Tag: Erotica
I was just going through my back pages on my website, I found this very cool link to an interview. I’m not sure if I posted this here yet, but this is by Violet Blue. I shared a bed with her and San Francisco during Lit Quake. As part of a night of erotica at which I was the master of ceremonies. She was extremely saucy and extravagantly smart. Then I was recently in Richmond Virginia doing a gig with the James Valley Writing Group, Slash, and Valley Haggard, I was in my hotel room I turned on the TV, and BOOM! There was Violet Blue on Oprah, being all smart and sexy.
The industrial sex technician: An interview with David Henry Sterry
In my recent SF Chronicle column I had the exciting opportunity to interview David Henry Sterry — after being wowed by sharing a stage with him at Supperclub. His answers had me and my editor at the Chron doing a double take; here Sterry confronts sex work from every angle. I’d love to someday see video interviews with many of his subjects, running the gamut. Instead of the usual tropes, we’d see some really interesting stories, I think. Here’s a snip from The Ultimate Dirty Job – Violet Blue: David Henry Sterry’s new book reality checks sex work in America:
The Discovery TV series “Dirty Jobs” with Mike Rowe covers all manner of occupations full of filthy, fascinating hazards. While a stint in a sexier spectrum of employment would hold just as much peril, (and equal fascination), I doubt we’ll ever see Rowe learning to sling a whip for a night at The Gates. Because it’s “a dirty job, but someone’s gotta (and going to) do it” — sex work in all its permutations is a prime subject for hands-on storytelling.
The problem is, it’s only ever told from one side of the coin or the other: rose-colored glasses, or the victim’s tale. Yet since the nonfiction essay collection “Hos, Hookers, Call Girls and Rent Boys” edited by David Henry Sterry hit the bookshelves, the NYT’s rave review list, and landed in my hot little reader’s hands, that’s all changed. Sterry is up for showing every angle of the world’s oldest profession. It’s absolutely riveting — and poised to change the cultural conversation about work for sex in an honest, unflinching cocktail of real-life stories that go down like a mix of sweetened poison and intellectual jet fuel.
After reading with Sterry for Litquake‘s now-infamous Supperclub SF Readings In Bed, I cornered him for the real dirt on “Hos, Hookers, Call Girls and Rent Boys.”
Violet Blue: What drove you to pick the range of sex work covered in “Hos”?
David Henry Sterry: Right now in these great United States, in every major metropolis, there are people at the very bottom of the food chain, who are basically sex slaves, being exploited in the worst ways imaginable by the most vile evil predators. And there are women, men and transsexuals who are over the age of 18, in full command of all their faculties, and are choosing to use their body and their brain to make money in the sex business. And the crazy thing is, these two sides have a hard time acknowledging the truth of the other. So I tried in my own small way, to document all voices.
I had no political axe to grind: if you worked in the sex business, and you had a story to tell, and you had the skill to tell it, you were welcome in our book. As a result, I have writing by 15-year-old girls who were raped, beaten, burned, starved, degraded and exploited by the worst scum of the earth. And I have women who used sex work to pay for their master of fine arts degree at Berkeley. And everything in between: Working class, meat-and-potatoes sex workers; fabulous rent boys; phone-sex operators; former Olympic athletes; undereducated and overeducated.
VB: You are a former sex worker — what kind of work did you do?
DHS: I was an industrial sex technician, which is my preferred term for the work, for nine months — one human gestation period — when I was 17 years old, living in Hollywood, and studying existentialism at Immaculate Heart College in Hollywood, California. I worked mostly with women, although I did, toward the end of my career, get paid to verbally and physically humiliate men. One of them was a judge. He came out of the bathroom in his judge’s robe. Underneath he was wearing a diaper. Even at 17, this made me seriously question the American judicial system.
This anthology, as it is, could only have happened because I used to be in “The Life”. One of the chief advantages to being an ex-ho myself is that I’m tapped into many of the networks that we have. All the best hos I know are excellent networkers. Netsexworkers. Plus, I was invited to teach a writing workshop with people in San Francisco who had been arrested for prostitution. Many of them were, or had been, drug addicts. I did this for two years, once a week. So I became friends with this population, from the poorest parts of America, as well.
Then I got invited by the United States Dept. of Justice to come to Washington for a Survivors Conference, leading this writing workshop with all these young women who had been savaged in the sex business. These are voices it would be virtually impossible to get if you were not in fact someone who had been in the business. But I was determined to show America the human face of all the people in the sex business, to get people to understand that we are sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles, cousins, grandmothers, dads and moms. I would never have gotten the opportunity to do this, if I hadn’t come out myself as a sex worker.
When I got into that room, to run that writing workshop in Washington, with all those diamond-hard girls, they laughed at me, made fun of me. But then when I told them my story, all of a sudden they wanted to tell their stories. Over and over I’ve seen the healing properties of telling your story while putting this book together. And if I hadn’t first done this myself, struggled for years to try to tell my story, then finally to come out of the sex-worker closet, I wouldn’t have been able to help other people do it.
VB: What’s the most unforgettable story in the book?
DHS: Well, my own of course, because it happened to me. You don’t easily forget executing some extremely challenging cunnilingus on an 82-year-old woman. But as I look beyond the narcissistic shackles of myself, it’s hard for me to single one out, because the stories have become like my children. I don’t want to disrespect any of them. I love them all, even the worst of them.
