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May 25, 2018
Dear Loved Ones,
My first new book in five years— Santa Cruz Noir — is out this June 5th!
It’s... tight.
What is this Noir thing? It's 20 addictive short stories on the dark side, Locals-Only, with no moral compass whatsoever.
It’s part of Akashic Books’ legendary Noir series with collections from all over the world.
Pre-order today— be the first one to get lost in the best hair-raising read of the summer.
"Santa Cruz is everything you ever dreamed, and everything you ever screamed—
in one long drop you'll never forget."
Wanna make my day? I’d love to hear your thoughts after you read our stories.
How about, write a review of Santa Cruz Noir online? — or, post a cunning photo of yourself and the book!
Send me the link to your posting, and I'll snail-mail you a personally-inscribed bookplate.
I hope I drown in requests!
Let me introduce the writers; they’re fantastic:
Tommy Moore, Jill Wolfson, Seana Graham, Vinnie Hanson, Calvin McMullin, Lee Quarnstrom, Elizabeth McKenzie, Jon Bailiff, Dillon Kaiser, Margaret Elysia Garcia, Micah Perks, Wallace Baine, Liza Monroy, Maceo Montoya, Ariel Gore, Jessica Breheny, Naomi Hirahara, Peggy Townsend, Lou Mathews, and Beth Liseck.
AUDIOBOOK, TOO!
I produced the killer audiobook edition for Audible Studios, starring some of my favorite VOs:
James Patrick Cronin, Emma Galvin, Therese Plummer, Eliza Foss, Allison Hiroto, Nick Sullivan, Steven Prince, Bailey Carr, Richard Ferrone, P.J. Echlin, Dan Bittner, Michael Crouch, Almarie Guerra, Thom Rivera, and author performances by Jon Bailiff, Susie Bright, Beth Liseck, and Liza Monroy.
LIVE & IN-PERSON
Come meet the authors and myself, in person!— along with our Noir writing workshops and yes, even "Noir Shadow Puppets." No apologies.
Can't wait to see you and catch up!
Love & True Crime,
Susie
SANTA CRUZ NOIR BOOK TOUR
Tuesday, June 19, 7pm
Bookshop Santa Cruz
1520 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz
Sunday, June 10, 5pm
Skylight Books
1818 N. Vermont Ave, Los Angeles
"That Garden of Eden where all are welcome, alongside drug-heads, serial killers—those who hide in plain sight, in this pseudo-hippie NeverLand on the California coast.” — Dave, GoodReads
LIBRARY AUTHOR/READER TALKS
Saturday, June 30, 2pm
Santa Cruz Public Library - Scotts Valley Branch
251 Kings Valley Road, SV
Thursday, July 12, 6pm
Santa Cruz Public Library - Aptos Branch
7695 Soquel Drive, Apt
"Bright joins the ranks of Akashic editors to rip the lid off the California coastal town that's never seemed less laid-back."— Kirkus Reviews
WRITING WORKSHOPS
Saturday, October 13, 12pm
Latinx Santa Cruz Noir - Café Charla
MAH - Museum of Art and History
705 Front St, Santa Cruz
“The paradox of SC, the zen and the gunshots, the perfect waves and their broken riders…”— Bookshop SC Readers' Club
NOIR: SHADOW PUPPETSFOR FIRST FRIDAY
Friday, October 5, 5pm
Santa Cruz NoirShadow Puppets - All Ages
MAH - Museum of Art and History
705 Front St, Santa Cruz
"Don't hate us because we're beautiful— we were made that way, like Venus rising off the foam with a brick in her hand.. ."
NOIR GAMES - IF YOU LIKE CLUE...
Sunday, October 21, 11am
Santa Cruz Noir "Murder in the Stacks" Clue Game - All Ages
MAH - Museum of Art and History
705 Front St, Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz Noir delivers on noir sensibility with an extra twist: the California mythology.” — Bookriot
After months of fieldwork where I would "run out of questions," I knew something was missing and that I needed to go to graduate school. UCLA came out on top because I wanted to study Nahuatl to do fieldwork with contemporary Aztecs, whose embroidery I had fallen in love with. This may seem a roundabout way to learn a language but you have enter one door or another.
The class was filled with serious people. One, in particular, was a professor, Dr. Lockhart, who wrote ethno-history and was deep into codices and all sorts of colonial Mexican research. Everyone loved going to class. I don't even remember if we took it for credit or not! It was a special time each week when we got to study together.
I was probably the youngest and least experienced in the class but my motivation was fun and alive. Dr. Bright let me know that he thought contemporary ethnography was still cool, even as other anthro types were beginning to think less of it. I recall taking him paliacates, Mexican bandanas, which come in great colors in additional to red. I think he liked them as his "dress-up" bandanas.
Anyhow, there is one day I shall never forget. Dr. Bright had asked us to translate a series of sentences into Nahuatl. We went around the table reading them. Each student would comment or correct the other. Not a big deal.
When it was my turn, I read my sentences. Fine. Dr. Bright asked me to read them again, and I think a third time, too. No grammatical errors. What was the matter?
He said he was just listening carefully to figure out the "accent that I had in Nahuatl." It wasn't English, not Spanish, not French.
He was stumped. "Jill, I just can't figure out what your accent in Nahuatl is."
"Oh, Dr. Bright, it's easy. It's Yiddish."
The man went crazy with laughter!
Later, I did go on to do research in a Nahuatl-speaking village in highland Puebla, learned an enormous amount of Nahuatl, and thought of him often. It was exactly like knowing "Latin in Florence" because everything helped-- to the point that people in the village actually thought I understood them all the time! Hardly the case, but it was a real icebreaker and essential to the whole endeavor.
In the course of writing my dissertation, I was back at UCLA on several occasions and always had the good fortune to have lunch or a coffee with Dr. Bright. Moments to treasure, for sure. Yiddish was the key to a special communication as it has been for countless others.
For whatever comfort it may be to you, his teaching and spirit infused my years at UCLA with that real "joy of learning" that one hears about. As much as I went to school, college, grad school and thought I liked it, at UCLA, I loved it. Dr. Bright was so special to me. It's amazing how great a gal can feel when a prof asks her to have coffee one day. Simple but a giant memory.
Thank you for letting me tell you this story. In the never-too-late vein, I am reminded of the Hasidic saying: "When you say the name of a person who has died, the person comes to life for that moment."
Bill was a marvelous professor and inspiration to me. I am truly sad that he is no longer among the living but he is very much a part of wonderful memories of the joy of learning at UCLA.
My stepmother Lise and I were delighted to hear Jill's stories and we both wrote her back.
I told her that I also remember my dad's Nahuatl class because he said it was his very favorite, the one class he really looked forward to every week— during a time when he was seriously burnt out on university politics.
I told her he'd been wearing bandanas for as long as I could remember (see my 1959 photo above!)
She replied to me again:
Dear Susie,
Wow; your response made my day, too! I mean, how many people really took Nahuatl who wanted to SPEAK it on the street?
Not many! But they were teaching language classes in Quechua (from the Andes) and Quiché (from Guatemala) down the hall, so why not give Mexico some time!
I can't tell you have many times here in New York, by just sprinkling a few words of Nahuatl in my daily conversation, I've stopped people in their tracks. I mean, deer in headlights, stopped!
It isn't all that exotic, since the largest group of Mexicans to immigrate to NYC are from Puebla and Guerrero, both of which are states with large numbers of Nahuatl-speakers.
Mostly, it is their grandparents who speak the language, but many still speak a little and some are fluent.
I remember one night in a Belgian restaurant, I asked the waiter in Spanish for water. We chatted and he heard my Mexican accent. Something clicked when he said the name of his village, which I had been to, so I asked him in Nahuatl (also just called "Mexicano") if he spoke Mexicano.
