Category: reality TV

Hey You

Thursday and my final day in the office for the week. It’s been a good week overall–if odd at the office; it was a Mercury-in-retrograde kind of week there, with things not working right and odd situations occurring. Kind of tiring emotionally and intellectually, but not so bad as to drag me down and curl up into a ball in a corner somewhere. I’ve felt rested most of the week and the writing/revising has been going super well (I am so excited to see how much I can get done over the weekend you have no idea); even continued last evening. But I slept well again last night, and I feel pretty good this morning with my coffee, and I made it through almost another week of work.

Last night I watched the first part of the Vanderpump Rules reunion, and just…wow. I’ve never seen anything like that on any reality show reunion. The whole “Scandoval” of it all is just…I don’t know. I watch reality television (anyone who’s read Royal Street Reveillon knows this, of course); not a lot of it, but enough. I find it all fascinating–the way the fans get so deeply involved and vested in these mostly terrible people and what they are doing; the question of what’s real and what isn’t and what is manipulation or over-dramatization for the camera, and so on. The entire “Scandoval” mess? I have so many questions, and there are so many layers. This “scandal” peeled back the fourth wall somewhat, and the viewers got to actually watch as Tom Sandoval, an original cast member for ten seasons, with an assist from his best friend, tried to control the narrative of what we were seeing on screen while keeping his affair off; having the knowledge of what was actually going on while they were filming (and what was being kept out of the camera’s eye) made the attempted manipulation only that much more obvious, and even more fascinating than before. I hadn’t watched the show in years; I got bored, frankly, because it just seemed like the same thing over and over again, but this brought me back (along with a lot of new viewers, plus others who’d given up on it came back; the show is breaking records in the ratings for Bravo and reality shows). As I said to Paul last night, “it’s absolutely amazing how after ten years the show was able to completely flip the script and everything–everything that happened over the past ten years–has been altered as we now see these guys not as lovable goofballs, but dangerously narcissistic monsters manipulating the narrative to make everyone else look worse while making themselves look like heroes.” Future generations of social historians will look at the Scandoval in wonder, trying to puzzle out why this became global news, worthy of being covered in major newspapers, including both the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.

A cheating scandal on a reality show made worldwide news and has trended every day on Twitter since the news broke months ago. I mean, how fucking insane is that?

I also realized at some point yesterday that the difference I’ve been feeling the last week or so around here means I’ve probably moved into another stage of the grieving process, rather than over it completely. And as I sat there with purring kitty asleep in my lap watching the marathon of the last few episodes of Vanderpump Rules before the reunion episode (part one of three!) aired, I realized you’re in the anger stage. I had noticed myself getting angry much more quickly than usual while scrolling through Twitter, and yesterday I sent some response tweets to assholes trolling friends that were pretty hateful, nasty and cruel (much as their tweets at my friends were). That isn’t like me; usually I’ll start typing the response and delete it unsent, as the actual writing of it vented the spleen and by the time I was finished and ready to send it, would think and how is this improving the public discourse as I deleted it. Not yesterday, so I am going to simply go back to the old “mute/block” trick, or just report them. I do report trolls for hate speech and conduct violations several times a day, with a rather high success rate percentage, if I do say so myself. And honestly, I prefer anger to the sadness, really. Not sure what that says about me, but the sadness paralyzed me and made me unable to write, but since transitioning to the anger stage the book has been flowing and I am enjoying revising it tremendously. Go figure. I wrote more last night, and I have to say, the book is beginning to take shape nicely. It’s amazing how regularly I repeat myself, but that also has a lot to do with my memory issues–oh, I need to explain this and forgetting I’ve already explained it in the preceding chapters…each of them, in fact. So there’s a lot of cutting and rewording and restructuring going on, but Scotty’s voice is starting to really come through and that’s the most important thing.

I was also saddened to hear that Tina Turner passed yesterday. I’ve been a fan of hers since I was a little boy and I saw her perform on some variety show–Dean Martin’s, maybe? I just know it was when we still only had a black-and-white television, which means we were still living in the apartment in the city (sidebar: interesting how television was dominated back then by variety shows and westerns, which are incredibly scarce today…the variety shows were no big loss, and the westerns were ludicrous, racist, and sexist, so no big loss in either case). I think it was “Proud Mary”? When she finally started getting the stardom and accolades and success she’d always deserved (and never quite reached) in the 1980s, I was delighted–and she gave us some truly great music, too. That voice! That power! That stage presence! It saddens me that we no longer have her in this world, but I’m grateful we had a Tina Turner in the first place.

But I will always think of Schitt’s Creek whenever I hear “The Best” now.

I also got the proofs for my short story “Solace in a Dying Hour” to go over prior to the anthology’s release, which is very exciting. I always love when I sell a short story, and love it even more when we get to the later production stages.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. May your Friday Eve be as delightful as you are, Constant Reader, and I will see you again tomorrow.

Keep It Together

Friday morning and I slept deeply and well last night (huzzah!). I was very tired last night after I got home from work–very very tired–so I didn’t even try to get anything done. I thought I might sit in the chair so Scooter could sleep in my lap and wouldn’t howl at me for a while, and watched Vanderpump Rules (I really don’t know why; I’ve been meaning to write about the “Scandoval” and the last season of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills for a long time; just haven’t gotten to it yet) and remembered why I stopped watching a long time ago, then tried Real Housewives Ultimate Girls’ Trip since it was the last episode, but it opened on the continuation of the search for Gizelle’s tequila bottle (talk about made up drama) and I thought, nah, I’m good and switched it off. The point is, I kept dozing off while sitting in the chair and Scooter remained in place; finally around nine-ish Paul wasn’t home yet so I went upstairs to bed–and slept so soundly I didn’t even hear him come home and go to bed. So yes, this morning for the first time this week I feel very rested, which is marvelous. It’s work-at-home Friday, of course, so I have data to enter and things to sort and reports to read and so on and so on and so on, all while trying to get caught up on the housework when I need a break from the computer. There’s dishes to empty from the dishwasher and reload it with; the bed linens need laundering; and I started a load of clothes last night that needs to be finished this morning. Later today I need to run some errands–groceries and the mail, of course–and later, of course, I am terribly behind on the revision of this book. The goal for this weekend is to try to get caught up and try to get as much done as possible. Thursday I am leaving for Malice Domestic–and while I will try to get work done while I am there, it’s highly unlikely. I also need to select books to read for the flight, while aI am there, and the flight home (for me, one of the best parts of traveling is reading on the plane and at the airport; what can I say? I fucking love to read, get over it).

