JC Leroy (as Terence put it)

Does JT live in NYC now??? I remember it was such a big deal when he moved to San Francisco. Well, it was a big deal for about a week. It seemed like an interview with him was in every magazine, and he would always refused to be photographed for the interviews. And he would show up for the interview wearing a wig and a disguise, so people were wondering if it was really him every time. He would go on and on in the interviews about how he's a very self-secluded person, but would go into detail about where he liked to hang out, and when he was usually there. If the interview was in a gay magazine or paper, he would talk endlessly about his girlfriend and a supposed baby he has with her. If it was in a regular publication, he would talk about a mysterious band that he was in, and that he was tired of writing novels. If he moved to NYC, it's most likely because people got sick of him back in San Francisco. I know a few people that got caught up in the hype and were on endless quests to try and meet him, but I never bothered to read his work and thought he was a publicity stunt. I heard that he didn't write his first novel, he was just some guy brought in by the publisher to say it was his autobiography. But if Madonna and Courtney Love are big fans, there has to be something to him....

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Thank you ladies and gentlemen. I'll be here all weekend. Don't forget to please tip your servers.

Daddy--
Thanks for voicing the "Why the Coral Room on a Saturday night?" question that the rest of us had suppressed-- yech... And I could quote what Gary Indiana said upon leaving (regarding the iron fist of the VIP area gatekeeper), but I am a lady, and I try not to curse in polite company.

I'm just so intrigued by this guy.
Is it all a joke?

I can say from first-hand experience that posting anything about Gary Indiana will get you hexed and you'll lose everything....

If you axe me, I think JT Leroy is an author with a brilliant publicity-generating mind. I like a few authors who are supposedly publicity shy, and if you don't like publicity you don't do things and stunts like JT Leroy. I think he learned a lot from Madonna when he met her --- he makes the press come to him while he pretends to despise the attention.

Speaking of not liking attention, I better get ready to go to CM and avoid everyone.

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Thank you ladies and gentlemen. I'll be here all week. Don't forget to tip your servers.

When I lived in San Francisco, the hottest celeb guest to have at your party was the mayor. Which wasn't hard to do. At that time he was Mayor Alioto, with whom I shared a lawyer, as well as many moments with, in the law office's lounge, so it wouldn't have been hard at all. I remember thinking, "But why would I ever want to?" Who wants a mayor at your party?
I also remember when Yoko Ono came to SF and announced she was moving there. Oh, the furor that ensued; finally a real life celebrity in town to gossip about! That lasted for about a week. Then she announced she would NOT be moving there. The disppointment and depression lasted for months!
I guess my point here is that San Francisco is a very very small pond. Adore it as I do, I also adore it for what it is not, It is not a glittering glitzy fashionable place full of the latest celebrities-du-jours. It is not even the epicenter of Old California money. That is, almost unbelievably, Sacramento.
But perhaps Mr. Leroy is the clever one. It is easier to test the waters in a small pond like SF before flipping to one of the bigger ones like NY. If that is the case, I will bet his next pond will be the really big scummy one-- Los Angeles. And that he will never write a single word again!

J.(C.)T. and Mrs. Plop.

Your query:
And why was Gary Indiana shouting, "J.T. Leroy is a fraud!" outside the club????

Because Gary is a good editor.

Miss Fluff please relate the evil bon mots.
Someone should start a Gary Indiana topic to
record all the genius dis. Then venture in who would dare.

It was Miss Chivity who dubbed her "JC" not me. And as she said, So what if she's a presswhore, if it gets the masses interested in writers it
gets our approval.

And "for some reason" incest sells even more than regular sex, viz Lord Byron. So fuck your mother and tell all.

I will go look at the Le Roi thread.

Terence

[This message was edited by S'tan on 09-19-03 at 01:05 PM.]

oof I'm in the Le Roi thread.

I loved the flourish, Hattie of "And he will never write another word again!" Not that I
wish that on anyone. But read T. Capote as the
paradigm of excess publicity/socialite approval =
equals writer's block.

I got the book anyhow.

