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So I've soft launched my professional site Kevin Smokler.com. A few sections still need to be added but the basic idea is here.
I'm not a desinger and really don't quite know what I'm doing here. Your feedback is appreciated.
I leave for Bro's wedding tomorrrow. Have a nice Labor Day.
So my youngest brother, Daniel Smokler, is getting married this weekend and Suzan and I leave for New Haven Friday morning. Sunday morning at the ceremony, I'm slated to give a toast as the brother of the groom.
I'm kinda freaked out. Most wedding toasts I've heard are tittering anecdotes about something embarrasing the groom/bride did in younger years or a few sacchrine lines of sentiment reheated to sounds genuine. I want to make mine special. And I'm the writer in the family, which means expectations are high.
Daniel isn't the least bit interested in me telling stories about his childhood or snarking at him and Beth from the microphone. Also, I have a tendency to tear up at inopportune times so laying it on too thick will make me cry before everyone else.
Here's what I'm thinking...Daniel and I have a much stronger relationship now than we did as children. I had left the house by the time of his adolesence so I wasn't around to see him grow up. Oddly then, we have a greater appreciation for each other as men than as boys. So I'm going to try to string together a few thoughts on how, despite what we remember as children, how proud I am at the man Daniel has become.
I hope Beth doesn't mind.
So my piece for The Believer on the hot glue gun, after some (okay, lots of) initial trepidation is done. My intrepid editor Vendela gave me solid feedback that I put to good use. I believe it's set to show up in next month's issue.
This is really when the non-fiction writing process is most rewarding, when you learn something you didn't overcame your fears about not knowing and wrote. Then, even if you and your first reader disagree, you both intuitively sense the intrinsic worth of the piece.
I can't wait to do another.
Lit at the Canvas, the monthly reading series I host at the Canvas Gallery returns this evening. Tonight's theme will be "Odd Jobs," and we'll be hearing from five writers and the strange things they've done to support their artistic careers.
The bill:
Charlie Anders (who I believe has got something about masterbation and male breast enhancement)
Leslie Harpold (who answered fan mail for White Snake in the 80s)
Jason Thompson (who rode out the dot com bust by demonstrating toys at FAO Schwartz)
M.I. Blue (who I think has spent a bunch of time working with dead people)
and
Michelle Tea (who is always great so I don't care what jobs she's had)
Showtime is at 7:30. The Canvas is at 9th and Lincoln in San Francisco.
Invisible Ink my buddy Roman's radio show has been made a featured show on the web site of the Third Coast International Audio Festival, a celebration of feature and documentary radio put together by the folks at WBEZ in Chicago. This comes on the heels of the show being awarded a "Best of the Bay" by the San Francisco Bay Guardian.
All this for a half-hour a week show produced by one guy? Pretty f'n remarkable. Listen for yourself and see.
The other night when Suzan and I were watching Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, we ranked the Fab 5 from least gay to most gay. They are...
Least Gay #1: Ted Allen (Food): The guy has horned-rim glass, a clipped, unflappable demeanor and works in food. In my mind that puts him only a few degrees of seperation from Anthony Bourdain. Plus he's from Chicago. Name me one famous gay person from Chicago.
#2 Thom Felicia (Interior Design). Yes, he works in interior design but he's also clearly Italian and wields a hammer. A mixed bag, with shades of straight.
#3 Kyan Douglas (Grooming). A dead heat. Kyan is the most overtly masculine in appearance of all the dudes (My friend Willo put a fine point on it) with that needle chin and steely gaze. But the guy does tend nose hair for a living and have several jobs called "colorist" on his resume. Too close to call.
#4 Jai Rodriguez (Culture). On the leyward side of nellie and is a male working in etiquette. Would take the crown if not for...
#5 Carson Kressley who makes Harvey Fierstein look like DMX.
