Okay then

It's my last chance to say something about Advent. First, another confession. This month has been sort of a down month for me. I thought November was worse, and I was grateful for all the rain this month, but on the other hand, I have been pretty poor in spirit for the last few weeks. Even Sunday morning's eucharist, with which I assisted, was somewhat hectic: I was not supposed to assist, and found out about it only off-handedly, and I was feeling a little pissed about that. it all went well, but then I went home and had a very stressful afternoon -- something about a party we went to hours late. Even that turned out well, but I was emotionally exhausted by the end of the day.

So I had to pray rather hard and sincerely for the true coming of Christ into my life. The kingdom of heaven -- if it exists -- is for the poor in spirit, Jesus said. I certainly qualify for that these days, and yet it's a paradox, because some days I am poor in spirit and other days I am rich. And that applies to just about everybody, I suppose, except peole who are clinically depressed or suffering post-traumatic stress disorder, which in these days of war must include a heck of a lot of people. For Christ to come into a broken world and heal -- not just the world but the people in it -- and not just the people as a mass (as the five thousand were fed or the ten lepers were cleaned), but healed individually, one by one and, perhaps, by name.

I was thinking of this when I was websurfing some Buddhist sites associated with the Ordinary Mind Zen schol, home of a teacher named Charlotte Joko Beck. She's the author of a book called Nothing Special: Living Zen which is, IMO, particularly good at explaining zen concepts to a nonpractitioner. If one of the commonalities of Christianity (at least as the term applies to a practice that follows the teachings of Jesus) and Buddhism (ditto Buddha) is that each is a Way for lay people -- an outline of practice that takes place within, not apart from, daily life -- then the ordinariness, or quotidian quality of one's life is exactly the realm where one's practice becomes clearest. For me, taking out the garbage, feeding the feral cats in the backyard, keeping the household accounts, making tea for Cris in the morning -- all these things which I ordinarily do should become, in themselves, my practice.

Then I wouldn't worry that I haven't managed to do morning and evening prayer, or else I would be able to say morning and evening prayer as I perform these tasks. (I know one is supposed to set aside a time for such prayer, but I'm also supposed to be setting aside time for writing, and I haven't done either in months. In fact, just about the only writing I've done has been in my private journal and in this weblog.) I've always felt a strong call to humility, and perhaps that should be my practice as I try to live in Advent even after Christmas.

 
End of autumn; film at 11

One of the little love habits bewteen me and Cris is to nickname everything, and one target of this cutesy practice is the local TV news. Instead of calling it "the news," we call it either the Rain Show or the Fire Show, depending on the season. Once in a while it's the Snow Show, but only when they lead with a shot of some poor bloke doing a standup in front of the Donner Summit sign on I-80. In these shots, the image of the snow blowing horizontally from behind the cameraman and past the reporter makes it look as if the reporter is actually streaking out of the background with little speed lines around him like a cartoon. The Snow Show is usually on at 11:00; it takes that long for the guy to get up there. At 5:00 and 6:00 it's the Rain Show, with reporters standing in puddles at the Sausalito exit from 101. It's about time for them to start warning of floods on the Russian River and showing people wearily digging out the sandbags for another year.

Yes, it's the official end of fall, and a stormy one it is, too. I just pray that the thunderbolt does not hit when I have a cat on my shoulder; I'd never find my bloody ear.

Once in a while I check in at Tomato Nation, one of the blogs that got me going on blogging. I don't know this woman; she simply posted a riveting Sep. 11 eyewitness account that was widely linked to. She's a good writer even if she is annoyingly gen-Y sometimes. Tonight I checked in, wondering about the mood of New York, and then thought, what if someone reads this someday (no one is now) and wants to know the mood of San Francisco?

The Mood of San Francisco

A lot of people are out of work, and getting very nervous because of it. But I can't claim to know a lot about that, even though I have good friends who are out of work -- because most of the people I hang out with are *at* work. In fact, I'm about to leave to go to a Xmas party hosted by a co-worker. Perhaps I'll know more about the mood of the city, at least the mood of its employed citizens, after I go to that.

Otherwise, let's see. All I really have to go on is saying the things that are true about me and guessing about whether they apply to a lot of people. I know I have been getting scads of requests in the mail for charity -- everyone from Friends of the Urban Forest to Planned Parenthood to Catholic groups (I subscribe to the National Catholic Reporter and they figure I'm fair game, even though I'm a Lutheran). I daresay everybody is getting this stuff, from the overpaid (like me) to the unemployed.

