Master of Ceremonies: a True Story of Love, Murder, Roller Skates and Chippendales diary 9-03-08

Summer is dead. Long live Summer. I don’t think I had enough fun this summer. I’m going to have more fun next summer. Although on Sunday we did go out to deer lake deep in the sweet beautiful heart of New Jersey not that far from where I was born actually. It was such a beautiful day. All blue sky yellow sun green trees brown sand. Lots of New Jersey people lying lathered in sunscreen enjoying the last bits of summer. baby Olive, almost 1, had a grand time promenading all up and down the beach. She just invites herself to every party. All afternoon she would walk right up to little circles of New Jersey people lounging on the beach. And everyone wanted to party with baby Olive. She really lights up a beach. Luckily I am very comfortable in the second banana role, I played a lot of second bananas into my life, it can be really fun if you know what you’re doing. and baby Olive creates a seemingly endless string of opportunities for human interaction when she’s at a place like deer lake in New Jersey. And the water was so warm. I put baby Olive in the Australian crawl position and skimmed her across the lake slowly. Sure enough she kicked her little legs and she paddled her little arms just like a swimmer. She is a daughter of the water. A water baby. She gets so much joy from life. And so upset when things don’t go her way. She’s just so full of fun and passion. Baby Olive has a lust for life. I learn things every day from baby Olive.

THE VODKA, RICHARD SIMMONS, SCOTTISH BALLS, DOG YEARS, AND MURDER TOUR STARTS IN FIVE DAYS. I just want to document what happens to a writer when they go on tour. 18 events ending in Miami at the book Festival. I have a lot of love for the man behind the Miami book Festival, Mitchell Kaplan, that force of nature who invented Books and Books and made it the force to reckon with that it is, he is a true mensch. A man. In the best sense of that word. We had him on a pitchapalooza panel in Miami and he was so warm and funny and helpful. As I began preparing in earnest today for my tour, I had a horrifying paralyzing premonitions that no one will show up at any of the 18 events I’ve spent so much time and energy putting together. But then I confront my black demon dogs double dragon. And I say well what if no one shows up. Then I just have fun with whoever is there. And probably there’ll be other panelists there, they’ll show up I’m sure they will, and I really like everyone who’s going to appear with me. But okay, what if no one shows up at any of these events, all the other panelists will hate me, because I asked him to be here, i will have wasted their valuable time. Well, no one put a gun to the head of any of the panelists and said, “you have to do this event with David Henry Sterry!” And if somebody did, they should be arrested and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. I say that as an American. And if no one shows up, I’m sure the people who are putting on the event will feel bad about it and be nice to us. It will become fodder for some great story at some point later on. But again observe how my mind immediately usain-lightning-bolts right to the worst possible outcome as I get ready to embark on this odyssey. But instead of just letting it sit there and fester inside of me, I use my words. And once I realize the worst thing that could happen wouldn’t be that bad, the scary monster vanishes from under the bed.

