Sue Katz: Consenting Adult

Susie Bright -ens Boston

Finally, I’ve had Susie Bright in the flesh – over a table in the deli. “Had” as in sharing a pastrami sandwich (mine) and a chalah bread pudding (hers). While this was the first time I met her in person, I’ve known Susie Bright since the mid-1990s when she published a story of mine in the series she was editing for Penthouse. She has long been recognized as a generous colleague to writers – providing opportunities for marginalized writers to get onto the page and making sure we banked a dime or two in the process.

Well, that was then and now the possibilities for making a living as a writer are tanking faster than my short-term memory. I remember the shock in the writers’ community when so many of our bread-and-butter technical writing jobs were off-shored. I remember the hope we felt with the arrival of a digital world hungry for huge bytes of content. Now we recognize that the craving for quantity trumps any interest in quality. Most non-corporate websites pay zilch for content, although some are making good money out of ads, sales and subscriptions. As Susie pointed out, book reading is down and, “There’s no livelihood for writers online yet.”

Susie Bright was in Boston as part of her farewell tour. With the publication of the 2008 “The Best of the Best of American Erotica,” she ends her 15-year-stretch as editor of this incomparable series. On tour, she is going out with a bang by inviting the whole gang – anyone who ever published in any of the anthologies – to join her as she appears in their area. She dished tidbits about those writers, the creative process and even the impact of politics on the types of stories sent to her over the years. “Every time a Bush makes a war in Iraq,” she said, “I get an avalanche of stories about submissive men.”

The end of the series is a reflection of what’s happening in the book world. Susie’s un-missable take on the state of publishing is one of the best posts on her smashing, pioneering blog (since 2004). In it, she explains why she finished the American Erotica series.

In her standing-room only talk at Brookline Booksmith, one of the few remaining area independent bookstores, Susie talked about the profound changes in the industry. “When I look at my old book tour itineraries, more than 9 out of 10 of these bookstores are closed.” No longer do “mom and pop” bookstores and their local readers set the literary agenda: the intense conglomeration of publishing has left that decision in the hands of those few corporations who are ravenously gobbling up the small houses. Just as the Internet gobbles up copy.

Here’s a personal example. Recently I had a piece called “Dramatic Voices of Dissent: Celebrities Film Zinn’s ‘The People Speak’” published on Alternet.org. It’s about a wonderful TV project based on the original "Voices of a Peoples History of the United States” - by Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove. I was paid nothing for the piece, which involved lengthy interviews and some research as well as attending two tapings. A friend wrote the day it was published to say he had seen the piece, but on a different progressive website. I checked it out. It had been lifted wholesale and reprinted. No email to ask my permission; no negotiation about compensation.

But it wasn’t just that website. I googled the name of my piece and there were several listings by that evening. The next day there were three pages of Google results and now, less than a week later, it turns up on more pages than I am willing to scroll through. Sometimes they just give the link (that’s nice), but too often they serve the whole enchilada. Sometimes my name appears, and sometimes it is attributed to the person who had appropriated and posted it! These are right-on portals and blogs – surely they’ve heard of intellectual property rights? Surely they’ve heard of the film writers’ strike for compensation for digital reproductions? Be happy, everyone says. You’re getting great exposure. My reply? Send the check to my home. I’m trying to be a writer, here.

What’s Susie Bright’s answer to the question: How are professional writers staying afloat?

“All our ‘old’ forms of supporting ourselves have shriveled. There's a minuscule spot, on the head of a pin, to make a decent living in books and freelance writing today, using traditional formulas. Far more prevalent are authors who write, write, write, for little or nothing, for the Internet and the publishers who embrace terms that make quality writing, editing, and mentoring— all but impossible. The McDonald-ization of book publishing has given us a bellyache that just won't quit… The art of writing is holed up in a corner right now.”

Is it getting any better, Susie?
“Amateurism, Plagiarism, and Bullshitting-Your-Way-Through-It-All has not peaked yet."