Glad he wasn't carrying a tray of glasses! He was stunned and a huge grin spread across his face. Pity I didn't have more vocabulary at my fingertips but it was in the mid-70s that I did fieldwork in his region!
Nowadays I curate exhibitions related to the Holocaust and pre-war Jewish culture. That's the direction I took anthropology— museums, exhibitions, documentary films. I haven't done much work in Mexico or Latin America lately, but it is still the area I love. I'd rather just go to Mexico and visit friends and keep learning than work there. "Oaxaca to Poland" might sound pretty drastic but wonderful people and adventures are everywhere with the right head on your shoulders.
And besides, a lot of Poles migrated to Mexico in the '40s and it's a real kick to tell them I've been to their hometowns— the reverse of the NYC waiter!— like Sosnowiec!
All the best and thank you for letting me reminisce.
Sincerely,
Jill
Bill's obit in the NYTimes, by Margalit Fox:
William Bright, an internationally renowned linguist who spent more than half a century inventorying the vanishing riches of the indigenous languages of the United States, died on Oct. 15 in Louisville, Colo. He was 78 and lived in Boulder, Colo.
The cause was a brain tumor, said his daughter, Susie Bright, the well-known writer of erotica.
At his death, Mr. Bright was professor adjoint of linguistics at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He was also emeritus professor of linguistics and anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he taught from 1959 to 1988.
An authority on the native languages and cultures of California, Mr. Bright was known in particular for his work on Karuk (also spelled Karok), an American Indian language from the northwest part of the state. Shortly before his death, in recognition of his efforts to document and preserve the language, he was made an honorary member of the Karuk tribe, the first outsider to be so honored.
His books include “American Indian Linguistics and Literature” (Mouton, 1984); “A Coyote Reader” (University of California, 1993); “1,500 California Place Names: Their Origin and Meaning” (University of California, 1998); and “Native American Placenames of the United States” (University of Oklahoma, 2004).
Mr. Bright’s approach to the study of language was one seldom seen nowadays. With the ascendance of Noam Chomsky in the late 1950’s, linguistics shifted its focus from documenting language as an artifact of human culture to analyzing it as a window onto human cognition.
But to Mr. Bright, language was inseparable from its cultural context, which might include songs, poetry, stories and everyday conversation. And so, lugging unwieldy recording devices, he continued to make forays into traditional communities around the world, sitting down with native speakers and eliciting words, phrases and sentences.
Among the languages on which he worked were Nahuatl, an Aztec language of Mexico; Cakchiquel, of Guatemala; Luiseño, Ute, Wishram and Yurok, languages of the Western United States; and Lushai, Kannada, Tamil and Tulu, languages of the Indian subcontinent.
William Oliver Bright was born on Aug. 13, 1928, in Oxnard, Calif. He received a bachelor’s degree in linguistics from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1949. After a stint in Army intelligence, he earned a doctorate in linguistics from Berkeley in 1955.
He began his fieldwork among the Karuk in 1949. At the time, their language was a tattered remnant of its former splendor, spoken by just a handful of elders. Since encounters with Europeans had rarely ended well for the Karuk, the community had little reason to welcome an outsider.
But Bill Bright was deferential, curious and, at 21, scarcely more than a boy. He was also visibly homesick. The Karuk grandmothers took him in, baking him cookies and cakes and sharing their language. They named him Uhyanapatanvaanich, “little word-asker.”
In 1957, Mr. Bright published “The Karok Language” (University of California), a detailed description of the language and its structure. Last year, the tribe published a Karuk dictionary, compiled by Mr. Bright and Susan Gehr. Today, Karuk children learn the language in tribal schools.
Mr. Bright was divorced twice and widowed twice. From his first marriage, he is survived by his daughter, Susannah (known as Susie), of Santa Cruz, Calif. Also surviving are his wife, Lise Menn, a professor of linguistics at the University of Colorado; two stepsons, Stephen Menn of Montreal and Joseph Menn of Los Angeles; one grandchild; and two step-grandchildren.
His other books include “The World’s Writing Systems” (Oxford University, 1996), which he edited with Peter T. Daniels; and the International Encyclopedia of Linguistics (Oxford University, 1992), of which he was editor in chief. From 1966 to 1987, Mr. Bright was the editor of Language, the field’s flagship journal.
The professor was also a meticulous reader of all his daughter’s manuscripts. He displayed the finished products — among them “Susie Bright’s Sexual State of the Union” and “Mommy’s Little Girl: On Sex, Motherhood, Porn and Cherry Pie” — proudly on his shelves at home.
Whitney was thrilled to be alive and didn’t want to go this soon.
People talk about how much pleasure her music gave them; but really, she got the most out of it. That glow you saw inside Whitney when she sang was unadulterated passion.
Imagine feeling like that every time you opened your mouth.
I don’t know anything about Whitney’s cause of death. We may never know. Unlike the media, however, I wouldn’t presume to festoon a "drug-addict-tragedy" to her memory. I find this treament sexist, disrespectful— and medically, clueless. Easy prejudices are driving this story.
Statistically, the number one reason that a woman like Whitney, of her age and background, would die at this age is: heart disease. Plain, old fashioned, anyone-coulda-been-affected, HEART DISEASE.
Cause of death is certainly NOT “heavy marijuana use” which I’ve read repeatedly. Absurd.
But what about the cocaine, you ask? Isn’t that the culprit?
Well, sure, there’s a statistically-unlikely chance that Whitney OD’ed on the spot with a needle in her arm. But that is a far less likely scenario than a middle-aged woman simply having a heart attack.
"But it was the cumulative use!" you say, stressing your National Enquirer disapproval.
Okay, cocaine, like any speedy substance, is a strain on the heart. But SO MANY people have done way more coke than Whitney Houston, and yet did NOT drop dead at 48.
So, back to your drawing board. Why is it important for Whitney to die young because she wasn’t a "good girl"? Because we want prima donnas to bleed?
I’ve done all kinds of recreational drugs— I bet you have too, Amerika. But the actuarial table of why ‘Susie Bright is going to die” will not point to my drug use as cause of death. My fatal risk for heart disease, cancer, and pulmonary issues is far greater, and it has little do with anything except my childhood and hereditary factors— hedonism barely figures into it.
It’s the same for any of us. Our death is ordained by our natal DNA, by childhood and formative exposures. Our vulnerability to pollutants in our air, water, and food supply is a thousand times more dangerous than the fact that we snorted cocaine off the kitchen table in the 80s. Jesus! Get off the fucking drug-scare-pulpit.
How about other causes of death that aren’t as sexy as getting high? Houston showed signs, from a young age, of eating disorder. She was groomed as a child to be a model— need I say more? Her anorexia/bulemia would’ve had a bigger effect on heart problems than anything else she did, besides genetics. She also smoked cigarettes; she had a serious habit. Nicotine would've loomed large in heart disease. But it doesn't sound titillating for the tabloids.
Or— forget heart disease for a moment. Of all the recreational drugs Houston ingested, surely alcohol leaves the most lasting damage. Busy-bodies, according to the gossip wags, saw Whitney DRINKING the night before she died, shock of shocks. Everyone in Hollywood who's attending the Grammies is having a rather grand time this weekend.
The reason you will see the music community defending Houston and closing ranks, is because the people who worked and made music with Whitney knew that she was NOT a pathetic human being wallowing in abject misery. Far from it.
I didn’t know Whitney. I don't have the coroner's report in hand; this is all speculation. But I do know artists, from the successful and influential to the poor and unheralded. Artists read all this crap about “The diva did drugs! Bad girl! Boo hoo!” and just wanna throw up.
Women in pop culture are particularly framed with this “poor little prima donna who destroyed her talent” garbage. When great male musicians die, it’s unusual to have their substance issues splayed forth in the obit headline.