I think people are wondering what's going to happen next in the war. Now that we've supposedly kicked the butt of everybody in Afghanistan who hated us, but didn't find Lex Luthor or any of the other masterminds of the Sep. 11 attacks, people feel cheated of a neat Hollywood resolution; but people in San Francisco also feel guilty about feeling that way. It looks like even Bush has decided it's a bad idea to invade Iraq, so people are no doubt relieved about that.

I don't think anybody is concerned about whether or not "the economic stimulus package" passes Congress, but people are looking at the news from Argentina, which is falling apart, and wondering whether anything like that could happen here. People are not scared of terrorists or anthrax or anything like that anymore; three months have passed and the worst that's happened is a recession (except for the four or five people who died of anthrax, which was probably sent by some American idot anyway).

Television is just the same, yamming over the Next Big Thing, whether it's the Super Bowl (thankfully that shit hasn't started yet) or a prospective trial of the guy from Marin who fought with the Taliban. Have you noticed that there's always some Trial of the Year either underway, wrapping up, or being promo'ed? I am so tired of big court trials. I don't watch them or even follow them, but just watching the promos makes me tired.

All in all, for all the people who keep repeating "Everything has changed," I think life in San Francisco is pretty damn much the way it was before Sep. 11. Goodness knows the dotcom bubble collapsed long before that, like a year and a half before that, so thousands of people were already out of work. In fact, the fact that everyone is now recogizing that thousands of people are out of work probalby means that the situation will soon end. All the unemployed dotcom people will have jobs six months from now, mark my words.

Or it'll be like Argentina, in which case there will not even be a Blogger. Forgetaboutit.

 
For another

In Matthew 11: 2-6, John the Baptist sends his disciples to ask Jesus, "Are you the one we were told to expect, or are we to look for another?" It's a poignant moment. Though John has, in moments of inspiration, proclaimed Jesus as the Messiah and as "the Lamb of God," Jesus' recent actions have John wondering. Jesus hasn't been gathering a guerilla force to fight against the Romans; he's been hanging out with prostitutes and tax collectors and healing the sick. That's the message Jesus sends back, too, essentially telling John, "What you see is what you get."

After John's disciples depart, Jesus does a little stand-up comedy for the crowd. "What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces. What then did you go out to see? A prophet?" You can see the crowd laughing and going, "No, no, no... Hey wait, we did go out to see a prophet!"

Jesus answers, "Yeah, and what a prophet" -- I'm paraphrasing there -- and tells them that despite the fact that John is a great prophet, "the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." And then goes on to describe this Kingdom of Heaven in terms of a mustard seed, a woman who finds a coin that was lost, and other clear-as-mud metaphors.

He really knew how to fuck with people.

Advent is all about anticipating the coming of Christ, while at the same time recognizing that Christ is already among us, having come in the person of Jesus. Yet even while Jesus was among them, his followers weren't sure who he was. Because he wasn't acting the way they expected the Messiah to act, they thought, "Man, maybe this ain't him after all." And Jesus responds by saying, "No, this is exactly what I came to do -- heal the sick, preach the good news, and, incidentally, confound all your expectations."

So I have to look at my own expectations for myself. What the hell am I doing? My practice of daily prayer is completely trashed. I haven't written a word on my novel for more than six months. I can barely manage to keep my own house out of complete chaos, and I bounced my mortgage check. Yet I expect myself to do all these things well. All I can say is, I hope my failures put me among the "poor in spirit," because I sure haven't healed any sick people lately. (Cris is recovering from knee surgery mostly without my help; my main contribution is to serve her tea.)

In this dillema, Christ comes into my life in two ways: Christ shows me the way, and at the same time, accompanies me. I know what to do; despite his oracular tone, Jesus was actually very clear about how people should conduct their lives. I know I have to have patience and compassion in dealing with the world. I know I'll never do enough, or even be patient enough. But I am more so when I recognize that Christ is already here, accompanying me.

 
Oh jeez

And that's not said in a religious sense. I cuss (as they used to call it back in the midwest in the 60s) all the time. I learned to cuss at age 16 at my first job, the Jack in the Box at the corner of NASA Road One and Kirby Road. Partly it was because I was grown up enough to have my first job. Part of it was that it was impossible to work at Jack in the Box without resorting to profanity, as in, "The ice machine is completely fucked up" -- no other way to express it.

