 Welcome and thank you for joining us on the San Francisco Public Library's virtual stage. Today is June 1st, the first day of Pride Month, and we are super excited that Brontes Pernell and Alvin Orloff are joining us for our first Pride-related event of the season. I'm Kevin. I'm a librarian at the James C. Hormel LGBTQIA Center at the Maine Library. I'm going to start us off with some information about the library and introduce our authors. And we want to begin with the land acknowledgement. Welcome to the unceded land of the Ohlone Tribal people. We acknowledge the many Ramya Tush Ohlone Tribal groups and families as the rightful stewards of the lands on which we reside. SFPL is committed to uplifting the names of these lands and community members from these nations with whom we live together. SFPL encourages you to learn more about first-person culture and land rights, and we are committed to hosting events and providing educational resources on these topics. June 1st is also the first day of Summer Stride. Summer Stride is the library's annual summer learning, reading and exploration program for all ages and abilities. Reading for just 20 hours over the summer gets you one of our much sought after Summer Stride tote bags. Go to our website or check the chat box for a link with all the details on Summer Stride. And now we're going to highlight some of our programs in June. On June 3rd, we have show us your spines, a QT BIPOC artist residency showcase presented by Radar Productions featuring Nefertiti Asanti, Ashton Young, Sydney Latimer, aka Divine Words, and John Y. Kung Lo. And that's June 3rd at 6 p.m. on Twitch TV. And then on June 15th, we have a panel discussion featuring five queer mystery writers presented by the Northern California chapter of Mystery Writers of America featuring Michael Nava, Shirley Head, Greg Herron, Dharma Keller, and PJ Vernon. On June 17th, Sarah Schulman will discuss her new book, Let the Records Show, a political history of ACT UP New York 1987 to 1993. And on June 22, Tom Amiano will discuss his recent, beautifully titled memoir, Kiss My Gay Ass, My Trip Down the Yellow Brick Road through Activism, Stand Up, and Politics. Thank you for that book title, Tom Amiano. And then on June 28th, we have more 100 Boyfriends. We have a book club where you can join your fellow library patrons and discuss the book. That's on June 28th. And we want to thank Dogard Books Castro for co-hosting tonight's event. Support your local independent queer bookstores. We will be posting a link in the chat where you can purchase 100 Boyfriends from Dogard Books. You can also visit them in person. Check them out on Castro Street. And we also want to thank the friends of the library for their support of this program. And now on to our main events. We are here tonight to celebrate 100 Boyfriends by Brantes Pernell. Publishers Weekly writes, Pernell brilliantly immerses the reader in black queer desire with humor, self-awareness, and just the right amount of vulgarity. 100 Boyfriends is our on the same page selection for Pride Month. On the same page is usually a bi-monthly city-wide read. F-Appeal staff selects titles of literary merit, high interest, and readability with the goals of appealing to the community and sparking engagement. We focus on local, emerging, and diverse authors. Brantes Pernell is a writer, musician, dancer, filmmaker, and performance artist. He is the author of a graphic novel, a novella, a children's book, and the novel Since I Laid My Burden Down. The recipient of a 2018 Whiting Writers Award for Fiction. He was named one of the 32 black male writers of our time by T. The New York Times Style Magazine in 2018. Pernell is also the front man for the band, The Younger Lovers, a co-founder of the experimental dance group, the Brantes Pernell Dance Company, the creator of the renowned cult zine fag school, also a great title, and the director of several short films, music videos, and the documentary Unstoppable Feet, the dances of Ed Mock. And we have some breaking news. Brantes was just today awarded the Jim Duggan's mid-career Novelist Award from the Lambda Literary Awards. Congratulations. Tonight, Brantes will be in conversation with Alvin Orloff. Alvin began writing in 1977, while still a teenager, pinning lyrics for The Blow Dryers, an early San Francisco punk band. He spent the 1980s working as a telemarketer and exotic dancer while attending UC Berkeley, and performing with the pop institutes, a somewhat absurd performance art homo-core band. In 1990, he and his bandmates founded Clubstitute, a floating queer cabaret. Alvin has published three novels. I married an earthling, gutter boys, and why aren't you smiling, and the memoir Disasterama about life in the queer underground during the height of the AIDS crisis. Okay, so I will turn it over to Alvin to start us off. Hello, everybody. Okay, Brantes, hi. I haven't seen you in forever because of this stupid pandemic, but here you are. So it seems that you have become an icon, and icons always get asked questions about their childhoods because that's just how it works. So I'm going to ask you a little bit about your childhood. When you were