Yeah, I like this one

with the blue shirt.

Right. Right.

Julia Childs, I'm not.

You know what you are seeing?

Probably not. since

you're color blind.

Because this is olive. What

colors are you looking at?

It looks grey. Do you

know this is green?

Grey.

It's green. Oh, Mary

and Joseph... it's green.

Dear Mr. Hockney,

Just a line to let you know how

thrilled and happy I am, as Billy's mum,

to have you meet with him.

It has been his dream and mine as well

for you to see this for many years.

Since I cannot be there,

I wish I could be a fly on a wall today,

please enjoy a cup of tea with a

piece of my favorite cake to make.

You know, my favorite cake to

make, not my favorite cake to eat.

I'd rather have strawberry shortcake.

You know my, my parents

love us all to death.

If you judge a parent by how

much they love their children,

they're the best parents in the world.

But they are not artists.

They don't come from the art world.

My family owned a pizza business.

I was the maverick.

He started this very early in his life.

He always had something special about himself

in terms of the way he went about his art.

When he would do these

drawings, he'd walk in

and most of the kids come in, "I'm doing

this, I need help with this project or..."

And he'd walk in - a couple

of times now, not just once -

he came in and he showed us the

thing and we're about to say,

"Oh gee, this is wonderful."

And he would rip it up.

And it was gone. And I'd say, "Billy?"

I have a great family. I love my family.

I could tell that they care about

me but they didn't quite get it.

You'd like your son to be a lawyer or a doctor

or something that you can kind of rationalize it

to where he would make a good

living, have a decent life,

uh, contribute to mankind, you know.

I felt like in order to kind

of win their credibility

there was this unspoken, you

know, I can't just be an artist,

with modest success.

I'm... I've got to be, I've got

to try and be Michelangelo here.

Or, or not Michelangelo but Rembrandt.

I'll pick on him.

This is how I'm going to

work on the next one I do.

The first pair I borrowed

were twice as powerful here,

and I put them on and my heartbeat

kept making the camera shake.

Wow. Glory be...

So, so I called them back and I said

"These, the magnification's great,

but my heart beat is

getting in the way."

She said, "Excuse me sir but, what

are you doing with these things?" So...

Until he told me about

David Hockney, I said,

"You know, nobody's

going to appreciate this."

And I, and I don't know

anything about the art world

but I would like Hockney to be the one,

because I think he knows the secret.

"You know, no one is

going to appreciate this."

Cook! We gotta go.

Let's go. I want to go.

Mom, I wanna leave. Mom, let's go.

OK.

Scotch tape.

Alright. Here you, you can carry this.

Hockney, here we come.

Next stop:
LA.

Why do you want to put her in the

back in case he gets rear ended?

Alright. Nervous?

I love you.

Just cause I'm not smiling, you know...

Alright.

I'm smiling on the inside. OK, kid.

Thanks, Dad.

Knock 'em dead.

Bye. Bye bye. Take care. I will.

Alright that's it. OK,

kid. Have a great trip.

Bye Billy.

Wave bye-bye.

To me, Billy is still a little kid.

If I thought this would change Billy,

I wouldn't give you two

cents for the whole thing.

Because Billy is Billy and

I don't want Billy to change.

And I don't want him to

change by being hurt by Hockney

and I don't want him to change by

him being a great success either.

He has a ticket to ride. He's taking

his, I'm not going to say 'entourage'...

I'm not going to even say his 'posse'...

I'm going to say his, um...

support group.

Why shouldn't I go?

I guess the flip side to

that is:
Why should I go?

Ignition sequence start...

Everything's been done.

The foundations are poured.

The rockets have been lined up.

The paint's up.

The programs are all in place.

The fabrics are ordered.

The missiles are set.

The drapes have been hung

by the chimney with care.

The buttons have been pushed.

The house is complete.

They're off to the moon.

Launch commit. Liftoff. We have liftoff.

Mr. Pappas, which ones

are your bags please?

This one. The black one?

That's all. This one right

here. Just, just this one?

Just that one. Let me give

you a bag tag on this one.

OK.

I'm Billy Pappas.

Billy, nice to meet

you. Nice to meet you.

Has that ever been

through an x-ray before?

No.

Well, if it doesn't fit,

they're gonna want to open it.

That's fine.

And we can request a

private area, if you want,

to do that. That would be fine.

We're just going to hang

out here for a few minutes.

If you don't mind? No.

I'm...

It's the Chris Burden piece,

'Through the Night Darkly'

where he crawls through

glass. Do you know that piece?

No.

No, I'm sorry.

Do you know Chris Burden?

No, I don't. I'm sorry.

Just like any undertaking, right,

you have your moments of doubt.

I mean you can really get paranoid

if you think about it too much.

You know, "Oh yeah you're an artist."

"Well you don't look like an

artist, you look like a bartender."

'Ruscha and Billy Al Bengston

Exchange Business Cards'

Do you know that piece?

No, I don't.

And he made a book

called 'Business Cards'.

It is one of the rarest

of Ed Ruscha's books.

Think of how dumb Marilyn kept me.

You know, when you make a

choice, you rule out infinity.

And there I was working

on her all that time.

Most great artists are prolific.

They generate a lot of work.

So, who am I to be working

all these years on one thing.

Are my priorities all screwed up?

You know, who's the idiot here, because the

days are going by you can't get them back.

Better be a hell of a drawing Pappas.

Do you know if Hockney

likes poppyseed cake?

The idea of the cake? I think he would.

I think he'll like it because I

think he was very close to his mother.

He was. And I think if

you look at the pictures

that he took of his mother...

I think that he will think

it's a gracious gesture.

I feel like some organ

of my body is hanging out

and I gotta get it tucked

in. I, I feel exposed.

She's never been this

far from where I made her,

and she's never been in a plane and...

just carrying around, just

carrying your life in this box.

You know, you can't copy

it. You can't down load it.

I mean, it's what it is.

That's it. It's everything.

One piece of paper.

I mean, I'm human.

I have doubts sometimes, where I'm like,

"Is the joke on me?"

What is life about anyway, I mean,

I think life is about love and passion.

And, I'm a social animal.

I'm not this whacko who can

stand being by myself.

It... I never got used to it.

It was always work. And it always hurt.

I mean, this f***ing drawing took

me one hundred and one months.

So, it's got to be extra

special to make it go.

It has to justify the

sacrifice, justify the effort.

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