Haven’t posted any original writing in here in forever, so here’s something I wrote a few months back. Totally nothing to do with the novel, although this character will most likely turn up in some future project. So enjoy…

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The Cuddler

You sigh about five minutes after you fall asleep.

Everyone does.

It starts at the top of your chest with a purpose and force, and collapses down your body toward the tips of your lungs. Then for about a second you are perfectly still, until you softly inhale again and continue breathing normally.

You probably never noticed it. Of course, you can only notice it when you’re in bed with someone else and they fall asleep first. You never hear your own sigh. Most people dismiss it as a random occurrence, or a quirk. You really have to sleep with a lot of different people before it kicks in that the sigh happens to everyone.

Most people fixate on the heart of the person they are in bed with. The other person’s skin always seeming warmer than your own. Cuddling before bed with your ear on their chest, using the core of their life as a metronome to guide you to sleep. Th-thump, th-thump.

Lying perfectly still. Not trying to turn the intimacy into passion. Just contentment and solace.

It will be the same tomorrow night, and the night after that. Only minor details will change. He might have a hairy chest tomorrow. Sometimes they listen to my heart, but not usually. The script is always the same, though. They reply to my ad, say they would like to fall asleep cuddling up next to someone, and our next encounter is when they open the door.

Going to their place usually establishes our roles better. That they will lay down on their usual side of the bed, leaving me to slide in next to them and eventually rest my head on their chest.

None of my friends understand and, well, it just doesn’t come up in our conversations anymore. Everyone wants it to be sexual and, sure, there are certainly guys who reply to my ad that think the same thing. But it is just about that moment, surrendering that trust and connecting with someone else on a deeper level. It’s practically non-verbal.

As for the nudity, that is usually up to them. If they leave their boxers on, or take them off, then that is how it plays out. But it’s been months of this now, and it has never turned sexual. That might be a lot of luck on my part, or just some instinctual way of filtering through my e-mail to pick the right people. That is the part where most people get confused.

Two gay guys. Strangers. Nudity. Bed. Intimacy. It does seem like a recipe for sex. That, even if no such prior plan even existed, as soon as you’re both naked in the room, everything would just naturally flow down that path. But it doesn’t and never has. On paper, it does look obvious and simplistic. The elements are all there.

But the relationship, if anything, seems post-coital. My arrival starting when most guys would be gathering their things and heading home for the night.

There are things you have to watch for, though. Kissing breaks the mood. In some sense, we both know we are not intimate. The spell can only exist when we avoid things that would suggest a specific intimacy. You can rub your hands across their chest, but going south of their navel pulls them out of the moment. It stops being a feeling and suggests a person, then a stranger. You can kiss whatever nipple is closest, lightly, but that’s as far as it should go. Once again, lips humanize the feelings too specifically.

My role, when my ear is pressed to their chest, is to love them. Their role is to feel loved. It’s really just therapy, or helping us to avoid therapy longer. Any problems and concerns disappear in that moment for both of us. It is one of those rare events where time does seem to stop, the beating of their heart the only clue it hasn’t.

As for the sigh, that is always the moment where it seems they have achieved both sleep and contentment. Whatever happened in their day, whoever they were before opening their apartment door, all of these things that don’t concern me, all disappear.

To be fair, everyone sighs in that same moment, and in the same way. So it might be projection that every single guy finds contentment in that exhale. But it’s a thought that works for me, and it doesn’t hurt anyone for me to keep it. You don’t have to believe it.

When they wake up, they will be alone. Our time together will seem like a dream. Whether they flashed back to a past love, or held onto me as a placeholder for something in the future, it doesn’t matter.

My own feelings are less clear. Part of the reason is that reflection seems to cheapen it. For me, it is all about being there. His heart thumping softly in my ear. His chest warming the palm of my hand. That final sigh barely fluttering through the top of my hair. It is the moment where no questions exist. Everything makes sense.

And sleeping alone after that isn’t lonely.

By Jeff Walsh

There’s been a continual debate in the blogging community for some time over the issue of whether blogging is journalism. The ongoing debate has genuinely puzzled me (usually the defiant cries from the bloggerati that their words do indeed merit the official term of journalism), because I was never fond of being a journalist although that was entirely how I made my living for 13 years. One decade doing daily print stuff back in Pennsylvania, and three years at InfoWorld right when things were starting to get crazy a few years back.

As a journalist, my biggest complaint (aside from the money, and the tired debate that integrity more than compensates for the lack of pay) was that you technically don’t do anything. When I was in Pennsylvania, three weeks of my life would be determined by the fact that some guy killed his wife two years ago, and my job was to write stories about his murder trial every day. But on some odd level, I still felt that this person killing his wife had at least put himself out there and had actually done something, albeit something horrific. Whereas my professional life continually revolved around how other people lived theirs (person filed a lawsuit, mayor signed an ordinance, protestors gathering) or how nature every so often showed us who is in charge (blizzards, floods, etc.) But on a daily basis, a lot of daily journalists come in and see what the day will bring. You don’t leave work and say, “I’m going to write about a fire tomorrow.” The news is not made, it is reported (feel free to argue that debate elsewhere).

Now, there is one role in a newspaper where a person doesn’t have to play by the rules. They are opinion columnists. If they write about the same murder trial that I am covering, they can say the guy’s greasy lawyer got his patsy eyewitness to lie on the stand and make a mockery of justice. As the daily reporter, I can’t. If someone else says that, great. I’d quote them and be elated. And, if that is the takeaway of everyone in the room, you really do need someone to convey that information or else you have to get it across without making it your judgment. (Again, this is the job and how it is best performed, not necessarily how it is always performed).

When I worked at InfoWorld, and the stock market was going insane, I was forbidden to own stock in any company I might cover, which of course meant any technology company, since on a regular basis you could be thrown on any story. Even in today’s globally mergered environment, you see over the top disclosure statements throughout articles in Time Magazine whenever they praise or criticize anything else owned by AOL Time Warner. This is done across many global media conglomerates to make sure people don’t have any cause to read a story and say, “Well, of course, it’s a positive story, Disney owns them both.” But, I think this is important because I want people who help me to make decisions to make them without influence. I’m currently looking at ways to pay my bills online, and most of my research is in reading articles comparing and contrasting the different offerings. I don’t just go to American Express and Citibank for my objective take on their services.

As a reporter for InfoWorld, I’ll go out on a limb here and say nearly every story I wrote was something that was outside my technical abilities. When XML was a twinkle in Adam Bosworth’s eye at Microsoft, I was writing about it. I mean, I could use a visual authoring tool to create a web page, but not even use templates or do anything dynamic on a server, yet I planted myself in the middle of ground zero while SOAP was being created and Microsoft got serious about XML. I’d like to think I did a good job overall. Could you find stories in the InfoWorld archives now that are totally off-base? I guarantee it. But being outside of the process guaranteed on some level that any tangents weren’t my own. I was running on tips and e-mail forwards and trying to piece things together on tight deadlines. And, honestly, I’d rather have a somewhat wrong story published before our competition than holding on, getting it right, and risk being second. Only the first story that breaks tends to get linked, or matter to your boss.

What I used to do a lot during those times was to e-mail a list of influencers a series of questions, usually on a Friday. And instead of blind copying everyone, I left everyone on the To: line, and usually by the time I was back in the office Monday, a story (if not several) were in my in box, as people like Dave Winer, Kevin Lynch, Jeremy Allaire, people on the standards bodies, people at XML companies that have since disappeared, merged, or whatever. They would raise great issues, bounce ideas off of each other, point out problems that might arise. I always knew enough to understand what was being said, but whereas they could go in and code the stuff, I was content writing about it. The conversations were always on the record, and I don’t recall anyone being upset with the results. In 1998, Dave even thanked me in his Thanksgiving piece for “covering XML with a twinkle in his eye.” I won an internal award for my XML coverage that year, too. But, all of my insights came from talking to people on the inside of the debate, without having my own opinion about the debate. I really didn’t care. One reporter was covering “push” technology, another e-commerce. The trend I was assigned to watch (as I covered web authoring and standards at the time) was XML, so I did. It was not a matter of burning, personal interest.

Even thought it’s been nearly four years since I wrote for InfoWorld, going to Scripting News is still a morning ritual. I like to see what this corner of the world thinks about things. But, Dave seems to have this notion stuck in his craw that blogs are journalism and that everyone should just “get it.” Every time he goes off on his blogs as journalism rants, it brings me great amusement. Why people who are so on the front lines want to hook themselves to this old chestnut of a term is just amusing to me. But, here is why I don’t make the connections myself:

First and foremost, I have an insider’s view of journalism, and when I think journalist, I think “grunt.” I was a grunt at the daily newspaper, and a grunt at InfoWorld, senior writer or not. Grunts have to turn around copy. Grunts fly around the country to go to trade shows that don’t interest them to meet companies that don’t interest them to write stories that don’t interest them. I did it for years. I’m not complaining, it was a crazy, fun time. But, the actual stories I was flying around the country to pursue, I can never recall any of them impacting me on a personal level. At best, I get a story about how I met Bill Gates and he dissed me (true), how Steve Jobs and I had a frantic e-mail volley on deadline about me running a story that his new OS was going to run on Linux (true, that we had the exchange anyway). I also met a lot of great people and built some good relationships. But the technology? Eh, was never really my thing. I wanted to write novels, which is what I’m doing now.

Opinion columnists (and to some extent software reviewers) live in a different world. Their entire shtick is their take on things. It’s why their photos appear above their columns, they are clearly building a brand. The photo is there, all of the copy is first person, and they have absolutely no interest in being objective. Fair, sure. But they clearly can say “Microsoft is off its rocker if it thinks any of its millions of Office users want this.” No grunt can, at least not in their articles. Not unless they’re quoting someone.

So, if there is any connection to be made, I think bloggers are the opinion columnists of the journalism world.

First of all, there is no objectivity anytime Dave talks about other blogging tools, because he obviously built a blogging tool. I’m not saying he doesn’t strive to be fair and give people props when they do good things, but that I have to view everything he says through that lens. I won’t trust Apple to give me the lowdown on Microsoft, just as much as I wouldn’t trust Microsoft to tell me interesting things about itself. I want my high-level insights to come from someone not invested in the outcome.

If you go to dictionary.com, I’m sticking with number three as the definition of journalism I use: “…direct presentation of facts or occurrences with little attempt at analysis or interpretation.” As much as I love Dave and Doc and all these people online, and Arianna Huffington, Andrew Sullivan, and Dave Barry in the traditional press. I don’t go to them for my news. In fact, bloggers tend to link to the news first as a means of context for what they are about to say, which on some level almost seems to substantiate that they are not putting themselves in the role of delivering the news. They use links as a way to set up their opinions. A sort of “Go here and read this, then come back and read what I have to say.”

What people also need to know is that opinion columnists are the pinnacle of the newspaper. As far as pecking order, this is the best possible gig you could have, because most writers have to become editors and business people to further their career. They get away from putting together words, and instead start assigning stories, editing text, whereas the opinion columnist calls their own shots, develops their own style, and is at the top of their game. I don’t know and never met Dan Gillmor, but I’m going to guess he worked a hell of a lot to get where he is, so that he could share his opinion.