So this is what a writer does, when they apply the putting your passion into print principles. This morning I drank my sad, saggy, sorry ass to a writer support meeting at the Montclair Library. Write group they are called. They do lots of different writing events, a memoir group, a writing group, they do an open mike. They were such nice people, Harriet Halpern was so warm, she already e-mailed me so sweetly. She has a very whimsical sense of humor. It was a support group, so we all talked about what we have done as a writer this week. I didn’t really say all the things I have done as a writer this week, because everyone only talked for about two minutes. So I felt like I should only talk for two minutes. So I just introduced myself. I have a natural tendency to oversell myself, having been in Hollywood, being the son of immigrants, so now I work hard to undersell myself. Or maybe I don’t need to sell myself as hard anymore. Then inevitably afterwards I’m sure no one truly knew how great I am. I’m not well mentally, I know that. People were talking about their difficulties with finishing projects mostly. I have exactly the opposite problem. I finished too quickly. That’s why I have to write so many drafts. Because I want to get done with it so badly. It’s a blessing and a curse. This compulsion to finish everything I start. But for me, just being at this writer support group was grassroot marketing. In fact I worked until 5 a.m. Monday night/Tuesday morning and I managed to make it to the 10:15 a.m. meeting of the writer’s group in Montclair. I was so exhausted. But it was fun to be with other people. I am a big believer in the writer’s group. The idea of it. I had the world’s greatest writers group in the Bay Area, the San Francisco Writers Workshop, I took it for granted. Tamim ansary, Scott James, Joe quirk, Jessie Singer, ransome Stevens, James Warner, and so many others. All these smart, funny, talented, hard-working writers, it was a privilege and a pleasure to get to exchange ideas with them about writing, which means life, love, sex, friendship, betrayal, denial, mental illness, mental health, joy, tragedy, in short the human condition. And also of course to swap war stories. That’s one of the perks of being in a war. You get stories. And It is especially gratifying to share them with people who have been through the war. Comrades in arms. That’s where I met khaled housseni, author of kite Runner. He is one of the nicest human beings I know. Full of grace and wit and charm, and in my interaction with him, becoming an international superstar of the book world hasn’t changed him one little bit in terms of how sweet and funny and generous he is with himself and his time. This is a man that I truly admire I can honestly say that. I thought the same thing about Will Smith when I worked with him. He was so sweet, good and big hearted and generous and funny. He was the star of one of the bigger shows on television at the time, and I was playing the English manager of a black chick rock star Will Smith was dating on the fresh Prince of Bel Air. first day I got onto the set, he came right over shook my hand and introduced himself and showed me where the food table was, and the ping-pong table and told me if there was ever anything he could do for me, don’t hesitate to ask. He made me feel so welcome. The fresh Prince of Bel Air set was so much fun. He did this great thing, Will Smith did, before every show, he would get everyone together in a big circle and lead us in this great interactive rhythmic chant it was so powerful and beautiful and fun. They also had a very lively ping-pong community on the fresh Prince of Bel Air set. Sherman Helmsley, who created George Jefferson, that iconic tiny angry black man who finally got his piece of the pie, he was on fresh Prince at the time, and I kept hearing about what a great ping-pong player he was, but I could never find him to play. I became sure he was ducking me. But I was extremely persistent. This is my nature. I pursued George Jefferson. It should be understood that I am a a very good ping-pong player. Very few people beat me. And I was hunting George Jefferson so I could kick his ass at ping-pong. In a good-natured friendly way of course. But I do have the overwhelming need to be the the best. To beat everyone. This is my nature. So I finally tracked him down. And we played. I really didn’t think he would be that good even though people kept telling me how good he was. While I am here to tell you, George Jefferson can play some ping-pong motherfucker. He jumped out ahead quickly. He was just so much better than everyone else I’d been playing. And he was very sly. While we were warming up he didn’t do any of his really fast hard or tricky shots, he just hit the ball back to me. So I was utterly unprepared for his barrage of amazing serves and slams and spins. But I was able to take my game up a level and I caught him. Suddenly it was neck and neck. I believe it was 15 to 15. Then I got a couple quick points. At that point he did something so strange that it still haunts me. He put his paddle down and said, I got to go take care of something. And George Jefferson just walked away. It was horribly unsatisfying. I thought it was not honorable thing for George Jefferson to do. And I could never find him to finish the game. Actually if you’re out there Sherman, I would like to finish that game. But I digress. Montclair writers group. It was fun. Sadly they have an event on Monday night, September 8. the same night I am performing at the Watchung bookstore in Montclair New Jersey, with Laura Schenone and Arielle Eckstut. That’s the start of the Vodka, Richard Simmons, Scottish Balls, Dog Years, Beefcake and Murder Tour. Five days away. Oh no, what if nobody shows up? I did a really fun interview with a woman named Melissa Rayworth yesterday from baristanet run by the amazing debbie gallant. She was very warm and funny. Really a nice person I got that sense immediately. Hard-working, diligent, easy-going, professional but totally fun. We just chatted had a really interesting conversation about memoir. And journalism and privacy and how when you say something in life, it’s totally different than when you see it on the page. It becomes more serious and more revealing dangerous. She seemed like somebody I can be friends with actually. A like-minded person. And sure enough, by the end of the conversation, she was pitching me her book idea. This happens to me over and over and over and over and over. And the thing is, Melissa has a really really good book idea. I have already talked to somebody about it, I think I have a perfect agent for her. I haven’t told her that yet. I’ll check in with her at some point today and let her know that. But it’s interesting to me, as I’ve tried to penetrate the book business, I realized early on, with my lovely and talented wife and former agent Arielle Eckstut, that there are literally hundreds of thousands of Americans who want to get their books published. And they just don’t know how to do it. And a lot of them have really great ideas. Many are talented writers even. They just don’t have the understanding of how the business works to even know where to start putting their material together and getting it in front of of people in a way that will make it into a book. And when we wrote putting your passion into print, Arielle Eckstut and I, we really tried to lay out principles for success in the book business that are easy to follow, and now that I’m following them with my own book coming out, I see how sound they are, these easy-to-follow principles. If I may say so. And who’s to stop me. It’s my fucking blog. it’s all common sense, but it’s the daily application of these principles that make the thing work. It took me so long to sell the sex worker literati book, my own publisher, Jamie byng of canongate books, who did Chicken and master of ceremonies, turned this book down. As did many many other publishers. but I kept hammering away and hammering away with RJ Martin by my side, kicking and screaming, and we went to publisher after publisher until we found the right one, soft skull. And they’re an amazing publisher. And the only reason they took me seriously was because of Elise canon, that incredible friend to writers, amazing seller of books, and all around excellent egg, who made a recommendation that I approach Richard Nash of soft skull. And by that time we had worked and worked and worked on the pitch of the book so finally, the query letter we wrote to soft skull was so spot on, they immediately realized the value of the book. I was able to articulate the value of the book, and I got in front of the right person, because I have been getting myself in front of people in the book business now for seven years. Networking, researching, writing. And persistence. These are the words we chant as a mantra over and over again with putting your passion into print. And that’s why I was at the writers group of Montclair bleary and sleep deprived at 1015 on Tuesday morning. Daily systematic activity designed to connect with the right people. And of course the writer group of Montclair is not only full of wonderful people who I enjoyed hanging out with, who energized and inspired me, they’re also exactly the audience for putting your passion into print. These people desperately need the information that is in that book. That is in my head now. I guess in the end this all points back to the new memoir: Master of Ceremonies: a True Story of Love, Murder, Roller Skates and Chippendales. Speaking of which, I got a really beautiful e-mail from a very talented writer named Alexandra Toumanoff, about the book. Here it is. Bear in mind that she did not write this for publication, just as a letter.

