Master of Ceremonies: A Story of Love, Murder, Roller Skates and Chippendales Diary: October 14, 2008
When I was 19, on spring break from Reed college, I drove from Portland, Oregon to San Francisco, California. And the first place I went I got to Baghdad by the Bay was City Lights Bookstore. I parked my bike on Columbus Avenue which is full of Italian restaurants, seedy bars and thriving strip clubs. I stared at the huge plate glass windows of City Lights, a wide-eyed jaded ridiculously optimistic completely torn apart teen, I dove into the ocean of all those books on display and all that mad radical fanatical fight-the-power pen-is-mightier-than-the-sword rabblerousing destroy-the-greedy-lying-
So when I walked up to City Lights on Tuesday night October 14, 2008 to do my first ever reading at tabernacle of literature, the horny ghost of Allen Ginsberg kissed me sweetly on the cheek while copping a feel, and I flashed back to when I was 19. For me to be there reading my book, to become part of that living breathing tradition of defiant literary disobedience, that belief that the world can be made a better place through the power of books, it rushed through me and I was connected to the life force that flows through all living things.
Peter Maravelis, the House Booker, who edited the San Francisco Noir book that he commissioned me to write a story for (and which got me a Henry Miller Award nomination) was so gracious and welcoming and warm and said such nice things about all of us. And me. Made me reflect on how far I’ve come. When my first memoir Chicken came out, I wanted so desperately to do a reading at City Lights. But I couldn’t. No matter how hard I tried. So now I’d come full circle. From having been an awestruck kid to a frustrated newbie author, to being, tonight, the headliner.
We packed the place. Again it was so glorious to see Beth Lisick and Alan Black show up, ready to rock. And again, I just found myself transported listening to them read. It’s fascinating to listen to people read the same piece of material night after night. I see the skill involved in making it seem fresh and new. I feel blessed and lucky I got to absorb so much of Alan Black and Beth Lisick.
There were many friendly faces. Spiky biker theater magician mogul Ty McKenzie. Cheerleader fashionista and fantastic writer Katie Sweeney. New author poet food fanatic Rosanna Nafziger. Best-selling author networker and sexual trendsetter extraordinaire Scott James. Master organizer and gal about town Deborah Krantz. Stacy Lewis, a great ally of the book and all around good egg. Elise Cannon, that great friend to writers everywhere, and the woman who helped me get the deal for my new anthology Ho’s, Hookers, Callgirls and Rentboy’s: Prostitutes and Sex Workers Writing on Life, Love, Money, and Yes, Sex (Soft Skull, 2009, co-edited by RJ Martin).
Danielle Svetcov, author, agent, chef and power mother, joined Beth and Alan and myself on the memoir panel. She had such smart things to say about the memoir from an agent’s perspective. What separates the good memoir from a sucky one. A story with a narrative that moves forward. Beautiful writing. Characters that come alive. Shaping a beginning, a middle, and an end out of the seemingly random events that we call life.
Alan was talking about how when you write a memoir you take on a role as narrator. It’s a part you play. A certain piece of yourself you reveal. I never thought about it quite like that. But having been a professional actor for 20 years, of course it resonated. I’ve taken an aspect of my personality and put it on the page. And the character that I present, the brand that I have carved out for myself, is this: On the outside I am the guy who looks like your normal next-door neighbor, who’s cutting his grass in the summer and shoveling snow in the winter. But underneath I am this American Beauty-David Lynchy lunatic sex addict drug addict hustler hookerbanging PTSD suffering self-destructive maniac. I will take you to extreme places in myself and in the world, these weird little pockets of humanity that most sane people never go to. I say the unsayable. Reveal the unrevealable. I am the poster boy for freaks. And here’s the crazy part. I always thought that if I revealed the monster I am, people would be repulsed and repelled. Just the opposite. It’s counterintuitive. If you reveal the worst things that ever happened to you with some style and a little wit with healthy dollops of self-deprecating humor, people are drawn to you. They want to know they’re not alone in the world. That other people are as bizarre as they are. It’s a great comfort and relief. Which again validates my central thesis: We’re all freaks.
And once again, in the Q&A period, people wanted to tell their stories. Talk about their struggles with writing down their lives and making a book out of them. One guy a real radical ex-hippie guy standing in the back, gave a fantastic rant about how authors these days so concerned with making money, how much advance will I get? That’s the question that someone had asked moments earlier. He went off about how Franz Kafka wasn’t trying get a six-figure advance when he wrote his books. He wasn’t thinking about how he was getting it on Oprah. He was just trying to write great books. Hippie dude postulated how in this day and age there is a very good chance no one would want to publish France Kafka. I had to agree.
And that’s what I love about City Lights. About San Francisco.
So then we sold a bunch of books. I went out and partied hard with some of my old San Francisco writer chums.
And it was good.
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