Jeff Wells

The truly magnificent David Johansen has passed from cancer at age 75. He began coping with the disease last year, it says here. The poor guy fell and “broke his back in two places” last November. Back pain is agony…I’ve been there. I hope a friend or two slipped him some smack.

If anyone hears about a Manhattan memorial gathering or service of any kind, please let me know.

Johansen’s “Not That Much” is one my all-time favorite power-chord tracks.

The original “Hot Hot Hot”, recorded by the late Montserrat musician Arrow (aka Alphonsus Celestine Edmund Cassell), popped in ’82 but it became a bigger hit in ’87 with Johansen’s (aka Buster Poindexter‘s) version.

Posted on 3.16.23: Along with ex-girlfriend Sophie Black, who matured into a respected poet, I co-produced two Save The Whales benefit rock concerts in Wilton, Connecticut. Both were held on a 52-acre property owned by Sophie’s parents, David and Linda Cabot Black. The first happened over the July 4th weekend in ’76; the second (for which Sophie and I were interviewed for a 6.26.77 N.Y. Times piece) happened a year later.

And I was proud and gratified to book the David Johansen band for the ’77 show, as I’d been a fan of the New York Dolls; ditto “Not That Much” and “Funky But Chic.”

A couple of months prior to the ’76 concert Johansen and I chatted in some downtown Manhattan bar, and I really liked his charm, aura, self-deprecating humor, etc. Plus I learned that night that Johansen loves (or loved) to play-act and pretend to be someone else. DJ made bank on play-acting when Buster Poindexter came along in the ’80s, but when I spoke to him that night he was speaking with a working-class British accent. Pretending to be, in a manner of speaking, some Jagger-like rocker from East London or something. It was well known at the time that Johansen was a lifelong New Yorker (raised in Staten Island), and so I was flat-out thrilled and fascinated that he was performing for me — an audience of one. Johansen was dishy in a Jagger-ish way back then, and the accent fit right in. I’ll never forget that moment as long as I live.

The Scorsese-Tedeschi doc is worth the price and the time.

Posted on 4.15.23: Last night I watched Martin Scorsese and David Tedeschi‘s Personality Crisis: One Night Only, and I came out of it knowing and caring a bit…okay, a lot more about David Johansen than I had before I sat down.

It’s basically standard documentary portraiture, of course, but primarily a relaxed, low-key lounge concert film, shot in the Carlyle bar in January 2020.

The doc is augmented with recent interview footage (apparently shot in Johansen’s home by his stepdaughter Leah Hennessey, daughter of wife Mara Hennessey) plus some performance footage from the good old days (New York Dolls, ’70s solo career, Buster Poindexter in the ’80s and ’90s).

And the thing that stuck in my head, frankly, is the made-plain fact that Johansen is a free-floating existentialist dancer-singer-performer who’s more or less cool with the fact that he’s not stinking rich. He and his family are living with a certain amount of style, comfort and swagger, but the difference between David Jo’s lifestyle and that of, let’s say, Mick Jagger is apparently considerable or at least noteworthy. (There’s a moment during the Carlyle show when he repeats a famous line from Ira Levin‘s Deathtrap — “Nothing recedes like success”.) I also loved it when Johansen tells his stepdaughter about never having had a grand master plan for his life, and that he’s always considered his journey (Johansen is 73) in five-year increments.

Gene Hackman to director Barry Sonnenfeld immediately after seeing Get Shorty…

Shelley Winters, Marlon Brando during filming of A Streetcar Named Desire (early ’51).

Inebriated George Harrison about to throw contents of a mixed drink at a photographer inside West Hollywood’s Whiskey-a-Go-Go (August ’64).

Basil “Joe” Jagger and sons Chris (l.) and Mick (r.) — fall of ’56.

I’ve searched for years for authentic color snaps taken during the filming of The Young Lions (’58) — this is the only one I’ve ever discovered.

Anyone who would wear this peacock shirt is almost certainly beyond therapy:

“If the Democratic Party has a problem drawing young men who believe that the excesses of wokeness have left them behind, could there be a more appealing figure than the guy they’ve been watching argue about sports for the past decade?

“Over the past three months, Stephen A. Smith has teased a possible run for President in 2028. I have enthusiastically posted about this on social media for a variety of reasons, [although] the details of Smith’s potential run have shifted around a bit: In November, he told the hosts of The View that he was a ‘fiscal conservative and a social liberal,’ and, while he supported a ‘live and let live’ mentality, he wondered why liberals had allowed hot-button issues, like transgender athletes participating in sports, to define their platform.