Hi David,

I wanted to tell you how much I like ROLLERSKATES now that I’ve finished reading the book. One of my favorite aspects is how emotionally human and vulnerable you make the beefcake sex symbol men, men who look so physically invulnerable. Prince Charming I find especially poignant. Even though I had wondered for a while whether Nick was gay, it still comes as a nice shock when you and Johnny discover porn collection (nice touch that it’s under tax returns). The romance with Johnny I find sweet and innocent, a nice contrast to the seedy surroundings. It brings to the surface an interesting fact–that beneath showbiz glamour everyone just wants to be safe and loved, and the Chippendales people were trying to mask that fact with sex, drugs, and big muscles. ROLLERSKATES makes clear how flimsy their mask really was while also describing that mask to the fullest vicarious extent. I find it fascinating that Nick de Noia established his company as a place for women to come and let loose, which is precisely what he would never let himself do. I see him as a sad, trapped person as well as a power-hungry tyrant. You humanize the Chippendales experience while simultaneously showing its faked, raunchy veneer.

Kudos too on the suspense. Each chapter of ROLLERSKATES had me flipping to the next one.

Your unflinching honesty makes the reader trust your narrative perspective completely. I find the part where Johnny has the abortion and you go to the prostitute searing, sad, and brave to share. What a raw portrayal of how someone lashes out when they are in emotional agony. It seems like a concentration of one of the main themes of the book–that people run from pain they can’t control and seek refuge in extreme pleasure.

Alexandra ps I disagree with the San Fran reviewer–I thought that you did a great job of re-creating life in the eighties and showing how the culture of the time allowed Chippendales to thrive and reflect back the decadence even more powerfully.

Thank you publicly, Alexandra. Well, that’s my two cents worth, and with inflation and I owe you one. David Henry Sterry