Pulp Friction?

I would KILL to know what someone left in this book drop outside an elementary school on the Upper West Side! A dozen saucy guesses BELOW.

Dorothy Parker Can't Lose

 

Sage advice from the queen of the Algonquin Round Table. 

My late brother Bill’s "The Elephants of Style" will also work in a pinch!

On a personal note: This was a pub-day gift to him from his widow, who after 29 years has decided to sell their Capitol Hill home -- a decision that has opened the floodgates. Suffice to say It's been an emotional couple of weeks for my family. xo

Stocking Stuffers: 15 LGBT Books to Gift This Christmas

A book always makes a great present -- especially with less than two weeks to shop before Christmas. See my suggestions BELOW.

Five Questions for Tim Murphy on His New 1980s-Lookback Novel, 'Speech Team'

I'm pretty sure the first time I discovered Tim Murphy was during his stint as Man on the Street for the Intelligencer, when he boarded le Jeanne d'Arc -- a French naval ship "full of well-groomed, effete Gallic seamen ... in well-fitting outfits" -- for its final mission. (Je regrette to inform you that New York magazine no longer has the video up, but rest assured both he and the mariners were magnifique!)

Over the years I have marveled watching him continue to hone his craft -- with everything from deft reporting on HIV/AIDS and LGBT issues to anti-gun efforts and acclaimed novels like "Christodora" (2016) and "Correspondents" (2019) -- and have enjoyed occasionally running into him at various events, such as the premiere for the documentary about the famed Meatpacking District diner Florent. (RIP.)

And now Tim's back with a new novel, "Speech Team" (Viking), which tells the story of four 1980s high school brainy nerds -- two of them gay guys -- who slowly and awkwardly reunite 25 years later, in the year 2012, to go track down together the teacher/Speech Team coach who was both a mentor and a psychological abuser to all of them. (The story certainly resonates with me, who has cyber-sleuthed my former tennis team coach but have never confronted him.) Not only is it an intense time machine back to the 1980s -- the music, the clothes, the news events and (most of all) the pre-woke microaggressions -- it's a bitchily funny and surprisingly moving tale of trying to find closure for past hurts, reconnecting in the Facebook era with forgotten friends of youth and struggling to shake off the damage of the past in order to live fully in the present. 

Murphy, whom you may also know from "The Caftan Chronicles," his popular gay interview Substack, took a few minutes to answer some quick questions about the novel. 

Kenneth in the (212): This novel is so much shorter and faster-paced than your prior ones, "Christodora" and "Correspondents." What inspired it?

Tim: The desire to write a shorter and faster-paced novel than the last ones! Seriously! That was part of my intent, to write more of a propulsive summer beach read. But it was really sparked by meeting up with two friends from high school I had literally not seen since graduation day in 1987 -- one of them gay like me, the other a Jewish woman -- and revisiting a lot of the abuse and bullying we endured. I wanted the story to turn on the question: "What would happen if we confronted people years later with the awful things they said or did to us? Would they admit it and apologize? Genuinely or disingenuously claim no recollection? Get angry?" And the follow-up question: "Would doing so make us feel any better?"

Kenneth: A lot of the novel is about how hard it was growing up gay, or even being perceived as gay, in the pre-woke, pre-"Will and Grace" 1980s. Do you think things are all that better today?

Tim: Obviously there is still a lot of anti-LGBTQ animus out there, as we can see from the slew of horrible, hateful laws being passed against transgender healthcare, bathroom choice and LGBTQ books and school content. And certainly young queer or trans people still get bullied. I think the difference is that today there is language for it, like "homophobia" and "transphobia," and it's understood that this is wrong and that there may be serious repercussions for it. There was very little sense back in the 1980s, especially with AIDS-phobia, that queer people were to be respected and left alone, never mind affirmed. It was open season on queers at school and it was just "how things were," or "kids being kids." And that very much went hand in hand with all the unexamined racism and sexism of the period as well.

Kenneth: What were the most fun parts of writing the book?