“He also said that he would run as an independent because he wasn’t going to be ‘bought and paid for.’ Last week, when asked by his friend Sean Hannity about the possibility of a run — a subject that gained steam online after a survey of potential 2028 primary candidates showed him polling at two per cent, just a point behind the former Vice-Presidential candidate Tim Walz and the Pennsylvania governor, Josh Shapiro — Smith said that he could beat any Democratic candidate who was under consideration, including Kamala Harris.

“Smith is almost certainly a fiscal conservative, but people reposted a 2009 tweet of his that reads ‘I loved hearing Bernie Sanders. He personifies my views as an Independent.’

“Since the ’24 election, I have written about the need for a ‘hostile takeover’ of the Democratic Party and the potential for new candidates who stand far outside of the establishment’s tepid, catastrophic choices. The policy positions of these candidates, I believe, do not matter as long as they are within reason — which means that everything from full-bore leftist economic populism to staunch, performative centrism is on the table.

“Liberal voters are angry about pretty much everything right now. They’re mad that Joe Biden decided to run again for President; they’re mad at Washington insiders and the media for withholding information about Biden’s decline; they’re mad at some vague entity they usually call ‘the D.N.C.’ for not coming up with a better strategy to defeat Donald Trump; they’re mad that the Democrats have not put up more of a fight against Trump and Elon Musk post-election. All this alarm and losing has made Democratic politics a rather miserable and humorless endeavor.

“What’s required for 2028 is a combative, attention-grabbing candidate who can punch the Democratic establishment squarely in the face.” — The New Yorker’s Jay Caspian Kang, posted on 2.14.25.

Read more

“Our sense of shame and regret is, today, immeasurable. Forgive us, President Zelensky, for having inflicted this idiot animal Trump upon you…and for permitting his little worthless idiot bitch Vance to ambush you that way…the human dignity in the White House right now is zero. We will never let Trump forget what he did to you today…we will make him atone…and all those who serve him and do not resign or disassociate themselves from him immediately. We the people of the United States of America will not live in a kleptocracy…in an idiocracy…in a Musk-ocracy.”

Set in Southern California of the mid ’50s and based on Shannon Pfahl’s same-titled novel, On Swift Horses is about a pair of good-looking hunks (Jacob Elordi, Diego Calva) chowing down on each other’s schlongs, and a simultaneous lezzy thing between Daisy Edgar-Jones and Sasha Calle. This is what we all need so badly in our lives right now…. a movie about homosexuals in love in the Eisenhower era!

If you were riveted by Martin Ritt‘s No Down Payment (’57) and were charmed by Olivia Wilde‘s Don’t Worry, Darling (’22), On Swift Horses (Sony Classics, 4.25) is sure to ring your bell, especially if you’re into same-sex saliva droolings…yeah!

HE was recently offered a chance to discuss the top five Oscar categories with an Academy member…a woman. I agreed not to mention which branch she’s from, but I can at least disclose that (a) she’s a 50something progressive wokey and (b) two years ago she voted to give the Best Picture Oscar to the deplorable EEAAO and the Best Supporting Actress Oscar to Jamie Lee Curtis, so that in itself should give you pause.

The AMPAS member didn’t want to talk about preferences before the voting deadline but this being the final week and with less than 72 hours before the Oscar telecast she felt free to let it all hang out.

Best Picture: “I enjoyed much of Anora and admired Mikey Madison‘s performance as far as it went, but it didn’t seem to, you know, ‘say’ anything…it was mainly about money and yelling and swearing and a ruthless Russian oligarch and hie bitchy, poisonous wife. I found Conclave much more stirring from a moral or ethical vantage point, and I thought the intersex finale was fascinating, and I adored Ralph Fiennes‘ performance as Cardinal whatsisname…Lawrence. I was thinking about voting for The Brutalist for the distinguished pedigree factor, because it lasts three and a half hours and has an overture and an intermission and because it was shot in VistaVision. But I didn’t want to endorse a film that was directed by a youngish bearded guy with a pot belly so I went with Conclave. I prefer directors who keep themselves in shape.”

HE pick: Anora.

Best Director: “I wasn’t allowed to vote for Conclave‘s Edward Berger so I went with Anora‘s Sean Baker. Everyone seems to believe Sean’s got this Oscar in the bag and I didn’t want to differ so I’m a Baker person also. He’s a nice indie-type guy who’s been talking about the importance of exhibition and movie screens, and I don’t wanna pickle.”

HE pick: Sean Baker.