I am glad that I’ve made it to the weekend, although I hate looking ahead like that most of the time because I always remember my mom saying “you’re just wishing your life away,” which is kind of true, and now that I have so little time left (just in general, not a diagnosis; I am just more aware of where I am in the timeline of my life than I used to be) I probably shouldn’t waste time as much as I do. But even that sense–wasting time–is part of the programming about life I got as a child that has also proven to be so terribly incorrect so frequently as an adult. There’s nothing wrong with rest. And that’s really what “wasting time” is; resting and relaxing and turning your brain off for a while to recharge your batteries when they’ve been drained. I do work a lot–between the day job (well into year eighteen now) and the writing and the editing and the volunteering I do on top of all the day-to-day things I have to take care of in my life so that it functions–groceries, dishes, laundry, cooking, etc.–so whenever I am tired, I don’t feel guilty about stepping away from the world and turning my brain off so it can recharge and continue to work properly. We all need down time–and the people who don’t? Well, those are the enormously driven and successful Type-A personalities we all admire and wish we could be more like…but it’s also a lot of work and their drive is almost pathological.

It’s also supposed to rain today and it’s already gray outside. The handyman painted our steps and railing (it’s really amazing what a difference something that small can make), and of course the entire apartment is a disaster area, the way it always is on Friday mornings. My desk is not as bad as it usually is, but I am definitely going to have to do some chores before I start working today. Sigh. I am going to miss my work-at-home Fridays if and when they finally take them away from us.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Sorry to be so dull, but hey, it’s Friday. Have a good one, Constant Reader!

Family Man

Thursday morning and my last day in the office for the week–woo-hoo! (I really do make it sound like I hate my job, don’t I? I actually don’t; I like my job a lot…but I’d prefer to stay home, always.) Paul is leaving tomorrow and I am trying to prepare myself for the emptiness; Paul is not a big man and he’s not loud, either–but when he is gone the house just feels enormous and empty. Scooter also gets lonely and needier–he’s used to having Paul to sleep on/with most of the time–and so I’ll probably spend a lot more time with my laptop in the bed with Scooter than I usually do. I also want to clean the upstairs while he’s gone, which is probably what I will do most of the day on Saturday; clean the upstairs while football games play on the television. Sounds like a good plan to me! I also have to take some more books to the library sale, and I can swing by and get the mail and stop at Fresh Market on the way home.

I feel rested again this morning. I had a very good night’s sleep last night, which was marvelous, and I hope this means a productive day. Yesterday was a pretty good day, actually; I managed to get quite a bit done and stopped to get the mail and to make a little groceries (amazing how you cannot get out of a store without spending a minimum of fifty bucks anymore) before coming home and relaxing a bit. I finished writing Chapter Eight (huzzah!) and am now going to move on to Chapter Nine. I am still further behind than I would prefer to be, but a strong push this weekend (Sunday all I plan to do is write) should get me back on schedule. I had wanted to be finished with the first draft by the end of the month, but somehow the month slipped through my fingers; Monday is Halloween, and this weekend of course is Gay Halloween, aka Halloween New Orleans. That, in the olden days, would have been my plans for the entire weekend, and whatever my costume for the Ball on Saturday might be would always start with the adjective “slutty.” Those days are past, long past, alas; no one wants to see sixty-one year old Greg in anything that starts with slutty, but hey–I had a great time back when I could get away with the look. And I got away with it, he typed modestly, far longer than I ever would have thought I could.

Last night we watched the new episode of Andor, but I am probably going to have to watch it again after Paul leaves, because my mind kept wandering–not because the show isn’t good, but because my mind kicked into “book mode” while I was sitting there watching and I kept thinking about the work I need to do on the book and how to revise the opening to make it stronger and move faster. I hope to get a good portion of the next chapter done today and another tomorrow before taking Saturday to rest and then diving back in headfirst on Sunday. I really need to update my to-do list because there are things I need to do that I keep forgetting about and they aren’t written down on the list which makes remembering them that much harder. Heavy heaving sigh.

I then watched the conclusion of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills reunion, which was interesting. I still might have to do an entire entry about this past season; I generally try not to get involved in conversations about reality television publicly–it’s ever so much more fun to do privately with friends–but I am often reminded of how vested viewers would get in soaps, both daytime and primetime; we used to have watch parties for Dynasty when I was in college, after all, and talked about the show incessantly, living for the bitchy cattiness and the surprise twists in the plot. Someone with whom I rarely ever agree–Camille Paglia–actually said something insightful when talking about these reality shows so many watch fervently: she said they were the modern-day versions of the 1980’s prime time soaps, and she wasn’t wrong. They aren’t the same kind of shows at all, but in some ways they are; the housewives shows have certainly taken the place of the old night time soaps, and just like them, the housewives began with a show with modest success and then branched out to replicate the formula, just as Dallas was the first and the rest sprang from its success. And I have to say, there were times last night once Kathy Hilton made her entrance that I was reminded, over and over again, of Dynasty: her entrance reminded me of Alexis entering the courtroom to appear on the show for the first time, and as Kathy sat there, shredding her foes with a razor-sharp tongue I kept seeing Alexis on the stand tearing down Blake, over and over again.