[This message was edited by S'tan on 09-19-03 at 10:07 PM.]

S'tan--
The conversation went as follows:

VIP GARY INDIANA: "When you see JT, tell him to (expletive deleted) off!"
NON-VIP LADY FLUFF: "I don't imagine that I will see JT, as I am not a VIP (Iron-fisted gatekeeper had made this shortcoming painfully clear to Lady Fluff)."
VIP GARY INDIANA: "Well, I AM a VIP, but I am not allowed to bring my BLACK boyfriend into the VIP area, so we are leaving. This is (expletive deleted, again and again)"...

I'm afraid that's a bit anticlimactic, but I dare not risk embellishment for fear of voodoo repurcussions... Anyway, further research leads Lady Fluff to believe that much more sinister forces were at work. I mean, if Courtney Love needs a spot to sit, it doesn't matter who you are, she is evidently still more important than you are. Yikes!

Why did Courtney need to sit? Is she preggers again? Was she tipsy? Or was she wearing 8 inch stilettos? Those would be the only reasons I would let old Courts cop a squat on my stool. Kembra is just too nice. What could they have done if she had refused? Thrown her out?

And St'an, though I do think Truman's "Answered Prayers" debacle was brilliantly mad and tragic, I would never wish the cursed Block upon anyone either. But those back pages of Interview have been littered with photos of similar cases for some time now. Though sadly none as major as Mr. C.

[This message was edited by hatches on 09-20-03 at 12:06 AM.]

Around page 50-something I started to doze off,
there was too much argot, hootin' and hollerin', and the magic realism wasn't holding intact.
Neither was the vaunted "incest" stuff so awfully shocking to me. Anyone who does sex work implicitly is "permitted" to do so by their Mother or Father. Big wow.

But as I read on and found myself in a somewhat overstimulated state.
I started writing like crazy in my diary and realized...
I had been seeded. My mind was racing (and still is) - the effect was fermentive... Perhaps this effect is what must be making everyone so alert over the writing.

The central perfect image of this book is the boy transformed: a hermaphrodite glory, lying on a fresh bed, locked in a room, blonde, young, eminently desirable, quivering with anticipation, protected by the powers that be.

A very metaphor for the adored Artist.
The focus of all the johns/publishers/flaks,
quivering under tentative blue collar worship,
and not to mention that of not-so-hirsute/intellectual males,
but hey they're all doling out the cash and the homage.

Now every artist dreams of such attentions: to be a Maestro by virtue of one's syntax.
Over-worshipped, yet the thing worshipped remains untouched.

This again seems a metaphor for where JC is now in the media eye. Like his protagonist, he escaped the hermetic seal.
Once the perfect artist, alone under the colored lights...
now subject to every kind of vile caress by crass lovers.
He has earned his "bone." But there is that inevitable vitiation after the drugs (i.e. adulation) wear off.

[This message was edited by S'tan on 09-24-03 at 01:06 AM.]

Certainly the detailing of the permutations in the sex trade are right on the money, not only accurate but emotionally correct. Beautiful imagery, great argot, fantastical Americana...

This book has done what it was meant to: has elevated its writer out of a pretty bad life. So was he really a lot-lizard?

A book that attempts to get one out of an underground imposes yet another fate on the writer: one discovers one may be
damned by one's subject matter; and ironically cannot ever avoid the resumption of the metaphors one would so love to escape...

But as the public demands more more and scurrilous details - and the further away you
get from the actual experience...
The organism that created the work is altered
forever. It may continue to evolve and
become more powerful. Or it may become its own travesty.

Anyhow his new pimps have entrapped him.
He's a lot-lizard of another ilk.

[This message was edited by S'tan on 09-24-03 at 01:08 AM.]