growing up and someone asked you, what do you want to be when you grow up? I'm just going to go out in a limb here and guess that you didn't say I'd like to be a choreographer, dancer, filmmaker, author, and punk icon. What did you say when you were a little kid? What would you have said? No, I said all that shit. Like, I literally I sat my father in the living room and I acted out scenes from flash dance because I was like, because when I was five, I was really into that movie, Flash Dance, and I was like, Dad, I want to be like Alex from Flash Dance. And so, but she wasn't a stripper. Like she was a performance artist, right? Like no, because if you go back and watch that movie, she's not like all like titties out and stuff. Like it's like, you know, that strobe light and the new wave background and stuff. And she was a dancer and she lived in a warehouse. So I think I I fulfilled all the prerequisites or whatever. So I wanted to be Alex from Flash Dance. And I got closer than most. Maybe even you might even have surpassed Alex from Flash Dance because I don't think Alex from Flash Dance wrote any novels, right? Or short story collections, not to my recollection. She had a white man that had a welding job. She didn't have to do shit, you know what I'm saying? But like, if I had had someone to lean on, I wouldn't have had to, you know, whore my talent like this. But I'm glad I did. You know, silver linings, silver linings front as, you know, the world, the world is very happy that you didn't have a white man to lean on because it's you've showered us with all this wonderful art and and culture. Okay, so I took the liberty of googling and looking up Triana, Alabama a little bit. Okay, it's Triana. Triana, Triana. Okay, sorry, I said it wrong. I'm Triana. I know it now. And you can rent a three bedroom house there for $800. And I'm thinking, should we just all move to Triana? I think me and you should fucking recreate the erotic adventures of Huckleberry Finn and do a whole Triana situation. Like, no, let's definitely not do that. That should not be done. Yeah, it's off the Tennessee River. It's there. Well, you know, wherever you grow up, it's going to stay with you regardless of how far you run or flee. It's always going to be there in your head. Do you have a little bit of Triana in your head at all times? No, I've been in California 19 years now. Now I feel like a Berkeley boy. I'm literally in the Berkeley Hills right now. Like my boyfriend, my skin. You know, I live in California. I have made it. You know, I grew up in Berkeley too. But I just because I lived in New Jersey for a few years in the 1960s, there's that little bit of New Jersey in me that just does not go away. But that might just be a New Jersey thing. Maybe Alabama goes away and New Jersey doesn't. I'm willing to say that that's a possibility. I just, I like having the Berkeley sweater. I literally graduated from Berkeley last year. My cohort is doing the graduation this year, which I think is tomorrow. These Zoom things are so hard or whatever. But I like wearing the Berkeley sweater into Alabama because you look like an outside agitator. I don't have to tell you what they do to outside agitators in the South sometimes. So be careful. Anyways, moving right along. So I have a bunch of questions. I watched a lot of interviews with you. And I also watched Dick Cabot interviewing Tennessee Williams for ideas and inspirations. So I'm going to kind of channel Dick Cabot here. Do you write by process? But what's your writing process? Do you actually put out little index cards and like plot things out on a wall with tax and index cards? Or do you just write instinctively? I used to do the theater thing and the fucking the church thing. What's the church thing? I have no idea. The preacher used to be by a tree or whatever. It would be able to recite the whole sermon, verbatim. That's how they would do it. So wait, hold on. Testing, testing. Oh, there's like some people under me. I have these headphones in. What world are we actually in? Anyway, but there used to be this rule I had that before I committed anything to paper, I had to be able to recite it in my head. And so it was a nice step between that and getting things onto paper. I did it as an editing step. And also because I'm a crazy person, every since I was five years old, I would always talk to myself. My grandmother said that I would be in a room like when I was a little baby just like talking to myself and she'd be like, that's the devil in your head. But I'm sure it was some form of disorder or something like that. But I like talking to myself. There's no one there to disagree with you. And yeah, I don't do that. You said the tax. No, I don't do that. Yeah. I just talk it out until it all makes sense. Now, I think in probably like 15 years ago, I went with you to an open mic at Sadie's Flying Elephant called Kevatch. And now, do you ever practice like your stuff at like open mics? You give like, you know, comedians will do this. I'll go to some little club somewhere where like, you know, there's no press and they'll try out their new routines. Do you try out your stories at open mics ever? Look at how fucking