New Years Eve Wrap-up: or, ramblings from an early morning couch

So I just woke up on New Year's Eve, a vacation day for me, and saw that it has snowed about an inch and a half since I woke up to turn my alarm off at 7:45. The weather people had been predicting rain. This made me so happy that I got up before 10:00 (I know it's 10:00 now, but I had to get situated) with the idea of recounting how great this year has been, and with an earnest wish to the Universe that my 2010 can be as good.

This year:
-I rang in the New Year '09 at the Slipper Room watching pretty ladies do burlesque with some of my best friends in the world, on one of the coldest nights I can remember. We kept it warm with booze and dancing.
-My mother and little sister came to visit shortly thereafter, on the coldest weekend of the winter. But we still had fun by eating tons of sushi and peanut butter. (Not together.) And my mom came to my apartment and loved it, even though she had to acknowledge that the double bed is not only used by me.
-I went to New Orleans for the first time, and while there spent some time with some of the coolest people in the world, AND heard Old Crow Medicine Show and the Felice Brothers play Ziggy Stardust--on my BIRTHDAY. It really doesn't get better.
-I became a citizen in a country led by Barack Obama, in whom I still place a lot of trust. I think we're gonna come out of things ok, people, although I DO wish the public option hadn't been hacked to bits. There goes my hope for an independent future...
-I developed and indulged a very public terror of robots and slime molds.
-I got a story published in an anthology from Pergola Publishers!
-I got several stories and articles published in The Whiskey Dregs literary magazine.
-I celebrated St. Patrick's Day by walking around in the dark somewhere on Long Island only to be welcomed in by a family of super-Irish people who gave me beer and let me pretend to know the words to a bunch of Irish songs with them. In the morning they gave me cheeseburgers. It was magical, like a leprechaun.
-I met Phillipe Petit, the Man on Wire.
-I tried waxing my private bits for the first time, and I loved it! But it's pricey so I stopped.
-I gave into the trend and bought myself some skinny jeans, which I now love because they let me show off my awesome shoes.
-On a sadder note, my favorite cowboy boots bit the dust in the spring and have not been replaced yet. I must find the perfect pair. Along with them, the car that I drove to Chicago in from South Dakota to buy the cowboy boots in, then later drove to Chicago to live there, and in which I spent countless hours driving around playing loud music trying to overcome wicked bouts of depression... Also bit the dust...
-On sad notes, since we're going there, two of my great uncles and two of my cats died this year. Also, Michael Jackson, Ted Kennedy, Patrick Swayze, and David Carradine.
-One of my best friends moved to Kansas, of all the weird-ass things to do.
-On brighter notes, however, I went on two trips to North Carolina this past year. one just to visit my dear friend Gert, who showed me an excellent time, and again later to go on a beach vacation with my best, best friends in the world, Gert, Mich, Lib and her amazing babies, and Connor. Because I have always had to know better, I was one of the few who escaped without a horrendous sunburn.
-I started taking classes in publishing at CCNY, nailed the class I took in Copy Editing, and now may have a future in publishing if the writing thing doesn't work out.
-I went to Centralia, the eternally-on-fire town in Pennsylvania, and had whacky adventures.
-I did some really cool modeling projects, which you can check out if you'd like at http://www.modelmayhem.com/864844
-I stopped taking the anti-inflammatory pills I've been on since elementary school, which had been working on giving me a stomach ulcer, and started on the much-more-painful self-injected Enbril, which has made me feel like a human being again, even though it sucks when I inject it. YAY!
-I started writing a column for McSweeney's Internet Tendency.
-I told my parents about this column, and thus about my involvement in the smut biz. They didn't disown me!
-Before telling them about the smut thing, I organized and brought into being a gigantic 60th birthday party for my parents.
-I started writing for Whack! Magazine.
-I went to my first-ever porn convention, where I met and was fondled by Ron Jeremy and hung out after-hours with Jenna Haze, Lexi Love, Sean Michaels, Mr. Marcus, Joanna Angel, and on and on and on...
-I did a presentation on swingers at Nerd Nite at Galapagos Art Space which was very well received (and attended a bunch of other Nerd Nites, at which I met some really cool people like Shyaporn).
-I crossed the Brooklyn Bridge for the first time, after drinking for free at Nerd Nite for about five hours. I skipped most of the way and sang songs from Newsies with a girl I had never met before.
-I saw many concerts--I'm sure I'll forget some. I have seen the Felice Brothers twice (and will see them again tonight!), The Duke and the King at least four times (and started up a sort-of working correspondence with Simone Felice), Skinny Puppy, Cat Empire, The Dead Weather, and who knows what else. I also saw "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia Live on Stage: The Nightman Cometh" and kinda-sorta met Charlie Day and Rob McElhenny.
-I fell in love again!
-I almost got punched in the face by a random guy on the sidewalk in Brooklyn on Halloween because he was threatening my girlfriend and I was NOT having any of that shit. I was told by friends later that I was screaming obscenities at him, but I say I was just telling him to leave us alone.
-I bought a new computer.
-I got an internet stalker, and heard from my old real-life stalker! Whoopie!
-I learned to make ramen at home, and learned how absolutely mind-blowingly awesome ramen can be, thanks to places like Momofuku and Ippudo.
-I celebrated Christmas with some of the best people in the world--my friends and my family.
-I learned to really call myself a writer and believe it when I did. I failed to get a book deal, and I lot one of my magazine jobs, I still think I'm on the up and up. It sure is a lot of work though.
-I got reading glasses!
-I kicked ass, took names, and hope to continue the trend in 2010. I'll be going to Vegas for more porn performer canoodling next weekend, then to Boston for much-needed girlfriend canoodling the next weekend.

I May Meet a Sex Robot: or, I may be in prison soon

Aaaaaaah, nooooooo! You guys! Oh my god, whyyyy? True Companion will be unveiling the world's first sex robot at the Adult Entertainment Expo in Vegas on January 9! I am going to be there! I HATE robots! This one is the evilest of evil robots! It has a name, voice recognition, vocabulary... sex organs... Oh my god, dude, I am going to have to keep a wide berth of this horrible thing to avoid hacking it to bits!

But... is avoiding it really the Right Thing to Do? Maybe, for the sake of humanity, I should just do it and go to jail?

But then, I guess it's not a prototype, is it? There are probably hundreds of others out there somewhere, just waiting to talk and walk and "think" and "love" and fuck.

Oh... Oh god....


I can't deal with it. Here's the press release:




“Roxxxy TrueCompanion,” World’s First Sex Robot Scheduled

To Be Unveiled by True Companion at AEE Press Conference



True Companion, LLC (www.TrueCompanion.com) will be unveiling the world’s first sex robot at the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas. The press conference to cover this momentous event will take place on the main stage at the Expo on Saturday, January 9, 2010 at 11:00 am. The female sex robot, which has taken years to develop, knows its owner’s name, can carry on a discussion, has its own unique personality, knows your likes and dislikes, expresses her love to you, can feel your touch and can even have an orgasm.



“Roxxxy TrueCompanion,” the name of the world’s first sex robot, will also be on stage during the presentation.



Additional details covering the extensive features will be covered during the press conference.



There will be a brief Q & A period following the presentation. The staff at True Companion will then be available to schedule interviews and provide additional information at their booth, # 7031. It is recommended to email your requested date and time for interviews to Info@TrueCompanion.com prior to the Expo.



Douglas Hines, the founder of True Companion, stated “Our sex robots are committed to pleasing their owner. This may involve having a nice discussion or engaging in an intimate encounter. They are fully anatomically correct just like a real person. We have electrical and robotics engineers, artists, fashion models, beauty and makeup professionals all working together to make our customer’s dream a reality.”

Where Do I Work? or, stupidity on the subway (no surprises there)

This morning on the subway I found myself standing close to a woman who may or may not have been on the train with a friend. She was talking to someone, but that someone wasn't really answering her when she spoke, so I'm not sure if they were together of if the first woman was just crazy.
Also, she was saying, "I'm trying to remember where my job is. I wrote it down in my notebook that's at home. Is it 28th or 23rd Street? I know I have to take the 2 to the 1, though, so I'm good on that."
Now, it's very likely that she was going to a temp job or a freelance job and had just gotten the call and so had forgotten. But, isn't it rather important to know one's work destination before leaving the house? And also, we were on the 5 train, not the 2. I kept expecting her to notice every time we came to a stop and the announcement said "This is a Brooklyn-bound 5 train," but she just kept wondering aloud whether she was supposed to get off at 28th or 23rd. I figured since she was willfully ignoring the announcements and her "friend" wasn't informing her that she was on the 5, which goes down the wrong side of Manhattan, it wasn't my responsibility to set her straight, either.
I just moved further down the car to avoid her.

Eulogy for my Euth: or, mindless self indulgence

There is a steady stream, almost a triumphant parade
Of stumbling buffoons like crumbs along the sidewalk,
A constant flow of retards in whom
I have no interest, no common thread.
I would like for them all to learn how to walk
Or, better, to evaporate into a cloud of subpar intelligence,
Then rain back down, purified into sophisticates.

I remember when this happened,
When this lack of romanticism became a real void in my soul.
It was down that long, empty, straight line of two-lane highway outside Pekin,
When I was trying to force myself to cry,
Expecting that those tears would send up some kind of primordial beacon;
Expecting my phone to ring.
But had he called then, as I wept myself away from him,
It would have been just the other side of too late. It wouldn't have really hurt.
I'd have flown back to him, dried those homing beacon tears,
Curled up inside him if he'd let me,
And settled into his chest cavity,
A blight and an emptiness already, but trying to force the sweetness he'd used up,
Wanting and working to recreate a childhood whimsy
With no whim to build on.