So, it’s one thing to call yourself a journalist, but entirely something else to self-proclaim and give yourself the best gig in the joint. I mean, when the Google and Blogger news broke, there’s a clear reason it went to Gillmor and not any self-minted journalists.

Can people find examples of people who are just going to city council meetings and writing up bulleted lists or what happened without any commentary on a blog? Perhaps. But they are never the ones engaged in the “blogs are journalism” debate.

My main issue isn’t that people want to adopt the term journalist and apply it to themselves. Hell, I think journalism as a profession is boring as dirt, so feel free. I’m not invested in it at all. I just think everyone is missing the big picture. Most of the people I read regularly are the people on the edge, who are building stuff, who make APIs and ensure their products talk together. Things I still don’t know how to do and will never know how to do, because I don’t care. I’m just glad you do, because think it’s important.

Print journalists who show up to write some “intro to blogs” piece? Of course they’ll get it wrong to the people in the trenches. I doubt a soldier reading USA Today the day after a big battle would say, “Oh my God, that’s just what happened! It’s like they were there.” Of course that would never happen. That journalist is trying to explain stuff to my mother, and her friends, and people who are very outside of this community. It’s a high-level piece. It should seem ridiculous and simple-minded to the people architecting this new world. Stop looking to them for encouragement or acknowledgment.

To wrap up, I think blogs are amazing, powerful things and that we’re at the beginning of a curve that no one can quite predict. I’m using this as a way to put all my thoughts in one place, and hopefully as a way to communicate once I publish my first novel (which is still being written, although obviously not tonight). I’m not interested in a lot of what people are doing with blogs. I have a friend who updates his blog with his pager or something like that. Others are getting into video. I’m a plain text guy. Well, I’m writing a novel, so I guess I’m a bigger fan of the power residing in words.

I just think for all the amazing things you’re doing, there seems an awful lot of chatter about trying to prove you’re part of something wholly irrelevant to the bigger picture. Although, I suppose it’s more interesting than debating whether warblogging usurped techblogging.

By Jeff Walsh

In Chuck Palahniuk’s breakthrough 1996 novel, Fight Club, the narrator presses a gun to the temple of convenience store clerk Raymond K. Hessel’s head and gives him a choice: quit his job and pursue his dream of being a veterinarian, or die right now, since he’s practically dead anyway. The narrator takes Hessel’s driver’s license, so he knows where he lives, and tells him he will check in on him. If he’s not on his way to becoming a vet in three months, he will be dead.

The passage is barely five pages in Palahniuk’s sweeping apocalyptic tale, but more people than Hessel got its message. On a recent paperback tour for Choke, his fourth novel, Palahniuk says he always ends up reading the Hessel piece.

“I know too many people who tell me it changed their lives. On tour, every other person comes up and says, ‘My peers changed the way we looked at the world after we read this.’ That’s what I’m hearing,” he says. “Every venue on this last tour, some kid toward the end said please read the Hessel thing. It reads in three minutes and people love it.”

In a sense, this interview exists because of Raymond K. Hessel. My own library and reading habits took a horrible downturn a few years back when I started an online site for queer youth called Oasis (http://www.oasismag.com/) and started reviewing the books that I was sent free of charge. The majority of the books were geared toward, written by, and about urban homos. The language was witty and campy and fabulous, but nothing of substance happens in most of them. But they were free, and I kept reading them as amazing book after amazing book was written, released, and ignored by me. For several years, I spent my reading time camping through Chelsea, West Hollywood, and the Castro with witty buff boys and their sassy, sexy friends. When I felt I was ready to write my novel, I was certain what I was going to do: write the ultimate urban gay novel.

Thankfully, Fight Club changed all that. I wish I could say I was hip enough to have found the book back when it was underground and not a pop culture touchpoint, but I can’t. I saw the movie first. My copy of Fight Club the novel is the “now a major motion picture…” version with Brad Pitt and Edward Norton on its cover. But coming late to the game didn’t dull its effect on me.

It’s why I recently visited Portland, Chuck’s hometown (no, I’m not stalking him) to learn more about the writing style that Palahniuk practices called minimalism, which focuses on first-person narratives where the “I” is submerged as much as possible.

“The most honest story is a story where you know who is telling the story, a first-person narrative,” Palahniuk explains. “But, we have a national resistance to first-person narrative because it tends to be self-aggrandizing and self-involved. So, ideally, there’s a style where you can write first-person narrative but you can hide the ‘I’ and get rid of the ‘I’ on the page as many times as possible. So, you have the honesty of first-person, but it’s a detached first-person.”

Palahniuk is part of Portland’s “Dangerous Writers” community, which is led by Tom Spanbauer, author of The Man Who Fell In Love With The Moon and In The City of Shy Hunters. Spanbauer created his branch of minimalism based on his own studies with editing wunderkind Gordon Lish at Columbia University. Palahniuk often says Spanbauer and the class changed his life by making him realize he could be a writer.

“It was that class and also Tom literally saying, ‘You could be one of the people who shapes our culture. You don’t just have to wait for books to come out of New York, you can be one of the people doing that,’” Palahniuk says. “I just never thought a person can live in Portland and affect change like that.”

This interview, done in the rare book room at the infamously independent Powell’s Books, is taking place because I’m in town to take the class that changed Palahniuk’s life. The day after this interview, I will be in the same class, its effect on my life still unknown.

After setting up the interview, I was immediately reluctant about doing it, but it was too late to turn back. Conceptually, I was all fired up to meet Chuck, talk about writing, talk about life. But, not this way.

I disliked the moment when I realized that I had stopped experiencing his books and began deconstructing them, seeing how he used literary devices to break up disparate passages of text (The rules of Fight Club are just a great example of literary devices used to tell a lot of separate stories and immediately pulling the reader back to the scene with “The second rule of fight club is…”).

This reluctance isn’t new. When I used to be a journalist, I stopped reviewing concerts of bands I liked, because I hated having to step out of the moment and write the order of songs, the audience interaction, etc. I only wanted to experience it emotionally, not to immediately analyze it and digest it for other people. For whatever reason, I tell Palahniuk my concern.

“To that extent, I don’t even really like to meet a writer whose work I like,” he says. “Because, in a way, I think the work is the best part of them. And meeting them is always somewhat of a disappointment.”

Palahniuk creates books that explore very personal philosophies and themes, but the worlds he builds to get them across are always larger than life. In Survivor, a religious cult member dictates his life story to the black box of an airplane he plans to crash into a mountain. Fight clubs spring up across the nation and morph into an anarchist group bent on overturning the capitalist system. A sexually compulsive colonial theme park worker chokes on meals nightly in order to get money from his saviors to help pay for his mother’s nursing home bills. Palahniuk says the balance of larger-than-life worlds and intensely personal themes is something I will be learning in Spanbauer’s class.

“What Tom will talk about is horses, which is his word for themes. And in minimalism, you decide what your themes are going to be, and then you find as many metaphors for portraying those themes,” he says. “The characters may all seem different, but they each portray the same theme or themes of the book using different metaphors.

“Tom’s metaphor for horses is that if you’re going to drive a covered wagon from Minnesota to Oregon, you’re going to have the same horses at the end that you had at the beginning,” he says. “So, in minimalism, you start with a very simple melody and you build it, work variations on it, and it gets larger and grander, but it’s still the same basic melody. And you just repeat it over and over as many different ways as possible until the end, when it’s still basically the same melody as when you started, the same horses in Oregon as in Minnesota.”

“In a way, you just keep accumulating things and your story naturally just gets larger and larger, because you have to keep all of the back story present with choruses and things as you move into the future. So, you find that it just grows like a snowball, and you can’t help but move into a larger world.”

I ask Palahniuk if he ever worries about going too far with something, whether readers will believe in Choke that people will pay Victor money after saving his life. Or does he just accept that as the central conceit of the story and know that it will work?

“That’s part of the challenge, to make a really plausible case for something implausible,” he says. “I thought for sure the entire time I was writing Fight Club that the moment I sent it out people would say, ‘In this blood-phobic culture, people are going to pound other strangers? In this insurance-based, liability culture? No, this would never happen.’ But no one has ever said that. So, if you make a plausible enough emotional case, people will follow any premise.”

In September, Palahniuk’s latest novel, Lullaby, will hit shelves, and he thinks it is the best work he’s done. Lullaby is a thriller that links Sudden Infant Death Syndrome with an old African chant that gets recited the night before a child dies. Next September, Chuck will deliver Period Revival, a horror novel. And if that isn’t enough Palahniuk for you, he will put out a travel book next spring, tentatively titled Fugitives and Refugees, about Portland, where Chuck has lived since 1986.

“It’s a really dark travel guide to Portland, Oregon, because Crown, a division of Doubleday, thinks there’s going to be a big surge in domestic tourism, so they’ve asked writers around the country to do these very personal travel guides to the cities they live in,” he says.

Considering how many things he already has in the queue, I wonder if it feels strange for him to be touring for something that was published last May.

“To do events and readings, it feels odd,” he says. “And to be answering questions about the issues that I can only half-remember. But, I’m catching up.”

While I’m in class with Spanbauer, Palahniuk will be finishing up his tour in a few cities including my current residence, San Francisco. We compare notes on Portland and San Francisco. I tell him how San Francisco is in the midst of a delicious decline, after the dot-com insanity pushed up rents, filled it up with yuppies, and left artists and the more interesting elements of the city looking for other places to live.

“It sort of went from the barbarians and rebels, and the really passionate people to sort of the merchandising, money-driven profit people, which always sucks the energy out of everything,” he says. “The best thing about that sort of collapse is that… Brad Pitt said it really well once. He said failure is integral to success, because it’s only when you fail and people start ignoring you that you have the privacy to reinvent yourself. It’s only when you get out of the public eye that you can go back to work.”

I ask how that philosophy applies to his own writing, since he wrote his first couple of books without an audience, with a day job, and now his books top the charts, with advance reader copies of Lullaby going for more than $300 on eBay a few months back. How does the concept of audience inform his work, knowing that what he writes now will be read?

“Living in the middle of nowhere, where I do, outside Portland, it’s really easy to forget that. But also I think the audience makes me better. It makes me a little more self-conscious about making sure everything works. That everything deserves to be in the book,” he says. “There are parts of Fight Club that I’m just embarrassed about because I just never thought that anybody would read it, or that it would get published. So, I think I’m actually a better writer because of that.”

His preparation for writing a novel is always the same. He starts by writing a short story to encapsulate the premise of the book (Chapter 6 of Fight Club started as this short story).

“If I can’t get the premise clear enough in my mind to do a seven-page short story about it, then I’ve got to be thinking about the premise a little bit better,” he says. “It gives you a chance to really make your case, like a lawyer in court. You really have to make your case for your premise, and put together your case in a convincing, entertaining way. And do it in seven or eight pages.”

I tell Palahniuk about my current novel, which was inspired by an incident with a person at my gym. Within a few days of this incident, a short story flowed out of me, start to finish, with a unique voice, a narrative unlike anything I’d ever written, and it required no editing afterward. After reading it, my reaction was: Where the hell did this come from?

“A lot of people say that is the nature of breakthrough,” Palahniuk says. “It doesn’t happen gradually. It happens in an instant. Chapter 6 in Fight Club was written in two hours one afternoon at work. The least likely place, and I wrote it in one sitting. And it was arguably the best thing I had ever done up until that time. That is how breakthroughs in writing happen. Maybe in everything.”