Is that what happened when George Harrison died? The Beatles, every one of them, could've given Whitney Houston a clinic in drug abuse. When Keith Richards dies, are they going to lead with “heroin destroyed his career”?
Why was Billie Holliday’s love affair with heroin so tragic, but Miles Davis and John Coltrane … not so much? Why is Sinead O'Conner a nutcase but Van Halen is just a darling bunch of naughty rockers? Why is Madonna's mental state on the front page every day, but not Justin Beiber's? Fuck that noise.
Everyone in show business has had their day with getting high and taking risks… they often had a ball doing it. Or they were high functioning despite their vices. Or they carried on for uneventful years that never saw their names in the paper.
Most successful artists have had lifelong health issues that don't end up in the tabloids… lucky for them. Or their crazy moments were swept under the rug; now a footnote. Many of them will be performing tonight, in top form. Our nightingales.
Finally, there's mental illness, all by itself. What do we make of the stress in molding children into billion-dollar showbiz machines— does that matter when they keel over from a heart attack forty years later? If Whitney had been a virgin and only drank milk… oh yeah, right. Superstars like that don't exist.
The tragedy of Whitney’s death is our loss, just as it is whenever we lose a friend, an inspiration, someone who makes your life more meaningful. It must be grueling for those close to her, who can never respond properly to media cannibalism.
I have been through this a hundred times with friends whose deaths were turned into prurient tabloid fodder—no one wanted to hear they died of natural causes. (My story on Marilyn Chambers comes to mind). Whitney's case is not iconic to me— it's just one more reminder of how much I hate the petty and puritanical conclusions our society jumps to. I, for one, am stepping away from the trough.
Whitney Houston's legacy is not a finger-pointing pity party to assuage our envy and condemnation of a bigger-than-life woman. She flew close to the sun? So what! She was brilliant at it. It may not have been the thing killed her; it may have sustained her. Look in the mirror. Whitney lived large and she lived aware of her creative genius, her capacities. It wasn't God-given; she brought it to life. She has nothing to apologize for.
I received Sally Binford’s good-bye letter the day after her body was found.
To those I love--
Most of you know that for some time I've been planning to check out—not out of despair or depression, but a desire to end things well. I've been lucky enough to have had a remarkable life, immeasurably enriched by the love and support of a large (if improbable) group of friends and lovers. I don't want to let it fizzle out in years of debility and dependency. I've gambled enough to know that quitting while you're ahead (or at least even) is wise.
And those of you familiar with my birthday will recognize that the timing of my exit allows me to claim as my epitaph:
Toujours soixante-neuf!
Love and good-bye, Sally
Sally had planned for many years to "check out" before her 70th birthday, but I always thought it was a vague promise, along the lines of “gonna die before I get old.” Sally was more youthful in spirit than me, and I was half her age, so I figured I’d never see that day.
But I did see the day, in the form of a phone call from my ex, Honey, telling me that Sally had really gone and done it. She had cleaned her house, put all her affairs in order, and given herself and her beloved poodle, Jake, a perfect good-bye cocktail of narcotics. She died peacefully, and exactly as she had designed.
I cried like a baby on the phone. "I just saw her a couple days ago, and she said nothing to me, nothing."
Honey told me that Sally had sent out letters. The next day, there mine was, lying on the floor under the mail slot. No return address. It looked from the envelope like a party invitation, or some subversive plot she was hatching. It was, indeed, the most subversive scheme she’d ever designed.
I opened the envelope and found a typewritten note Sally had photocopied for her long-time friends, lovers, and those family members with whom she was still on speaking terms. In the letter, she sounded just as confident, determined, and funny as ever. "Toujours Soixante-Neuf!” she proclaimed at the end. That was her motto: "Forever 69!"
Sally Binford, as anyone who knew her will tell you, was an astonishing person. A pioneering anthropologist and archaeologist, her writings on prehistory are required reading for most college courses in the discipline. A passionate antiwar activist who dropped out of academia at the height of her career in the 1960s, she was one of the founding mothers of the modern feminist movement, a charter member of NOW. But beyond that, she was the first woman ever (if you don't count Emma Goldman) who I'd call the very model of a sex-positive feminist.
Sally was the living embodiment of radical sexual liberation— free from the bonds of jealousy, monogamy, and any and all love arrangements based on the idea of private property. She was one of the members of Sandstone, the infamous Malibu center for communal free love and rigorous chess playing. She was the female "star" of the only movie ever made about the sex lives of old people, "A Ripple in Time," which she made with her dear friend Ed Brecher when she was in her late 50s.
Sally was a one-of-a-kind sex educator and a trail blazer to the very end, the only bisexual member of the very first "Old Lesbian Conference" steering committee. Sometimes she'd end a phone call with me, saying she had to go to a Gray Panthers meeting, and I'd wonder how the rest of them could possibly keep up with her.
Ms. Binford could convert anyone to the cause of erotic camaraderie and social insurrection. She was so smart, witty, an intellectual's delight, a revolutionary's inspiration— and above all, a hell of a lot of fun. She made her homes in Maui, San Francisco and southern France, near her beloved caves at Lascaux. Her poker parties, which brought some of the finest minds in town to the table, were notorious. Her Thanksgiving and Christmas suppers were legendary.
She loved me to pieces, and I guess that's the thing that gets to me the most. Forget famous Sally, or notorious Sally, and you'd still find someone who would do anything for the people she loved—except live past her prime.
A year after Sally's death—and months after everyone who'd ever loved her had met at the enormous wake she requested—her longtime lover and companion Jeremy Slate wrote to each of us, asking what we made of Sally's choice to die. He wrote:
I believe in her dying, Sally had something to say, a point to make. Not unlike her, hey?
To clarify that point, to continue to reap the rewards of having known Sally, we should examine our feelings and let them be known to each of us.
If you agree, please answer a couple of questions and add some of your own:
Were you aware that Sally was planning to die when she was still 69? How'd you find out?
What was your emotional response/reaction upon learning of her death?
Where did your reasoning take you? What, ultimately, did you think of Sally's choice?
What are your feelings now, nearly two months later?
Love, Jeremy
I wrote Jeremy a long reply. Yes, Sally had told me about her plan to "check out" according to her own design, and I hadn't liked it, although I wouldn't dream of trying to talk her out of it. She was the first person to ever prompt me to consider what I ’m am going to do when my life is at its end.
Was I aware that Sally was planning to die when she was still 69?
Sally first told me about her plans to check out more than a year ago on a car trip we took to M. and R.'s ranch. We were on the winding forest road that leads to their place when she brought it up. She was 68 at the time. She told me she had no intention of living past 69, blah blah, her usual rap about how she'd planned this for a long time. By way of explanation, she added that her whole family tended to fall apart after 70 years of age.
She spoke of three people who were influential in her wishes...
As you know, I am a diehard fan of the rigorous movie quizzes devised by Dennis Cozzalio at his swoon-worthy filmblog, Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule.
I am posting my answers on his blog, along with everyone else who's playing... but here's an extended version, with film clips and photos. Come over and post your answers, it's sooooo fun; more like an interview than an exam.
Let me stretch my cold blue hands from their keyboard coffin and begin:
1) Favorite Vincent Price/American International Pictures release.
My earnest favorite is the “The House of Usher.” I like to think Price truly drank the Poe Kool-Aid and gave himself to that role.
I also gasp at “Raven” for the debut of that handsome, full-head-of-hair jackanape, Jack Nicholson.
2) What horror classic (or non-classic) that has not yet been remade would you like to see upgraded for modern audiences?
I have a longtime answer to this question.
I edited a lesbian magazine in the 1980s called On Our Backs. I discovered an erotic short story in our slush pile that was terrific, a sci-fi suspense-thriller featuring two amazing lovers/adversaries: Ripley and Vasquez.
I called the author on the phone, exclaiming over her inspiring characters. Wow, what originals! She was quiet on the other end of the line.