In “My Daughter is a Prostitute” this woman keeps trying to explain to her Russian mother that she’s a dominatrix, that she doesn’t actually have sex with men. But her mother just will not understand, keeps saying over and over again, “My daughter is a prostitute.” “It’s a Shame About Ray” by Bay Area luminary Kirk Read, is a funny, poignant beautiful piece of writing. I could go on, but I won’t.
VB: What will people be most shocked by in these stories?
DHS: I think “Raped 97 Times” is horrifying. There’s also a very, very disturbing story by a great, great Bay Area writer, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore. And there’s a story in the back of the book by a woman who is trying to kick heroin. Her mom comes and visits her, and shoots up in front of her, tells her, “Too bad you can’t try any cuz yer pregnant.” That piece is called “Thanks A Lot.” And of course the most disturbing is a piece by a woman who has become my friend, Jessica Bertucci, it’s called “Helping Daddy Pay the Rent.” Enough said.
VB: The need for sex and the need for money is blurred throughout many of the very real stories in this collection. Why did you make that choice as an editor?
DHS: In the exchange of sex for money, a window in the soul opens. I want people to take a peek. I’m fascinated by what happens when love, power, money, sex, obsession, and God knows what else all collide, usually in a small room. I think people make the mistake, when they’re writing about this subject, and in fact generally speaking when the write about sex, of focusing on the sex organs. I’m much more interested in how these encounters affect people mentally, spiritually, emotionally, how it changes them as human beings. And of course as everyone knows, the most important sexual organ is located not between the legs, but between the ears.
VB: As an aside, I’m curious: how do you think this all relates to the client fairytale-fantasy of having their sex worker fall in love with them and “leave the life for true love”?
DHS: “Sir Save-A-Ho,” is one variation on that theme. It’s a story in the book by a very gifted writer and filmmaker, Juliana Piccillo, about this very subject. In it, a vice cop kind of tries to save her when she’s a 17-year-old massage parlor girl. But yes, those Julia Roberts/Richard Gere/Pretty Woman fairy tales are so powerful. If anything, I’m afraid this book might make clients realize how profoundly these industrial sex technicians just want to get P-A-I-D. As my employment counselor/pimp used to say to me, the three most important rules of the world of sex for money are: 1) Get the money up front; 2) Get The Money Up Front!; and 3) GET THE MONEY UP FRONT!!!
“Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys: Professionals Writing on Life, Love, Money, and Sex” by David Henry Sterry (with R. J. Martin Jr.) is available thanks to cutting edge publisher Soft Skull Press.
Big thanks to Sterry for taking time out to answer my nerrrrrdy questions on an irrational schedule.
Violet Blue
The London Times named Violet Blue “One of the 40 bloggers who really count” and Self Magazine named TinyNibbles one of the “Best Sex Resources for Women.” Blue is an author and journalist on sex and technology, hacking and security, porn for women, privacy and bleeding-edge tech culture. She is a columnist for Engadget; she’s an educator, speaker, crisis counselor, volunteer NGO trainer, and the author and editor of over 40 award-winning books. Blue is also an advisor for Without My Consent, as well as a member of the Internet Press
HO’S, HOOKERS, CALL GIRLS & RENT BOYS:
PROFESSIONALS WRITING ON LIFE, LOVE, MONEY & SEX
AVAILABLE ONLINE & AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE
The miracle is manifest. The anthology has hit the streets. Half a decade in the making, this love’s labor, the product of so much blood, sweat, tears and other assorted body fluids, has finally traveled down the birth canal, and has been delivered by an able-bodied team of midwives, editors, dulas, copy editors, birth coaches, art directors and sweaty worried nerve-wracked family and relatives. Below please find information about the website and events. Many thanks to all involved. We are very proud of this book.
Smash Review on cover of Sunday New York Time Book Review.
“An eye-opening, astonishing, honest and funny collection from those who really have lived on the edge in a parallel universe… Unpretentious and riveting, their tales are also graphic, politically incorrect and mostly unquotable in this newspaper.” Toni Brantley, NY Times
REVIEW FROM PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
“The sprawling project, grouped loosely by topic (Life, Love, Money, Sex, etc.), offers insight into seemingly all aspects of the sex trade: high-profile celebrities like Xaviera “Happy Hooker” Hollander and Nina Hartley make notable contributors, but it’s the unknown writers who will stick. The selections from the book’s closing section alone, written by members of Sterry’s San Francisco writer’s workshop for sex workers, range from triumphant to harrowing… Aside from exposing the complex web of relationships among phone sex operators, dancers, massage parlor workers, prostitutes and their customers, the book is heavy with raw emotions ranging from celebratory to shameful, giving sociologists plenty to ponder. It’s not all dark and heavy: Sterry’s own account of his experience as a birthday present for an 82-year-old grandmother is touching and sentimental; veteran performer Annie Sprinkle is characteristically blunt, funny and honest… This volume houses some real gems.”
Hos, Hookers, Callgirls, and Rentboys is a collection of short memoirs, whore war stories, confessions, nightmares, journalism and poetry. It contains new writing from sex worker literati: art-porn priestess Dr. Annie Sprinkle; the infamous Happy Hooker, Xaviera Hollander; author and LGBT activist Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore; star of The Devil in Miss Jones, Georgina Spelvin; best-selling memoirist David Henry Sterry and sex educator/movie star Nina Hartley. But it also includes crack hos, male hustlers, pimps and the teenagers they exploit. Funny, terrifying, tragic and inspiring, this collection of oral history, short memoirs, war stories, confessions, nightmares, social criticism and poetry is unprecedented because it includes people from all walks of the sex for money world.