gray my hair is. You know that that was more than 15 years ago. But I'm glad that you like said it. So 20 years ago. Okay. So do you ever do you ever do that anymore? Or that's just you're done with that? The open mic? No, I still, well, no, what I actually started doing was I started giving free sex cam shows to men in closeted countries during COVID for like this humanitarian package, my humanitarian relief COVID package. So I was going on all these Instagram sites, there were like butt sites where you could just flash pictures of your butts. And then there was like, there was one called booty of men or whatever. And from there, there, there would just be like these random guys from like Malaysia, Iraq, like Iran, like being like synthetics, synthetics, synthetics. And that means they want you to do something like with a synthetic thing. But I don't love humanity that much. I didn't feel like I had to like rinse out for it. I don't want to lure the talk here. But since it's you, I wanted to be as honest as possible. Also, I love the ray gun, gothic sheet situation you have going on behind you. Oh, that's a that's a family heirloom of Tony vagaries. His family was so atomic, they were like, very atomic people. Anyways, okay, moving along. Do you now or did you ever worry about what your mother might think about your writing? Your writing is, you know, has been called vulgar. It has been called sexy. Do you worry about that ever? I don't think my writing could catch up to my mother. Really? I like I'll leave it at that. Okay. You got a special mom. Good for you. Actually, but also, let me let me take a second. Let me. No, my mom was very like, she was very into literature. My mom was a secretary at the Army base. And I remember she would get off of work. And there's to this day, when I go back home to the house I grew up in, there's like this, what's the word, notebook that she would write in cursive this book that she was writing for years that never came out. I went back home two years ago and it's still there and the writings faded. I can't see it. But she was writing a book for years that she never finished. And she often tells me that like me writing like came from her. They totally came from her or whatever. Well, that's true. The kid fulfilling their parents emissions. Sure. And like she there was a we did like the black there was a black history month event she did in our little town 400 people in Triana in every year she would like dress like a slave woman and have like the her little hoe up and she would recite mother to son from Langston Hughes by Langston Hughes to me. I'd be five years old in like, you know, like with a little piece of cotton there because you know it was a cotton field, literally. And she'd like be reciting it for like, you know, all the people in the town. And like, I would sit there and like tell people this. And I'm just like, Oh, damn, like that was some Truman Capote shit. Like, I'm literally not faking this. Like my mom was a town dramatist. And here I am writing galvanting, having sex with white men telling the world. So all right. Okay. Um, you brought up age. Do you consider yourself a generation X or a millennial? What's what's your are you generation X? What's what's your generational cohort? I would I feel like I have to be closer to generation X. Because at the end of the day, they didn't start calling me a millennial until they needed to sell me iPhones. You know what I mean? And I didn't really I didn't have an email until 12th grade. Really. You know what I mean? I didn't have the internet in my house. So you grew up in like the analog age, like me and as old people. Okay, so I think there is something, a sensibility that's created by people who have to like jump into that new computerized world. I mean, they didn't grow up with that. I think it creates a solidarity with with other people who've, you know, had to had to make that leap as well. Yeah, my friend, my bandmate, Seth, I was in great. I was in gravy train with Seth Bobard. And me and him met as pen pals because we met as pen pals. I can't remember if it was kill rock stars or maximum rock and roll. Probably a nebulous of both. But he was in Arizona. I was in Alabama. But around the time we were 14 or 15, we became pen pals and we would mail each other mixed tapes, records, zines. Like this is like, you know, the thing that got me to kind of California was like this kind of, you know, pen pal life. So I because of that, I file myself in with Generation X as a much, much younger brother. Makes sense. Now, my friend Jennifer Blodryer collects stories about people getting thrown out of places. Do you have any good stories about getting thrown out of anywhere? I've been in recovery. What? I've been in recovery for two and a half years. So I don't want to trigger myself or like I said, move on. We'll move on. Next question. The unnamed protagonists and 100 boyfriends. When I started reading it, I started thinking, you know, there are a lot of similarities between them. But they're not all the same person. A lot of them seem a little bit like you. But it's kind of like looking at you through a kaleidoscope on while micro dosing