And yes, I can see my friends from college all sitting around today watching this show while getting really high and drinking lots of beer.

I also just realized that with Paul out of town I won’t be able to watch any of the shows we are watching together; I’m really glad House of the Dragon has already ended because I wouldn’t have been able to wait to watch! Hence I will be bored every night and therefore should use that time to either read or be productive.

We’ll see how it goes.

And on that note, tis the spice mines for me. Have a lovely day. Constant Reader.

You and I Part II

Pay the Bills Wednesday has rolled around again; and this is my first paycheck with my new raise, which is super cool. I guess we’ll soon see how much of a difference the raise will make, won’t we? And–a pretty nice one, to be honest. I paid all the bills already this morning and have a nice tidy sum left over. And I have more bills this time that I ordinarily would, so it’s going to be interesting. I also accidentally paid a bill that isn’t due until we get paid again–which puts me ahead for next time, too.

I slept decently last night, but something I suspected was going on with me turned out to be correct: I am not properly hydrated. I had to have blood drawn yesterday for my PrEP labs, and my blood was too thick. Thick blood which doesn’t want to come out into the tube means over-dehydration. I drank some glasses of water and we tried again hours later–to better success–but between the blood sugar ups and downs and now this it’s not any wonder I’ve been feeling tired and a definitive lack of energy lately. I suppose the morning coffee–caffeine is also dehydrating–doesn’t help much in that regard either. I need to stop and get Gatorade on the way home from the office tonight.

I wrote a chapter of the book last night–well, almost. It’s not quite finished, but I am pleased to admit that it is just as terrible as all the others I’ve done thus far. So hurray for consistency! But the story is starting to take shape, as I had hoped it would as I wrote, and as I move on (while still writing crap) I am revising and reconfiguring the opening of the book and so forth; editing in my head (which is worrisome since I no longer have any sort of memory to rely upon) as I go. I think I am going to do a big push this weekend and while Paul is gone to try to get as much of this finished as I can.

Sorry to be so brief today! But I don’t really have a whole lot to say today, which is an unusual occurrence for one Gregalicious, is it not? Somehow I am managing to get caught up on things, which is always a lovely and a good thing. Sometimes it feels like I am forever Sisyphus, pushing that heavy stone up the side of a mountain, only to have it come tumbling back down to the valley below once I manage to finally get up there. Some days I can look at those massive to-do lists and think to myself yes let’s do this and roll up my sleeves to dive in headfirst; other days I look at them and just want to curl up into a ball and hide from the rest of the world. But that doesn’t get things done, and doesn’t help with anything, either. On the way home tonight I am going to run a couple of errands, and then I am going to just curl up in my easy chair and read The Haunting of Hill House until it’s time for (what will inevitably be disappointing) third episode of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills reunion, which I will need to digest fully before posting about.

So I am heading into the spice mines for now. Have a great Wednesday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow.

Tango in the Night

Thursday morning and it’s cold in New Orleans (well, for New Orleans). We have a low of 49 today–it will eventually get back up into the low seventies, and by the weekend we’ll be back up in the 80’s again). One good thing is I sleep better when it’s cold like this, but the bad thing is I don’t want to get out of my warm bed into the cold apartment in the mornings, when it’s also dark outside. When the time change comes I think I’ll be coming to work in the dark and going home in the dark, too? This is really why I dislike winter, to be honest; I hate the short days and the long hours of night.

I managed to get some work on the book done yesterday and for the record it wasn’t completely crap, either. I need to finish that chapter this evening–about another thousand or so words should do the trick–and then move on to the next. Yesterday it really felt like a dam of some sort had finally broken and whatever block I had about writing this book was gone or smaller or something, I don’t know. And I didn’t hate completely what I did write, either, which is a significant change from the usual. I felt good about it, which is a pleasant change from the way it’s been feeling lately, if I am going to be completely honest. I was, as ever, beginning to fear that I’d finally drained the batteries so much that they’d never recharge and the well had gone, at long last, dry. I go through this even now and again (far more often than I would prefer, if I am being completely honest); that period of terror where I can’t write anything or if I do it’s incredibly difficult and I am afraid that I’ve somehow lost the ability to create and suddenly the career is over. (I started to type such as it is after “the career” and stopped myself; progress on the road to ending the self-deprecation self-criticism neurosis, so progress in my head is being made, albeit slowly–see, I did it again!)

Anyway, the book is starting to flow out of me again, which is always a lovely experience. I love writing, much as I complain about doing it, and am always happiest when I am actually doing it, or in the process of doing it. It gives me great pleasure to tell stories, really; I like everything about it besides getting stuck or being lazy–and as my default is always to be lazy, sometimes (many times) it can be hard to make myself do it. The gym is the same, really; I haven’t been to the gym in months and I really do need to start going again. I know I’ve put some of the weight I lost back on–I’ve been too fearful to actually get on the scale–and while I don’t eat the healthiest diet in the world, it’s not like I’m eating fast food or pizza every meal or anything (which is what I used to do, seriously), and yes, I should probably cut back on cheese and bacon and so forth…but at the same time I’m like I’m old and do I really want to spend my last years eating stuff that doesn’t bring me joy?

We watched this week’s episode of Andor, and I really like this show. Diego Luna is marvelous in the role, and the story itself it pretty good. I think I saw somewhere yesterday that it’s the lowest rated Star Wars show so far? Given the fact that The Book of Boba Fett exists–which we couldn’t make it to the third episode–I find that rather hard to believe. (I do keep thinking we should give Boba Fett another chance, but then think why? There are a lot of good shows and only so much time in which to watch them. (I also watched the second part of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills reunion, which left me shaking with rage and disgust. I may write an entry after the final episode of the reunion airs, but all I will say for now is there are at least four disgusting pieces of shit on that show; five if you count Andy Cohen, whom I have never seen the appeal of, to be honest. I will probably stop watching this show and others of its ilk, as they aren’t fun to watch anymore.)