Palahniuk initially wrote Fight Club after getting in a fight while camping and coming back to work all banged up, and no one asked him about it. They didn’t want to know that much about his life. The incident was the seed that became Fight Club. So, how academic is writing ultimately then, if Palahniuk gets his inspiration after fighting at a campground, and I get mine after I work out next to a crazy guy at a gym?

“You always get those moments when you are out in the world,” he says. “You get those moments when you are with other people and suddenly they reveal something about the world that you would have never come to by yourself. It’s that old thing about God being present when two or more people are together. There is an insight that only happens when you are out in the community, and that’s why I write everywhere but at home. I just did a huge amount of writing on a planeload of screaming babies, probably the worst place. I was pissed off the entire four and a half hours from Detroit. I wanted to kill every baby on that flight, especially the one kicking the back of my seat for four and a half hours.”

Palahniuk writes at the gym and on noisy airplanes and out within society for a higher purpose.

“It is only when we are out of comfort and stressed that our mind works in an untypical way and suddenly we’re not thinking in the efficient, streamlined, conventional way and we have this access,” he says. “Carl Jung, his whole study of synchronicity and inspiration, proposed that we normally think out of our rational, reasoning left brain and it’s only when we’re stressed or sick and emotionally upset or sleep-deprived or something like that that we literally have instants of thinking out of our intuitive, creative, instinctual right brain. And it’s during those moments that we have access to our collective, universal subconscious archetypes, and we might have access to a deeper, more commonly held knowledge.”

“Tom Spanbauer talks and teaches about monkey mind versus elephant mind, which is a Hindu belief that normally in our everyday living we live with our chattering, judging, evaluating monkey mind that says this is good, this is bad, she’s pretty, he’s ugly. This is constantly evaluating and chattering at us like a monkey,” he says. “But, if we could shut that off, we could have access to elephant mind which is sort of an incredibly deep collective, unjudgmental knowledge and understanding. And I really think, according to Carl Jung, that when we’re pissed off and forced not to be comfortable, we have those moments of loss of control and that gives us access to elephant mind.”

Palahniuk only composes his novels long-hand, out in the world, and only keyboards them into his computer at home. And he certainly doesn’t travel with a laptop computer.

“Getting a laptop through the airport anymore is like getting an atomic bomb through an airport. I hate that,” he says. “And even the first thing I do when I keyboard it in is print hard copy and take that hard copy out into the world with me, so I’ll have those pages at the gym and I’ll be editing those. But, usually, if it’s good enough to write down longhand, which takes so much effort, then it’s pretty good.”

This is the process he has used to write every one of his novels.

“I don’t want to spend all my time alone in front of the computer,” he says. “And if you go to parties or you’re around people, they say the most brilliant, funny, revealing things, like the guy you heard at the gym. You would never have heard that at home. Your own experience is so limited. Most people’s lives would make one short story, much less a book, much less 10 books. So, it’s not a matter of sitting at home and really thinking, it’s about exploding yourself and being open.”

Palahniuk never plots his novels out, because he says if he knows where the story is going “it just sucks all the energy out of it.” His chapters seem rather encapsulated because of having a full-time job when he wrote his first few novels.

“When I was working full-time, I would try to write short stories that were each a plot point. The short story that explains the back story. The short story that explains the emotional scam. Or the short story that explains how the boy meets the girl,” he says. “They’re each a plot point I would try to make self-contained. And when I have enough of those plot points together, then I can see how the arc of the story is going to build, and it really completes itself at that point. The momentum is enough to carry it through the end of the book. And they are also each sort of a character study to get really clear about who each of these people are.”

Once Palahniuk finishes a draft of a novel, it always undergoes massive revision in the second draft.

“In a way, I’ve written myself through to an ending, and that has killed the energy,” he says. “So, to get that energy back, I have to massively rip it apart and even change the ending. Change a lot of the major plot points, change the ending. Any revision has to be a huge revision just to keep my attention.

“After I get three-quarters of the way through a first draft, I tend to sort of rush the ending because I want that completion. And, also, I’m a little sick of being in that process. So, I rush the ending, I set it down for a little bit, and then when I do the rewrite, I give it the ending it should have had. That’s why I used to shave my head between first and second drafts, to prove to myself how transitory things are. This is just ink on the page. It’s not chiseled in stone. You can throw it away. You can throw as much of it away as you wanted, and it really doesn’t matter. There’s nothing sacred about it. All of my rewrites have to change radically. Otherwise, I have no excitement about doing them. It would just be grunt work, unless I really got to hack and burn.”

Has every book improved due to this shredding?

“I shred them first and foremost because the process has to be fun to me. If it’s not fun for me, it won’t be fun for the reader,” he says. “Besides, this is my life. I don’t want to be wasting away 90 percent of my life so that the other 10 percent is fun. I want to be having fun all the time.”

But how does he feel when he sells his finished product to Hollywood, and they rip it apart all over again? Does he just cross his fingers and cash the check?

“I don’t even cross my fingers,” he says. “I cash the check, and I go to bed. You can’t fight every battle. You fight the ones that you can, and the rest you say, ‘God bless them.’ That’s one thing Tom really taught me. Whenever you get a shitty review, or something beyond your control happens, you just say ‘God bless them.’ It’s just a great attitude.”

Palahniuk did well with his first round with Hollywood. Brad Pitt and Edward Norton brought his characters to life, directing wunderkind David Fincher was at the helm, and Jim Uhls beat his book into a Hollywood screenplay.

“I thought it did a better job of telling the story than I did,” he says of the film. “When I wrote the book, I didn’t expect it to be published, so I didn’t really polish the book as well as I might have otherwise. So, the movie was probably closer to a finished draft than the book was.”

Palahniuk can’t even watch the Fight Club DVD at home, because he doesn’t have a television. Other writer friends also told me to lose my television to boost my writing output, so a few months back, I did it. I tell Palahniuk how my mother was hilarious when I first yanked the cable out of the wall, because she would call me and seem so depressed that I had done this, so she would start in with, ‘OK, let me think? in the beginning of Friends, Rachel and Joey…’

“I hate that, how in our lives we aren’t really connecting with other people because we’re talking about Seinfeld. That really pisses me off,” he says. “In a way, TV has become what the weather used to be. Eventually, most of your family conversations degrade to, ‘So, is it hot there? Did it rain this week?’ They become about this really safe, detached thing. When you talk about TV that’s what you’re talking about.”

I also tell Palahniuk about how I gave my mother a copy of Fight Club, even though she usually reads more John Grisham and Danielle Steel-types of books. Halfway through the book, she finally asked me on the phone when the plot was going to begin. She was waiting for the lawyer who had to rise up against the evil law firm or something, because that’s what she’s used to reading. Palahniuk laughs, but says his style is intentional.

“When I write, I don’t want a character controlled by circumstances. I want a character that is creating their circumstances. I don’t want an innocent character thrust into the world and they are pushed around by inescapable forces. Screw that,” he says. “Ultimately, I want a character who made their bed and have to live with the fact that they made their bed and resolve that. I don’t believe in that innocent character. Even if you watch Rosemary’s Baby now, a more modern part of you thinks, ‘Why the fuck doesn’t she just move out? Have an abortion. You’re carrying a baby that you think other people are going to sacrifice? You need to be a little more pro-active.’ I think that’s the reason why kids respond to my stuff, because in our culture we’re more and more aware of our responsibility in the matter. We don’t accept victims as easily.”

While Palahniuk is forthcoming in interviews about his craft, his philosophy, and his views on the world, you never really get the sense that you are getting to know him as a person. Even his books contain deeply personal views on the state of the world and culture, but they aren’t about him. When you read his books, he says you get to know his friends more so than him.

“There’s a really great Georgia O’Keefe quote, ‘Where I was born and how I have lived is unimportant. It is what I have done with where I have been that should be of interest.’ I love that. I just love that,” he says. “We are not the circumstances of our life, we are what we do with those circumstances. That’s what I try to write about. For a long time, I tried to get my pictures off the books and really minimize my attachment to them as a personality, but you really can’t anymore. Marketing a book means marketing a person.”

Palahniuk tells me that I ultimately need to focus on creating something worth reading. And not worry about my job, getting it published, or what people will think about it.

“It comes down to fighting the battles you can fight. First and foremost is to create a story that really excites and entertains you. Don’t think beyond that. You just cannot think beyond that, because then you’re fucked. You’ve completely unnerved yourself. ”

One of my guilty pleasures is to hope, that like Palahniuk, my writing will ultimately be my escape from my job, but I know that is bad energy to bring to the writing process.

“Right,” he says, “because then you’re trying to anticipate and write for other people and trying to think what sells.”

And the thing that will sell will be devoid of that kind of thinking…

“Exactly. Be the thing that will lead the market instead of follow the market. It’s something that’s so totally different and out of the loop that will get noticed.”

But, on some level, wasn’t Palahniuk trying to write his way out of his day job just a few short years ago?

“You can drink to forget your job, or you can shoot drugs to forget your job, or you can have impulsive sex to forget your job. I was writing to forget my job. It had really become that escape,” he says. “To a big extent, it still is my escape. If there’s something I can’t deal with, I’ll write about it in a metaphoric, fictional way. And by the time I’m done with a book, usually the thing in the world will have resolved itself.”

Despite not having a day job, Palahniuk still volunteers in his community as a way of living for something beside himself. Ultimately, though, you get the sense that Palahniuk once made the same decision as Raymond K. Hessel, presumably without a gun pointed to his head, and now he is alive, well, and writing novels.

“It sort of breaks my heart when I think how little we trade our lives for, doing things we don’t really want to do,” he says. “Part of me is just sort of stunned by how little I was earning in the world doing something I really hated doing.”

At the end of our interview, Palahniuk says he thinks Spanbauer’s class will do me good before tackling my second draft.

“It will be a great thing, like a sorbet before going back to a different mindset,” he says. “And you can always shave your head.”

I tell Palahniuk that I’m afraid my head would look really, really ugly.

“That’s the point,” he says. “Having that freedom to look ugly. That’s entirely the point. Not being attached to other people’s expectations or judgments.”

---

Jeff Walsh has a full head of hair, writes software nonsense by day for “the Man,” works on his novel at night, and runs Oasis Magazine online.

This interview was written for .

By Jeff Walsh

I’ve always been curious about whether societal barriers are something that really exist or something that I invent to isolate myself.

I think I was initially attracted to journalism because it gave me an excuse to talk to people I couldn’t approach otherwise (read: cute college guys) because I was closeted. I was always the person who volunteered to do the man on the street section, where you have to ask a bunch of people some lame question and run their photo, and their answer underneath. I would ask women too, to make it look good.

Once I came out, though, things didn’t change much. I became a political queer college student, who used gays in the military, and right to marriage, and any other issue to keep myself one step removed from really connecting with other people. So, my sexuality went from being a closet to a shield, but I still kept isolated.