on LSD. Like it's you, but not you. It's maybe about people in your meal, you people you hang out with. And those people are living in a sort of a post monogamous world. Is that fair to say that, you know, they there's no expectation in there with them of being a big monogamous. They're just they're not looking for it. Is this true? I think a lot of those characters really want that. But I really want that post monogamous world is happening upon them. They didn't land on Plymouth Rock, Alvin. Plymouth Rock landed on them. Okay, let's just get that fucking clear. All right. So they're living in a world they never made and trapped in a world they never made. But one of them actually gets a proposal. And he says he's going to say yes, I think. And I forget the character's name Trevor or something. Now, would you ever would you ever get married? Would you do that? Or do you think that that's bourgeois nonsense? You personally? I had one serious marriage proposal in my life. And it was actually in the Tennessee on the Tennessee state line. And yes, I think to be married would be a great adventure. Okay. All right, fair enough. I'm an old whore, which means I think you should try everything once like, you know, get the marriage, have the babies, blah, blah, blah, loop it back. Yeah, a friend of mine from Wyoming, Andrew from Wyoming wanted to know what do you think makes a good boyfriend? Knowing when to shut the fuck up. Really? You value silence. I mean, like, pretty much. But then also like boyfriend, just boyfriend stuff in general. I was abandoned by my father. So I need constant validation. Like I need you glued by my side being like, you're worthy, you're okay. It's all right. We have this blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I'll do ketamine with you and then I'll shrink into a little ball and you'll keep giving me positive affirmations the whole trip. That's how I do boyfriend. I don't fuck around. I'm curious, your characters often, they don't necessarily seem like they're looking for love in all the right places. I mean, if they really, if you think a lot of them were sort of wanting to hook up and be monogamous, it seems like they weren't really doing, looking for that. They were, they were kind of a, you know, play in the field, I guess is the right way to say it. I don't, I don't know how to. Okay, so when I like first moved to the bay, when I first moved to the bay and first started working at Steamworks, there was like the head, the head father at Steamworks, not for gas. Hellebren, well, but Steamworks is not everyone here knows what Steamworks is. Steamworks is, wait, it went mute. Both of us went mute. I didn't go mute. I can hear you. Okay, yeah. Steamworks is a bath house right here in Berkeley. If I fuck and just roll down this hill onto the coastal plain will be at 4th street at Steamworks. But the guy there, the main guy there, I think I was about 23 when I started working there. And the main guy was that there was like, yeah, like I met the love of my life here at Steamworks and you can too. Like there was a married couple that was part of the manager team. And that's how us boys were taught what you can find love anywhere. And so that's a very hopeful message, a hopeful message for the youth of today. And speaking of the youth of today, do you have any messages for the youth of today? What do you want to tell the TikTok teens about life? I ain't got shit to tell the TikTok teens they've been on Zoloft since they was 12. They just don't even cry no more. They'll be fine. All right. All right. I don't know anything about them. I just thought maybe they'd like to know something. Okay, moving right along. Oh my God, actually, Lord, I hope I don't get canceled for that. If you're a teenager, you will eventually be 20 is what I have to say to them. Okay. One of the segments in your book is entitled an army of lovers, which is a slogan from Ye Olde 1970s. And back in the 1970s, people thought an army of lovers cannot fail. And it was based on a real thing in ancient Greece. There was like the army of thieves was 150 male lovers. And the ancient Greeks actually, you know, they for hundreds of years, they were undefeated. Then they finally got defeated. Oh well. So an army of lovers can be defeated apparently by Alexander the Great or someone like that. I forgot who Philip Macedon. My history is sketchy here. But anyways, the point is we're talking about an army of lovers and then the characters in you know, we're sort of looking through that lens at these people that you're writing about. And they don't seem like they really have each other's back. They really they seem like they're not going to stick up for each other. When when push comes to shove, it seems like maybe they're not an army of lovers. I don't know. Am I getting it wrong? What do you think? I think you're getting it completely wrong. There's the story letter of um, letter of resignation. Oh wait, no, not that story. There's a story. Demolover comes home to die where his boyfriend obviously has been, you know, on drugs for a long time. And he decides that he's going to clean him up and he's going to stay with him till kingdom