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader.

Royal Street Reveillon

Ah, reality television.

I am, and can be, remarkably naïve when it comes to some things. I literally will believe almost everything I am told because my default is never to assume someone is lying (unless they’ve proven themselves to be a liar before), so I actually believed, all those years I was watching The Real World, that the show was “unscripted” and the cast had cameras and microphones on them 24/7.

Then The Real World came to New Orleans–to my neighborhood, in fact–and the “gay one” got a job bar-backing at Oz (one of my favorite gay bars; and autocorrect tried to turn that into “barebacking”, which is an entirely different thing), and it wasn’t long before I realized that The Real World wasn’t, actually, “real.” I saw them any number of times walking from one destination to another to film, the camera crews not filming and just walking behind the cast; I actually watched them set up a scene in Oz and go through several takes, and so yeah, the luster and magic was gone for me. I think I may have watched another season or two after New Orleans, but reality television had also changed dramatically from when the first season of that show aired (and yes, I am aware that PBS’ An American Family was the first real reality-type show) and by the time I stopped watching that it wasn’t about kids learning to get along and learning from each other’s differences as it was about getting wasted, hooking up, and fighting.

You know, the formula Bravo quickly adapted to in Season Two of The Real Housewives of Orange County.

Viewers want conflict.

I never watched the Real Housewives shows, but usually on Sundays when it wasn’t football season Paul would come downstairs and fall asleep on the couch while I would either read or edit in my easy chair. I’d turn on the television for background noise, and it was just easiest to always park the channel on Bravo because they’d marathon something–originally Law & Order, then The West Wing or Inside the Actor’s Studio, which were fun for an occasional distraction but not enough of one to take my interest away from what I was doing. But Bravo changed, and those marathons eventually became one of the Real Housewives shows. I winced a bit, but again, background noise I didn’t need to pay attention to–it all seemed so exploitative and, well, awful–that I couldn’t see myself ever watching regularly. So I began to slowly recognize who they were–all the gossip site pop-ups and so forth on social media also covered them extensively–and even know something about them. I didn’t want to ever become a regular viewer, didn’t think I ever would.

And yet…

I originally tuned into The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills to see Kim Richards, whom I remembered as a child star when I was a kid–from Nanny and the Professor to Escape to Witch Mountain to Tuff Turf–and was interested to see how she turned out, what happened to her…and just like a soap opera back in the day, I was soon tuning in every week. Some other friends turned out to be big fans of both Orange County and New York, so I started watching New York so we could talk about it (my antipathy to Orange County would be a subject for another essay at some other point), and there was no turning back after that.

I still primarily only watch New York and Beverly Hills with any regularity (although Atlanta is always a favorite), and there have been times when I’ve thrown up my hands in disgust with what was actually going on with the season and stopped watching (I stopped watching Beverly Hills during the “let’s out Denise Richards as bi!” bullshit, for example, and never did finish the season); but I am still absolutely fascinated by the concept behind these shows. Is any of it for real? How much is set up and scripted? It becomes very easy to get sucked into the shows–they are highly addictive; they remind me a lot of soaps as they are very high on petty drama and melodrama, feuds and fights and arguments–and how much of what we see is actually not audience manipulation on the part of production, the network, and the editors. (Women often claim to have “gotten a bad edit”–which always makes me think about The Real World–that show really started everything) I find myself getting emotionally sucked into the petty dramas too–which often spill out into the social media world and the endless blogs that dedicate themselves to reporting on these shows–and there are times when I think, well done, production! I would have never guessed you could ever show me a side of this horrible woman that would make me sympathetic to her.

Because while the women may manipulate and scheme and plan and script things, the primary people being manipulated by production are the audience and the line between reality and “reality” often gets so blurred that it’s hard to tell what is real and what isn’t.

Take, for example, this current rollercoaster of a season of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Before the season started airing there was gossip flying around the Internet about their Aspen trip and a meltdown by a supporting cast member in her second year officially on the show–Kathy Hilton, older sister of OG cast member Kyle Richards–that supposedly went “really dark”…only for the season to start airing and the behavior of other members of the cast (Lisa Rinna, Diana Jenkins, Erica Girardi) being far worse than any of the rumors floated about Kathy’s “meltdown.”

Again, a subject for another time, perhaps once the reunion episodes have aired.

Anyway, I had always thought that a Real Housewives type show, set and filmed in New Orleans, would make the excellent backdrop for a crime story, particularly because of those blurred lines between reality and “reality”…so I used it for one of those e-novellas back in the day. After they were taken off the market, I kept thinking about how I wasted the background of a reality show on a story no one can access anymore and so that original story eventually morphed into Scotty VIII, Royal Street Reveillon.

I fished the last olive out of my almost empty glass and popped it into my mouth. I glanced at my watch as I chewed it, and moaned after swallowing. “There’s nothing like a good martini,” I said, glancing around the bar and getting our server’s attention.

“Do we have time for another?” My nephew Taylor finished the rest of his sazerac and looked at me hopefully.

“I take it you liked it.” I replied, not even trying to hide my smile. “But no time for another unless we want to be late.”

This was Taylor’s first time at the Sazerac Bar. He’d turned twenty-one just a few weeks before Thanksgiving, and since we were going to a party at the Joy Theater, I thought I’d treat him to a sazerac in the bar where they were invented. I personally don’t care for the drink—give me gin or vodka any day of the week—but everyone in New Orleans is required to try a sazerac at least once.

