This Sort of Thing Is Exactly Why I Don't Have a Literary Agent

I've had four literary agents in four years. I guess that's something I'm supposed to be ashamed of? Or something.

When I lived in LA, I never had an agent, but that was then, and this is now. You know, it's just so hard to compete with people getting book deals when their books are filled with photographs of loose meat.

The whole point of agenting, it seems to me, is to take whatever the person is doing, and package it into something that is as marketable as possible to as many people as possible, which sort of sounds like you're in the business of selling chum.

But I don't want to be chum. I want to be Kobe.

Here's a problem for you. (To be clear, by "you" I mean "me.") I'm going to Porn Valley next week, and you know how I feel about that? You want to know how I really feel about that? Underneath all the caterwauling, and the rending of skirts, and the gnawing at wrists?

I feel bored.

The thrill kill cult it is no longer. Where have the world's biggest gangbangs gone? Bukkakes are yesteryear. Extreme is mainstream.

The only thing left is snuff, and it's best faux-purveyor has gone and got himself locked up.

They Shoot [Redacted], Don't They?

God, I wish I had a fucking cigarette. Why did I quit? I miss you.

In 1998, I moved to Los Angeles, and over the following five years I wrote about a lot of things, and one of the things that I wrote about was the adult movie industry. It was a very interesting time in the Valley, because Clinton's "screw that" attitude towards obscenity prosecutions and the increased competition presented by e-smut dictated that the porn industry become increasingly more extreme. And so it did. To compete. And because it could. Isn't it funny to think a president helped porn become more hardcore? (That's rhetorical.)

When I was around the biz at that time, it was -- well, it was fucking nuts. There were apocalyptic gangbangs, and bukkake (American-style, that is) was born, and gonzo porno was looking to get harder and faster and push things further than ever before.

I saw a lot of things. Some of them were pretty fucked up. Some of them were grotesquely beautiful. Everything was fascinating. That's how it was. That's how it is. That's the kind of place the Valley can be.

Eventually, I left the Valley, and other things happened, but I never stopped thinking about the Valley, not even for a second. When I had something of a breakdown in early 2005, during which time I spent most of my time thinking about various ways I could kill myself, it was hard to tell if I was the problem, or if the Valley was the problem, or if something else was the problem, or if my insides were some kind of Gordian knot that I could not untie no matter how hard I tried, or if I would ever unravel the story of my life.

Then, things got worse, worse than I ever could have imagined, and it appeared, at least to me, that the sky inside my head would be black forever. But after that, after what seemed like forever, things got better. Maybe. Some days, I'm not sure.

Now, I'm going to back to the Valley. In a week. To do a story. But what's the story, really? Is it about the Valley -- or is it about me? Or is it about something around the bend that I cannot yet quite see, no matter how far I crane my neck, no matter how I toss and turn as I sleep?

It's hard for me to say, from this vantage point, what the Valley holds.

TGTWIO

TGIF. That is all. Now, we will proceed.

This week on Slate's Double X, I wrote about the Spitzers, Monica Lewinsky, and Neil LaBute.

At the Frisky, I covered banana rolls, Star Trek porn, and studs.

Everything else went to Twitter or Tumblr.

Have a great weekend, because that's what great weekends imply.

Lick

I love this. Marilyn Minter's "Green Pink Caviar." [via Siege]

The Pornographer Speaks

"Porn sleeps for no one." -- porn director, email. [Image: Nevver]

Hell-Ay

Yesterday, I booked my trip to Los Angeles for the feature story I'm doing on the adult movie industry. I'll be there for about a week. I'm staying in Hollywood. I'll be driving back and forth over the Hollywood Hills, which divide the real Hollywood from the Other Hollywood, just like old times.

I got a camera. I will be taking photographs, as well.

At this stage, there is a lot of talking on the phone, a lot of poking around the Internet, a lot of jotting of random notes that will be revisited in several weeks and deemed incomprehensible.

There's a bit of a balance to be struck here, between planning and chaos. Some things I expected to be happening while I'm there are not, but you never know what will happen when you are where you happen to be.

I guess it's sort of like this photograph. I went out on the front porch to take some test shots, so I could download the photos onto my computer for the first time and figure out how to use the software. I took some shots of bright flowers in pots that looked like photos taken by someone who had escaped from a Hallmark insane asylum. After a while, I jutted my arm out and took this random snap of the trees against the sky, of which someone said: "The tree is like a dendritic forest--like a slide of the brain of a rat who'd been raised in an enriched environment."

