End

AVN reports adult film star Missy has died from an apparent accidental overdose of prescription medication. She was 41. Very sad. Years ago, I met Missy on the first porn movie set that I was ever on. The movie was "Flashpoint." She was very tiny, very blond, and very pretty. She spoke in a girly voice, had a wild mane of blond hair, and was very, very sweet. At the time, she was married to Mickey G. Sometime later, they broke up. These days, I don't know if he's still in jail from the trouble that he got himself into after that or not. Before I ever got to Porn Valley, Tom Junod wrote a beautiful piece about the two of them for GQ. Junod wrote: "They will use love, Michael and Missy will, to triumph over the basic truth about pornography: that it is a world composed entirely and endlessly of flesh, and so is a vision of what the world looks like with the soul removed." Now, it all seems like a long time ago.

Suicidal Girls Are the New New Thing

It seems girls jumping off buildings are the new black.

Which One's Real?

Some people say Sasha Grey is the porn-to-mainstream promise of the future, but I always thought that it should be Justine Joli. Smart, pretty--the kind of girl that makes men's eyes bleed. See?

U-Turn?

Yesterday, the phone rang. I answered it. Then, I just about fell off my chair. At one point, I asked: "Can I ask you a question? Is this a joke? Am I being punked?" The person on the other end of the other line assured me that he wasn't kidding. Anyway, we shall see, won't we? Life is a fucking mystery. These are its enigmatic blessings. Thank you, Mr. You Know Who You Are. The world is a transient hallucination. Pornography springs eternal.

From The Anus Of My Research

Recent research for my novel includes: the Los Angeles River, the Glendale Narrows, and the flood of 1938.

"A man who drives a large truck for one of the ice companies lives a block from us ( or DID): when the flood hit they apparently thought they could get out in the truck, for when daylight came we could look out and see the truck with the nose hanging down into a hole, the water halfway up on the windshield, and the rain wiper was running right along, back and forth, just above the water, and it kept running some four hours after we first saw it. It looked funny, working away just above the surface of the water."

Somebody told me to write every day, so I do that. Somebody said about 1,000 words a day, so I do that. Somebody said in the morning, so I do that, too. Right now, I pretty much do whatever they tell me. I figure if I do that, they'll let me out of this place.

The Wednesday Wank

"also gotta say there's part of me that misses your long crazy RC posts but i take heart in the fact that you're busy writing long crazy passages in the valley..." -- email

Well, yes, there is that. Part of it is that I'm working. The other part of it is that I finally decided to heed somebody's advice. I'm working on the novel.

Sometimes you have to keep the fireflies in a jar.

(Or, put another way, between the page and the noose, I'll take the page.)

"I won't let you be happy! Why should I?!" -- Don Logan, "Sexy Beast"

Supergirl

Daphne Guinness for Vogue Italy by Steven Meisel: 1, 2.

Quote Of The Motherfuckin' Year

"Susannah Breslin whines, engages in way too much self-puffery, and sometimes finds time to also write about sex and porn..." -- Just Sex Portal [NSFW]

Penis Penis Penis

Of course, we left off The Hydra, The Impaler, The Labradoodle, Goliath and The Davids, and Portrait of The Phallus as a Young Penis. Oh, well. Guess we'll have to do a sequel.

