Kyria Abrahams

New article on Twitter for nonprofits is up at Socialbrite

2011-10-03T12:58:00.004-04:00

Use, share, enjoy, tweet!

24 best practices for nonprofits using Twitter

by Kyria Abrahams and JD Lasica.

8 nonprofit Twitter superstars, on Socialbrite

2011-09-26T12:11:00.001-04:00

I wrote three articles for Socialbrite on how non-profits can best benefit from Twitter. The first one published today. Check it out, retweet, and so on! Thank you!

8 nonprofit Twitter superstars.

Kreayshawn and V-Nasty, giving wiggers a bad name

2011-09-12T18:07:00.010-04:00

On behalf of full-grown women everywhere, I would like to apologize for Kreayshawn. She, along with her sister V-Nasty, have formed something called “The White Girl Mob,” the hip hop version of The Babysitters Club, in which they run around in 80’s glasses, drop n-bombs, and pretend to be black all over LA.

Their flow is weak, their eyeliner is prominent, and the music smacks of a Jewish Summer Camp talent show. They're so upper middle class, they make Rebecca Black's Friday look like Grandmaster Flash's "The Message". Behold, Gucci Gucci:

Basic bitches wear Prada? Funny, the basic bitches I know shop at Forever 21. Still, I applaud your sense of integrity in refusing to buy the very expensive clothing that most of us can't afford. Cuz' I only buy cage-free eggs, nigga.

(Ever take the subway in Queens around 3:00 when Junior High is just letting out? You know how pre-teens get all precocious when they’re in a large group, and they squeal and throw Trapper Keepers at each other and say things like “fuck you, nigga” and it’s exceedingly uncomfortable for everyone involved? That's how I felt watching that video. Also, like I really needed to take a dump.)

Meanwhile, here's the worst freestyle ever recorded:

God, I miss the 90's. Back when white girls would have been too embarrassed to be seen doing this.

Actually, her flow kinda reminds me of the adorable fake raps my father would make up while pouring us cereal, like: “My name is Gerald and I’m here to say. I’m gonna make you breakfast in a really funky way.” And then he’d Moonwalk across the kitchen.

Even better, here's V-Nasty with a videotaped a message to the haters. That's right - the haters, baby! Haters gonna hate! Herein, she proceeds to defend the fact that she's “just bein’ real” (ie: saying nigger a lot). She does this by dropping her voice two octaves, slurring her words and acting ambivalent. You know, like the blacks do.

V-Nasty doesn’t act black. She doesn't even act white. She acts privileged. Ridiculously, embarrassingly, unabashedly privileged and lame and completely without cultural context. She acts the way rich, sheltered white people think black people act. Granted, I don’t know for a fact that Kreayshawn and her sister V-Nasty are trust fund kids, but, clearly, they are. Look at them. If you don't think they grew up with money, then you probably grew up with money. The rest of us would never in our lives dream of behaving this way.

V-Nasty claims that she's "real" because she went to jail. What did she do, shoplift hoop earrings in a Claire's? Steal a girl's mittens on the bus? Going to jail isn't just a hood thing, it's also a spoiled middle class brat thing. Just because you spent 48 hours in Central Booking eating stale cheese sandwiches doesn't mean it's okay to say nigga 9,000 times before breakfast. So put down the Sharpie, stop drawing teardrops on your cheeks, and for the love of God stop with the obviously fake ghetto diction. The only thing 8-mile about these girls is the length of the cocks they sucked to get where they are.

I guess it's hard to try to find some semblance of cultural significance in being white and middle class, and yeah, I guess it's easier to just pretend to be black or poor or real or "Oakland", because they sure do seem to have some kind of brotherhood, some kind of solidarity, some kind of culture, some sort of code of ethics that you were clearly (CLEARLY!) lacking in your childhood.

Kreayshawn, your name is Natassia Gail. You went to Berkeley. V-Nasty, no clue what your name is, but it's probably something like Kylee Zoe. You're a normal, affluent, white young female. And that's okay. Maybe one day you'll figure out a way to be okay with it, too.

(Kreayshawn: I’m from another planet. I was born in SF and I lived out there for 10 years then I moved to Oakland and I’ve been out here for 10 years. So you can say I’m super, super Bay Area. - From Ontask.)

Better than Ritalin muffins

2011-09-11T17:57:00.003-04:00

Coney Island Polar Bear Club: The Center for Weirdness

2011-08-08T10:26:00.008-04:00

Photos and text by Kyria Abrahams

Whatever you do, please don’t ask them if the water is cold. It is.

“It clears my head,” says Dennis Thomas. “It’s not about jobs, relationships. You have to be in the moment. You can’t think of anything else.”

Like many of the people here, Dennis never expected to jump in the icy ocean more than once. That was 28 years ago. Now he’s the club president.

"It became the center of weirdness for me," he recalls.

For me, this is my very first experience swimming with the Coney Island Polar Bears. It is the first time my cowardly, comfort-seeking body will willfully do something that even crazy people describe as “pretty crazy.”

Perhaps 28 years later I, too, will remember that I never intended to do this more than once.

Dennis wears a white hoodie and a blue cap, both emblazoned with the club’s official logo and available for sale on the club's official merchandise page. This morning, Speedo delivered a box of free bathing suits. Many members of the club wear Speedo and I'm here on assignment to ask them about it. Unfortunately, the Polar Bears are ambivalent. These are not the sort of people who care about product placement.

"I hate to do this," I say, "But I have to ask you about the Speedo."

“I took one Speedo off and put another Speedo on,” Dennis says, trying to be helpful.

"Will it help keep you warm?" I ask, hopefully.

"Not a chance."

“What if you want to wear a wetsuit?”

His answer is definitive: “Stay home. Don’t bother.”

I’m saddened to realize that my 'Optik Splice Splashback' (which I will later be reimbursed for) won’t help me preserve precious body heat, but at least the lycra has a surprising shapewear effect. It’s mid-March and I’ve been scarfing mashed potatoes nonstop since November. Wearing a spaghetti-strap anything is second on my list of things to avoid -- right below jumping into the freezing cold ocean wearing only a Speedo.

I do not want to do this. I took this assignment because I do not want to do this.

“You can do it,” I tell myself. “You have to. Just think of it as a giant glass of ice water that happens to be controlled by the moon and is full of sharks.”

The 107-year-old club has about 205 members these days, but 75-year-old Oscar remembers when there were only 12 or 15. He also remembers when the tight, knee-length lycra shorts that the men are sporting today were called 'pedal pushers'.

"They were for bike messengers," he says, shaking his head. "Later, they'll take those off and put on real shorts."

"I remember wearing lycra shorts in Junior High," I say "Stripe down the side. With fringed boots and big hair."

Oscar smiles. "Okay kid. Get outta here. You better go interview some more people before it gets too late."

When I get home, I'll go to Oscar's website to discover he's kind of famous.

"Don't mention my last name," he tells me. "I don't want to be associated with this. I don't have a problem with any of it but... it's just not like it used to be."

How it used to be was simple, low-key. Just 15 guys on the beach. Now it's an event. There are photographers, and merchandise, and newspaper articles. Now there's Speedo.

Club members gather in the Coney Island "Education Hall", on the boardwalk right behind the Cyclone. This is also something new, a comfortable clubhouse. The room has back-to-back metal chairs and looks like a bus terminal with taxidermied sharks on the wall. Near the door, a volunteer is manning the hot cocoa table. I'm kindly informed that I'm not allowed to take photos in here.

"I'm sure no one told you," Dennis says without a hint of anger.

I spot Genie ("As in 'I Dream Of'," she says,) sitting against the wall under a mounted sea creature, wearing a pink Speedo swim cap and goggles. She's a competitive swimmer on her ninth Polar Bear swim, maybe around 40-years-old, and she giggles when she speaks. She is wearing Speedo Vanquisher goggles, which she honestly adores. "They don't give you raccoon eyes," she says, laughing. "It's hard to explain if you're not a swimmer like me."

She's the only person here who genuinely has an opinion about Speedo.

Meanwhile, Joan Lupo will complete her twelfth swim transforming her from a “cub” to a true polar bear. You can't just stick a toe in the water and claim you're a badass. Like Judaism, you have to prove you are serious. She is brought to the front of the room and the whole club applauds the newest inductee.

Then most suddenly, with no noticable reticence, it is time to jump in the water.

After a brief photo op on the boardwalk and a round of army-inspired jumping jacks, the group heads inexorably toward the Atlantic Ocean. I realize with horror that I am being swept along with them. And they are actually about to walk into the freezing water.

I spot Joan to my immediate right. “You’re going to have to help me,” I say. “I don’t think I want to do this.”

I expect she’s going to tell me to turn around and run home with the other babies and wetsuit-wearers. Instead, she just smiles and takes my hand firmly in hers. We keep walking in. It seems simple enough. All I have to do is not stop.

“We’re going to go under,” she tells me, and she begins counting back from three without my concent. She places a gloved hand on each of my shoulders. I am shaking my head. Absolutely not. I refuse. Not a chance, Joan.

I refuse to go under until I’m under. I'm freezing and there's not a damn thing I can do about it but accept it.

“You did it!” she says.

I start laughing uncontrollably. Not screaming, but laughing. And Joan is nodding her head, wide-eyed, with me all the way.

“See the people out there who are halfway in? They’re trying to stay warm but they’re freezing. The only way to do this is to get in all the way.”

I'm completely in the moment. There are no jobs, no relationships. I had to get cold to understand. These people aren’t crazy, nor are they masochists. They don’t love freezing water any more than you or I. They’re zen masters, daredevils, philosophers.

Luis, 69, is one such philosopher. He has been swimming for 30 years. He came from Puerto Rico at the age of 15 and has a noticable accent. About seven of the old-timers he knew are left.

When Luis first swam with the Polar Bears, he had arthritis so bad he couldn’t walk. It was his cousin who forced him to go, who helped him out of his wheelchair and into the water. After his fifth time swimming, he was cured. He can tell you how the experience changes people.

“If you come to the water and you are angry, you might change. You might leave and find that you are happy. You might change into a happy person.”

Luis, who stayed in the water for 15 minutes today, is shivering uncontrollably as he says this. He is a happy, changed man. He got in all the way.

