A couple of weeks ago I officially informed Iggy’s acting manager, Henry McGroggan and his PA, Spencer Weisberg, that I was working on his biography.
As anyone will guess, timing is everything in these matters. Informing your subject that you’re chipping away at their deeply-hidden secrets is a matter of simple courtesy - but it’s wise to try and get to a few ‘sensitive’ contacts first. I can’t see him trying to stop anyone talking to me - although I’ve been surprised in this respect before - so thought it was better to come clean sooner rather than later.
TOday I received a brief note that started with, “Hi Paul, got your message, good luck...” ended with “Best to you” and was signed ‘Jim’.
One reads the signs from this as one would a brief message from a medieval monarch. I was touched he went to the trouble of sending me a note. I was happy the message was sent to me by Jim, not Iggy. He also thanked me for sending him a book which we’d discussed back in April, the Life Of Benvenuto Cellini. We’d been talking about what arseholes record companies were when I’d suggested ‘twas ever thus and mentioned a hilarious story from Cellini’s life when he’s crafting his masterpiece, the Perseus and Medusa, for his patron Cosimo de Medici. He ran into a spot of bother with Mrs Medici, who wanted to use a couple of figures from the base of the statue as ornaments for her living room. Cellini, of course, refused, earned the ire of the Mrs and was eventually run out of Florence.
The point is, of course, that whatever the century, and whatever art you’re trying your best to complete, there’s always someone who wants to take a bit away or remix it. Cellini murders a couple of people if memory serves, was accused of buggery and engaged in a long and dangerous feud with his mediocre, but well-connected rival, Bandinellli but the most striking story in the book is that of his casting of the Perseus. Somehow, I am hoping, that if Jim enjoys Cellini’s life story, he won’t be offended (or litigious) about a book that does justice to his music, but also delves into the lewdness and chicanery [but definitely no buggery] in his own life...