Bread and Bread

After Trixie the rainbow pony (or hornless unicorn, as some of us decided she was) took a thrashing during last weekend’s festivities , I sent the head home with Alanna who said, “My creative life is taking a turn for the hilarious.” Now Trixie lives on as the co-star of the video for Fascinoma ’s song “Waste of a Perfectly Good Woman.” This makes me feel much better about basically beating a giant version of my favorite childhood companion to a papery pulp.

The other day at lunch I was reading this interview with JD Samson, formerly of Le Tigre, currently of Men. I haven’t heard any of the music of the latter and I’m only a medium passionate Le Tigre fan, but I found the interview thoroughly refreshing. Her comments reminded me that sometimes people go the indie/grassroots/DIY route for very good philosophical reasons: because you can retain creative control, reach out-of-the-way audiences and have a ton of fun. Because of the glaring lack of opportunities to sell out in my life, sometimes I forget that I don’t actually want to. I mean, I don’t have anything against mainstream success and I don’t think JD Samson does either. But it’s nice to remember that there are reasons you might not have it that have nothing to do with being a loser or a victim. I’m pretty sure The Airborne Toxic Event has plenty of mainstream success by now. Just because their lyrics scream MFA writing program doesn’t mean they don’t have a boatload of fans and a f...

This might turn into the most boring post ever, because I’m just going to use the words “great” and “amazing” over and over again. As in, our families and friends are great, the food was amazing. But it’s a risk I’m willing to take in describing the not-a-wedding party-in-the-park AK and I finally had in order to ensure that what happened in Canada did not stay in Canada. When it comes to weddings and gay weddings in particular, AK and I are much like Ariel Levy . But much poorer. So we wanted to celebrate with our favorite people but we didn’t want to: have a wannabe straight wedding have a cheap-ass wedding have a wedding at all spend as much on the whole day as Ariel Levy spent on her dress alone. Conveniently, Timothy and Heather all but fell from the sky and offered to cater. I mean, they didn’t fall from the sky. I got to know Heather in seventh grade woodshop, and I was so happy when she married Timothy, not because he’s a professional chef (although that didn’...

Scene: a windowless room at West Hollywood City Hall. A map of West Hollywood—-which, interestingly, is shaped like a gun, hence the city’s cop cars sport big rainbow gun logos—-hangs on the wall. Bookish types are gathered around a conference table. City of West Hollywood Employee Lady: Our transgender advisory committee wants to sponsor a panel at this year’s book fair, but we’re not really sure where to start. Me: I could suggest some writers. Flash forward six months. Guess who’s moderating a panel titled “The Many Genres of Gender” at the 9th Annual West Hollywood Book Fair ? Although I’m always a little amused by how volunteering to help automatically turns into volunteering to help a lot , I don’t mean to imply that I’m in any way reluctant to moderate. I think this will be a totally interesting panel with some stellar writers: Ryka Aoki de la Cruz , Morty Diamond , Max Wolf Valerio . But I do feel the need to explain why I’m moderating a panel that centers around an identit...

Sometimes when I hear other writers bemoan rejections, I think, Well, at least you’re submitting stuff. It’s a numbers game and you’re one step closer to winning than I am, sitting here reading Go Fug Yourself or whatever it is I do when I’m not submitting. When I am submitting and I hear writers struggle with particular criticisms (“He wants me to write more like Sloane Crosley , but I don’t even think Sloane Crosley’s that funny”), I think, I would kill for anything besides a form letter. At least they think you’re worth CRAFTING A SINGLE SENTENCE FOR. Yesterday, when I got the most thoughtful, constructive rejection ever from an agent, I thought, If the nicest agent in the world won’t represent me, who will? So basically, I’m never satisfied. This would strike me as very American and worth meditating about if it weren’t still rejection. Only in the literary world do people try to conjure gratitude for rejection. We’re so bombarded with (true) information about how the supply vastly...

1. if tim robbins can’t fix it, no one can Alberto, Emily, AK and I were all set to see Break the Whip at the Actors Gang Saturday night. AK and I had tried to see it during its first run but sold our tickets when our movie club decided to meet that night (that’s how much we love you, movie club). Apparently, though, it’s just not in the cards for us to see that play. The freeways were clear and the parking structure was cheap and easy, which in L.A. means the night is off to an amazing start. We got to the theater early, and because we’d signed up for the reserve section, which was miraculously the same price ($8! Half the price of Dodger Stadium parking! ) as general admission, we lingered outside the Ivy Substation and enjoyed the cool summer night. But as soon as we were done basking in revitalized Culver City goodness, we discovered that, oops, they’d oversold all those reserve rows. Suddenly we and a handful of other theatergoers were at the center of a sto...

Today at lunch I meant to read some more of The Thin Man , which I’m finding funnier and less sexist than Raymond Chandler , but still strangely hard to get through. So more about that next month, when I actually finish it. What I read instead was an L.A. Weekly story about women who are supporting their families by becoming prostitutes. It was basically the journalistic version of the Jennifer Love Hewitt Lifetime Original Movie The Client List , which, yes, I saw. Prurient is my middle name. Not as catchy as Love, so if I ever decide to whore myself, I’ll need to come up with something new. Anyway, here’s what I read in August. Truth and Consequences by Alison Lurie: The two couples at the center of this book can be divided along various lines: sick vs. healthy, caretaker vs. caregetter, artist vs. administrator. Lurie takes a long hard look at all these roles and, with expert character-crafting ability, shows how someone like superstar writer Delia Delaney can be rightly seen as...