That’s how I came to rent the whole series. Nevertheless, I wrote back to my author, “I still wish your story was the movie; I love it the best.”
That was my introduction to slash fiction— I’ve read a lot of it now, much of it script-worthy!
3) Jonathan Frid or Thayer David?
Barney Barney Barney! I wasn't supposed to watch “Dark Shadows,” and it was the only soap I was interested in as a child. Frid's character and those pretty ladies’ décolletage are what stayed with me.
4) Name the one horror movie you need to see that has so far eluded you.
My glaring omission isThe Exorcist. I read the book in broad daylight at fourteen and scared myself so badly I couldn’t sleep. I remember seeing the lines of people waiting for its debut at the movie theater in Westwood, and I thought, “No, I can’t take it, I can’t.”
5) Favorite film director most closely associated with the horror genre.
David Cronenberg.
But my favorite "horror" director not especially connected with horror is Roman Polanski.
6) Ingrid Pitt or Barbara Steele?
Barbara’s face is so memorable, that British porcelain in Italian camp. She worked with Fellini, right? You have to love a Felliniesque horror vamp.
I lean toward attractive monsters, sexy monsters, French monsters.
The one who touches my heart the most is the Beast in Cocteau’s La Belle et le Bête. I would never leave him!
However, in the course of preparing my answer to this question, I stumbled upon something I simply MUST watch tonight: Nazi zombies, in Dead Snow. Norwegian!
13) Favorite Mario Bava movie.
Need you ask? Diabolik! He robs from the rich to give to the girls. No horror, just pure pre-Bond awesomeness.
14) Favorite horror actor and actress.
My boyfriend right now is "Eric" in True Blood, played by Alexander Skarsgard. He and the Nazi Zombies can HAVE me.
Boris Karloff is my classic favorite, and my mother’s as well.
Their Dark Shadows moments were just one little twinkle on great careers from start to finish.
17) When did you realize that you were a fan of the horror genre? And if you’re not, when did you realize you weren’t?
I was raised quite obediently as girly-girl— I thought horror was for boys, along with mathematics and sports. I said horror movies were dumb— or frightful— and as I was “protected” from them as a child, I had no idea what I was missing. Occasionally I’d hear some chick screaming from a monster-rape reel, and I’d grimace. Stupid, stupid victim.
In the 80s, around the time I got the Ripley/Vasquez manuscript, I confided my horror-contempt to one of my colleagues, book critic Laura Miller.
She surprised me; she told me I was a fool to be missing out on some truly great movies. Laura seemed to know what would turn the key for me… and suggested an early Cronenberg: Brood. It’s psychiatric! It’s sexual! It’s Canadian! I was enraptured.
I always liked fantasy and fairy tales for their romance and cruelty, I just hadn’t figured out where to find those themes in horror. I also hadn’t yet discovered my horror heroines, women who make things happen.
I suppose it's old hat now, but Clover’s writing about "The Final Girl" gave me a way into horror, to see beyond the shrieking raped-wretch. Women get to “do more stuff” in horror than just about any genre. In horror, once you start listening between the lines, gender is a tossed salad.
18) Favorite Bert I. Gordon (B.I.G.) movie.
I fail once again. I guess I know what I'm doing this Halloween.
19) Name an obscure horror favorite that you wish more people knew about.
The People Under The Stairs… it’s so bad it’s delicious.
Rabid… oh, Marilyn.
20) The Human Centipede-- yes or no?
Oh yes! YES! YES! This is exactly where the toilet flukeworm in X-Files was heading.
21) And while we’re in the neighborhood, is there a horror film you can think of that you felt “went too far”?
“Going too far,” for me, is a desired mental destination. If something affects me, it’s done its magic, and my reaction says more about “me” than it does about the supposed line it crossed.
A favorite movie that pushed my buttons this way was I Spit on Your Grave.The ultimate in Old Testament Medieval Revenge. Camille Keaton is beyond The Final Girl— she is: The Rapture.
The first half of the film, her character is humiliated, raped, broken— left for dead. I could barely sit through it. No wonder this film was targeted by feminist picket lines and boycotts.
But had any of the protestors watched the SECOND half? What Keaton does to her rapists is TWICE as sick— and cold as ice. All one can do is applaud. Or laugh, evilly.
22) Name a film that is technically outside the horror genre that you might still feel comfortable describing as a horror film.
Recently, The Debt. Anything on a gynecologist’s table with a Nazi: Horror movie.
23) Lara Parker or Kathryn Leigh Scott?
Lara Parker, by a hair— but I'm not really into either of these girls.
24) If you’re a horror fan, at some point in your past your dad, grandmother, teacher or some other disgusted figure of authority probably wagged their finger at you and said, “Why do you insist on watching all this morbid horror junk?” How did you reply?
“Can I watch just two more minutes?”
And if that reply fell short somehow, how would you have liked to have replied?
“When I grow up, I’m going to do whatever I want and you won’t be able to stop me.” —
That’s what I was thinking all the time.
But I never would have said that, because the “violence” that would have ensued would make any horror movie look like a walk in the park!
25) Name the critic or Web site you most enjoy reading on the subject of the horror genre.
I'm a neophyte. Tell me and I'll follow.
26) Most frightening image you’ve ever taken away from a horror movie.
How about the most frightening image I DIDN’T take away? There’s nothing like anticipating a shock, which you’ve been told your whole life is “beyond the pale”... only to find out it’s a con.
Snuff fooled so many people. What an advertising campaign! What a rout! It managed to get banned in several cities, become a centerpiece of feminist outrage for a good decade… and it was all a big NOTHING.
The movie’s tag line was, “Made in South America, Where Life is Cheap!”
In fact, the “snuff” ending was shot in Hell’s Kitchen, where the film distributor was so cheap that he heated up a little Chef-Boy-R-Dee for the FX shot of the "victim’s" intestines. The dead actress couldn’t lay still.
The things they got away with, before the Internet...
But to answer your original question, the image that's never left me more haunted is Catherine Deneuve going nuts in Repulsion, which critic Kim Morgan outlines beautifully here:
27) Your favorite memory associated with watching a horror movie.
Staying up by myself, watching vampire movies after mom went to bed.
28) What would you say is the most important/significant horror movie of the past twenty years (1992-2012)? Why?
30) You are programming an all-night Halloween horror-thon for your favorite old movie palace. What five movies make up your schedule?
Just for a kick, how about a horror fest based on The Bechdel Test?
The Bechdel Test requires a movie to pass three questions: 1) It has to have at least two women in it, 2) Who talk to each other, 3) About something besides a man.
On Our Backs publisher Debi Sundahl always liked to say, “What would Steve Jobs do?”
I had no idea who, or what, she was talking about.
This “Steve Jobs” was her number-one favorite man in the whole world. I had the impression she must know him personally; she quoted him so extensively I presumed they'd met where she worked, in the Copenhagen Room at the O’Farrell Theatre, some extraordinary lap dance customer.
“We’re not going to pay for typesetting anymore,” Debi announced one day. “It’s too expensive, and it’s irrelevant. Steve Jobs has a computer for us that’s going to change all that; we’ll do it right here in the house.”
She said this as she pointed at our living room, which had been transformed into our paste-up and layout den.
A computer?
I imagined "Hal" in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Impossible! I couldn’t program a rocket ship; I only knew how to write, edit, wax down copy, and use a proportion wheel.
Debi came home one day with an enormous, beautiful white box that looked like it belonged on a Milan runway. It was the 1984 Macintosh desktop computer.
I started whimpering. “I can’t do it. You don’t understand... I barely passed ninth-grade algebra.”
She took a cassette tape out of the package and loaded it into her boom box. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
Flute music started up on the tape, as if we were about to attend a New Age seminar. I felt as though someone had placed either an egg or a bomb over my head, but I couldn’t tell which.
