The Death of the Romantic Gesture

I wrote another piece for Thought Catalog called The Death of the Romantic Gesture. Somehow everything I do for them (er, all two articles) ends up being about love. I guess there are worse subjects. Apologies to my close friends, who have heard me talk about the stories told in this one countless times.

In the City of Shy Hunters

This has got to be one of the most beautiful book titles I've ever come across. It's by Tom Spanbauer. I've already read two of his others - Now is the Hour and The Man Who Fell in Love With the Moon. Both are gorgeous and magical stories about the soul waking its ass up.

My little sister suggested this new one to me, but warned me that maybe I shouldn't read it. I thought at first she meant because it's about NYC in the '80s and AIDS. (Although like any Spanbauer book, that barely scratches the surface - it's like saying All About Eve is about the world of theater, which may be the gayest analogy I've ever made.). She later told me it was because there's some incest stuff in there, but I'm pretty sure I can deal.

I'm only about one-third of the way in but I already need to share a couple of passages. (I'm editing them down for clarity's sake since they're out of context.)

The first:
The Jews have their mezuzahs, the Catholics their crucifixes, Native Americans their eagle feathers. It's a totem, something outside you to remind you that you have what it takes. Law of the jungle. You have to have an object so you can treat your struggle as if it were outside.

The second:
Most people construe shyness for standoffishness. But it is not. It is social terror. The Shy Hunter is terrified that others will destroy the truth within his heart. And so the Shy Hunter armors himself. No one surprises a Shy Hunter. Not even death, because the Shy Hunter has covered his ass, and thus armored, he watches and waits and studies meticulously hunting the world for prey. Prey not in the sense of of devouring or murder, but prey in the sense of hunting for the sore truths within another human heart. Prey for truth. The sore truth which is in your heart, so that I may uncover mine.

My totem used to be Clover. Now it's a heavy, silver wolf head I wear around my neck. And as for the Shy Hunter, I've never heard my methods described so succinctly. It's painful to examine. The third quote from this book is maybe the one that hits the hardest, and it's one Spanbauer keeps repeating throughout - Language is my second language.

This is how I've led my entire life. I have no idea how to communicate with the world except on an instinctual level. Every major decision I've ever made, be it for work or a relationship, is based purely on emotion, not rational thought or actual communication. It's pretty much a joke that I make my living by writing. Aside from the magazine stuff, it's my one attempt at trying to express how I really feel, and it always seems like an absolute failure. So thank god for people like Spanbauer who can reach inside me, mold my guts into words, and then offer them up to me as a gift. I think I'm going to have a tiny plaque made that says Language is my second language and wear it on a chain. It will be my new totem.

My first NY Times article!!!!

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/10/fashion/10BUMBYS.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

My Gay John Hughes Ending

Thoughtcatalog.com asked me to submit a love story for Valentine's Day, so I wrote this piece about my first year out of high school. My friend Carl dubbed it the year I accidentally attended "angel dust nambla camp."

Thomas Prior

I'm super into photographer Thomas Prior's series on dangerous recreation. I just bought a print of this image, which was taken at Blackrock diving tower in Salthill, Ireland. At low tide you can climb up inside, but during high tide, the water swirls up the staircase. Scary!

I think I like it because it reminds me of that scene in The Rescuers when Penny gets lowered into the black hole via bucket, and then the water comes rushing in, and she has to pry open the pirate's skull with a big sword to get the Devil's Eye diamond and Madame Medusa is all "Hurry Up!" and Snoops just jumps up and down looking like a big fat ginger pedophile.

Poor, Obscure, Plain, and Little

It's my niece's thirteenth birthday party today and I bought her a copy of one of my favorite books, Jane Eyre. This is a selfish present (wanting her to like the same things I like), so I also got her a gift card to Sephora and some Liberty of London journals, to soften the blow.

But hey, check out the timely coincidence! There's a new film version of JE coming out that not only looks as gothic and spooky as the book actually is, it even use a little bit of the score from Suspiria in it!

More trivia (and I've probably posted about this before): The movie I Walked With a Zombie is basically just a retelling of the Jane Eyre story. I tried to find a video of the scene where Betsy walks through the cornfields to the hounfort (look it up), but it's not out there. Despite its totally racist tones, it's one of the spookiest film sequences I've seen. Mainly because of the dead goat.

Art

Two things:
1) I think it's time I admit to myself that 80% of the joy I get from going to museums comes from looking at the people who are looking at art, rather than the art itself.
2) The Met's current show, "Man, Myth, and Sensual Pleasures" really only deals with one of those three things. And it's not the fun ones. Also - everyone in the 1400s looked like they had fetal alcohol syndrome.

