12 July 2019

faces & places

my work is often abt connections & overlapping because that's what so much of my life is.

today has been strangely emotional because currents from my past have swum by me. in the afternoon a Facebook friend who I don't know postd some photos he had taken of Coral Sands in Hollywood. I've written of this place before. it's had a long history & a couple of names but I knew it as a gay play spot. recently a rich person bought the property & closed it. it's been gutted. the photos I saw today were haunting. the walls are there but little else.  altho some deride the motel as simply seedy there is a rich history from Divine living there & holding court to art installations in rooms which even David Hockney visitd.



after thinking abt Coral Sands I decided to check on someone I met there in 2008. his name is Mikel Padilla -- a costume designer for movies & tv.  even tho we aren't in touch I thot I'd notify him of the photos. but when I lookd him up I discoverd he died a couple of months ago.

our time together was brief but I have a vivid memory of him in sleek black underwear. he's simply one of thousands of faces that pass us all by. but his name wd come to me whenever I rememberd Coral Sands.

this evening it's too hot to be out so I sit in my study writing. I'm thinking of Mikel Padilla & the address so many dismiss as a dive on Western Ave. this is what history is. faces & places. & the stories we tell abt them.




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