A woman’s voice came over the speaker; she sounded beatific. “Take the monitor out of the box,” she said. She patiently explained how to insert the power cord on both ends. Debi rolled her eyes.
The disembodied Apple Voice said, “Press the power button on.” It was like a priest declaring, “Body of Christ.”
A heavenly tone came out of the computer, as if something were being born.
The screen flickered and a smiling little “box face” appeared on-screen. It twinkled at me. It said, I don’t care if you didn’t understand ninth-grade algebra.
I blew my nose into my wet Kleenex one last time, and Debi said, “So, how fast can you type?”
Debi wanted everything Steve Jobs had. —Like investors. Giant loans. People clamoring for our innovation. I felt she was ignoring political reality.
“People don’t think Steve Jobs is a pervert! We're lesbian sex publishers!” I said. “No one’s trying to take him away in leg irons for frightening the horses.”
“He is frightening the horses,” Debi said. She cupped her face in her palm like she and Steve had just spent all last night having pillow talk...
Deb was absolutely right. Within a year, our "entertainment for the adventurous lesbian" magazine took PageMaker 1.0 software, tossed out the typesetter, and published On Our Backs completely on Mac software.
We didn’t realize it at the time, but we were the first magazine to do so. We printed our 13,000 copies, and sent them all over the country.
Our On Our Backs Winter 1986 edition was what the first magazine— on any subject, anywhere— looked like, built on a 1984 Apple machine with Pagemaker.
The kerning is atrocious. You could only choose from Helvetica or Palatino fonts. I remember crying about that, too. But we could afford it; it was the only thing we could afford. And considering our content, which no one else in the printing industry would touch, that was saying something.
I look at our first Mac-built issue now, and some of it still seems avant-garde. If you read the “Letters to the Editor” page, you’ll get an idea of how our readers' stunned reactions.
I love the note that says: "Enclosed is $15 for your magazine. Thank you! I have been a lesbian for all of my 76 years."
Inside our landmark "Mac" issue, you'll find:
Announcement of the first feature film based on a lesbian-written novel: Desert Hearts, by Jane Rule, directed by another dyke, Donna Deitch. No one ever came out of the closet to do such a thing before, and few have since.
First lesbian genital piercing article and photos with pioneer Raelynn Gallina.
Sarah Schulman's Dyke-Kafkaesque prose, “a short story about a penis”— which was refused by every other feminist press she approached.
The first feature on lesbians' relationship with AIDS, again, from an author who could not find another feminist publisher who would publish this information or statistics.
Advertising-wise: the first dildo harness designed for a woman’s figure, from Kathy Andrew’s Stormy Leather studio, and the first-ever advertising for dildos, based on Bruce Springsteen’s BORN IN THE USA album cover. Our advertiser invented the silicon dildo, and we ran with it.
I am very sad today about Steve Job's passing. I know many of us are thinking about how his life touched ours, through good times and bad. For authors, artists, and publishing outlaws of every description, the Mac revolution was the puzzle piece we had pressed for, longed for, and finally achieved.
Some of my friends went to work at Apple, it was their dream come true, and I know they must be devastated by this loss. My heart goes out to them.
It's rare that a man "you never met" feels like part of your coming of age, your extended family. It's raining hard outside tonight in Santa Cruz, and that voice is calling out again from my illuminated screen.
I can hear it . . .
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Illustration: Kim Larson, On Our Backs Winter 1986 Cover
The whole 48 page issue of OOB, Winter 86 is here. I made a quick scan, so the photo quality suffered— but I thought you'd like to see it. One of these days we'll have to make a digital archive.
My memory of Debi and our first Mac is from my memoir, Big Sex Little Death.
The last three minutes of Part 11 show the dozens of photographer names and TV station feeds that are part of the multi-screen collage.
I noted that this project does not have a byline. It's obviously someone who's an activist in investigating various cover-ups in the 9/11 investigation (see the PSA for RememberBuilding7 at end of the tape).
I don't have any conclusions about 9/11's origins other than: "Nothing would surprise me." Regardless, this synched documentation is a prodigious video capsule of events.
It's also sad, and poignant, and makes me think of all my friends in New York, both here and passed away. *Love you.*
Watch it now, before someone says it's "offensive" and YT takes it down.
My late and legendary "porn boss" is in the news today, as FBI details emerge about the life of Bob Guccione:
"Before he rose to notoriety as the founder of Penthouse magazine, Guccione allegedly wrote letters soliciting customers to buy his dirty photos at the bargain rate of 10 photos for $2 under the pseudonym of "Robert Guccione..."
The story is continued here at TPM, with great relish... about Bob's connections to the Mob, his exacting devotion to nude photography, and so forth!
It's interesting to learn personal history of my first mainstream publisher. I had only written for underground newspapers in the 70s and early 80s. Guccione was the first to send me a paycheck for my work.
I wrote the first feminist erotic film column (that's an understatment) at Penthouse Forum from '86-'89, when their magazine empire was flourishing. It was called "The Erotic Screen." Later I added a Q&A called "The X-Rated Advisor."
Many, many of the editors you know at every other NYC magazine office once worked for Guccione, at any of his many publications. "Omni," for example, was huge at the time I worked for Forum, and many sci-fi authors contributed erotic fiction to both sides. I remember first writing to Robert Silverberg back then, about some of his clever sexy short stories that I later published in Best American Erotica.
A couple insights:
The classic photo layout for cheesecake that you see in every modern periodical, with a photo bleeding 2/3 on the left, a column of white, and then two photos, also full bleeds on the right, that's the "Penthouse Layout." —Lots of white space, very clean, little or no type, bleed the photos out on the edges. It influenced ALL the erotic and fashion mags, every men's magazine, even if they were showing off stereos or cars. it was different from Playboy's old layout, which had more traditional, Esquire-type design, the kind of thing you see on "Mad Men."
As for "organized crime" and its relationship to Guccione, that makes me laugh. Not because it isn't true, but because the entire magazine distribution business, like the record business, is all about trucking and "organized crime"— it's hardly limited to sexy periodicals. (What gets stocked and delivered, etc.)
I published a independent women's sex mag (On Our Backs) in the late 80s, and we had a hell of time breaking INTO this magazine distribution world, because it's so corrupt. The bigwigs don't give a hoot about your content as long as you pay them off.
The FBI, meanwhile, is perpetually annoyed with porn businessmen AND Teamsters beeause of the unreported income involved, (all those quarters in peepshow machines!) They use "sex crimes" as the excuse to investigate when they can. The morality of everyone involved is irrelevant. Most of these guys who run the business are old-school male chauvinists who would never want their daughter to be involved in either trucking or porn. They kept telling us to be a "nice girls, go home." Lesbian-made sex zines? It blew their circuits.
Forum was a huge break for me at the time, to get the editing job at PH— it was the beginning of my career as a f/t writer. It also subsidized all my "free time" to edit On Our Backs. I had total creative freedom at Forum, which was amazing to look back at. I got expertly copyedited and that was that. Good times.
The only time I was "censored" was when the MacKinnon Dworkin laws passed into Canadian customs controls... which brought about a whole list of things we couldn't "say" anymore at PH, such as "anal sex," any arguing between men and women (could be seen as "degrading to women"), and of course, even the silliest of S/M argot. You also had to make sure every character, even in fantasy, was at least a "junior" in college. Oh, those were the days! —EXTREMELY irritating.
Ultimately,the Canadian customs rules were only enforced against publications with a sexual stigma— the New York Times could print the word "bondage" all day if they wanted to.
The Customs laws took a far greater toll on small lesbian and gay presses than it did on Penthouse. I remember smuggling On Our Backs in the back of a car to Vancouver's "Little Sisters" queer bookshop.