It had been a long time coming, this stony gaze of mine.
Chinks in my soft, fleshy armor had appeared long before.
The bitter Midwestern winters had whipped away the baby smoothness,
And the abandonment of a dear friend had formed a few scales.
But the coldness in my blood was just cooling down;
I was tepid, I guess.

But those wild moments in the middle of the blackest plains nights,
The feel of him near me, the memories crashing into foam against the present...
It was enough to make me feel again the the rush of my unfettered self,
To cry and to mean it. To want something so deeply I felt myself cave in around its absence. To explode into pinpoints of starlight with someone. Or even alone. To wonder at those stars, and try to discern them.

I nursed the possibility of keeping myself as raw as he made me.
I thought of it as I walked to work.
I wrote feverishly, painted nightly.
Listened to out-of-control music too loud.
Even as he drew away, and the coldness of my lonely living room floor stared back at me, so beige it made me spill paint all over it to love it again,
I relived those moments on the wide open prairie, wedged a lump in my throat to keep myself wide open, too.

But the baby-soft skin was shed, the scales and reptilian slowness were creeping in,
Along with an indifference I felt in return for him but pushed down beneath the joy.
I needed this feeling, this ululation and terror, I thought. It kept me young.

And then that night, alone and frightened in a foreign room, it snapped.
The grey force of reverse evolution, the fighting force in my genes overtook idealism,
And down came the high hopes, stifling the wind in my hair and plugging up the leaks in my eyes.
I stopped crying for him. I stopped crying for anyone.

Unexpected phone calls and the occasional reverie
Will bring a far-away tension in my guts even now,
A kind of echo of something that once was,
And was something that is far past the word "glorious,"
Up there in the realm of Biblical awe.
There was this feeling in me, for him, for the world through all that I felt.

But these days,
With the idiots bumping into me in the almost-as-bitter New York winter,
The crush of holiday crowds drowning out the sparkles of expectation,
I feel it really only now and then, in goosebumps,
And often, ice-pick-like, in the glittering of her eyes.

It's snowing and I feel that first blush of excitement
As I do every winter when the white stuff starts to come down,
But it's overshadowed by my hangover and I miss
That perfect silence, the muffled static hiss of flakes hitting the blanket already laid down,
Out in the country,
Where sirens don't scream through the falling ice,
And echoes do not exist.

Oh, yeah...

Also, new column up on McSweeney's!

http://mcsweeneys.net/links/pornwriter/column5.html

It Had to Happen: or, I hate Tourists

Ok, I'm sure this is trite in the way that, say, people in LA bitching about constant sun is trite. ...Do they do that?... Well anyway, the point is: I just HAVE to complain about the tourists. Ok? I just do. I have to vent.

I work in midtown, on 57th between 5th and 6th avenues, on the same block as Bergdorf Goodman, which I usually enjoy because everyone around is super classy and the window displays at Bergdorf's are beautiful, and it's near the park, and FAO Schwarz is just a block away, and generally it's pretty sweet. There are always a fairly high percentage of tourists tooling around 5th Avenue, but generally they stay in small clusters that are navigable, except around Rockefeller Center, which I only have to deal with once a week or so. They're annoying, but they're dealable.

But THIS time of year... I mean, I know the Christmas store displays are fantastic (Bergdorf's are off the hook this year--the men's side of the street has set pieces and models from The Fantastic Mr. Fox, and the women's side has an Alice in Wonderland theme), and I know that FAO is a great place to shop for kids, and I know that lots of people have time off around now so they're just roaming around, looking at things, and I know that the giant Swarovski crystal snowflake is hanging RIGHT over my intersection at 5th, and I KNOW it's so exciting to be in New York... But...

Ever hear that phrase, "When in Rome..."? Well, in New York, the Romans are busy people dressed in black who have places to be at specific times and they are usually late to begin with because the holiday traffic and backups on public transportation are horrendous, so when in this Rome, do as the goddamn Romans do, and MOVE YOUR ASS. Holy crap! How is it difficult to figure out that when the thousands of people around you on the sidewalk are grumbling, swearing, and moving past you at high speeds, that YOU are in fact the problem? When you stop in the middle of a busy thoroughfare to stare up at the sky or try to find the kid you are for some reason allowing to walk unaided through a crowd of pickpockets, swindlers, hobos, and businessmen who don't give a crap if they step on a toddler, and everyone around you has to stop in the middle of their commute to avoid running into you, and they call you names, why would you look surprised? New York does not slow down for Christmas--it allows you to look at all its pretty stuff and enjoy an entirely made up feeling of brotherly love if you want to, but you need to do it quickly, or find a place that's not the middle of the goddamn sidewalk in front of Tiffany's to take your leisurely stroll, or you are going to make a lot of enemies and probably get accosted by every single homeless-people-donation-collection racket in the biz at least five times.

I swear to god, people, I don't like to be so mean to tourists. They ARE easy targets, but then again, there's a good portion of the city what wouldn't run at all if it weren't for them, and there is something to be said for the feeling of superiority one gets when realizing that thousands, millions of people flock to YOUR city just to see the sites every year. But for Christ's sake, you're TOURISTS. You don't live here. You do not own the sidewalk. You are in the way. At least TRY to fit in, or if not that, to not get in the way any more than possible. We who live here have to deal with all kinds of bullshit from our fellow New Yorkers every day, and we are grumpy enough without running full-on into the back of your light blue NorthFace parka when you slow down to take a picture of, like, a pigeon or something, because we glanced down to check how late we were to work after the train spent ten minutes sitting in the tunnels while we were smooshed in between the smelly guy and the gum-chewing woman with the really bad music blaring from her iPod and didn't see your ignobly wide ass coming to an abrupt halt in front of us. When you get called a prick by a little redheaded girl who just face-planted into your stupid, stupid parka, don't you DARE say, "people here are so rude."

Entering Old Ladyhood: or, kids on the subway

Well, it's finally happened. After years of bottling up my annoyance, I've finally let off the steam by screaming at a group of high school students on the subway. Those of you who know me well will not be at all surprised by this. Kids are annoying. And for some reason, kids in groups on the subway are about fifty thousand times more annoying than normal kids. I think it's because generally when there's a group of them together (especially on a morning train during the school year, like today), they're on a school-related trip of some kind. Freed from the enclosures and strictures of the school environment, they feel as if they've been let loose upon the city and they get all hyper and full of themselves and feel the need to:
-talk very fast,
-pack as many of themselves into as small a space as possible,
-scream to each other from opposite sides of this small space as if it were a football field,
-laugh hysterically at small jokes, say things like "snap," high five each other, and go "Oooooooohhhhh" when "snap" isn't good enough, all in unison,
-make fun of each other really loudly,
-try to flirt in really stupid and transparent ways, also really loudly,
-generally do everything at about thirty decibels more than it needs to be done at.

I hate them.

Well today when I got to the train platform, I could see a group of them--probably middle schoolers--about twenty strong standing where I usually stand, with a few chaperone-y people hovering around. I assiduously avoided this area of the platform while waiting for the train.

When a 5 finally came along, about ten minutes late, I was already annoyed because I was going to be late for work and because it was raining and I was soaked, and because it was morning, and so on and so forth. And then, just as the train was bearing down upon me, ANOTHER group of students showed up in the station and positioned themselves right behind me.

I couldn't run, I couldn't move to a different car. There was no time and I was running late. So I just shoved into the car as fast as possible to try to distance myself from the mob of shrieking, "snap"ing, obnoxious children. Instead of escaping them, however, I ended up merely plowed into by their solid-group formation moving into the train car at maximum velocity. Pushed forward by the group, I reached out to grab onto an overhead bar to stop the flow and brace myself because the train was so full there was literally nowhere else to go. I couldn't move in any farther--everyone had already moved in as far as they could. I had to stand my ground.

But the young bastards behind me didn't care or notice and continued to push into the car. I strained against them, pushing back with my shoulders while holding my arm as straight as possible to avoid being pushed forward onto the people sitting down in front of me. They kept pushing, kept pushing, kept pushing, all laughing maniacally, shrieking, yelling, completely ignoring the fact that they were almost knocking people down. The strain on my arm became so great that I was actually afraid it would break; it was getting painful. My one hand had been hurting all morning anyway and now the strain being put on it that it was white-hot with pain. They were soooo loud. They were CRUSHING me. I could feel the anger and annoyance of years of dealing with stupid kids on the train welling up, like in those cartoons where the person's face gets redder, like a thermometer, before finally...

I burst. I whirled around on them and screamed at the top of my lungs, "Oh MY GOD, STOP IT!!!"

Immediately the pressure building from behind me eased up. A young lady behind me looked at me with big eyes and said, "I'm sorry," then looked away. The group went silent.

I turned around, seething, and stared at my reflection in the window. I looked crazy. But the kids were quiet. I could stand up.

At the next stop, the lady who had been sitting in front of me got off the train and I sat down to examine the kids. They were still in their tight group, standing closer together than necessary now that the train was a little less packed. And they were all standing as far away from me as they could get without moving to a new spot in the car.

They stayed that way for the rest of the trip.

I have successfully entered Grumpy Old Ladyhood. It feels ok. I'm gonna go ahead and start shopping for creepy old houses with gigantic porches and yards with the potential for spooky overgrowth.