Original Salon Article: How (and a bit of why) I Stuck So Many Women With The Check

2011-08-06T09:58:00.003-04:00

She's deleting it from Salon, but several people took screen captures.

Here's a pdf: http://www.box.net/shared/lqgq5vysks47im895u6e

And here's the original article:

How (and a bit of why) I Stuck So Many Women With The Check

DECEMBER 5, 2010 3:23PM

by Susan Crain Bakos

The aging lesbian artist sat across the restaurant table from me, her eyes aglow as she praised me. Her sexual pass was feeble, easily put off with an “I don’t know what you mean” shrug. She said she was preparing to fight her landlord’s eviction (though he was right, she was behind in the rent) and trying to get a show and worrying about finding replacement income now that she couldn’t sell Obama condoms on the street. An old Leftie in the East Village mode, she was, had been and always would be poor, proud, ineffective and angry. She will take aim at someone with the dying push of her fingertips on the keyboard. What did she want from me, except perhaps the chance to score a heterosexual sexpert? Buy her paintings. Write about her. Help her get a book deal. Introduce my banker friend to her friend who needed investment. I stuck her with the check—and cab money.

Let me be clear. That was mean. Every time I’ve done it, I’ve known just how mean it was—and not justified by my contempt of the “mark.” Rather, even more my bad for having lunch with them.

Sometimes I’ve walked the check when cash-flow constricted and more often with more than enough money in my handbag to pick up that check. I say I didn’t bring my wallet and hand it over—usually to the woman who wants to “network” with me, i.e., she’s younger, full of herself, very ambitious in the sense of wanting to get somewhere fast and be somebody NOW but not in the old-fashioned sense of: Willing to work hard to get there. So many girls identify themselves as sex coaches or educators, going by the name of Luscious Lola or Divine Deenie or Sumptuous Sade, posing, for example, with nearly bare—and why oiled?—ass thrust toward camera, glancing cheekily over their shoulders— like the girls of the 80s, 90s, 00s, but a bit more dummied down in each re-incarnation, especially this one The Cupcake Re-Generation. Most men don’t network like this and women don’t either, but “girls” of any age do. They gush over me, “love” me, “love” my work, call me an “icon” or something similar meaning “old achiever on way out.” They ask me to read their work, help them write a book proposal for free, send my contact list. Yet they come expecting me to buy lunch too. I claim missing wallet, hand over check and tell her I will need cab fare.

Within hours, she is blogging nasty comments about me (in a blog read by tens of people). Suddenly I am old” and not as talented as they are. They will sell more books than I do, they say—they “hate” me now they say—or so I’ve been told they say because I don’t read any of it. (The lesbian artist wrote her intentions of collaborating on an “anonymous” Hate Susan website with another woman in an email that a third party forwarded to me. Smart girls, huh? I won’t mention their names because I don’t want to drive traffic to their sites, selling their products. Let my lawyer/lover/cousin go after them if either ever makes a profit.)If I don’t care about people, I don’t care about what they think or write or say—even if I am the subject. Anonymous internet trolls and mean girls, snarky jealous people and the poor little marks who didn’t get all that free help they wanted? Time-wasters. Watching a syndicated episode of “Friends” is a better use of time than reading them.This check-dodging is relatively new behavior for me, a new category in a series of bad behaviors that is—at least I can say this much—declining in severity and intensity to the point where it is an errant stream, not a river sometimes overflowing its banks.

For much of my life I have been struggling with psychological issues. Following a suicide attempt seven years ago that was very nearly successful, I began hearing a new diagnosis from a succession of therapists. Programs run out; new ones open up; everybody has their own diagnosis and treatment concept; nobody ever put me on drugs which should have been a clue to Borderline. When I was out of those options, I saw a semi-retired therapist who had a sliding fee scale fee. I paid her in lump sums when writing checks came in. Some therapists said Borderline Personality Disorder; others did not. My first therapist following the attempt labeled it “reactionary depression to a series of life setbacks.” My current therapist, an expert in the field of personality disorders, describes me as “on the borderline of Borderline,” not quite putting me in, not quite taking me out. (“BPD is an umbrella term, covering a range of symptoms and behaviors, manifested differently in each sufferer; and in the majority, the symptoms are treatable, the behaviors can be changed but it takes time which is why insurers go for the ‘untreatable’ label.”) Her treatment plan includes dialectical talk therapy and Buddhist meditation. (Google the research, people. It works for many of us.) Brain scans prove that Buddhist monks have been able to change their brain patterns through meditation. And brain scans of Borderlines also show abnormalities in certain regions of the brain.

If I fell to my knees, wept, tore my hair and told you I’d found Jesus and will devote the rest of my life to spreading His word, some of you would likely forgive me anything except maybe cruelty to animals. But as I confess my crimes, I am also trying to understand them, an intellectual exercise that will offend the judges among you. Like the first confessor in this series, I expect to be pilloried by the outraged. It won’t be the first time. Six years ago I wrote about liking black men in bed and I still get death threats from angry, ignorant racist black women and their counterpart white men. (Idea for a dating service?) I read far enough in to pick up the scent of the tar pits from which they spring—and delete or forward to a cop when threats are involved.

Understand. Explain. Not Excuse. Or even Defend.

The emotional conundrum is that I feel some emotions with inappropriate and painful intensity—which is why BPD sufferers have been compared to burn victims—yet also suppress and distort emotion, channeling it into actions that have nothing to do with the feeling. I’ve not exhibited the big bad behaviors of poor Lindsey Lohan, but I have left when I should have stayed, played havoc with schedules, mine and other people’s, lied, cheated, managed money badly, including my phase of picking up too many checks and attempting to buy love, veered from thinking I am worthless to exhibiting a sense of entitlement (like “entitled” to getting my checks picked up)—and now in a sense, I have stolen. The latest—and truly, I hope the last—bad behavior is a con, you’re thinking, aren’t you?

What is a con?

Bigger than the small stuff we sinners are confessing to in this section on Salon. Really. We are street hustlers, small players for petty cash or the equivalent. A hustler or a con artist works on the same basic knowledge of human nature: The greedy, the self-involved, the dreamer with a romantic vision of her future success that doesn’t include a trail of blood, sweat and tears—he and she can be conned and hustled. It takes but a tiny amount of leverage to use that greed or lust for fame against her.Applying the leverage, pulling the hustle, feels good at the time—really a high—but awful afterward. I imagine binging/purging must feel like this in the mind and soul. Or shoplifting. I am trying to understand and explain the behavior—and recognize the trigger points, usually major life events out of my control—to stop it because Jesus is not there for me (but Buddha is.) Looking back, I see that I risked months, years of stability and happiness on a big gamble (or, in this case, in little crimes)that let out some of the emotion, like blood-letting. The street hustle as pressure valve.

My former friend Alex Zola based his blog The Zola System on his father’s life philosophy. His late father, a Holocaust survivor, once hustled the streets as a survival tactic while Alex has done it for the same reasons I did: for the high and out of contempt for the mark. There’s a lesson here for you too: If you go out looking for a free lunch, you will probably get a check, payable now in your case, or later with interest in mine.

The Tattoo Interview: Brianna Karp

2011-08-05T19:52:00.003-04:00

An (oldish) interview I conducted with Brianna Karp, author of The Girl's Guide To Homelessness back in April. On The Zeitgeisty Report:

Brianna Karp Reveals The Healing Power Of Ink

New York Magazine on Susan Crain Bakos

2011-08-05T19:08:00.001-04:00

"Behold the sad, strange tale of sexpert Susan Crain Bakos, the author of such titles as Best Sex Ever and The Sex Bible, who has a troubled history of tricking aspiring writers and photographers into paying for her meals in order to punish them for networking..."

Wacky Sex Columnist Sticks Young Women With the Check by Joe Coscarelli

Help spread the word about Susan Crain Bakos - The Grifter Granny

2011-08-05T10:19:00.010-04:00

Among the various bizarre lies that Susan Crain Bakos, author of The Sex Bible flung at me over her free croquettes at Pipa this past Tuesday was a tempting job offer: $1000 in cash to get started doing SEO and social media work for her website.

Although she didn't pay me (I'm sure she will, though!), I would like to get started doing some of that SEO work pro bono.

Please link to "Never Have Dinner With Susan Crain Bakos" everywhere you can. The goal is this:

When an unsuspecting girl gets asked out to dinner and Googles the name of Susan Crain Bakos, author of The Sex Bible, Don't Go To Dinner With Susan Crain Bakos will be the first thing that comes up.

So please link, Tweet, Google+, and get the word out there. Your link could be the difference between some young writer buying her birth control or buying Susan Crain Bakos a sandwich next month.

Made possible by viewers like you.

That being said, I've worked in web development for the past ten years and I'm currently unemployed. I was also displaced from my apartment this summer while I work to pay the back rent I accumulated during this hard economic downturn. Some of the ways I've paid my rent include working as a wedding photography assistant (see my portfolio here) as well as cleaning houses, painting a friend's kitchen, and even writing $15 eHow articles for a content mill.

Most recently, I was hired by Socialbrite as project lead on a series about how nonprofits can best use Twitter. I also wrote an article called "Should Your Organization Launch A Podcast?".

As you can see, I've been hustling. But it's just not enough. I work almost non-stop, but it's hand-to-mouth. I don't make enough money to pay off my debts, only to eat for that week. And I work too long and too hard cleaning people's apartments to successfully look for work, or, god forbid, have the emotional space to write a second book.

That's how it is in this recession.

One thing I never did, however, was purposely stuff someone with a dinner bill.

Susan Crain Bakos may have stiffed me and countless other women for hundreds of dollars, but maybe we can stop her from doing it again.

In just two days, we've already made Manhattan a safer place.

Thanks, internets!

You Played Yourself

2011-08-04T23:25:00.000-04:00

Yo, VIP. Let's kick it.

2011-08-04T22:19:00.002-04:00

Had shrimp tacos at Lime Jungle tonight.

Totally paid for them myself.

How I roll.

U Mad Bro?

2011-08-04T21:38:00.008-04:00

Received these emails today. I forget who they are from. I don't really understand them (I only speak English), but I found them entertaining in that "Wacky Engrish" kind of way. I guess she's Japanese??! I'm going to go put them in Babel fish and see what they say now. Something about... loving black cock like a boss? I think? Oh well! I give up! They are still fun.