come. So, you know. That's true. I forgot about that. There is that example of people. There's, you know, I think there's a whole kaleidoscope of how nurture and care and all those things happen with each of these stories. I think a lot of these men have each other's backs. That's good to know. That's good to know. Alvin, I'm always here for you. Oh, thank you. Thank you. I need you, by the way. I'm going to ask Davors, come read at my bookstore. Soon as we're back open, we want you to come read. Okay. One of the things you write about, I think is in the story Mountain Boys. That's where someone talks about the theory about all the ghosts haunting everyone. All the ghosts of past relationships kind of, you know, haunting these men as they try to form new relationships or as they do live out their new relationships, they're still haunted by the old things. And I guess I didn't have a question for that. I just wanted to tell you that when you get really old, they're all going to go away because your memory fades and you can just take solace in that and that you're not going to have to deal with a hundred different voices in your head telling you things because you'll just forget. So, anyways, moving right along. It's great. It's great. It's not the melody. It's just it's selective. Remember, you remember what you remember the TV show tunes from your childhood, but you don't remember like the people you had sex with. I've always loved the expression wrestling with inner demons. And it's kind of the polite way people used to say, you know, struggling with addiction. It was like, oh, he's wrestling with inner demons. And it seems like many of your characters are wrestling with inner demons. What about that subject appeals to you? And do you have anything to say about it? I don't know. I do think sometimes our addictions can become another boyfriend. Wow. Okay. That's deep. That's deep. Now, there's a boyfriend that will not have your back. And will never leave you either. And they will be right on your shoulder all the time. However, they're not going to be giving you reaffirming validation. So, no, I mean, no, no, no. Pets, on the other hand, will give you validation every day, whether you want them from them or not. Oh, God. Okay. I know that I'm going to get completely like, fucked with for saying this, but every time I walk down the street and I see someone picking up some dog shit, I pray for the courage to die alone. You don't know, like, no, because I'm so mad at people because I'm just like, yeah, like I'm old. I just want to have kids. Can some lesbian just have a baby for me please now? And just like, let me be like a fat old dad in a corner, like knitting socks. And they're just like, practice, how can you bring another human into this world? Blah, blah, blah. This is like, I'm not the one being pregnant. Someone else is doing it. Man, they bring their fucking puppies up. And I'm just like, no, just just bring me the human baby. I'm a disgusting person, people. It's just, it's what I'm saying here. So, but you want a disgusting person who wants a human baby? I didn't know this about you. Are you getting the, what is it, the bio, your biological clock ticking? My guy, my geological clock. Your geological clock. Clock is ticking. So, yeah, it is. Okay. I mean, just to, just to put it in perspective there. You've got time, you know, you, but you know, don't wait too long, because you do not, you do absolutely not want to be having to like run after a two year old when you're 50. Trust me, not that you're anywhere near 50, I know, but. Well, you know, also like again, not to like make this all about Alabama, but I told this to my aunt and she was like, whoa, your grandfather was having babies till he was 67. And I was like, oh, that is so fucking gross. Yeah. So like part of me was like, okay, I literally, okay, I'm 38 now. Like somewhere in the stretch to about 43, 44 is when I have enough to do this. So I'm trying to get it done by them. Because yeah, I think it's, I think, I think, yeah, men having babies past a certain age, not to be ages, I think it's fucking gross. I think unless you can run around with them and play football with them, like don't bother. But you know, yeah, the need to procreate. Yeah, I'm going to do some really gross shit. I'm going to fucking, I'm going to piss off my queer coven and procreate. Are you actually literally in a coven? I mean, they don't tell you that. But yeah, the bitch has been sucking my blood for years. Like so. Well, we're gonna play nice on the interwebs about it. Yeah, I am in a queer coven of Bay Area. This I'm a matron at this point. I've earned it. And good for you. Okay, so writing about sex without being like sexy, that's a challenge. And I think you've mastered it. Do you take notes like after you make love to somebody? Is it like you do like immediately rent the other room and write down your emotional, you know, roller coaster that you went on? I mean, how do you do that? No, I worked at Steamworks for like a decade. And so I did research. Okay. I mean, what is not to be felt after sex after a certain point? And plus, you know, I'm a fucking, I paid $70,000 for a goddamn