So I don't much to say about the California gubanatorial race other than it's looks like the lunacy is already getting sucked out of it. Now pundits are saying that, should recall come, there's a real horserace on between Lt. Governor Cruz Bustamante and The Kindergarten Cop. Which isn't nearly as fun as a battle royal between Ariana Huffington, Larry Flynt and Gallagher.
Incidentally, I'd like the dems to keep the Governor's House as much as everyone else in this town. Seems to me that if Davis stepped down then Bustamante becomes the Governor and the recall is meaningless because the guy who was getting recalled isn't in office anymore.
Right?
But of course that isn't going to happen. Davis is too proud and politics as usual dicatates that you get behind whoever is in office whether or not a) it's good for the future of the party and b) whether or not the person in office has any business being there or are simply a career political bureaucrat who climbed the ladder, didn't make trouble and now somehow "deserves" the office at the level they've ascended to. And then everyone complains about that person's "lack of vision."
Uh huh.
I'm doing a piece for The Believer where I have to learn a whole bunch about Hot Glue Guns in a very short time. Any wisdom greatly appreciated.
Readers of Film Critic.com will be happy to know that they take the greatest care to respond to mail from considered parties. See the bottom of this review.
After a few days of wondering why my favorite NYC bloggers hadn't updated, I remembered that big blackout thing.
Duh.
Everyone I know and love is fine, including my folks, 2 aunts and their families and my grandparents out on Long Island. What a relief.
Spent much of Sunday eve working a reading event for Litquake that served as a joint fundraiser for 826 Valencia, Dave Eggers writing-lab/pirate store project for kids.
Though the lineup was spectaular (Glen David Gold, Aimee Bender, Michael Chabon and Eggers himself to name but a few), our publicity was lackluster which led me to believe that we'd get a decent but not great turnout.
I worked the door and, how can I put this? Dave Eggers should run for governor of California. Or failing that he should run for Messiah. I think there's an opening.
Not only did we turn away 50-75 people after we reached capacity but about a dozen waited patiently in the lobby to see if anyone left the crowded, hot auditorium at intemission so they could slip in. Among them were two adorable young women who didn't recognize a single author on the bill but looked heartbroken when I told them they might miss Dave reading. They spent the first half of the show camped out on the front stoop like I did for AC/DC tickets 15 years ago.
If this is any indication what sort of place literature has in the minds of this generation, my book is off to a rollicking start. Oh and Dave Eggers should start a cult, while his got all this momenteum built up.
This morning Maggie pointed me to a very funny and dead on piece about the average day of a freelance writer. It reminded me of Fran Lebowitz's legendary piece about a typical day of her life. Hers had a lot more smoking than this one, but you get the idea.
I wonder if those out there who work 9 to 5 jobs know what mutants us freelancers are, how we live in fear of never doing enough, of overcompensating be working way too hard and then dulling the aniexty with watery coffee, Homestar Runner cartoons and reruns of Law & Order. Of course, everyone on that show has a real job so screw them and their retirement accounts.
Er, right. I should get some work done.
Run don't walk to acquire some of the few remaining copies of All This is Mine, a beautiful little zine by a woman named Sugene. The issue I have (#9) has a key ring, several erasers, and a page composed entirely of letters. This is zine making on a whole other level, a Griffin and Sabine level where each book is a little bound work of art. In this case, they're available for $5. Wow.
On a completely unrelated note, did ya know Berkeley, CA is the mass lactation capitol of the world? It's true.
My bestest birthday wishes to my friend Sarah, who doesn't look a day over 23.
Wow, what a fly birthday! Suzan, her sis Anne Marie, and our friends Rebecca and Wendy completely transformed our house, a whole load of people showed up (several with Hula Hoops) and DJ Amber kept things going on the turntables. When I stopped worrying about whether everyone was having a good time (which Suzan told me, repeatedly, wasn't my concern) I had a really good time. Most amazingly, we were able to get 50-60 people I really love in one room, at one time, on a weekend night in San Francisco. It blew my mind.
So, thanks my lovely girlfriend and her amazing team for throwing this fab event. Thanks to Roman and Anne Marie for keeping me entertained during the day and thanks to everyone who came or wished me well and made the last few days so special.