Best Actor: “I felt conflicted about Adrien Brody‘s Brutalist performance as a suffering Jewish architect, but he won me over. He wore this pained expression throughout plus he shot heroin and smoked cigarettes and was anally raped by Guy Pearce. Plus he got a blowjob in a brothel and a hand job from his wife, plus he befriended that silent black guy. Plus he won 20 years ago for playing another Jewish, artistically gifted WWII victim so I thought “why not go for two?” Ralph Fiennes gave a better performance but he won 30 years ago for playing that German monster in Schindler’s List. [HE explains that Fiennes didn’t win for Schindler’s List.] He didn’t? Oh, well…okay. I was thinking about voting for Timothee Chalamet‘s Bob Dylan but he’s too young. I finally couldn’t not vote for a character who is blown, hand-jobbed, ass-raped, heroin-injected and tobacco-poisoned. It had to be Brody. Okay, I’ll admit it — I like a little anal from time to time. Especially if I’ve been drinking.”

HE pick: Either Timothee Chalamet or Ralph Fiennes…anyone but heroin-shooting handjob Brody!

Best Actress: “Absolutely Demi Moore! She tried so hard to be an award-worthy actress for so many years, but the male-dominated producers wouldn’t let her. Plus we need to celebrate a victim character who is brutally fucked over by the cosmetics industry and the mindset that we’re not allowed to grow old. I mean, we’re all victims here! [HE explains that Moore never tried to be an award-worthy actress in her ’80s and ’90s heyday and that she went for popcorn fame and flush paychecks at every turn.] Well, that’s your opinion. I don’t agree with that. Plus Demi is 62 or 63…that cinched my vote. I liked Mikey but she’s too young.”

HE pick: Mikey Madison.

Best Supporting Actor: “I didn’t even see The Apprentice so I don’t know from Jeremy Strong. I’m following the crowd by having voted for Kieran Culkin in A Real Pain. I actually liked Yura Borisov in Anora the best, but I haven’t the strengh of character to vote for him because he’s too obscure and I’m too much of a go-alonger.”

HE pick: Keiran Culkin.

Best Supporting Actress: “I didn’t want the entire Emilia Perez caravan to be pushed over the cliff because of Karla Sofia Gascon having blown the whole thing up, so I voted for Zoe Saldana out of pity. I actually thought Conclave‘s Isabella Rossellini gave the strongest and most compelling female supporting performance, but again, I lack the character and the backbone to vote for my own personal preference. I want to feel safe by voting with the majority bloc.”

HE pick: Isabella Rossellini, although I know Zoe Saldana will win.

Watching Trump and Vance gang up and bully Zelensky, I have never been so disgusted and ashamed to be an American in my life. pic.twitter.com/EjwPkTPAfW

— Bill Madden (@maddenifico) February 28, 2025

Read more

20-odd years ago James Toback told me that “almost none of us are going to die as pleasantly as we’d like to…death always happens under circumstances we can’t foresee, much less plan for, and sooner than we’d like.”

Plus, he might have added, the likelihood that we’re going to die while lying comfortably in bed between recently-washed sheets with a fire crackling nearby and your cat or dog lying peacefully next to you is almost nil. The odds are that your final throes are going to either be painful or traumatic or grotesque, and possibly a combination of all three.

Toback could have been talking about the curious, almost certainly traumatic deaths of Gene Hackman and wife Betsy Arakawa.

If and when a seriously old person (90-plus) with a moderate interest in living…what generally happens when an 80something or 90-something person is experiencing troubling symptoms? What do they tend to do? I’ll tell you what they tend to do. They tend to say things like “uhm, I don’t feel so good”, which is always followed by a wife or a nurse or a daughter driving the elderly person to a clinic or hospital, or perhaps calling an ambulance. That’s the way it usually goes.

Generally speaking the old ailing person doesn’t fall to the floor (especially in a semi-unsanitary “mud room”) and go “aaaggghhh!” and die right then and there.

And even if this does happen, the much younger, presumably responsible-minded wife (Arakawa was 63)…generally the caregiver doesn’t panic or freak out by swallowing a bunch of pills and then falling on the bathroom floor and dying herself, and at the same time somehow encouraging the family dog to commit suicide with her.

Any way you slice this, Gene and Betsy clearly did not experience peaceful, placid exits from our mortal coil. The odds are that Toback’s scenario — “painful or traumatic or grotesque” — prevailed.

Does anyone reading this article have any stories about parents or great uncles or aunts being found dead on the floor? I didn’t think so.