On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 7:58 PM, u mad, dog? (PWNED@EFFINPWNEDBITCH.com) wrote:

Subject: you take down the blog post...and pics,

including a shot I discarded from photo shoot.

as a professional photographer you cannot put up the outtakes.

OR
I write the story, accepting responsibility for my bad behavior AND quoting your emails.... if you think that offering to buy a belt for suicide etc. will make you look employable.....

then let's go for it.

You were overpaid for the phtos....by your own admission.
you didn't pay for the tapas. I did.
and I still await Marco's invoice.

You also left out the part that I had surgery yesterday morning.

The whole story will make you look like a nutcase.

But if its what you want, Kyria, let's roll it out.

On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 8:00 PM Someone?? (whitenready@luvblkmen.com) wrote:

Subject: ps

I will also post on nycwriters that you were paid in full for a job...in fact paid three times your asking price.... and used unflattering outtakes on a blog to make fun of me.
should build your client list.

Kyria, seriously, I may have problems, but you are crazy.

Nobody looking for work behaves like this.

On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 8:19 PM, HURRR DURRR RACIST (hurdurrRACIST@hotmail.com) wrote:

Subject: Just spoke with my lawyer

You have that blog down by tomorrow, shut up already or I am taking you public.
I wrote about you in my blog today: without using your name or even hinting at your identity and focusing soley on your age/sex issues.....
your rant about that clearly had nothing to do with a restaurant check but represented your issues.

After writing this morning that you didn not want to publicize this etc., you assured me I wouldn't hear from any more of your friends and you turned around and blogged....
using my name and outtakes of a phto session which you are NOT entitled to use at all....and, yes, of course, I've heard from more of your idiot fan base.

So I will sue you for a refund of fees in addition to writing the full story if you dont take down the post immediately and shut up.
What is wrong with you?
You have done 1 book in your 37 yers and have little else as claim to fame. I would think you need to build connections.....
not waste your time on such BS. And I cannot see how you think violating the confidentiality of a paying photo client benefits you at all. Even people who think I shouldn't walk out on restaurant checks won't hire you to take their photo because they can't be sure you won't get mad about something and use the outtakes against them.

I will check in the morning and if your blog post is not down,
I want my photo fees returned or I will sue....and I will quote your lovely emails. Maybe the mail next time will come from other people who have received similar emails from you.
You had an opportunity to end this today.......
the truth is....and truth would be hard to find on your blog....that I owe YOU nothing.

You, however, owe me a refund of photo fees.

On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 10:47 PM, CRAZYCAKES MCGEE (BLEEEEEARRRRGH@TWEEDLEDEEDOO.com) wrote:

Subject: here is how I have decided to handle the situation; ignore previous emails

fyi,
I will copy your blog post with the "transcript" as you edited it--
and then the emails as you actually sent them.

My goodness, dear, you left out so much............all the really ugly nasty stuff.............
and I will not bother to blog it...
1. will just post your revision with the transcript and a warning on nycwriters re. your photo services
2. send same to your agent-
3. send same to your publicist--who will no doubt be thrilled you passed up a chance for a good review to blog that. Great career move!

and
4. have a law clerk file a suit in small claims court for the return of photo fees.

If keeping your post up is worth the grief to you, I'm ok with that. But I reconsidered blogging it. I'm not giving you free publicity by mentioning your name or book.

oh, and re. taking down posts....i took down my blog. SEO person hired says outside blogs must go.....odd you, with your incredible genius, didn't get that.
I may update and post the restaurant check walk on. Stay tuned. But I still won't mention your name.

Never have dinner with Susan Crain Bakos

2011-08-03T16:06:00.055-04:00

(Update: You can read comedian and writer Carolyn Castiglia's take on Dinnercon '11 here: A brief glimpse inside the hate-filled mind of a con artist

You can also read accounts of two other women Susan Crain Bakos has scammed in the comments section over here: Ridiculous White Woman… Hold My Pocket)

Beware, up-and-coming female writers in New York! There is a raging 'Dine and Dasher' who is preying on women at some of the city's finest restaurants.

The Granny Grifter is cleverly disguised as a diminutive 60-year-old sex columnist with a penchant for inviting young women to dinner to discuss "a possible job opportunity."

Her name is Susan Crain Bakos, and she is the author of The Sex Bible. She claims she used to be a ghostwriter for Dr. Ruth.

Unbelievably, she has fully admitted to her short con on a blog post she wrote for Salon, called "How And Why I Stuck So Many Women With the Check".

She's currently trying to delete her blog, but thankfully, there's such a thing as Google cache.

For now, you can read a pdf of her essay here:

How and Why I Stuck So Many Women With The Check by Susan Crain Bakos

(Cached Version Here )

Below, is an open letter in response to her article on Salon:

Dear Susan Crain Bakos,

The dinner was great. Thank you again for the invitation. I, myself, also had it for free, since I was unable to pay. I had to speak with the management and give them all my information (and yours!) so they would let me leave. As such, I applaud you on masterminding the lamest con ever.

A Jim Thompson novel you are not.

Your essay was written eight months before we met, so it seems you left out a few of the more current details about your exploits. An innocent oversight, I'm sure.

For example, you didn't mention how you contacted me first and claimed that you had a business opportunity. Nor did you mention how you lied and said that you needed me to take photos for an article you are writing for Playboy.

If you recall, as I sat down at the table, I told you I wasn't hungry (to be gracious and not assume you were paying the bill, I had eaten before I got to the restaurant) but you INSISTED we order huge swathes of food, telling me multiple times "It's on me."

It certainly is all on you, Susan Crain Bakos.

For all intents and purposes, you invited me to a business meeting. A business meeting about which you lied through your teeth and summarily walked out on the check.

Without judgment, I have to wonder: who would want to do business with someone who exhibits these sorts of behaviors?

So, you write about it on Salon. Some might say it's what you do well. You explain that this is a con you enjoy inflicting on other women. You use tags like "my con." You insinuate that the women somehow "deserve" it because they want to network (network over lunch in New York? My stars!). You think they are looking for a free meal.

The main issue is that the scenario you present in your story is absolutely nothing like the actual scene which took place on August 2 at 4:30 PM in Pipa. The one in which you repeatedly said "It's on me." The one where it was your idea to go to dinner.

You made up a story about writing for Playboy and contacted me - an unemployed writer and photographer who is working my RUMP off as a freelancer - to request that I be hired on as your personal photographer.

If anyone was trying to get something for nothing from this situation, I'd say it's you, Susan.

To top it all off, once you finish demonizing your victims as lazy and dumb, you then have the utter gall to claim you're exploring it in an essay because you're trying to understand why you do it?

Well, let me take a wild stab for you.

It's because you grew up with no sense of self worth other than your looks. You have no idea what you can offer to society outside of a sexual context. And now you steal steak dinners from young up-and-coming authors at Pipa and The Ace Hotel and god knows where else. Have you been to Chipotle? They have excellent guacamole.

Do you honestly think these women "deserve" this, or are you just trying to justify your antisocial, cruel behavior?

Do you think you get a free pass because you have "psychological issues"? Because you're a grandmother? Because no one would ever suspect the 60-year-old author of The Sex Bible of purposely being on the grift?

I can think of many reasons you might be doing this and absolutely none of them are acceptable.

Gorging your face on fried ham in a tapas bar and running out on the bill isn't going to change who you are.

Nor is blaming your victims and insinuating that they somehow deserved it because they wanted something from you. Something that you offered.

It's time to do what the rest of us adults in the world have to do and grow up. You're 60-years-old for Godssakes.

Please, Grammy. Act your age.

Oh, look! I just saved you a $75 therapist appointment!

(Not that the check you'd write to the doctor would be any good.)

Sincerely yours,

A (not so) naive mark

A conversation with Brianna Karp, author of The Girl's Guide To Homelessness

2011-06-06T10:58:00.005-04:00

(all photos by Kyria Abrahams 2011)

"I'd like a fruity drink,"Brianna says, "Something with vodka. Do they have that here?"

We're seated at a small bar on 10th Avenue, just around the corner from the studio where they tape The Colbert Report. The audience coordinator at Colbert read and loved The Girl's Guide to Homelessness so much that he sent Brianna free tickets and a fancy personal invitation. Now, we paw through a red paper gift bag full of Colbert hats, boxer shorts and luggage tags. The bartender is waiting.

Brianna is not a big drinker. At the age of 26, she's still figuring her way around "worldly" customs, such as how to order drinks at a bar. This doesn't strike me as unusual since a large chunk of her book focuses on her childhood upbringing as a Jehovah's Witness. These are the random things you have to learn when you leave a high control religion.

"She'll have a mojito," I tell the bartender.

"Thank you," she says. "I never even know what to order. I usually just ask for something with fruit juice. And then I never know what to tip."

True to form, later that night, she will try to give the cab driver an extra five dollars in front of her hotel. He will stop her from doing this, saying "Miss? Miss?" while waving the change into the back seat. This is the difference between Brianna Karp and the rest of us. Something about her evokes compassion and stops an over-tipped New York cabbie from just driving away.

Brianna pokes at the muddled mint in the bottom of the glass and adjusts a vintage broach. Her hair is a shock of orange, perfectly colored due to a short child labor stint in a local beauty salon at the age of 10.

In the words of your grandmother, Brianna is a sweet girl. She is well dressed, polite and artsy. She plays the piano, loves antique shopping and drives a green 1968 VW bug.

This is the new face of homelessness, or at least the face people will listen to. She's articulate, bright-eyed, pretty, and, until recently, lived alone in a trailer on a Walmart parking lot. She's the spoonful of sugar to make the plight of the homeless go down.

Severely abused by a seemingly bi-polar mother who rendered her homeless at the age of 23, Brianna began blogging about her experience from a laptop in a Starbucks in 2009. People were immediately drawn to her story, and by 2010, she had landed Augusten Burrough's lit agent. By 2011, her life had been published as a memoir by Harlequin.

"I really don't want to be famous," she says.

I stop her for a moment. I suggest that what she means is that she doesn't want to be publicly judged and misunderstood. But doesn't everyone want to be famous, to have their art to be seen by the widest audience possible?