I still try to second guess everything, assume disinterest before saying hi, despite the fact that when I do push through that, it usually plays out fine. This gay pride, I went out alone to the bar where the shirtless boys dance, smile and have fun together. When I’ve gone in the past, I sit on the sidelines and watch, thinking I missed my window for all that. But thanks to some chemical help this year, I was on the dance floor just throwing myself into the mix, and it worked out… learning the way you can dance, touch, and interact without intent. Sharing moments with boys I didn’t know, didn’t introduce myself to, that were entirely genuine despite my sober tendency to overanalyze them. Just hugging and touching while dancing near someone, smiling with them, talking for a bit, and never trying to figure how to get this boy back home with me because there didn’t need to be anything beyond this pure moment. It was enough.

It was much easier to be cynical and on the sidelines than learn these people aren’t as standoffish as I would like to think. It would be easier on the perimeter if entry to the center wasn’t welcomed when you finally tried.

As much as I want to just become someone who can put themselves in that position, without needing rum or other spirits in my bloodstream to help it along, it doesn’t seem to be in me. I’ve questioned how I can get there, but a lot of the ways seems to require a façade, a way to substantiate going up to someone, in much the same way I used journalism when I was closeted.

The most obvious solution, of course, would be to become a drag queen, which I equally fear and am attracted to. But instead this year, I just became a Ho.

There is something really strange about being in your apartment and dressing up as Santa for the first time. Whitening your eyebrows. Putting on the whole red suit aspect in general. It forces you to smile. You can’t stop. The mood is perpetuated when you leave your apartment, and cars honk at you, kids wave at you, and gritty urban scenesters you pass soften and smile.

The event was the Santa Rampage, which is basically a 100+ Santas on an extended bar crawl, chaos-inducing mission through San Francisco. They are put on throughout the year by various cacophony societies in large cities. Santarchy.com will hook you up with archives of photos of past rampages and ways to find the cacophony society near you for other such events throughout the year.

After getting my Santa suit, I found out that the weather was supposed to be against the red tide we planned to stream through the city that day. Terms like urban flooding, hurricane-force winds, and torrential rain sounded like cause for cancellation to my inner yuppie. But, checking the cacophony mailing list, I found that the other Santas felt differently, saying it would be the best year ever and questioning how pathetic it was if people thought they would let the weather impede their fun. So, I put on rain gear underneath my already-hot Santa suit and went for it.

The first thing you learn in a random crowd of Santas in a motorcycle bar is that you can address one another with a singular “Ho!” or merely “Santa.” There is no need for all three hos within the Claus inner circle. As one would expect, Santas are generous with their pitchers of beer, pipes, and everything else, although I stuck with the fruity rum drinks with which I am accustomed. Some things don’t change as Santa. Trying ordering a Malibu and pineapple in a motorcycle bar still returns a strange look from the tattooed, pierced bartenders.

While I was prepared to make the most of my Santa mask in public, I still choked when one of the lead Santas looked at me and said, “Tell all the Santas we’re moving out in 15 minutes.” I walked into the next room but still didn’t want to draw attention to myself. Seeing one of the other lead Santas, who had a bullhorn, I said that one of the Santas said to tell everyone we’re moving out in 15 minutes. But instead of doing that, he handed me the bullhorn and said, here, tell them. Thankfully, some other drunk Santa grabbed it from me immediately and hammed it up, and sort of got the message across amid a lot of feedback and yelling into the mic.

A lot of the Santas, like me, were on their first rampage. Others had done it in the past, but seemed very casual about it. One did it a few years back. One did it in Portland a previous year. It was just apparently just something you could do if you were free and in the city that day, which was a bit foreign to me and my scheduling nature. While at the bar, I met Punk Rock Santa, and a few other random Santas while we drank, talked, and wrapped charcoal in pornography as gifts for people who might disparage the Santas during our mission.

On time, which seemed odd for an anarchy group, we moved out and headed into the Mission district, which is basically the Hispanic section of town. Our first stop was Esta Noche, which is a small, bar known for Latino drag and tranny cabaret. It was only 4 in the afternoon, with one patron, when we arrived. The bartender was playing pool to pass the time. Five minutes later, he had 100+ rambunctious Santas taking over his bar and ordering alcohol. You really have to hand it to him, though. The bartender embraced the moment wonderfully, and immediately warmed up to the insanity of it all, which would be a recurring theme in all the bars we visited.

When the Santas moved on to Cha Cha Cha, a tapas joint, there was an initial sentiment of invading yuppie space, but the bartender who just got on duty as the Santas entered, and the owner (or something) just took it for the experiential gift it was, at one point the owner was wearing a Santa hat, and lifted a drink to toast the Santas with a “Ho!” that became a roar that filled the bar and no doubt poured out into the street past all the smoking Santas on the sidewalk.

From there, the red tide moved to the subway, where I ended up talking to Dave, a nice Santa with red glasses, and his friend, who was dressed as the Easter Bunny. Dave thinks he knows me for some reason, and we trade notes to figure out how that might be. I toss out gay bars when he asks where I hang out, he asks if I’m gay, says he isn’t, then we move on to other ways we may have met. I always love when the sexuality thing is just boring and is irrelevant. I leave San Francisco just enough to appreciate that it isn’t like that everywhere.

Inside the subway, Dave, the Easter Bunny, and I start a Santa pile-up in the station, which ends up with what seemed like 30+ Santas from the pictures that ended up online. We take the subway, amid a lot of incredulous onlookers not expecting 150 Santas to board the train, and head toward Union Square, the more touristy shopping area, now that we have hit enough bars to be ready.

Actually, the subway was when I got to see the Santa Rampage from both sides. Last year, I was going to a work Christmas party when I boarded a city bus, and 80+ Santas came on, decorated the bus, sang, and just threw the passengers into a smiling funk of wonderment at what was going on. That was when I knew I had to be on the other side of the Santa suit this year, but it was interesting seeing these people assume my previous role.

The Santas came up the escalators near where all tourists wait in line for the cable car. Some Santas danced in the subway station around the street musicians, and non charcoal-wrapped-in-porn gifts were given to children we encountered. A bunch of cute younger guys posed with me in the subway station, as people seem to have digital cameras on them as often as cell phones anymore. The cutest guy of the bunch thanked me, as Santa, and I asked him if he’s been a good boy this year. He said he had, so I told him he still had two weeks to work on that. Being lascivious gay Santa can be fun.

Our first stop in Union Square was, of course, a bar, as that was one of the few publicized meeting points where other late coming Santas could join the tide. While Santas were drinking inside, I ended up doing tequila shots provided by the Easter Bunny, and singing carols on the street with a seemingly wholesome choir, while being videotaped and photographed by tons of tourists.

Eventually, the Santas moved into the shopping area. I missed the contingent that swarmed FCUK, but was on the front lines when we stormed into Victoria’s Secret. Upon entering Victoria’s, two male Santas immediately hit the floor and started making out, as about 30 of us casually entered the store. Slutty Santa, with his spiked dog collar, and backpack of rum and cokes, was modeling a saucy red lingerie outfit for my camera when security said we had to leave and that no pictures were allowed inside the store. He seemed to grow irritated quickly by the slow exit of Santas, although I guess it is fair to get a bit irate when several dozen Santas enter your store, disrupt the normal goings-on, and could potentially rob you. But, we don’t steal anything (that I know of), we’re just giving people the experiential gift of chaos for Christmas, a few people are just skeptical of our intent, I guess.

The Disney Store was far more relaxed about our appearance, although that may also be due to the fact that half the store was filled with young kids wide-eyed at the appearance of many, many Santas. You really can’t tell Santa to “get the hell out of my store” in front of that demographic. Upon entering the store, one customer jokingly asked me, “Where’s the Easter Bunny?” Not missing a beat, I said he should be right behind me. I turned around to check, and there he was. Ha! Don’t try to trip up Santa, pal. While in the Disney store, one of the bullhorned Santas told us to move out as we were heading to Chinatown. Upon hearing this, one of the parents with kids in the store ushered his kids outside, ahead of the coming swarm of Santas, without realizing his little girl was pulling a Beauty and the Beast bag on wheels behind her in the store, which she dragged right behind her out into the street. So, her father took pictures with his little girl and a handful of Santas to commemorate her very first shoplifting experience. He said he was going to return the item, although we didn’t stick around to see if he did.

Chinatown was mainly a bar stop, aside from the now commonplace stupor of people trying to process a sea of Santas joining them on the sidewalk. The Buddha Bar was a bit crowded, so I went with Dave and the Easter Bunny across the street to Li Po, where we could actually get served quickly. At this point, I unfortunately had to leave my red brethren to attend a work party that I should have just opted out of, although I did show up as Drunk Santa.

So, for one day in December, I left my typical state of reclusiveness and became a highly-photographed, videotaped, public figure out on the town taking pictures with cute tourists, telling them to be more naughty next year, and having a great time with people I would never typically interact with, primarily because I’m usually here writing.

But even when I’m not writing, I usually stay on the perimeters, watch from the sidelines, and wonder how to immerse myself in the moment and not continually take everything in as an observer. I still need to work on that more. But, being a Ho for a day was certainly a step in the right direction.

The White Room

By Jeff Walsh

I’m lying in a bed in a white room, naked, as the sun’s rays caress my body on a lazy Sunday morning. I’m in that state where I can’t tell if I’m dreaming or awake. I look down at my sculpted abs (OK, it’s a dream) and at the naked man who is snuggled against my chest, his hair covering my right nipple, his right arm bisecting my torso. I can’t see his face, but I know who he is. He is the man I love, the man I never thought I would find. I lay still watching him gently rise and fall as I breathe, his smooth skin seemingly perfect under the unforgiving morning light. The white sheet we share haphazardly covers us, as his back seems to stretch forever into the white oblivion. I close my eyes and feel the warmth between us, a combination of the sun’s rays, our shared body heat and my sated longing for this moment. Of course, I know I’ll wake up soon. Alone. And I’ll never see his face.

It’s the same dream. Always. I’ve had it since I first acknowledged I was gay. “The White Room,” I call it. At first, it provided me solace as my entire world was changing. Then it became an ideal to strive for. Most days, that’s how I still view it. But, on occasion, I think it’s the standard I’ll never find, as well as the reason I won’t find it.

The image was an enormous help when I was first coming out, when my only gay community existed for $3.50 an hour on America Online (yes, it used to cost that much). It was the image that calmed me to sleep as the rest of my life seemed to be in turmoil. But, it wasn’t until the second guy I dated when reality and the White Room merged.

It was only one date, T.J. and I didn’t live near one another. He drove an hour to my apartment, and we spent upwards of three hours talking about our lives. I was just stunned this beautiful boy, who usually drew stares from everyone at the local gay bar, was in my house telling his stories to me. There’s a good chance T.J. never thought of it as a date, but I did. I had been attracted to him since I first saw him wearing a black T-shirt with either a Nirvana or Nine Inch Nails logo on it (this was at a time when that would have denoted progressive, not trendy). His black hair hung over his eyes as he spun on the dance floor, alone, oblivious — beautiful. I eventually found out his name, and became friends with him. We had similar taste in music and both felt trapped in Pennsylvania. Eventually, we would greet one another with a kiss and regularly plan to meet at the bar each weekend.

Long before I asked him out, I saw him at a party wearing some sort of white underwear with a black bondage “cage” of vinyl straps around his chest. I was transfixed. At one point, he slid the straps down around his waist, and unknowingly gave everyone — or everyone that was staring intently for the 1.5 seconds it happened — a view of his flaccid penis as it became hooked on one of the straps through his underwear. He also took my picture at the party, not knowing he was the reason I had attended.

