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.