And now I could rest easy, having done not only my civic duty but treated Taylor to a New Orleans rite of passage.

I’d also wanted him to see the Roosevelt Hotel’s Christmas decorations. The Roosevelt was one of the grand old hotels of the city, and their lobby decorations are truly spectacular. Since we were going to a party at the Joy Theater—a mere block or so from the hotel, I thought, why not kill two birds with one stone? This was Taylor’s second Christmas with us, and I wanted to do it right. We’d already done Celebration in the Oaks at City Park, and I’d loved seeing the beautifully decorated ancient live oak trees through a newbie’s eyes.

I know it’s corny, but I love Christmas.

I love everything about it. I love decorating my apartment. I love picking out presents that are one hundred percent perfect for the person and carefully wrapping it up in beautiful paper, topped with a bow and twining ribbons around the box. I love picking out a tree, and the wonderful smell of pine that permeates everything inside once it’s delivered. I love getting the boxes of ornaments down from the storage closet and adorning the branches with them. I love tinsel and opening a new box of icicles for the branches. I love Christmas cookies and cakes and pies and turkey and celebrating and spending time with people I love.

I even love carols—although I do think that September is a bit early to start playing them unless the intent is to drive people to homicide by December.

While I kept the original backstories of the Grande Dames of New Orleans cast as I had in the original, I changed a lot because I didn’t want those few who had read the original to know the ending. I also wanted to do some fun things with the story, adding in another murder that was completely unconnected to the primary story as well as yet another deep personal dilemma for Scotty that doesn’t get resolved in this story, and trying to keep track of all the crazy things I had going on–as well as the complicated and complex backstories and threads of different subplots; I added another murder for the main story and I wanted to make it a bit more topical, so I added an element of “me too” to the story (in all honesty as I write the current one I wish I hadn’t done this because I can’t just drop it, either, like it never happened), and I found myself having fun with it. This was by far the most complicated and layered Scotty book since probably Mardi Gras Mambo, and this was one I felt very contented about when I turned it into the publisher. Even revisiting it now, as part of the prep for the current one, I kind of am proud of myself for it.

I also set it during Christmas season in New Orleans because I love New Orleans at Christmas-time. It’s one of the few times of the year where I don’t mind that it gets dark so fucking early–because New Orleans has put on her Christmas face and it’s absolutely delightful. One of the things I love most about this crazy city is how everyone here takes decorating so seriously–so seriously they decorate their houses and windows for everything. Jackson Square is stunning with the big red bows tied on the lampposts guarding the gates, as you can see in the gorgeous cover my publisher gave my book (and perhaps the thing about it that make me happiest the most is that one of the lamp’s light is out–just like it would be in real life) and the lights and…sighs happily.

I did think, for a time, about ending the series with this one, but I left the personal story hanging yet again which meant there would be another one–and I honestly don’t know what happened that it took me so long to get around to writing another one, but here we are.

Straight Back

G’morning, Saturday! How you doing? I slept well, woke up sans alarm, and feel kind of rested and good this morning. The sun is ridiculously bright this morning–it was yesterday as well–but that’s fine. Today is a long day of college football, and I have one errand to run this morning later on. Yesterday was a fairly good day; I got my work done during the day and ran the errands that needed running. I made Swedish meatballs (my version of them, any way) for dinner last night, and we settled in to watch the finale of Bad Sisters and of course, Halloween Ends, which was remarkably different than what I was expecting and despite a slow start, turned out rather interestingly after all.

I did think about the book last night while I was waiting for Paul to be ready for television viewing (and while I was doing some chores and making dinner), so I think I may have some success working on it this morning. I am going to try to get this done, put the dishes away and do some other chores before taking a shower and getting cleaned up to work on the book before I have to run the errands. And while I am of course hoping that Alabama cleans Tennessee’s clock today, the LSU game isn’t until this evening so I have the day pretty much all free heading into that, so there’s no reason I can’t get some writing done today and tomorrow (note to self: check the time of the Saints game today so you can plan accordingly). I don’t need to make another grocery run this weekend–or even order anything for pick-up–so I can pretty much plan on having the time to get things done around here. I have to work Monday morning in the clinic (covering for someone) but I also don’t have to be there until eight-thirty, either. Huzzah!

I also want to start rereading ‘salem’s Lot today; but I also have some other things I want to read as well. There never is enough time for everything, seriously. I have a couple of short stories written by friends that I need to look over (I promised feedback months ago) and I also have that Shirley Jackson Edgar-winning story I want to read, too. At some point I want to drive around the city and take pictures of Halloween decorations too–maybe I can take a walk with my phone tomorrow morning around the neighborhood and the Garden District–because I feel like I don’t document life in New Orleans as much as I should.

But then this blog has never really had a theme other than really just being a kind of diary for me, more than anything else, one where I don’t really talk about personal things as much perhaps as I would in a diary but just a way of situating myself and seeing where and how I am every morning. I have some pending entries that I also need to finish–entries talking about other books I’ve written, other books I’ve read and yet not done an entry for yet–and of course that takes time out of my day every day as well as time away from my other writing. But I do have a rather funny one about Nancy Drew and New Orleans I really should finish sometime–I have a weird love/hate thing with Nancy Drew; my OCD required me to collect and read the entire series, yet she was never really a favorite of mine; there were other juvenile series I vastly preferred to both Nancy and The Hardy Boys–but I had wanted to pay homage to Nancy’s adventures in New Orleans in the new Scotty book, so I reread the two books where Nancy came to New Orleans (The Ghost of Blackwood Hall and The Haunted Showboat) and whoo-boy, were they dated, wrong on almost every level, and horrifyingly racist. (Sidebar: I’ve always wanted to write my own juvenile series, similar to Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, and at the same time I’ve always wanted to write a murder mystery set at a fan convention for one of these series–because I belong to some fan-pages on Facebook and let me tell you, those folks are interesting)

I also have my entry about Donna Andrews’ marvelous Round Up the Usual Peacocks to finish, and I also have a rather lengthy entry about Interview with the Vampire I think I’ll wait to finish until I am done with watching the show.