So anyway, yesterday was a bloody stupid day, and I should have had that Belle and Sebastian song ("Don't Leave the Light On, Baby") playing over and over. The worst moment was when I accidentally let the cat out the front door while trying strenuously not to let him out; I'm terrified he will run away, as he bagan life as a feral. I responded to this event by baning my head against the wall and nearly breaking down in tears. This morning I woke up and realized that maybe it wasn't such a good idea to have that latte at 5:00 pm, even if it was "half caf." I think I was having caffeine psychosis. It's happened once before and it's really no fun.

So I never made it to the Lusty Lady Play Day, what a bummer. I didn't get the chance to give a copy of my new book to Ayesha, the performer I pestered in the booth all summer while researching the new story "Booth Girl" (Hey, I really was going to a strip club for "research"!) and I didn't get the chance to contribute to the dancers' Xmas fund. But a couple of friends I recruited to go, went anyway, so at least the gals got something. I hope their Xmas pot was huge.

Maybe one of these days I'll get a chance to write about Advent. I'll try tomorrow.

 
You may already be a winner

This past summer, my friend Marilyn and I were nominated, along with writer Susannah Indigo, by the annual Erotic Awards in the U.K., for Writer of the Year. Marilyn won, and we had a great time at what seemed to be their queer sex worker community's big bash.

Perhaps inspired by this experience, and noting the lack of a similar shindig stateside, Marilyn and writer-editor William Dean (his site is cleansheets.com) are thinking of starting up awards for smut writers like me as well as anthology editors and erotica publishers. She's accepting ideas for awards categories and judging procedures, so if you'd like to put in your two cents, email her.

It'll be nice for porn writers to have something to fuss over. I'm not sure we'll gain a huge amount of recognition for it, but at least it will give us a chance to get together once a year, maybe put on a few workshops along with the awards, and develop closer ties. Right now I feel kind of estranged from most of the erotica writers in San Francisco, who rarely invite me to read at their events or contribute to their collections. I don't know why this is, and I guess I've done well enough as it is, but I know it's also nice to have others to talk to about your craft. I've always felt really fortunate to have Marilyn to talk shop with, but she lives 3000 miles away in New York. I wouldn't mind having a few people here to have drinks with.

One up-and-coming writer is Lisa Wolfe. You can read her story "The Amy Special" in the new Best Women's Erotica edited by Marcy Sheiner, and at brilliantsmut.com. She's just starting to get her stuff published, and she's pretty good. And she's a friend too; I'm sorta biased.

 
Support Your Local Stripper
There's a strip joint in San Francisco called the Lusty Lady. In 1997 they successfully unionized, becoming the only unionized strip joint in the U.S. A film about the union drive, called "Live Nude Girls Unite!" was recently released on video, and I saw it for the first time the other night. It's great.

Every year, about two weeks before Xmas, the Lusty Lady theater has its annual Xmas party. This is called Play Day. Management grants one day to the workers, during which all monies received go to a big pot which all the dancers split: that's their Xmas bonus. On this day only, the dancers do lap dances and all kinds of special stuff; on this day only, contact with customers is permitted. It's not like most strip joints these days where lap dancing is de rigeur; at the Lusty, they have glass between the talent and the customers.

Except for Play Day. Which is this Friday, Dec. 14th, 2001. Be there. (It's on Kearny St. between Columbus and Broadway in SF.)

For those people who are afraid to venture into a strip club -- and I am generally one of those people -- I can give a little bit of reassurance. You will not be made to buy a drink at inflated prices; they don't serve drinks. All they do is strip (and, on Play Day, lap dance), and if you want, you can go into a booth and watch dirty movies 25 cents at a time. Since, on Play Day, all the money goes to the dancers, don't worry about being cheap. Spend a little. These gals work hard -- I know, because I had a girlfriend who worked there, and generally it ain't all that fun. Play Day is their chance to fool around with the whole strip-club metaphor. They decorate the place in a crazy way, play the music they really like, wear crazy costumes, and in general cut up.

All the money goes to the dancers. If you still feel a little strange about it, rent the video (I got it at Lost Weekend Video on Valencia St.; they had several copies in the New section) and then you'll definitely want to support the women. Yay for the union!

 
High and Low

The ISP hosting my website offers me a free logging service so I can see how many people have been visiting the various pages of my site. And while there are a number of people logging on from AOL reading one of my old AFBD columns -- namely the one that describes my visit to a Times Square peep show and mentiones bestiality -- I know there's no one reading this weblog, even though I feature a prominent link to it from the front page of my site. In fact, I excerpt it on the front page of my site -- which means that of all the people who hit the front page, almost nobody clicks through to the weblog.

So I can say just about anything here. I can talk about religion or pornography! I can describe my co-workers in unflattering terms, or post gossip about people I used to be in Street Patrol with. All with complete impunity!

