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the
current
Monday
Report
below!
This week's report by Christopher Robin, ULA
In Your Face, JT Leroy!
(only authentic transgendered hookers need apply)
The first time I heard about JT Leroy was when I saw a flier for an
upcoming reading at City Lights bookstore. I’ve never been inclined to
keep up with the hippest of the outsider cliques and really didn’t care.
I decided not to investigate any further. I figured he was just another
writer playing the outsider card, like so many do, some to undeserved
success and others to mild, well deserved success. I don’t care about
someone’s gender issues, drug problems, health problems or
economic background as long as they can write. Whether they are
from high society or the depths of hell, what matters to me most is an
authentic voice. But I decided to write my own story, in case I ever do
become famous, let’s set the record straight right now.
In the late eighties I regularly stole shoes from outside of
Woolworth’s and sold them for crack. Sometimes I slept with five
men in an evening, in the public shower room at the old residential
hotel, also for crack; from there I was eventually evicted, for not
sleeping with the crack dealing landlord (but in retrospect, why didn’t
I? Well, I did sleep with his son, but for no reason at all). I was also
evicted from another residential hotel a few blocks away which was
lucky for me, since the landlord eventually set the building on fire
while the residents were asleep, to collect the insurance money. But
it’s not that hard to get money from men if you’re a somewhat lovely
teenage girl (and I was) sitting outside the Cinnabar with a sleeping
bag while your wino friends drink inside. When I was old enough I got
kicked out of the very same bar for drunkenly making out with my very
butch girlfriend. Try it some time, I dare you.
I also did well as a teenage girl with another wino guy, pretending to
be married and out of gas (but with no car) at the Chevron station, to
feed a very serious morning, noon and night White Port habit. I’ve
also been a lesbian, a witch, a Yurt dweller and a clown, to name a
few. A few years ago, I pretended to be a redneck country boy with a
big truck in order to secure the most prestigious jobs cleaning horse
stalls. Talk about oppression, I’ve had ‘em all! Poor, poor pitiful
me…where’s my book deal? I’ve also been told I have an I.Q. that
hovers around the early eighties. Beat that, JT Leroy! Oh, but will my
middle class roots betray me? Sure, I had a little black and white TV
in my room in the suburb where I lived. I got poor reception, but did I
suffer enough? My father was a first generation immigrant; his house
has been there since the 40’s. Back then folks could afford to buy
their own home; does that make me a con? Because I didn’t crawl
from a broken down shack in West Virginia to be immortalized in a
country song or to become Dave Eggers butt-sniffing protégé? I don’t
think it does; because first of all I’m not famous so nobody really
cares; second of all, I’ve never lied. I didn’t go on the streets to
become a writer and toil in the depths. I went on the streets because I
wanted to learn about the real world and escape a very domineering
father. I barely made it out alive. I was the kind of hooker that other
hookers would scorn. My prices were too low. I would lie down for a
dime or a bottle. I was kicked out from underneath the freeway bridge
where I lived, once by a gay man with AIDS, and then by a
homophobic rich kid from back East, not to mention the cops and
Trollbusters. I’ve been kicked out of cardboard boxes and the finest
doorways. I’ve been kicked out of entire towns. Yet here I sit, toiling in
a different fashion; aging, hairy and covered in scars, SSI for life,
making tiny footprints in the literary underground also know as: “I’ve
never heard of that publication, where did you get your degree?”
I don’t write much anymore about the streets because those days
(years…) are over for me and hasn’t it been done to death? I don’t
smoke crack either, not for all the literary grants in the world will I ever
again pick up a crack pipe. Random House, you’re not worthy, I won’t
die for you, so don’t ask! I now have color TV and then some,
courtesy of the government. But if you’re looking for a transgendered
and inarticulate former hustler that is also semi-retarded, Gus Van
Zandt, look no further! I don’t have AIDS though, sorry.
There are plenty of transgendered, drug-addled writers who deserve
their due, who wish to sell out and be coddled by celebrities, too
numerous to mention. I am awaiting a knock at my door. I plan to be
wrapped in a strait-jacket and a blonde wig when they arrive. I hope
the cameras are rolling.
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Christopher Robin publishes a zine called Zen Baby.
Click here for ordering information.
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