Back from the Dead

I think I want to start posting here again. I went back on Suboxone around the time of that last post because I was getting nervous that I was going to relapse. There was a lot going on...the book was about to come out and a friend had just been murdered. I didn't trust myself.
But now that I'm almost 100% off of 'box, I feel like I'm awake to the world once more. It has its good and bad sides - I forgot about the constant blanket of crippling shame that I always feel when I'm completely myself, but my sense of ambition has returned.
Maybe one fuels the other.

New Life

I think I've come to the end of this blog. My new life awaits over at www.pillheadthebook.com, I'll be blogging in the news section there from now on. Thanks so much to everyone who has been following me here. It evolved a lot, and pretty much lost its original focus (didn't I start out anonymous??), but it's been a blast. xxxo

Done. Next...

I ended up writing that entire ghostwriting job in seven days after procrastinating for four months because I hadn't been paid. Now that it's over I don't have the same hateful feelings about my subject. We went over some edits on the phone tonight and then instead of just hanging up, we shit the shit for a while and I learned all sorts of crazy scandalous secrets about the show he's on. It's the type of stuff tabloids would have a field day with, but I'm going to take the high road and keep it to myself. Something tells me it's better to have that show on my side, and apparently right now they are. They all love the book, it's being passed around in between takes.

I found out yesterday that this guy who did heroin for the first time in my house after I gave him my old dealer's number has become a total junkie. I feel responsible and am going to try and help him get on a Suboxone program. He claims he wants to quit, and hopefully he means it. So few junkies really do, it's just something to say, like "I'm hungry," or "Where's my shoe?"

Come this this tomorrow. I'm not a judge this time around but it should still be fun. A writer that I've had a crush on is going to be there. I have no idea what he looks like but his writing style is super weird and funny and reminds me so much of my younger sister. Dear God: please make him cute and then make him have a crush on me.

I Guess Technically He's Right

I just came across this quote from my subject while combing through 268 pages of interview notes. He's talking to me after I asked him why he thought it was okay to not wear underwear to a job interview where he knew he would have to change clothes.

"You nasty little boy. I knew you were trash. I saw it in your eyes the first time we met. You pretend to be some innocent little country white boy. Yeah, right."

He also used up fifteen minutes of interview time yesterday to talk to me about fisting.
There's no emoticon for how I feel right now.

This Is What The Inside Of My Brain Looks Like

28,000 words to go.

Krull and the Fear of Vagina Dentata

I'm really catching up on my cinema this week! Last night I also watched Krull, a sci-fi/fantasy flick staring Liam Neeson and a bunch of unknowns who were trying to capitalize on films like Conan, Clash of the Titans and Beastmaster. The best thing it had going for it was a genuinely creepy scene with a giant spider trying to attack an old wise man. I think the reason the scene worked is because the spider was skinny and white, which is far more repulsive than thick and hairy. Which reminds me - I used to work with a woman at Toys in Babeland who had an irrational fear of white poop. The idea totally freaked her out.
Anyway, I spent the whole film picking apart its homoerotic undertones. I won't bore you with those, but I do think I need to point this out to you. Observe:

Our hero must enter this dark, mysterious and shaved cave as a boy, and emerge as a man with a tool he needs to rule the kingdom.

Inside the cave it is hot, wet and mysterious! He's terrified and doesn't quite know what to do.


It turns out that the secret he must remove from the cavern is a sharp set of teeth hidden deep inside! Once he plucks them from the moist depths he has conquered the hole, becoming a fierce warrior.

In other words, MAJOR VAGINA DENTATA SUBTEXT!!!!

Up With Dead People

I'm really off my game. A gay zombie movie has been out for a whole year and I didn't know about it! I discovered Otto; or, Up With Dead People by mistake on Netflix and now I feel just like I did when I finally found my retainer in the garbage that one time at McDonald's - happy and grossed out.
Everyone knows zombies are just metaphors, but this movie keeps upping the ante. Zombies and the eating of flesh represent pretty much every societal ill the film can think of - disaffected youth, AIDS, porn stars, porn itself, schizophrenia, heteronormal culture, gays acting heteronormal, idolizing Che Guevara, getting dumped, pollution, unsafe one-night stands, the fashion industry, independent filmmakers, and that's just off the top of my head. There's also lot of gay sex, even a cock shot of one zombie fucking a hole he's eaten into the side of his boyfriend, who he just turned into another zombie. Even more profound is the dialog, which runs along the lines of the following: "Considering that all the dominant discourses are defined and controlled by the ruling class, the first step to being a revolutionary is to act out against any consensual reality."
Word. But I'm gonna stick to stealing the fancy hand soap bottles from the Ritz Carton's lobby bathroom instead of boning someone's pancreas.

