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Sunday, July 31, 2005 Live From Peru... Informe del Cafe by Andrew Foster Altschul 29 julio 2005 I'm sitting in a cafe called the Real McCoy, on a very comfortable leather couch, availing myself of some high-speed action while Sarah McLachlan's voice floats through the air at an uncomfortable volume.(1) On the leather couch across from me sits a dude who looks like a cross between the Rock and YoYo Ma, wearing a sweatshirt that says "Snapper's Lobster Trap: Best Tail in Town," and his blonde girlfriend in hip-huggers and a tank top and, quite clearly, no bra. They are in their mid-20s, and if I had to bet I'd say they were from the Midwest.(2) They are playing Yahtzee. He seems to be kicking her ass. Marita, the waitress, comes over to ask if I'd like another beer. It's only 4 in the afternoon, but I figure, what the hell? It only costs $1.56. Plus, it's hot out today. Real hot. It may even hit 70 degrees, and I was sitting outside for an hour or two, reading Brian Teare's amazing book of poetry, hoping that the human body might somehow store heat, stockpile it, so that at 6:01, right after the sun goes down and the temperature nose-dives below 30, ...moreI won't immediately start weeping. Good: They've turned off Sarah McLachlan. Only now they've replaced it with something worse, a kind of combination R&B torch song/hip-hop rant. I don't know the name of the song or the singer, only that the chorus goes, "Fuck you, you ho - I don't want you back," and is sung in a voice of such melodramatic anguish that you know this guy thinks he's saying something profound and complex and really artistic, kind of like Sarah McLachlan did in that song "Possession" back in 1977.(3) Back to the weather. By about 9pm I'll be so miserable that I'll have no choice but to go to a really crowded bar and drink several more beers for $1.56 and then go to Ukukus. Ukukus is one of the oldest discotecas in town, named after mythic figures in the festival of Qollur Rit'i which takes place each June at Mt. Ausangate. The festival is a vaguely Catholic affair (4) which seems to involve young men in white ski masks (the Ukukus) who race up the 21,000 ft. mountain and bring back chunks of ice from its glacier.(5) Once they get back, the thousands of pilgrims waiting at the bottom of the mountain, and the tourists watching the pilgrims waiting, and the guides trying to keep track of the tourists in their charge, and the many bus drivers, store owners, postcard hawkers, llama herders, laundresses, shoeshiners, taxistas, and prostitutes all get drunk and sleep wherever they can. It's pretty fun - but again: cold. But Ukukus, my Ukukus, is the opposite of cold. It's sultry, sweaty, smoky, sinuous, and just, in a word, wrong. It's a dark, cavernous room, maybe 70 feet by 20 feet, with a bar at one end and tables at the other and a 30x20 dance floor in the center. The walls are painted black and garish shades of orange and light blue, and are hung with gothic paintings (6) and macabre masks of, you guessed it: Ukukus. It's on the second story of a building right near the Plaza de Armas, a building which has likely been here in one form or another since the Incas built this city in the 12th century - and I'm fairly sure it still has its original floor, because when shit really gets going around 1am you can feel the floor buckling underneath the 300 or so people dancing. Seriously. The give in the floor must be a good 6-8 vertical inches, and for a couple hours each night it just doesn't stop bouncing, trampoline-like. This is a CNN story waiting to happen.(7) But in the meantime, it's sanctuary. In Ukukus, I can actually wear a t-shirt without the hair on my arms freezing and breaking off. I can take off the wool hat, the gloves, the SmartWool socks and the two (I shit you not) Capilene pullovers and the fleece parka and the winter jacket and have a good time.(8) Down here, they call me "The King of Salsa." Okay, I invented the name, and I'm not 100% sure that they aren't using it ironically - but still. At 3am, chock full of $1.56 beers, having smoked the equivalent of about a zillion cigarettes without having actually put one in your mouth, with your body temperature above 90 for the first time in days, when they put on Celia Cruz' "La Vida Es una Carnaval,""you don't stand on ceremony.(9) You get out there on the magic bouncing floor and shake your hips and spin the nearest female and you fake it. The Real McCoy is not my regular cafe. It's too far from my apartment, too close to the center of town, and too full of gringos. There's a complex constellation of reasons I'm here today, however. First, the administradora, Edurne, has got it in her head that I am a guide, and they give a 20% discount to guides here.(10) Second, they have a high-speed hookup, which Edurne lets me use for free. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, Marita has just about the sweetest smile I've ever seen - at least since that pediatrician Steve introduced me to on the 4th of July, but whose email address he later refused to get for me - and she has promised to go dancing, er, bouncing, with me tonight.(11) Usually, I spend my afternoons in a cafe called La Musa (The Muse), which is just a couple blocks from my room in San Blas. I'll get there around 1, after spending most of the morning working on my novel, swaddled in the abovementioned warm clothing, at which point the administradora, Yvonne, will make me a cafe cortado and tut-tut over my blue lips and cryogenic aphasia. Yvonne is about my age and has pressed her 11-year-old daughter into service at La Musa; she, Yvonne, seems really interesting to me, in a sad, too-smart-for-this-place kind of way. Coincidentally, sort of, she worked for years behind the bar in Ukukus, so when I first came into the Muse we looked at each other in that I'm-sure-I-know-you-from-somewhere-embarrassing kind of way. Also, she asked me the other day if I was from Lima - high flattery, based on her assessment of my Spanish. She still refuses to believe I'm not Peruvian, which is an ego boost, except that it means she talks to me in rapid-fire Spanish that I can't keep up with, all but eliminating the possibility of meaningful discourse. I think I'm secretly a little in love with Yvonne. The Muse, like the Real McCoy, is owned by an Englishwoman, but the clientele is much more Peruvian, since it's out of the center of the city a bit; so most days I can spend a few hours reading or revising here without having to worry about feelings of guilt-by-association every time someone walks in wearing a Snapper's Lobster Trap sweatshirt.