Regarding my scrapbook photo above: This is one of the photos from Vanessa William's appearance in Penthouse, circa 1984. She had just won the Miss America contest, and a photographer from her past, who had done this very pretty little "girl-girl" shoot, sold his photos to PH, which in turn caused Miss America to take back their crown.
I was SO HAPPY that Vanessa triumphed and became massively famous, in spite of them. Anyway, i remember framing one of the best photos from this spread, where Vanessa is wearing a very "old gay" leather dildo harness, looking dead glamourous.
What's so funny is that on the opposite side of the thin magazine paper is ANOTHER centerfold, of then practically-unknown Traci Lords! It's a terrible pic of her. At the time, it annoyed me; I thought they included this boring white chick because they were so afraid to "merely" offer a black woman as a centerforld... what idiots. Later, this edition was pulled because it turned out Traci was underage.
1 Are there any things that you did for the first time last year?
a) It was my first full year living without my daughter.
b) Finished a memoir.
c) Learned how to make a cocktail from the ground up.
d) Traveled to Italy for the first time, Spoke Italian, Was Understood.
2 Did you have any New Year's resolution and did you act upon them?
I remember thinking, "I going to finish editing the memoir by March 1, and it's good, so no fake fretting or being coy about it."
Fill-your-shoes sort of thing.
3 Did someone close to you give birth to a child?
Marla gave birth to her first child in November. Her husband Ryan called us from the hospital at 4AM, when she was close to delivery. It was thrilling to go there before dawn with coffee for him and the nurses. I told him we felt like "Braxton-Hicks" grandparents.
4 Did someone close to you die?
Yeah, a few. Older mentors are checking out, and some of my peers are starting to go "poof."
A number of my elders in early erotic and independent movies passed away; often without notice. I want to write more about that in 2011.
5 Which countries did you travel to?
Canada, England, France, Italy, and crazy rich Monaco.
6 What do you wish for in 2011 that you missed this year?
"Do you wish you would die?"
"No. It's foolish to ask for luxuries in times like these."
The moments I was alone, printing out the final manuscript of Big Sex Little Death, putting the manuscript in an envelope and posting it to publisher— content-ment.
Completing the Sex Journal. Celebrating the "4th Amendent Please--No Strip Searching Young Women for Advil" case win with the ACLU Drug Reform Project. Going to see Meryl from Tuneyards at the Crepe Place and dancing on top of the bar so I could see her.
Having a Chadburn at Martin's brand new Smuggler's Cove. Going with Kate Moses to the last session of the Food Memoir class. Meeting Karen Sallowitz and rolfing.
Running with Kathy and friends on many many beautiful mornings, counting all the baby rabbits at Wilder Ranch. Holding my breath through Aretha's Shocking Tales from the California State University system.
Laughing my ass off as a sitting judge at the San Francisco Literary Death Match. Publishing 10 years of Audible audio show archives. Being in Europe with my grownup baby, seeing all our old friends from when she was a toddler, the toddlers now towering over us, transcending language. Hiking the Nietzsche Trail. He is said to have written his treatise on the nonexistence of God after he climbed this path from the mountains to the sea and back. Would Nietzsche have taken the bus? No!
Getting hit, knnecapped by a car and fleeing the "crime scene" to walk into my publisher's sales conference: "I have to give this talk, I don't care if I'm in a coma." Ask for an icebag and the proverbial mike. (Accidents provide great adrenaline for making speeches).
Taking guerilla photos with Jill and Becky and Jon at the Albany Bulb.
8 Your biggest success in 2010?
Witnessing Aretha's 20th year.
Holding the frame— in fact, post-driving the frame.
9 And your worst failure?
Panicking over shit I don't respect in the first place.
10 Any injuries or diseases?
Use it or lose it, protect it or lose it. Heredity and the nation's public health policies weighed in more than I would have liked.
11 What's the best thing you bought in 2010?
My iPad and the things that came along with it-- all the books I read, all the obscure movies I watched.
My wool fingerless gloves, my red Duofold union suit.
Chartreuse was very special, I'll remember that.
The plane tickets to faraway lands— how can I forget!
My handlebars for my bicycle which feel, like Goldilocks' delight, just right.
12 Any people that deserve special praise this year?
The many many people in my life who displayed True Grit.
13 Anyone whose actions shocked and frustrated you?
The end of "What We Think of As America" shouldn't shock me, but it does, because I was raised in its great soft mud.
14 What did you spend most of your money for?
The most pedestrian of bills. Health care. Health care insurance premiums. Getting rid of those certainly saved a lot of money.
Given my mercury, I'd say I am simply more cautious.
Thicker or thinner?
Same, but with more gravity.
Richer or poorer?
In wisdom? Oh, much richer.
18 What would you've liked to do more often?
Singing and humming.
19 And less often?
Contemplating worst-case scenarios. I should've hummed a little instead.
20 Did you fall in love in 2010?
With poetry, yes.
21 How many one-night-stands?
Discretion is the only part of valor.
22 What was your favorite TV show?
Mad Men, Matthew Weiner's stories.
23 Do you despise anything that you didn't mind before?
Broken telephones, broken systems, broken everything. The lost art— and apparently the lost education— of making things and doing things that last. The legacy-lessness.
24 What was the best book you read?
I read lots of good authors this year; I have to make a list.
But this question has an oddball meaning for me. I've spent the last few months reading every book aloud that I've ever written, for an audiobook project. —Books I wrote when I was 23, or when I was pregnant, or when I was living as an ex-pat, and when I was making a new home, my most recent memoir.
25 What's the best music you discovered this year?
Peter Mulvey, Tuneyards, Pomplamousse, my missing cuts from the Harold and Maude soundtrack, my Tom Waits "Channel" on Pandora, rediscovering the Elvis Comeback Special. The Monterey Jazz Fest lineup, the Teleman String Concertos.
This list doesn't deliver all the music I listened to; but I was mostly listening to old favorites. Like Otis Redding on New Year's Eve. I don't know how to find new music I'd like, and I don't have enough new happy accidents.
26 What did you want and get?
Respect.
27 What did you want but didn't get?
Respect. I can see this is going to be a theme.
28 What are your favorite movies this year?
"I do not entertain hypotheticals; I find the world as it is vexing enough."
29 What did you do on your birthday and how old did you turn?
I turned 52 and in such a state, I do not fucking remember.
30 What would've made your year easier?
Cold hard cash and a perfect bill of health.
31 What would you call your style 2010?
Foxatronic, with a dash of bitters.
32 How did you manage to not lose your mind?
Sweating profusely on the trail.
33 Which artist did you admire the most?
Someday everyone's going to realize Ariel Gore is a genius.
34 What political subject caught your interest most?
My friend Jamie Gillis died last Friday after a long struggle with cancer. He was an actor and legend in the sex film business whom I've written about over the years the way most movie critics write about Meryl Streep. They broke the mold with this guy.
Gillis grew up in the City, one of six kids with a father who was known as "The Mayor of the Roseland Ballroom." He graduated from Columbia University in 1970.
He was a classical repertory actor, scrounging extra money as a cabbie, when he answered an ad in the Village Voice for a movie gig that turned out to a casting call for porn loops— the kind of tiny movies that used to be shown in peep shows.
Gillis went on to act in the most important movies that were ever made in American erotic cinema — Radley Metzger titles like The Opening of Misty Beethoven— and his unforgettable roles in the films by the late director Richard Mahler, Midnight Heat being most notable.
("Mahler" was a pseudoynym for famous horror director Roger Watkins. It's frustrating that there are no video clips of Watkins' erotic work online.When I've shown clips of Jamie from the original Midnight Heat to theaterical audiences, the audience falls silent holding their breath).
