Up in Arms

Tim Tebow may take one last shot at NFL career at veteran combine: report

I know it irks some of you that I relentlessly post photos of this one ... but come on! Read HERE.

OKCupid, Draw Back Your Bow

I'd love to write a rave review for "Stealing Sam," the award-winning one-man play I saw yesterday about an HIV-positive gay guy in his 40s who is burying his long-ago true love (turned best friend) as he looks for love again in the age of hookup apps. But sadly Steven Gallagher (center) is in town from Toronto for just a one-off performance as part of the United Solo Theater Festival on Theater Row, so instead I'll encourage you to read my friend Tim Teeman's great Daily Beast interview with the star of the show HERE.

My City Was Gone?

The End of New York: How One Blog Tracks the Disappearance of a Vibrant City 

As city rents skyrocket and small businesses close to be replaced by chain cafes and glass condos, Jeremiah Moss’s blog, Vanishing New York, keeps a rueful eye on the ‘progress.’ 

 When one of my favorite journalists talked to one of my favorite bloggers. Read HERE.

Meet 'In Bed With Gore Vidal' Author Tim Teeman at Book Soup on July 19

Journalist and friend of KIT212 Tim Teeman will read from and sign copies of his acclaimed book, "In Bed With Gore Vidal," on Saturday, July 19, at Book Soup in West Hollywood. He's a doll -- and the evening promises to be a real treat! Details HERE.

No Selfie-Control

Just saw my memoir in a bookstore for the first time, over at Three Lives & Co. in the West Village. (That's me trying to be discreet, above, but inside I was DYING!!!!!) I don't care what anyone says, there's still no greater thrill for an author than to see his work on the shelf -- and with book sellers dropping like flies, it's a thrill I wasn't entirely sure I would ever get to experience. My book was published by the Magnus imprint of Riverdale Avenue Books, an indie house here in New York, which means it's not (virtually) guaranteed to be carried in every shop in the country like the latest from HarperCollins et al. So if you want to support your favorite local bookstore but do not see what you're looking for -- be it "Wasn't Tomorrow a Wonderful?" or some other work -- by all means ask them to stock it for you. It may end up costing a bit more than ordering off Amazon, but preserving these shops (in my opinion) is well worth our time and money. (And with a little luck, I might even be able to do a signing near you if you let me know which places are carrying my title and are interested in hosting.) Thanks, everyone, and keep those selfies coming -- I love 'em!!!!! 

And on a related note ...

Congratulations to fellow Magnus author Tim Teeman, whose juicy IN BED WITH GORE VIDAL was just nominated for a Lambda Literary Award in the best gay memoir/biography category! And congrats to all the other nominees, which you can see HERE.

A Farewell to 'Tales'

As he writes his final "Tales of the City" novel, Armistead Maupin talks sex, drugs, marriage, mortality – and lapping up Burning Man’s craziness with "In Bed With Gore Vidal" author Tim Teeman. Read HERE.

The Secret Life of Gore Vidal

Check out my new piece for the Wall Street Journal about Tim Teeman's "In Bed With Gore Vidal"  HERE. 

Tim will be speaking about the book this evening at 7:30 p.m. at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Center in New York, 208 W. 13th St., Room 210.

'In Bed With Gore Vidal' (and Other Books on My Radar)

Happy pub day to Tim Teeman, whose juicy Gore Vidal biography -- "In Bed With Gore Vidal: Hustlers, Hollywood, and the Private World of an American Master" -- is available now HERE!

And here are a couple other books recently added to my reading list:

Only recently heard about "Maggie & Me," Times U.K. journalist Damian Barr's acclaimed memoir about coming out in 1980s Scotland. I hear it's a hoot!

On October 12, 1984, an IRA bomb blows apart the Grand Hotel in Brighton, England. Miraculously, Margaret Thatcher survives. Meanwhile, in small-town Scotland, eight-year-old Damian Barr watches in horror as his mother rips her wedding ring off and packs their bags. He knows he, too, must survive. Damian, his sister, and his Catholic mother move in with her sinister new boyfriend, while his Protestant dad shacks up with the glamorous “Mary the Canary.” Divided by sectarian suspicion, the community is held together by the sprawling Ravenscraig Steelworks. But darkness threatens as Thatcher takes hold: she snatches school milk, smashes the unions, and makes greed good. But Damian follows Maggie's advice, working hard and planning his escape. He discovers that stories can save your life, and — in spite of violence, strikes, and AIDS — manages to fall in love dancing to Madonna in Glasgow's only gay club. "Maggie & Me" is a touching and darkly witty memoir about surviving Thatcher's Britain. It’s about coming out the other side in spite of, and maybe because of, the Iron Lady. 

Order HERE.

Also picked up a copy of Susannah Cahalan's "Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness," about the young journalist's struggle to reclaim her identity after an unknown pathogen mysteriously "invaded her body and caused an autoimmune reaction that jump-started brain inflammation, paranoia, and seizures."

