Author Archive

James R. Parish’s Gus Van Sant

Written by J.T. Leroy on May 7, 2002. Posted in Miscellaneous, Posts

We’d stand outside a theater in the Castro waiting for My Own Private Idaho to let out. Guys came streaming out of the movie hungry for meat like a pack of lions smelling their first zebra in a month. My boyfriend and I were hustling at the time. Those nights we could charge four times
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Q&A: Photographer Mick Rock

Written by J.T. Leroy on March 5, 2002. Posted in Miscellaneous, Posts

You know the work of photographer Mick Rock, you just don’t know you know it. Mick Rock is everywhere, from the movie poster for Hedwig and the Angry Inch to his famous shots of rock stars. He’s been called the glam/punk-rock Forrest Gump, because Mick Rock was there through much of recent rock ’n’ roll
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Q&A with Jonah Matranga

Written by J.T. Leroy on February 19, 2002. Posted in Miscellaneous, Posts

New End Original’s Thriller (Jade Tree) is like a kickass mix of Weezer and Minor Threat. It gets me jumping around. The members got their cred maxed, too: two are ex-Texas Is the Reason (Norman Arenas & Scott Winegard), and the singer is Jonah Matranga of Far and onelinedrawing. I interviewed Jonah in SF. Did
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Q&A with Cynthia Robins, The Beauty Workbook Author, on How to Cure the Green Eyeshadow Addicts

Written by J.T. Leroy on January 29, 2002. Posted in Miscellaneous, Posts

Cynthia Robins’ The Beauty Workbook: A Commonsense Approach to Skin Care, Makeup, Hair, and Nails (Chronicle Books, 176 pages, $24.95) fell into my hands as a gift from the gods. Being raised by a mom who got her beauty tips from inebriated barroom Avon ladies, I have makeup and skin care habits that would make
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Q&A with Liar’s Club and Cherry Author Mary Karr

Written by J.T. Leroy on December 26, 2001. Posted in Miscellaneous, Posts

I first read Mary Karr’s memoir The Liars’ Club when I was 17. I was in awe of the heartbreaking humor her troubled Texas characters evinced in the face of severe adversity. I studied the complex beauty of her sentences. I wrote her and she wrote me back a wonderfully encouraging letter. I quit writing.
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Q&A with “Quality Lit Club” Outsider Jerry Stahl

Written by J.T. Leroy on December 12, 2001. Posted in Miscellaneous, Posts

Jerry Stahl’s first two books, Permanent Midnight and Perv–A Love Story are cult classics. In his latest, Plainclothes Naked (William Morrow, 326 pages, $25), he once again traffics in the expected disturbo drugged-out sex-driven insanity, swathed in breathtakingly beautiful language. Those of us who are hardcore Stahl fans know he will always mine the depth
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Q&A with Stripper-Turned-Esteemed-Journalist Lily Burana

Written by J.T. Leroy on November 18, 2001. Posted in Miscellaneous, Posts

Lily Burana is a punk rock girl turned stripper turned esteemed journalist. She traveled more than 20,000 miles and went to 25 clubs to write Strip City: A Stripper’s Farewell Journey Across America (Talk/Miramax, 328 pages, $23.95). But you don’t find either the old-school stripper/victim tales or the trendy, slick Xena, Stripper Princess pro-stripping propaganda
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Q&A with Tom Spanbauer

Written by J.T. Leroy on November 7, 2001. Posted in Miscellaneous, Posts

The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon (1991) is one of those cult books you hear about again and again until you finally read it for yourself, fall in love with it and become one of the legions bugging everyone they know to read it. Fans of that book had to wait 10
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Q&A with Joe Strummer

Written by J.T. Leroy on August 28, 2001. Posted in Miscellaneous, Posts

The Clash weren’t the Ramones or the Sex Pistols–they knew how to play their instruments, and they wrote more sophisticated compositions. When you hear their music played on the radio these days it’s hard to imagine that this was once considered shocking or a new sound. And Joe Strummer hasn’t become the caricature that John
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Q&A with Weezer’s Pat Wilson

Written by J.T. Leroy on July 3, 2001. Posted in Miscellaneous, Posts

When I’m all down in a Karen Carpenter-dumps sort of way, and to add insult to injury I’ve got a huge sinkload of greased-up dishes in front of me, there is only one antidote to my ills. I whip out the Weezer. It’s that mix of crescendo rock-pop, crooning along about lost loves, lost toys,
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