Susie Bright, though, isn’t giving up. She has been taming technology since uploading her website in 1997 and she’s exploring ways to make it work for her as a writer. She’s pampering herself too. Her divine low-cut, form-fitting dress that evening was something she had just whipped up at the Sewing Boot Camp she had attended before the tour and I found her talent and her curves a lovely compensation for all the bad news.

Happy Birthday Muhammad Ali (January 17, 1942)

Muhammad Ali is a big hero of mine.

He has been ever since he won and then disposed of the 1960 Olympic Gold Medal. He tossed it into the Ohio River (which begins at my hometown, Pittsburgh) when he was refused service at a segregated restaurant. From him I learned about political integrity, the connections between race and war and the benefits of the fighting arts (I went on to work as a professional martial artist for 18 years). In my fighting days, which were also big dancing days, I was also inspired by Ali’s fine footwork and by the beautiful moves of his contemporary, the fighter Bruce Lee (born November 27, 1940).

For failing to meet the U.S. Army’s literacy requirements, Ali was disqualified for service in 1964. But two years later, when the government decided to feed more black and poor fodder into the Viet Nam War machine, Ali was reclassified. He is the most famous conscientious objector of my generation and he paid a momentous price – his boxing license was suspended in April, 1967, when he refused induction. He was stripped of his heavyweight title and prevented, at the top of his career, from fighting again for several years.

The rest of his life, from his boxing comeback to his enduring fight to stay active despite his Parkinson’s disease, continues to be an inspiration.

Muhammad Ali’s words are as impressive as his fists. For example, he gave us one of the best-ever definitions of oppression and discrimination: “It isn't the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it's the pebble in your shoe.”

To celebrate the Champ’s birthday, I’m going to let him speak for himself. These quotes come from a variety of sources, including a well-known interview in Playboy in 1975.

Age
Old age is just a record of one's whole life.

A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life.

Political Nepotism
I figure I'll be champ for about ten years and then I'll let my brother take over - like the Kennedys down in Washington.

Political Consciousness
A rooster crows only when it sees the light. Put him in the dark and he'll never crow. I have seen the light and I'm crowing.

I strongly object to the fact that so many newspapers have given the American public and the world the impression that I have only two alternatives in taking this stand: either I go to jail or go to the Army. There is another alternative and that alternative is justice. If justice prevails, if my Constitutional rights are upheld, I will be forced to go neither to the Army nor jail. In the end I am confident that justice will come my way for the truth must eventually prevail.

The Fight Game
Boxing is a lot of white men watching two black men beat each other up.

What’s Important
Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It's not something you learn in school. But if you haven't learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven't learned anything.

War on nations change maps. War on poverty maps change.

Solidarity
I know I got it made while the masses of black people are catchin' hell, but as long as they ain't free, I ain't free.

I ain't got no quarrel with those Vietcong.

Confidence with Wit
I'm so fast that last night I turned off the light switch in my hotel room and was in bed before the room was dark.

If you even dream of beating me you'd better wake up and apologize.

It's not bragging if you can back it up.

My way of joking is to tell the truth. That's the funniest joke in the world.

Film Review: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

I was living in London in 1995 and so, when the editor of “Elle France,” Jean-Dominique Bauby, suffered a catastrophic stroke that left him paralyzed, except for the use of his left eye, it was all over our news. Wikipedia describes this “locked in syndrome” as “the closet thing to being buried alive:” some people still have full body sensation without any ability to move. Bauby’s intellect and emotions remained intact, but he couldn’t even chase a fly from his nose. His romantic and family relationships were complex and difficult – the girl he loved wouldn’t visit – but he was incapable of speaking over a phone to try to deal with these situations.

With one blinking eye, he was trained to use a communication system that involves a helper reciting the entire alphabet (sequenced by frequency of use) until he blinked to mark the right letter. As Bauby had a prior book contract with a French publisher, he eventually decided to write a book about life inside the clinch of this paralysis. The publisher provided him with a young assistant and she took blinking dictation every day. Those of us in Europe followed his progress and when the book came out, it was an instant bestseller. Bauby died 10 days after the book was published. I finished this remarkable book the day before he died.