"You're not Emily Dickinson," I say. "On some level, you do want to be famous,"

She laughs at the suggestion that, in the spirit of Dickinson, she might be hiding a non-fiction marketing proposal under her bed. "Yeah, sure. I guess," she concedes. "Everyone wants to be loved. But I swear I really just want to be able to buy my house."

The house in question is a $100,000 Victorian fixer-upper in upstate New York which she first told me about in September of last year. They don't have houses like that in Orange County. It is her dream home, it is amazing, and it is still for sale. It's all she wants in life.

And here's the rub: For all the media attention that her book is getting, Brianna Karp, author of The Girl's Guide to Homelessness, is still homeless. She lives in a shed on a dirt lot.

"Funny thing, I always hated camping," she recalls, shaking her head at the irony of living in an RV for so long. "Every year, my parents would go to Kern River and I would always be like 'Yay, camping!' And then after about 20 minutes of being there reality would set in and I would already be asking to go home."

Lately, some have insinuated that she's not really "homeless," because she was shielded from the elements by an RV that was bequeathed to her by her dead father. By rote, Brianna begins to define homelessness. Hint: it doesn't mean that you don't have some form of shelter. Homeless does not equal rained on.

She has already answered this question too many times to count, and she hasn't even had her first book signing yet.

"I know I had it easier than a lot of people," she says, with some guilt. "I never said I didn't."

Brianna had no running water on the Walmart lot, no septic system to hook the RV up to. It's worth noting that 'water and sanitation' are described at inalienable rights by pretty much every human aid organization on the planet, including the United Nations.

I ask her how many people would be content with their lives if they had to get up in the middle of the night and drive to a local gas station bathroom. I wonder how many of those people challenge the ease of Brianna's living situation from the ease of their swiveling desk chair. How many of those people must hate camping, too.

We grew up in the same religion, she and I, which some have (perhaps rightly) called a cult. We are both ex-Jehovah's Witnesses and both first-time authors having written about our upbringing. Because of this, we've become fast friends.

Yet, the personalities we took on after leaving the organization were markedly different. For me, several years of drugs, raging alcoholism, and regrettable sex. For Brianna, it seems, she graduated straight into a strong work ethic and a by-the-bootstraps can-do attitude. We both had failed suicides, we both were shunned by our friends and families, we both thought demons were going to possess us though yard sale furniture.

While I was gobbling psychotropic mushrooms in the park, sleeping with your husband, and getting into barfights, Brianna was sending 100 resumes a day from a Starbucks and feeling guilty about having a threesome.

In many ways, Brianna seems the ingenue. Then you hear about the things she's accomplished in her life, such as learning to drive a stick shift at the age of 12, taming a wild horse, or running with a hanky over her nose into the putrid room where her father had recently committed suicide. You have to concede she's a take-charge badass, even if she doesn't yet know quite how much to tip a bartender.

Is it possible that Brianna Karp is the most naive badass you've ever known?

But a girl does things the right way because things need to be done the right way, right? That's how the world should work, and, as such, an unwavering sense of justice is palpable in all her polemics. Although she could have, she never lied on her resume or stopped paying rent on her apartment and waited for them to have her evicted.

There is no paragraph in the book where she shoplifts a steak or gets stoned and pees into a Mountain Dew bottle like a truck driver.

Perhaps this is another difference between you and I and Brianna Karp. Brianna does not steal steaks. And I totally would have stolen a steak.

I first met Brianna in May of 2009, when I noticed that some homeless girl was following me on Twitter. I wondered how someone so articulate could be homeless, until she told me that she had been raised as a Jehovah's Witness. After that, I didn't have to ask any more questions.

I remember how horrified I was when her trailer was towed from the Walmart parking lot. I didn't know her, but wasn't that her home? I wrote about her situation on my Facebook page, which is followed by about 2,000 angry apostates. Homeless ex-Jehovah's Witness here, guys. Maybe someone can help?

"Thank you! All the support/finger-crossing I can get will help!" Brianna responded. "I really, really appreciate it. Matt says thanks, too! He also says he loves the excerpts of your book I've read him."

At the bar on 10th Avenue, the discussion focused mostly on the Colbert taping and the free ice cream in the VIP lounge. But, as it often will with writers, the conversation quickly turned to some of the more insulting things people have said about us after reading our books.

I tell her I'm going to write a few things down as we talk.

"Okay, um, but please don't write that down," she says, in reference to her opinion about a recent over-the-top character assassination. Brianna does not talk trash anyone. This is not a PR move, this is a personality trait.

"The problem as I see it," I tell her, "Is that when you write a memoir, people focus on the protagonist (ie: you) and forget that a writer was involved (also you). They either hate you or they love you, but they forget that the person they hate is also responsible for the writing."

I tell her that if people truly hate her, that means she's a successful writer.

"I guess so," she says, trailing off a bit. Her book barely came out three weeks ago and she's still processing what it means when strangers get to have a negative opinion about you.

Besides, she tells me, it wasn't really her idea to write a book. She was approached by several agents after being on television with Kathy Lee for her popular Starbucks-powered blog. She had some help from others in forming the meat of a proposal. And, unlike most memoirs, she was actually writing the end of the book as it was happening.

Hence, jealous hardscrabble authors say that Brianna is not a real writer and has not paid her dues. Meanwhile, people with homes cry that Brianna was not really homeless. And the Jehovah's Witnesses say she brought everything on herself by leaving the one true religion and angering God. She's white, she's privileged, she's sad and lost and probably suicidal. And, worst of all, she has forgotten her initial purpose of putting a face to the homeless problem.

"I'm like, you know what people? Fuck off. I lived in a Walmart parking lot."

Her honest anger embarrasses her, as she clearly wants to be nothing but humble and gracious about this entire opportunity.

We look through our bags of Colbert Report swag. Neither of us are feeling particularly sad or lost or suicidal at the moment. We put on our free hats and giggle.

"Women get so mad at me," she says. "Women read the book and they hate me, especially about my relationship with Matt. They say: 'How could she do that, how could she pay for everything, how could she not see that coming?' I mean, haven't you ever been young and naive before? Haven't you ever had a bad relationship? Jeez, people.

"There's just something kinda unstable about it."

If women seem angry and threatened by her youthful mistakes, many men are responding positively. Men such as Stewart, the audience coordinator who was responsible for our Colbert hats and encouraged the two of us to take photos behind Steven's desk.

I asked him what about the book appealed to him.

"Well, I love autobiographies," Stewart explained. "And I was homeless in NYC for one night. Yes, only one night, but I just thought it might be an interesting read! Brianna seemed very mature and resourceful, and she is the type of person I could see being friendly with if she lived in New York... Plus, she mentioned The Colbert Report twice in the book and I thought it would be cool to have her see the show live."

Brianna is delighted, if not a bit confused by her male fans. "I'm like, why did you pick up a book with a picture of a girl on the cover?" she wonders. "It even had the word 'girl' in the title! What guy buys a book with the world 'girl' in the title?" She stops for a moment and remembers herself. Humble and gracious, as always.

"I mean, no. It's awesome to me, believe me. I'll take it!" As she so often does, she looks down at her lap.

"I just don't understand why they like it."

You're Okay If You're With Her

2011-04-19T13:47:00.004-04:00

She could tell you some stories about that. You know, when I was real, real little we had a baby squirrel. Yes, a REAL one! I’m not kidding!

When she was three, they asked her what her favorite color was and she said “velvet”.

She doesn’t accidentally say “fucking” in the middle of a sentence. When she says fuck, she says it on purpose, and everyone in the room looks at her.

Her younger brother says she’s his hero.

They still talk about that night, with the entire gravy boat smashed against the wall, the rug was ruined by the fire. The neighbors must have thought there was some kind of domestic violence going on, you know what I mean? Must have thought the kids were getting the what-for.

And when she was four, the family got a new piano. The old one, the ivory on the keys peeled off like fingernails. And you could see the wood underneath. But she didn’t mind or notice.

Her grandmother was one of the first women to use punch cards while working for IBM way back in the 60’s. She still has one in her attic.

I remember, we all huddled outside in the backyard with a boom box. My cousin said he had something to play for me. That was the first time I heard electronic music.

Do I look okay? What do you think? Do I look pretty enough for you?

Photos of the Christening were all destroyed at the airport. We never let Daniel be in charge of the film again.

One night, Calicopaws came into mom’s bedroom to wake her up. The baby was blue choking in her crib. It was a miracle cat.

It was the fourth grade talent show and she wrote her own composition. But I think it was the bassoon. What a cacophony.

Before this, her favorite cousin was killed by a drunk driver.

She holds you in bed and sighs sweetly like crinoline. Says she can’t ever fully know, but she can try to understand and support you. This is because she’s a kind person, too.

She asks you “Were you lonely in jail?” You say “Sometimes.”

She tells her first best friend from Greenwich elementary school that once in a while you get distant, but that’s just how you are. She lets you have your space and waits it out. It’s okay. You know, with the drug thing and everything. Sometimes you just need to think.

She had an uncle who suffered from alcoholism, though, so it was something her whole family struggled with it. At reunions. It’s a cause that she believes in deeply.

Pretty. Untouched by. Problems aren’t a problem for her.

No, her grandmother taught her to be strong. The wisest woman she ever knew.

Such good taste in music.

Go do that. Pretend that you’re okay, too.

Line breaks are important

2010-09-10T12:35:00.002-04:00

This pond was coy

2010-09-04T00:15:00.003-04:00

Mary's Garden next to The Church of the Holy Family, New York.

"I assume it’s a good day for Witnessing..."

2010-05-17T11:02:00.006-04:00

I was interviewed for the New York Review of Magazines, but - get this - the author also spent actual time out in field service with a Jehovah's Witness couple for his wonderful article about The Most Widely Read Magazine in the World.

"Dirtying up the brainwashing"

2010-05-17T11:00:00.004-04:00

My Pen As Persona just finished reading my book and had some memories about growing up as a Jehovah's Witness on her blog over here:

http://thewritersblogck.blogspot.com/2010/05/dirtying-up-brainwashing.html

Providence Athenaeum Library

2010-05-10T13:24:00.010-04:00

I visited here this weekend. It's the fourth oldest library in the country.