Foot guy

There is a man who rides the 5 train in the mornings who I simply cannot figure out. He is almost always in the second car from the front, sitting on one of the long blue benches in the spot nearest the center doors. His age, ethnicity, and motivation are beyond me. He appears to maybe be white, but he is pretty tan-ish, and there is something in the way he looks around that implies that he is not American by birth (this may sound silly, but the longer I'm in New York the more I find I can actually pick out the foreign people from a crowd by their mannerisms and bearing). He wears a diamond earring on the right side, and he has shoulder-length, sparse, wispy, but very well kept, straight white hair. Light eyes that move around constantly. He seems to be interested in everything going on around him; it's difficult to get a good look at the guy, actually, because he's so alert that every time a head moves in his direction he notices and turns to look. I've found myself looking him square in the eye many times. But it's difficult not to want to look at him, because here's the thing: he is always barefoot. I don't know why. Nothing about him suggests extreme poverty or homelessness--he is always clean, his feet in exceptionally good shape, not particularly dirty or gross. He wears nice enough jeans, rolled up to just below the knee, and everything jutting out from below the cuff is bare.
He is always in the same place when I get on the train, and I have never seen him get up from his seat. He usually has a black drawstring bag under his seat, and I've tried to sneak a few peeks at it to see if there are shoes in it, if maybe he just likes to be ON the subway barefoot, but puts on shoes before he disembarks? From what I've seen it doesn't seem lumpy enough to contain shoes, but then, every time I try to look at the bag, he notices me and looks up and I feel awkward and look away. Someday I'd like to go over to him and ask him why he never wears shoes, but a crowed train early in the morning just never seems the right time or place...

Silkworm Snail

It must be true that we survive our deaths.

We are mollusks, really,
Trailing our preemptive ectoplasm everywhere.
It has to be that way.

Because I realize that I'm leaving traces here and there.
I can tug at the tendrils behind me
(Not ribbon-graceful in the wind
but sticky and viscous, complicated patterns branching out from the strands,
into patterns I didn't know I'd traced).
All over every spot that meant something.

If I cast a thought back to one of these exigencies,
To some heart I've grasped at or body I've finger-tip-traced or place I've lost my breath to,
The slime tightens, tugs at me from behind.
And there I am, stuck to that other end of the trail,
glued to that lump in the road and my throat.

And vice versa, when he or she looks my direction from miles away,
or the moon lights up that bend in the road--
You know, there above Wounded Knee where they set up the Hotchkisses--
I hiccup, turn just a bit,
Feel my irises expand and my tear ducts swell,
Gather my mucus to me, tremble to shed some more on this moment,
And wonder if this will ever become a silken strand,
A web with a design I didn't plan? Or just that perfect coil,
The golden ratio's baby?

When I've expired,
I will have to revisit these moments, places, thoughts.
I'm stamped on them, and where can a lost spirit go but where it finds its puddles?
It must be that way, for there they are, my steps in slime.

Pitfalls of Porn Writing; or, my first stalker fan

Well. I had a great holiday weekend. I took two days completely off from all writing- and work-related things, then spent two days working on several projects. I felt good. Somewhere in there I got friend requests and messages from TWO, count 'em TWO, fans of my column, who found me on Facebook! Yippie! Fans! Who sought ME out based only on my pen name! Awesome.

Until, today, I got this (I'm x-ing out his name). Please don't feel obligated to read the whole thing. Really, just glancing through its ridiculous length to pick up a few key words should do the trick:

"XXXXX sent you a message.

--------------------
Subject: hey

So you added me as a friend. I wasn’t sure if you would but I’m glad you did. Obviously we aren’t friends but maybe we can be some version of friends if you are interested. Why, you ask (I’m assuming you are asking that, so if you aren’t then hmmm lol, I’m going to go with it anyway) ? It’s a legitimate question I guess, and so I will attempt to answer it to get things moving a bit. With that said, this email will probably either be the beginning of our “friendship” or the end of it, so it’s probably good to get that out of the way up front. Also, it is good to note that I am feeling somewhat “serious” in tone right now, so it will probably seem that I am that way, although you should also realize that behind almost everything I say or write there is always an awareness of my own absurdity or the absurdity of the context or situation or basically of existence generally, and that I am always “playing around” or “joking” or better yet, laughing at myself, and want to communicate my recognition of that. For example when you look at my quotes around the words “friendship” and “serious” a couple of sentences back my intention in using them was to invite you to know that I am not taking myself or the situation very seriously even when it’s hard to imagine that I am not (this becomes important to say since we are communicating in writing and since you have no prior experience of me to use as a reference point). Anyway, enough of this for the moment, I think, you might be very tired of reading already and I need to get to the point. But I find that difficult because to me there never really is only one – point that is. But, I will stop, and go on.

First, I will say that while I was looking at your profile after you added me I noticed a comment that one of your friends left in response to your posting about you having a fan (which I’m pretty sure was me ). He was kidding around and responded “Call the Police”, but of course a joke is not the same thing as saying something without meaning, so I will address this quickly. I am only interested in reciprocal relationships, no matter what the degree of role playing involved (I say this because as we both know to some degree all relationships contain role playing but I am also not averse to actual role playing, although I am not stuck on it either lol). Anyway, in other words I am not “The Fan” from that bad movie with Wesley Snipes in it that I don’t remember very well. I am not going to be involved in your life unless invited so there is not much too worry about along the lines of what I think your friend was “joking” about. If at any time, even let’s say if we were married or something along these lines (I use this word “married” to make a point only because I am not particularly interested in the idea of marrying) and you were to say “XXXX, I no longer want to be involved with you – in any way” I would probably say “OK”. Well, maybe I am exaggerating, I might have many other things to say, in fact, I know I would because I am not dead of spirit, however my point here, my one point here, is that I have no interest in forcing myself on anyone because it is just too much trouble for me. I am a simple man and cannot be bothered. “I am a reasonable man get off my case”, to quote RADIOHEAD.

Second, and probably more to the heart of the matter here, is that I am fascinated by you due to what seems to be your fascination with pornography. Now, that was a very dangerous sentence for me to type because you might have now taken it to mean that I am only fascinated by this aspect of you and no others. Or that I have only the capability to be fascinated by pornography and nothing else. You might have taken this to be the one point, the definition of me or of my “relationship” (notice the quotes) with you, when in fact it is only one of the points of either of those things. Labels leave out more than they include (my analyst said that to me the other day and I was like “yes, that is very simple and easy and sums up quite nicely what had seemed like an overarching component of my personality or experience but that seemed impossible for me to articulate - and she said it one little sentence. She’s Cuban) In other words, I will say this to add to my explanation…Your art work is amazing. And I generally admire your style of social living because it is quite foreign to me from what I can gather by the very very little I know about you . It is foreign to me in the social aspect, however not in the creative. On the creative side we are neighbors. Hmm, where have I wound up here? I have to re read. Hold on.

OK. So, yes. I will leave the particulars about the fascination, or better yet the intrigue and curiosity and interest I have in both you and pornography for now. You are also very pretty. Have a nice day. It's nasty out."



...oh, good. He's fascinated with me. And pornography. And mentions marriage.

Why can't I just have a few nice folks who like my column send me fan mail? Is that so much to ask? I'm gonna. I dunno. Go shiver in the corner or something.

After a long weekend, with more coming.

I feel relaxed. Maybe not exactly caught up, but ready to at least walk a little faster to maybe think about starting to catch up.

...Yeah. I think I can do that.

And smile a lot, for a while, and not pay attention to my dwindling bank account or the future staring at me. But to just, you know, enjoy myself. And, who knows, maybe do some kissing. And definitely, definitely, be with my friends.

I am ignoring my responsibilities this week because I can't really handle the idea of them, much less tackling them. Far from feeling ineffectual, I've been writing more of what I want to write. It's liberating. But I know I'll regret it later.
But.
I am also at the end of my rope with this gallery. Suddenly it's like the epicenter of f-ing midtown. I have had a bowl of ramen here (awesomely delicious Korean ramen from the place across the street) for an hour and a half and I'm about halfway through it, and I've been trying to watch a 3-minute video on YouTube for about the same amount of time. I've gotten 30 seconds in. Because every time I put the phone down some moron walks in and stares at me so I can't be stuffing my mouth with noodles. And when that person passes, the phone rings again, and when I put it down it rings again, and when I put THAT down, the same moron is back at the desk asking some inane question, and then when the moron walks away again, another moron comes in, and then someone from the back office comes walking past and because I can hear them before I can see them, anytime someone from the back office approaches I have to assume it's a Big Boss, which means, again, that I can't be stuffing my face with noodles. It's like a three-ring goddamn circus in here.
I should be happy because the busy-ness means that we're selling art, which means that my job is secure and that the Big Bosses are in better moods than usual (seriously, yesterday TKR offered me cookies [which I refused because I hate her; when I said no thanks, she looked taken aback--haha, take THAT you scum!] and today Mr. Levai told me he was 'excellent' when I asked how he was doing). But the truth is, I don't give a CRAP about the gallery's sales, and I have a horrendous splitting headache that won't go away. I like it when it's really, really quiet and nobody is buying anything, because then I can eat my lunch in less than two hours and get some work done, if I want.
Hm.
But I was going somewhere with this.
Writing....
Hm.
Oh well, it's gone.
/rant