DFW on XXX

"Mr. Harold Hecuba, whose magazine job entails reviewing dozens of adult releases every month, has an interesting vignette about a Los Angeles Police Dept. detective he met once when H.H.'s car got broken into and a whole box of Elegant Angel Inc. videotapes was stolen (a box with H.H.'s name and work address right on it) and subsequently recovered by the LAPD. A detective brought the box back to Hecuba personally, a gesture that H.H. remembered thinking was unusually thoughtful and conscientious until it emerged that the detective had really just used the box's return as an excuse to meet Hecuba, whose critical work he appeared to know, and to discuss the ins and outs of the adult-video industry. It turned out that this detective -- 60, happily married, a grandpa, shy, polite, clearly a decent guy -- was a hard-core fan. He and Hecuba ended up over coffee, and when H.H. finally cleared his throat and asked the cop why such an obviously decent fellow squarely on the side of the law and civic virtue was a porn fan, the detective confessed that what drew him to the films was 'the faces,' i.e. the actresses' faces, i.e. those rare moments in orgasm or accidental tenderness when the starlets dropped their stylized 'fuck-me-I'm-a-nasty-girl' sneer and became, suddenly, real people. 'Sometimes -- and you never know when, is the thing -- sometimes all of a sudden they'll kind of reveal themselves' was the detective's way of putting it. 'Their what-do-you-call...humanness.' It turned out the LAPD detective found adult films moving, in fact far more so than most mainstream Hollywood movies, in which latter films actors -- sometimes very gifted actors -- go about feigning genuine humanity, i.e.: 'In real movies, it's all on purpose. I suppose what I like in porno is the accident of it.'

Hecuba's detective's explanation is intriguing, at least to yr. corresps., because it helps explain part of the deep appeal of hard-core films, films that are supposed to be 'naked' and 'explicit' but in truth are some of the most aloof, unrevealing footage for sale anywhere. Much of the cold, dead, mechanical quality of adult films is attributable, really, to the performers' faces. These are the faces that usually appear bored or blank or workmanlike but are in fact simply hidden, the self locked away someplace far behind the eyes. Surely this hiddenness is the way a human being who's giving away the very most private parts of himself preserves some sense of dignity and autonomy -- he denies us true expression. (You can see this very particular bored, hard, dead look in strippers, prostitutes, and porn performers of all locales and genders.)

But it's also true that occasionally, in a hard-core scene, the hidden self appears. It's sort of the opposite of acting. You can see the porn performer's whole face change as self-consciousness (in most females) or crazed blankness (in most males) yields to some genuinely felt erotic joy in what's going on; the sighs and moans change from automatic to expressive. It happens only once in a while, but the detective is right: The effect on the viewer is electric." -- a footnote from "Big Red Son," Consider the Lobster, David Foster Wallace

Gordon Gekko Gets Laid

Wall Street is in the crapper. What are the boys of the Street doin'? Lookin' to get laid on Craigslist, that's what.

"'Was Laid Off from Lehman Brothers—Sex Party Time!'" pronounces one soon to be underemployed solicitor poster.

Read: "Lehman Brothers Are Lookin' For Love On Craigslist."

I Think There Are Tire Tracks On My Head

All I have to say is that I am fucking exhausted. I mean, really. Alex Balk, you are my hero. If I drank, this is when I'd start drinking from a bucket. If my friends come alookin' for me, tell 'em I'm at the Frisky.

The Devadasi's Tale

William Dalrymple has written a really terrific story about devadasis for The New Yorker: "Serving the Goddess." In India, some devadasis are something akin to sacred whores. And what makes the piece great is that Dalrymple gets out of the way and lets the story tell itself.

"'You see, we are not like the ordinary whores,' Rani said, as we finally got to her house. 'We have some dignity. We don't pick people up from the side of a road. We don’t go behind bushes or anything like that. We spend time with our clients and talk to them. We are always decently dressed—always wear good silk saris. Never T-shirts or those miniskirts the other women wear in Bombay.'

We had arrived at Rani's door. Outside, suspended on the wall, was a cubbyhole stall selling cigarettes and paan. Her younger sister was sitting here, handing out individual bidis and other cigarettes to passersby. As Rani led the way in, she continued, 'You see, we live together as a community, and all this gives us some protection. If any client tries to burn us with a cigarette or to force himself on us without wearing a condom, we can shout and everyone comes running.'

Inside, everything was immaculate. The space was divided in two by a large cupboard that almost touched the shack's roof. The front half of the room was dominated by the large bed where Rani plied her trade. To one side, on a shelf, were several calendar pictures of the goddess. In the back of the room was a second bed--the one Rani slept in. Here were pots and pans, stacked neatly in racks, and below was a kerosene burner for cooking. On a cupboard was a large mirror and Rani's family photographs: pictures of her son and her old boyfriend--a handsome man with a Bollywood-film-star mustache and dark glasses--and beside that were passport-size shots of her dead daughters. Both were pretty girls, captured smiling when they were around twelve or thirteen.