These Things Take Time

I've been speaking with the Brooklyn DA's office about providing a background deposition about George Weber's sex life and history, to help them build their hopefully already-solid case against John Katehis. John is trying to plead self-defense which is bullshit because A) he stabbed George 55 fucking times and B) George was a masochist, 100%. He never would have been the aggressor in ANY sexual situation. I'm also suspicious about the duct tape. George liked rope and he would have been especially safe with a new guy. This makes me wonder if it wasn't the first time they met up. I'm trying not to think too much about the whole thing, I've processed it as much as I can. In a way it's like a chapter of my life finally closing but before the door is shut for good I want to help make sure that demon kid is locked away.

In lighter news, I saw Morrissey perform at Carnegie Hall other night. He ripped off his shirt at one point and was shockingly buff. He sang "Death of a Disco Dancer," which will always have a special place in my heart because I slow danced to it once with Joe, my college housemate who died of cancer after we graduated. That same night I ended up hanging out with the actor who plays my favorite Gossip Girl character and had to listen to a tirade about "faggots" coming from the backseat of my truck. But later we met up with another of my favorites from the show, one who was really sweet and genuinely excited about my book and even wanted to get an early copy. So yay, maybe my book will end up on a coffee table in the background of the show someday!! Better that than Ann Coulter's new book -- that was the weirdest product placement I've ever seen on GG. And why the hell did they work it into the script?? A certain leggy blond Nazi must have a rather powerful friend at the CW.

Tomorrow I'll be attending the Nylon 10th Anniversary party. I will try not to get drunk and accidentally push Peaches Geldof off the balcony.

Still In Shock

A few posts down I mentioned that I heard about a 16 year-old kid who had posted videos on XTube, posing as an 18 year-old, so I took down the link to another XTube video because I had concerns about how old the people featured in it really were. Later I went back to reading about the kid and how he had killed a man. Then I saw a picture of that man. I know him. Intimately. A long time ago, when I was a very different person, he was a steady source of cash for me. I'll leave it at that.
I found this out an hour and a half before I had to leave for the big gala benefit. What should have been one of the biggest nights of my life floated in front of me like a blurry parade. It had no meaning, no resonance. I can't remember the name of a single person I met. I'm really lost and fucked up about this and my shrink is on vacation for the next two weeks and I have to interview the most vapid, insipid and self-absorbed F-list celebrity in an hour and I'm pretty sure that I am just going to pretend we have a bad connection, hang up on him and crawl back into bed.

Tonight's The Night

Tonight is my big major debut as the author of my first book. I have no idea how or why, but somehow my publisher got this huge institution to consider me worthy enough to host as a literary host for their annual benefit gala and award party. I'm on a list of co-hosts that includes Wally Lamb and A.M. Homes. I have to host my own table at dinner and entertain these huge donors and major lit types. I am fucking terrified. I've never even done a book reading before. And to make it worse I woke up this morning and my brain is playing one of its awful tricks on me again, making me doubt myself in every way possible. I have two hours to pull my shit together and fake my way through this night. Best case scenario - I have really fun stories to report tomorrow. Worst case scenario - I eat some pills, get tanked and hit on the married President of a rival publishing house before puking outside the Ritz and crashing my truck on the way home. God help me.

People On My Shit List

Kelly Bensimon - Congratulations, you wretched excuse of a human. You've done the impossible and made the rest of housewives look like somewhat likable people. Team Bethany all the way.

The Recorded Voice When You Call Time Warner - You sound like a smug, nasty old church lady who thinks that just because your husband is the organist you can piss all over the rest of the congregation. I get three words deep into your self-satisfied, smirking voice prompt and I want to hurl my cell phone against the bricks and scream scream SCREAM!!!!! Please die.

That's it, everyone else is golden.

The Cutest Li'l Porn Stars

I stumbled across a gay porno last night made by this guy who goes by Chrezzz, aka Tobey aka Christian. It does nothing for me sexually, since these guys look uncomfortably young, but they are so adorable in a My Little Pony kind of way. It's really intimate, weirdly innocent, and once it gets going becomes totally mesmerizing and more like an art film than anything else. The music at the very beginning is awful, but around 1:14 this really awesome Go-Gos meets surf rock meets heavy breathing kicks in and makes the whole thing really fun.
Watch it here. If this guy really wants a porn career I bet he's going to go far, but I kind of hope he gets it out of his system and goes into real filmmaking. He's a tiny genius.
UPDATE - I took down the link to this after reading that a 16 year-old kid who is suspected of murdering a radio announcer had an Xtube page claiming to be 18. NOT COOL and now I just feel creepy and gross for posting this since these guys really do look ridiculously young and I should have realized that site has no real way of determining someone's actual age. Ugh.

I MUST OWN THIS RING

It's the one worn by ladies who either graduated from or are currently enrolled in Miss Porter's School for girls, home of the evil secret society of rich girls called the Oprichniki, named after a 16th century Russian torture squad. Thank you NYT. I am now officially obsessed.