From back-alley Tenderloin massage parlors, to glittering Beverly Hills hotels, to Times Square porn palaces, to the meanest streets in Harlem, Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys is a collage of sex and money, shining light on this hidden underbelly of America, from sea to shining sea.
NY Press – 8/11/09
“The prose in this volume is fresh and the tales are both heart-rending and hilarious, sometimes simultaneously… What’s most striking about the volume is how relevant these intimate and detailed chronicles are for any reader, whether they’ve sold their bodies or just their souls. It’s not just about sex.”
Tiger Beatdown 8/26/09
“Hos, Hookers, Call Girls and Rent Boys is an extremely valuable and necessary book, not because it tells you what your perspective ought to be, but because it provides more perspectives than pretty much any other book on the topic… hilarious… Sexy and sunny pieces (the sunniest, actually, often come from Sterry himself) coexist with downright harrowing narratives; sex workers who choose the work freely and love doing it are represented, as are sex workers who were forced to do the work and suffered immensely. The book is free of any agenda but a commitment to giving voice to sex workers.”
The Rumpus 8/26/09
“In addition to being porn stars and prostitutes, many of these people are talented writers with strong voices and precise observations. They’re natural born storytellers who manage to encapsulate an aspect of their experiences in wonderfully succinct (Sebastian Horsley: “Brothels make possible encounters of extreme intimacy without the intervention of personality.”) and stark, unsentimental ways (Brenda: “I have been arrested eight times for prostitution. It messed up my life.”)
Daily Beast – 9/12/09
“The book never feels like a naïve glamorization of the industry. ‘Ultimately, the stories in Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys are all about money, says Sterry. ‘In our culture, happiness means money, a big house, and an expensive car. So when I, as a 17 year old, could make $100 by pleasing an 82-year old woman, that to me was a great American success.’
Style – 9/15/09
“Taboo, clever, wrenching and compulsively readable, you’ll be stripped of your stereotypes between the covers of this book.”
Antalffy Tibor honlapja 9/27/09
“Rögtön a hívás után a fejemben megjelent egy szörnyű kép: egy ráncos, löttyedt, aszott nagymama átlátszó hálóingben közvetlenül előttem áll, és az én szegény, picurka péniszem egy élettelen, használhatatlan, húsdarab ott lógott a lábaim között, és a pénzt vissza kellett adnom, miközben szégyenemben el akartam bújni a szőnyeg alá, mert a nemi szervem brutális cserbenhagyása megszégyenítő volt. És ez a kép egészen addig nem múlt el, amíg az előkelő Swank Swish szálloda megadott ajtaján be nem kopogtam.”
Revista Fuscia
“Hace poco me encontré un libro realmente sorprendente, que trata de historias de profesionales del sexo. Se llama Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys, en español sería Putas, prostitutas y muchachos para arrendar. Se podría argumentar que para qué pierde uno el tiempo leyendo libros basura, pero la verdad es que desde el punto de vista de las relaciones humanas, es un texto muy interesante, a veces brutalmente honesto, pero también con sentido de humor.”
Acik Radyo
“Kitabın adı Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, And Rent Boys, Professionals Writing on Life, Love, Money, and Sex. Yani Kevaşeler, Orospular, Telekızlar ve Kiralık Oğlanlar, Profesyoneller Hayat, Aşk, Para ve Seks Üzerine Yazıyor. Yepyeni bir kitap bu, temmuz ayında Amerika’da Soft Skull Press tarafından yayımlanmış. Kitabın elimize geçiş hikâyesi ayrı ilginç. Mahallenin Fahriye Ablası’nın bir kıyağı bize diyelim teferruata girmeden ve hemen kitaba dönelim.”
Bust 10/06/09
“The first hand accounts, interviews, and poems featured in this book are so well written and organized, that the fact that they all center around the exchanging of sex for money falls into the background, and what’s left is an intimate offering of on-the-job gossip and late night horror stories that have you wanting to spend more time with the writer than the three or four pages a pop you’re given with each one.”
SF Weekly – 7/25/09 “This kaleidoscopic portrait of sex work in America is all the more striking for its breadth.”
Book Marks 11/30/09
“Sassy, sexy and certainly informed essays by sex workers. the oral histories by hos and hookers that conclude this collection – funny and tragic, matter-of fact and terrifying – give the book its authentic heft.”
NoPornNorthampton 11/17/09
“This fascinating anthology of personal essays by current and former sex workers gives readers a glimpse into the complex emotions of those who make a living selling intimacy… Fascinating, moving and darkly funny… humor, tenderness, pain, and aggression… unexpectedly sweet… it’s a great read.”
The Skinny 11/23/09
“From the big screen to the street, phone sex to stripping, and incalls to escorting… they’ve experienced sex work as an empowered choice, as a living hell, as a drug-fuelled necessity. They cover migration, burnout, criminalisation, violence, keeping secrets, coming out to family, and interactions with clients and colleagues. It delves deep and illustrate the complexities of the writers’ experiences. Alternately eye-opening, funny, moving, and devastating, this book should be required reading for those who still think any kind of sex worker is ‘representative’.”