A rat in a maze.

Regarding the Matter as to Why I Never Responded to Your Email

Hi there,

I'm a brazilian journalist from São Paulo, Brazil, and this message is to congratulate you for your work, to tell you about a ficction work I am doing and to make a confession.

First things, first. I mean, the confession. I have seen you lots of times on Playboy TV, at the Sexcetera program. And I have to tell you that you were one of my favorites reporters, along with Frank and Hoyt. In the sense that you were the ones that worked better the funny concept of the program. Actually, I loved to see how confortable you were naked. [For the record, I was never naked on that show.] And, frankly, I never believed that a beautifull blondie like you would have so much journalistic skills. And when I saw your resume and the work you do, my face turn red instantly because of the realization that it was a huge prejudice. So this is also an official apology

Then, I am trying to put together a story on internet relationships, sexual or not. And I'm doing research about that. Can you point me some good sources? And, just for my curiosity, what's your take on that? Because we are from the generation that saw the internet born. First, we have to invite the girls to the prom, had dates and so on to get to bed - at least before and after the '70's. And, now, you go to the internet, enter a chat room or put your profile on a relationship site and it's like magic, you get laid. What do you think about it?

And, least of all, your piece at The Daily Beast. Well, your point is right, but you're not considering one tiny thing in that matter. We, men, normal men I have to say, have to work our asses to hard to get a conversation with a normal girl. (In the internet, this is going down like a card's castle, because you don't have the visual, but then you have the date, when everything is back to normal.) What to say about getting her to the bedroom? It's too much swet. In contrast, a normal girl can choose, select and make whatever she wants, because her "ass" always is the target. And I am not considering the other variables, with cute men and ugly girls, and cute women and ugly guys, and so on. So, I agree with you in terms, because of the women's lib and the american puritanism and everything. But this is only one facet of the whole story.

Hope you enjoy this letter!

All best,

[redacted]

Miracle Friday

Was it a miraculous week? I don't know. Time will tell.

This week on Slate, I wrote about the Obama sex frenzy, the enduring attraction of Sarah Palin, and the critical condition in Congo.

At the Frisky, I wrote about why you're fat, why you're in drag, and the world's tiniest brothel.

I twittered about everything else.

And, I'm out. Have a great weekend, because ... because ... because. Well, just because.

The Horror, the Horror

Is the Internet as full of wonderful things as it used to be? Sometimes, I wonder. Perhaps it's just become harder to find the wonders amidst all the chum. If you have a sick sense of humor like me, you, too, may enjoy this delightful comic. Found via the incomparable Nevver, Bernie Wrightson's 1984 "The Potty's Over" is wonderfully, obscenely, totally NSFW.

Sex Wars Catfight

Yesterday, my "Sex Wars" piece ran on the Daily Beast.

At Salon's Broadsheet, the always savvy Tracy Clark-Flory offered up her typically nuanced take.

"Women might be able to make out with another girl at the bar, get spanked, called dirty and demeaning names -- but those things are hardly transgressive in our (pornographic) sexual culture. Is it OK for them to want to spank and demean a man? Is it cool if they expect their boyfriend to perform oral sex, but don't return the favor? What about if she expects an orgasm every time but doesn't care a whit about giving them?"

At Jezebel, Megan Carpentier proffered her view on the subject with the grace of a felled wildebeest stumbling to its knees on the Serengeti floor.

"The patriarchy hurts men too. Damn, that just slipped out. Sorry, Susanna, I guess I just can't stop myself from caterwauling about it. It's so easy sometimes — but I guess you probably noticed that when you were writing your story."

In the end, Debauchette twittered the true insight of the night.

"Funny how jezebel discourages men from voicing rape fantasies, then chalks up their silence to the patriarchy. Jezebel: the new patriarchy."

The Daily Beast

My first piece for the Daily Beast, "Sex Wars: Sluts vs. Losers," in which I virtually mud wrestle with Grant Stoddard over the current state of the sexual double standard, is online.

"Over the years, the mainstreaming of pornography, the rise of the Internet, and the single-handed crotch-flashing efforts of Britney Spears have brought sex to the forefront of public discourse like never before. Yet, despite all this so-called 'progress,' I’ve found that it’s women who remain subjected to the sexual double-standard. The evidence is written across the Internet."