On the night we finally had our date, we didn’t kiss. We just sat together on my love seat, talking. At the end of the date, we hugged for an eternity and he drove home. That night, I remember thinking, “Maybe T.J. is the person in the White Room.” And in that moment, when I pictured the White Room, the hair of the naked person in bed with me resembled T.J.’s hair, and was attached to T.J.’s waifish body that I had seen barely dressed at the party.

It seemed a natural thing to do. If you have an ideal and you’re trying to find someone ideal, plug them into the “room” and see if they fit. It’s not scientific, but what little I knew about T.J. made him feel right in the White Room. That, I would soon find out, would rarely be the case.

Before long, the White Room became very strict. After talking to someone for a few minutes, I would know they weren’t “white” for me. I used the room to rule out men faster than a size queen at a circle jerk. Too short, too butch, those eyes, that hair. And while other people I knew would be dating, I stayed home alone or went out with friends. If I already determined a guy couldn’t get in the room, why bother with dinner?

Then I met Jeremy. We were friends first before we were ever… well, we never were more than friends. But there was drama. I had talked to him online briefly before we agreed to attend a Pavement concert together in Philadelphia, which was two hours away from both our cities in opposite directions. We got a hotel room. Two beds. Two unmade beds in the morning. No sex. No drama.

Several months later, Jeremy traveled to my hometown to attend a Natalie Merchant concert. That’s when the drama began. We had always been friends, nothing more. But that visit played out like a date. Flowers, cuddling, dinner, concert, hot tub, kissing. But, in the end, it still boiled down to two beds. Two unmade beds in the morning. No sex.

After he left, I wanted a boyfriend. It wasn’t a new feeling, but he lit the fire back up. I believe in things happening at the wrong time, so I had intentionally been removing myself from the local gay scene in preparation for my move to California. If I hadn’t found a boyfriend in three years of being out and about, the logic was that I didn’t need one now that I had a plane ticket.

Thinking about Jeremy opened me up to feelings I had been trying to suppress. I wish I had a boyfriend like Jeremy, I initially thought. But, Jeremy was single. Jeremy also lived in California and was only attending school on the east coast. He planned to live in California after graduation in a few short months. As a computer geek, the odds of him working in Silicon Valley were good, which means he would be near me in San Francisco. It didn’t take long before I wanted Jeremy as my boyfriend. We’d both be in California. We both got along. We were both single. Why wasn’t this as obvious to Jeremy as it was to me?

Being an emotional exhibitionist, I told Jeremy all of this, and it made for a few odd meetings afterward, none of which ended with us sleeping together. My most surreal Jeremy moment did happen in his bedroom, though. One night in his apartment, we slow-danced for four slow songs in his bedroom, the last of which was “One” by U2, which was the integral song during my coming out a few years earlier. We danced, kissed lightly, held each other tight and, for once, I felt like Molly Ringwald in all of the John Hughes movies of the mid-1980s. Only this time, I was the girl who got the cute guy at the end of the movie, and not her nerdy asexual friend with the sarcastic one-liners.

This, of course, thrusted Jeremy into the White Room. When I was in the White Room, it was always him, but I still couldn’t see his face. I suffered through Jeremy seeing other people while still keeping him locked in my dream like some bad gay version of “Misery.” In the dream, though, Jeremy wanted to be there. It was just in real life that I couldn’t make it happen.

Eventually, Jeremy and I came to terms with our relationship. We work well together as friends, and that’s where it remains. The man in the White Room changed back to the mysterious figure I don’t know. Although, yes, on occasion, I think he looks like Jeremy again, but that usually happens about the same time I get an idea to write a play about a character in his 30s who realized he let the love of his life get away and he desperately tries to win back my, err, I mean, the other main character’s love.

So, now, I stand at a crucial point in my life. I’m still single, and I still have my White Room. I just don’t know if I want to keep it. I realize that the White Room could be seen as a way for me to justify my ideal, but I don’t use it that way. There are no pre-determined characteristics of the person in the White Room other than mutual, true love. And hair, if you want to get technical, which admittedly would eliminate the sizable niche of gay, buzzed clones.

Part of me is worried that if I abandon the White Room, assuming I can, I will be settling for less. But a lot of times, I think I need to get rid of the White Room to let someone get close enough to find love.

But, most of all, I’m just waiting for a guy who can make me feel like Molly Ringwald again.

When there’s a Wil, there’s a way

by Jeff Walsh

I remember the first time I saw Wil Wheaton in his underwear. I think I was 18, and he was 15.

He stood across the room from me — quickly stripping off his clothes, and looking at me with his puppy-dog eyes and awkward smile. God, he was cute.

When he was down to his briefs, he just stood there running his hands over his smooth slim body, teasing me.

My pulse quickened as he slowly sunk one hand into the front of his white briefs. It seemed to be taking him forever down there, but then he finally pulled out … a leech.

Okay, I’ll fess up. I was in a movie theater watching “Stand By Me” in 1986, in which Wil starred, when this exchange occurred. Wil and three friends were looking for a dead body when they crossed a leech-infested pond. They all had to take off their clothes to remove the blood-suckers. Wil had a leech hanging from his balls and had to remove it, and his hand exited his underwear bloody and holding a dead leech.

Obviously, it was not meant to be a sexual scene, but I think it will always remind me of the first time I acknowledged my gay feelings. I saw teens in their underwear before in the movies, but there was always the stench of heterosexuality clouding the image. It really ruined a good scene to see a hot young guy start to undress, but only because a hot young girl was in the room.

Truth be known, the girl being there always allowed me to justify why I was getting turned on. In Stand By Me, there were no girls undressing at the same time. It was four guys, three of which were quite hot, taking off their clothes and I knew I liked watching it.

A few years earlier, I used to say I liked Molly Ringwald of Sixteen Candles and Breakfast Club fame. In retrospect, I think I envied Molly because she had all these cute young guys chasing her. But since Molly was there, I didn’t have to think that Anthony Michael Mall or Andrew McCarthy were the ones turning me on.

There was little choice but to admit that I liked seeing the guys in Stand By Me undress, although being overweight I tried to justify some of my feelings by thinking that I wanted to have a body like Wil or River Phoenix. I didn’t want either of the two sexually, I would tell myself. I probably tried to unsuccessfully convince myself of that each of the nine times I ventured in the theater to see Wil.

Shortly after seeing the movie, I saw a picture of Wil on a teen magazine and a reference to Stand By Me. I quickly bought the magazine and was surprised to find a whole market devoted to young male actors, although the target market for the magazines was obviously teenaged girls.

I was already interested in writing at that time, so I started wondering how I could write for a teeny-bopper magazine. I also became a voracious looker (there wasn’t much to read) of such magazines. I was the entertainment editor of my college’s newspaper shortly thereafter, and much of my coverage tended to focus on the same boys I read about in Teen Beat, Splice, 16 and Tiger Beat.

While it shouldn’t have been difficult to figure out why I kept buying these magazines, I didn’t give it a second thought, consciously at least.

Another clue was my bedroom wall, adorned with a full-sized Stand By Me poster, surrounded by lobby cards and publicity photos from the movie. A guy in his late teens with a bedroom wall dedicated to other male teens should have been a major gay tip off, but it wasn’t to me. Other such posters followed, including other teen stars of the day like Corey Haim and Corey Feldman, affectionately known as “The Coreys” in most teenybopper magazines at the time. They were called that because they did a string of movies together and were off-screen friends.

Aside from my mounting shrine (no pun intended) to male teen stars, I wasn’t doing anything else to consciously deal with my sexuality. I would spend hours writing screenplays that paired off two male actors I liked, but mostly the scripts would be excuses for me to write about male intimacy, as they would invariably contain emotional scenes where Wil and other male stars would touch, cry, hug one another and just have a friendship that surpassed any I had known. But the characters were always heterosexual. I wasn’t ready to go that far yet.

I wrote scenes of friendship and intimacy, the kind I deep down knew I wanted, but didn’t know where they existed or how to find them. I also wrote masked sexual fantasies in scripts, because I couldn’t just think of Wil sexually at that point. I could, however, think of a character played by Wil in a sexual setting, such as this opening segment of “Getting By,” the script that would eventually aid my coming out a few years later:

A teenaged boy stands in front of a full-length mirror, wearing only his underwear. His hands feel his body, as he studies his chest, shoulders, arms and ass.

The boy is trim, lean — sculpted — a hunk.

We finally see Brian’s face, pensive and sullen, as he feels himself.

He looks like the classic “boy next door” as he runs his hands over his toned chest and abdomen once more. Even he must smile, thinking what this must look like.

In the script, Brian/Wil’s best friend turned out to be gay, and (surprise!) was attracted to Brian. It was my first openly gay character, which allowed me to look into the mysterious world of homosexuality from a safe distance. Wil’s character was accepting of the other character’s (read: my) homosexuality.

One day, I finally decided it was time to contact Wil, the boy who put these feelings in my head. I had already learned how to contact publicists through writing for the college newspaper, so I called his and asked if Wil was available for an interview. She said he was, and then asked in which magazine it would appear. I thought quickly and said I was freelancing the piece for Splice, my then-favorite teen mag. She said she’d get back to me.

I then called Splice and got the editor on the phone. I told her I wanted to write a piece on Wil, and that I was already working with his publicist to secure an interview. I didn’t mention the publicist thought it was already approved by Splice. She agreed to a brief “Spotlight” on Wil, but not a major feature.

Within a week, I had Wil’s home phone number and a time to call him. I was in heaven. At the given time, I dialed the number. The boy I had a crush on was talking to me on the phone!

Of course, doing an interview was business as usual for Wil, but he was very cordial. I didn’t ask about his sexuality, or mention my own during the interview — I wouldn’t have been able to at that point, regardless.

I steered the conversation from what it was like shooting the underwear scene to River Phoenix reportedly losing his virginity on the set. We also took care of his other acting projects at the time, and I went to write the story. We also discussed the phrase he always mentioned when interviewed in teen magazines, “Follow your dreams.” He didn’t know it, but I had taken his advice, and it paid off. Big time.

I was surprised at some of the quotes I got from Wil, considering the kind of stuff usually written in teen mags. I figured he really opened up to me, so I wrote all this information about Wil that I had never read before, such as his railing against another teen actor for on-set drug use.

My editor was, to put it lightly, not amused. She quickly trashed the piece, saying that Splice was meant to be somewhat lighter in content. She added that she had talked to Wil’s publicist, who said Wil was uncomfortable with my asking questions about drugs on the set. I didn’t mention the fact that Wil had been the one who brought this topic to the conversation. So, I finally interviewed Wil, but there would be no story.

Shortly after this time, I started writing obituaries for the local newspaper. While the job itself was boring, it gave me the opportunity to write more features, and the parade of teenaged boys I was subconsciously attracted to began: Chris Young, Jay R. Ferguson, Corin “Corky” Nemec and, of course, Wil, this time scoring an in-person luncheon interview.

Looking back, the stories weren’t bad, but it seems silly to think that I couldn’t admit a sexual attraction for these guys.