Womanist Musings 11/24/09
“The book unflinchingly represents the voices of survivors of pimping, rape, abuse, thrust upon those who are forced into the sex industry. Editor David Henry Sterry has successfully etched out a safe space for these survivors’ sharp, sensitive prose… In a reading that brought down the house at Busboys and Poets, Sterry’s rendition of “I Was a Birthday Present for an Eighty-Two-Year-Old Grandmother” was both incredibly funny and a fascinating anti-ageist commentary on the things we’re all afraid to ask for. I sat in the audience, enraptured by Sterry’s uncanny vocal impressions and gesticulating… Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys is a must-read for anyone who wants to experience first-hand the voices of contemporary sex workers.”
Meet, Pay, Love
By TONI BENTLEY
Published: August 20, 2009
Money and sex. Sex and money. Sounds dirty already. Is it the money that makes the sex dirty? Or the sex that makes the money dirty? Or, rather, the puritan strain that says they’re both dirty? How sexy! I mean, how inappropriate! And yet here we are again and again . . . and again. It’s former Gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York spending $80,000 on escorts, the parents (the parents!) of Senator John Ensign of Nevada distributing $96,000 to their son’s mistress and her family, Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina using taxpayer dollars to visit his South American “soul mate” and the $4 million rock on Kobe Bryant’s wife’s finger after his adulterous mishap. Money to get the sex, and money to make it go away.
If you are thinking this dynamic pairing is only for public figures, just contemplate your own divorce, past, present or future. And yet, still, it is taboo to regard sex and money as inextricably interwoven, to openly speak of them together. Why is sex supposed to be free? It never is. Ask anyone. Like Sebastian Horsley, England’s low-rent Oscar Wilde. “The difference between sex for money and sex for free,” he writes, “is that sex for money always costs a lot less.” Money is the elephant in every bedroom, making your parents’ constant presence look positively bourgeois.
But the connection is seeping into the mainstream. Witness Steven Soderbergh’s recent film, “The Girlfriend Experience,” which is about an expensive call girl and stars the real-life porn star Sasha Grey, and the new HBO series “Hung,” about a nice middle-aged dad who becomes a gigolo. The show, however, plays it safe, making him a financially strapped, reluctant gigolo and not, God forbid, a lusty one. Here, ironically, sex for money is more decent than sex for pleasure.
But if you want to know the real price of pleasure, ask the strippers, streetwalkers, Craigslist prostitutes, phone-sex operators, madams, pimps, drug addicts, porn stars and “performance artists” who offer themselves up in “Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys,” a collection of essays, vignettes, rants and poems, edited by David Henry Sterry (who wrote the very good 2002 memoir “Chicken,” about his life as a young hustler) and R. J. Martin Jr., the director of development for the SAGE Project (Standing Against Global Exploitation) in San Francisco, which offers support of all kinds for sex workers. While good girls require dinner, trips, “commitment” or even an engagement ring for sex, here is a book by those who simply get the cash upfront.
From the unappealing title, you might think this is a truly trashy paperback. Far from it: it’s an eye-opening, occasionally astonishing, brutally honest and frequently funny collection from those who really have lived on the edge in a parallel universe. Their writing is, in most cases, unpolished, unpretentious and riveting — but don’t worry, their tales are also graphic, politically incorrect and mostly unquotable in this newspaper.
There are some well-known names here. Xaviera Hollander informs us that “it’s much harder to be a writer than a hooker,” and the ever-sprightly Annie Sprinkle gives “40 reasons why whores are my heroes” and then asks, “Do you have what it takes to be a whore?” Probably not. (Easier to be a writer, I think.) But the joyous glibness displayed by Hollander and Sprinkle is nowhere to be found in the best of the entries.
“Lele,” a piece by Jodi Sh. Doff, who “grew up in the suburbs as someone else entirely,” recalls Henry Miller’s in-your-face exposition. She tells of a night at Diamond Lil’s on Canal Street, where “Viva’s sitting onstage, legs spread wide.” While her customer is buried and busy, she holds a cigarette in one hand, a drink in the other, and chitchats with a girlfriend about another girlfriend. “Every two minutes or so Viva taps him on the head and he hands her a 20 from a stack of bills he’s holding, never looking up.” We see in this wonderful set piece the whole money/sex connection enacted with raw charm and an immediacy that reaches far beyond this strip club, as the man’s stack of 20s, one by one, becomes hers. Multitasking Viva holds them “folded lengthwise in her cigarette hand.”
Audacia Ray, who now teaches human sexuality at Rutgers University, certainly earned her degree out in the field, having at one point paired up with a woman named Lily as a massage team offering happy endings. “Money got us hot and bothered,” she writes, and one evening, after Lily cashed a disability check from the federal government for $10,000 (she had no bank account, of course), she poured the money — “mostly $20 bills” — onto the bed. They shut off their phones, bathed together, got “very, very high” and then rolled around “naked in the cash. . . . Even now, when I think of the hottest sex we had, I think about currency stuck to her flesh.” Now there’s an image to promote the beneficence of Uncle Sam.
One online dominatrix, Sadie Lune, pooh-poohs all the knowing talk of the “natural power” of a domme making a “proud man” stoop — you know, the lawyer, doctor or judge who wants to clean toilets on a leash. “What we talk about, often off the Internet and out of leather, is the power of money. . . . More often than not the money tops the scene. . . . Money demands slow heavy bondage when all we feel like is smacking a grateful subject around. . . . The biggest trick is really coming to terms with the fact that money is the boss’s boss.” So which is more powerful, money or sex? I forgot.