Read: "Sex Wars: Sluts vs. Losers."

Shooter

Last week, I started chronicling the "story" of creating a feature story I'm doing on the adult movie industry. This is the first story I've done with this editor, so last Friday I shot her an email summarizing all that had come together thus far. I got an email back from her today asking a few questions and pointing out a few things to bear in mind.

There are lots of different ways to do a story like this. One is to have "your story" be the lead story that takes the reader through the story. Another is to have the story tell itself. In all likelihood, I'll be doing the latter. I'm not nuts about writing about myself. Maybe if I was Hunter and freakin' on acid, I'd make a different decision, but generally I'd rather be a shadow character.

I had also asked her if she was interested in photographs to go with the piece, and she said: Yes. And suggested the possibility of a companion slideshow. And I found that to be very interesting, indeed. For a variety of reasons, now more than ever, I'm interested in taking more photographs. To be honest, I'm probably more excited about taking the photographs than writing the damn thing, probably because I'm so damn used to writing, and I'm so not an expert at taking photographs.

Way back when Nerve had a brief run as a print magazine, I did a piece on -- I don't know -- it was either "freak porn," "bukkake," or -- I think it was "freak show porn." (Ah, the shame of my so-called career never ends.) When I was about to head out, the editor asked if I would take some photographs, something I'd never done in my life in any professional capacity, so I borrowed the digital camera of my boyfriend at the time, and went to the bukkake, and I took some photographs. I think they're around here somewhere, but I don't know.

Now the prospect of taking photographs is thrilling to me. I haven't taken any photographs since 2005, so I may try starting with a camera suggested by Clayton Cubitt, who is a real photographer. That's a Panasonic Lumix DMC FX-150K, and I could say a lot of different things, but the bottom line is that it's cheap as fuck and Terry Richardson uses one.

I'm really excited about the idea of taking more photographs. My brain changed in the last few years, and I think the idea of what I'll be doing with the camera is a lot more like how I experience life now, and while sometimes that is not a good thing, sometimes you have to do the thing to get to the thing, to get through the thing, to get to the other side of the thing. And that's why I'm doing this story at all.

As a sidenote, I've added my Twitter feed to the sidebar of this blog. It's got random thoughts, quotes, and other inanities, if you're into that story of thing.

You Don't Know Me. You Only Think You Do.

Oh, FUCK YEAH! It's Friday. Everyone is happy. It's time for the week in review. Also, it's raining.

On Slate's Double X, I spanked Julia Roberts, spanked Meghan McCain, and spanked lady bloggers.

At the Frisky, I considered the gold digger, broke my heart, and batted my lashes.

Plus, I'm on Tumblr and Twitter.

Things are progressing well with the feature story in progress.

I need to sleep more, do more yoga, and figure out how to cut off my head with a butter knife. Then, everything will be fine.

Have a great weekend! Because one day, you'll forget it ever happened. And that'll be sad.

Deep Cover

In the last few days, I wrote about pitching the feature story I'm doing on the adult movie industry and the process of starting to assemble the story itself. Today, the engine started making chugging noises and the wheels began to turn.

There were a lot of emails and telephone calls. So far, things have been going well. The important sources are proving interested, which is like having a gate opened into a garden that you wanted to go into and in which you hope to find Alice, and the ones I expected to be assholes are being assholes, so I'll likely avoid them.

As I go along, I compare some of this process to what it was like when I covered the adult movie industry for the first time over a decade ago. In a way, things are a lot the same. At the same time, they're different. People are more media-friendly, which is good. For the reporter. And the shitload of content on the web makes everything easier. No more stacks of adult video cassettes stored in closets and drawers.

You also don't have to work so hard to make the fucking point -- to, say, an editor, or, say, a reader (or, say, you). Most (many? some?) people see porn as either ridiculous or interesting (both of which are correct), and more people, it seems, agree there is at least something in it work talking about. And that's what writing is. Talking made fancy.

I'm contacting a variety of different types of players. The idea is that you set up a scene, a situation, a world into which you will enter, and then things never go as you planned, something else happens, and you pray to God that whatever that is is a blessing, or a curse, but in either case is something that you can use.