Despite the attention he has willingly or unwillingly gotten, I for one love his books. I compare him on some levels with Hubert Selby Jr, for his knack of depicting the lowest depths of humanity with some sort of beauty. Personally I have witnessed similar creatures growing up in the midwest with southern roots and alot of white trash on one side of my family. I am able to "smell" the carpeting in the motel rooms and feel the grimy toys he drags from new home to new home. Sarah to me was a much too short journey with alot of flaws, but we are also looking at a writer that had barely finished high school. The guy is YOUNG!!! I find it very strange that we as a culture have to constantly pick at artists to see whats underneath. Myself included, I am fascinated by a young man whose imagination could create such despicable characters and yet make them somehow redeemable at the same time. Its wonderful to find rich characters that are painted on the surface as so evil, and then when the crust comes off the top, you peek in to see what made them so. If you seperate Leroy the "presswhore" and Leroy the young writer who has a whole lifetime ahead of him to create, maybe you could get lost in his work a little better. GOD I want to play a TV lot lizard if Gus vanZandt does Sarah as a movie. I have the perrrrfect cowl neck mini sweater dress and high heeled moccossin boots.

... is the title of his/her second book which has already been panned.
I see in "Paper" that Asia Argento, Dario Argento's
daughter, has been picked to do the
screenplay/produce the film of same name...

She is quoted as saying "The casting has been a nightmare",
so get going Sweetie and make it happen.

Loved "Sarah" . Been there. Done that. I wish I had written about it first. But I am very impressed with that little things ability to weave a realistic tale about such a life and make us all wonder if he lived it or not. I say good for him.

It will be interesting to see where he goes from here.
Even Augustine Borroughs followed up "Running With Scissors" with more of his own life story in " Dry". Now that was a scary book. Reminded me of all our lives in this generation.

Bobby,
There is still time for your tales
of lot-lizardry... I guess you'd just have to
feel the imperative.
More interesting would be your travels
through the coils of religious fantasmagoria.
I still believe in the psychedelic powers of
that dust from the Nepalese burial grounds.
I mean my take on the erst-while wizard Allan L. would make a truly sick short story.

I would not call "Sarah" 'realistic' in any
way, shape or form. What about that diner that
served up gourmet delicacy? (I think that was an extended metaphor for NYC/SF chic restaurants as just another version of the truck stop, where all sorts of other delectable trade may be had...)

Or every one of the truckers in lingerie...?
Or a hermaphroditic hooker lying
unviolated under artistic lighting... or her pimp
never fucking her.... etc. etc.
They call that "magic realism"...

xxxx

PS: Now I have even more books to buy.
My inclination to never buy new fiction is
being undermined.

Well at the very least Miss Leroy has helped to break my own writer's block. I seem to be spitting out some new work since I devoured her book.

And as far as the religous ramblings of my experiences, I think you may be onto something, It's always about finding the right angle for me.

And Al L. would indeed be a ferocious story for you to tell.

Can't believe I'll miss you when I hit town on the 8th..BooHoo

S'tan-- Just catching up on this topic, and I very much enjoyed your analysis of the book on 9/20. It's one of the best I've read yet, and I really am keen on your feeling that the book has a "fermentive" effect. It's a great descriptor... Because, though I've read the book just once, I've played so many parts of it over and over in my mind (in a way somehow different than any other book I've read)...I do feel that the acrid sights, sounds, tastes and odors have, and continue to, ferment in my mind...and increase my amazement of the story.

And Sweetie-- if we're not being "Mrs. Plopped" by Mr. Leroy, I find his youth and apparent brilliance immensely alluring, too.

"The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things" is equally wonderful...it's set before "Sarah" – and is so rewarding (reading it after getting so much from "Sarah")"”it answers a lot of questions.

[This message was edited by Michael Madison on 09-28-03 at 09:46 PM.]

Now reading it a SECOND time to
try to pinpoint where I start percolating... this
uncanny effect it has, you too Bobby?
Hoping to see if
its illusions will take deeper hold, if its luxurious syntax is truth.
Not sleeping and mentally overstimulated...!
Is it the sexual frisson? (But for me the eroticism isn't the whoring as much as les images de pimpage.)

Thanx for the insight in re the second book Cher M. Madison
by Wednesday we should be all boned up, homework done, ready to blather on literarily into the wee hours cross banquette, bar and sidewalk.
xxxxxx