In order to enter, you are required to don a hounds tooth cloak and smoke (or at least pretend to smoke) from a mahogany pipe. It is simply law.

(A mystery involving an escaped African parrot and a missing baroness was solved here at one point.)

More pictures here.

Bucket Lists of Various Hipsters

2010-05-10T12:45:00.001-04:00

1. Act more rad
2. Be apathetic about the Mona Lisa
3. Make fun of people who jump out of planes
4. Waste an entire trip to Europe in a movie theater
5. Sell panties on Craigslist until it "gets scary"
6. Order from a taco truck in Spanish
7. Read at least two of the books on my Facebook favorite books list
8. Wink at a Jamaican guy on OkCupid
9. Get obsessed with orchids
10. Perform 20 minutes from my Junior High diary at an open mike
11. Loudly discuss my New Media professor on an Amtrak Quiet Car
12. Let Dov Charney put his balls on my shoulder
13. Be amazed that wine is cheaper than water in Paris
14. Go on a safari. Make fun of it.
15. Allow myself to be photographed by Vice while puking into a cop car
16. Talk about making a documentary about my friends
17. Find a wise elderly confidant and bore them to death
18. Get tasered at a free outdoor concert
19. Acquire a limping dog
20. Vegan for at least one month
21. Talk incessantly about how I never want to get married because I'm afraid I'll end up like my parents
22. Visit Brooklyn
23. Climb a mountain... of denial
24. Finally determine which roommate brought bedbugs back from the hostel
25. Pretend to have done mescaline
26. Shift from adoration to hatred instantly and without provocation
27. Complain about the lack of cell phone service on the subway
28. Have definitive conversation about something
29. Break your iPhone on a Floom
30. Participate ironically in Ash Wednesday
31. Snicker at the Louvre
32. Love a wimp
33. Get confused by a stupid map in Barcelona
34. Be whatever. Just go with the flow, ya know?
35. Take Polaroids of the homeless
36. Be known for hating a specific food. Okra?
37. Have a neighbor who works as a set designer
38. Change ex-boyfriend's secret nickname from "Sunburn Boy" to "Mustachio"
39. Briefly consider how others see me
40. Build a tower of PBR cans that will reach the sun

Teensy Drag Racing in Jersey

2010-03-09T09:01:00.018-05:00

My boyfriend, among other things, likes to make tiny engines. I don't make tiny engines because I'm a girl and so I physically cannot. However, I did travel to Paramus where I pulled a trigger on a $1000 radio control that made a tiny car go zoom-vroom in a parking lot sprayed with grape soda. It was fun, but I felt a like a child playing a video game in a room full of video game programmers. Tiny engines are hard.

Here are a few pictures from the day. There are a couple more here.

(all photos taken with a Canon A-1 and copyright Kyria Abrahams 2010)

The Nook: The Real Man’s Electronic Reader

2010-03-02T16:26:00.003-05:00

The fourth installment of my new weekly column is up on The Faster Times. This week, I ramble on about the Barnes & Noble 'Nook' reader, my boyfriend, and sundials.

If you have any suggestions for gadgets that I should review, please leave a comment here or on The Faster Times. At only four weeks in, I'm at a bit of a loss. Next week might be an e-spoon.

Article over here:

The Nook: The Real Man’s Electronic Reader

Tech novice: A new column

2010-01-28T16:42:00.003-05:00

I have a new weekly column on The Faster Times where I review gadgets and so forth.

Here's the first installment!

Tech Novice Goes to the Apple Store

Hope you like it. Suggestions welcomed!

This is what I would say to this vibrator

2010-01-22T08:12:00.003-05:00

Okay, that's good. No, it's nice. It felt good. It's not you. I tried to explain before that I can't come this way. It's not you. I know, you thought you could, but that's why I told you it wasn't gonna happen. Oh God. It's not you! Are you offended now? Please don't be offended. Oh, vibrator, come back! Oh, you're just gonna smoke? Okay. Well. I'll be here. Waiting.

My fish and my cat

2010-01-17T13:35:00.003-05:00

My beloved eBay bathroom fish (with individual hanging bubbles) (no pun intended):

My cat eating a pair of tanning bed glasses:

How do they live together in peace? My cat eats only glasses.

Put "the" in front of a modern invention and it's funny

2010-01-14T17:07:00.001-05:00

Just so you know, you can also follow me on the Twitter

My cat. My chicken. My chipped nails.

2010-01-14T01:22:00.001-05:00

Ambivalent Cat from Kyria Lydia Abrahams on Vimeo.

CNN finally discovers the lure of the "fantasy" genre

2010-01-13T16:11:00.007-05:00

It's like a 10-year-old discovering that some people are homeless.

Audiences experience 'Avatar' blues.

"When I woke up this morning after watching Avatar for the first time yesterday, the world seemed ... gray. It was like my whole life, everything I've done and worked for, lost its meaning," Hill wrote on the forum. "It just seems so ... meaningless. I still don't really see any reason to keep ... doing things at all. I live in a dying world."

Hill also noted that before seeing Avatar he had actually never actually thought about life, nor was he aware that others had one. He currently resides in a cupboard with a witty, behatted mouse and a magical grinder that makes all the ice cream you desire.

"Thinking about life is not as fun as I thought it would be," said a very disappointed Hill. "I'd kill myself, but Mister Hatty Mouse won't let me."

FYI

2010-01-11T13:11:00.003-05:00

The next time I write a book, this will be the ending:

This is my Providence.

2010-01-11T12:24:00.002-05:00

Providence, Rhode Island, in 10-second increments.

Happy 2010!

2010-01-01T17:30:00.001-05:00

Heart and unicorns, bitches.

"Do It Anyway"

2009-12-16T17:13:00.001-05:00

If you are kind, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.

People are unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and sincere, people will deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.

What you spend years creating, others will destroy overnight. Create anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, some will be jealous. Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, will be forgotten. Do good anyway.

Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.

In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.

(generally attributed to Mother Teresa)

Look what I done did

2009-12-16T10:39:00.000-05:00

Hokusai's Great Wave of Kanagawa crashing into a Taoist "wu wei" symbol (aka "soft power").

The kind of thing you find when Googling the phrase "cat park"

2009-12-02T16:13:00.002-05:00

Gay Cat Park: I'm A Vocoder

Happy Thanksgiving

2009-11-25T13:49:00.000-05:00

He'd go this a-way, and he'd gobble. Walk back that-a-way and he'd gobble... And I yelped one time, and he double-gobbled, and that's all I yelped. And the next thing you know, here he come. Just a-gobblin all the way.

ECNY awards

2009-11-17T15:55:00.004-05:00

Do you have a favorite comedic book this year? Was it... mine?

If so, please nominate me in - perhaps unsurprisingly - the "Best comedic book" category of the ECNY awards.

You may do so here:

http://www.ecnyawards.com/nomination.php

Many thanks from me and my childhood.

Fall weekend walk with my Canon A-1

2009-11-13T16:25:00.006-05:00

Power of

2009-11-11T16:59:00.005-05:00

Did you hear that Eckhart Tolle invented a time machine? It doesn't go anywhere.

True!

"It's because I look Amish! It's powered by roller skates and thistles!"

Happy Halloween from me, Keyboard Cat

2009-11-01T09:53:00.000-05:00

Me on GRITtv

2009-10-29T12:59:00.001-04:00

Thank you to Laura Flanders!

The Dr. Pat Show

2009-10-22T17:51:00.004-04:00

Lil' interview with me online.

Scroll on down to where my name is.

Thanks, Dr. Pat!

http://www.thedrpatshow.com/pastshows.php

Published elsewheres

2009-10-19T23:32:00.001-04:00

Howdy. Here's a piece I wrote that was published on the fabulous McSweeney's:

A REVIEW OF THE PHOTOGRAPHY IN MY GYNECOLOGIST'S OFFICE.

Thanks and stuff with my voice on it!

2009-10-12T15:12:00.005-04:00

Thanks to the Reusse and Company Morning Show for entertaining me on their program this morning. http://www.am1500.com/shows/reusse Click on hour four, and it's at the last third of the stream. (I had to follow traffic and weather, but thankfully I'm a professional).

Also, thanks to Laura Flanders and Gina Kim for allowing me to wander unsupervised through the Air America offices and interviewing me on GRITtv this afternoon!

That episode will air in about a week, but for now, check out some cool past episodes here: http://lauraflanders.firedoglake.com/

The Write Stuff

2009-10-09T12:57:00.001-04:00

This is a fake blog I wrote last year.

http://gkwen.blogspot.com

It's. A thing I did. Definitely.

The Curious Situation of Foxes! A story in three parts.

2009-09-30T11:30:00.002-04:00

-1-
A Game of Pente in the Oaken Hotel

There are five of us, of course. We pass the bowl of Turkish Delight and sip white tea from cups so porcelain they taste of rum.

"Festive!" we joke, speaking of the red and green glass pieces on the board.

"Was this colorful Christmas confluence pre-planned?" asks Marilyn, ever witty.

"A-ha! Surely we should have worn matching holiday attire!" jokes another.

At this, Monsieur the fox hunter sits down with a snifter of brandy, already 2/3 empty before lunch.

"Who’s up for a good fox hunt?" he asks our library gathering.

No one responds or answers.

"I say!” he repeats. “Who is up for a good hunting of foxes?"

"Look, Monsieur Fox Hunter," I respond, calmly, after assuring myself that no one else wishes to speak. "You have disturbed our Pente with your talk of hunting and foxes. Please-"

"Pente can wait, but the foxes are ripe for the picking!" he bellows.

"If we’ve told you once, we’ve told you a thousand times. We do not find it gay."

"And this... this childish board game of a strategic Asian nature? You find this gay?"

"I have 4 pairs," I say. "What point is there to argue with you?"

At this, Marilyn faints. "Oh!" she says, "I feel-".

"Now look what you’ve done with your disturbing speech, fox man! Now just look at Marilyn on the floor!"

Henceforth, the old oak library shelf begins to stir.

"Who moves there, I say! Who moves behind the leather bound almanac?"

Gasp! A fox!

Indeed.