One of the agents I've had in the last few years encouraged me to read The New New Journalism, a collection of interviews with some of "America's Best Nonfiction Writers on Their Craft." It includes a wonderful interview with Gay Talese, who wrote one of the best profiles ever written.

He's asked: "And how do you decide whom to interview?"

I don't know who the characters are at the beginning, I don't know the story, but I do know the stage of the theater. I find the characters by simply showing up at the "theater." As I spend more time in there, they emerge. It's almost as if I imagine them, and then, they mysteriously appear.

And that's exactly how it happens. You wait for divine grace and hope you do whatever one is supposed to do to deserve it. After that, you write it all down.

How We Operate

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The Pitch

So, I thought I would try something new here. I'm going to be doing a feature story for a publication that will remain unnamed for the time being, but you can probably figure it out if you try. The story will take me to the San Fernando Valley, and it will focus on the adult movie industry. It has a more specific focus than that, but I will refrain from stating what that is at this time. That would sort of be like delivering your money shot at the front of the movie, and then why would anyone watch the rest?

I'm a freelance writer. I work various writing and editing and other related gigs to pay the bills. These days, I have one steady gig, and I work other gigs around that. I've been a freelance writer since 1997, when I wrote an exceptionally idiotic article for Details about how to date a tall woman. God, that's embarrassing. As a freelance writer, or at least in my experience of it, you're always juggling, and pitching, and working on things in various states. It's like being a circus clown, except nobody ever laughs.

Ideally, you want to have ongoing relationships with editors, so you're not cold-calling or cold-emailing editors all the time -- especially in this economic climate, when lots of folks are cutting back. Sometimes, you have to pitch an editor a lot of ideas to land one. (That is typical.) Sometimes you score a home run on the first try. It's like the wind. You never know which way it will go. This can be "exciting." It can also be "soul-killing."

In recent months, I've been working with an editor. She is a female. I've done some shorter work for her, but over the last while I've been pitching her various longer feature story ideas, some of which haven't worked out for a variety of reasons, including one that I couldn't do because the subject figured out who I was and was basically, like, "Oh, hell to the no." Such is the nature of this beast.

This week, we came to a meeting of the minds on a feature story idea. Then, the negotiations begin. After you get a "yes," you start hammering out the details. Depending on the situation, this usually involves pay, word-count, and deadline. This can be an easy part, or this can be a sucky part. And there is no "right answer" during this phase, because several factors may be at work for a story. For example, if you really want to do a story, you may accept less money for it. Sometimes, you will accept a stupid assignment if the pay is sexy. Sometimes, you will even do gigs for free. For example, I recently did a piece for Fray for free because it enabled me to do whatever I wanted, it was for their upcoming sex and death issue, and it allowed me to write about The Letters Project. It all depends.

Today, the editor and I haggled over these issues. There's a lot of feigning and shucking and jiving and disco dancing around during this part, because sometimes you BS to get more money, and both parties are kind of testing each other's limits. For example, I got twice as much money out of one editor while I was standing next to a dumpster and talking to him on the phone. Other times, though, there's not a lot of haggling to be done. I don't think it's a no-no for me to say very politely and terrifically vaguely that this piece isn't paying a ton, and while I'm still hemming and hawing with the editor, I've essentially decided to go ahead and accept what she's offering. Why? Because I want to do the piece. Period.

As that part of the process gets sewn up like a post-op cougar after a vaginal rejuvenation, you start moving forward on executing the piece. After I'd pretty much decided to do it, I reached out to one key contact for the story. I'm waiting to hear back from that source, and what that individual says will inform how the piece proceeds from here. Once you decide to move ahead, it's sort of like sailing. It all depends on the waves, and you kind of have to ride them. There's only so much you can control. One person points you in one direction. Another person points you in another direction. It's all a matter of how you negotiate the distance. The point is to return, like Odysseus.

In any case, my intention is to make this process transparent. Late last year, Wired attempted to make transparent the process of profiling filmmaker Charlie Kaufman -- a terrific idea that was executed with the grace of a blind man falling down a flight of stairs. The arena of celebrity profiles is overseen by ball-gagging editors and whip-wielding publicists, so it really wasn't much of a surprise that it failed and proved more meta-heavy conceit than daring execution. I guess I'm trying to do something like that here, but more, well, hardcore, as it were. Which I guess is fitting, isn't it?