Twenty years into his career, Gillis originated what came to be called "gonzo porn," simultaneously (and accidentally) pioneering the reality show genre. He teamed up with one of his favorite actresses, Rene Morgan, plus photographer Duck Dumont and a chauffered car— and cruised San Francisco's North Beach to find someone who'd be willing to have sex on camera, right on the spot. Much easer said than done. It was called On the Prowl.
I interviewed Jamie two years ago in NYC, for my podcast on Audible.com. When Gillis arrived for our interview he sheepishly admitted to the engineering staff that he turning sixty-four. My producer, a pro inured to "star-power," grabbed me aside and said, "I can't believe it! He's incredible!"
The man had a timeless sex appeal. More than that— this capacity to get to something intimate with strangers that you couldn't shrug off.
Beyond that, he was a great conversationalist. I can't tell you how sad I am I won't see Jamie and sit in his beautiful garden next time I'm in NYC. Jamie was a piece of the City's history you won't see again. He died way too early— yet he outlived most of his contemporaries.
Below is a partial transcript (darn it) of one of our interviews, and an audio excerpt. It is all too brief, and I hope you can listen to the entire hour long interview.
Jamie and I started off by talking about the last time we'd seen each other in person. We were at a Christmas party at the O'Farrell theater — owned by the late Jim and Artie Mitchell.
We reminisced about a mutual friend who partied with us there — Lisa Thatcher, a formidable (but now long-retired) porn star in New York during Jamie's early days in the business.
Susie Bright: If you remember, when we saw Lisa Thatcher at Jim and Art's Christmas party, you told me something like, "Not everybody is right for this business. Lisa was."
And like myself, Lisa is now middle-aged. If you saw her on the street going to the grocery store now, you wouldn't say, "OMG, it's a porn star." And yet she still has this sort of glimmer in the eye. What did you mean when you said that to me?
Jamie Gillis: She wasn't just some innocent kid, you know? She knew exactly what she was getting into. She loved all kinds of sex, so she was never, in any sense, a victim of the business. And I think she did well in the business.
The seventies were some pretty raunchy days in New York. But you'd go someplace and there would be a line of guys trying to get to touch her. I'd never seen that big a line. And she loved it! She told me that one of the things that got her excited was the hunger of the guys who got to spend one or two minutes with her. She would relate to that kind of hunger that they felt. And she loved that. It turned her on.
SB: What do you notice about a performer who doesn't belong in the business?
JG: Well, they're not happy. They're doing it for the attention or maybe for affection that they haven't gotten from their families, or whatever. It's a sad story when they're not that interested in the sex — they just want to be noticed. They'll put up with the sex but you can see they're not there. They don't want to be there and they're trying not to be there. They're just saying, "Look at me. Hold me. Love me."
And, you know, you do get attention if you're a porn performer. “We're concerned about you, and we'll send a car for you” — all that stuff — you know? So it can feel good, but with disastrous results for people who don't really belong in porn.
When Porn Wasn’t a Business Yet
SB: You got started in the business in the early '70s, I think.
JG: '71. There wasn't even a business. It was a dirty basement.
SB: I was about to say, it wasn't so much a business. It was a fly-by-night thing happening in a counterculture.
So on top of the sex, you had this attitude: "This is our generation doing something different than anybody else would do." Even though it wasn't explicitly political, in the sense that some of the rock and roll was — it was of the time, like smoking pot or dropping acid.
It had that vibe: "We hang together because we have some kind of consciousness, and we're also making some bucks and getting our rocks off." But then you had this complete change in technology in the business, and now there's nothing countercultural about the scene — nothing "outlaw" about it.
JG: It's no longer counterculture. The counter is gone. "Hey, Ma! We're cultcha now!"
SB: Did this change depress you at all? You came from this era where you could be a freak or an intellectual, or you could have some cinematic or theatrical background, and you could fit in.
Whereas now it's more like, "What do you mean? I'm busy, I have this many minutes to make this many dollars before my next real estate seminar." Was that change hard to cope with?
JG: In a way. It's sort of sad to see sex be a business.
SB: You didn't do it for free before...
JG: No!
SB: ...but there was just something else going on.
JG: But then, we don't want to get too romantic about this. I got into the business just looking for part-time work. I wasn't making any money acting so I was looking for a part-time job to support myself. But it did feel good, and it became a social thing. We were excited about what we were doing. It was kind of fun. (Laughs)
SB: I got interested in doing porn and being a porn critic in a sort of revolutionary spirit. I have zero interest in going to the AVN awards or some business seminar, or making some cookie-cutter movie with people who wouldn't know a filmic moment if it fell on top of them. It pisses me off! I get a little cranky about it.
JG: Well, people are making money and doing what they want. But I did get disgusted with the business around '89. I'd been in it for a long time. That's when I started doing that gonzo stuff, because the scripts were so stupid. So I thought — we'll just take a girl out to the streets…
SB: See what might happen.
JG: ...get her fucked. Yeah.
Gonzo Porn
SB: For those people who don't know, what is “gonzo porn”? What did you want gonzo to be?
JG: All I wanted to do was just go out into the streets and meet people. Bring a girl out – maybe to a dirty bookstore or something — and just "throw her to the wolves."
SB: A lot of people will think everyone jumped at the chance. But of course, they didn't! There was a lot of tension. People were afraid of being conned, or that it wasn't real, or that she would cut their balls off in some crazy... There's this tension that they don't know if they can trust you with their nuts.
JG: It's a very unusual offer. Sure!
SB:(Laughing) Yes it is!
JG: I remember I was hanging out with Long Jean Silver and she said, "Let's go find some boys!" She wanted a group of boys to fuck. But we had a hard time finding them!
We'd go up and I'd say, "Hey, you guys want to come back to our place?" They'd run! Finally, we found a group of seven. I said, "We're not taking seven. We're taking three. And I told her, "Pick three that you like the most."
There were two sailors that we picked up early on for a film we made. And I got a call from the Navy. One of the guys was in the brig because he did this movie.
So I said, "What do you mean, one of the guys is in the brig because they did this movie?" (laughter) And it wasn't even the guy that did the fucking! It was the other guy.
So the guy's lawyer told me, "Well, they want to get rid of him, so they're using this as an excuse."
So I said, "You tell the Navy that if they use this as an excuse to get rid of this guy, I'm going to call the press and tell them that he didn't even do anything in this movie, and the Navy's just trying to screw him. Because they're leaving alone the guy who actually did the fucking. So tell the Navy it's going to be on the front page of the Chronicle.
So the lawyer said, "OK, thanks." He called me back a half hour later and said, "Thanks a lot. He's out. Everything's fine." That was the only time in my life I had any sense of what real power was.
SB: The classic report from most men about doing porn is that they think they'll have a giant dick on TV, but when the camera is on them, they're just sweating bullets. Did you ever have one of those shy moments back when you were a little lamb?
JG: Never. I was a duck to water. I mean, to me it was like — wow! Even though it wasn't good money back then, it was like — "Thirty bucks to fuck a pretty girl!" I couldn't believe it.
I don't know if it was because I was a sex freak or because of my acting training. I didn't care if anyone was there. I would just concentrate on what I was there to do. It wasn't hard to do that.
Is Porn Hard On Off-Camera Lovers?
SB: I've heard that it might be hard for men who were in the business to have relationships. Mike Horner told me that.
JG: Mike is the male version of somebody who shouldn't be in the business. He's too sweet for it. You know what I mean?
SB: Well, I don’t agree with you about Mike, but I want to hear what you have to say about the dilemma he describes. He told me, "If I'm fucking somebody all day at work, and I come home, and someone's all needy and saying, "I want you to fuck me now, because I'm your girlfriend and I need you to show that same enthusiasm for me.'"
And he said, "It's too much. I can't do that."
And I said, "Well, what if you hook up with someone in the sex business? Maybe they'll feel the same way. Maybe they'd also come home from a hard day of being fucked, and they don't need you to turn on, or turn off."