Tim: I loved writing the character of Anthony Malouf, this working-class ethnic queer kid who grows up to be this fancy, haughty menswear designer who is quite lonely underneath all the glamour. And recreating all the details of daily 1980s life was really fun -- the radio hits versus the indie scene, the different genres of fashion (mainstream neon, indie overcoats and combat boots), the iconic news events like the Challenger explosion or Baby Jessica falling down the well. And also just writing characters gossiping about one another after 25 years apart was fun. 

Kenneth: What was the hardest part?

Tim: That it is so autobiographical in many places. It brought up a lot of pain and damage I'd mostly pushed down or thought I'd somehow gotten past through time, age, and therapy. I also just felt very exposed writing a main character, Tip Murray, so obviously based on me as opposed to tucking little aspects of my own life or personality into various characters, as I've done in the past books. 

Kenneth: What are your favorite things about the 1980s?

Tim: The music, for one thing. It was the first hardcore decade of synthesizers and drum machines and that opened up a whole new emotional sonic palette, a lot of it really beautifully dark and moody, like the Cocteau Twins or New Order or The Cure. But also so much amazing non-synth indie music like The Smiths and R.E.M., so full of ruefulness, cynicism and discontent about the Reagan and Thatcher eras. I also love the fashion -- not the neon aerobics stuff but the earth-toned indie stuff and the New Romantic stuff. On a more personal level, it was the decade, in high school and college, when my life really opened up to literature, theater, music, film and journalism, which is why, in pursuit of more of this stuff, I moved to NYC in 1991, right out of college, and have never left!

You can buy "Speech Team" on Amazon or at your local independent bookstore. If you email a screenshot of the receipt to timmurphynycwriter (at) gmail.com, he will donate $3 to Lambda Legal, which fights in U.S. courts for LGBTQ rights.

Remains of the Day (09/05)

Dennis Anyone?: "I just love a big dumb hunk," says "Male Gazed" author Manual Betancourt

NYT: When Coco Gauff and Zendaya need tennis tips, they ask Brad Gilbert 

BBC: Delta flight makes U-turn over diarrhea incident

WaPo: Raid, arrests at Venezuelan gay club provoke fears of new persecution

FriesenPress: Another gay Republican, but with an underwear twist

NYP: Police ‘confident’ they have a suspect in gay slay of Detroit neurosurgeon Devon Hoover

CNN: Meet Fabian Nelson, Mississippi’s first openly gay legislator

The WoW Report: Remembering gay composer John Cage

GoFundMe: If you adore Coco Peru as much as I do, please consider helping the drag legend keep her elderly mother in her home

Birthday Boy: When we adopted Harvey in June 2016, we were told he was roughly 1.5-2 years old. As a nod to my late father, we decided to make our baby's birthday Sept. 5, which means Harvey is 9 today (and my dad would have been 91!). Happy birthday, little boy. I don't know how we'd have made it through these past seven years without you. xo

Gr8er Days: Jimmy Buffett, who became a mogul with just one Top 10 hit, dies at 76

Washington Blade: Maxine Waters to deliver keynote at U.S. Conference on HIV/AIDS

NYT: No sweat. Frances Tiafoe would like a fresh shirt now.

Reuters: Nigerian court remands dozens in prison over alleged gay wedding

People: Gary Wright, 'Dream Weaver' singer, dead at 80

Hot Cat of the Day: This kitty's definitely not out of the bag. (Harvey is a sucker for a Trader Joe's paper sack!)

Calendar:

Very excited to be seeing the hilarious Sam Pancake -- who pops up in just about everything ("Search Party," "The Disappointments," "Saved by the Bell") -- this Saturday at The Green Room 42. Check for tickets HERE -- and say hi if you see me dying laughing in the crowd!

Memoirs of a Narcissist (or Two)

Surprised Damian by taking him to see "Celebrity Autobiography" at the Triad Theater last night -- and I don't think I've ever seen him laugh so hard. For the uninitiated, the show features a rotating group of stars who read from, you guessed it, celebrity autobiographies. And without changing a single word, the results are uproarious! 