My aim is to create a daily log of the creation of what I'm calling "Untitled Valley Story." I hope you will follow along, or not, as you see fit. Here we go.

Shit

I don't really have all that much to say, for two reasons. One is that all the random shit in my head or that I see or whatever goes here. The other is that I am sort of in this mini-limbo, while I wait for the final nod on this story it looks like I'll be doing. The story will take me back to the Valley. It's been a while. I'm just waiting.

OMGTGIF

OMG! This week totally sucked. And then it totally didn't. (Knock on wood.) Finally, I appear to have landed the story of my demented fantasies. Hopefully, it won't fall through. In any case, here's the rest.

I blathered on about everything and the kitchen sink on Twitter.

On Slate's XX Factor, I was cranky, I scored a front page link thanks to a misogynist beaver, and I was sort of feminist for, like, a second.

At the Frisky, I rocked chainmail stockings, considered the cyclops, and got to know Dr. Manhattan's penis.

Hopefully, I will be going to Los Angeles in April. We will see. Have a wonderful weekend because I am giving you no other choice than to do as I say.

The New York Times Does Not Want Even The World's Tiniest Nipples On Its Website

For his Paris runway show yesterday, designer Gareth Pugh elected to show a fashion film of his collection, rather than send real live models down the runway. You didn't have to be in Paris to see the movie, though. Nick Knight's SHOWStudio debuted the video online in tandem with the Paris screening attended by the fashion elite. But when the Times posted a shot of the Pugh video to their fashion blog, The Moment, it appeared something was missing. One shredded top clearly exposes the model's nipples. When the same image appeared on the Old Gray Lady's website, her nipples had been Photoshopped out of sight. (Click for bigger.)

Frustrated? Why, yes. Yes, I am.

Here is another excerpt from my novel, which is currently titled NOTHING IS REAL BUT THE GIRL, which is pretty fitting, seeing how it needs some rewriting, has no agent, and no publisher, all of which would indicate nothing about it is real except for me, and that, in and of itself, is, of course, questionable. Anyfuckingway, if you want to hire me for some kind of freelance gig, you should let me know, because every damn story I've placed has fallen through, which sucks the proverbial balls, and everything else I've pitched hasn't stuck to the wall, not yet, anyway, just dribbled down to the floor, leaving behind a long line of suspicious, odiferous matter. So, on with the excerpt, on with the show, on with the next soul-bleeding hour.

Drake Walter Raleigh looks down at this penis, and from what seems like a hundred jizzillion miles away, his penis stares back up at him. The cameras wanting, the crew foot-tapping, the director barking, what Drake is having a hard time doing is remembering the lines that he spent this morning practicing, after he stayed up all night, tossing and turning, falling out of bed at 6 a.m., worrying about getting wood. He can see the angry red dot where he injected 20 micrograms of freshly-scored Caverject into his pincushioned corpus cavernosum with a 30-gauge needle, a black market ritual performed in the pseudo-privacy of the trailer toilet, the floor littered with the detritus the girl had left behind her: an empty douche bottle and a drained enema bottle. He barely had time to apply his self-tanner, do a few pull-ups, and they were calling for him. These days, he can’t sleep, waking to bolt upright from night terrors in which he has elephantiasis of the penis, is felled by fatal priapisms, gets stabbed to death by pissed off starlets bearing sharp knives they clench between their teeth like Xena the Warrior Princesses. On this day, this he-can’t-even-count-that-high number of on-camera performances over the last seven and a half years later, he sweats under the unforgiving midday sun, staring helplessly at his otherself, and resigns himself to the indisputable fact that he no longer rules himself. He has succumbed to the merciless demands of his undeniable penis and its insatiable addictions: women, alprostadil, stardom. He knows whatshername is wondering what the fuck he’s doing, Let’s get this over with already, but he can’t remember her real name, her stage name, or her character’s name, and anyway, it occurs to him with a sinking feeling, his erection isn’t the issue, it’s how to pop when your penis is a robot that’s the fucking problem.

Twit

My Electric Life

Snow. Outside, it's snowing. The sky all heavy, the branches all laced with white.

A Reverse Cowgirl primer:

At this blog is where I post longer things. Things with more words.

At my Tumblr, I post a quote and an image every day. It's more arty.

At Twitter, I'm putting up various things, but that's the place to go to catch all the random weird and beautiful links that I come across over the course of a day.