We now return to your regularly scheduled life.
A mighty cool writing pen from my folks. I also treated myself to a hardcover book.
Must sleep. Big happenings tomorrow.
Today is my birthday. I'm 30. Yes 30. I've been told that 30 is the new 21 which apparently is a theory that's been all over the place in the last few years and I missed completely. Elaboration is nowhere to be found.
Famous people I share a birthday with...
Garrison Keillor, Charlize Theron, David Duchovny, Billie Burke ("Glinda the Good Witch") and anthropolgy rockstar Louis Leaky.
Greed: My Amazon Wish List, just in case you think I need one more book.
Got home last night. Suzan and I are going to go hiking today and dancing with some friends tonight. Big party is this weekend.
Does anyone really see the difference between Friendster and Tribe.net? I'm just askin'.
Men's Weekend was fantastic. As we were walking down 57th street to catch everyone cabs to Penn Station, my buddy Dave and I marveled at how easy it was for the seven of us to mesh, to pick up like we'd never spent a day apart even though we only see each other once a year. How we're all pretty sure that we'll still be doing Men's Weekend after we are married with grown children and mostly talking about perscriptions rather than random sexual encounters.
I don't keep up with too many people I grew up with so these guys from college are really my first friend generation. Those 10 minutes Dave and I spent going back over the weekend and beaming at one another gave me a quick reminder of what a special thing we all have together and what a rare, unique thing old friends are.
This evening, I was fortunate enough to have dinner with some slighty newer friends whom I convened as an informal panel of experts on the Virtual Book Tour. At issue were whether the tour should accept money from publishers for our time, access and connections, whether we should be focusing on small publishers instead of big ones and if said money did, come along, how should it be divided up.
Jason and Carrie weighed in with their experience of being stops on the tour while I counted on Meg and Jeffrey to speak more to the general ethical issues as oldtimers in the weblog community. Anil mostly cracked jokes but with a full injection of intelligence cuz that's what he's best at.
I feel good about what everyone said. It's too easy to take every piddling criticism seriously when you're in the middle of a project and it's your idea to begin with. But these wise folks have given me faith that the VBT is a fine idea and moving in the right direction.
We spent the rest of the time catching up, which is really why were there.
I finally did manage to calm down and make something of our experience at Da Ranch. Got a stone massage, explored some of the tiny towns in the Berkshires and saw Seabuscuit which was more than a little bad. Suzan left for home. I arrived in New York on Thursday.
"The men" descended yesterday afternoon and we spent the evening pigging out on smoked meat (in Manhattan. Who knew?) and talking about technology, politics, movies and our lives until the early morning.
It's amazing, when I tell people each summer that I'm headed off to something called "Men's Weekend", they usually think beer, loose women or drumming and bad poetry. I guess there's some of all of that but it's really a chance for the seven of us, seven buddies from college to get together once a year and catch up on each other's lives. It was a bit more cliched when we started it, nine years ago on Valentine's day when we all hated women and decided to go eat steak and smoke cigars instead. But that was a long time ago. One of us is married and three are in serious relationships. We talk a lot about career, dreams, plans for the future. Kids even and if we want them or no.
We're old old friends and decently evolved human beings so our connections are little bit more Ya-Ya than reunion weekend at the frat house. At a certain level then, I think that groups of old friends interact pretty similarly regardless of gender. Sure, we don't really praise each other's outfits or talk much about the wives and girlfriends, except to ask how are they. We probably talk more about people from college we would have liked to gotten freaky with and called each other "gay" and thought it was funny. But the nugget of why we travel thousands of miles to convene in one spot each year is that our connection is vitally important to all of us. It's how we stay a presence in each other's lives as we grow from college kids to men with jobs, relationships, house, families and probably old age someday. I want to be around when it all happens to these guys. And I want them to witness it happening to me.
Bookmark Now: Writing in Unreaderly Times edited by Kevin Smokler