Skinny Puppy: or, my anger management issues

I want to be there in the thick of it, protecting, holding fast against what might hurt her. I want to be bashing in skulls. I'm always like that. At concerts I jump into mosh pits and get beaten down unless I'm held back by someone bigger, wiser, less prone to starting fights. There's this thing in me, some kind of tribal being with no regard for personal safety or the convention of nonviolence. Sometimes people deserve to be kicked in the face. And I can kick pretty high. I kicked someone in the head once, after ample warning, and he was still shocked.
And yet, there are always cops around, watching. Or crowds with their disapproving glares. Or reasonable folks standing nearby, talking me back from ripping off my shirt and plunging in--reminding me I am not really the Incredible Hulk. I am Lynsey. I am small and weak.
I remind them that I've got the crazy in me. My temper flares are like sunspots. They can cause all kinds of problems.
But, yes, I can hurt too. And I do, when I watch the melee going on around me, when I stand on the sidelines and watch and tremble with this fury that seems born into me. Instead I smash things, non-living things, and when I was young I learned to imagine that alarm clocks and mirrors had feelings, like all of my toys. Not so I could talk to them or feel like I had companions, but so that when I broke them, I would feel more triumphant. "Just punch your pillow," said friends when I told them my rage had gotten me in trouble again, when I broke the sliding glass door. "But pillows never seem like they feel it," I'd answer. "They bounce right back."
I wanted to jump into the fray last night, pound my fists into you and watch you reel back. Rip off these damn chains and unleash the fury of my purple pants. Dance like the devil was in me.
But I remembered, thank god, that no one was holding me back this time. That guy with the meathead might really pummel me. I held myself back.
Or, maybe I'm just old and lazy.

Lord, I was Born a Ramblin' Man: or, androgynous, confused self-reflection

Some days, when the time drags by slowly with busywork, as I watch my hours of productivity fall away unused, a sadness begins to steal in around noon. Quietly, pad-footed, cat-burgling my energy in slow steps, until sometime in the mid-afternoon I look up and realize my heart is wide open. I want to turn on slow songs, quiet songs, about honey and childhood and remorse, and stare quietly at falling rain and think about candles dripping. I feel tenderized, as if someone had beaten me with one of those big wood meat pounder things with the blunt spikes, as if the smallest prick of emotion aimed my direction could stab a fork in me. I see flashes of all the beautiful eyes I've known in my life, the big, wide brown ones and the long-lashed hazels and the occasional stunning blues. I feel heartache coming on, a rip working its way up from my stomach along the very back of my trachea and expanding every time I shift in my chair. I want be very, very still, let myself feel the waves of nostalgia and yearning and mystery of where I am now. I feel tricklings inside, as of raindrops on a window pane but perhaps it's just the pane of me, being as transparent as ever. The past few weeks have been emotional but mostly for other people--I'm just on the periphery watching the action. But the contact with intense feeling has brought about my weakness to the seduction of abandonment to those whims. To feel so deeply, to lose myself in the blackness of it, the shutting down of thoughts, to weep or to scream or to swoon... It's been a long time. And I miss it. Adulthood sucks out those wild moments and replaces them with routine, comfort, calculation, practical considerations and those occasional breakthroughs of sordid passion through the mud-caked armor... They are real and close and loud, and we shut them out, shut them down, shut ourselves away. But I've gotten a taste and I'm fiending for more.
I suppose it's just a matter of an empty day. Not a quiet one or an easy one, but one during which my brain has had little to do but sit still with itself and let its thoughts roam inward. But here I sit amidst the bustle of the gallery, with my heart pulsing for everyone to see, just hoping someone will notice and break it.

Unrelated but Pertinent

Any person who comes into the gallery whistling is someone I do not want to talk to.

Ponderings: or, possibly I am now a criminal

I... have not blogged.... for a week. And so now, it's time to blog. And yet here I am on Monday morning with a frustrating lack of things happening in my brain. I tried to Gchat a moment ago and nothing happened. Just no words.
Sooooo....
I just wrote this article for Whack! which was horrendously underdeveloped and kind of badly put together in the first place, but which I didn't have enough time to fix. And which I feel really weird about having written. Because in the article I make a case for people being less hysterically panicky about child molesters, aka sex offenders.
Because, here's the thing, I'm not in any way condoning really messed up things that people might do to children. We're not living in a day and age where forcing a prepubsecent child into a sexual situation is ok. I don't know that there would ever be a day or age where that would be ok. It skews the child's understanding of sex and what it means, turns it into a dark and painful thing rather than a joy, as it should be. Warps the growing-up process. Hurts everyone involved. It's wrong.
But I also think that because as a culture we're so terrified of the prospect, we've also gone a bit overboard with our definition of it and our desire to catch the bad guys responsible. I mean, I understand that the age of consent is high in most industrialized countries in hopes of preventing young people from being taken advantage of by older people. But there was a kid recently locked up for TEN YEARS on a statutory rape charge, because when he was seventeen he had oral sex with a fifteen year old.
That's not ok with me. He didn't really do anything wrong. Sure, she was fifteen and probably didn't really know what she was doing in the grand scheme of things, but, A) he was seventeen and he probably didn't really know either, and B) nobody EVER really knows, and C) he was only two years older! That is not the same as 35 year old man preying on a five year old child. It's not the same at all. And yet this guy will be forever labeled a sex offender. His life is ruined. For no good reason.
Consider the fact that there are cops posted to the ICAC (Internet Crimes Against Children) Taskforce who are undergoing serious emotional trauma because of the things they're forced to see at work. Consider that there are cops across the country posing online as young kids or the guardians thereof, offering sex with minors to perverts online. Consider that guys responding to these offers are often arrested without having committed a crime.
Consider that we are so terrified of child molestation that we get suspicious of any adult male near our kids. If a kid falls on the playground and a man is there to help them up and dust them off, we think "pervert" instead of "helpful." It's weird, isn't it?
And, in another vein but still under the general premise of this conversation, consider the fact that a fifteen year old "girl" in this day and age has probably been getting her period for three or more years, developed a fully functional adult body, and is horny as all hell. She is probably not really mature enough to understand or interpret her horniness adequately, but those are the facts.
Also consider that there is a thriving industry based on "barely legal" female porn performers who 'just turned eighteen.' Many of these girls might not be eighteen yet, and many others are barely over the line. It's ok to jerk off to them, though, because they're 'legal.'
Furthermore, consider that as animals, we are biologically programmed to find young adults attractive. Younger females tend to be healthier and more able to have healthy babies. Younger men tend to have more energy, be faster and stronger and more able to bring home the bacon. While TOO young is obviously not ok from a moral, social, OR biological standpoint, the fact that lots of guys get off to 'barely legal' porn isn't so much gross as biologically expected.
Of course there's a line between what's ok and what's not, but it seems to me that we are so terrified of people crossing it that we've made the line a thin, solid black one separating the adults from the children in a world where it's a much more grey, fuzzy line that covers a whole lot of territory.
And I think we need to figure out a way to be less panicky and more comprehensive about it. I don't have any anwers to the problem, but it's been on my mind and it bugs me.

Ok. So that's the premise. Does this make me a bad person?

Third Column is UP!

Check me out, I'm such a writer! My third column is up on McSweeney's! This one is a lot more of a story than my usual rambling, and I happen to think it's pretty funny. Let me know if you agree!

New York Gears Up for Halloween: or, almost a bum-fight

Yesterday when I left work to go to my night class, I heard some inarticulate shouting from down the block, but couldn't see its source. Intrigued, I approached the sound, and as I got closer I discerned a hobo, complete with shopping cart full of plastic bags-o-crap, arms raised to the heavens, shouting out incoherent witness to the Gods of Bums.

Just then, another hobo, sitting discreetly against an abandoned building with a coffee cup full of change some fifteen yards away and watching the first hobo, started yelling back!

It was a showdown:

Hobo #2: Shut UP! Shut the fuck UP!

Hobo #1: (continuing his earlier conversation with himself) So I said, what you wanna take my coat off? You want me to pull my pants down?

Hobo #2: SHUT UP you crazy motherfucker!

Alas, I was already late for class so I couldn't stop to see what kind of insane hobo antics were about to occur, but I can only assume that pants were dropped and blows exchanged.

Ahhhh, New York. You're ready for All Hallow's Eve.

An Update on NYC: or, weird things I've seen lately.

1) Yesterday, in Central Park, two dwarves walking together. Maybe brothers? I guess it doesn't sound so impressive in writing, but honestly, how often do you see that?

2) Also yesterday, a man came into the gallery with the most amazing set of mutton chops I have EVER SEEN in the flesh. I've only seen better photos because I've looked up pictures from international beard competitions. His facial hair--and his eyebrows, too--was bright white, surprisingly wispy, and at least three inches long.

3) Last week, outside FAO Schwarz, I got stuck on the sidewalk behind a very old couple (think upwards of 80) who were walking excruciatingly slowly. I got annoyed and moved to go out around them before realizing that the woman had BRIGHT BLUE HAIR. Like cerulean blue hair. It was AWESOME. I wanted to stop and tell her how much I liked it, but of course I chickened out instead.

4) Dan Akroyd.

5) Some other pseudo-famous lady whosename I dont know, but whose face is extremely memorable. Think big, inflamed looking chipmunk cheeks and short brown hair. Old.

Stolen Stories: or, I'm lazy

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you New York City:

A woman standing on a Manhattan subway platform with her pants down bit a New York City police officer in the back, police said Thursday.

