Rossi Rant: a writer's night out

Saturday, April 12

a writer's night out

had something of a writer's night out last night
went to see my friend sean wilsey, read in Williamsburg Brooklyn
he was part of a reading night sponsored by Mcsweeneys
who some of you may recall, i actually got to write something for
in their "911" series...

anyway for those non-new yorkers...williamsburg is something of a natural off-shoot of Manhattan's hip, groovy and now yuppified east village..the reason being it's one more stop on the L train to bedford ave..the heart of williamsburg

course williamsburg is now almost as expensive as manhattan so the hipsters have already moved on, well all the ones who didn't buy or get long leases

but on a friday night...yuppies dressed up as hipsters aside
it still had some edge

sorta east village 5 years ago i would say

anyway, i dragged my pal helen out of the upper west side to come with moi
helen who is she?
hmmm okay picture a female woody allen..cute, fun....quirky
just the right amount of nyc bitter-ness
thats helen
very fun

also total intellectual so thankfully she knew all the people i had no idea about
and all the things that went buzzing over my head
she was sort of my subtitle commentary for the evening

"oh yeah he wrote that"
"yeah shes a bitch but she wrote that"
"oh right they hate women"

etc etc you get the point...

the reading took place at "Galapagos" this industrial, raw, bar, perfomance space with an indoor pond...and lots of exposed steel...it feels a lot like an S&M
club...not that i would uh hmmm mm know of course..anyway

aside from the fact that mcsweeneys seems to be fairly unfond of women
helllooo couldn't you guys have at least thrown in one token babe??
even into the friggin band??

and aside from the fact that all the readers except for sean
thanks sean
wrote about their penis

it was a cool night

sean was first: adorable..read about his wacky childhood
(i've finally met someone with a weirder childhood than moi)
the next reader whos name i have just forgotten but was really funny
read about two trees making love
then came johnathan ames...(spell?) who did something of a performance peice about his bizarre life that included pretending to Pappion in an insane institution

so helen and i were thinking it was a rather grand night
until the celeb of the evening took the state

eric bogosian
who i thought i would really like

eric informed us all that what he was about to read he had never read not even to himself
which was code i would later realize for saying
you are all nothing to me
so i can just edit my work live here on you

he proceeded to read 3 pieces about men either shoving their dick into some girls un-wanting mouth or shaving their balls or jerking off or D all of the above

until i finally realized that what eric was doing was jerking off on us
a lot of the women in the audience had the same expression i felt etched on my face
smiles turned to confusion to anger
to tired frustration

we babes have been here before
victims of some ego-maniac misogynist who thinks women are put on this earth to feed them, pleasure them and worship them

after he finally shut the fuck up
i felt like i needed to take a shower from his crap spit out on me

i really just wanted to climb on stage and punch him out

but i restrained myself
although i would like to mention to the mcsweeneys folks
this isn't exactly helping your anti-women rep

helloooo women are brilliant, powerful creatures too!
and our dicks are bigger than yours...we just keep them in our brains!!

sigh
anyway
i smooched sean and meant to say
"thanks dude for not talking about your penis"
but i just said thanks for being adorable

and helen and i went off into the night to check out the wild scene of a friday night in williamsburg

we wound up hovering around tea for me, decaf cappuccino for her
and a mountain of mango sorbet
odd i know for a cold rainy night

we swapped stories about our writer's lives
mine mostly consisted of dashed dreams, being offered huge jobs as a columnist in a daily paper and later on for a major web site...both folded..one just before they published my work... one just after...

"all those people tonight were playing the game," i said to helen...aware that my entire life had been molded around not playing the game

"Yeah..."she said...." i can't do that either...but don't worry....all that disappointment and rejection you've gone through...that means you're a real writer....you have a writer's life.."

With that...i felt anointed...if my publishing track record hadn’t properly christened me as a writer than my rejection and disappointment track record had

who knew?

anyway...i still won't play the game
but maybe i'll step up to the plate a little more often

cause every time i strike out
i'll know i'm still in the game...but umm not playing the game
if you know what i mean

meanwhile a side note to eric bogosian

suck my dick motherfucker!!!

10:45 AM Speak (6)