Eventually, I stopped writing stories about teen actors because I was writing more for the school newspaper. The year before I had transferred to the university for my junior year, a gay student group had been formed there, which led to quite an uproar on campus.

I, once again being just an objective journalist, decided that perhaps I should just go and interview some of its members now that their group was officially recognized. But they weren’t ready to be interviewed, especially considering my request was to interview someone just starting to accept their sexuality. They wrote back saying no one at that level would be willing to talk to the newspaper. I wasn’t ready to go there yet, unless it was on the pretense of being a journalist writing a story.

However, the following year I accepted myself through using a computer and online services. The following semester I served as the co-chair of the gay student group and was out to family, friends and co-workers.

My acceptance of being gay would have happened regardless of writing those stories. But they were definitely an integral part of my coming to terms with myself.

I have since interviewed other rock singers and movie stars, many of whom are generally considered hot. But it’s not the same, because I know what’s going on now.

I still follow Wil’s career, too, from his underwear scenes in “The Curse” and “Toy Soldiers” to his just being adorable in “The Liars Club,” “December” and “The Last Prostitute.” And while he wore those scrumptious tight outfits on Star Trek: The Next Generation, I was even convinced that I was a Trekker for a few years. Oddly enough, when Wil left the show, my interest waned.

I don’t want to give the wrong impression, though; I think Wil is a very talented actor. His talent, however, happens to be contained inside the personification of my sexual desires.

Wil has shaped what I find attractive in a man, and when I see a guy with short-cropped hair and a slender frame, he has an immediate advantage. Everyone else can have their Brad Pitts and Tom Cruises, I’d still want Wil over them in a heartbeat.

You know, it’s true what people say — you never forget your first.

---

Appeared in XY Magazine, Issue #6, the “Love” issue, as “My First Love”

Viewpoint: Logging on, coming out

Originally appeared in The Advocate, Issue #666, October 18, 1994, page 6

I was 23 when I accepted that I was gay. I remember it being such a rush to finally talk to other gay people on my home computer. At that point I thought falling in love and living a happy life were things I could never have. I’ll also never forget how alone I used to feel after I shut off my computer because that was the only place my gay community existed.

I live in a conservative Catholic closeted town and at the time didn?t know anyone else here. The only media coverage of gays was about pride parades or activists screaming with queer rage about AIDS. I needed much tamer images to help me accept myself. So every night while my parents slept upstairs, I’d spend hours in the basement on my computer. Normally I spent my time attempting to write a screenplay, which was about three teenagers trying to get their lives in order. All my writings included gay characters, though I never consciously put them in to deal with my own gay feelings. They always just seemed to work well in the story.

The script I was writing featured Paul, a gay teen, as one of the main characters. Whenever I wrote a scene involving Paul, however, I got writer’s block. I would normally attribute it to my not being gay. How could I know what it was like to be a gay teen in high school?

I decided to take some time off from my writing after receiving a trial membership to America Online (AOL) computer network. I didn’t plan to become a member, but a trial subscription offered ten free hours on-line. I figured I’d look around, grab some free files, and then cancel my membership. The night I planned to cancel, though, I found live on-line chat rooms where up to 23 people could talk on any subject. That night, a chat room existed for “hot young gay teens.” This will be great, I thought. I can ask these guys what it’s like being a gay teen.

I entered the room and informed everyone that I was a heterosexual screenwriter writing about a gay teen and needed to talk about what being a gay teen is like. Everyone was supportive, but the more everyone talked, the more confused I became. I?d had many of the same feelings they did growing up, so their stories didn’t seem to only apply only to gay teens. So much for helping Paul.

I then arranged to meet one of the teens for a private on-line chat. I was hoping it would lead to more revelations, and it certainly did. When we met the next night in a private room, he willingly answered my questions. Then he asked me a few. I told him I had wondered whether I was gay but had attributed those feelings to my desire to overcome being overweight. I merely wanted to have a nice body like some of the guys I admired, but that was where it ended. I knew I didn’t want the guy physically because I couldn’t picture anything past nudity. If I had been gay or bisexual, I figured, I would have been able to picture sexual contact.

I talked with the teen on-line for a long time that night. He initially told me he was bisexual. Five hours and many questions later, we both typed to each other that we thought we were gay. As for my screenplay, it ended up being more catharsis than fiction and is still unfinished. I did, however, do a lot of work on what it meant to be gay that summer in 1992.

Since I still didn’t have anyone local to talk with, I made on-line friends with guys all over the country. However, on-line services are not free, and my chats with my new friends — as well as calls to some of them on the phone — ran up large bills. Within three months I was broke, my credit card filled, and my entire paycheck going to pay my phone bills. I had to leave AOL and pay off my debt.

But my time on-line had indeed been fruitful. I started coming out to my mother and my co-workers. I began making friends locally and became the cochair of my university?s gay student group. And when the semester started, I wrote gay columns in the student newspaper and for a local gay ?zine.

This year I was finally able to sign back on to AOL. This time, I’m 26, I?m comfortable about being gay, and I?ve even lost some weight. Now it’s my turn to help others. I’ve talked to many people who are gay, some as young as 13, and I find it rewarding to be able to help them feel more comfortable about their sexuality.

The on-line world offers a lot more than just a chance to make new friends. With even the most basic computer, anyone can tap into a wide array of services. Gays on-line can E-mail President Clinton, make new friends, talk about gay issues in message boards, get support, or contact a number of national gay groups.

Just about everything you are looking for you can find on-line. In fact, within the past few weeks, I met someone on-line who lives close to me. We’ve been talking for a while now, and hopefully, we’ll be getting together soon. So perhaps once again my computer will help me find something that’s been missing in my life.

—-

Walsh is a reporter in Kingston, Pa., and is working on his first novel. He can be reached at pajeff25@aol.com. (This info is as it appeared in the Advocate, and is no longer accurate)

Whose fault is Bruce?

By JEFF WALSH

WILKES-BARRE — From his earliest memory, there was the Voice.

The Voice grew louder and angrier as Bruce bounced in and out of foster homes, after the alleged physical abuse by his mother and, finally, as he raped two young women.

But not until going to prison did he realize the Voice was just something in his head — and not a lifelong friend.

The Voice had betrayed him, much like the mother he says repeatedly abused and abandoned him, much like the child welfare system that was legally bound to protect and nurture him.

The child who would grow into a rapist was born into foster care, the son of a 16-year-old foster child.

But when he was sentenced, no one — not even the Voice — was with him. The system wasn’t there either.

This 19-year-old Wilkes-Barre man, serving at least 3 more years in prison, says his mother and the system should share in the blame. One of his rape victims agrees, and is planning a civil suit charging Luzerne County Children and Youth Services with negligence.

But, Luzerne County Juvenile Court Judge Chester Muroski, who certified Bruce to stand trial as an adult, believes Bruce is simply blaming the foster care system to cast himself in the best light.

“Bruce, in my view, is a classic Ted Bundy figure — intelligent and manipulating the system. Right now, you’re his puppet.”

In and out of foster care for 18 years, Children and Youth returned Bruce time and again to his mother for weekend visits and for brief periods of reconciliation. His father refused to play a role in his life.

His relationship with his mother spiraled into repeated episodes of mutual animosity and violence, according to allegations recorded in his Children and Youth records, which he released for this story, and his own testimony during his sentencing hearing.

She forced him to eat a bar of soap until he vomited, pushed his face into the vomit and pulled his hair.

He sat on top of her and hit her.

She choked him until he passed out.

He slammed her fingers in a door.

Bruce says he learned to keep his hair cut short so his mother “couldn’t grab it.”

His mother, who spoke and met with Times Leader editors several times, did not agree to be interviewed for this story but repeatedly denied her son’s allegations of abuse.

When the fighting escalated, his mother gave him back to foster care — but only temporarily. After weeks or months, Children and Youth would return the boy to his mother’s care again — until the next time she was unable to care for him.

He spent only 17 months of the first five years of his life with his mother, setting the pattern that would last throughout his childhood.

Bruce’s lawyer, John Pike, says the system and Bruce’s mother let his client down.

“There are two sexual victims here, but Bruce is also a victim of his own upbringing,” Pike says.

If the system had terminated his mother’s rights, would Bruce have been adopted and allowed to grow up in a two-parent home?

Is he a manipulative liar or a child with problems that weren’t adequately addressed?

If his childhood had been different, could Bruce have been saved?

In December, the former foster child entered a plea of no contest to two counts of rape.

Then, he would not admit committing the rapes.

Even now, Bruce claims not to know if he raped the women.

In an almost-empty courtroom in February, resting his head in his hands and blotting his tear-filled eyes with tissue, Bruce waited for his sentence.

A Bible lay within arm’s length.

Only two deputy sheriffs remained as courtroom spectators filtered into the hallway for a break.

As Bruce continued to cry inside the courtroom, the victims sobbed in relief outside in the hallway.

More than two years after their ordeals, the man who raped them at knife-point was going to prison.

Earlier, the females, ages 14 and 25, had told the court how the attacks shattered their lives. Bruce avoided eye contact with them, his hand firmly on his Bible.

After hearing his sentence, this gifted student and athlete left the courtroom in handcuffs, part of the corrections system. He now has no choice where he lives, no say with whom he lives and no way to leave until he serves his sentence.

But he is used to those conditions. He says that’s what life was like for him in the foster care system.

Bruce hears the Voice

The Voice first spoke to Bruce, he says, after his mother beat him.

“I started developing a friend, a voice that I would hear,” Bruce says. “It wasn’t really malicious at that time. It would just comfort me.”

Although records indicate his mother never wanted him out of her life, she apparently couldn’t cope with raising him and frequently relied on foster care. At one point, a Children and Youth caseworker noted the boy was confused by the number of “mommies” in his life.

One caseworker wrote: If given a choice, the child would choose foster care over his natural mother.

He told Children and Youth he wanted to remain with his foster parents, whom he called Mom and Dad. He did not want to return to his mother, whom he called by her first name.

Weekend visits with his mother agitated him, according to the foster family who cared for Bruce when he was 5 years old.

“Every time she’d get him for the weekend, he’d come back here and be really wired,” says the foster father, who asked that his name not be used. “He was a little rough on us, and then after a day or two he’d calm down and she’d get him the next weekend and it would happen all over again.”

Bruce says Children and Youth should have stepped in. “Too much power was in my mother’s hands.”

From age 6 to 12, while predominately in his mother’s care, Bruce says, he was sexually assaulted by other adults twice: Once at age 6, when he was fondled, and again at age 11, when he was raped.

That’s when the Voice began to challenge him.

“It told me to start getting revenge on my mother,” he says. “That’s when it started getting malicious.”

But Bruce says he resisted the Voice until he was sexually assaulted a third time — this time a rape by another youth.

When, once again, his mother couldn’t control him, Bruce was sent to Friendship House, a group home in Scranton. After staying at the home for about 10 months, Bruce says, he was raped by a fellow resident.

In a psychiatric evaluation several months after the third assault, the 12-year-old boy told a doctor that although he was “coerced … it was more like a seduction than being physically frightened.”

Shortly afterward, he submitted to the Voice.

“I listened to everything the Voice told me to do,” he says. “I’d be walking around doing things and not know why I was doing it.”