Cops: Woman with pants down on subway bites officer
September 24, 2009 By DANIEL EDWARD ROSEN. Special to Newsday

The woman, whose name was not released, was standing on the mezzanine of the 34th Street-Herald Square station, according to a police spokesman. When two police officers approached the woman, she ran down to the southbound Q train platform, where she was apprehended.

During the arrest, one officer sustained a bite mark to his back and a bruised left shoulder, and the other suffered "facial injuries," the spokesman said.

Both officers were taken to St. Vincent's Hospital, where they are being treated.

The woman was taken to Bellevue Medical Center for examination and is not expected to face charges, the spokesman said.

I Can't Write Poetry Anymore: or, why journalism sucks

I realize it every time I read something poetic that someone else has written, but it hits home even more when I listen to music or--good gracious--try to write a poem myself. It's the reason I've always told people I hate journalistic writing. It sucks out the soul. And sure, nobody wants to read about my piddling emotional turmoil, but it sure used to feel good when I wrote it. It was my release all through high school, some college, on the reservation. To take my pent-up everything and spew it out on paper in such a disgustingly drippy fashion that I can't even stand to look back through my own journals. I guess I'll have to burn them when I feel death coming on; couldn't bear to have anyone look into my pencil-scrawled soul and realize that, yes, I really was--am--that shallow.
I've been writing informative (I should put that in quotations: 'informative') articles and op-ed pieces and columns and even straightforward fiction for two years now, for different outlets, and it's made me take the focus away from my poetry, my painting with letters. And that's probably a good thing. I need to know how to say what I want to say in language other people can understand, or at least read without wanting to vomit up adjectives. But. Still.
Now, if I want to come up with a beautiful phrase, I have to conjure it from thin air. Cause that's the thing about writing facts for meager pocket change: you forget to feel. For god's sake, this blog is about my made-up paranoia about robots and slime molds, and even that has devolved into a vessel of promotion for my other writing projects! I can't force myself to write something deep and profound even when I try. I decided to make this blog about something besides me--the real me, the tormented dark soul that used to scrawl itself out in pencil all over everything at its disposal--so nobody would get bored reading my weird and personal bullshit.
But. Now I look at it. Do I even HAVE any weird personal bullshit anymore? Am I so busy being a 'writer' who writes things for other people because that's the only way to be a success these days that I've lost the part of myself that wanted to write in the first place?
When I go to parties for research now I don't write later about the crazy euphoria of drunkenly watching other people or of the breathless walk back through the watching night of the Bronx. I don't remember those feelings. I get home and I sit down and I write the facts, like minutes from a meeting, like a fucking PTA Secretary. When I sit down to the computer I start searching for news stories. When I write I use verbs and nouns. I'm sardonic. I'm sarcastic. I'm straight-forward-all-the-facts-all-the-time.
Probably because I could never explain to my parents, those knowers of all things, why I wanted to write. They loved my stories, sure. But they wanted me to be a Something with a Big Paycheck, a Solid Part of the Community. A scientist or an athlete or a something useful. So I never showed them the poems. I never commented on the feelings. I just bottled them up and became "dark" and wrote about my "darkness" in journals I then locked in a suitcase in the attic, which still bothers my mother because she can't get into it. And when I did get poems published, or feel good about them, they'd be the imagery ones. The story ones. Not the emotional ones, the real ones, the raw ones, the passionate ones... not Writerly enough. Not Good Writing. Can't be sent to a magazine because they were just me.
And now look where it's gotten me. I'm reporting back to you on my lack of poetry using concrete terms. Who, what, where, when, why, and how. What does the audience want to read? Will this sell? Will I get comments?

...all bullshit.
This is not ok.
I need more than all this.
That need is why I became a writer. To feel, to report back, to make it all beautiful. Not to inform or add to the wealth of human knowledge. Knowledge is overrated and nobody can ever have all of it. But all of us have all the emotion and the wonder in the universe. That's all we have in common. I should be writing about that.

Another Story and Another Column: or, shameless self-promotion

In case ANYONE reading this hasn't gotten an e-mail, tweet, FB post, or MySpace bulletin yet... I have two publications to show for one week, NOT on Whack! Magazine! Check it!

McSweeney's Internet Tendency: The Conflicted Existence of a Female Porn Writer: Column Two: Desensitization

And:

The Whiskey Dregs: Short Stories: The Old Goat Man

Now that that's over with, I've been considering the merit or not of the upcoming Where the Wild Things Are Movie. I don't know how to feel about it. On the one hand, it looks like a great film so far, and I have the utmost respect for Spike Jonze, as a director, as well as for the fact that Maurice Sendak's wishes are being realized by him directing this movie. He apparently once said that the only way he'd agree to his baby being turned into a movie would be if it were to be directed by Jonze.

So that's all well and good.

But still. It irks me on a number of levels. I'm always hesitant to see a book turned into a movie, particularly if it's one I grew up with. But this one bothers me more than others. For one thing, the book is so beloved by so many, not for the merits of its movie-length plot, but for its sparseness. It's a book with so little background and so little development of the plot that one must bring one's own imagination and experience to it in order to make the story whole. And one's own story must be a good one to match the incredible possibilities and the astounding artwork. And that brings the best of the imagination of everyone who reads it.

Of course I appreciate Spike Jonze's vision, and I think his version of the story will probably be one that will be eminently artistic and enjoyable. But. It's still HIS. From the time this movie comes out, every kid who's seen the movie (there will be MANY) will bring with him Spike Jonze's idea of the story, the characters, the background, the sounds, the sights we don't get to see in the pages. And that bothers me with this particular book because it has always been the opposite of a fleshed-out, pre-imagined story. And now it will be just like Harry Potter or Twilight or The Lord of the Rings. Well, ok, not JUST like them, but one person's vision of it will come to dominate the entire story, book, movie, idea. And I don't like that.

Furthermore, I feel like this movie was cooked up by some producers who looked at my very specific part of my very specific generation. They looked at the books we love, the music we love, the directors we love, and the type of movies we love, and then they said, "You know what would be perfect? Turning 'Where the Wild Things Are' into a live-action style movie and getting Spike Jonze to direct, the singer from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs to come up with the soundtrack, and the Arcade Fire to let us use their anthem about growing up in the trailer. The twenty-somethings will line up around the block to see it, and they'll bring their kids! We can't lose! It's a money-making machine!"

I might be totally wrong about that. It's just as likely (and I've obviously done no research about it) that someone really really loved the book and really really loved Spike Jonze and The Arcade Fire and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and thought that together they would make a beautiful piece of art. And you know, they probably will. But I get this feeling that I'm being led by the nose because being who I am, at this point in my life, at this moment in time (post-college fugue, frustrated creative visions, yearning for childhood feelings, wanting to be swept away to a better world without a recession or even money), I HAVE to love it. I don't like being led by the nose, even if the people at the other end of the leash are creative geniuses.

I dunno. I guess it just seems contrived to me, and too much awesome in one place.

I'll probably end up seeing it and loving it, but hating myself for it the whole time. Grumble.

What do you guys think? Support it? Love it? Hate it? Meh?

In other news: my coworker Maribeth saw John Turturro on the street today. I am way jealous. This lady has never even SEEN The Big Lebowski! Not fair.

But I DID see this after leaving work: a mid-twenties white guy sitting in traffic in a very nice Chrysler convertible, with the top down in 50 degree weather, smoking a cigar, and listening to "With Or Without You" at full volume. Way to go, guy, for blasting the music you REALLY love.

19th Century Color Film: or, awesomeness.

This movie was made around 1899. Each frame was hand-colored. It is amazing.

Coming Out to My Parents: or, risking getting banned from Thanksgiving Dinner

Well, I came out to my parents last night. No, I'm not gay. Well, not in the strictest sense of the world. Girls sure are pretty though. But, no, what I mean by that is: I told my parents about my McSweeney's column, and in so doing told them I've been writing for porn magazines for two years and am working on a book about swingers that I hope to get an agent for any day now.
And... miracle of miracles... they didn't disown me! Or even tell me not to come home for Thanksgiving (thank GOD, cause my mom's food is so good)! They pretty much said that it's my life and whatever, just as long as I don't start talking about porn at Thanksgiving. Which is a bit unfair, considering they always sit around discussing surgeries and weird medical issues, but whatever. I'll deal.
The point is that now that my parents know about all my crazy writing jobs, I no longer have to hide it. I mean, sure, someday I might want to try selling my children's book idea and then I might want to keep the porn thing under lock and key, but that's why I use a pen name.
I feel so unburdened, suddenly. I mean, sure, I've still got like a billion deadlines staring me in the face and a huge amount of work on my plate, but now if my parents call me while I'm in the middle of it, I can just tell them I'm writing a DVD review instead of making up some ridiculous story about pirates and ninjas storming the Bronx and running off to a friend's house with my sleeping bag to escape the melee.
I mean. That's a pretty cool story. But not really believable in any way. And telling the truth is just easier.
So.
Hello, world.
I write for and about pornography.
I feel so free!

Also, a heartfelt letter to any readers out there...

I wanted to address one of my side projects that hasn't gotten a lot of attention on the blog here: Whack! Magazine. I haven't spent much time on this blog lately because I've been so busy with Whack, the column, porn writing, networking, lit mag pieces, the book, a Nerd Nite presentation coming up on the 16th, trying to find an agent, but I was talking with my editor and cowriter last night about how we seem to be getting plenty of visitors at the site, but no comments. It got me thinking.

