The Rex Ray Reader

I’m not afraid to admit that in my career as a writer and interviewer of the rich and/or famous, I’ve done my very best to exploit the talent and charisma of San Francisco artist Rex Ray: I first interviewed him a couple of years ago for 7×7 Magazine’s backpage Q&A, in which the former clerk at City Lights Books relayed stories about duping Roseanne Barr into thinking that her memoir had sold out at the legendary Beat Generation haunt, and about meeting rock god David Bowie, for whom he designed album covers and concert posters. The second and third interviews with Rex were almost simultaneous. Real Living magazine in Australia recently asked me to write an interior-design story on his midcentury-inspired pop pad in SF’s Mission District, and so while I chatted with him last Monday about Noguchi, Lissoni, Knoll and Platner, our attention inevitably turned to the thousands of books that line the walls of his 850 square-foot loft. The collection includes a rare first-edition of The Photographer’s Led Zeppelin and a series of 10-cent vintage paperback fiction books all about—what else?—nurses. Here, in my latest (and probably not my last) exploitation of the man, I give you a peek into his dark and humorous heart.

Good Times, Bad Trips by Cliff Hengst & Scott Hewicker
Rex Ray: I was supposed to be included in this anthology but I stupidly missed the deadline. Almost all of the stories in the final book were about bad drug trips, but having never had one of those, my story was about a bad cross country road trip.

Severed: The True Story of the Black Daliah Murder by John Gilmore
RR: I read this in one sitting while staying in a motor inn on Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles in the mid-‘90s—totally creeped me out!

The Black Box: All-New Cockpit Voice Recorder Accounts of In-flight Accidents
RR: Fascinating in-flight reading guaranteed to make you reach for the Valium!

Stupidity by Avital Ronell
RR: I read bits and pieces of this but much of it went over my head.

A by Andy Warhol
RR: A wonderful book to own but pointless to read.

Marquis DeSade: Selections from his Writings
RR: As close to a CliffsNotes version of De Sade’s work as you’re likely to find. Also contains Simone de Beauvoir’s famous essay “Must We Burn DeSade?”

Polaroids From the Dead by Douglas Coupland
RR: A beautiful and economically written collection of fiction and nonfiction pieces about the early nineties.

Erotism by Georges Bataille

The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering by Norman Finkelstein

Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
RR: Scandalous!

SCUM Manifesto by Valerie Solanis
RR: Essential reading! “If SCUM ever marches, it will be over the President’s stupid, sickening face. If SCUM ever marches, it will be in the dark with a six inch blade.”

In Praise of Barbarians by Mike Davis

City of Widows: An Iraqi Woman’s Account of War and Resistance by Haifa Zangana
RR: “What the occupiers have failed to see is that Iraqis who have committed acts of resistance are not terrorists. We are people willing to risk our lives defending our homes, families, ways of life, history, culture, identity, and resources.”

The History of Shit by Dominique Laporte

Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word by Randall Kennedy

A Field Guide for Female Interrogators by Coco Fusco

The Unraveling of the Bush Presidency by Howard Zinn

Hannibal Lecter, My Father by Kathy Acker
RR: “This writing is all fake (copied from other writing) so you should go away and not read any of it.”

Throbbing Gristle: 20 Jazz Funk Greats by Drew Daniel
RR: This 33 1/3 series gives writers and/or fans an opportunity to write at great length about one particular album. I remember how dangerous this album sounded when it came out but I recently heard “Hot on The Heels of Love” being played as ambient music in a swanky restaurant. Times have obviously changed!