Problems at an early age

Bruce says he might not have listened to the Voice and might not be in prison now if he had received appropriate therapy at an early age, when it first became apparent he had problems.

“Since the age of 5, he has had sexual offending characteristics,” Dr. Paul Gitlin testified at Bruce?s sentencing. Gitlin, who was hired to do an evaluation for Bruce’s defense, said Bruce’s problems as a boy were never addressed in therapy, despite available treatment programs.

As a 5-year-old, he wanted to bathe with his foster family’s daughters, who were 6 and 12, and couldn’t understand why that was a problem. He also urinated on one of the girls and onto the bed of the other.

The only therapy he received was family counseling to help him reconcile with his mother, he says. “If they gave me counseling, this might be a different story. Children and Youth had no regard for my well-being.”

In early 1993, Gerald Zimmerman, Ph.D., a psychologist at the Wiley House residential group home in Bethlehem recommended Bruce be treated for “sexual behaviors” after he was accused by GAR High School officials of having sex with and making lewd comments toward several girls.

“The risk for him to commit a criminal offense may be higher if treatment is not provided,” the doctor wrote.

Bruce refused treatment then, but now says he shouldn’t have had that option. Ten months after the psychiatrist’s recommendation, while still in foster care, Bruce raped the two young women.

Judge Muroski says there was nothing the system could do when Bruce refused treatment.

“What do you do with someone who won’t participate?” asks Muroski. “Time and time again, he was afforded treatment and refused it.”

The judge, animated, agitated, and flailing his arms when talking about Bruce, seemed shocked when asked if the foster child-turned-rapist might be an example of how the system sometimes doesn’t work.

“Of course, the system works,” Muroski says. “Are you going to judge a whole system that’s gone on for decades because of Bruce?”

Bruce, a former gifted high school student, track and football star, says he received academic and athletic scholarships to schools such as Brown and Vanderbilt universities.

Muroski says the teenager is using his intelligence to shift the focus away from himself as a rapist and put the blame on his mother and Children and Youth.

“Why not look at Bruce as an evil person who has done dastardly acts and is responsible for them? It’s too easy to Monday morning quarterback Bruce and say we should have done this or that. He is a terrible, evil person that has to be analyzed in a category all by himself.”

In defense of the system

In his office at Children and Youth, Executive Director Gene Caprio sits next to a foot-high stack of Bruce’s records. He won’t comment specifically about the former foster child’s case because of confidentiality laws his agency must follow.

He does say Bruce?s case is indicative of services provided by his agency.

“The agency offered every available service,” he says, placing his hand on the pile of records. “This record reflects we offered every available service.”

Caprio says Children and Youth has a two-fold mission: Protect children and reunify families. But he acknowledges, “The answer isn’t always to keep children with families.”

In 1981, the agency tried to terminate the mother’s parental rights, citing her repeated failure to care for him, but later pulled the paperwork and Bruce remained in his mother’s custody.

Janet Neuman, a court-appointed “guardian” lawyer who looks after the best interest of the children in such cases, says generally every termination case is different and difficult, and clear and convincing evidence must be presented by the agency requesting the termination.

“You’re taking away a fundamental serious right and you have to make sure it’s in the best interest of the child,” she says.

Neuman said a new state statute allows an agency to terminate parental rights after one year, if the natural parents are not complying.

Muroski says Bruce now has the best of both worlds: He won’t admit to committing the rapes, but if he did them, Children and Youth is to blame.

The judge asks, “Should every kid that comes into the system be psychoanalyzed to see if they might commit a crime?

“No system, and I don’t care who runs it, can be expected to predict you’ll have an inherently terrible person like Bruce.”

He `clearly’ made choices

If his childhood had been different, could Bruce have been saved?

Maybe, but not necessarily.

The first three years of a child’s life are the most critical in determining whether the child learns to relate to other people, according to the Association for the Treatment and Training in the Attachment of Children.

“If he were bounced around in those three years, then it likely laid the foundation for his inability to relate in a healthy way, if he hadn’t been treated effectively since that point,” says Dr. Michael Pines, president of the Dallas, Texas-based association.

But Pines stopped short of blaming the rapist’s crimes on his childhood. He pointed out that Bruce “clearly made choices along the way.”

Pines says a child whose “trust cycle” is constantly interrupted grows up angry and suspicious of the world.

“When they come into adolescence feeling that empty and that rageful, they can become predators,” he says.

Pines, who has specialized in child attachment issues for 12 years, says Bruce’s upbringing could also account for the Voice.

“Kids that have been traumatized early are prone to disassociative episodes where they literally split from themselves and develop unhealthy ways of dealing with the trauma, such as hearing voices,” Pines says.

Pines said building a healthy adult is similar to building a house.

“If a house has a bad foundation, no matter how solid you build the second and third floors, you’re going to have problems.”

Nightmares are reality

Bruce’s only indication he might have raped the women is a recurring nightmare that seemed to change after the rapes occurred.

Before then, the dream was nearly the same each time: “I would come upon a rape and the next thing I know I would be involved in it. The only thing I could make out was my mother’s face. I was attacking my mother.”

Bruce claims to have suffered “blackouts” at the times the rapes occurred. He only knows the rapes as nightmares, bad dreams that usually followed fights with his mother.

In his dreams, he raped his mother between two houses on South Franklin Street, 20 feet from the sidewalk. In reality, a 22-year-old Wilkes-Barre woman told police a man followed her to that location, threatened her with a knife and forced her to have sex. She later identified Bruce as her attacker.

In his dreams, Bruce raped his mother in Hunlock Creek, near the home of a 12-year-old schoolmate. In reality, the girl identified Bruce as the rapist who forced her at knifepoint to have sex.

Bruce was initially charged with raping the younger girl. But while out on bail, he applied for a job where his 22-year-old victim worked, which led her to identify him as her attacker too.

Bruce says he sometimes wondered if he might be the rapist described in the newspaper. But the Voice always shifted his focus to something else.

“The Voice used to make me not dwell on it. It told me — don’t care about it, just keep doing what I’m doing.”

Now in prison, Bruce says he has started remembering more of what happened before and after his blackouts. He recalls the Voice feeding him negative images of his mother.

“The Voice was showing me things that I did, times she would beat me,” he says.

The Voice would taunt: Time to stop it. Be a man. Take things into your own hands.

Hearing the victims’ stories has convinced the convicted rapist his dreams were their reality.

“There are two people hurting and crying,” he says, “and their story matches my dreams.”

He finds future in faith

As he talks about being fondled as a 6-year-old, Bruce’s eyes drop toward his Bible. His hand kneads the cloth bookmark. This pattern is repeated each time he discusses a difficult part of his childhood, quickly followed by eye contact to ensure his point was made.

For as much as his Children and Youth records document his troubled past, Bruce is optimistic the Bible will serve to chart his future.

He began reading the Bible in August 1994, and has continued during his incarceration. Bruce, now a Jehovah’s Witness, says he is seeking answers.

“I prayed something would happen,” he says. “People would always say `God is love,’ but I always wondered what does it mean, `God is love?’ All I know is pain.”

Bruce says he has developed a conscience while in prison. He says he has learned he can love other people.

Prior to finding religion, the inmate says he had a “negative outlook” on life. He rooted for Saddam Hussein to win the Persian Gulf War. He cheered for the Branch Davidians to win their standoff with federal agents in Waco, Texas.

“I didn’t feel for society, because I felt society had wronged me,” he says. “I never had love and affection. I never developed it, received it or gave it. You can’t develop it in a foster home. Fosters are just getting paid.”

A relative, who asked not to be identified, says she has noticed a change in him since he found religion.

“Before, he used to be more self-centered. It was always him,” she says. “Now, he’s trying to actively be involved in religion. It’s become a main focus in his life.”

Although he has trouble believing he could rape someone, Bruce’s religious beliefs led him to enter no contest.

“Knowing what I know about the Bible, I cannot get up on the stand and say I didn’t do it, because I don’t know what happened,” he says.

Seeing his victims “hurting” in court made Bruce resolve his case as quickly as possible, he says. His decision to enter the pleas came about due to Revelations 21:4, which reads “… he will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and … neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away.”

The convicted rapist says he recognizes the victims’ pain, understands it and wants to do all he can to stop it.

“I realized I couldn’t subject them to any more pain, whether the crime is true or not,” he says. “I pray they get comfort and Jehovah can provide them with the means to overcome this situation.”

Bruce is a liar, says Assistant District Attorney Dave Zekoski.

“His story changed on this as the noose tightened,” he says. “That’s why I doubt the blackouts and such. He never mentioned it before. I find it hard to believe.

“I don’t doubt bad stuff happened to him. But no matter what happened to Bruce, we can’t go back and change his past.”

Naming his demons

The relative stands behind Bruce without asking questions about his crimes.

“The only people who know what happened are Bruce, the women and God,” she says.

But if the Voice really existed, it knows, too. And it isn’t talking. Not anymore.

From behind the glass that separates prisoners from visitors, Bruce sits alone and stares. With one hand clutching the phone and the other on his Bible, he reveals the identity of the Voice, stripping away the last negative influence from his youth.

“It was Satan.”

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Originally appeared in the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader - April 21, 1996.

Interviewing Tori Amos is like playing with a toy sailboat.

Each question launches the boat out into a pond. But then it’s out of your hands.

Sometimes, the wind returns the boat quickly and you get to push it out again. Other times, the boat lingers out of your grasp — twisting in the wind — and you just have to wait patiently for its return.

Amos is set to sail into town Sunday for a sold-out show at the F.M. Kirby Center for the Performing Arts. She is touring in support of her “Boys for Pele” album.

For the uninitiated, Amos’s music is a mixture of classical piano and harpsichord with seemingly-incongruous lyrics about a friend’s suicide, rape and the Virgin Mary actually giving birth to a girl in Bethlehem.

At a recent Philadelphia press conference and subsequent phone interview, Amos spoke whimsically about religion, the nudist who mixes her monitors in the buff backstage, poppy seed cakes and light bulbs.

Most questions posed to Amos yield long, stream-of-consciousness run-on sentences that evoke the same inventive charm as her lyrics.

Throughout the press conference, Amos gestured incessantly with her hands — one of which bore an indecipherable magic marker note to herself. With each question, her eyes lit up, her body found a new contortion and her hands never stopped moving — as though she’s not used to speaking without accompanying herself on piano.

Amos — wearing a green blouse hanging out over her blue jeans, covered with a ratty inside-out sweater — explained what she experiences on stage.

“What happens is, really, I try and get out of the way a bit, so I can tap into a never-ending well of creativity,” she says, pausing — seeming to contemplate the next sentence fragment. “And a lot of times, I try to align myself with this wonderful force that all of us have access to. I don’t have the same experience as people watching and hearing. Everything’s motion, you’re just trying not to spit on the keys sometimes, it’s really basic.”

A Tori Amos concert is a dichotomy. In part, it has the air of a classical music concert, with its grand piano and harpsichord facing each other, with Amos spinning between the two. At a recent Philadelphia concert, total silence blanketed the crowd during each song. People were not even allowed to walk in the theater aisles during songs.

But Amos’ seemingly-proper concerts also have a dark side, with her sexual, religious-questioning lyrics echoing over the rapt crowd — many of whom wear her shirts emblazoned with “Recovering Christian” across the front.