There’s plenty of useful information in this book for those of you planning a little adultery or prostitution, or even just some old-fashioned phone sex. Lilycat describes the protocol of “Feed Me the Line”: “We couldn’t use any sexually explicit words or phrases till the caller used them first. . . . And strangely enough, getting a very horny man to talk dirty to you isn’t as easy as it seems.” The women were permitted to use medical names for body parts, but “Baby, I would like to do something pleasurable with your penis” was not — surprise, surprise — what the client wanted to hear (though it’s all you’ll get in this review). If the caller refused to talk dirty first, moaning was the fallback, and Lilycat reports the little-known fact that “if you moan for long enough you can become lightheaded and almost pass out” — “so baby, use your dirty, dirty words” and help the lady out.
The most devastating section of the book — its broken heart, its guts on the page — is found in a few horrifying stories that came out of a writing workshop Sterry gave for severely abused young women. For example, Jessica Bertucci writes about her “weekend visit with my dad”: “I begged my mom not to take me but she did anyways. Oh, by the way, my dad raped me when I was 2 years old.” After being blindfolded in a room with her father’s drinking, crack-smoking buddy, she heard her dad “whispering in my ear, ‘Don’t be scared, you’re helping Daddy pay the rent.’ Oh, by the way, I was 9 years old.”
Sterry, as editor, inserts himself considerably more than necessary, introducing many of the writers in such relentlessly lengthy and glowing terms as to patronize them. On the other hand, the actual bios for the contributors make for provocative reading and can leave one feeling like an unadventurous slacker. Berta Avila, “a Chicana from El Segundo Barrio of El Paso,” is now a translator but has been an “exotic dancer, escort service worker, brothel worker, waitress, medical-legal assistant and instructional assistant for elementary-school children.” Zoe Hansen “achieved stability through methadone maintenance and felt it was time to open her own brothel, Sterling Ladies, which was on Park Avenue and 21st Street. It was the first of five brothels she opened during the next three years.” (I’m starting to get a brothel-opening feeling myself.) Carol Queen “got a Ph.D. in sexology so she could impart more realistic detail to her smut.” (Dr. Queen writes about her “oral clairsentience,” but I can’t explain here.) While many, perhaps most, of these writers use pseudonyms, they are everything but anonymous.
Kirk Read tells the magnificent story of Ray, a rich, hairy, middle-aged Texan, who hired Read to be his witness as he methodically enclosed his entire body in numerous “stretchable layers, one upon another.” With the final touches of “gold gloves that reached up past his biceps” and a black spandex hood, “he turned and faced me, holding his hands up into the air like a victorious Mexican wrestler. Humble. Brave.” Very brave, very moving. The scene, in its inherent perversity, has the feel of a crucible, a kind of spandex crucifixion bestowing grace on one who has the courage to go “to the underworld” and find “erotic freedom by any means necessary.” The two men shook hands, the only time they touched, and parted ways, an encounter with more tenderness and dignity than many a marital one.
This collection is a wonderful reminder that good writing is not about knowing words, grammar or Faulkner, but having that rare ability to tell the truth, an ability that education and sophistication often serve to conceal. While we are all, I suppose, in the business of surviving, some really are surviving more notably than others. The collective cry for identity found in this unsentimental compilation will resonate deeply — even, I suspect, with those among us who pretend not to pay for sex.
Toni Bentley danced with New York City Ballet for 10 years and is the author of five books, including “Winter Season: A Dancer’s Journal” and “Sisters of Salome.” She is working on a book about Balanchine’s ballet “Serenade.”
Las’ week I had me a analorskerpy. I’z purty sure that ain’t the teknickle term fer ‘er, but it give a much more cleaner picher than the fancy-ass name they give ‘er.
We’z all o’ us hez got over forty feets o’ ‘testines up inside us. Forty feet o’ wet tubin’ sercretin’ gasterd acids whilest a’suckin’ nutriments outcher food, then whuppin’ what’s left on thoo to the garbage ‘sposal so’z ya can give ‘er the ol’ heave-ho. An’ when ya hez yersel’ a analorskerpy, ever’ one of them forty foot’z gotta git scruternized. So they gotza li’l ol’ cam’ra set up on the tip o’ what look like a big ol’ copperheed ready to crawl up inside ya.
Now, the bastards’z tole me to quit on eatin’ fer a couple days afore they goes a’trekkin’ thoo me. No food ‘atawll. I supped on nuthin’ but cool mountain air. An’ then I hadda go yonder an’ fetch me up a bottle from the potherkery, an’ when I opened ‘er up, a blast o’ stankcome a’whuppin’ up an’ smackt the breath plum outta me, with a li’l whiffa faked-up limons spleshed over ‘er like cheap terlet water on a ten cent hootchie coochie girl. Well sir, I dropt me a teaspoon in a glass of water, an’ stirt ‘er up real good, jest like she say on the bottle, where it also say, “You may find Empterbowel a might tad badtasteful, an’ a compermenterry baivridge is suggesterd.”
Well sir, that festers my boil. Hell’s balls, I ain’t no eddjit, I done walkt thoo the woods, I bin to Granny’z house, an’ I know she’z a big bad wolf jest a’waitin’ to eat me. Jest tell ‘er like she is: “Watch out ever’body, this here Empterbowel ’z some powerful narsty mess.”