Rachel Dratch

Steven Weber 

Mario Cantone 

Tate Donovan and Cecily Strong

Cecily Strong

Mario Cantone and Alan Zweibel

The less I say about it the more hilarious it will be when you go. Check for upcoming shows HERE!

Confessions of a Screen Queen

Sounds like I need to read -- or at the very least add to the mile-high stack on my nightstand -- legendary World of Wonder co-founder Fenton Bailey's "Screen Age: How TV Shaped Our Reality."

Boy Culture writes:

With the book, Bailey describes how his lifelong interest in all things pop would eventually be distilled into a series of successful and culture-shaping endeavors from the early '80s on, leaving plenty of time to dish on events he helped create/for which he was present, and to gossip, gossip, gossip.

He walks us through the East Village scene of the early '80s -- Madonna, MTV, Andy Warhol, Nina Hagen, the Pyramid -- and the formation of their own little band, the Pop Tarts, their first show (a public-access series called "Flaunt It!") and first success (a public-access series called "Manhattan Cable"), but it was all leading to RuPaul, who announced himself with posters that actually read: RuPAUL IS EVERYTHING. 

It is bizarre to read about their [Fenton and creative partner Randy Barbato] story, the story of queer culture becoming mainstream (right before its current implosion into being public enemy no. 1 again, thanks to the rise of right-wing bitterness over that normalizing), and to realize it is HISTORY. Not even particularly recent history. And thank whatever god you pray to — perhaps Grace Jones? — that Bailey is documenting it, to remind us. So many of the people who lived through this time did not live past it, and aren't able to frame it for us.

More details plus ordering information HERE.

The Fabulous Pop Tarts: Randy (left) and Fenton from British GQ

"Another Grey Day in London": This was the boys' first video that got played on MTV. Lots of great vintage NYC footage, including "Madonna," the Twin Towers and the Pyramid Club ... love the chyron backstory!

And on this segment of Fenton and Barbato's long-ago cable-access show "Manhattan Cable," Laurie Pike interviews Queerdonna, aka Greg Gostanian, the "ultimate" Madonna fan and impersonator, who carried on for the camera before everyone did. RIP.

Inside 40 Unforgettable 'Forensic Files'

Before the market was saturated with true-crime television shows and podcasts, and before lay people knew the ins and outs of DNA, there was "Forensic Files." Originally known as "Medical Detectives," the groundbreaking TLC series ran from 1996-2011, with a whopping 406 episodes produced. The show has been seen in reruns ever since, and new episodes began airing in 2020 ("Forensic Files II"). 

Now a new book by blogger and seasoned journalist Rebecca Reisner (WSJ, Businessweek, Discover) looks back at some of the show's most memorable moments.

Inspired by Reisner's ForensicFilesNow blog, which provides recaps and updates on favorite episodes, "Forensic Files Now: Inside 40 Unforgettable True Crime Cases" (Prometheus) is a true-crime nut's perfect companion:

Perhaps no other television show captures our innate fascination with crime and criminals better than the original Forensic Files. Including murders, insurance fraud, hit-and-runs, and kidnappings, all cases featured on the show are solved in large part with the help of forensic science like DNA evidence. 

In Forensic Files Now: Inside 40 Unforgettable Cases, author Rebecca Reisner shares her own gripping retellings -- adapted from her popular blog, ForensicFilesNow.com -- of 40 favorite cases profiled on the show along with fascinating updates and personal interviews with those directly involved. Featuring classic cases like the Tennessee brothers who terrorized locals for years until the feds rode into town, the Texas lovebirds who robbed a grave in an insurance fraud plot that made international headlines, the Ivy League-educated physician who attempted a fresh start by burying his wife in the basement, and some cases so captivating that they have sparked spinoff miniseries or documentaries of their own, this book will enthrall readers with its vivid recaps and detailed updates. 

Also featuring an in-depth interview with Forensic Files creator Paul Dowling and a profile on the show’s beloved narrator, Peter Thomas, Forensic Files Now is a must-read for diehard Forensic Files fans and a welcome find for true crime readers looking for more riveting and well-told stories.

Order HERE.

Visit ForensicFilesNow blog HERE.