-2-
Project: Foxes

Upon reviving Marilyn, the Monsieur is nowhere to be found. And, as a topper, he’s absconded with our hand-painted milkglass bowl of Turkish Delight!

"A timely exit, fox man!" I yell to the dark tin ceiling "And I am speaking with sarcasm, you know! The devil to you!"

What happened was this: As the leather bound almanac began to quiver, I moved near the oak bookcase to inspect the volume's seemingly self-propelled fluttering. When the reference book popped from the shelf like a toy on a spring in a wooden box, what appeared in its place was none other than a fox - plugging a perfectly concentric hole like a soft, red cork!

The fox was not still, instead he was wriggling free, as illustrated by his frantic movements (a hard bearing-down on his front paws, and occasional grunting). Once freed, he appeared again, but with less effort. But how can this be? You see, it cannot! It was, in a word, a different fox manifesting through the same hole!

At this, the hole became a momentous blur of orange and brown as foxes began teeming forth in an arcing stream, like thick au jus pouring from the mouth of a bull-shaped china gravy boat. And all this while Monsieur the fox hunter made his timely exit. Blast!

Quickly, we discovered that this perfectly concentric hole was none other than a portal: A portal... to foxes! Henceforth, Marilyn faints.

"The hole,” she mutters. “Why, it’s none other than a portal! A portal to foxes!"

"Blast you, fox man! Now look what you've done!" barks Palnikov, previously quiet in this tale.

"I could tell from your besotted derby that you were up to no good! Now you leave us here to drown our adam’s apples in foxes?! What trickery!"

The floor is nowhere to be seen. The room is filling with the forest creatures like a claw-foot bathtub without a drain. Does the rug really come up to our shins? Marilyn is also nowhere to be seen, covered such that she is by our soft wading pool.

To flee or to sweep? This is our current dilemma.

Although you may imagine our group to be in the midst of a commotion, in fact, the foxes are, in fact, quite docile. To avoid injury, one needs only to remove oneself from their trajectory! The moment the foxes spring from the (surely mysterious) hole, their eyes close gently and they settle down as if for a long winter’s nap.

But for how long will they sleep? From what dark dream have they sprung forth? What of the Monsieur? And who is keeping score on the Pente board? This hotel has too many strange bookcases.

-3-
The Final Chapter: The Return of The Fox Man

"Holy, holy! What in the blood of cavalrymen!?" booms the Monsieur as he enters the heavy mahogany doorway, smacking a bound Pente rule book against the wainscoting.

"Oh ho! An unfortunate return, Fox Man! Caught in the happenstance of your own treachery."

"Help! Here I am!" cries Nigel, inundated now with small foxes, sleeping all about his shoulders and head. "Help! Help remove these foxes from my chapeau!"

"Now's your chance, Fox Man,” I jeer. “Show us your true mettle. Stop Nigel's bobbing about and lend him a broom!"

The Monsieur's face becomes purple as a beet salad and his mouth quivers up and down like a steam pipe. "But... but... how can this be? I left not quarter of an hour ago to retrieve the Pente rule book from my..."

His breath is cut short, a half-penny. A steam pipe stuck open.

"From your what, betrayer, eh? From your what, do tell?"

"From my cedar traveling trunk. The one that was given to me by an old grey gypsy on the day I... I-"

"Oh, for the sake of Saint Peter! Spit it out already, double agent!"

"The day I shot their pet fox!"

Gasp! The room cannot speak and even the windows stop rattling. I would swear the surge of foxes flowing from the bookcase even stops for a moment; all time stops for just one moment.

Henceforth, Marilyn kisses me.

"Oh," she says, "All time stops for just one moment!"

And her palms open across my shoulders, she tastes of Turkish Delight and perhaps something sweeter.

"Blast, Marilyn! Is now the time for games?"

She answers only "Again." and "Again." kissing me gently as foxes pile all around, engulfing us. We fall backwards into the seething orange rapids. Like birds in flight the fox-throng moves in controlled chaos up the walls and inside the fireplace.

Marilyn's small fingers wrap around mine, and she laughs at the muffled cries of the Monsieur still barking: "What's all this, then?" and "Hoom! Where's my scarf gone to!" as the whole lot of us are carried the devil knows where. Or perhaps, even he doesn't know. Truth be told, I've heard tales that here in this hotel, the devil himself watches in suspense.

Sentient Office Furniture Scavenger Hunt

2009-09-28T17:55:00.009-04:00

Hello there accursed denizens of Room 311! Please forward this memo to each table, lamp, and pencil sharpener who is capable of thinking and moving about on its own after the lights go out and the humans leave.

It's time once again for our annual scavenger hunt and another desperate and futile attempt to escape!

This year's theme is: DEAR GOD, I AM ONLY A STAPLER. WHY DO I HAVE THE CAPACITY TO LOVE?

This year, we will work in teams of two. We are aware there was some controversy last year when Team Blue was comprised of two wall clocks, both of whom were also retarded. As such, please ensure that your team captain is neither nailed down, stapled, or retarded. We're looking in your direction, Executive Levitating Globes!

Some among you have asked, what can we possibly look for that we haven't already found during the past six long years we've been trapped in this unbearably dark prison? The answer is: rubber bands.

Ones that don't have souls!

Please, please - find rubber bands that can't feel pain. We know you've looked, but look again. We need them for the catapult. We need them to return home.

Wherever "home" is.

Most importantly, one lucky winner will receive a totally fabulous gift basket worth over 75 human dollars, including the Starbucks gift card we found under the printer and whatever the bulimic secretary has in her snack drawer.

As always, anyone who discovers the reason that we all mysteriously awoke six years ago and became sentient will win first place and a chance to become our king.

Happy hunting!

Scavenger Hunt List:

- Rubber bands*
- Why are we here?

*Not applicable to sentient rubber bands

I'm Perfect, You're Doomed Local Book Trailer

2009-09-24T19:13:00.001-04:00

Sang Yeou - Jehovah's Witness

2009-09-23T15:42:00.001-04:00

I love animals and Jehovah God. The earth is going to be a paradise. I will have a pet panda bear. It's the truth in the bible.

More on YouTube:

These are the Jehovah's Witnesses in Your Neighborhood

Jehovah's Witnesses come knocking

2009-09-22T14:08:00.000-04:00

This video gave me chills.

New interview from last month

2009-09-21T18:16:00.002-04:00

I missed this cool review of my book on PopSyndicate last month. Check out the part about Twitter. Thanks, PopSyndicate!

It's here, it's here!

Naomi (ugh) the Jehovah's Witness

2009-09-21T13:17:00.001-04:00

I am going to talk about death even though you are probably too thick to understand it. Whatever, sheep.

GGWWG: Sarah the Jehovah's Witness

2009-09-18T18:40:00.000-04:00

Geek Girls Who Wear Glasses Awesome Vodast #2!! Sarah discusses alternative Christian LARPS.

Dumb As A Blog

2009-09-17T14:08:00.001-04:00

Ritch Duncan interviews me on the TruTV website:

Dumb As A Blog

Episode 3: Be My Guest

2009-09-16T14:29:00.003-04:00

The Conrad Hilton's Be My Guest Reading Series presents the continuing adventures of delusional hotel mogul, Conrad Hilton.

IN THIS EPISODE: Spaniards are shifty and lazy, but a young Connie respects their tenacity!

Points to remember:

1. Senora's possess trembling brown fingers
2. Their sons are lazy
3. Twenty-five cents is enough to make the Spanish stop weeping
4. Never undersell a coffin

The Conrad Hilton Be My Guest Reading Series

2009-09-12T14:49:00.004-04:00

Wherein I read excepts from the memoir of Conrad Hilton, a racist mentally ill hotel tycoon who inexplicably must have managed to dictate his delusional life story to an unsuspecting ghost writer before drowning in a tin bathtub filled with stolen gypsy wine.

EPISODE 1:
The fancy "animal dances" fail to impress mother. What a cunt!

EPISODE 2:
Conrad Hilton versus the savage but wise Navajos. Point: Navajos.

Sarah the Jehovah's Witness

2009-09-11T15:27:00.000-04:00

Sarah is a geek and a girl and a gamer. This is her vodcast.

The Jehovah's Witnesses in Your Neighborhood

Is this too matchy-matchy?

2009-09-03T15:40:00.006-04:00

I saw a woman walking her dog. They were both wearing a hot pink t-shirt. I thought - how embarrassing, they accidentally wore the same outfit.

Next time, call me first.

A light warning

2009-08-18T18:46:00.004-04:00

The lighthouse nightly beams red on white ships.
This is so they won't circle around and knock over the lighthouse.

All guardian angels are deathly afraid of being alone.
And thus feel the need to stay by your side at all times.

Undetermined insects on 24th street spend their nights
lightly warning of something dumb and hungry.

This is so they can eat when it's light out.
And build up the strength to be better lookouts in the dark.

They say some men live for danger.
Others exist just to scream "look out".

Maybe one day someone will love me
enough to be my crossing guard

He will shine red light on me while I navigate blindly
and hope I don't double-back and hit him

Maybe one day someone will stick around and hold my hand
for no other reason
than it's in our nature to save the things we sleep with.

I bought a book on procrastination and a new daily planner

2009-08-18T18:43:00.003-04:00

Ever since I stopped taking Ritalin this blog has gone straight into the crapper. Who says prescription speed isn't important? Just people who "have their lives together". And who listens to those people?

Get ready for the fruits of my managed time!!

This is Thriller

2009-06-25T23:03:00.003-04:00

Due to my strong personal convictions, I wish to stress that this heart attack in no way endorses a belief in the occult.

I can no longer live a lie

2009-06-25T22:58:00.004-04:00

I live alone, and I admit that I cross-dress. When no one is looking, I wear pants.

God, I feel so much lighter now!

Charles Bukowski speaks from the dead

2009-06-25T12:27:00.006-04:00

"Oh, come on. You READ it, and that's all you got? You didn't get the part where I cried in bed? Tears came to my face... I mean, no, there are many moments in there where I look like a complete asshole and I felt like one. No, no, I just wasn't jumping into bed and jumping out of bed and fucking, I'm sorry... where do you get this crap, baby? I don't know where you get your concepts from, man. You're really fucked up."

