By
Daddy X (Guest Blogger)
A
few months ago I told a friend that I’d bought three books weighing
a total of fifteen pounds.
There
was Norman Mailer’s Harlot’s Ghost at 1300 pages, Call
Me Burroughs at 500 pages, and The Life and Times of Pancho
Villa, around 1000 pages. I had shown him these tomes in curious
anticipation of his reaction to the sheer size of the volumes. But he
proved to be more interested in who had written them and who was
written about. Perhaps ‘interested’ isn’t the right word. Maybe
‘aghast’.
He
said, “Mailer? That chauvinist asshole? The way he writes about
women? All his females come off detestable. Plus, William Burroughs
shot his wife. He was a junkie. Why would you read about such awful
people? Pancho Villa was a terrorist.”
I
don’t have to like characters to find them fascinating. Nor do I
need to like a writer. I need to like the writing. Mailer has
written two Pulitzer Prize winners. Not many writers have
accomplished that. Christ, don’t look to an artist expecting to
find a role model. Think about it. It’s one of those
generalizations that seem to hold true. The most imaginative artists
can be the most bereft of social graces. The productive, destructive,
objective, subjective all play a part in artistic expression.
One
reason I refer to the subjective/objective dichotomy is that,
according to Wikipedia, “Gonzo journalism” is reportage without
benefit of objectivity. Of course, when we hear the term “Gonzo”
we think Hunter S. Thompson, far from anybody’s idea of a role
model. But he sure is one kinetic writer.
The
term “Gonzo” has layered implications of a sex, drug and alcohol
fueled, out-of-control rant. Though I attempt to piggyback on
Thompson’s intense drive, only one of my stories ever mentions
drugs. My characters come unglued by sex alone.
Not
that I equate my scribblings with the talents of Thompson. I am
influenced, however by his bombastic delivery.
In
going over reviews of my short story anthology, Daddy X - The
Gonzo Collection, some divergent remarks stand out from the
rest. Several 5-star reviews complimented the work on characters and
characterization. The worst critiques said they couldn’t relate to
the characters and they couldn’t imagine who would. Sounds
subjective.
So
far so good.
I
have a recurring player, Delbert. Po’ white trash. Not that there’s
anything wrong with that. Have sympathy for the jerk.
Delbert
is a player in two stories from “Gonzo” and I have several others
featuring him and his friends, who tend to be a little smarter than
Del. But not by much. Delbert’s friends are often considering an
about-face toward personal responsibility. We know Del’s cohorts as
guys who attempt to corral what’s amiss in their lives but have
their slips. They get led astray by their reprobate pal.
Delbert
is one of my favorites. He's one giant ass who makes everyone around him
look good.
Here’s
a flash fiction piece to introduce you:
C’mon
Over
Brinnnnggg-
“Hello?”
“Yo,
Hank—it’s me, Del.”
“Yeah.
What is it this time?”
“You
should see this chick I got over here, man. Total nympho.”
“She
over there now?”
“Yeah
man. C’mon over. You won’t believe this shit. Met her at that
biker bar outside town. She was blowing dudes behind the pool table.”
“She’s
still at your place? She didn’t run away screaming when she walked
in that shithole?”
“What’s
that?”
“You’re
not the greatest housekeeper after all.”
“Aw,
that’s cold, man. Here I am—telling you about this fine piece of
ass—and you do me like that? Some fucking nerve. Besides, she was
pretty drunk. Didn’t notice the mess.
“Ah,
so now it comes out. You took advantage of another one, didn’t
you?”
“She
wasn’t that drunk; at least not at first.”
“And
what about later? You fucked her all night, didn’t you?”
“Yep.
As many times as I could. In every hole. Jerked off in her hair too.
She just slept through it all.”
“You
fucked an unconscious woman? What the fuck’s wrong with you, Del?
What she say when she woke up?”
“She
ain’t up yet.”
“I’ll
be right over.”
Yeah.
I know. Pretty insensitive, huh?
But
have sympathy for the jerk. It’s what convinces Del’s other
buddy, Jeff, to pronounce—in counterbalance to Delbert’s blatant
misogyny:
…Tammy was the
first woman I’d allowed to take the reins in our sex. First one to
bring out something in me I hadn’t known existed, not within my
sphere of experience.
Tammy made love;
she didn’t fuck, not just for the sake of fucking like all the
other girls. Girls in back seats, girls on the hood of the car, girls
out by Funky Lake, where the chemical company dumped their waste. The
only kids to swim there were those who were never taught the source
of the water. If you even wanted to call it water at all.
Out in the warm
night air, on my back on a blanket spread over a patch of yellowed
grass by the foul lake. Tammy straddled me, lowering her bottom,
taking me to the hilt. She writhed astride me, transfixed in ecstasy,
the round yellow wash of a full moon illuminating her pale, angelic
features. Tammy has a way of knowing herself, her own anatomy,
finding every inner nook and cranny by leaning or twisting her loins
and torso in particular angles, swaying, manipulating the bulb of my
penis to some obscure pebbly pocket within her. She leads.
For the first time
in my life, I wished the woman I was fucking would come.
~
from “Jail Bait”, available in The
Gonzo Collection.
So,
do we need villains to contrast with our heroes? Perhaps to present
the dark from which light can emerge.
Can
you enjoy a story even when the characters are despicable? Or do you
have to like the characters to like a story? Leave me your answer in
a comment below (with your email, please) and you could win a print
copy of The Gonzo Collection, autographed by Daddy himself!
Bio
Daddy
X always wanted to be a dirty old man.
He
survived the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, and
George W. Bush. He maintained an (almost) steady trajectory through
Catholic school, a paper route, muskrat trapping, a steel mill, Bucks
County, the Haight Ashbury, North Beach, the SF bar business, drug
addiction, alcoholism, a stroke, hep C, cancer, a liver transplant, a
year of chemo, a stickup at his art gallery while tied to a desk (not
as cool as it sounds), a triple bypass, heart attack… and George W.
Bush.
Now
he’s old, and it’s time to get dirty.
He’s
been with Momma X (greatest editor on earth) over fifty years, but
she thinks his stuff is too skievy to deal with. They live in
northern California with a ninety-pound lop-eared hound (17”
wingspan) and two cats.
Daddy
is published in anthologies by Naughty Nights Press, House of Erotica
and in Cleis Press’ Best Bondage 2015. Insatiable Press will
feature a Daddy story “Someone for Everyone” in their upcoming
“First Times” anthology.
The
Gonzo Collection is published by Excessica.
“The
only ones who really know the edge are the ones who have gone over.”
Hunter S. Thompson.
Look
forward to “Brand X”, coming out through Excessica on April
Fool’s Day 2016. Some kind of serendipity there.
Contacts
and Upcoming events:
Email:
daddyxmasmut [at] hotmail [dot] com
I
will be one of six erotica writers reading at the San Francisco
Center for Sex and Culture on Saturday Dec. 19th, an M.
Christian event: “Leather, Lace and Lust”.
Info
and tickets:
Read
my fortnightly posts at Oh Get A Grip where I blog with nine other
Erotica and Romance writers.
Check
out The Erotica Readers and Writers Association website where I serve
as flash fiction editor, choosing Flashers for the quarterly Gallery.
http://erotica-readers.com