A Fond Farewell to Charles Silverstein

Nice to see that both the New York Times and Washington Post had in-depth obituaries for Charles Silverstein, giving much-deserved recognition to the man who helped declassify homosexuality as a mental disorder some 50 years ago. (The first six years of my life were humiliating knowing what the medical community was saying about me!) While the vote by the American Psychiatric Association was indeed "the single most important event in the history of gay liberation after the Stonewall riots,” it was Silverstein's book -- cowritten with Edmund White -- on how to be a homo that had a more practical effect in my day-to-day life(style!).

I'll never forget stumbling upon a used copy of "The Joy of Gay Sex: An Intimate Guide for Gay Men to the Pleasures of the Gay Lifestyle" at Changing Hands Bookstore (the original location on Mill Avenue) near the campus of Arizona State University, almost afraid to bring it to the cash register. Once home, this 20-year-old virgin spent hours upon hours reading up and looking at the erotic drawings, learning about "tops" and "bottoms," "rough trade" and "cruising," and "blowjobs" and frottage," and more. It was like making up for a lifetime of heterosexual indoctrination.

In his memoir, Silverstein wrote that they wanted the book to "have a wider focus than just sex, that it should also advise the reader about life in the gay community and the majority of passages in the finished book were of a nonsexual nature."

Read HERE.

Worth noting, as The Washington Post writes, that the medical community didn't exactly come around on homosexuality in 1973.

“Psychoanalysts believed that gay men were doomed to lives of depression and, eventually, suicide because of their shame,” Dr. Silverstein later told the Windy City Times, a Chicago-based LGBT publication. “I argued that these men were not ashamed because they were homosexual but because of what these therapists were telling them.”

Ten months later, in December 1973, the APA voted to remove homosexuality from the official list of mental disorders. The association issued a statement declaring that the decision was “not to say that homosexuality is ‘normal,’ or that it is as desirable as heterosexuality.” But among supporters of gay rights, the vote was regarded as a landmark victory.

Read HERE.

The obituaries flesh out his career, as an activist, psychologist and author, and his personal life, where we learn his first partner died of AIDS at the height of the pandemic and a subsequent marriage ended in divorce.

And it's always nice to put a face to a name. I'd always assumed Charles Silverstein was a trans woman of color, so was surprised to learn he was just a garden-variety cis gay white man. 😜

Gay Bar Fly

I'm excited that Damian bought me Jeremy Atherton Lin's "Gay Bar: Why We Went Out," although I haven't started it yet. (Coincidentally, I see it's also Dr. Eric Cervini's current Book Club selection.)

As gay bars continue to close at an alarming rate, "Gay Bar" looks back to find out what’s being lost in this indispensable, intimate, and stylish celebration of queer history. 

Strobing lights and dark rooms; throbbing house and drag queens on counters; first kisses, last call: the gay bar has long been a place of solidarity and sexual expression—whatever your scene, whoever you’re seeking. But in urban centers around the world, they are closing, a cultural demolition that has Jeremy Atherton Lin wondering: What was the gay bar? How have they shaped him? And could this spell the end of gay identity as we know it?

I rarely go out these days -- I'm 55 and married -- but cannot imagine what my younger days would have been like without bars, where I lived to watch videos, dance and hear new music, and met several of my closest friends. 

Curious to see how many of my old haunts (some open, some long closed) got a mention, including but not limited to:

The Connection (Phoenix)

Preston's (Phoenix) 

Wink's Cabaret (Phoenix)

Nu Towne Saloon (Phoenix)

Hotbod's Desert Dance Palace (Phoenix) 

Label this a near-miss. When I was a junior in high school I briefly worked at the Salad Bar location in Mesa, where much to my sheltered surprise the staff all did drugs and invited me to go dancing at Hotbod's Desert Dance Palace (aka Hotbods), which I later learned was the Valley's answer to Studio 54! (I stupidly declined, in horror, but in my defense I was 16 or 17.) 

PHOENIX: The Connection, Al E. Gators, Taylor's, Wink's, BS West, Nu Towne Saloon, Preston's, Brazil, Charlie's.