I am not going to lie, I was curious about Halloween Ends primarily because I absolutely hated the second film in this sequel/reboot series, or whatever the hell it is considered. I was impressed by the creative decisions made on how to handle this absolutely, finally the last chapter (the end definitively ends it, trust me); but I am not entirely sure how I felt about the focus being moved off Laurie and Michael Myers. I guess I was a little disappointed–I was hoping to see, I guess, a balls-to-the-wall Laurie v. Michael battle, which we did kind of get, but it also wasn’t the primary focus of the film? I appreciated the new story as well as the new cast members like Rohan Campbell (who plays Frank on Hulu’s The Hardy Boys reboot), but I came away a little disappointed, but that was due to my own expectations, not any failure of the film itself. (I was also really amused to no end that Kyle Richards of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, who played one of the kids Laurie babysits in the very original Halloween, was brought back to reprise the role in the new trilogy. After listening to her talk about “filming” all season, and “having to focus on learning her lines” while dealing with RHOBH drama…only to watch the actual film to see she has exactly two scenes and at most five lines made me laugh out loud–and of course, Paul shadily said “I find it really hard to believe a bartender in Haddonfield could afford all that plastic surgery” which sent me into gales of laughter. I did enjoy the movie, though, and appreciated the different direction it took. If you’re a fan of Halloween, I think you’ll enjoy it, too–but understand it’s different going in.

All right, on that note I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and GEAUX TIGERS!

Garden District Gothic

Oh, Scotty VII, what an interesting path you took to publication.

Back when ebooks and Kindles first started to be a thing, they rather revolutionized publishing. This new technology rang the death knell on some independent book stores as well as some small presses, and it was considered the great equalizer: you no longer needed to follow the long-established path to publication that went writer/agent/publisher; and just having an agent was no guarantee your book would ever see print and if it did, that it would sell. You no longer needed a publisher to put your book out and get it to readers; all you needed to do was get a cover designed and format your manuscript and upload it. This excited a lot of people; I was one of them, but still approached the entire thing very cautiously. I have never had a problem with people who elect to self-publish their work rather than follow the traditional path; I certainly never followed the traditional path or ran my career the way I was supposed to, at least according to almost every author I knew.

But ultimately, for me, the ebook revolution and becoming a publisher/author hybrid seemed not only like a risk but a time-consuming one. I didn’t have the time available to market the books I was traditionally publishing the way I should, let alone having the time to have to do all the marketing myself.

But I was curious, and remained open-minded. A friend started her own company and wanted me to write some things for her–short, more like novellas than novels–and since I’d always wanted to spin Paige off into her own series (despite being concerned about writing a mainstream type book from a woman’s perspective) and so I thought, well, here’s a chance to try something new and different. I wound up writing two of these and was partly through a third when I began to realize that even with an independent publisher doing some of the work, I just didn’t have the time or money or incentive to work any harder at marketing these books than I already was–and they needed more attention and promotion than I was able to give them, so we decided to end the business relationship, the already done books came down from sales sites, and that was the end of that.

I did eventually slap up Bourbon Street Blues as an ebook on Amazon, and it’s done okay for me; I’ve not promoted it at all but copies sell every month–but I am not getting rich, either. I also have a longer short story up as an e-original (but it’s also in my print collection Survivor’s Guilt and Other Stories) and yes, I know I need to get Jackson Square Jazz up (one of these days), and perhaps when I’ve retired and have more time, I’ll explore the self-publishing option again just for the hell of it.

But there I was, with a partially completed manuscript and it was a very fun story; I hated wasting it (it was called The Mad Catter), and so, with a little bit of tweaking, I turned it into the seventh Scotty book, and renamed it Garden District Gothic.

I really love the cover Bold Strokes gave me for it, too:

You know you live in New Orleans when you leave your house on a hot Saturday morning in August for drinks wearing a red dress.

It was well over ninety degrees, and the humidity had tipped the heat index up to about 110, maybe 105 in the shade. The hordes of men and women in red dresses were waving handheld fans furiously as sweat ran down their bodies. Everywhere you looked, there were crowds of people in red, sweating but somehow, despite the ridiculous heat, having a good time. I could feel the heat from the pavement through my red-and-white saddle shoes and was glad I’d decided wearing hose would be a bad idea. The thick red socks I was wearing were hot enough, thank you, and were soaked through. They were new, so were probably dying my ankles, calves, and feet pink. But it was for charity, I kept reminding myself as I greeted friends and people whose names I couldn’t remember but whose faces looked familiar as we worked our way up and down and around the Quarter.

Finally, I had enough around noon and decided to call it a day.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been so hot in my life, and I grew up in Alabama,” my sort of nephew, Taylor Wheeler, said in his soft accent, wiping sweat from his forehead as we trudged down Governor Nicholls Street on our way home.

“It hasn’t been this hot in a while,” I replied, trying really hard not to laugh. I’d been forcing down giggles pretty much all day since he came galloping down the back steps the way he always does and I got my first look at his outfit. “But the last few summers have been mild—this is normal for August, usually.” It was true—everyone in town was complaining about the heat like it was something unusual, but we hadn’t had our usual hellish summer weather in a couple of years.

Last summer had been not only mild but dry, with little humidity and practically no rain—which was unheard of. Usually it rains every day around three in the summer, when the humidity has gotten so thick it turns to rain.

“I don’t even want to think about how much sweat is in my butt crack,” he complained, furiously waving the fan he’d picked up somewhere, trying to create a breeze.

I gave up trying to fight it and just gave in to the laughter.