Well sir, couplla minutes after swollerin’ that Emptobowel, my guts starts inter gurglin’ an’ garglin’ an’ gloopin’ an’ gooplin’, while my ‘testines start doin’ a spasticated dance, like I’m a seethapatin’ volcaner, an’ I’m a’ready to blow. So I done like one of them fast-walkers I seed in the ‘lympicks, tryin’ to keep my personal parts all clinched up tighter ’an a hungry flea on a skinny dawg. Lordee-do, before I’z even touchin’ the throne, the ‘vakkawation have begun. Yessirree Bob, they’z leavin’ the city in droves, jumpin’ offa the burnin’ ship like s’ many rats. Then they’ze a calm in the storm. Fer about a minute an’ a haff, then I’m right back on the job, workin’ overtime like the bossman’s gotta fill a quoter double time.
My saynts o’ smell gets better’n Snuffler, Daddy’s ol’ coon dog what could track a wood tick in a hurrercane, tornader, an’ munsoon all put tiggether. I can sneff out bacon fryin’ three counties away, an’ ev’rywheres I go they’z chicken a’fryin’ an’ fraish corn bread a’bakin’ an’ pork rines so salty you can tas’e ‘em from cross the room. An’ I wants to eat ever’ dingdang scrap, bowl lickins an’ awll.
Well sir, nest day time hev jest plum decided to take a see-ester, an’ awll the clocks’z hez go’d on strike, cuz this here day won’t never end. Plus ya got the fact that I bin crownt King of the Shitters an’ I’z rulin’ my kingdom with a ahrn fist an’ a over-ective duckatee-buckus.
Fridee morn six of the hay-em, I’z up an’ Adam, nine’y minnis ‘til the bastard’z is gonna storm my beaches. They tell ya ya gotsta hev some other body drive ya to the proceeder, cuz ya won’t be in no shape to drive no place when they gits done with ya. Good thing too, cuz I ain’t et in two days an’ I’z seein’ chicken po’ pies an’ corn o’ the carb an’ barbeecue pork as we crawl ‘long to the hospital down yonder in Dickeysville. My bes’ girly Dolly’z a’drivin’ me. She bin workin’ on me to aysk when I needs a heppin’ han’ whin I needz it, but if’n ya aysk me, thet there ain’t no way to be no man. Now my momma’s bin on me to hitch up with Dolly proper an’ legal-like, an’ awlla Dolly’s friend’s harperein’ on ‘bout the same thang, an’ truth be tole, so’s awll my friends, which I ain’t none too captervated ‘bout, believe you me, an’ dog my cats if you don’t. Well sir, Dolly, she’s a drivin’ me, an’ she’z sweet on sweet, jest a’lovin’ an’ a’dovin’ on me, an’ the more nicer she’s bein’, the more I feel like rippin’ the tongue right out her heed, Lordy do, I ain’t proud o’ it, but tha’s the way I’z a’feelin’.
“How are ya, honeybaby?” sez Dolly, like a cool sassafras on a summer’s day in hell.
“How in tarnation ya think I am?” sez I, “my rosebud feels like I bin wipin’ ‘er with san’paper, I’z hungry ‘nough to eat frekka-seed rat, an’ I’m ‘bout to hev fo’ty foot o’ snake rammed right up my sensertive area, thanks for askin’.”
Well sir, that purt much put the kibosher on the chitty chat.
Seven ‘clock bang on I walks inter that there hos-spittle, an’ I’m here to tellya I’z like a wile beast, jest a’growllin’ an’ a’gruntin’, an’ ya better not be puttin’ yer han’ too near my mouth, cuz I’z lible take a bite outta ‘er.
Some ol’ narsty battle-ax they got mannin’ the main battle station says, “Howdy, welcome to Memorull Gener’l, what’s yer name?”
“Ahh! Grrr! Nnnnhhh! Waaaaaaaa!” is about awllz I kin seem to git out.
So Dolly, my bes’ girl, she steps on in, an’ sorter soothes ever’thang right on out, whilst I goes over inter the corner to set with m’ misery. Well sir, a body kin actual’ watch folks gittn’ ol’ right a’fore there eyes. I picks me up some meggzzine, an’ I starts a’readin’ ‘bout some purty boy sanger who’s gittin’ crazy lovin’ from suppermodels an’ ektrisses, an’ even some ‘lympic swammer who’s jest ‘bout the most finest girly ever put on God’s green earth. I keep a’readin’ an’ a’readin’ that there meggazine, jest a’frettin’ an’ a’stewin ‘an’ a’steamin’ on why I ain’t got me none of them suppermodels an’ ektrisses, an’ ‘lympic swammers.
Jest as I’z ‘bout to lose what li’l mind I gots left, I hearz the bastards’z ready fer me. Well alright then, I sez to myself, buckle yer chinstraps fellers, we’z goin’ in.
First thing they done, they makes me strip down to my birthdee suit, an’ puts me in what they calls a gown. Hell’s balls, that ain’t no gown. Ya shore as shit-fahr don’t feel like puttin’ on a tie-ara an’ ‘ttendin’ a fayn-see party wearin’ that blue piece of silliness with yer hine-korters a’fleppin’ in the breeze.
But jest as I’z about to go plum loco, I had me what the call a ‘static vision, like one of them holy rollin’ Methoosaller fellers in the Bible. I seed a big ol’ table filled up with a flapjacks, smuthered in dingleburry pree-zervs; a big ol’ thick slabber bacon; an’ a coupler aiggs fried up in a messa drippinz. An’ there was sweet li’l ol’ angels a’sangin’, an’ some feller with a lawng white beard a’hengin’ down, an’ even that ‘lympic ethlete girly, looking more purtier than the firs’ day of sprang. An’ Dolly was there, o’ course, tellin’ me ‘twould be fine an’ dayndee an’ I should try to hev me some fun with ‘er, an’ when we’z done, we’d hev us a big ol’ feast an’ she’d gimme some of that good ol’ time lovin’. Frien’s, I’m here to tell ya, ever’thing jest relaxed on down real sweet an’ harmonerus-like. An’ as I laid me down upon that gurtey, I had me a purfoun’ revvamalation. I’z ‘goin’ on a gran’ an’ great ad-venture. I’z a’goin on a trip right to the middle of my own self.
