Waiting for Hockney Page #6

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He had great success

and killed his mother.

Well, it, it went absolutely...

...just great. I mean...

I'm so happy. It's just a

dream come true. I'm, I'm...

sort of stunned, you

know. It's like I...

He was very, very friendly and spent a

lot of time looking at the drawing, and

everyone there seemed to

really know their stuff.

They were kind of overwhelmed.

This one person just sat

there for about five minutes,

I was watching, just

staring at the piece.

One of them was holding

a magnifying glass

and I heard him say, "Oh my God!"

Hockney was using words

like, 'fantastic' and

'Amazing.' 'Amazing, and he said,

"I've never seen anyone

draw quite like that."

"Not that kind of rigor

and that kind of scrutiny."

He does seem very overwhelmed

that somebody has done

something so extraordinary

with a pencil.

You know, I told him what I wanted,

I told him what I,

what my mission was and,

that, that I have an, I have an agenda.

And I'm pretty hot to trot.

My takeaway was that, that you

have an advocate and a friend,

not only in this, in David Hockney,

but in a couple of people that

were ar... in the circle of his...

Right...

entourage today,

Right. Including the people there.

Yeah, they all seemed to be very,

"Wow, this is something!"

He's making a phone call to a

museum director in Washington

who is very sawy on digitization,

a personal friend of his.

He didn't "T-Bone" me with any kind of,

"Well, I hate to break

it to you this way", or

"Here's why this won't work."

I didn't hear anything like

that. All I got was, "Yeah!"

You know, support for,

for what I want to do

and how I want to do it.

"For Billy, with thanks and admiration

for showing me your terrific drawing."

David Hockney, 28th October, '04.

That's great.

Hey Mom, it's Billy.

We were with Hockney for five hours.

Yeah, he had us to lunch.

And their staff served

us your poppyseed cake.

I, I told him when we left, I said,

"Well, I mean, this has been one

of the greatest experiences of my life."

And I said that, "You have

helped explain me to myself."

I just, it's hard for me to speak right now.

I just don't know what else to say, but...

it's just a dream come true. It

was better than I hoped it would be.

Hey Dad.

Thanks.

Yeah... long haul.

To the heart, the hand and the head.

The heart, the hand and the head.

Well said. Cheers. Cheers

And this is... These

are not in order but...

Oh my God! Here he is!

Here he was...

Look how cute he's looking.

Who is he look... Who is this?

I'm sort of starting at the end.

Oh my God! Can we have copies?

Oh, look at this!

Too bad his head wasn't a little

over a little, huh? You coulda...

Yeah.

You know, look at his face.

You can see he's tickled pink.

Look at the expression

on his face there.

Yeah that's a great shot.

You can see that he is absolutely

enthralled with whatever you're telling him.

Ha. Jeepers Christmas...

Look at his body language.

I could stare at these

pictures just to watch him.

You know, his body language says a lot.

I don't know what he is saying but...

To him, he sees a whole new dimension...

Right, a whole new way of drawing.

I see him saying, "How

the hell did he do this?"

So he's all excited. I can...

You can tell the man is excited.

Yeah. Yeah.

Look at these portraits.

These are all portraits. Yeah.

Dozens of them. Right.

This guy works and works and works.

So, his time. What is five

hours of his time worth?

Yeah. He prob... he lost

track of time, he just...

Yeah, he did. Yeah, he did.

It was obvious that this

thing was really... Oh yeah.

And, and... he's engrossed in Marilyn.

I just think it's so cool that

when you started this, you know

and you said if you could

pick one guy to see it...

Yeah. Yeah.

And look:
Now you've got a

whole table-full of pictures.

Does he know how important he's

been in our lives, all these years?

Four Months Later

I didn't expect it to fall...

so quietly after the

meeting with Hockney.

I wrote David Hockney, a thank you note

and I sent him a sketch as a gift.

And, he was abroad for a while,

but he's been back in LA,

and I have heard through Ren

Weschler that he is very busy...

I do want to talk to him. I've

called him a couple of times.

But my calls have not been answered.

I don't... I don't quite

understand that yet.

I hope to, but it hasn't sunk in.

Larry has been the impresario...

for this whole thing.

Lately though, he's

just been a little bit,

he's been frustrating because

he's very hard to get a hold of.

And, you know, I'm like,

"You're managing me

and I can't, I can't..."

"I can't get you on the phone."

"Hello?"

And I think there may be more

to that than, than I can imagine.

There you are!

Hey Gary.

Something really, really incredible

for me happened when I met with Gary,

right after Christmas.

I told him, "Well, this

isn't what hasn't happened."

"I'm interested in trying

to get in touch with people."

"I'm having difficulty."

"I haven't heard from anyone

at the Hockney studio."

"I just want a commission. I

want to get to the person..."

"...who will pay me to do number two."

"What are your thoughts, Gary?"

And then suddenly he said, "Well...

Ill just write Mimi Gates a letter."

"She's Bill Gates' stepmother."

I was absolutely stunned.

I mean, I wanted to jump up and down.

My mother always had this hope and

confidence that it would be Bill Gates.

I mean, it's a dream...

It is a freaking dream!

He sends a letter to Mimi Gardner Gates,

and a couple of snaps of Hockney and I.

Thirty-six hours later, he

gets an answer from Mimi Gates,

saying...

"Because you asked Gary, I asked

Bill..." - 'My Bill' - she called him.

"And he just does not

do this sort of thing."

"He made it amply clear, so

do not pursue it any further."

Right like that. Bang!

I look at this email and I'm

thinking, "No luck. F***! That's that."

And that was that!

I told my mom, and all she said was,

"Well, that's alright, you know."

"What matters is what Hockney thought."

Oh, I think that anybody that

presumes that they know...

what David's going to think of things,

is making a big mistake.

I had no idea who was coming.

I always try to be in the background.

It was David's meeting, it wasn't

mine. I was just a curious on-looker.

The bell rang, and I suddenly saw

feet going across to the studio door.

And, uh...

it was as if the Shroud

of Turin was arriving, uh...

replete with even its

own accompanying priest!

We were excited about

what was in that box.

You know, we had no idea

what was going to be in there.

We had no idea of the content.

We didn't know what it was a drawing of.

It was finally opened up and the

inner, uh, wrappings unwrapped and,

there was an easel set

up and then finally...

a... an unveiling...

and when it was unveiled suddenly

there we see this portrait

of Marilyn Monroe, in pencil.

You know, we started looking

at it, scrutinizing it...

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