Chaos Noir

There’s been some controversy regarding the Shirley Shave blog. A woman named Anastasia wrote a long post about it. Basically, she accuses me of having no integrity. She calls me an "amateur," a "disgrace," and "repulsive." She writes: It's a disgrace, and an insult to women who do work in the sex industry for a male to pretend to be a female sex worker. Overboard, but it is still interesting to debate whether it’s a bad thing to have posted the blog.

I replied:

Frankly, I don’t think this is that big a deal. I couldn’t get the novel published so I published it as a blog. It’s unlike the recent scandals because I didn’t make one dollar off the blog. I side with James Frey in the scandal. It’s the publishing industry’s fault that they prize memoirs over fiction and don’t give a lot of fiction a chance. No memoir is 100% true, so it shouldn’t make a difference. No fictional character is 100% false either. Shirley’s supposed to alive, she’s supposed to be real. There’s some truth to her story, or else nobody would have paid attention.

When do I ever call myself the "best" writer? You know what? It was fun to post the novel as a blog. You call it a "disgrace." It’s a blog, a writing experiment. I can understand some feelings of betrayal, but there are far more disgraceful things. This blog doesn’t hurt anybody--the same argument people make about porn. I admit to feeling guilty about the duplicity but it was also satisfying to finally get readers for a book which took a lot of years to write and a lot of work.

She wrote in the comments on her blog:

I think if I had not been aware of the pretense, that if Henry had been intelligent enough to eliminate that blog (rather than try to squeeze every little bit of life out of it for an ego boost to flog his story), then it would be no big deal.

I’ll give her that. I’m an opportunist. I want to be read, I want people to know I’m behind the Shirley Shave blog. It wasn’t just about getting "God’s Wife" read, it was about establishing myself as a writer.

She also wrote: He basically did what many do, thought he'd get his cheap thrills online through a blog, to compensate for his other inadequacies.

Am I missing something? I had been expecting this reaction. Some people would take it far too seriously. Others would have a sense of humor. People on my end thought it was a funny and interesting thing to do. Not a war on integrity. It was actually a really rewarding experience. Look at the comments to the post The Price of Admission. That’s cool if it’s fiction or not.

I can understand feeling betrayed if you got attached to her as a person and thought she was real. I can understand being embarrassed for being duped. But repulsive? I mean, really. It’s a blog, not rape. It may have been fraudulent, but it was also a way to experiment with a new medium. It was interesting to see how people reacted to a fictional character. I enjoyed it. Plain and simple. I’ve said my piece.

Beautiful Blemish

Kevin Sampsell is my hero. If you don’t know, he’s in charge at Powells Books in Portland, OR, and he runs Future Tense Books. At my reading at Powells in March, he told me he remembered me and my query letter. I inquired about sending North of Sunset to Future Tense. He said there wasn’t space on the list. This was two years ago. Unprecedented for me that someone in publishing would have that deep a memory. So he’s on my good side.

I ended up liking his book too. I found it inspiring. Made me want to write. I haven’t read much flash fiction. The stuff I’ve read seemed half-ass, not much more than a blog entry, called a "story," a paragraph long and submitted to lit sites. Seems like cheating to me. It's hard to do something in that small a space. Richard Brautigan did it well, Sampsell does it well too. These stories have actual weight, even when a page and a half or less. Sampsell knows how to end a story--the last sentence is always important in a short story and maybe even moreso in flash fiction.

Guess I’ve been reading a lot lately. I don’t know why I haven’t written consistently about books in the past. I like it. To answer Empty Drum’s question of how the hell I find the time to read, the answer is: Olivia, my daughter, goes to sleep at 7:30. I’ve basically got no social life so there’s plenty of time to read.

Here’s an update on my actual life, if you’re interested:

I only want things when I can’t have them. Just found out my microphone is broken. I brought it to record the Dan Fante reading recently and it died. Now I’m cursing fate because I’m not able to record, even though I might not have cared if the microphone was working. The time when I want to write fiction most is when I’m working a paying job. Cursing that all I want to do is write fiction. When I have actual free time, I waste it. I need to use my energy better.

Been working on a song about how my wife and I isolate ourselves. Sort of have since we met each other. We want to change that bad. I’ve inherited some agoraphobia from my grandmother. I’m a fairly self-conscious person out in the world. Assessing and re-assessing myself. And think other people are doing the same. Truth is, people are too busy scrutinizing themselves to wonder if I’m a trembling weirdo.