theater degree. You know, there's always some kind of fucking annoying running monologue in my head. And so why not commit it to paper? No reason, no reason whatsoever. I actually, I met someone who said they didn't have an inner dialogue in their head. And first, I didn't believe them, but they're like, no, really. I and not only did they not have an inner like an inner monologue or dialogue going in their head, either one. But they went when started in their head, they wanted to stop it. And I was like, what? I couldn't I couldn't even believe it. Like, why would you want to not have the constant flow of words? Why do you not want to swim and to see words all the time? I don't get it. But takes all kinds. Again, like my grandmother said, that's the devil in your head. Well, now you're just making me think of flip Wilson. Do you remember you did you ever in it see flip Wilson? Oh, yeah. Devil made me do it. Anyway, it was an old comedy routine from when I was a child. Anyways, we'll move on. Gating myself. Do you think you'll ever write a straight up memoir? Would you do that? No, because it's hard, right? Because I think the second you commit something to the page, it kind of becomes fiction, right? I could I could sit here all goddamn day. I could sit here all goddamn day, Alvin, and write my first of all, I don't like memoir because the second whenever I hear the word memoir, like I just get into this really like lagging earnest voice that just kind of trudges along, you know, it's not sexy. But then also it's like, it's also to be debated like whoever else is there, like I could I could give you the story of my childhood. But you know, my sister, my mother, my cousin, everyone might debate it. So by the time something is so debated, or by the time you take a situation and you filter it through so many soul filters, times, landscapes, geo locations. I think it all becomes fiction. Whenever someone says memoir, I think narcissist, lying, whore ass narcissist. Okay, well, you know, I guess I'll own that because I wrote a memoir and I know I was talking oh yes, we talking to you. I like to think I'm not lying, but I am a narcissist. Okay, well moving right along. As an icon, you're sort of entitled to have a cocktail named after you, but I mean, you mentioned you're not drinking. So what would you want in your cocktail like paella juice or what what how would you design your ideal cocktail? Okay, check this fucking shit out. Yeah, I would do hibiscus with lavender ice cubes, seltzer, and just the tiniest pitch of ketamine. Huh. Have you actually tried that or is that just sound good? Hell, I did one before I came on this fucking zone. What the fuck? It was great. Yeah, I'm floating. That sounds lovely. It sounds lovely to float. Who doesn't like floating? I'm literally in the Berkeley Hills. What Berkeley Hills? I mean, views, trees, it's great, but you know, be careful because if there's an earthquake, you'll slide down into the flatlands. See that? This is where you're like, you're like somewhere out here. Yeah, okay. You're that way. Got it. Um, you seem like someone who really enjoys life. You go to parties, you have an active social life. Where do you find the time to be so creative? I mean, do you like have a secret side where you get up at 5am and write for 10 hours every day? Or does it just come easy for you? Um, no, nothing for me is easy at all. If you ever see me doing something and it looks really, really good, it's probably because I've rehearsed it out of fear of not looking good. No, I definitely, I definitely think I rehash. I consider every day. Are you always working? Are you just always, your mind is constantly working on something, like whatever project you're involved in? Hell yeah, I trimmed the fucking weed for four hours today, a miss winning an award and also handling two other fucking emotional fucking avalanches for my family in Alabama fucking, they don't let a black woman rest. I have to do every goddamn thing. And I bet while you're trimming weed, you're, you're running plot scenarios through your head and doing all that. Oh no, yeah. See, that's what I was thinking about too. I was, I'm working on like my new science fiction novel and it was supposed to be done last year, but it's also, I thought about how much writing happens in movement. Like it really is like on the way to the train or the commute or the bus ride, like that is really where like the bulk sum of like my fucking like plot structures happen. You know what I'm saying? Like, when I can get into that mode of like repetitiveness where my body goes on autopilot, that's when it's like, but since I have not been able to get into autopilot mode, that inspiration doesn't hit me as hard. So I've just been like, you know, I've been sculpting and writing and a lot of other kind of different like ways, but it actually has been kind of really, it's been intense to, it's been intense to think about, I don't know, needing, well, I mean, I did study dance, but essentially needing movement to write. So your brain is tied into your body. It makes sense that, you know, sometimes to get your brain moving, you might need to get your body moving. Right. I