We agreed that our friends, who we'd like to rely on to support our ventures in porn satire and commentary, might be feeling stand-off-ish about commenting, and about the whole project in general, because many of them don't know much about the porn industry. Or they think we're just being horrible jackasses--that's also possible (but we wish they'd comment to tell us so!). Whatever the case may be, we haven't heard from many people about what we're doing, and we're hoping people are at least giving it a chance.

I realized I maybe haven't actually given anyone an explanation or background on it, so here's my shot at that. I wish I had more time to explain everything to everyone individually, but I think that would take like a day. So I'm going to write this up here and send it out as an e-mail to try to explain myself.
Ahem.

When I started writing for porn magazines, I'm sure people thought different htings, but I'm betting there were two leaders. One being: "Wow that's so AWESOME! She gets to be involved in smut!" But then, I'm thinking a lot of you who thought that maybe went and watched some modern porn, or bought up a magazine I wrote for, or even just asked me a few detailed questions about the DVDs I was reviewing. And you realized that the "awesome" thing was kind of conditional. You'd had this image in mind of 1970s style, bow-chick-a-wow-wow porn--the kind where the guys has a mustache and there's some cheesy dialogue and then like a 10-15 minute sex scene that's kind of gross but still sensual. But no, no. I was working for magazines that showed really truly, gut-reaction GROSS images, and the porn I was reviewing didn't have cute kitschy titles or funny but badly executed dialogue. It had titles like "Jailbait #15" and "Fuck Truck," the dialogue was replaced by gagging and choking and screaming, and the sex tended toward 45 minute marathons of jackhammer humping. And you suddenly no longer thought my job was awesome. You thouhgt maybe I was a terrible person.
Or, maybe you didn't bother checking it out. Maybe you thought, "Oh, geez, there goes Lynsey on one of her 'I'm doing something wild and crazy' sprees again. Well, she'll probably be out of it before long." And now it's been two years and I'm still doing it AND I'm also writing for a startup news, commentary, review, interview, satire and etc. web-zine called Whack! Magazine. I'm going to porn conventions and meeting porn stars and, Christ, now I'm writing a column ABOUT writing for porn. Christ, when am I gonna get up out of it?

Well. I can't blame anyone for thinking either of these things, or any number of other things you may have possibly thought. It's a weird decision. But, it's not another 'crazy' phase for me. It's not my dream job, either. Whack! is kind of the culmination of my involvement in porn writing.

Whack! is a weird little corner of the internet for several reasons, and I can understand it being a little off-putting to people who don't know much about the porn biz, or who aren't interested in watching my cowriters and I making fun of people they know nothing about, or who are too busy to read long articles about the state of porn industry health care and so on.

But, well... this is lame, but hear me out. I've gotten pretty deep into the porn biz these days, and sex writing in general. I've learned so much about sex, the industries based around it, and the many different attitudes held in our society about it, that I have come to believe very strongly that sex itself and the myriad accoutrements that go with it can tell us possibly more about ourselves than any other single part of life. Because sex is such a basic, universal drive that has been repressed and tied into morality, society, media, and everything else around us to such an extent that it's almost impossible for people to feel in any authentic way about it. I find the practice of picking apart our sexual attitudes and practices endlessly fascinating, and the more I find out about the whole thing the more excited I get about it.

The more conservative of you might be thinking that I should go into sexology if I find it so fascinating. Make it official, less salacious. But if you know me then you know that science and I, or really anything that isn't directly related to creative output and I, do not get along. I find spouting facts on paper or online, or theorizing about what they mean, much more interesting and satisfying than studying them. And I plan to do just that, in any format I can. Whack! is one of them--an industry specific one, yes, but one that I think can be interesting and enlightening and above all FUN for people to read.

Despite my philosophizing, though, Whack! really isn't trying to take itself too seriously. We know it's a mostly unecessary piece of journalistic boogers. But we also think that these days, with the porn industry limping down the path to death as internet startups offering free content take over our brains (which are so conditioned to think of porn as "bad" that we don't spend any time using them to THINK about the porn we watch) and private masturbatory moments, maybe someone making intelligent and funny and interesting commentary on what's left of it could be a good way of remdining people that it exists and it's not so terrible.

Furthermore, the people involved in porn these days, though they may be (as one of my editors said) "damaged people" with histories of abuse or drug addiction or who knows what other terrible things, are still people. And while we may make fun of them at Whack! for their bad grammar or horribly botched boob jobs or small brain size, we respect the fact that porn is the best and maybe only thing that these people could do with their lives. And we DON'T think that porn performers are some weird breed of combined political refugee and beaten animal that needs to be treated carefully to avoid breakage. They're people, and they're just as capable of doing stupid things as anybody else. We're just there to make a little joke when they do.

But we're also there to make people think about the porn industry. About what's going on with these people who make their living on lust. They're not just thirty second video clips you click on some virus-laden website while you're jerking off (oh c'mon, we know you do it, too!). They're real people living real lives. And once Americans forget about that completely in favor of totally anonymous, free, unthinking, dimly lit, 5 minuts and done so you can get on with your life stroke sessions, the porn industry is lost.

I'm probably over-intellectualizing here (surprise!). Whack! is also the publicity-stunt-turned-real-project leading up to the webisode I'm working on with my friend Joe. It. Is. Gonna. Be. AWESOME. It centers around two young people working at "Whack! Magazine," one by nature and one out of necessity. It's funny and very true to life, and it will appeal to everyone with a dirty sense of humor--which I know is most of you. It's in preproduction right now, and Whack! is our way of drawing people in before the fact.

Really, all I'm trying to say here is that you who read this blog are the people who I hope will be willing to support me in my many creative endeavors. Whack! may not be exactly your cup of tea, but it is a decent and intelligent and funny publication that I'm working my ASS of for. Even if you detest what we're writing, that's fine. Just please read it, feel something about it, and comment on it, or tell me. It would mean a lot.

Just Another Day In Paradise: or, boobies!

I just walked past two women who were wearing jeans but no tops, holding pink balloons, walking down 6th Avenue and telling people (like me, because started clapping when I saw them): "It's Breast Cancer Awareness Month! Tell someone you love!"

...God, I love New York. Oh yeah, I'm all about pink.

Amazon = Me

Also - I'm on FIRE today - the book "Memoirs of Meanness" I was recently featured in for a story I wrote waaaay back... Just got its own link on Amazon! Please, feel free to go buy it! If it sells over a certain number of copies, I get royalties. ;)

What a day!

I am a Columnist!

Howdy, folks, from your favorite neighborhood McSweeney's Columnist. I am so burned out after last weekend's porn convention, after-parties, and being hit on by male porn stars that I almost forgot...
Today my McSweeney's column went up! Installation #1! Check it out and let me know what you think:
The Conflicted Existence of a Female Porn Writer

The Beating Heart of Doom: or, the horrible slime monster from hell

Ohhhhhhmyyyyyyyygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod!!!

I was all set to write something intelligent today for the blog, because I've been neglecting it terribly and I feel badly about it. Truth is, I've been sprinting just to stay in the same place with all my projects lately and I haven't been devoting enough time to weird news reading, people watching, or paranoid musing to really hold up much of the deadly serious content you've all come to expect from me, so I've been steering clear.

Well, today I thought, screw it, I'll write about the discrimination that I and my friends faced at a club over the weekend when we tried to show porn at a porn-themed party we were holding at an East Village bar (the owner turned off our projector and would not allow us to plug it back in, or show any kind of graphic sexual content--at a PORN-THEMED PARTY, and that is bullshit on a whole cadre of different levels). Or the racist comment I heard from a guy crossing the street yesterday ("God bless you, whitey," he said as I passed by; I should have replied, "God bless you, racist" but I didn't because I'm POLITE). Or the totally insane breakdown I saw a totally insane guy having on the subway the other day (there was screaming, kicking, cursing, and, at one point, singing: "Beverly, Peverly, Rise and shine, If you don't get up, Your ass is mine"; actually, now that I'm thinking of it, that might have been a straight-up demon possession). Or something.

But then.

Through the wonders of facebook, I came across this little piece of vomit-inducing horror. It's a... I don't know. Oh, GOD, I just looked at it again! That thing is horrendous. Apparently it's a large group of tubifex worms living in a sewer and responding as a single organism to the lights cast on it by the sewer robot, which is filming it.

Let me reiterate. Many small, primitive life forms with little in the way of intelligence, living unbeknownst to the people above in the shopping center until this video broke, coming into contact with... a robot. Sound familiar? And pee-your-pants terrifying?

It does to me.

My advice to the city of Raleigh: if you don't want to see footage coming back from the next "sewer robot" featuring a face-off between technology and primordial-ooze-cum-intelligent-being that results in the two becoming fast friends, the ooze attaching itself to the robot and then riding it back out of the sewers and into your offices to visit bloody acts of doom upon you, then please, please, for the sake of all humanity, pour some goddamn Clorox down those pipes, followed by Draino, followed by every other imaginable micro-organism-killing chemical known to man (but be careful to avoid doing so in a science lab with a crazy American scientist, a la "The Host," lest ye end up with this monster loose in your streets). KEEP THE ROBOTS OUT OF THERE for at least a few days, and when you DO send them back down, keep them on a friggin leash so you can yank them out if any sad, lonely, survivor worms try to make friends with it.

That is all.