Then t’other nurse come a’marchin’ in, an’ ups an’ tells me it’s time fer me to take ma drugs. But I don’t want me no drugs. I wants to be wide ‘wake with awll guns a’blazin’.
Well she starts a’huffin’ an’ a’puffin’, an’ she blows purty good, but I ain’t a’cavin’ fer her nor no one.
Next the Doctor an’ his Sideman comes a’breezin’ in.
“This here’s my first time, Doc, so be gen’le with me,” sez I, hevvin’ me some fun, jest like Dolly done said in my ‘static vision.
That Doctor, he laughs. He’z goin’ powerful bald, but he seems like a decent ‘nuff feller.
“Don’chew worry none,” sez he, “I’ll still respec’ ya in the mornin’.” Well, him an’ his Sideman laughs like a coupler hy-neaners. Truth tol’ ‘twas kinder funny, so I thowed a laugh in, too, an’ we’z awll laughin’ an’ carryin’ on like we’z asshole buddies. Meanwhiles I kin see Sideman lurkin’ in the corner, playin’ with them drugs. When you’z in a bekkless gown, ya gotta watch yer ass.
“Hey now,” sez I, wantin’ to ease on into her, “I don’t want none of them there drugs.”
“Ohhhhhh, you should hev them drugs,” says baldycoot Doctor.
“But I don’t want them drugs,” I sez, real firm-like.
“Ohhhhhh, you should take the drugs,” sez Sidekick, who seems like he wants to be the doctor when he’z growed up.
“I don’t hev to hev them drugs, that’s what they sez Doc, ain’t that right?” sez I.
“Well, uh, sher, but-“ he starts inter his hemmin’ an’ hawin’, but I cuts him awff cold.
“Then I don’t want no drugs,” sez I. “Enda story.
“Alrighty,” says Doc, whilst him an’ his Sideman goes inter noddin’ they heed at my foolish riddikerlessness, an’ rollin’ me inter another room, right smack dab in front of this big ol’ machine with a tellervision in front of ‘er.
“Now,” starts in Baldy Doc, “we’z gonna be blowin’ some err up inside of ya as we goes, an’ I wants ya to feel free to pass all the gas ya kin. Fact is, it akchul helps the proceeder.”
I’z powerful moved by that piece of information.
“Whoa there,” sez I, “wait jest a dad bern minute, Doc, lemme get this all straighted up an’ narrer-like, cuz this may be the only time I ever hear them wordz spoke in ma die-rection. You’z a’tellin’ me to blow hard an’ free, is that the size an’ shape of ‘er?”
“That’s about the size an’ shape of ‘er,” says Baldy Doc. “But I’d reckermmen’ them drugs.”
These here drug pusher’z drivin’ me plum cross-eyez.
“I don’t want none,” sez I, firm-like.
“Alrighty,” sez the Doctor, but he ain’t happy. Outta the fer corner of my eyez, I seez ‘im puttin’ ‘is glove on an’ slatherin’ ‘er up with a dollerp of pig fat.
Then I know’d fer shore, the invasion hev begun.
That ol’ Doc, he jest starts inter whippin’ that copperheed right on up my private pers’n’l parts.
“Yeouch! Ow! Whoa! Howdy doody dingle dangle dong! Hold on a damn second, wher’ez the fire, Doc?” Sez I, jumpin’ out ma skin.
“Ya want them drugs now?” esks the Doc hard an’ fast.
“Ohhhhh, you should hev them there drugs now,” chimes up Sideman.
“No, dingdangit, jest slow down a minute, whisper some sweet nothin’s in my ear fer jest one damn secon’ here, will ya Doc?” sez I, an’ I takes me a big ol’ deep breath, tellin’ m’sel’ to relax, like Dolly sez, an’ shore ‘nuff, ever’thing relaxes real nice-like.
“Well alright then,” sez I, when my inside’z awll passerfied, “Go on ahead an’ do yer worst.”
An’ that there air starts blowin’ a twister right up in me, an’ Lordy do, I start a’trumpittin’ like Josher fits the battle of Jerriker, an’ the walls come a’tumblin’ down.
Then I looks up at that there tellervision., an’ there I is. Damned if I ain’t all purty an’ pink on the inside, like a sweet baby’z butt. That Doc he’s really movin’ now, a’whuppin’ on thoo me, like that movie where some spess-ship flies inside a purty pink planet. Makes me right proud an’ happy. Tickled pink, ya might say.
“How’z I lookin’, Doc?” I esks ol’ Baldycoot.
“Lookin’ good,” sez he, an’ I know’d then an’ there that much as I pertended I did’t give me a hoot ‘bout this whole dingdang thang, I’z a mite herkimmer jerkimmer ‘bout ‘er deep down, thinkin’ I gots some monst’rus toomer growin’ like a fat wottymelon in my innerds.
I’z feelin’ so godd I ups an rips out five or six bigguns, mighty claps o’ thunder they was.
Then Baldycoot stops up short, all sudden-like,.
“What seems to be the pro’lem?” I asks, tryin’ to keep the shakes out ma voice.
