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Tuesday, June 27, 2006 An Oral History Of Myself Chapter 1 Part 3 read part 2 here read part 1 here Dan - Assistant Restaurant Manger My earliest memories of you are on the bus, third grade. That's where you stood out, gaining laughs through insulting others. I was the recipient of those insults. I can clearly remember you singing: Oh Dan don't wear no socks/I saw him when he took them off/He through them in the sky/Now the birds refuse to fly. You've told me before that you remember our first meeting was me kicking your bike and you punching me. But I don't remember that. In early childhood there was no chance of us hanging out. I was getting beat up a lot. I moved away from the neighborhood in fifth grade, came back for high school. That's where I meet John. We were all ditching school. He was a runaway and I let him move in with me. You were soon in the same boat. You and John had the common cause of rebelling against your parents and running away. You lived with me a little bit. But my mom was getting sick of people staying over. You were the one that told me John was having sex with my sister. You lived on the roof at California and Devon and drank lots of vodka. You were generally miserable at that time. Your father found you on the street and dragged you home and handcuffed you to a pipe. Nobody knew what to do with you then. You were drunk all the time, very self-absorbed. You and John hitchhiked out to California. I gave you a flute to sell, to get some money. But it was too much so you threw it away along with everything else. After you guys came back there was this big group dynamic. Huge numbers of people hanging out. I always had the line on everybody. I would hang out with Albert and he would know what happened to you. You would know what happened to Tim. Everybody knew everything. Then we split into two groups. There were the dirtbags and the overlords. I remember specifically a conversation we were having in the laundromat. You were talking about what would make a good leader and you elected me, but you were actually the leader. That was the perception. The overlords made a comic book about us. I still have it. I remember you getting your first tattoo. That led to many sleeveless days. You wrote a lot. I would write too. You would pick two or three lines out of my various poems that you might like. I think you've always been one to tear down other people. I was put in the hospital when I was sixteen. You and Joe and Pat wrote me letters. When I got out we were going in different directions. You were moving out of the drug scene, toward high school. We made a pact not to do drugs but I didn't take it seriously. In high school you were doing more things. You joined the chess team. You had your little side dramas because you were hooking up with one of the staff members in the group home you lived in. We didn't hang out that much. You were reading all these books on Bhuddism. You were all about higher-consciousness. At some level you were probably more grounded. You were very quiet at that point. You did a lot more listening. Next time you were social was much later. I remember you came to wake me up every day for my last few months of high school. I was about to be kicked out for truancy. You made it some kind of decision. Took some kind of responsibility that it had to be done. But you weren't acting like a friend. You wouldn't hang out. You were actually very parental, paternal at that time. It was something I didn't want to do. To this day I would never have done that. I didn't want to graduate high school. I slept through finals and they still passed me. I shouldn't have bothered with high school; I wasn't into it. I didn't learn anything. I should have just got a job. I enjoy work more than I enjoy school. Overall, I would say most of what I like about you is who I knew in high school. Afterward there's a lot less to relate to. Then you were into this idea of everybody – How can we help everybody. Now I would say over all the years a lot more of you is for self, Steve for Steve. This doesn't include the last couple of years, where you've transitioned and become political. posted by Stephen Elliott 7:14 AM | link | |
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"Any true love story, if told with the urgency and animal intelligence of love, isn't for the fainthearted. On every page of this profound, distilled work of art, Stephen Elliott wrestles with the unknown and unspoken essences of love, and articulates that unknown so beautifully, with such clear-eyed fearlessness... Imagine a glass of pure water with one drop of blood hanging in its center, about to dissolve... Then drink it and be transformed." -Nick Flynn, author of Another Bullshit Night in Suck City "There's an emotional courage to these stories, and a sense of urgency, that are thrilling to encounter. Elliott writes as if his life depended on each sentence. It is not overstating the case to say that he does for the BDSM community in this book what Denis Johnson did for lost druggies in Jesus' Son." - Steve Almond, The Believer Magazine Best of the year: Salon.com, San Francisco Chronicle Reviews: Salon.com, LA Weekly, The Believer Excerpts: My Stripper Year, Just Always Be Good Purchase from Amazon, Powells, Cleis, and your local bookstore 
"Happy Baby is surely the most intelligent and beautiful book ever written about juvenile detention centers, sadomasochism, and drugs." - Curtis Sittenfeld, The New York Times Book Review Best of the year: Village Voice, Salon.com, Chicago New City, The Journal News Awards: Finalist Young Lions Award, Silver Medal California Book Award Reviews: The New York Times, Salon.com, Village Voice Excerpts: Stalking Gracie Part 3 Purchase from Amazon, Powell's, and your local bookstore 
"Hunter S. Thompson, Norman Mailer, Richard Ben Cramer: the great, all-American genre of the political campaign in extenso (and in extremis) has had its Homers and Boswells. To that list we can now add Stephen Elliott. Hilarious, strange, electrifyingly written, and heart-pumpingly idealistic, Looking Forward to It wins every literary caucus and primary in a landslide." -Tom Bissell, author of Chasing the Sea Best of the year: Village Voice Reviews: New York Magazine, New York Times Excerpts: The Dennis Kucinich Polka, A John Edwards Almanac Purchase from Amazon, Powell's (cheap!), and your local bookstore 
"A Life Without Consequences was harrowing, hard as nails, brutal, and soaring. Stephen Elliott has to be watched, because he knows things almost no one else could." - Dave Eggers, author of A Heart Breaking Work of Staggering Genius and What Is The What Excerpt: Adlai Stevenson House Reviews: Austin American Statesman Purchase from Amazon |