In concert, Amos doesn’t use a set list. She just pauses, thinks, and starts playing the next song. She says her spare show in smaller venues, only augmented musically at times by an acoustic guitar, doesn’t hold her back.

“If I felt like I was limited, I wouldn’t do it. It gives you a lot of freedom,” she says, snaking her leg around and over the back of her chair. “It’s difficult enough in these theaters with this many people to stay focused … to really take a journey. With me alone at the piano, there has to be a level of intimacy or I don’t think we could go anywhere.

“And it’s hard to have that relationship when you’re this big,” she says, squinting her eyes and holding her index finger and thumb a small distance apart to approximate the size of the singer at larger shows.

Judging from Internet newsgroups, Amos has a cult-like following of people who put each of her lyrics under a magnifying glass. Many netizens continually refer to Amos as a “goddess,” an accolade also yelled several times during the Philly concert. Amos isn’t sure of the genesis of her goddess stature.

“The only thing I can come up with is all the God references that I make, so it’s kind of a joke,” she said. “And, of course, Pele is the volcano goddess of fire. So, I think they’re not just making a religious God reference, but also a Pagan reference which shows they’re religious instability or not, as the case may be.”

Amos, 32, the daughter of a minister with a doctorate in theology, said she read about and compared all religions.

“I would compare thoughts, ideas, facts… and what I began to see was that there is truth in every religion. There is truth there, but there are also many lies. And I was interested in uncovering the lies, the controls, the domination of the patriarchy, which women are involved in as well as men,” she says. “It is not about us becoming whole because then we wouldn’t need them. There would be no institution.

“Although, I will say that the little poppy seed cakes that get made by the little old ladies — that’s truth. That’s love. Yes, there is love there. There is no question that within the institution there are moments and pockets of truth, and there are also incredible pockets of control.”

A follow-up question about religious references in her lyrics yields a six-minute run-on sentence about power, the patriarchy, Mary Magdalene and the lack of women in the Bible.

Amos realizes her questioning of religion can sometimes be controversial.

“There’s always going to be feedback when you say something that’s against somebody’s belief system,” she says, “but … I’m putting light bulbs out there, that’s all I’m doing … and they either make you want to cogitate over them or not.”

So, you’re in North Dakota now?

I guess so. I never know.

How long have you been out?

This tour, the Danzig tour’s been about two weeks, so far.

Have you been going non-stop since opening for Nine Inch Nails?

Yeah.

How long has it been?

About a year, I think. I think we started in May, so it will be a year.

After this is over are you going to take some time off?

We’re taking a couple weeks to a month to work on our new album, and work on some songs that we’re doing for soundtracks and things like that. Then, we’re going back out on tour again. We’re either doing a club tour or opening for someone else.

Much diff being headliner/opening act?

The big difference is that you can’t do what you want when you’re the opening act. And, you’re also playing for someone else’s crowd a lot of times. It worked out really well with the Nine Inch Nails tour. This tour’s a little different.

How does the Danzig crowd take to your music?

It’s kind of split. It’s about half Marilyn Manson, half Danzig, so it’s not quite so much Danzig, but it’s different in different cities. I think the real Danzig fans aren’t really into it. But it’s a special kind of crowd, testosterone-filled teenage guys who want to fuck me, but that makes them uncomfortable so they want to beat my ass instead.

What kind of place was Canton, Ohio? Was that a small town?

It was a real small town, and I went to a private Christian school, so it was a real small class that I was in, you know 20 people or something like that. And of those 20 people, I didn’t really have anyone that I could have called a best friend. I was basically alienated by all of them, because I didn’t fit in with the majority in that my parents didn’t go to church. I really didn’t give in to the whole born again mentality. And there were a couple kids in the class that were the rebels who listened to KISS and things like that. Those kids who smoked cigarettes and vandalized everything, and I didn’t really fall into that category either. So, I ended up just spending a lot of time on my own and developing a chip on my shoulder which I’ve taken out later in life.

We’re all reaping the benefits of that now.

I guess.

Is that where the genesis of Lunchbox began?

I was definitely thinking about that period in my life when I wrote that song.

NINE INCH NAILS/Philly gig… prank.

It started when they brought some guy in the dressing room who they thought would, I guess, intimidate me or make me back down. The guy came in the dressing room and he said that, you know I’ve made comments about fist-fucking people and stuff, and he challenged me to do that, and I didn’t back down. I did that, and everyone in NINE INCH NAILS was astonished and entertained. So, I figured that was the big prank that they were going to pull at the end of the tour because they always do that. Then when we were going to go on-stage, we got pelted with a bunch of flour and salsa and other garbage. So, when we went on-stage, we were covered in a bunch of shit, and about halfway through the show they sent five Chippendale dancers on-stage, which I was concerned that the crowd was going to think was part of something that I had put together, and that was the last thing in the world that I would want them to think, that I had something to do with that. And it ended up making sense. We walked offstage, and by the end of the show I had pretty much gotten down to nothing, just a pair of shorts and I was soaking wet and I walked offstage, and everyone in the band got handcuffed behind their backs, thrown in the back of a pickup truck and then we were driven to the middle of Philadelphia somewhere and dropped off there and left to freeze in the cold and find our own way home. But, being the survivalists that we are, we did find our way back. And then we were going to get NINE INCH NAILS back, but they were heavily guarded and they ended up so drunk that they fucked up their own show, so we didn’t really have to take revenge on them. At the time, I was pissed off because I thought, wow, this is a pretty severe, pretty harsh prank to pull, but then I grew to respect it, because I don’t even think I would have done something so cruel to someone else, but in that sense, I liked it, just for its sheer heartlessness.

For the uninitiated, who are probably most of the people who will be reading this: How would you describe Marilyn Manson?

Marilyn Manson is everything that parents could hate and everything that their kids would love. Everything that heavy metal was intended to be, dark and misanthropic and anti-social. It’s everything that punk rock was ever intended to be, the great rock and roll swindle and a big Fuck You to anyone who would question what you’re doing. MM is also taking extreme positive and extreme negative and putting them together, much in the way that a philosopher like Hegel had created his thesis of juxtaposition of diametrically opposed archetypes. He would take things like the extreme Zionists and the extreme Nazis and put them together to create this thing that would contradict itself, but was stronger than the two that originated, and that’s what MM is. Obviously taking the Marilyn and the Manson and putting it together and creating something that’s neither of the two, but it’s stronger. At the same time that I respect strong feminine archetypes and strong male archetypes, I like androgyny as well. And I like putting morality into that equation, extreme conservativeness, extreme chaos. I like a little bit of both, and it’s also about responsibility to the responsible. It’s about being an individual if you’re responsible enough to handle that burden. A lot of people want the freedom to do and say what they want, but they are not willing to accept the consequences. That’s something that I try to make part of my credo.

Do you think people take a positive message away from your music?

I think my message is positive if you’re interpreting it the way I’m intending it to be. I say things in a negative way, and I say things in a shocking way and there’s a lot of shock value. That’s the vehicle through which I try and relate the semi-positive message, and that would be: individuality. But a lot of people are going to take that in a negative message because a lot of people don’t want that. A lot of people don’t want America thinking for itself. That’s going to tear down the very structure of what it stands for. They send out these confused messages: Capitalism - if you work hard enough, you can be better than your neighbor. But at the same time they’re telling you that everybody’s created equal, and you should feel responsible for somebody not as fortunate as you. And the strong are always being made to feel guilty, and always having to clean up after weak people. I don’t think that should be the case. I think a little bit of social Darwinism wouldn’t hurt everyone. I think a little bit of survival of the fittest. There’s too many people in the world, and I don’t think it should be anybody’s responsibility to constantly be cleaning up after the weak. If they’re not strong enough to survive, then that should be the case. The same thing goes with anything else. Parents are always going to try and blame movies or books or heavy metal music for their kids growing up fucked up or for teen suicide. I think if the kid is stupid enough, or was raised to be stupid enough to kill himself over a rock album, that’s exactly what he should do because that person’s not intelligent enough to contribute anything to society if they’re thinking like that. I don’t want people to be like me, I want people to be like themselves.

Do you think the current social and political landscape in the country created the need for a MM?

Absolutely. I think people’s desire for something as terrible as MM. People’s fear of a thing like MM has created it. People’s fear of the end of the world has also created that. People’s fear of an anti-Christ has also created that. And these are the roles that now I’ve fallen into. And over the course of the next couple years, we’ll really grow and become stronger, because of people’s need for it.

What’s your connection with Willie Wonka?

I think Willie Wonka, besides being one of my favorite movies since I was a kid. WW represented the character that I’ve always been able to relate to, the archetypal Satan persona. The ultimate rebel doing things the way they;re not supposed to be done. He was the eccentric candy maker who did things differently then all the other candy makers in luring the children to do things that they weren’t supposed to be doing. He even had a bit or morality because the kids who didn’t listen to what he was saying were punished for it, and they didn’t win in the end. I’ve always related to him on that level. I think that’s what a lot of people misunderstand about the archetypal rebel and Satan persona is that there is a morality there. The mainstream would think it’s immoral, but it’s just a different morality, because good and evil is what you like and what you don’t like. Everybody has different tastes, and you can’t expect everyone to have the same morality.

Prelude/Wonka song on Portrait

It’s just a really strong part of the movie. When I thought about how it would relate to the album and the rest of the lyrics, I thought it was really appropriate because it’s a Doomsayer prophecy and he’s basically, to me, speaking about the demise of mankind in general by its own hands, and I thought that was really appropriate. I think it’s very similar to the things I’m saying in the middle of My Monkey and a lot of the other songs, in that it was related to a children’s story or what is to be believed to be a children’s story made it make all the more sense because a lot of my lyrics are from a childish point of view.

Lyrics autobiographical?

I only write about what I know. I never fictionalize. Sometimes I’ll try to see things through other people’s eyes and look at things from a different perspective, but I only write about things I know and things I’ve experienced and people I’ve met. So, in that sense, it would all be autobiographical.

Trying to shock people or make them think? Does it even have to be one or the other?

The point isn’t just to shock people, anyone can do that. The point is to make them question why they’re being shocked. Being able to be shocked, for me, is almost a weakness. I don’t like to know that there are things out there that could shock me. I don’t like to be desensitized at the same time, but I like to find out what I’m afraid of, and I do it, and then I’m not afraid of it anymore. That’s why I often get myself into trouble because I’m willing to do anything that I’m afraid of just to get over it. If more people got over some of their fears, I think people would get a lot a little bit better. It’s always fear and things that are taboo that separate a lot of people. Not that I’m looking to promote love and harmony, but I think people are going about it all the wrong way. I think TV will want to try and sell you solutions for peace and cures for cancer and everything else, and it’s all just a game they’re playing because they don’t really want to solve any of these problems because without any of these problems, everyone will be out of business. Without disaster and crime, the news will have nothing to talk about. So, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were creating their own crimes at some point just to gave something exciting to catch people’s attention. There’s always going to be animal rights groups looking for someone like me to complain about because I had a chicken on-stage, or women’s’ rights groups calling me sexist. I speak openly about how I feel, and people call me a Nazi and racist because I say things like strong people shouldn’t have to clean up after weak. I never said anything about race, gender or anything like that. But peoples’ mindset