“Why, nothin’,” he sez, an’ the way he sez it, I knowz shore as hellfire he’s a’lyin’ right to my face. Or to my pohstearer, in this here case. But I ain’t a’gonna lets him gets away with ‘er this here time.
“Then why in ternations did ya stop short there? I ain’t one of yer doped-up Johnny-come-latelies here, an’ I don’t want none of yer eddimacated riddickerlessness, Doc.” An’ he could tell by the spit in my eye I mean bidness.
“Well, see that there li’l ol’ brown lookin ‘spot?” he sez, like I’z his eedjit cousin,.
I looks real hard an’ I does seez ’er, plain as day. A li’l ol’ brown spot.
Jumpin jee-horse-a-fats, what the bejeezis is that there? This’z how I’z a‘gonna kick that ol’ bucket in the sky. Stomik kay-ncer. Tumer the size of a caynter-lope, with a useless johnson, a k’llostimmer bag so’z they kin empty me out oncet a day, til I whithers down to nothin’ but a li’l brown stain on the bed.
“What in ternations iz that there?” I esks him, sweat a’poppin’ up like mushrums in a field o’ cow doodles.
“That there’s a poh-lip,” says he.
Oh, Lordy do. A poh-lip. Wha’d he purrish of? they’ll esk. Poh-lips, they’ll say, “started his face, an’ ended up breakin’ out awll over his body, big narsty drippin’ sick-filled poh-lips.”
“It ain’t nothin’ really,” starts in Baldycoot, “Like a mole on yer back. An’ she’s brown, not black, so she ain’t nuthin. We’ll snip ‘er right out, easy as ya please.”
I’z berlin’ mad now. Why in hellsapoppin’s name do ya call ‘er a poh-lip if she’s jest a li’l ol’ mole?
Then these li’l ole snipper comes a’poppin’ out the end of that there snake, an’ snips off that mole like she’s bitin’ the heed awffa li’l brown church mouse.
Then Baldycoot start a’movi’n on thoo me aggin. But sudden-like he hits him a curve in my road an’ a twangin’ pain jangles right on up in me.
“Whoa thar, slow down, cowboy!” Pipes up I.
“Ya wants them drugs now?” Doc an’ his Sideman sez tiggither.
“Naw,” sez I, “Jest slow down for one dad bern second”.
But the bastard won’t slow down. No sir, he starts goin’ faster. Like he wants ‘er to hurt.
“Ya wants them drugs now?! Ya want them drugs now? Ya want them drugs now?” they start chay-ntin’ like the Devil’s Doctors, whilst he presses thoo harder still, that ache jest a’whuppin’ right up inter me.
“Alright, sweet Jeezis, gimme the dingdang drugs!” Finally sez I, not happy one ioter.
I swear on ma Pappy’s ass, they musta had that needle hov’rin’ over my boottock cheek, cuz the nest thing I ‘member I’z waking up on the gurtey back in t’other room, an’ I’z all ogly woggly oogliy moggily, which riles me up consider’ble, cuz that’s ‘xactly what I hudn’t wanted to be.
Plus which I di’nt get t’ see the finish line, an’ that makes me powerful sad.
Nurse come in an’ tells me to git back inter bed. I thanks her kin’ly, an’ tells her it ain’t necersserry, that I’z steady as a teetotlin’ parson at a temp’rense meetin’.
“Tell me flat-out now, an’ don’t snarfle with me,” sez I, “Is a poh-lip really jest a mole?” I’z tryin’ to sound cajjul, but I don’t believe I pullt ‘er awff.
“‘Twere brown, t’weren’t it, an’ not black?” sez I.
“Why course she were brown,” sez I.
“Well then, you’z fine,” sez she.
I don’t trus’ her. Ain’t one single body hev tol’ me the whole truth an’ nothin’ but the truth from the time they got their grubby hands on me But I ain’t in no condition to ar-gue, on accounnna my brain’s feelin’ like a pig-eyed trout bin lef’ out in the sun too long.
When I comes out, there’z my bes’ girl Dolly, an’ she’s powerful purty an’ a heapin’ heppin’ o’ fine lovin’ pulkertude. It’z plenty good to let her jest take care of me, an’ she’s real good at it. I’z glad I weren’t hevvin’ no relations with awll them suppermodels an’ ektrisses an’ ‘lympic swammers. I’z glad I’z hevin’ relations with my one an’ on’y bes’ girly, an’ I start inter thankin’ maybe getting’ hitched up legal an’ proper-like might not be such a bad idear after awll. Then she takes me to Elmer’s Home Cookin’, what is ma fav’ert establishment of eateration, an’ we hev us a feast fit fer a coupl’ o’ Kings.
An’ as I’z tuckin’ inter ma flapjacks smothered in dingleberry pre-severves, I thinks – Lordy do, I hev bin to the middle of me, an’ my insides looks fine.
“Terrifically readable… Sterry’s an adventurer who happens to feel and think deeply. He’s written a thoroughly absorbing story sensitively and with great compassion… A page-turner… This is a strange story told easily and well.”
— Eileen Berdon, Erotica.com
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[A] refreshingly affectionate portrayal of a naïve young man’s first taste of Los Angeles in mid 1970s…Sterry expertly and economically brings the parade of pimps, nuns, debutantes, rapists, and sexual deviants who populate his past to life…he attacks his evocative prose like a grizzled beatnik poet hitting a home run.
— The San Francisco Bay Guardian
To buy: Indiebound. Amazon.