An award-winning memoir and instant New York Times bestseller that goes far beyond its riveting medical mystery, "Brain on Fire" is the powerful account of one woman’s struggle to recapture her identity. When twenty-four-year-old Susannah Cahalan woke up alone in a hospital room, strapped to her bed and unable to move or speak, she had no memory of how she’d gotten there. Days earlier, she had been on the threshold of a new, adult life: at the beginning of her first serious relationship and a promising career at a major New York newspaper. Now she was labeled violent, psychotic, a flight risk. What happened? In a swift and breathtaking narrative, Susannah tells the astonishing true story of her descent into madness, her family’s inspiring faith in her, and the lifesaving diagnosis that nearly didn’t happen. 

Order HERE.

Tom Nissley's “A Reader’s Book of Days: True Tales from the Lives and Works of Writers for Every Day of the Year” sounds promising, and seems like such a perfect holiday gift.

The New Yorker writes:

To collect material for this quirky, calendrical approach to literary history, Nissley—a former editor at Amazon, where he founded the Omnivoracious book blog—scoured novels, biographies, literary journals, and authors’ correspondence for events and anecdotes connected to specific dates. The result is a compilation of literary miscellany for every day of the year, including writers’ births and deaths, snippets of major book reviews, and an entertaining range of stories and fun facts from the lives of both authors and their characters. (On this day in 1899, for instance, Freud published “The Interpretation of Dreams.”)

Order HERE.

Tim Teeman Gets 'In Bed With Gore Vidal'

  "The difference between Italian boys and American boys,” the great Gore Vidal said, “is the Italian boys have dirty feet and clean assholes, while American boys have clean feet and dirty assholes.”

 
Fab review in GayCityNews for Tim Teeman's upcoming biography, "In Bed With Gore Vidal," out Nov. 5 from Magnus Books.

Doug Ireland writes:

A young gay British journalist, Tim Teeman – a 14-year veteran of the Times of London, most recently as its U.S. correspondent in New York — has assiduously tracked Vidal’s sexual and affectional history in a juicy new page-turner of a book, “In Bed With Gore Vidal: Hustlers, Hollywood, and the Private World of an American Master.”

But Teeman’s meticulously sourced account — based on extensive interviews with Vidal’s friends, relatives, servants, pimps, confidants, editors, and tricks — is much more than just a collection of salacious details, although these are present in abundance. He’s also produced a penetrating analysis of how all this impacted Vidal’s literary output and his worldview, in particular his attitudes toward sex. 

Keep reading HERE.

Order HERE. 

See Tim speak at the following venues:

Friday November 1, 2013
7-10pm
Museum of Sex,
233 5th Avenue, New York City
museumofx.com

Thursday November 7, 2013
Address and time tba
BGSQD, The Bureau of General Services – Queer Division, New York City
bgsqd.com

Saturday November 16, 2013
5.30-7pm
Giovanni’s Room,
345 S 12th Street, Philadelphia
queerbooks.com

Tuesday November 19, 2013
7.30-9pm
The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center,
208 West 13th Street, New York City
gaycenter.org

Wednesday December 5, 2013
7.30pm
Books Inc. on Market, 2275 Market Street, San Francisco
booksinc.net

Check for additional dates HERE.

'In Bed With Gore Vidal'

Here's your first look at the cover of Tim Teeman's explosive new biography, "In Bed With Gore Vidal: Hustlers, Hollywood and the Private World of an American Master," to be published in November by Magnus Books.

Some highlights:

Vidal loved sex, and gossiping about it: he estimated he had had sex with a thousand men before he was 25. He told his nephew Burr Steers he had successfully pursued and had sex with Fred Astaire when he first moved to Hollywood. Steers says, “He also told me Dennis Hopper had a lovely tuft of hair above his ass. He never told me how he knew that.” Another close friend of Vidal's revealed Vidal had asked, when hearing the friend was staying at the legendarily louche Chateau Marmont, "How is the Chateau?", before adding: "Brad Davis [star of Midnight Express and Querelle] was a beautiful boy and I fucked him on the bathroom floor of the Chateau Marmont." Davis, who was HIV-positive, died of a drug overdose in 1991. 

For most of their lives together, Vidal referred to [Howard] Austen [his partner from 1950 to 2003, when Austen died] as his friend. His true love, he claimed, was Jimmie Trimble (above), a boy he had known at prep school who died fighting at the Battle of Iwo Jima. Vidal slept with Anaïs Nin and enjoyed close friendships with women including Claire Bloom and Joanne Woodward. He and Austen had sex with hustlers, or “trade” as Vidal called the handsome, “straight-acting” young men he liked. Paying for sex appealed to Vidal because it meant with this, as with so much else in his life, he was in control. He was mostly the “top.” In bed as in life, no one was going to screw Gore Vidal. 

Pre-order now HERE.