Rage (West Hollywood)

The Spike (West Hollywood)

Arena (Los Angeles)

Boom Boom Room (Laguna Beach)

L.A./LONG BEACH/ORANGE COUNTY: Rage, Revolver, Micky's, The Abbey, Studio One, Arena, Motherlode, Numbers, Fubar, the Spike, Gold Coast, Ripples, the Silver Fox, Mineshaft, Oz, the Boom Boom Room, Lion's Den, Frat House, Newport Station.

JR's (Washington, D.C.) 

WASHINGTON, D.C.: JR's, Trumpets, Badlands, Cobalt, Lost and Found, Tracks.

Uncle Charlie's (West Village) 

XL (Chelsea) 

Champs (Chelsea)

NEW YORK CITY: Splash, G, Roxy, Hell, Uncle Charlie's, the Works, XL, Champs, XES, King, Pyramid Club, the Lure, Eagle, Rawhide, Julius's, Beige, Boiler Room, the Break et al. 

What were your earliest and go-to bars when you were coming out?  

'The Breakfast Club' Meets 'Stranger Things' in Mike Albo's 'Another Dimension of Us'

If Mike Albo's "Another Dimension of Us" is even half as good as his hilarious one-man shows -- "The Junket" and "Spermhood" -- we're going to be in for a real treat!

From the publisher:

In 1986, Tommy Gaye is in love with his best friend, budding teen poet Renaldo Calabasas. But at the height of the AIDS crisis and amidst the homophobia running rampant across America, Tommy can never share his feelings. Then, one terrible night, Renaldo is struck by lightning. And he emerges from the storm a very different boy. 

In 2044, Herron High student Pris Devrees jolts awake after having a strange nightmare about a boy named Tommy and a house in the neighborhood the locals affectionally call "The Murder House." When she ventures to the house to better understand her vivid dreams, she happens upon an old self-help book that she soon realizes is a guide to trans-dimensional travel. 

As bodies and minds merge across the astral plane, Pris, Tommy, and their friends race to save Renaldo from a dangerous demon, while uncovering potent realities about love, sexuality, and friendship.

Order HERE.

A Look 'Beyond the Law'

 

I don't know about you, but I can't think of a better way to kick off Pride month than sitting in a room full of men in the West Village discussing buggery.

The BGSQD writes:

The first parliamentary debates over the immorality of the death penalty for sodomy occurred in Britain in the early 19th century, as part of a fragmented and largely forgotten political effort to lessen the penalties for sex between men. 

This talk explains how a form of queer politics was possible before modern homosexual identity, recounting the new discoveries published in “Beyond the Law: The Politics Ending the Death Penalty for Sodomy in Britain" (Temple University Press, 2021). Jeffrey Weeks, author of the first landmark works of LGBT history for 19th century Britain, has called this research “a triumph of historical detective work… [that] is genuinely breaking new ground.” Join the author, Charles Upchurch, and an eminent historian of LGBT history, Jonathan Ned Katz, for an illustrated presentation and discussion of this new research. 

This event will take place in person on June 1 at 7 p.m. at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, in room 210 of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St. 

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served. 

Suggested donation $5 to benefit the Bureau’s work.

Order HERE.

Song of the Day: 'Wig' by the B-52s

Here's a silly homemade video for the B-52s song "Wig," which was the third and final single off "Bouncing Off the Satellites." (The album came out in the aftermath of guitarist Ricky Wilson's death from AIDS, so the band wisely skipped touring and took a few years off to mourn.) I chose this as my song of the day because it came up in conversation with a friend yesterday, which led to my learning -- 26 years after the fact -- that the surviving band members put out a book based on the song in 1995. 

From HERE.

With illustrations by Laura Levine, Publishers Weekly says this work of faux-follicular fiction "celebrates hairy headgear as men, women and children alike cover their pates with tall wigs, curly wigs, flowered wigs and indescribably weird wigs," adding: "There is no plot." My friend proudly informed me that he bought copies for all his nieces and then wondered, "How many kids do you suppose learned the word 'bouffant' from that book?" 

What will they think of next?

From HERE.