“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” (Le Scaphandre et le papillon) is an extraordinary film based on the book. The director Julian Schnabel (“Before Night Falls,” “Basquiat”) made all the right decisions. We often see the world from the point of view of Bauby (played by Mathieu Amalric), not the least the dreadful experience of getting his right eye sewn shut – an unforgettable image. We live inside his imagination and his despair. Through Bauby, we begin to realize how many people are shut in, in their own ways. His lonely, scared father (played brilliantly by Max Von Sydow) suffers with increasingly limited mobility – father and son are separately isolated.

Remarkably, “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” is not a depressing film. There is triumph and there is coping and there are life’s obstacles, but the main character, a writer, has, by writing, continued to live the life he chose for himself. There is love, unrequited and requited, and there are the seasons to observe. Everything has changed for him, but he finds a way to transform his experience through his art, with a blink of the eye. Schnabel has taken that art, that book, and made it into a faithful and tender movie.

Daaaamn you, Jon Stewart!

Dear Jon Stewart…

I’ve been intending for years to write to you, not only because I’ve long followed “The Daily Show,” but because I’ve generously wanted to share my ideas for improving it. But more about that later. Right now I’d like to be clear: I don’t watch scabs and I won’t be tuning in to your strike-breaking show anymore.

I disagree with one of my friends who tells me that since I’m not a Nielsen family (I’m actually not any kind of family, but that’s another story), that my protest is impotent. Actually, I prefer the cozy sense of solidarity with other writers and unionists to any stray chuckles I might derive from “The Daily Show.”

But let’s take a short break to let Jason Ross, one of “The Daily Show” striking writers, speak authoritatively about the strike.

Now here’s a strike by writers who provide the content for lucrative new media without a hint of compensation, asking the biggest entertainment conglomerates in the world for a shekel or two for their work. Meanwhile, these mammoth companies sue each other for appropriating “their” product without compensation. Chutzpah, thy (screen)name is Viacom. These strikers, some of whom miraculously make a real living from their pens, are objects of respect and admiration to the rest of us starving writers for their stand and gumption.

Ironically, this betrayal by you of your fellow union members and your fellow writers prompts me to air my long-held observations on your work. Excuse me for the present tense: even though you and I are oh so over, it’s all still fresh in my ex-fan mind.

Here are my four points.

1. Whether by plan or unconscious inclination, you seem to surround yourself with people doing such inane Borat-like schticks that it makes you look terribly clever in contrast. Your opening bits and your interviews are, far and away, the best part of the show – the most political, the most hysterical. The interviews and reports by your sidekicks are too often based on humiliating other people for the sake of it and they give me an unpleasant, squeamish feeling.

2. What oh what is up with your show’s most ubiquitous insult? Come on, Jon, you can do better that using “pussy” every two minutes. I remember when I was in Israel, the most foul and oft-used swear phrase was a rude Arabic term “Coos Ey’mach,” which translates as “Your mother’s pussy.” (Well, actually it’s the “c” word.) To make a point, each time I heard it, I would reply, “Peen Ah-vee’kha” – a phrase I devised that means, “Your father’s cock.” If you reinvent the news, why can’t you reinvent curses? Hint: I’ve learned they don’t have to be based on human genitals. Why not call chicken-shit people a Bush instead of a pussy?

3. For me, you’re just too gay for comfort. On the one hand, your obvious assumption that queer-haters are irrational assholes is very welcome. But your self-satisfaction over being so right-on seems to encourage you to riff off of the most annoying queer stereotypes. It’s often just “off” enough to be sadly unfunny.

4. And that brings me to the tired but true purity of the “Daily Show” team: the white men. There are virtually no women on your writing or on-air team – to which fact you have agreed gleefully when confronted. I say “virtually” with the full awareness that I’m not “counting” Samantha B, whose routines are indistinguishable from the undistinguished secondary characters mentioned above. Okay, you have grudgingly made room for a man of color or two onscreen – but unfortunately these performers are too often asked to deliver adolescent-level bits that are meant to be ironic, but which just come off as self-mocking racism masquerading as anti-racism. I’d give you a recent example or two from your show except that, oops, I don’t watch scabs.