Last weekend, we were superior parents. Went to Shakey’s pizza on Friday night. Played a bunch of games where you win tickets and won Olivia some plastic rings. Saturday, went to the beach, saw dolphins, played in the cold ocean and the sand, went to the Santa Monica pier, tried to win Olivia a Curious George doll by knocking over some things with a baseball, did not succeed, bought a milkshake instead, went to the toy store with her later to buy a gift for a party the next day, where Olivia hit a piñata and won some more plastic rings, later went to my parents where she played with her cousin, then we ate Mexican food. I guess we have some social life because we were invited to a real, live party. We need something to do this weekend.

Myspace Music Review

Because I’m a total addict for attention these days, I recently submitted my myspace page to the Myspace Music Review and didn’t think much would come of it. It was just reviewed and it’s the best thing anybody’s written about my songwriting.

Good thing: I can hear his up and down moods swinging like a metronome inside the melodies, and detect razors of regret, the pump of a busted heart, and even the rippling heat-glow of sexual as well as other present and future tensions. Strangely, all this agita makes me feel good – if only for the moments I’m listening, but that’s what it’s all about, right?

He also writes: There is a slight (f)riskiness about the music, like the tunes came to him first, and the lyrics are shyly unsure of their connection to the chords.

That’s pretty astute because that’s exactly what happens with most all of my songs. I write the music and melodies first and then struggle to fit them with lyrics. Interesting that he could hear that.

He also says: This is honest music that sounds like it was made by a once-uncool kid with uncommonly cool closet tastes. Music played by someone who loves listening to a lot of stuff.

He hears my inner life-long nerd who’s spent as much time collecting other people’s music as playing my own. Probably more.

Read the whole review here. If you’ve got a band with a myspace page, submit it here. Thanks go to the reviewer, who’s got a cool blog of his own.

Prisoner of X

If you can look at that cover and still not want to read this book, then I don’t know what to tell you. What I would give to have a caricature of myself done by Dan Clowes. Actually, he sort of already did. It wouldn’t look much different than this:



I wrote an article for Hustler but I never met Allan MacDonell. I never even dealt with him. I got hired by the features editor. This is the best book about the porn industry I’ve read, and I’ve read a lot. All of my research for God’s Wife was in book form. I’ve never met a porn star in the flesh, never been to a porn set. I am sure I got a lot wrong. I was told that people in the porn industry were wondering who she was. So I got something right.

Great to read about the industry from the perspective of a writer. He sort of paints himself as a loser who the sex workers would mostly ignore. He was the editor of Hustler Magazine. Didn’t he have slutty, starry-eyed girls throwing themselves at him? Maybe this is my little boy fantasy of what it’s like to work at a magazine like Hustler. Mostly it’s a lot of hard work, like any magazine, with some very demented stuff thrown in, which is nothing like any magazine. Magazine Man should read this book. Can’t imagine he’s had the same experience.

He also paints the girls who pose as all depressed and soul-stripped. I have to imagine some of them were psyched to be in the magazine. Hustler is high end in a certain universe. I’ll take his word for it. He worked in the place for two decades, somehow. Larry Flynt seems like a terrifying nightmare. A hard-ass who gets delivered strawberry shortcake from a Beverly Hills bakery in bed. Amazing that A.M. was able to work under Flynt for five minutes, let alone 20 years. I would have folded early, like on sight.

My only criticism is that there are no paragraph breaks. A new subject will start and there’s no break in the action. Pretty minor. All in all, great to read about the sex industry from someone on the inside who’s not a sex-crazed lunatic.

Go to his Myspace page and make the book a friend. He’s also reading at Skylight Books in L.A. on May 12. I'll be there.

Bowie Burroughs

Found at Posthuman Blues. How cool is this. Burroughs and Bowie pictured together in 1974, for an interview in Rolling Stone. Somehow never seen this picture. I just got Diamond Dogs in the mail yesterday. I had it on L.P. but it was lost in a move. I love that record. It’s like Bowie doing Andrew Lloyd Weber but listenable. Crazy operatic, recorded around the time of the interview with Burroughs. Click on the picture for the interview.