Talk about freedom of speech.

I'm probably talking about spirituality too much. Or about sex too much. Probably if I talked about one or the other, I'd get an audience on at least one side. But there probably aren't too many religious people who can stomach the proximity of all the sex, even though I don't think I've talked that much about sex in the blog. In any case, all you AOL people looking for bestiality info -- welcome. I'm sure this isn't what you're looking for, but here you are anyway. It wouldn't hurt you to read something else besides that one column.

So let me confront this issue for once. How can a person who is as serious about his spirituality as I seem to be, also be a pornographer?

In other essays on this site (like here and here) I talk about why I write erotica, or pornography, if you will: because sex held my interest long enough for me to develop my writing craft, and because there's a market for it (however small and totally not lucrative). I haven't really talked much about where I am with my spirituality or how I got here.

Briefly, then, because it's not a very unusual story: like many people, I was attracted to monastic spirituality through the writings of Thomas Merton, Kathleen Norris, and others. I visited a few monasteries and started attending a Benedictine spirituality group in San Francisco. I attend a Lutheran church and try to integrate all these various influences into something resembling a practice, although my discipline is horrible.

Perhaps the thing my spiritual practice and my writing have in common is an almost total lack of discipline. I'm very bad about doing things regularly, even when the notion appeals to me, as in the Liturgy of the Hours or a regular writing time. I let myself get distracted too easily. I'm lazy. My mind wanders. I want to stay in bed a little while longer.

So I'm not trying to present myself as a terrific writer or a terrific Christian on this website. I'm just using the site, and this weblog in particular, to work out some thoughts about both disciplines. (What do you call a discipline you're not disciplined at? Don't even ask about my totally lapsed practice of tai chi chuan.)

Today: a gorgeously clear winter day. Wish I'd spent it outside, but of course I worked all day, it being Monday. On the other hand, Sunday was beautiful, too, and I didn't spend much of it outside either. See? I suck at things I know are good for me.

 
Style... and Plot

A few days ago there was a terrific piece on writing style in the Washington Post. The author, Linton Weeks, talks about how distinctive style is almost absent from today's popular fiction, replaced by what he calls "No-Style." Weeks offers several tongue-in-cheek tips for writing a "No-Style bestseller," including "Put people in moral danger" and "Study current bestsellers" so you can "use every trick in the book."

Weeks goes on to contrast the effectless prose of Stephen King with the master of understatement, Ernest Hemingway, and quotes Vladimir Nabokov and Raymond Chandler on the importance of distinctive style. It's a great article, and gets more interesting as it goes along. At first you think it's going to be a sort of funny, shallow swipe at modern bestsellers, but it gets more and more thought-provoking as it goes along.

I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, I love distinctive style and beautiful language in writing. I never went to creative writing school in the 80s or 90s, so I never learned to write in the flat, declarative, post-modern style that Weeks calls No-Style. I never pledged allegiance to Strunk & White's dictum of cutting everything that isn't essential. I've kept things in my own pieces that a post-modernist on the warpath would have cut.

On the other hand, I envy the ability of modern thriller and mystery writers to construct intricate, action-packed plots. My partner Cris reads a hundred mysteries a year; every month we pick up an armload of them. When she has something she wants to share with me, she always points out a sentence or paragraph that has a stylish ring to it, true. But I know what's really keeping her turning pages is the plot.

I have such a hard time with plot. Even though I developed a plotting exercise that helps me think of simple plots with a beginning, middle and end ( not too sophisticated), I'm intimidated by the level of plotting required in even the most pedestrian best-seller. And that's why it's hard for me to condemn people who write what my friend Marilyn referred to as "pre-digested crap." I can't do it, so I feel I have no room to act superior.

When I wrote a few days ago about the people doing National Novel Writing Month, one of the things I didn't say was that in order to write a novel that means anything at all, whether you're doing it in a month or not, is that it has to have some kind of story. It wouldn't be worth it for me to jam down 50,000 words (as their rules require), whether it's in a month or a decade, if there was no story that led a reader through.

That's what gets me. I feel I have to have a story worthy of putting down fifty or a hundred thousand words. Of course, I started my present novel project with just an image: the Rat Pack driving back and forth from L.A. to Las Vegas. (My misunderstanding of how they filmed "Ocean's 11" and appeared at the Sands each night.) I started with that image, did some research and corrected it, came up with a number of real and fictional incidents I wanted to portray, and just started. Of course that was three years ago, and I'm still only up to chapter 12.