Rani took the photographs from my hand, and replaced them on the cupboard. Then she led me back to the front half of the room and indicated that I should sit on the bed. I asked her whether her auspicious status made any difference to her clients when they came to be entertained.

'No,' she said. 'There is no devotional feeling in bed. Fucking is fucking. There I am just another woman. Just another whore.'"

Welcome to the Valley

Here's another excerpt from my novel-in-progress. The new working title of the book is The Valley. That's because it's based on my experiences in Porn Valley.

"'Sick,' Xerxes mutters under his breath, staring at the stack of pancakes in front of him. That was one way to describe his mother. Sick. Sure. If chronic tachycardia, anterograde amnesia, and near catatonic hypersomnia, due to thirty-odd years of excessive by any human measure, mind-boggingly self-abusive, and wantonly addictive daily ingestion of diazepam constituted an individual, or, say, an individual’s mother, being 'sick'--if that, well, then, yes, his mother was sick. If bathroom drawers stuffed to the gills with prescriptions filled by half a dozen personal doctors, not a one of which knew of the others, and a now dead father who knew of every single one of them, for he had paid every one of their bills, because God knows she couldn’t, for popping pills was the closest thing that she had ever had to what could all too generously be called a 'job'--if that, well, then, yes, his mother was sick. If falling asleep at the wheel while driving him to his first day of school, if falling down in the grass in one’s housecoat on the way to the mailbox and not even trying to get back up again, if falling face first into a plate of chicken and peas not two feet from his own, while his father pretended not to notice but instead took another bite like nothing was happening, while the walls were crumbling all around them--if that could be considered a 'sickness,' a 'disease,' a 'problem,' well, then, yes, his mother was sick. Absolutely. Why not? Yes, Xerxes decided. If all that, then: Yes. His mother was very unwell, indeed." -- The Valley

Beautiful Androids

"On a California summer afternoon, the industrial landscape of Sun Valley — a stretch of gravel pits and salvage yards next to the Golden State Freeway — seems to quiver against a backdrop of cloudless sky and the Verdugo Mountains on the smudged horizon. Here, deep within the Apex Electronics store, Laura and Kate Mulleavy are carefully excavating a hoard of insulated wires. 'The Teflon-coated ones have the most intense colors,' Kate says as she uncoils several inches of blazing vermilion wire, a remnant from a local aerospace firm. Kate, 29, and Laura, 28, are sisters, artistic collaborators and partners in Rodarte, the three-year-old fashion label based in Los Angeles." -- "Double Vision"

Best Sex Writing 2009

So, barring any last minute editorial changes of mind, it looks like an essay I wrote for Newsweek, "Dear John," which was based on my experiences editing Letters from Johns, will appear in Best Sex Writing 2009. The anthology was edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel, selected and introduced by Brian Alexander, who writes the "Sexploration" column for MSNBC.com, and published by Cleis Press. The release date is January 2009, although you can pre-order it now if you just cannot wait. Another essay I wrote, "A Porn Valley Story," appeared in Best Sex Writing 2006. It's always nice, I've found, to be in the Best Sex Writing anthologies, because it's always nice to be deemed one of the best at what you do, even if that in past years entailed dodging cum puddles on bukkake shoot floors.

Meat & Me

This weekend was a little nutty, and I got a little crazy, and along the way I got a note from the post office saying they had a box for me. But the return address listed on the note was wrong, and I got all in a tizzy wondering who it was from, but then I remembered my friend Siege had said he was going to send me something, so I emailed him and asked him if it was from him, and he said yes, it was him, he had.

Today, I went to the post office, and there was a big wait, and me and this other guy got all in a state because no one would come and open the door that stood between us and our boxes. We rang the doorbell several times. We complained. There was no answer. Finally, someone came to the door, and opened it, and the other guy got whatever he got, and then it was my turn. I handed over my slip and my ID, the latter of which was rejected, and for a long time the man in the post office disappeared, rummaging through all the boxes for all the other people.