Scarecrow

The new Scarecrow is out. You can read a chapter from North of Sunset: pages 178-181 in the book. I haven’t read through the other stuff yet but Scarecrow is always good for good reading. Real glad to be a part of it. One of those places I saw and thought, man, if I could only be a part of that. There’s going to be a NoS review next issue. Things going well for the book recently.

Dogmatika II

There’s an interview with me up on the Dogmatika site. Susan really outdid herself. Check it out.

Night Train

My last story got rejected by Night Train. Damn them. A form letter too. Last time they wrote me a nice note. I thought this story might even have a chance. My story: "Camera Shy"--a title I stole from myself. It’s the title of the first novel I wrote. The main character, Sally Cooper, is the same name as the character in the novel. Those are the only similarities. Night Train was my first choice but also a longshot.

My War

I like this. The Flaming Lips were due to not make one of the best records ever. It sort of feels like a B-side from Yoshimi, that they still had some energy left over, so they went and started noodling in the studio. Some beautiful songs, especially "The Sound of Failure." It’s not as demanding of your time as Yoshimi or The Soft Bulletin, but sometimes it’s nice to not be demanded.

I feel the same way about this record:



I listened to it five times in a row yesterday. Other records of his like The Shape of Jazz to Come or This is Our Music are great but I can only take them in small doses. Piercing, it reaches a part of your soul that you don’t always want reached. Tomorrow… is a bit more straight. Might be because Shelly Manne is on drums.

I’ve also been listening to this:



I know it’s not a popular opinion but I’m going to go out on a limb and say: Jimi Hendrix was a good guitar player.

I once went to a folk show in Boston. A drippy hippie got up on stage with her acoustic guitar and said, "People don’t talk about it much, but Bob Dylan is a really good lyricist." She then launched into "Blowin’ in the Wind."

I am full of opinions these days. Take two weeks off the blog and my opinions come back haywire.

Dope

Another not so good review. Part of me feels I shouldn’t do this. Bad Karma, especially now that my book is sitting in the hands of reviewers. Another part of me thinks it’s bad opportunism. I should write a glowing review and forward it to the author, maybe she could help me. Another part of me thinks why bother writing a bad review: it’s not like she’s selling hundreds of thousands of books, she needs the help just like any writer, I’m sure she’s a nice person whose heart is in the right place. Most of me just wants to write what I think.

I found out about his book because the editor, Mad Max Perkins, who wrote the blog Book Angst 101, posted about its release. It was interesting to me that the book was a noir book. I figured he’d be editing hyper-literary books that had nothing to do with me. The book’s about a former junkie who’s hired to find a young junkie in the streets of fifties New York. Sounds up my alley.

Started liking it at first. It was refreshing to read a hard-boiled female narrator. Part of the reason I wrote Shirley Shave was because I wasn’t reading a lot of fiction with female protagonists that had any kind of hard edge--sort of an Underground Woman. The female writers I like are harsher: Katherine Dunn, Joy Williams. This is going to sound like sexism: a lot of female writers are unwilling to be ugly. Another way of saying that is they don’t go to a place that interests me. So it was interesting to read a female character with a male voice. Her name’s Josephine and people call her Joe. If you picked this up in the middle it would take a while before you figured out it was a female narrator.

Which is actually sort of a problem. I’m contradicting myself. The problem is that the narrative doesn’t stray at all from noir prose of the past. I kept wondering when the book would go in some new direction, but it doesn’t, it feels from start to finish like a pulp book from the fifties. Except not as weird as Jim Thompson. It never paints outside the lines. I think she feels she’s being daring because it’s a female narrator and she’s a recovering junkie--but neither of these are that unique in pulp literature. It also gives it a sense of history to be looking back on the NY streets. But it’s not quite The Alienist or Luc Sante either. I think the book might be for people who have never read a crime novel so it seems like an amazing window into a world. It is cool that the book is marketed as "fiction" and not "crime," that it’s not being pigeonholed.

This review only comes from 23% jealousy. I’ll admit, I was reading wondering why this book is getting the full mainstream press treatment when I’m not. But I also wanted to like it, and I started to, until I found the book never wavered from its formula. And it’s not just about me, there’s a slew of other crime novels being written. It could have a home on a place like Soho Crime. I don’t know why this one got picked up and others didn’t. But then, publishing doesn’t make any sense.