I've Changed: or, the slow slide into degeneracy

This afternoon I was at work, sitting here typing away, when two of my coworkers came in from outside, flushed and breathless and giggling. "They're filming Sex and the City outside!" they grinned. "Kim Catrall was like 2 feet away! Up on 58th Street! So cool!" I smiled. "Oh, that's what all that equipment I saw them setting up was for. I thought they were done filming in this part of town," I said in response. "Well you should go check it out!" they cried, and went back to their offices to tell their other colleagues about their great fortune.
I shrugged and considered asking Kate to come watch the desk while I went and gawked. But then I just went back to work.
Yesterday afternoon, I got a call on the gallery phone from a familiarly deep voice asking for one of the directors. As is my custom, I asked who was calling. "Sylvester Stallone," he replied. "Ok, just a moment, sir," I said, and put the call through.
And then went back to work.
A year ago, I'd have been shitting myself over these stars. I'm still pretty impressed that over the course of two days I've had the chance to interact with at least two very major celebrities. But the thing is, I'm not dying over it this time. I've got other stuff to worry about.
And yet. And yet... last night I went to see the cast of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia live on stage, performing "The Nightman Cometh." I paid an obscene amount of money to get tickets after they'd sold out in minutes. I laughed and grinned until my face hurt during the show. And afterward, I went and stood in a huge crowd, getting yelled at by security people and shoved into from behind, to see the stars come out of the theater entrance and go to their bus.
Granted, I actually had a purpose for this (I wanted to give one of them my card because I really think they'd like the webisode I'm working on, and getting an endorsement from Charlie Day, who took the card and flyer I thrust at him, would be pretty much UH-MAZE-ING), so I wasn't just being a crazed fan. But still, looking back at the past two days, I realized that I've gone from a reverence for slightly edgy feminine banter about relationships and big burly men in action movies... to practically worshiping a group of people who got famous by screaming about poop at the top of their lungs on TV.
I'm not sure how I feel about this.
But then, I look at the artistic and intellectual achievements of Sex and the City and, say, Rambo, and I don't think I'm far off in saying that It's Always Sunny probably has a lot more artistic integrity than either of them. I can't really put my finger on why exactly, but I think I'm right. Maybe it's because the writing and performing in Sunny is so utterly brilliant and smooth, and that the actors are also the writers and producers of the show. I have a huge amount of respect for people with that kind of talent and dedication and willpower (the amoutn of willpower, that is, required to turn your show about booze, rivalry, poop, and creepy sex into a runaway hit and be involved in it on every creative level). I think Charlie Day, Rob McElhenney, Glenn Howard, Kaitlin Olson, and Danny DeVito are true artists with a vision so far off the beaten track that it can't be anything but brilliant. And I guess I feel good about them taking precedence over Sly in my life.

...Sorry, Sly. You know I love you. But what have you done for me lately? Next time you call, ask me out for drinks.

Magazine is Up!

I have been trying to blog every day for the past several but have had zero time, and now that I DO have time, I want to save this post to shamelessly self promote! Whack! Magazine is finally up and running, folks! My friends and I have been working on it for a while and have finally gotten a workable web design layout going... we'll switch to a nicer format after a while but for the time being, this will have to do.

But it's content, friends. It's the content that makes this a great publication. If you have a good sense of humor and a willingness to read some really dirty jokes along with interesting interviews and imaginative takes on astrology... well... this mag is for you.

Give it a peek and please comment on the segments so we know they're being read!

Holy Levitating Mice, Batman!: or, this is weird but cool

So NASA has levitated some mice using magnetic fields. That's. I dunno. I mean. It's pretty f-ing cool, really. I wanted to rant about how unecessary it is, but really, I find the idea of someone possibly levitating ME someday, and that's oretty awesome. So. Anyway, yeah, just read about it.

Awkward moments in NYC: or, the Blue Guy

Ok. It's lunch time, kind of, and it just took me 45 minutes to eat a salad because the phone would not stop ringing, people's ordered lunches would not stop arriving at my desk, and other random people kept showing up and asking dumb questions... You'd think on a 65 degree, windy, rainy, Friday, maybe people would want to lay low and chill out, but apparently they prefer bugging me when I'm trying to eat.

And don't give me any of that "They're not really out to bug YOU" crap, because I know they are. Everyone is out to get me, people, and if that means calling and bothering me to such a degree that my brains actually explode out of my ears from the pressure, they'll do it. They're out to GET me. Remember that. Especially the slime molds.

Anyway, so I'm in the midst of my frantic running about/answering phones/signing for packages/smiling at whoever comes in/arranging messenger packages/blah blah blah, when in comes The Blue Guy. He's been in here a bunch of times, and I think I've even blogged about him before. Now, when I'm in the midst of my frantic trying-to-stuff-my-face-between-calls mode, it's easier to take things in stride because I already look frazzled and a moment of blank "Oh my god" staring might not be taken as rude. But, it's really hard not to stare at this guy. He's bluish grey ALL over. He's like the color of "steel blue" crayons. It's weird to see someone who looks like that. It makes you step back for a second and stare, then pretend not to stare.

I find myself doing that a lot in the city, where strange looking people abound. Sometimes staring is kind of warranted, like when you see a girl dressed in an insanely slutty outfit at ten on a Tuesday morning for no apparent reason, or a hardcore punked out kid on the Upper East side or something--people like that obviously WANT to be stared at in some way or another. But then there are people you're not supposed to really stare at, ever, but who it's hard NOT to want to examine. Especially "little people" or those in wheelchairs, disabled people who are making a fine display of themselves as they go down the sidewalk, flamboyant people (there are LOTS of ways of being flamboyant), and even really ugly people sometimes. And Blue Guy, of course. You want to stare, but you can't. So you look away and walk on by.

But then, when I'm walking by, I always think, "What if that person is offended that I DIDN'T look? What if he thinks I'm ignoring him and thus his condition, which he represents to the world?" So I try to look for a second, maybe do a short nod of acknowledgment, and move on. But then I feel really awkard cause I hate making eye contact with ANYONE on the street...

Ah, whatever. Blue Guy just left and I'm already bored with this topic.

Anyway, I'm off to PA for a day and a half, then back to the city to grind out a few more days. SO busy at the moment - deadlines looming, casting to be done, promos to put together for our promo PARTY next weekend, columns to write, agent queries to work on, books to read, homework to do, and general madness to try to kepe at bay.

Till next time.

The kind of morning I have to write about: or, surreal as all hell...

I won't pretend to pass this off as a post that has anything to do with any kind of blog theme. Truth is, I haven't had much time for those lately, and even when I do I've been so brain dead from all my other projects that I can't come up with anything, and I've been so wrapped up in my work and thoughts that I haven't been paying much attention to what's going on around me. So the blog has been dry.

But then, this morning, some cosmic ray or something showed up in my life. When I woke up I was in the midst of a dream involving me, my older sister, my father, and some other random people being stranded on a tropical island of some sort and seeking shelter as a storm approached. We had to wade through a swamp, past a calmly dozing row of gigantic crocodiles, and when we hit land I turned around to realize that my father had been eaten by one of them while pushing my sister out of the way. The rest of us sat to discuss what to do from there, the storm suddenly hit and we all had to run for cover to avoid being hit by lightning. There was some sort of massive half-built structure that we aimed for until we realized that it had no roof, so we had to alter our course for the trees ahead as the wind whipped up around us and the rain started pelting down. Just then I woke up, but wanted desperately to go back to sleep so I could see what would happen next. It was like a movie.

I got up and ran around crazily to get ready for work, somehow not having time for breakfast, but packing a huge lunch/dinner since I have my first session of a proofreading and copy editing class tonight at City College - my first in a series leading up to a Certificate in Publishing - and I won't have any time for dinner. So anyway, I started walking to the train very fast and heard a honk from a nearby car as it goes through an intersection. I assumed the driver was warning whoever might be at the stop sign going the other way that he was coming, but as he got up closer to me he slowed down and honked again. Ugh. Annoying. Eventually he took off again and I kept walking, only to catch up to him again as he was stopped further up the street at a red light. At which point he started shouting at me out of the window. What a nice guy. My name, however, is not "Mami."

So I got to the station right on time, only to find that my train had already passed. Way to go, MTA. Early trains are just as bad for most of us as late trains, you know. Running ahead of schedule will NOT make us like you more.

Anyway, I finally boarded a 2 train and found a spot next to an old, very angry looking Spanish woman who smelled like she was wearing an adult diaper, and that diaper was probably about due for a change. At Grand Concourse/149th I switched to the 4 train, which took its sweet time coming. In the meantime, I found a spot to stand right under the broken pipe that leaks water down into the train station all day every day, and wondered how long it would be before the ceiling caved in. I glanced down the platform to see a man with a big belly standing on the wrong side of the platform, shirtless, and talking to himself.

When the train finally came, I found a spot to stand right where a guy got on at the next stop, mumbling to himself. Great. Just what I needed. Turned out, this guy was a poet who had self-published 3 books and was selling them for $5 a piece on the subway. He spouted off some of his poetry, and it was GOOD. Not Pullitzer prize winning material, but good. I'd have bought a book if I'd had a $5 bill on me, but alas. One poem I remember is:

"The Quickest Way to Get to Riker's Island:
Take the D express train
Down to 34th Street,
And throw a brick,
Through the Macy's plate glass window."