(12) Anyway, it's a big night tonight, a "tormenta perfecta" of sorts for Cuzco. First of all, it's Friday - G.D.E.V., in the local tongue - and by 10 or 11, after the house band gets done with their rocked-up version of "El Condor Pasa," the floor at Ukukus will be doing its thing. Second, today is Day 2 of the Fiestas Patrias, the celebration of Peru's independence from Spain, which brings thousands of people into the Plaza de Armas to listen to bands from all over the country play rocked-up versions of "El Condor Pasa," to smoke hashish and twirl devil-sticks and eat anticuchos by the fountain, to throw lit firecrackers at each other and jostle as many of their fellow celebrants as they can manage.(13) Last, but in no fucking way least, on Wednesday night, Cienciano, the city's soccer team, won the national championship - at home, 1-0, by defeating Union Huaral.(14) And I trust that I needn't really explain what soccer means to residents of just about any country other than the U.S., and particularly what it means to people in developing countries. Suffice it to say, fuck independence, fuck Bolivar, and fuck Friday: this is the real party. We stayed in the stadium for an hour after the game, watching the players rip off their clothing and twirl it over their heads, skip and dance and back-handspring across the field, mobbed by spokesmodels for LG and Telefonica and Cuzquena beer, the tournament's main sponsors, watched them climb on and sit on and eventually tear down the goals, watched the 42,000 in attendance (in a stadium built for 36,000) riot out into the streets and the Plaza Tupac Amaru and up Avenida Sol to the Plaza de Armas, where they overran the Fiesta Patria already underway. That was Wednesday. It's Friday, and the Dionysiac energy shows no signs of wearing off. So it's off for some dinner now, at the home of my friend Jeronimo, a Dutch guide who just - get this - rented a house with his girlfriend that is not only heated but has an actual, gas-fired hot shower.(15) Then I've got to track down Marita, who gave me her cellphone number this afternoon - but it's anyone's guess if that will work.(16) God willing, I'll track her down around 10 and we'll go have a few $1.56 beers at Paddy Flaherty's, the Irish-owned pub (17) that sits at the side of the 400-year-old cathedral . There will be rugby on the television - for some reason, they taped a game involving a team called the British and Irish Lions about a month ago, and they show it every night (18) - and no shortage of embarrassing sweatshirts. Paddy's will be full of Brits, Aussies, Dutch, Danes, Israelis, French, Irish, Italians, Argentinos, Canucks, and, of course, a few Estadounidenses (19), all drinking heavily and comparing notes on their visits to various local ruins, their treks through the Andes, and their future travels which, for everyone except those from the U.S., average about nine months in duration and cover a staggering part of the globe. By midnight or so, we'll be talked out. We'll get the itch. We'll look in each other's eyes and just know. In another ten minutes, once we've managed to don our respective sweaters, cap. shells, parkas, hats, gloves, and winter coats, we'll be out the door. Destination: Ukukus. By the time we stumble out of Ukukus, it's going to be 5am, and the sun is going to be thinking about rising, a coral glow seeping up behind the Church of San Cristobal. It'll still be cold as a condor's ass in the Plaza de Armas, but we won't care. We'll stand by the fountain in sweaty, smoky t-shirts, taking in the incredible view with the kind of awe that only drunk, exhausted people can really muster. Turns out the human body can store heat - but only in Ukukus. We'll say goodnight - Ah Marita, me encanta tu sonrisa! - and I'll grab a bottle of water, and maybe anticuchos from the street (20), and then I'll trudge up to my deep-freeze in San Blas and, jumping up and down in the sharp cold, peel off my clothes which smell like a 12-alarm fire and leave them outside on a line to air out, don the longjohns and dive under the mastodon-hair blankets and maybe, just maybe, get five hours of sleep before the kids start setting off M-80s on the hillside above for no reason other than the sheer joy of being alive and independent and national champions and non-hypothermic in the Imperial City of Cuzco, Peru. -------------------- 1. Really, at this point, isn't any volume uncomfortable? Sure, I thought "Possession" was a great song, even though all the women I knew completely misunderstood it as being about true love rather than about a fucked-up stalker... Either way, it was what?, like 15 years ago? Blow out the scented candles and get over it already. 2. There is no question whatsoever that they are from the U.S. 3. Probably most readers already know this song. For all I know it's been out since the '90s. I admit it: I am utterly ignorant of hip-hop music, a state of affairs I'm occasionally uncomfortable with but which, in moments like this, actually makes me quite proud to be me. 4. In an inexplicable, syncretic way. 5. Why anyone around here would celebrate ice is pretty much beyond me. There ought to be a festival where the kids race to Home Depot and bring back hot tubs, but there isn't. 6. "Gothic" in the Iggy Pop or Siouxsie Sioux sense, not the medieval European sense. 7. After years of terrified tourists asking the bartenders if the floor was safe, the management finally installed some new safety features: inflatable slides which are rolled up and tied to the two balconies, theoretically allowing patrons to slide down to the street in case of emergency. What this has to do with the possibility of a catastrophic floor collapse, I couldn't tell you. 8. Think I'm kidding? Here's a list of what I sleep in in my unheated room in San Blas: wool socks, sweatpants, sometimes thermal long johns, t-shirt, cap. shell, sometimes the hat. And that's under four blankets of some unknown animal hair, each of which weighs a good 6-7 pounds. 9. While they do play a fair amount of salsa, meringue, rock en espanol, and other Latin music, the discotecas also offer a shocking playlist of bad, early MTV hits, as well as other U.S. music that is simply impossible to dance to, e.g. "Roadhouse Blues," "Come On Eileen," the Pixies' "Hey!" "Smells Like Teen Spirit," and "(I'll Stop the World and) Melt with You." Not to mention "Hit Me Baby One More Time," which on a good night you'll only hear twice. 10. Yes, Hawking, that means I actually get beer for $1.25. 11. True, she also promised this last night. But there seemed to be some kind of miscommunication. Either that or I just got dicked. 