Generally speaking when you get old life starts telling you in little ways that getting old sucks balls and that, as Bette Davis famously said, “it’s not for sissies”. You are reminded over and over that the quality of life isn’t what it was 10 or 20 years earlier, and a far cry from what it was in middle age. (Don’t even mention your youth.) And then you get even older and it gets a bit worse…the water may be sparkling clean but it’s still swirling downward in the bowl.

Unless, that is, you’ve been blessed with strong German genes (like me) or unless you’re a health food nut and a workout Nazi, in which case the joys of life can continue to be savored.

Norman Lloyd was a happy or at least a moderately contented man when he turned 100, and as far as I know he stayed that way until he died at 106.

I’m guessing that Gene Hackman was going downhill like most 90somethings (he walked with a cane) but it doesn’t figure that he would just keel over and die in a mud room. (He left no suicide note, and I haven’t read that he made an emergency phone call.) And it really, really doesn’t figure that his 32-years-younger wife would, upon finding his body, go “aaaggh, I can’t stand it!” and decide to impulsively kill herself, and not in her bedroom but on the floor of the fucking bathroom.

Oh, and “Fido? You need to swallow these pills, baby…they’ll be good for you.”

Repeating: “Almost none of us are going to die as pleasantly as we’d like to.”

“Serene Acceptance“, posted on 4.4.13:

“I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear,” Roger Ebert wrote in a 9.15.11 Salon piece. “I hope to be spared as much pain as possible on the approach path. I was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the same state. I am grateful for the gifts of intelligence, love, wonder and laughter. You can’t say it wasn’t interesting. My lifetime’s memories are what I have brought home from the trip. I will require them for eternity no more than that little souvenir of the Eiffel Tower I brought home from Paris.

“I don’t expect to die anytime soon. But it could happen this moment, while I am writing. I was talking the other day with Jim Toback, a friend of 35 years, and the conversation turned to our deaths, as it always does. ‘Ask someone how they feel about death,’ he said, ‘and they’ll tell you everyone’s gonna die. Ask them, In the next 30 seconds? No, no, no, that’s not gonna happen. How about this afternoon? No. What you’re really asking them to admit is, Oh my God, I don’t really exist. I might be gone at any given second.’

“Me too,” Roger answers. “But I hope not. I have plans. [But] I have no desire to live forever. The concept frightens me. I am 69, have had cancer, will die sooner than most of those reading this. That is in the nature of things. In my plans for life after death, I say, again with Walt Whitman:

“I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,

“If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.”

I don’t want a Toback death…please. No car crashes, no road-rage shootings, no JFK-in-Dealey-Plaza blood spatterings. I want to drowse off in a well-dressed state on top of my well-padded, queen-size bed, and with my hair pleasantly thickened and styled. Slim jeans, light-gray socks, shined Italian loafers, high-thread-count T-shirt, jean jacket. I want to gently go to sleep with my cats lying next to me, and with a Bluray of Martin Ritt‘s The Spy Who Came In From The Cold playing on the 65″ Sony 4K.

Or, failing that, I want to collapse on a side street in Paris, preferably cobblestoned, and die of a heart attack as I gaze up at the clear night sky.

The Demi Moore-Racquel Welch analogy is brillliant, heaven-sent…made my day!

HE to mainstream journalist acquaintance, sent this morning at 10:27 am: “I am preparing to sink into a terrible pit of depression when Adrien Brody and Demi Moore win Best Actor and Best Actress. I’m already feeling the nausea…acidic stomach…and these are early symptoms as there are two, technically two and a half days to go before the Sunday evening Oscarcast.”

Way back when in Boston there was this tallish, slender brunette of 19 or 20 whom I knew and liked a lot, and vice versa. Her name escaped years ago, but we had this moment on a second-floor landing of a staircase inside a Boston apartment building. I had to leave and we were talking a bit before saying goodbye, and then we held our arms out and just sank into this hungry embrace.

She had these long sinewy arms and strong grippy hands and so did I, and we just got wrapped up in the envelopment of it, holding each other closer and tighter than we probably expected to do at first but holding, holding…as close together as our bodies could have been from a standing-up position, and neither easing up.

I don’t know how long we held the position hut it had to have been a good couple of minutes, maybe three. We hadn’t been on intimate terms before this moment and we somehow never went there in the aftermath, and, as noted, I don’t even recall her name. Lotsa love, passion and perspiration over the decades, but after that Beantown staircase hug I never experienced anything like it ever again. Which is why it’s still in my head.

The other day I described it to a friend as a “lesbian hug.” She called it a “mommy goodbye hug.”