Cute, right? So anyway, I was watching him walk down the car, selling his books and spitting poetry, and noticed as he passed a gentleman sitting, fast asleep, on one of the bench seats. He had that skin condition, the name of which always eludes me, in which his pigmentation varies in big blotches all over from black to pink. His mouth and chin and the tip of his nose were pinkish white, as was the skin around one eye, while the rest of his head was deep chocolate brown. The patterns gave him the appearance of having a muzzle, or a snout. But he looked peaceful. I noticed other people on the train looking at him, and I couldn't blame them--he was asleep after all, so he had no idea we were staring, and he was a singularly interesting looking person. I wondered if he was only pretending to be asleep to avoid the stares. Or if he was so used to them that he could relax enough on the train enough to pass out.

I got to work early, somehow, after being convinced I was late the whole way from the train. When I got in, the phone immediately started ringing and it's hardly stopped since, but I was told first thing by the guy who brings the newspapers to us on the second floor that our front desk man for the building, Steve, who has been a fixture of my mornings for 2 years now, died of a heart attack when coming up out of the subway on his way home last night. He was 54.

It struck me. Wow. No retirement party. No easy golden years. This guy who kept the building running, honestly, just stopped.

For some reason, every one of the weird events of this morning has just struck me as something significant. It's made me think about all the remarkable and weird things I've seen and done in my life. How everyone has these stories. How any moment, those stories could be silenced. It makes me want to call my parents and every person I love.

And of course it makes me want to blog.

The weirdness of my life escalates: or, it's been a while...

Well, my lovelies, it's been a while. And I don't think I've sat down for more than a few minutes of it. Well, aside from seeing "Inglourious Basterds" the other night, which I feel compelled to see again on the basis that it f-ing ROCKED. Although I have no time in which to do so. We'll see how it goes.

But, the weirdness of my life is escalating like a kid with no respect or fear for the escalator. I'm reaching dizzying heights of insanity here. I just got a TWITTER account for my new persona as a correspondent for Whack! Magazine, have been in touch with numerous folks in the adult industry about interviews over the past few weeks, have done more 'research' for my book in a very unexpected place, may have begun to be stalked by someone I met on a research outing (that has yet to be proved, though), and haven't really relaxed at all. I'm trying to figure out ways in which to get myself fired on good enough terms that I could collect unemployment, but haven't come up with anything yet. All my friends who are on unemployment seem to be living the good life, and having just spent the past two days being wildly productive at writing while at home, I think I may want to try their lifestyle. Only problem is, the gallery won't fire me unless I crap in the middle of their floor. They may be jerks about it, but they love me. It's an abusive relationship, but they do give me a kickin' health insurance plan, and if that ain't worth a little backhanded slapping from time to time, I don't know what is.

But anyway, I've been thinking a lot about porn lately, since I've been writing about it and planning to go to a convention next month (that's a whole other story). Last night I watched a documentary about John Holmes that featured a lot of footage from his films in the 70's and early 80's, and it really drove home to me the differences in the aesthetics of porn performers then and now. Back in the day you had lots of body hair, somewhat saggy boobs from time to time, flabby butts, and more or less real sex going on in skin flicks. These days it's often fake tans, fake dyed hair, fake nails, fake eyelashes, fake boobs, hairless genitals, and sex that, while real, isn't very often the kind of sex normal people are having. It's like a mechanical depiction of an act that carries in it nothing sensual, only sexual. It's like watching robots go at it.

No, seriously. I've been thinking a lot about the fake aesthetic of porn, and I've been wondering if the increasingly Barbie Doll appearance of mainstream porn stars is a result of the adult industry's typical tendency to take a good thing and go way overboard with it. Men like big boobs, in general, so porn takes the big boob ideal and turns it into a charicaturized monster-mammary fetish. Everybody likes looking tan and healthy, so porn gives us oompa-loompa orange stars. And so on. And the public watches it, maybe because we have to watch what we're presented with, or maybe--and here's where the robots come in--because we don't really like to think that these piston-like penises and hairless vaginas are really human. We don't like to think that the hardcore sex acts we're watching and getting off to are taking place between real people, because that implicates us in some kind of gross moral degeneracy, throws our own less-stunning sexual prowess into a very dim light indeed, and most of all, puts us and the people boning on camera on the same basic level as human beings.

So we buy up porn featuring people who don't look like real people. We go to strip clubs expecting the performers to be surgically enhanced Femmbots from Austin Powers. We hold them at a distance from ourselves, as something vaguely like ourselves and yet safely different, like robots who can have sex but with whom we have no fundamental similarities. It feels safer that way.

But it's not, obviously. I watch some of the porn being made today, both in big studios and for low-budget online enterprises, and it's all featuring intensely fictionalized faces, oversized cocks, spitting, gagging, violent humping, weird fringe acts that have become mainstream. And I think, these people are doing this because they know people want to watch it. We want to watch it because it seems fake. But the overlap is inevitable and it's got to be going on in bedrooms everywhere, and in the computer-lit basements of teenage boys everywhere, who are growing up thinking that this kind of behavior is normal. That these bodies are standard. That this is what a man is supposed to do to a woman, and vice versa. And that scares me in the same way that the idea of intelligent or morally informed robots scares me. It says something really terrifying about our view of ourselves and the things we create. We want them to be bigger, better, smarter, faster, stronger than we are, more than we want to be ok with what we've got and use it. Of course robots started as time and labor saving devices equipped to help us, but many robotics experiments out there are taking some of our basic human roles away from us because they are NOT us, like mechanized soldiers and battle bots, even companion robots designed to give the appearance of feeling love, or just to have sex with (see that picture above? that's what that is. a sexbot). We watch robot movies because they feature super-intelligent and super-sophisticated bots that are so human we must anthropomorphize them in order to villainize them in order to watch them, and again, there's that creepy overlap. And sure, porn started as a sexy alternative to our imaginations when we masturbate, but it's turned into this multi-billion dollar monster industry that caters to our cruelest instincts by turning its stars into nonhuman objects who just fuck and fuck and fuck away.

I'm not sure how to end this, but there it is. Food for thought.

Quick update: or, kind of unimportant ramblings after vacation...

Well, it's my first day back to work in the Big Apple after almost a week at my parents' house in the country. I hesitate to call it an actual vacation, since I spent my time there alternately running around between friends' houses, doing research for my book, working on some copy due this week, corresponding with editors, trying to track down a certain adult performer who forgot about our scheduled interview, attending a 1 year birthday party, and planning, preparing for, and executing a gigantic surprise birthday party for my parents. It was, to put it mildly, not exactly relaxing.

But, you know, when I came back to the city yesterday afternoon and was immediately pissed off by a woman in the subway who barked at me to move into the car even though I had literally no room to do so, then returned to a laundry-ridden apartment and a noisy street outside that made it difficult to sleep, I realized that even when I'm busy and stressed at my parents' house, having those crickets chirping outside sure does get one relaxed at the end of a long day. I don't know if it's just because I grew up with cicadas, crickets, frogs, owls, and all other manner of night-time fauna singing me to sleep, or if there's something inherently soothing abou their song, but I slept like a ROCK every night I was there, and last night could hardly keep my eyes shut for more than an hour.

Maybe I'll get one of those noise machines I've always scoffed at people for having in the past. My block is really very quiet, comparative to some others I've walked down at night, but there are always cars going by with their music too loud, alarms going off somewhere, and the inevitable late night mron who thinks that doorbells and cell phones are too high-tech and that screaming somebody's name outside their building is the best way to get their attention. A nice white-noise machine with some crickets might help me keep my city tension under control...

But, in other news, I have a fun, kind-of-NYC story to relate. It's only fun now that it's over, but you might find it interesting. On my journey back to the big city yesterday, my train stopped for 35 minutes in Philadelphia while the engine was switched. Before we got going again, a friendly middle-aged guy came and sat down next to me. He was a bit fidgety, but was reading a book called "The Poet's Handbook" or somesuch, so I decided he was pretty cool, and drifted off to sleep for a bit. When I woke back up ten or fifteen minutes later, I heard the oddest sound. It sounded like a muffled, high-pitched, conversational murmur, and it seemed to be coming from the guy next to me. As if he were having a closed-mouth conversation with himself. I pretended to be asleep for a while, listening, then made a pretty big show of waking up, hoping that it would shush him, since the sound was decidedly creepy. It occurred to me that perhaps the murmuring was his poetic process; maybe he was reciting a developing poem in his head, or working through the cadence of a new piece. But to me, it sounded as if he was talking to someone with his mouth closed.

My movement did shush him, but only for a few minutes. He fidgeted madly for a bit, half-standing and then sitting again, clutching his book against his chest, waving it in front of his face and thumbing the pages distractedly, before starting in on his murmuring. I ignored it, opened my own book, and tried to lose myself in its pages, but within a few minutes, his agitation had grown, and from the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of him slapping himself lightly on the cheek repeatedly, murmuring all the while.

This was getting a bit scary. The overall impression I was getting was that he was talking to a voice in his head, and was trying to slap it into submission, or to shut it up. Either way, I was not exactly comfortable sitting next to him. His fidgeting looked frantic, almost desperate, and the slapping was a bit over the line of what I'd like to call acceptable behavior on an Amtrak train. I briefly considered trying to talk to him, in hopes that it would distract him, but I was afraid that if I said the wrong thing or startled him too much, I'd send him right over the edge.

As it turned out, I just ignored him as well as I could for the hour and a half back to New York. It was not easy. When the train stopped, I waited until he'd already gotten in line to get off, placed a few people between him and myself, and waited until he'd already gotten to the escalator to get on it. All things considered, I suppose that if he
was hearing voices, he handled himself pretty darn well, but I was still just about as uncomfortable as I've ever been on a train. Poor guy. I hope he at least gets a poem out of it.