12. English, Australian, Dutch - all the best cafes in town are owned by gringos. It sounds chauvinistic, but it isn't, it's just the truth. When I lived here in 1999, before most of these places were built, my friend Ed and I kept wandering into unlit, Peruvian-owned caes where the coffee was instant, and if you wanted a drink you ordered a bottle of something from a list and it came with a girl. 13. It's entirely possible that the jostling and the firecracker throwing are done to get warm, rather than to be rude. 14. It's actually a little more complicated, and more exciting, than that. Huaral weren't contenders for the championship. Lima's favorite team, Universitario (La U.), who are despised here the way the Philadelphia Eagles are despised everywhere in the civilized world, and whom Cienciano trounced, again at home, last Sunday, were the other main contenders. But since Cienciano won on Sunday, we controlled our destiny, and the victory on Wednesday iced it. So the sweetness of winning the championship was even greater, since it was essentially flipping the ultimate bird to La U. 15. The standard shower here is a cold-water pipe with a "ducha electrica," a space-heater-type heating coil, strapped to its mouth. You throw a Frankenstein-like switch just before getting in, try to wash yourself with the resultant trickle of tepid water, avoid touching anything metal (like, say, the knobs) and pray you don't get electrocuted. 16. The two main cellular providers, Telefonica and TIM, engage in some pretty underhanded competition, such that one often cannot successfully call from one service to the other. My phone is Telefonica. Marita"s, alas, is TIM. 17. See what I mean? 18. I don't understand rugby, but from what I can tell the game they keep showing is not even a particularly exciting or consequential one. 19. Don't say "Americans." Peruvians, like everyone from the Americas, are Americans, too. 20. A local delicacy. A sort of shish-kebab consisting of grilled pieces of cow heart, with a big potato at the end, smeared in a hot-pepper mustard. Fucking de-lish. posted by Andrew Foster Altschul 12:47 PM | link | Friday, July 29, 2005 Rides Found at a Psychiatry-Themed Amusement Park by Michelle Orange Guilt-a-Whirl Shame Spiral Sea "Serpent" The "Cobra" "Anaconda" The Baggage-Go-Round Psyclone Big Thunder Derailroad The Actualizer It-Used-To-Be-Funhouse The Adderall Rapids Bellevue: The Ride The "Zipper" Completely Batshit Crazy Mountain Demon Drop posted by Michelle Orange 9:34 AM | link | Thursday, July 28, 2005 The Cafe Report 8 by Susan Steinberg Steve's feeling self-protective and paranoid about his happy-baby-ness. Below is a compromise. Please work on this and email your results to Steve. Perhaps he will post them. Today, Steve insists we sit close together on the _____ (noun). He's feeling incredibly _____(adj.) and I'm finding it just a bit ________(adj.) He's pulled my _____(noun) over his ____(noun). We're drinking ______(noun) with ______(noun). The music is too ______(adj.) He's whispering into my _____(noun). He whispers, ______________(sentence about sado-masochism). I say, Steve. I say, Do you think I could be a dominatrix? The people around us _____(verb). He says, Yes. He says, I know people who could teach you how to ________(verb) a man into a _________ (noun). I say, What kind of shoes would I need? He says, You need to wear ______ (type of shoe). He says, You'll also need a leather __________(article of clothing) and a _________(weapon). He says, they'll teach you how to ______(verb) like a ________(animal). He says, Dude. He says, You'll learn how to _______(verb) a ________(body part), until the dude screams, __________(exclamation)! I say, Okay. His cell phone rings. In a soft voice, he says, This is Steve. He says, Yes. He stands up. He says to me, Gotta go. Kiss on the cheek. He leaves. s. posted by Susan Steinberg 9:11 PM | link | Wednesday, July 27, 2005  The Oregonian has been following Oregon National Guard units in Iraq. The newspaper has a terrific 3 part series about the units, their families, and the uncertain role of the Guard in the war. Many past stories and photos on this site. One of the best coverages of American soldiers in Iraq on the web. From The Daily Pick. posted by Tom Kealey 7:03 PM | link | Tuesday, July 26, 2005 The Cafe Report 7 by Susan Steinberg From: Susan Steinberg Date: Sun, 24 Jul 2005 12:29:47 -0700 To: Stephen Elliott Subject: Re: cafe dude. i'm back. in the real cafe. s. From: Stephen Elliott Date: Sun, 24 Jul 2005 17:46:43 -0400 To: Susan Steinberg Subject: Re: cafe be there in 30 secs se posted by Susan Steinberg 6:31 PM | link | Monday, July 25, 2005  The Sunday edition of the San Francisco Chronicle has an excellent article about children living in the poorest neighborhood of the city: The Tenderloin. via The Daily Pick posted by Tom Kealey 1:16 AM | link | Sunday, July 24, 2005 The Cafe Report 6 by Susan Steinberg I'm waiting for a friend in a cafe in Boston. Outside is a Sunoco and a Jewish funeral home. An old woman in here is wearing two pairs of glasses. One rarely gets to see wrinkled faces anymore, so I'm still staring as she stirs twelve Sweet & Lows into her coffee. I find this alarming. I think the woman and I make eye-contact. But it's hard to tell with the two pairs of glasses, the extreme magnification. Yesterday, I walked out fifteen minutes into a G-rated movie, sobbing into my hands. I found a cafe then, too, waited for my friends to get out of the movie, wondering how they could just sit there eating their popcorn. It was like watching footage of the big bang or something. I just couldn't process it with these pathetically limited five senses. My friends, after the movie, were like, Dude, it's just life, It's just penguins for Christ's sake, Let's get a drink. The friend I'm waiting for has called to say he'll be late. He's visiting a guy he knows who's in a nursing home, bringing the guy a pack of cigarettes. The guy had a stroke, so the whole process of smoking is more involved. Just getting the cigarette lit takes time. This is going to sound a little forced, but if I don't mention Steve, what's the point. I'm remembering a night I was trying to get a cigarette lit outside a bar in San Francisco. I'm not even a smoker. And Steve came outside and said, Guys don't like girls who smoke, and went back in the bar. There's nothing else to report. s. posted by Susan Steinberg 10:40 AM | link | Saturday, July 23, 2005   I visited Los Angeles County Prison this Thursday as part of the research I'm doing for an article on Alonza Rydell Thomas. It's a sprawling campus with 4,700 inmates squeezed into a facility with a maximum capacity of 2,200. I saw beds stacked three tiers occupying all available gym and day-room space. Because of the overcrowding even medium security prisoners are often only able to go into the yard for two hours a day. There was one point of light however, the honor yard. Lancaster is the only prison in the state with an honor yard reserved for well-disciplined prisoners serving life with little chance of parole. Virtually every inmate on honor status is a convicted murderer. To be on the honor yard a prisoner must spend five years incarcerated without incident, have no active gang affiliation, express willingness to program with inmates of any race, and be drug free.  Operation Procedure 00-762 states - What characterizes the Honor Program is not the relaxation of discipline but the consistent and voluntary embrace of discipline so that certain collective and personal goals can be more effectively attained. There is a sense of order and resigned calm. Men sit outside playing cards or exercising or in the art studio watching a painting video. Other inmates repair glasses donated by the Lions Club that are then sent to those in need all over the world. In the honor yard the inmates mix freely. What makes the honor yard so desirable is the character of the inmates.  Here are some paintings done by honor yard inmate Harlan King. For information on purchasing inmate art (proceeds go to charitable causes) contact Lucinda Thomas, Arts and Corrections facilitator, 44750 60th Street West, Lancaster, CA 93536-762. posted by Stephen Elliott 1:23 PM | link | Friday, July 22, 2005 I emailed this to the New York Times, but since it most likely won't appear, I thought I'd share it with you all. RE: Islamist Hate Speech Dear Thomas Friedman, Thank you for your article today. I agree with all your points, and I believe that a huge part of the problem is that the voices of moderates in the Muslim community are not being heard loudly enough. A terrorist uses a bomb to amplify his voice. What must a moderate use? In fact, what must a moderate do to attract the attention of the media? Even the New York Times? Why not, in your editorial, call for the Times to feature every week or even every day essays by moderates in the Islamic community? If a leading moderate were featured on the front page of the New York Times it would rally support in the Islamic community *and* remind non-Muslims that there are peaceful voices in the Islamic communities. And it would tell the world that we are listening to these voices. That they are important. And that their message needs to be spread. If this is a World War of Ideas, the media has a responsibility to pay attention to ideas that don't have bombs attached to them. I am an educated man with an Ivy League education and a Masters degree. I read the paper every day. I have seen Osama Bin Laden's name on the front page. I have read stories on his ideas. I have never seen the name of a leading Islamic moderate. I have never read his or her ideas. Why? The moderates need a peaceful equivalent to a bomb. They need the media's help to spread their message with such explosive efficiency. I call on the media to help. I call on the New York Times to put an essay by a leading moderate on its front page. Will you call, too? Best, Michael Cohen East Village, NYC posted by mdc 3:07 PM | link | The Cafe Report 5 Cafe Car, Amtrak, Providence by Susan Steinberg Conversation between me and the man working behind the counter Me: Can I have a coffee? Him: Is that all you want? M: Yes. H: Are you sure? M: I'm sure. H: (winking) Well, you're pretty low-maintenance. M: (putting two dollars into his tip jar) No one's ever said that to me. We laugh hard. He gives me the coffee. H: That'll be a dollar seventy-five. M: (digging through my wallet) Can I give you a twenty? H: (sighing, emphatically) Is that all you have? M: (thinking, Well, I gave you my two ones, dude) Yes. Sorry. H: (cleary annoyed) Well, I take it back. M: You take what back? H: You're high-maintenance. M: Hey... H: Ha ha... M: (suddenly internally questioning aspects of the way I live my life, the way I've treated people, H: Ha... M: (decisions I've made, the things I did at summer camp, the time my boyfriend and I got into a fight because, for fun, he pushed his fist through the ice cream H: But we're still friends, right? M: (but that was years ago H: Right? M: (and I wouldn't care about that now, and this guy is old old H: M: (and he thinks he's funny, and he needs me to play along) Okay, okay... H: (holding up his hand) Come on, friend. (pointing to his palm) Come on. Right here. We high-five. H: There you go. I return to my seat, drink the coffee, stare out the window. I'm not thinking of Steve. I'm not thinking of anything deep. Just trees, towns, telephone lines. Vallerie spelled with two L's on the side of a truck. s. posted by Susan Steinberg 12:20 AM | link | Wednesday, July 20, 2005   James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces and My Friend Leonard, mentioned Happy Baby on his site today and called it a great book. Thanks James! posted by Stephen Elliott 2:21 PM | link |  Steve Elliott makes a lot of people happy. He also makes a lot of people angry, including Martians. Why are the Martians mad at Steve Elliott? I don't know, but they've vowed to zap StephenEllliott.com into submission with their gamma-death-rays. This is what it will look like. posted by Tom Kealey 10:32 AM | link | Tuesday, July 19, 2005 Not yet much on the web about John Roberts Jr., who is about to be announced as Bush's Supreme Court Nominee. But an interesting profile from The Legal Times is available here. Yet those who know Roberts say he, unlike Souter, is a reliable conservative who can be counted on to undermine if not immediately overturn liberal landmarks like abortion rights and affirmative action. Indicators of his true stripes cited by friends include: clerking for Rehnquist, membership in the Federalist Society, laboring in the Ronald Reagan White House counsel's office and at the Justice Department into the Bush years, working with Kenneth Starr among others, and even his lunchtime conversations at Hogan & Hartson. "He is as conservative as you can get," one friend puts it. In short, Roberts may combine the stealth appeal of Souter with the unwavering ideology of Scalia and Thomas. -- TK posted by Tom Kealey 4:59 PM | link | Do you know what an ego wall is? Do you know how to eat spaghetti? Did you ever watch Trapper John M.D.? What do you miss most from the Daily Show's old studio? (Hint: Jon Stewart's Couch) Are you curious about the crime scene in western Massachusetts? Do you want to watch corn grow? Do you trust Scott Hutchins? Finally... If zombies don't eat human brains for, like, six months, what happens? Answers to these questions and more. Plus a site redesign. On the Daily Pick. posted by Stephen Elliott 9:50 AM | link | Monday, July 18, 2005  Monday is shameless self-promotion day. Purchase Happy Baby from Amazon or Powell's. Actually, I wrote essays for Powell's and Amazon when Happy Baby came out in paperback. Both essays talk about writing the book, though the Amazon essay is more about my favorite short story, I Want To Live, by Thom Jones, and how that story helped me write Happy Baby. If you've already read Happy Baby and you liked it consider reviewing it on Amazon. posted by Stephen Elliott 10:09 AM | link | Sunday, July 17, 2005 The Cafe Report 4 by Susan Steinberg I have nothing to report, Steve. I spent yesterday in a cafe in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The AC was on too high. I sensed a depressing lack of irony. A guy came in who looked, for a second, like you. But then I noticed the ponytail, then the Birkenstocks, then I realized it was a woman. I overheard two conversations. In one a girl tried to teach her two friends a new word she learned last night: kitsch. She struggled to define it, and then, after some pained collaboration, she and her friends came up with "something that's, you know, cool that shouldn't be." The other conversation was more brutal, a loud guy on a cell phone saying things like, "You know me. I'm the type of guy who..." I'm sorry Steve. This should be about you, but I'm uncreative when it's sweltering. I miss our weather and our cafe and your pornstar charm. Speaking of which, I've decided you should grow a mustache. I hope you'll work on this while I'm away. I believe that Tom would also support such a project. posted by Susan Steinberg 6:53 PM | link | Friday, July 15, 2005 The Cafe Report 3 by Susan Steinberg  Today I'm the one who needs to work, but Steve is needy, bothering me, talking about some girl Arianna. He says, She's so hot, dude. He says, Dude, do you know how hot she is? He says, Dude. He kicks me under the table. I shut my computer and look up. He says, So. Hot. This is not a moment in which I have options. I say, Arianna who? And he says, Huffington, dude, Arianna Huffington. He says, Dude, she's so hot. Some compulsion forces me to say, Is she as hot as this? I point to myself. He takes me to her website where I am reminded that she is, in fact, hotter than this and more brilliant and really famous.I'm feeling competitive again, and I start thinking about how I've never been in a real fight. Some girl who liked my boyfriend once hit me in the face, but I've never been in a real meet-me-after-school kind of brawl. What I know about fights I learned when I lived in western Missouri. I learned that guys beat the shit out of each other in the parking lots of bars and then they go somewhere and get drunk and compare wounds and cry about ex-girlfriends. I don't know what girls are supposed to do, but this plan, without the physical wounds, sounds just fine to me. I, therefore, challenge thee, Arianna, to a duel. Where: 22nd and Valencia. When: Whenever. The spoils: Steve's love and his black muscle shirt, unwashed. I would prefer the duel take the form of a game of Euchre. You can be Steve's partner. I will bring my own. And if you accept my challenge, afterward, we can do like they do in Missouri. We can walk up the street to Kentucky Fried, then hop Muni to the Tenderloin, pick up a pack of cigarettes and a bottle of Boonesfarm, find a motel, and watch scrambled porn all night. Maybe I'll even do your nails. Maybe we'll watch the sunrise from the motel window. Arianna, dude, maybe on our way back to the bus stop, in the early morning, we'll link arms and be like, Steve who? I await your response. s. posted by Susan Steinberg 10:25 AM | link | Thursday, July 14, 2005 This week's Daily Pick Update by Tom Kealey  -- The GET THE WORD OUT Project helps promote authors, filmmakers, and events. It's all part of the literary blog Bookmouth.com. The coverage ranges from interviews to essays to how-to pieces. The overall goal is to facilitate and inspire independent projects. -- John Freyer sold all his stuff. I mean, all his stuff. On Ebay. Then he traveled around the country visiting all the people who bought his stuff. Read about it in All My Life For Sale. -- Eric Rudolph tells the story of how he eluded the FBI while stealing vegetables from gardens, dumpster diving, and narrowly escaping a confrontation with Fluffy the dog. No joke. -- This is what happens when you type "george.w.bush.isnt.stupid" into the Google search engine. -- Steve Elliott hung out with his homies in Dolores Park on July 4th. These are the photos. -- This is a great site called The Monster Engine. Basically, kids make drawings, and then artist Dave DeVries gives his own take on what the kids came up with. About 20 examples on the site. Thanks to Jon Berry for this link. posted by Tom Kealey 10:10 AM | link | Wednesday, July 13, 2005  I have a long feature article in this month's Esquire. Look for Bruce Springsteen on the cover.
posted by Stephen Elliott 9:45 AM | link | The Cafe Report 2 By Susan Steinberg Today Steve is wearing what one might call a "muscle shirt." He's also wearing what appears to be linen pants. He looks dizzyingly pornographic today, more so than usual. Usually he looks more like the handyman who knocks on the bored housewife's door to fix a "clogged drain" or "take a look at a leak" or whatever. But today he looks almost classy, like some rich dude in a porno, like the housewife's professional boxer husband who walks in on his wife with the handyman, and, instead of beating the shit out of the guy, he's mixing himself a drink. The point is the shirt is skintight and black and clearly a real shirt, not the ribbed undershirt type of shirt he usually wears, and one can really see his muscles. And I hesitate to add this--and this is now, I'm discovering, a point of contention--but he seems to have showered today. The thing is, usually, before coming to the cafe each day, we don't shower, we make a point of not showering, and we've talked several times now about how we don't bother showering before writing, and I, this morning, did not shower. I realize this shouldn't be an issue, but I was under the impression that Steve and I had made some kind of deal, that we'd formed some kind of bond over this, and I'm big enough to admit I feel a little betrayed. So even though we're sharing the table with Tom and Noria, I don't even fight the urge to say, Steve, did you shower? And he says, I did. And I say, I see. And he says, Why. And I say, Well, you look clean. And he says, Thanks. And I say, You look all dolled-up. I assure you I say this like I don't really mean it. But he says, Thanks. It's clear he's in too good a mood today to deal with my insecurities. And then I realize that everyone in the cafe is in a good mood. Noria's so ecstatic she's trembling. Tom seems to be on meth. It's hot and sunny in the Mission today, and everyone's got too much energy. It's like summer camp in here, and Steve's even talking about playing a little tennis later with his friend Andy, and we all laugh about how leisurely this all is, this life, like a fucking country club, San Francisco, Steve all decked out in linen, all washed and powdered and perfumed, for Christ's sake, and Tom says, Don't play tennis in your good pants, and we all laugh a little too hard at this. Before the mood changes, before someone brings up book publishing or Karl Rove, I decide to leave. I pack up my computer and look up just in time to catch Steve flexing his arm in his muscle shirt, perhaps unconsciously, perhaps not. I swear I see his tattoo move. I realize I have no idea what his tattoo is of. I see him every day, and I can't even tell you what the thing is, other than large and blue. So I ask what it is, and now everyone's quiet and looking at Steve's arm. If this were a porno, I think it's at this point that the music would kick in. I think at this point, Steve would stand up, rip off his shirt and say, Come take a look for yourself, baby. But he rubs his arm. He looks at his tattoo. He says it's a wizard being swallowed by flames. I look around the table to see if anyone wants to comment on this. I feel like there's something to say, but I'm not sure what it is. posted by Susan Steinberg 1:07 AM | link | Tuesday, July 12, 2005 Karl Rove Tries To Steal My Mac With all this Rove chatter I think it's high time to reprint my notes regarding my meeting with Bush's Brain at the Republican Convention. August 30, 2004 I'm in the hallway at Madison Square Garden leading out from Radio Row through the filing center to the escalator which leads into the convention. Karl Rove just passed me. He looked down on me smiling. It was the friendly smile of a man trying to make contact, not so disimilar from the men who used to promise me things when I was a stripper twelve years ago in Chicago. The Jons would say things like, "What do you want to do? Are you an actor? I can help you. I know an agent." That's the way they were, always making promises they had no intention of keeping, anything to get their fingers dirty. "Come over," they would say. "I have a limousine out front. I'll send the maid home." Then they would stuff a dollar bill in your underwear as if they were big spenders. Anyway, that's how Karl Rove looked at me and when I looked up the second time and he was still looking at me he said, "I like your Mac."  He said. "That's a nice computer." He didn't nod, just smiled, his head didn't so much turn as swivel. It was just like that. He was being sincere. He was trying to connect. There was a large entourage following behind him and he slowed down just enough, never losing that sanguine smile, and then whammo, he was off.You can say what you want about truth and speculation and you can interpret your own meaning from the things that happen inside Madison Square Garden this week. But what I'm saying is true. There were witnesses. Intent, like predicting the weather, is open for debate. But I saw what I saw. It's been twelve years since I pulled on a g-string and danced on a lit box in one of the clubs on Clark Street, but I've still got it. And I know exactly what Rove was trying to do. - Stephen Elliott p.s. for a serious look at Karl Rove's unraveling check out Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo posted by Stephen Elliott 9:03 AM | link | Monday, July 11, 2005 The Cafe Report By Susan Steinberg Often, Steve sits near me at his own table, but sometimes, if the cafe is crowded, like it is today, we sit together. We don't talk when we sit together, and sometimes I read his silence as rejection; other times I'm just bored by it. Today, Steve is reading the New York Times Magazine and eating a Rice Krispy treat. He is riveted to both. Such focus, to me, on a Sunday, seems excessive. Or fake. I think I'm irritated. Perhaps today it's a combination of boredom and neediness--I can admit this--but, as I'm serendipitously wearing a low-cut shirt, I'm going to compete for Steve's attention. I say, Steve? He doesn't look up. He says, Yeah? I say, Are you gonna do the crossword? He slowly looks up at me. I try to read emotion in his expression. I believe it's a blend of annoyance and heartfelt concern. I twirl my hair. He says, No. I say, Can I have it then? First he just stares at me. Then he raises an eyebrow as if to say, You think you can do the Sunday crossword? Clearly he thinks I'm trying to impress him. And the truth is, of course, he's right. I generally can't do the crossword. Usually it's really fucking hard and leaves me feeling somewhat incompetent. He says, Okay, and goes back to reading. I do worry that we're turning into some cliched old married couple. I worry that in a few weeks it'll be me wearing a bathrobe, saying, Hey, baby? And him, unshaven, scratching, saying (not looking up), Yes, dear? Perhaps I'll even start to care about him in a wifely way. I'll worry that his piercings will become infected. That his aversion to body hair is a diagnosable compulsion. A woman rushes in and stands by our table. She has a gift for Steve: a lamp. He's happy to see her, and while they're talking, I put the Times Magazine into my bag. When the woman leaves, Steve says to me, How am I gonna get this lamp home? It's huge. But I, for no good reason, drive a truck. And though the lamp is covered in cobwebs and insects, and though it means I'll have to walk Steve's bike up several blocks so he can carry the lamp, I offer Steve a ride, thrilled to be of some use. posted by Susan Steinberg 7:09 PM | link | Sunday, July 10, 2005  Craig Clevenger's badass website is back online. Word is there's a new book on the way this fall. Here's a picture of Craig and me at our reading in Portland.
posted by Stephen Elliott 1:48 PM | link | Friday, July 08, 2005 And Then There Was A Knock by Stephen Elliott The Strange Detention of a 71 year old Afghan Hindu Man and His 69 Year Old Wife  First comes the knock. There are two, maybe three, uniformed officers from the Department of Homeland Security. They tell the boy they want to take his parents in for questioning. Have them back in two to three hours. The father, Gokal Kapoor, is 71, his wife, Sheila Kapoor, 69. Old people. Hindus from Afghanistan. Two hours, they'll be back, see ya.It takes several days and several lawyers to find out where they are. They're being held in Pamunkey Regional Jail, in Hanover, Virginia, a red and white brick structure at the end of a circular drive. The web page boasts "a state-of-the-art facility" with a housing capacity for 400 inmates. The jail serves the needs of all "user agencies, law enforcement, courts, attorneys, and community organizations." Mostly it's used to house criminals awaiting trial or convicted of misdemeanors serving less than twelve months. In Pamunkey there is a commissary, run by AraMark. If the prisoner has money in his or her account they can get Snickers bars and Pepsi, soap, feminine hygiene products, underwear. They can even get cups of noodles but not the kind in styrofoam; has to be in a see-through container. Also, no non-dairy creamer. Non-dairy creamer is flammable. There is separate housing for males and females. Male and female prisoners have no access to one another. So Sheila and Gokal don't see one-another anymore. The prisoners spend their time in their unit's day room. They can make phone calls, collect. Very expensive. Sheila's sister comes to visit, drives an hour, but she is turned away. She didn't fill out the paperwork correctly. No one is sure why Gokal and Sheila have been arrested. They are not accused of anything, they are not interrogated. It seems it was part of a sweep of immigrants working in airports. Gokal is a baggage handler at Dulles. Sheila is an assistant for disabled passengers. But the authorities are not answering questions. Yesterday the Kapoor's were fingerprinted. Looks like they are being readied for deportation. Hard to say. Welcome to The Department Of Homeland Security. They arrived in America in 1997 fleeing the vicious persecution of Hindus in Afghanistan (imagine statues exploding on mountain sides, a small minority forced to wear identifying insignias, beaten and forced to convert to Islam or pay fines). Sometimes an asylum case can take a while to work its way through the system. Following the American invasion of Afghanistan an immigration judge decided that the Kapoors no longer needed asylum in America, though they'd lived here for years and were very old. Though they had social security numbers and held jobs. They obeyed the law, their son went to school, and they appealed the judge's decision. Two months ago their work permits expired. Eighteen days ago, June 22, on the day they were arrested, their son graduated from high school. There are thousands of aliens with final deportation orders against them in the Washington-Virginia area. Few are arrested. Gokal has a successful brother, Dr. Wishwa Kapoor, head of internal medicine at The University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Kapoor has been in America thirty years. He is an American citizen. He retains a lawyer for his brother, Michael Maggio. The Washingtonian called Mr. Maggio "Washington's best immigration lawyer". Mr. Maggio thinks the whole thing is very unusual. He's quoted in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette - "Why, given the limited resources at the Department of Homeland Security, do they go after a 70-year-old Afghan man who's no threat to anyone and who faces being sent to one of the most dangerous countries in the world? "And how are they going to deport him, anyway? The government there is barely functioning -- who's going to do the paperwork? There's no direct flight to Kabul, so they have to send him through a transit country, which means they'd have to send a U.S. agent to escort him ... does anyone think this is the best use of taxpayer dollars?" He hopes it's just a mistake. But then yesterday the fingerprinting. One has to ask, is it possible? OK, septuagenarians thrown in jail for a few weeks, a mistake, ha ha, part of living in America. They're just tired and poor, yearning to breathe free. It happens. I mean, it's not like they were kept in a super-max. Sure, they haven't done anything wrong and they haven't been allowed to see each other, but it's just jail, a short term facility, it's not prison. Pamunkey, it even sounds funny. And there's a commissary, you can buy Snickers bars. Fine, we locked up some very old people for a few weeks, what's done is done. But are we really going to deport them? I mean, can't we, as a society, just apologize, send the old people home, scarred but still alive. Are we really going to deport Hindus to Afghanistan? After eight years? Their whole family in America and no reason to suspect them of anything. Is this what America has become? Are there no checks and balances for this broken system? ** more information: stopdetention.org posted by Stephen Elliott 4:28 PM | link | Wednesday, July 06, 2005  A rare photo of Geoff Brock, the poet shown in Happy Baby t-shirt with child. Geoff is one of America's best poets. He is also Umberto Eco's translator.Purchase your own Happy Baby t-shirt: posted by Stephen Elliott 8:15 AM | link | Sunday, July 03, 2005  Dear Friends,In 1999, sixteen year old Michael Duc Ta was driving a car from which shots were fired at another car. No one was hurt. No evidence was presented that Duc had shot the gun. He was not accused of shooting the gun. There are a lot of unknowns in this case. Duc denies gang affiliation, he lacks gang tattoos, and there is no evidence that he was in a gang. He also denies knowing the third boy who got in his car that day had a gun. But there are also facts. It is a fact that no one was hurt and it is accepted by all sides that Duc was not the shooter. Most people, even crazy-right-wing-tough-on crime-lock-everybody-up people, don't think that the person driving the car should get more than three years in this situation. That's not what happened. Duc Ta was given 35 years to life. Twenty years for "gang enhancement" and fifteen more for "gun enhancement", law enforcement tools for which the original intent was only the most severe and hardcore gang members. For all his bad luck Duc had one piece of good luck. He was chosen at random as one of twelve children being tried as adults to participate in the excellent documentary, Juvies. From this film and the outpouring of letters of support Duc's sentence was reduced to 11 years to life. It's not enough. In California, only 5% of people who come up for parole are actually released. It is unlikely that Duc will get out after 11 years. I shouldn't have to point out the obvious, but I will - We are paying for Duc's incarceration, twice. We're paying in the more than $30,000 a year to keep him behind bars as well as the tax revenue lost when society loses a fit member. This was Duc's first offense. He's served six years, most of it in adult correction facilities. He is not the only juvenile in his situation. It is in fact more and more common for children at crime scenes in auxiliary roles like driver to be tried as adults. Worse, children tried as adults. for a variety of reasons, are actually serving longer sentences in California than "actual" adults charged with the same crimes. We're making a mistake. The facility the prisoner is sent to is based on a point system. The higher your points, the more restrictive your incarceration. Some ways in which points are assigned include the length of your sentence (ie. if you have a life sentence like Duc you are assigned more points), whether you're married (if you're not married you get more points), if you haven't graduated from high school, and if you commit a felony under the age of 18. Strangely, you are given more points for committing a felony as a youth than as an adult. Because of this point system Duc is being kept in a level four 180 yard reserved for the most dangerous criminals. This kind of yard is constantly on lockdown and Duc is only allowed to the yard twice a week for two hours. If you think that six years is more than enough time for driving a car from which shots were fired and no one was hurt and you live in California I'd like to urge you to sign the petition linked at the bottom of this page asking Governor Schwarzenegger to release Duc with time served. There are hundreds, maybe thousands or children like Duc, prosecuted for murder or attempted murder simply for being at the scene of a crime, caught in the nightmare of being tried in adult court in California. Duc happened to be one chosen at random for this film but if we can raise awareness in this one case, that might spread to others, and maybe we can start to make some real changes in the way we view the rehabilitation prospects of youth offenders. You can sign this petition online, provided you are a California resident, while keeping your information private. Your email address will only be used for verification. Sincerely, Stephen Elliott 7/3/05 ** Go here to sign the petition: http://www.petitiononline.com/freeduc/petition.html Go here for more information on Duc Ta: http://justiceforduc.com/index.htm posted by Stephen Elliott 11:49 AM | link | Saturday, July 02, 2005 Juvies Tonight I was finally able to watch the acclaimed documentary Juvies. This is the most amazing documentary for anyone who is at all interested in the realities of our legal system's recent fetish of trying children as adults. It's the story of twelve children in California facing adult prison sentences. The children were chosen at random by the detention administrator. Beyond the basics that every intelligent person already understands: - that it is more expensive to try children as adults - that children are now being given longer sentences than adults are - that recidivism rates for children tried as adults are higher than for children tried as children and adults tried as adults there is also the very human story of the lives affected by the system. And understanding who these children are, in a way that is not sugar-coated, is the most interesting part of this film. The film is daring enough to also introduce us to the children's victims, to tell their story. Of special interest in Juvies is the case of Duc who was a driver in a car where shots were fired. Though no one was hurt and there is little evidence of gang affiliation Duc, who had no previous record, was given 35 years to life. It's so important to see this film and start to understand the consequences of our cruel and expensive policy. This film, finished last year, was never widely released but can be ordered direct from the film's website. ** For my first post on California's Proposition 21 go here. For my response to some of the questions regarding Proposition 21 go to my second post here. posted by Stephen Elliott 11:00 PM | link | This is probably the biggest news ever in the literary blogosphere so it's only appropriate that it be first reported on Stephen Elliott.com. Adam Johnson, award winning author of Emporium and Parasites Like Us, has a blog. This is pretty much all the justification I need for being a writer with a blog. If Adam's doing it it's definitely OK. posted by Stephen Elliott 9:35 AM | link | Friday, July 01, 2005  Steve asked me to write something about St. Petersburg, and I flashed back to a night we sat watching hookers work the bar at the Grand Hotel Europe. A pot of tea, a cup of espresso, and a chocolate cake garnished our table. We both held a stack of short stories to be workshopped the next morning. I don't know about Steve, but I had trouble keeping my eyes off the skinny blond in a pink half-tee flipping her hair for an overweight Italian business man. For a mere five or six hundred dollars, he could be Tsar for a few hours in the Grand Hotel Europe, while I would be lucky to pay for the cake (Steve picked up the tab). She laughed and applauded and executed a quick, school-girl twirl. I glanced back at the story. "These stories," I said to Steve, "are well-written, tightly structured, but..." The business man whispered something to her; she clutched at his thigh. I sipped my tea. "Have some cake," Steve said. He made a few marks on a page. Then stopped. Looked at me. "But what?" Three more Ladies of the Grand Hotel flitted into the room. One smiled at me and I glanced back at the story. "I can't figure out why they're not..." "Spit it out, homie." "I don't know." I chewed the end of my pen. "Entertaining?" The three new arrivals had already passed us over. In their years of experience, I'm sure they learned that men with Apple laptops and stacks of short stories make poor Johns. The Grand Hotel Europe is Yankee stadium. They are at the top of their game. In ten years, these girls might retire to brothels I can afford. It was after midnight and the sun still shined brightly over Nevsky Prospect, this city's Broadway/Fifth Avenue. We were almost done with our work. My eyes burned from all the reading. In a few minutes, Steve and I would talk quietly about the state of Fiction (yes, capital F) and he would speak passionately about using the raw material of one's life in one's art. He would show me a story he had started based on an experience in St. Petersburg. After that, we would collapse in our chairs, the sun still glowing in the windows, and Steve would smile, a bit forlornly (I thought), and suggest that we go to that strip club I passed earlier in the day. "Yes," I say, as the blond and the Italian make a clumsy exit. "You read my mind." ps: I found a sure jetlag cure.....you can click on her and drag/fling her around....bizarre Flying Girl posted by mdc 10:34 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 |
