Monday, January 18, 2010

Letter to a Straight Friend on New Light Beings NING:

Man, Rain, I so love your honesty! And as I said, like attracts like. I don't know anything about straight sex and porn (except through dim memory). The opposite has been happening on the gay side. While there is all the same kind of garbage, there is a growing trend away from it. You mention Mapplethorpe. Some of my old friends from my Tennessee Williams days were his best friends, and they are now some of my and my book's strongest supporters.

Aiden Shaw, the highest paid gay porn star ever (Sex in the City named a character in his honor) always fell in love with the actors he meshed with, and supposedly it shows in his movies (I've never seen any of them). I met him 6 weeks ago when he was on book tour in Atlanta (Sordid Truths: Selling My Innocence for a Taste of Stardom).

Everyone else saw a porn star, I saw a boy filled with wonder at the world, and spoke with him later. He said he just wants to find someone who loves to kiss, caress, and cuddle. He's very shy, but his public persona is not--he is the consummate porn star on stage. I embarrassed him so bad he couldn't look me in the eye and had to ask how to spell "Scott."

He's published two other memoirs, two novels, and a book of poetry. This summer, he's returning to his career to star in the first ever geriatric gay porn film. Gays can be terrible ageists, and I salute his work! We have the same publisher, and the artist Mark Beard (think Abercrombie & Fitch murals), a "lost" close friend from my TW days, did his book cover. Aiden and I have the same publisher, and Mark threw his book launch party.

It was at Mark's Christmas party that I met three TV talk show hosts that want me to come on when my book debuts. And now I'm pursuing Aiden for a date and am struggling to figure out how to explain all this to my mother. Oh well, she's used to me, finally. If she doesn't leave the Republican Party voluntarily soon, they're going to throw her out when word gets around!

I think Aiden also did some straight porn, but I'm not sure. You might check it out. also, check Aiden's book videos: http://www.alyson.com/9781593501372.html Incidentally, Mark Beard is doing my back cover, it's a Polaroid image transfer of a pic he took of TW back then: "Tennessee's Ghost Departing the Hotel Elysee."

We always stayed at the Elysee in the Sunset Suite. Tennessee died there. When he left, he visited me in Atlanta. Although his presence actually appeared in my room, I wrote it as a dream (so no one freaked, called me BIPOLAR, and chased me with big game nets, syringes, and crucifixes--as they are prone to do), and that scene begins my book.

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