I stared at the floor and thought of other things. When I looked up again, the man had returned, and I peeked over the door, and there was a giant box next to him. I laughed. I said is that for me? He said yes. I considered I hadn't gotten a box that big before in my life. Do you know what's in it? he asked. I said I did. It's a photograph, I said. It's a big photograph.

So the man handed me my giant box, which I carried down the street (it took two hands), and I put it in the back seat. I wondered the whole way home what photograph was in it. Was it a porn star? Or a penis? Or something else altogether?

I got home. Now, the box and I were alone. I got a big knife from the kitchen, and I cut open the box, and I put my hand on what was in it. It was a photograph, the one you see here, and here.

It's the meat girl.

It's really beautiful. I love it. She's on my mantle.

Thank you so much, Siege.

Sometimes the things you need the most come when you most need them.

Coming

"There is a hurricane coming inside my head..." Autumn

The Rise and Fall of the Online Armchair Critic

"Introducing the Twiller... It's about a man who wakes up in the mountains of Colorado, suffering from amnesia, with a haunting feeling he is a murderer. In possession of only a cellphone that lets him Twitter, he uses the phone to tell his story of self-discovery, 140 characters at a time. Think 'Memento' on a mobile phone, with the occasional emoticon." -- "Introducing the Twiller," Matt Richtel, New York Times

"At last, Timesman Matt Richtel has explained why he's posing as a female hooker on his personal Twitter account: He's writing a novel, 140 characters at a time. No, no, wait for it — he's invented a new genre of fiction which he's calling the 'Twiller.' ... But his online tale fails." -- "New York Times Hooker Tweets Explained, but Bad Writing a Mystery," Owen Thomas, Valleywag

"I could easily spend thousands of words detailing how fucked up Gawker is, but that's not what I want to do (don't get me wrong though, the pitifulness of Gawker is well-documented). I want to do what no one else in my position has ever really done--I want to hold Gawker accountable for their bullshit. It's time someone stood up to their shameless hypocrisy and pseudo-nihilist snark. It's time someone called them out. They think they are arbiters of taste, of culture, of cool, but in reality they are nothing more than armchair critics, sitting on the sidelines shitting on the efforts of those who try, while too afraid to do anything of their own." -- "The Gawker Call Out," Tucker Max, I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell

Valley Daze

The other day, I came across the website for "9 to 5: Days in Porn." In a nutshell, it's a documentary about life behind the scenes in Porn Valley. Over the years, every time a book or a movie or some other project like this has come out, I've wondered if this will be the one that gets it, finally. So far, they never have. I haven't seen this movie yet, but this is the only project in the last dozen years, where I've thought, watching the trailer and clips: This guy gets it. The site is filled with tons of footage and interviews, including one with director Jim Powers, who, if you read this blog, you know a spent some time writing about, and who influenced the director character of my novel-in-progress, Happy. In "9 to 5," Power opines of the porn industry: "I work in a shit factory. I'm knee-deep in it." The film was directed by Jens Hoffmann, and I cannot fucking wait to see it.

Don't Trust Your Weakness

Over the last couple weeks, I got distracted in my novel writing process. I went to New York, and I was busy, and then I worked on the novel, but it was hard to get back into it. Like putting on an old pair of boots.

This weekend, it clicked. Usually, there are a lot of voices in my head. Hurry up. You're not fast enough. You'll never finish. A cacophony that works against the creative process, to say the very least.

But I got over it. I forced myself to work slower, and so for a while I did, but when I took the time to get it right, I found that things moved faster. There's a very long and complicated scene that involves Vegas, poker, and luck, and there are other parts with robots, and dead men on trains, and fugue states, and I just stayed in the maze of it until it all started to make sense.

Yesterday, I rewatched part of "Raging Bull," my all-time favorite movie.

It was inspiring.

"Gimme a stage where this bull here can rage."

Maybe sometimes you just have to find the right stage upon which to stand. Or pour enough ice down your pants. Or beat the shit out of yourself. To get it right. Finally.

[Image and title via the always beautiful This Isn't Happiness.]