But he said, "Oh, I can't win. I've tried a lot of different things." He really wanted to have a girlfriend the way other people have girlfriends.
JG: But this is even true in the "legitimate" Hollywood. If you're a guy, you get on the set and you're working with the most beautiful woman in the world. Maybe your wife or girlfriend at home is just as pretty, but still, this is fresh meat. You know? And they're all over the place — not just the actresses, but there are the extras. But Mike has a point. You can't live with somebody "straight" in the sex business. Of course it doesn't work. How could it?
I've had relationships with girls in the industry, and that seemed to work out OK, because we were both sex nuts. You know? But a "normal" girl? How can somebody even think about that?
SB: Did you ever feel like you wanted a romance or a domesticity that you couldn't have, or was your attitude just, "No thank you"?
JG: At the time when I got into the business, I was with a girl who saw me as this nice Jewish boy. I came out of college. I was acting. I was a mime. I was a good boy. (Laughter)
SB: You still are.
JG: Yeah, I still am. But all of a sudden I started fucking all these strangers. Somebody once said that a man is as faithful as his options. That's how it is.
So all of the sudden, I didn't even have to go out and look for the girls. They were thrown at me. And I was getting paid for it. So it's like, you've got this really wonderful woman at home. But on the other hand, you've got this other great stuff happening too. And if you're in your twenties, that great stuff is gonna win out… or maybe in your thirties and your forties, even. You know?
SB:(Laughs) Okay, well let's go to the fifties.
JG: Fifties? I don't know. (Laughs)
Is All Porn Queer?
SB: Whenever I read official descriptions of your film career, they'll say, (solemnly) "Jamie Gillis — who never denied his bisexuality!"
JG: Oh… I saw that on Wikipedia.
SB: I love that phrase — "who never denies it." (Laughter) And it's not like you've ever been the grand marshal of the bisexual float in the gay parade.
But you also haven't had this issue that some guys have where they think their career rests on a certain kind of perception that they're straight. I always think that's such a facade. If you're in the sex business, and you're fucking around other people all day long — the notion that you are some kind of "Kinsey 0" is a joke. You can't be. Because you're dealing with other people's dicks and cunts all day long. You better be comfortable with people's bodies.
Anyway, how come you haven't been smeared by it?
JG: Well, I think the entire porn business is just fag-ridden. (Laughter)
Including the customers! I mean, it's all about dick! It's all about dick, and watching dick come. Look at the dick squirt. See Dick. See Dick squirt.
I've always had this funny image of myself as a straight guy who just happens to have more fag sex than any fag I know. Because when I was coming up, gays were the only ones that were really sexually crazy.
Before there was a Plato's Retreat, there was a place called Continental Baths. It was the exact same location. And I used to go to the Continental Baths, because that's where you could have crazy, wild sex! Nobody else was doing that.
And I remember walking around that fucking place thinking, "If only there was a heterosexual place like this. Wouldn't that be amazing?"
And I didn't even dream that it would happen — but it did, like about two years later, with Plato's Retreat. It was this straight place with all these hundreds of girls going there.
In my ideal world, if you were walking down the street, there'd be a place where you could just touch people. There would be a grope club.
SB: Did you ever have a moment when you were a teenager where you thought, "Oh my god, why am I so kinky?"
JG: No, not "Oh my god." Maybe "Thank god!"
SB:(Laughs) But you're supposed to feel guilt and despair and compare yourself to everyone else. How come you didn't?
JG: I guess I always sort of liked sex — almost any kind. It was a big treat! There's this Woody Allen line about how bisexuals have it better because they have twice as many opportunities for a date on Saturday night.
And I remember thinking the same thing when I was eleven, before Woody Allen said it. I thought that as a kid! It was before I had any kind of sexual contact. It seemed like a reasonable attitude to me.
The Mayor of Roseland Ballroom
SB: Has your family been shocked by what you do? Did you have to negotiate this with them?
JG: It was hardly a problem. My family always recognized that I was a little different.
SB: Why do you think that is?
JG: Cause I was always a little different. (Laughs)
Once my mother saw me on television — that sort of legitimized it a little bit for her. And she would read TheDaily News or whatever and see my name in advertisements. My older sister told me, "You know, she has clippings."
My father became a pain in the ass because I made the mistake of getting him a girl once. My parents were separated, so I got him a beautiful young girl. I think it was for his birthday or something.
SB: And you had reason to believe your dad had a strong sexual interest in...
JG: Oh, absolutely. He was always interested in women. They used to call him “The Mayor of Roseland Ballroom.” His legend was that he had danced and kissed every woman who came there.
So I knew this would work out and he'd be very happy. But the problem was — until he died, I could not talk to him without him saying "Do you know any more girls?"
So every once in a while, I had to throw him another hunk of meat.
SB: So the lesson is — do not procure for members of your family?
JG: Don't procure for your father. It's a pain in the ass.
SB: Do you have kids? I mean, how do you deal with it...
JG: I have one child who's practically older than I am. I was a virgin when I was seduced by an older woman.
And then she got pregnant. It was a plan — she wanted the child. I told her, "If you have that child, I will never see you again."
And she said, "Well, I don't expect to see you anyway. I'm going to have the child." So that's how that was.
But I must say, I'm now delighted that I had this child, because it sort of takes that edge off of wondering what that's like. There is this human being out there and I'm glad that she's around now.
But it took me about nine years before I even acknowledged her. It was only because I didn't want to be a bad father. I wasn't prepared. I didn't want to end up like my own father, who had six children because that's what you did in those days.
When I’m 64...
SB: As you get older, does the sizzle endure?
JG: It never ends. I remember — there used to be an old Jewish dominatrix in New York called “Belle du Jour.” And she was popular. I would go to her place just to hang out sometimes because it was interesting. Guys would come in.
This old guy who must have been close to ninety comes in, and he goes in the back with her. And she has these black, thigh-high boots on. And he falls onto the floor, and he's lapping at her boots. And I'm thinking, "My god. It never ends." You know, you'd think when you were ninety, you'd have a little dignity. Something would change. But it doesn't! It just goes on.
SB: Do you know more about how to touch people now, than you knew ten or fifteen years ago? Actually, I don't even know how old you are…
JG: I… I… I… sort of have a spasm whenever I say how old I am. This is the worst possible year, actually, because the Beatles song keeps running through your mind.
SB: Are you sixty-four?
JG: Sixty-four. And there's nothing worse than knowing that you heard that song when you were a kid, and you were thinking — what a joke. There are sixty-four-year-old people walking around the street. And then there you are. It's ridiculous.
SB: Well, you're very honest about this, so I'd treasure anything you can tell me about being a sexual man at sixty-four.
JG:(Pause) Well, first of all, I don't feel I have to fuck everybody I meet.
SB: What a relief!
JG: Of course, also, the girls also don't feel they have to fuck me as much. But you're a little more in control, particularly if you've had as many women as I've had. You sort of know what they're like. And you can appreciate them more just for themselves. You can talk to them and have a good time. And you can just sort of look at one of them and have a good idea of what it's like to fuck that one. And you can think about that and not have to go through with it...
I know that Jamie's friends, his partner, siblings, and daughter— and so many people who worked with him— are missing him today. And so many people who had sex they will never forget, with Jamie, are thinking about him today.
"The essence of freedom consists in thinking you have it," is something Giacomo Casanova once wrote. But today, it reminds me of Mr. Gillis. I will miss his kiss, his embrace, his teasing, and the way he knew he could say anything to me and I would just ask... another question.
Photos: the film stills are from 1983's Midnight Heat. Seriously, try to find this movie on VHS or 16mm. Try. The recent portrait is one he gave me on that famous 64th birthday interview. Here is an obit from Ashley Spicer, which ought to be in The New York Times, but I'm not holding my breath.
To read the rest of Susie's history with old school porn, check out:
