Modern English
This is my first book, Modern English: A photo illustrated slang dictionary. I had watched somebody put together a couple of books supposedly documenting the punk scene of late 70’s San Francisco, and felt that a more impressionistic take on things, by somebody who was actually there and had a slight sense of humor, might be a good idea.
I wrote the Lounge Lizard section on my own, but for the “Cholo” section I consulted Francisco Alercon, feeling I had no right to satirize things outside of my own tiny nightclub knowledge. The photos are beautiful, the book is available from Last Gasp, and can also be found on Alibris.
I recently got to speak to a class at Lowell High in San Francisco who were working on their own slang dictionary. I learned that one can still say “Peace Out” is one is 28 years old or younger, but that “spendy” is out of date.
Good Advice For Young Trendy People of All Ages
“A fun, loony, helpful book. Follow these directions and you’re sure to be blissfully screwed up. And who doesn’t want to be screwed up? Life’s too short for it not to be a struggle. Struggling has always been hip and trendy. Do you think Frida Kahlo or Jack Kerouac had it easy?”
– Jonathan Ames, author of WAKE UP, SIR!
Wow! One of the sharpest minds and trash connoisseurs I’ve ever known – Jennifer Blowdryer joins forces with some very weird friends to bring forth the scariest reality survivor show you’ll never see on TV – YOU
- -Jello Biafra, Dead Kennedys
What a seriously fantastic resource this is. Jennifer Blowdryer and her team of experts impart valuable advice and perspective with wisdom, charm and hilarity. Even if you think you’ve got it all together this collection will help you scam a better scam, work a deeper style and become a more gracious human being.
–Michele Tea, author of Chelsea Whistle and Valencia
PREFACE to Good Advice…
I was tutoring Japanese students in midtown Manhattan, when Manabu showed up. He was an anomaly in the corporate school, which mostly consisted of executives and housewives. Round face, bad skin, plucked eyebrows. One day he came in wearing a skirt for men, and the owner just about had a heart attack, another day he claimed he cut his tongue, but of course he’d had it pierced and was lying, out of habit. Manabu was going to have a tough road ahead, and I found myself with an odd thought: Please don’t let me happen again.
I understood his dilemma right away, having taken plenty of blows for being ahead of trends, and I could see this happening to Manabu in the upper class Japan of the early ‘90s, which was socially more like America’s 1950s. He ended up taking Special K and walking in front of a bus, badly wounded in the most literal sense. I couldn’t help Manabu, the culture gap was too severe, but I began to mull over the idea of providing a guide book to help others like him, the fashion forward and culturally isolated. Manic D Press kindly agreed with my idea, and I got to work.
You see, I’d been the first punk in high school, an ardent fag hag when that was frowned upon, attended Columbia University while simultaneously appearing in skin mags, been campy and blithe in the era of sincere and detailed writing — all kinds of things too early for my surrounding society, and taken the blows. Jazz philosopher Albert Murray, who spent his life in the air force in order to weather the storm of being an iconoclastic African-American critic, pointed out that Avant Garde is a military term, meaning the shock troops, the ones sent to the front of the battle, who end up dead or badly wounded.
Now at the age of 40, I comfortably inhabit the margins of society. I’ve got a smallish tenement, several talented friends, a hang out spot, and need never talk to a square again. My life is no longer a desperate affair of violence and starvation, I find myself in a position to help others.
In the first section of this book, I urge people not to make the same mistakes as me. For example, I once threw out a costume and regretted it terribly. I let the threat of eviction upset me unduly, instead of taking it in stride. I failed miserably as a dominatrix for a day, and shed tears over my mounting debt when the bastards from the collection agency threatened.
None of this need happen to you. Mykel Board’s chapter, The Joy of Debt, explains how to abuse credit cards successfully, Mistress Daria’s advice clues us in on the lucrative career of abusing the successful. James St James, author of Party Monster, one of the best books of the 20th Century, gives advice for the budding celebutante, while celebrity doorman Clint Catalyst explains how to behave properly while seeking admittance to that key purveyor of social change, the Nightclub.
Of course we all must develop our own styles from within, and I know that you can make your own decisions. My pundits sometimes contradict each other, and, much as I chose Quentin Crisp as my own philosopher, you’ll have your own affinity for, say, Reverend Jen when she advices you to Take Your Hair Seriously, or Bucky Sinister when he tells you to Fuck With Your Hair. Sherilyn Connelly is strongly against plastic surgery, while Jane King extolls the value of Botox. Regi Alsin, who’s been incarcerated for 20 years, has some valuable tips for coping behind bars, but he doesn’t mean to say that a prison stretch is essential in any way.
Even poverty is not required, as you will see in the Jobs You Can Have section, and there are surely some terrific rich people out there, but they seem to have their own literature and so are not included in this book. Nor is talent in any way essential, as Alvin Orloff explains in his valuable tips on being a Flunky. You might breed, as contributors Pamela Holm and Ariel Gore have done, or decide to modify your gender, in which case Lynee Breedlove and Sherilyn Connelly are here to help.
Putting an end to copious drug use can be just as interesting as the drug use itself. One of my favorite wags, Phillip R. Ford, shares his own rehab experience with you. Finally, being the Black Friend, as comedian Remy tells us, need never be dull again. I’m sure there’s some advice I’ve neglected to compile, and you, my trendy friend, may take this basic primer and run, run, run with it.
Jennifer Blowdryer, San Francisco, 2005 and forever.
Hos, Hustlers, Callgirls & Rentboys:
Professionals Writing on Life, Love, Money and Sex
The miracle is manifest. The anthology has hit the streets. Half a decade in the making, this love’s labor, the product of so much blood, sweat, tears and other assorted body fluids, has finally traveled down the birth canal, and has been delivered by an able-bodied team of midwives, editors, dulas, copy editors, birth coaches, art directors and sweaty worried nerve-wracked family and relatives.
REVIEW FROM PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
“The sprawling project, grouped loosely by topic (Life, Love, Money, Sex, etc.), offers insight into seemingly all aspects of the sex trade: high-profile celebrities like Xaviera “Happy Hooker” Hollander and Nina Hartley make notable contributors, but it’s the unknown writers who will stick. The selections from the book’s closing section alone, written by members of Sterry’s San Francisco writer’s workshop for sex workers, range from triumphant to harrowing… Aside from exposing the complex web of relationships among phone sex operators, dancers, massage parlor workers, prostitutes and their customers, the book is heavy with raw emotions ranging from celebratory to shameful, giving sociologists plenty to ponder. It’s not all dark and heavy: Sterry’s own account of his experience as a birthday present for an 82-year-old grandmother is touching and sentimental; veteran performer Annie Sprinkle is characteristically blunt, funny and honest… This volume houses some real gems.”
Hos, Hookers, Callgirls, and Rentboys is a collection of short memoirs, whore war stories, confessions, nightmares, journalism and poetry. It contains new writing from sex worker literati: art-porn priestess Dr. Annie Sprinkle; the infamous Happy Hooker, Xaviera Hollander; author and LGBT activist Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore; star of The Devil in Miss Jones, Georgina Spelvin; best-selling memoirist David Henry Sterry and sex educator/movie star Nina Hartley. But it also includes crack hos, male hustlers, pimps and the teenagers they exploit. Funny, terrifying, tragic and inspiring, this collection of oral history, short memoirs, war stories, confessions, nightmares, social criticism and poetry is unprecedented because it includes people from all walks of the sex for money world.
From back-alley Tenderloin massage parlors, to glittering Beverly Hills hotels, to Times Square porn palaces, to the meanest streets in Harlem, Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys is a collage of sex and money, shining light on this hidden underbelly of America, from sea to shining sea.
White Trash Debutante
This is my third bound book, aside from a few chapbooks. It’s my photo illlustrated lower middle class autobiography, which covers my life from the ages of 16 to about 18. Galhattan Press published it, and we never really distributed it but you can email me or find probably a couple on ABE, Alibris, or Amazon at wildly varying prices.
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The Laziest Secretary
This is my second book, published by a now defunct imprint of DC Comics called Pirana Press. Zeitgeist Press is reissuing it with drawings by Beppi, an illustrator from Baltimore, and it will be available on Amazon.. It’s about the adventures of an overweight temp! I don’t know why DC Comics pulped practically all the original copies!
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East Village Comix Sampler
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Articles, Shorts and Poetry:
| NY PRESS COLUMNS: | ESSAYS: |
| Club Chelsea | Summer |
| DUMBO | Maximum R’n'R |
| Lower Manhattan Dumpster Tour | |
| My Bodega Man | POETRY: |
| Park Slope | Diet |
| Sogo NY | American Haiku |
| Ruby the Biker Chick | |
| PROSE: | |
| White Cane | FICTION: |
| Ten Dollars | Laziest Secretary in the World |
| Angry | |
