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.