One of the primary problems of turning The Mad Catter into Garden District Gothic was that the book was intended originally to be a sequel to a pair of books that no longer existed; vanished forever into the ether. I had established a character in earlier books of the series who was supposed to take front and center in this one, but I no longer had the back story and was facing the issue of how do I introduce this woman into Scotty’s world? And it was important, because the case involved a long ago murder that took place in this woman’s Garden District mansion–she didn’t own it at the time; she bought it from the original family that owned it, and owned it at the time of the unsolved murder–but I decided the easiest way to do this was make the woman a friend of Scotty’s older sister, which is how he knew her; and she had been a member of the cast of a reality-TV show called Grande Dames of New Orleans, which had been the centering of the previous book in the now-defunct series. I always thought the Grande Dames (obviously, my version of the Real Housewives franchises) was a clever idea and a fun one to explore as well as poke fun at in a fictional setting, and I hated wasting in a series that no one could access anymore. So I decided to keep Serena, and mention that she was in the cast of the new show which hadn’t started filming yet, and she had bought this big house as a centerpiece for her to be filmed in from the show, giving up her luxurious condo in One River Place. (This also gave me the opening to center the next Scotty book in the Grande Dames show.) The party that now opened the book was a housewarming party, so Serena could show off her new manse with the checkered past.

I had also created a character in the Paige series to serve as a kind of nemesis for her, a true crime writer named Jerry Channing, whom eventually I used as the impetus for getting the plot started in The Orion Mask. Jerry became rich and famous writing a book about the infamous, unsolved murder called Garden District Gothic, which in the Paige series seemed like a Scotty title to me, and I used it as a wink to those who were familiar with the Scotty series…and so, in writing about Scotty and the gang solving this old notorious murder, why wouldn’t I call the book Garden District Gothic, since it really is a Scotty title after all?

The murder was, of course, based on the Jon-Benet Ramsey murder that dominated the media and culture for so long back in the day. I just took the set-up of the story from that real-life case and started making up my own characters and backstories for them and went with it from there. The one thing that always bothered me the most about the case was the fact that people viewed the Ramsey family as speaking to the lawyers before calling the police as suspicious; no, it’s actually smart. Sure, it made them look “guilty” in the press (with all those headlines in the tabloids screaming this conclusively proves one of the family did it!!!! Who calls their lawyer first??? To which I again repeat, people who are fucking smart call their lawyer first. Period.), but it was the smart thing to do; someone had the presence of mind to realize that the most obvious suspects in the murder of a child are going to be the immediate family, and why–in a distraught state of grief over your child’s brutal murder–you would need to have a lawyer present when you’re being questioned by the police so you don’t say anything that could be misconstrued as an admission of guilt when you are not in fact guilty.

Always, always, always call the lawyers first. Always. If i have learned anything from my extensive reading of true crime and study of crime fiction, it is “never talk to the cops without a lawyer, especially if you are innocent.”

I was pleased with it when I was finished with it, but I’d kind of like to revise the ending a bit.

And of course, writing it left me with the decision of whether to reuse my Grande Dames of New Orleans reality show for the next Scotty book.

That’s All For Everyone

Yesterday I made a to-do list, and this odd sense of calm came down over all of my neuroses. Sure there’s a lot to be done and not much time to do it, but at least yesterday I felt like I could get it all done…now that I had made a list. I have a lot of writing to do, a lot of promotion to plan, and endless endless emails to send and reply to–and of course it’s football season and the heat is beginning to break a bit. I do like the fall, even though I don’t like it getting dark earlier.

I had to proof the galleys of an anthology I am in (just my story, fortunately) and it was quite an odd experience. I barely remembered anything about the story itself; I know how it came to be and how much money they offered me (seriously, y’all, I am very easy. Make me an offer) and I had a vague sense of what it was about, but I’d forgotten most of it, and I don’t really remember much of writing it, either. I know the anthology took a long time to come out, but the cover is lovely and they’ve done a really nice job of art on the interior of the book as well. It was interesting rereading the story, and weird–it’s very weird to not remember something you’ve written, but I guess I have finally reached that point in my life where I can’t remember everything I’ve written or said or done, for that matter–but it’s not bad. It was supposed to be a pulpy sort of story with a horror bent to it, and “A Whisper from the Graveyard” is what I came up with. They also had instructed us to “write something only a gay man can,” so I went back to 1994 or 1995 and had my big gay private eye hired to find a dead man the same day he finds out he is HIV positive. I’ve never written anything like that before; I’ve never written about HIV/AIDS, which is probably another one of those “I should write an essay about this so I can sort out all of my unresolved and long-buried traumas and fears and potential PTSD from those years” things–especially since I’ve worked as a sexual health counselor for the last fourteen years (my first four years I worked on research projects for NO/AIDS before becoming a counselor). I am also trying to address this in my novella “Never Kiss a Stranger,” which I hope to finish in the next year sometime.

I wasn’t terribly tired when I got home last night, and so I did the dishes and cooked dinner (so I would have something for lunch the rest of this week) before Paul and I settled in to watch Dahmer on Netflix (Paul came home all excited because “the new Star Wars show dropped!” and became even more excited when I replied, “And Dahmer dropped on Netflix”–Paul has long been fascinated by serial killers), which was really good and horribly disturbing; Evan Peters is fantastic as Dahmer, and Niecy Nash is golden in anything she does, but yeah–bleak and disturbing, and of course addicting. (When I get home tonight it’s this week’s Real Housewives of Beverly Hills before Paul gets home.) I slept well again last night, and since I had a productive day yesterday (finished pulling on some loose ends, even started working on the book again–Chapter Three is a mess, and I need to fix it before I can move on to Chapter Four and the rest of the story) and made some progress on my to-do list as well. Tonight I can come straight home from the office, and tomorrow of course is “I don’t have to get up at six Friday”, which is marvelous; one good thing about these “get-up-at-six” mornings is that it makes getting up at seven or eight seem almost vacation-like.