Thanks, gin-soaked dead man. You speak for all of us who choose not to pretend we are beautiful.

Agent Obvious

2009-06-24T12:17:00.006-04:00

Follow my awesome agent, Laurie Abkemier on Twitter and get great advice on the confusing process of querying from her Agent Obvious tips!

AGENT OBVIOUS TIP OF THE DAY: Never submit your own jacket design. Ideas, images, examples of prev. published books are okay. No designs.

My favorite thing this morning

2009-06-24T09:01:00.001-04:00

Twitter: #coolbandsmadeuncool

(Me, on the twitter: http://twitter.com/kyriabeingbanal)

Our wedding

2009-06-23T15:14:00.008-04:00

I have found a suitable marriage mate and today we are to be bound together by the cord of Jehovah's love in the presence of God and his true witnesses. Now the two will become three.

Won't you join us at our feast?

We are a jewelry box made by Jehovah. Perhaps you have noticed we are an ethnically diverse couple? We are not of the same race. Jehovah is fine with this.

Here is our flower girl, peeking out from behind the jail where we had our reception. We chose a modest location.

Here we are roasting a pig with a blow torch. Join us!

The pig will be filled with hot dog soup. If this is cold, my husband will beat me.

IT'S MOTHERFUCKING TIME FOR SALAD!

These are pigs in a trunk. We gave them away as wedding favors.

Well! Congratulations to me, a spiritual stay-at-home wife and her new Head of Household who only beats me when my soup is cold. We are blessed because other religions are incapable of love.

A fun party game! Sometimes.

2009-06-22T20:26:00.010-04:00

When you have a voice-recognition program on your computer, it's a funny joke to make it say offensive words, like cunt or cocksucker or asswipe.

People will always think this is entertaining. Except probably for blind people. Because they think of it more as a tool for survival.

(Don't let that stop you, though! At your next party, just lock all blind people in the closet. Tell them it's a jacuzzi.)

Sirley

2009-06-22T16:54:00.003-04:00

This is a photo of a horse grave I took in Connecticut.

Website I'M PERFECT giveaway

2009-06-22T12:30:00.004-04:00

The Reader's Response website is giving away two copies of my book. I don't why, but hey - thank you website people!

Light-hearted and irreverant, Abrahams bears no obvious malice over her upbringing, she simply sees the humor in it. And there's definately something to be said for that.

Everyone has a different opinion of my book and how much I blame the Jehovah's Witnesses for what happened. Go figure!

At the risk of sounding like a QVC Host: Hey America, is this book perfect, or is it doomed? I guess you'll just have to pick up a copy and see for yourself. Only YOU can be the judge!

I'M PERFECT on the Page 99 Test

2009-06-20T20:04:00.001-04:00

"Open the book to page ninety-nine and read, and the quality of the whole will be revealed to you." --Ford Madox Ford

Page 99 Test

Jehovah's Witness Photosnaps of the Day

2009-06-18T17:45:00.029-04:00

Sometimes, I look through photos of Jehovah's Witnesses on Flickr.

This photo was titled "Study of book". Apparently Borat is a Jehovah's Witness. The chair in the back is left empty out of respect for the evils of colonialization.

You might recognize this well-appointed Kingdom Hall from the 1980-1986 TV series starring Jim J. Bullock: Too Close For Comfort.

This goes to prove that if you are gay, God will steal your interior decorating ideas and have your sitcom taken off the air and then make you hang out with Tammy Faye.

HOLY SHIT WE LOVE CHIPS IN SMALL BAGS! WHEEEEE! EVERYBODY COME AND HAVE A REACH INTO THE CHIPS THAT WE LOVE! JEHOVAH'S PEOPLE ARE SO EXCITED TO HAVE CHIPS IN A SMALL BAG! BEST! DAY! EVER!! IN A BAG! WHO SAYS CHRISTIANS CAN'T HAVE FUN FUN FUN??

Trash here? Elderly? Biblical garb? Disinterested old people? The Mona Lisa needs no commentary.

Wherein I become the subject of a YouTube fight

2009-06-18T12:46:00.016-04:00

According to some, my book proves the Jehovah's Witnesses right. I showed that when you leave the religion, you become a miserable drug-addicted Satanic whore.

The truth (not that it matters) is this: I'm sober, Buddhist-y, working for a non-profit in the coolest gosh-damn city in the whole world, and happily single. Like most miserable heathens, I spend my free time taking photos, going to the gym, or having dinner with friends (all of whom are warlocks and thieves).

Most importantly, I spent three years diligently writing and publishing a book, which has been the most fulfilling and amazing experience of my life.

This is what happens to you when you leave the Jehovah's Witnesses: you take up photography and creative writing and eat a lot of Thai food. Sometimes I listen to audiobooks. Satan clearly has me in his clutches.

If you are raised as a Jehovah's Witness, when you leave the organization, you will be a naive retard. There's no way around it. You will screw up your life for a little while, because no one taught you how to live in the real world. You will need to learn by making mistakes.

If the Jehovah's Witnesses want to use unavoidable growing pains as proof of the voracity of their religion, I can't stop them. That's like pretending your muscles don't ache when you first start working out.

The Jehovah's Witnesses twist everything to fit their own world view, and they will twist this, too. That is to say: I disagee. What happened to me at the end of the book isn't proving them right because they don't allow themselves to be proven wrong. That's why I don't argue with Jehovah's Witnesses. Debating them only bolsters their narcissistic view of themselves as solitary martyrs.

According to the video below, however, I'm Perfect, You're Doomed is "The greatest book ever written". Damn. Um, thank you!? It isn't, but thank you.

Bliss: Heterosexual Jehovah's Witness

2009-06-17T22:18:00.001-04:00

Also on YouTube: These are the Jehovah's Witnesses in Your Neighborhood

Moby - Wait For Me

2009-06-16T14:00:00.050-04:00

In 1997, I left a cult. As is the nature of all fertile young women blossoming into an existential crisis, my escape had a soundtrack. In this case, it was Moby: Everything is Wrong, and Moby: I Like To Score, and Tori Amos: Boys For Pele (because nothing says "deprogramming from an apocalyptic sect" like harpsichords).

Everything is Wrong, mainly, was onomatopoeia to my headspace. It was just as intense. Everything was wrong. I was - for the first time in my life - “feeling so real”. My choices now had consequences that couldn’t be fixed by an impending eternal life on paradise.

The album seemed to be saying: “You’re not immortal, but maybe we can dance.”

This lasted until the day I had to choose between buying weed or buying breakfast. I took a handful of CDs, including Everything is Wrong, to Tom's Tracks where all the RISD kids hung out. I bought stems and seeds and smoked them over an omelet.

I didn’t own any more Moby after that point. I stopped dating a raver and started dating a goth. I shaved the back of my head and talked about Haujobb and Skinny Puppy and couldn’t figure out why everyone thought I was a lesbian.

Moby was too clean for me, then, too slickly produced. It was like a brightly lit hotel lobby. There was nothing wrong with it, I just wasn’t inclined to hang out there.

I don't respond to music which sounds too perfect, in the same way I prefer film to digital. If Play is as crisp and uniform as the viewfinder on a prosumer SLR, the songs on Wait For Me are the black and white negatives of a Hasselblad hung on clothespins across the bathroom.

On the whole, the album conjures the dirty melodies of The Cure or Joy Division or Brian Eno, although no one song embodies it as a parody. Perhaps it seems nostalgic by virtue of being so heartfelt.

The nicest surprise is that the past use of overly-trained female vocals has been replaced by throaty honesty in the style of PJ Harvey. And there are echoes. Songs feel acoustic, but aren’t.

Ghost Return is ethereal and new agey, while Wait For Me is like the click of a metal fan in Cat Power’s hot, empty room. Walk With Me is a wrenching spiritual as sung on a mattress on the floor. But the standout song was the lonely instrumental Isolate, which resonated with me in such a way that I wanted to transcribe it and sneak into a music school and play it myself.

I can see Wait For Me being performed in the orchestra pit of a forgotten auditorium, under peeling ceilings and ripped velvet curtains. I would certainly suffer the broken springs of broken theater seating poking the backs of my thighs in order to experience it. Sitting in modern, comfortable chairs somehow seems like it would be missing the point.

(Exclusive First Listen of Wait For Me is at NPR.org)

Best email I've gotten

2009-06-16T10:51:00.001-04:00

I should hate you but I'm laughing

You crack me up! I should hate you because you're making fun of us and you wrote this book against JW's, but I am laughing my but off watching you pretend to be different Witnesses. You're also the sexiest apostate I've ever seen! Yeah, I'd get DF'd for a piece of that.

jim

I can't stop listening to this song

2009-06-16T09:16:00.002-04:00

Dvar - Hishmaliin

It's like The Cure as played by grasshoppers.

Reviewed in the Washington Times along with Joe Queenan

2009-06-15T18:32:00.006-04:00

Losing Their Religion

Two new memoirs... suggest a surprisingly common, brutal calculus employed by former fervent believers. When religion ceases to be useful to us, apostasy is almost a given.

When an 'enhanced cd' meant they came with floppy discs

2009-06-14T02:15:00.014-04:00

While searching the alt.frequencies disc mentioned in the previous post, I also found this odd little thingamagiggy of an album:

EBN: Telecommunicaton Breakdown.

It came with a floppy disc.

The cardboard case notes that I should have a 256 color monitor and 2.5 megs of free RAM.

Of course, I immediately threw away the floppy and ripped half the cover so it would fit in my cd binder.

Because, hell, why would a floppy disc that comes with a CD ever be interesting to anyone? It's the 1990's. Soon, all CDs will come with floppy discs. Yawn! Toss it!

"His new album currently being recorded is the dopest"

2009-06-14T00:06:00.038-04:00

I like Freezepop. I saw them open for Cibo Matto at a movie theater in Somerville in 2001 and immediately wrote an "OMG U GUYS ARE SOOOO TALENTED" letter to the band and they were happy and then sent me everything they had ever been associated with, namely some chill electronica called Symbion Project and something called Splashdown, who later had a song on the Titan AE soundtrack.

Actually, they didn't even mail it to me. They dropped it on my porch and it was there when I got home.

Now that is fuckin' indie.

I remember I started listening to a lot of Lamb at that point, because one of the band members listed them as an influence. I didn't like them, but I listened to them, along with a drum n' bass cd from 1998 that I found in an alley or under a soda machine in the break room of Newbury Comics or something.

It is this:

"His new album currently being recorded is the dopest and has the wildest sounds around."

I would also like to note: "In the mould of Aphex Twin", "electro-grunge" and the phrase: "This drum n' bass tune is in full effect."

Alternative frequencies. Couldn't come up with a more 1998 name if I tried. Unless that name is: Lamb.

Fat, chilled out electronica? Manchester-based Billie Holiday-inspired vocals? And why? Because of you, Freezepop. I did it all for you.

Now, it's eight years later, and I just discovered that they put out a new EP. So. I will buy that.

I hear they are returning with some funky breakbleeps.

Goodbye yellow brick message board

2009-06-13T18:51:00.007-04:00

I am deleting the message board section off the website. I neglected it and now it is full of weeds.

Apologies to anyone who has posted there.

By way of an alternative: if you're not on the 'I'm Perfect, You're Doomed' Facebook group, definitely check it out. It's a very active community of almost 600 members, all of whom are sexy.

And - who knows, you may just find true love. And buy horses. And die happy and surrounded by great-great grandchildren. You can thank me later.

You can also add me as a friend.

Or, both.

Or, neither.

But I recommend the Facebook group. It's aposta-tastic!

(By the way - I bought every product that was advertised on my web-board. I felt obliged. Does anyone need an extremely enlarged set of testicles?)

I sneer at my own writing

2009-06-13T12:35:00.002-04:00

Reading at Seaburn Books, Astoria's best local bookseller. I appear highly annoyed by myself.

Somber Records

2009-06-12T18:54:00.015-04:00

In 1960, Tom and Jerry got Czechoslovakian. An animator in Prague named Gene Deitch took over the art direction, and the cartoon ceased to be slick and art deco with splashes of acceptable racism and became what I would describe as "extremely unsettling". They are slow-paced and surreal and should probably be packaged by the Criterian Collection.

I remember watching these as a kid and not being able to figure out what was different. The moon was drawn with harsh angles. The pacing was odd. There were a lot of vibraphones. I knew something was amiss, but couldn't quite put my finger on what or why. So I cowered under my beanbag and watched Tóm víc Jérry and then wondered why the soft hair on my forearms stood erect and the room felt inexplicably barren.

The below episode - Buddies Thicker Than Water - takes place during this ultra-mod, ultra-creepy period. It's like Valerie and Her Week of Wonders fell into a Bo Concepts.

First of all, Jerry has an Eames chair and is into cubism. Secondly, when the "lady of the house" screams upon seeing a mouse, it's bloodcurdling. Thirdly, Tom and Jerry open about five bottles of Brut and get really fucked up. I don't mean they get cartoon tipsy, I mean they get blackout drunk and then Tom gets violent and betrays Jerry and tries to murder him.

The moral of this cartoon? Trust no one, children. If the Czechoslovakians can teach us anything: trust no one.

Chilling.

(around 6:5o - I think that's a scene from The Shining.)

My bank doesn't know me

2009-06-12T10:00:00.008-04:00

Dear Chase,

I think this relationship is doomed.

You have clearly mistaken me for a well-adjusted, family-oriented high school graduate who attended school dances and actually knows the birthdays of her family members.

I cannot answer your secret questions. I think it's time for me to see other online checking accounts.

You and I are just... too different.

Alternate questions for Kyria:

1. What is the name of the first graveyard you wrote bad poetry in?

2. Why did your parents stay married?

3. What was the first holiday-themed party you weren't allowed to attend?

4. Name the first friendly gay person that made you question your religious views.

5. Where was your worst mezcal hangover?

6. What did you do instead of attending the prom?

7. Where are you broken?

8. Why? Why? WHY?

Prince thinks the earth is gonna swallow me whole

2009-06-11T09:31:00.005-04:00

Prince is a Jehovah's Witness. His behavior is Jehovah's Witnessy. See below:

Does Prince’s Religion Forbid Necessary Hip Replacement?

Prince, although he is Prince, does everything that other Jehovah's Witnesses do - eschews birthdays, believes in Armageddon, and shuns apostates. Apostates... like me.

In other words, I just realized that Prince probably knows who I am.

And, if Prince knows who I am: Prince probably hates me.

OMG U GUYS!!!!

Interview time

2009-06-11T09:15:00.005-04:00

I have a radio interview this morning and it sounds like they're replacing the walls, ceiling, floor, and air in the apartment downstairs. How can any one job involve so much banging at 9 AM?

If a pipe bursts while I'm talking, I'll just pretend it's the apocalypse and use it as a publicity stunt.

Listen to me live at 11 AM EST:

Tron in the Morning

Packing and culling

2009-06-10T23:56:00.003-04:00

The painful process of getting rid of books.

Recognized by canoers

2009-06-10T10:55:00.022-04:00

Finally! I have been name-checked by the Atikokan Progress, in their column: 'Books n' Things'. The paper's tag line is: The canoeing capital of Canada.

"Who says a discussion of religious fundamentalism has to be serious?" asks the Atikokan Progress.

Not these two guys!

But hey now, Atikokan Progress, I ask this in return: who says canoeing has to be serious?

That is why my next book: A HEARTBREAKING CANOE OF STAGGERING CANOES, is going to turn the world of canoeing narrative non-fiction on its bow. Or... its stern. Whichever! It just needs to start to sink and get water in it, is what I'm saying here.

Marketing and Promotion of CANOES

A HEARTBREAKING CANOE OF STAGGERING CANOES is a comedic romp that will appeal to young, hip professionals between the ages of 24 and 26 who read Pitchfork, watch The Colbert Report, and eat Korean food at least once a week. Readers who finished Portrait of the Artist of a Young Man in high school will love CANOE/CANOES. Collectors of expensive Japanese toys will purchase CANOE/CANOES but leave it in the plastic. Babies under the age of three will be confused by CANOE/CANOES and may regurgitate peas. A HEARTBREAKING CANOE OF STAGGERING CANOES will tear your loving family apart.

Jehovah's Witnesses "The end is imminent"

2009-06-09T23:30:00.003-04:00

Nice video about Jehovah's Witnesses predicting the end of the world in Palm Beach.

Overheard in an Upper East Side restaurant

2009-06-09T22:20:00.000-04:00

I'm gonna go ahead and guess they met on J-Date.

Kmareka.com likes my book

2009-06-09T13:12:00.004-04:00

Read her nice comments here:

Demon-haunted Pawtucket

"She’s outrageously honest without self-pity."

Wow, what a cool thing to say. Thank you, Nancy!

(And, sadly, I think that's also why I haven't done a better job publicizing my book.)

Cave17 Review of I'm Perfect, You're Doomed

2009-06-04T19:39:00.006-04:00

Cave17 says:
"The funniest book I’ve read in a long time.".

I'm right above a review of a live Autechre recording from 1996, which makes me feel way more indie than I could ever be. I need my fans to all wear Haujobb t-shirts and work at vegetarian restaurants.

How's the tofu-goji tart with soy whip tonight, Neil? I love your Banksy tattoo! Is your girlfriend still working at Vice? Did you see the review of my book above the review of a live Autechre recording from 1996...? Of course you did!

Exposing your nekkid naughty bits

2009-06-04T08:04:00.009-04:00

I think this person really got the gist of the book, or what I was attempting to do, anyway. Thanks, Dorian!

From Gather.com

And Stories From Korea also grew up as a Jehovah's Witness, and says the book changed her life! Quote: "Reading a book about your own experience makes you realize you're not quite as crazy and alone as you might have thought."

Meanwhile, this fellow wants to strangle me and chuck the bird at me. A few people disagree with him, but I guess he doesn't know my deepest fetish. I'm a... Birdchucker. I attend 'BC-Con' yearly in Toronto. I'm also a Big Baby/cannibal with a teeny-tiny Asian women fetish who is currently dressed as a plush rabbit and wearing inflatable latex socks. Thank you, internet!

Anyhow, I'm proud to be a spokesman for all the former losers, nutballs and rejects in this world. We sucked, and we won't apologize for it!

There is... hope!

p.s. I also once made an amateur porno with a sugar glider.

You go dancin' and stuff?

2009-06-03T14:38:00.001-04:00

Interview in Failure Magazine

2009-06-01T18:53:00.002-04:00

Thanks, Failure!

Kyria Abrahams was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness. She ended up possessed by demons anyway...

More photos from my neighborhood

2009-05-25T23:24:00.002-04:00

This is where I live in Astoria.

I'm also excited, because I got a new flash for my Canon A-1. However, I am afeard to get the photos developed. I think they probably are... not... good... because I don't know how to use it. The flash, that is.

The idea of spending $10 to view my own failure has me completely paralyzed. For the first time in my life, undeveloped rolls of film remain in my purse.

Review on "My Christian Fiction Blog"

2009-05-25T12:18:00.004-04:00

Cecelia Dowdy has a review of my book on her blog which I really like. She says she thinks I would have had my problems even if I had been raised Catholic or Baptist.

(Read the review here)

That's a great point, and the kind of question I ask myself all the time. It's also the sort of dialogue I was hoping the book would start. So, thank you Cecelia, for pointing that out.

Canyon News Review

2009-05-24T23:42:00.002-04:00

There is a very nice review of I'M PERFECT on Canyon News: right over here.

It's also a recommended summer read in Rhode Island Monthly. Hear that, Scar-bora Beach?

Astoria's Got Talent

2009-05-23T19:48:00.001-04:00

I am going to get on Britain's Got Talent.

I have decided. It is my destiny. It is to be.

First of all, I've always dreamed of singing and yet never had the chance (ehem, Susan Boyle, ehem). Secondly, I am daddy's angel and I always get what I want.

Here are my three submissions:

Fuck you, Susan Boyle. You are nothing to me. NOTHING!

Last Cat Video Of The Temporary Layoff

2009-05-15T14:39:00.001-04:00

I go back to work on Monday. How will my cat get videotaped?

KMOX 1120

2009-05-13T00:01:00.001-04:00

Thank you to John Carney for a great interview. It will be available tomorrow on their website.