Yesterday’s post about erotica writing and my “sordid” past as a gay porn writer also set me to thinking about a lot of things about my past and my career and the direction it has gone. There’s probably a lot more to be said about it, definitely more to unpack, but I also really need to think some more about it and also, reread some of my earlier erotica writing. Revisiting my past works, as I have done a bit over the past few months, has been much more reassuring than worrisome; I had been concerned that the writing wouldn’t hold up or I would be appalled by its amateurishness or something, I don’t know (I don’t need a logical reason to be concerned about my work, really, especially when it’s old, published long ago work) but was pleasantly surprised to see it’s nowhere near as bad as I had convinced myself it was (it’s really a twisted and strange place here inside my head) and there’s always the possibility that I may have written something that could be seen as problematic by today’s standards…and, for the record, I do not think that is a bad thing; it simply means that culture and society continue to evolve to a place where past prejudices and bigotries are being overcome, albeit slowly, and hopefully we’ll gradually get to a place where no one is ever made to feel less than or that they are not welcomed or embraced in society. If that means periodic corrections, and acknowledging mistakes made in the not-so-distant past so be it. We are all learning more and more every day, and I certainly hope that neither my heart nor my compassion will ever become ossified and stop learning, growing and trying to be better.

So, on this glorious and unusual Thursday morning (because I am not walking around in a coma this morning waiting for the coffee to kick in, and I can also tell it’s humid outside this morning, yay), I am looking at the positives and looking forward to getting things stricken from that to-do list I made yesterday afternoon. I am looking forward to getting some writing done this evening, and some reading this weekend–I need to reread My Cousin Rachel so I don’t sound like a fricking moron on that podcast recording on Sunday morning–and maybe, just maybe, I can get my email inbox down to something that doesn’t make my heart sink and my soul diminish just by looking at it.

Have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again probably tomorrow morning.

Oh Daddy

I am not doing well this morning.

Yesterday morning when I got up my back felt like it was on the mend; it was still a bit painful and tight, but better than it had been the day before so I thought, oh thank you baby Jesus–there’s an end in sight. Unfortunately, as the day progresses it began to hurt more and more until the end of the day, when picking up my back pack was agonizing, as was the drive home. I immediately changed into my sweats (which was painful) and repaired to my easy chair. Scooter climbed into my lap and went to sleep immediately while I caught up on this week’s episode of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (which really deserves its own entry or an essay; the phenomenon of these shows fascinates me–which is probably why I explored it in Royal Street Reveillon) and then…I don’t remember much of the rest of the evening, really. Paul came home, gave me a pain killer, and I know we watched the final two episodes of Five Days at Memorial (which posed some pretty interesting ethical questions that I don’t know the answers to) and then another of Bad Sisters (which I really like) before collapsing into bed and praying that this morning would be the same as yesterday….

…for naught. The painkiller didn’t really help all that much (although I can see why the drugs with oxy in their name are so addictive) but made me comfortable–I was still aware of the pain, but it was slightly more bearable. Yesterday afternoon I made the right decision–I told my supervisor I was taking a personal day to let my back get better; all that getting up and sitting down yesterday was no help at all–and so I am literally going to spend the day sitting in my easy chair, slathered in generic Ben-Gay with the heating pad attached to my back.

Getting old really and truly sucks. But I do have some reading to get caught up on–I need to reread everything I am working on, I also need to reread My Cousin Rachel as I am being interviewed on a podcast about it and du Maurier in a couple of weeks (seriously, how fucking thrilling is that?) and of course, I want to read the new Donna Andrews. I never did make the to-do list I’ve been talking about on here all week–the back pain really is excruciating–so maybe I can gather everything around me that I need to get to today while sitting in the chair and letting highlights of old LSU games stream on Youtube in the background (oh yes, I rewatch highlights of old LSU games–only big wins, of course–and it always puts me in a better mood, and yes, I am aware how weird that actually is. Sue me.), and hopefully Scooter will sleep in my lap for most of the day. I need to order groceries for pick-up (and Costco for delivery) but I am a little worried about carrying everything into the Lost Apartment.

I also slept later than usual this morning; I’ve been feeling exhausted all week and figured the world wouldn’t end should I stay in bed for an extra hour or two. The good news is I do not feel tired this morning–I am so tired of feeling tired–but, of course, the back is aching. My desk chair feels much more comfortable than my work chairs, for some reason it just seems to fit my back better so it’s not painful to sit here. I cannot explain it, it makes absolutely no sense, but I am going to take advantage of that fact not only to try to get this entry written but do my reviews of Gabino Iglesias’ The Devil Takes You Home and Laurie R. King’s Back to the Garden, both of which are SUPERB. (5 out of 5 stars, get copies NOW)

I’ve also realized I’ve not done much of a Bouchercon round-up–primarily because all of it was a blur, and maybe, just maybe, I hurt my back from laughing so hard for so long. A laughing injury! It is entirely possible, of course; I noted many times how much it hurt to laugh when I was in the midst of a laughing fit because of something hilarious someone said (I really do know the funniest people), and also all the standing; several times in the evening in the bar I noted that my back was getting sore–so naturally instead of sitting down or doing anything to baby it (because that would be admitting that I am too old to stand for long) I continued doing what made it hurt in the first place.

The uncomfortable airline seats on the flight home also did not help much in that regard.

So, that is the state of the Gregalicious this morning. I just made groceries for pick up tomorrow–I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it–and at some point tomorrow I’ll order Costco for delivery. But for now, I am going to take my heating pad and my aching back to my chair so I can chill for a bit.

Have a happy Friday, Constant Reader.