mean, I was a bad, bad dancer for 10 years, but it totally helped. Also rest in peace, Anna Halperin. Speaking of, you know, dead bad dancers, Anna, I love you. Now, has anyone ever accused you of incorporating them into your fiction? Has anyone said that's me in that story? How dare you? They have, but what's more, what's louder are people who are mad because they aren't in my books or whatever. So the people who aren't in my, the people who are not in my fiction actually get way more angry at me than the people who are or whatever. I don't know. I've usually put things through so many filters that it's kind of, well, yeah, I always tell people it's fiction, fiction. Look it up. It's not you fiction, but some people, they take an exception to that. Can I ask you a question though, like in speaking about this fiction, have you been watching the Halston, the Halston? Yeah, I did. And I was wondering how does, how do people like Liza deal with like someone playing them not, you know, on screen? It just seems weird to me. First of all, they play, you play Liza Minnelli on screen. I cannot imagine any fucking show where Liza Minnelli is the fucking co-star of someone's like crazy faggotry, right? But then to like not like get the whole like drug trip, right? Like it's just like, because you know, she did way more drugs than that. They like condensed like the fucking. Because she's alive and they didn't, you know, they knew she'd take it. She'd sue them. Yeah. So I like, I kind of just think the way they, the interesting thing, I'm glad we're bringing this up because I died here in San Francisco, Halston died here in San Francisco. What's interesting about that show is how they harken back to his like time with like his mother, his docile mother who was like, you know, beat or whatever, but they never could make the commit connection that he actually had more in common with his abusive asshole dad than he did his perfect mother. Well, he's a big kid, both. I mean, he was definitely had some of his moms. Well, no, you're right. He had more with the dad, I guess, you know. Bagots always want to coast with that. And I'm just kind of, oh, sorry. I mean, F bomb. Listen, you guys, I'm sorry. I grew up by the river. I'm rough of tongue, as they say. But like, when I watched the Halston, when I watch, you know, I watched Halston kind of in the way I do, like I interpret 100 boyfriends, like this is the raw tongue real deal thing, you know, this era where this level of this level of decadence, let's say decadence, this level of decadence will never be seen again. This was a very special thing that we bookended right there. You know, I kind of like it. I like that he's a completely, in some ways, an unsympathetic character. In other ways, they can, I think they can draw it out more. Well, I thought he was sort of sympathetic. I mean, he seemed like he was a fun person to spend time with. Mostly, I mean, not to work with, but I mean, you know, he's a fun person to go out with. You know, I can't even conceive of the time too, because it's like, this is definitely like before, like, you know, drug programs or whatever, just like a candy dish, full of cocaine and draperies. And, you know, like if I was in a room being like, yeah, let's reinvent the Isadora Duncan paradigm. Let's just have some drapery and cocaine. Like, who wouldn't turn into a complete monster in a situation like that? I honestly applaud him. I think he's a master. Well, we're all completely, you know, judging people without taking into account the era in which they live is not fair, totally not fair. I think, you know, yeah, but let's see what other questions I might have for you. You said that linear time is a scam. Now, that kind of mystifies me because I feel like time is so linear, it's oppressively linear, like every second follows another second and everything cause effect, cause effect, cause effect. How do you get out of linear time? Do you have an escape valve? What do you do? You go on Zoom. Zoom, all right. Is Zoom a new drug? No, wait, we're on Zoom now. Okay. So you've done literature, performance art, choreography, music. What have you got against fashion design? Why are you not also designing fashions like Halston? I mean, don't you think you could do some really nice cut on the bias dresses and gowns and things? I mean, what's holding you back? I love dressing like an angry dyke from Portland in the 90s. It's, I guess, you know, I call myself the grunge friendly bewitch because I'm just simply not fucking having it. Yeah, I've definitely gained a lot of weight. I'm really into it too. I remember being in my 20s, taking the train to San Francisco. I gave all of you gay dudes 12 years of gym body, and no one gave me an apartment and engagement ring, nothing. So now that I've had to do it all by myself, I'm just going to dress like an angry dyke, no chacouterie or whatever, a coutrement, just, you know, just giving me my white t-shirt and my dungarees and my burning beanie. Bam, here we are. On that midway point between James Dean and Audrey Lord, just... That is a brilliant description of, and a lovely play. Who wouldn't want to be in between James Dean and Audrey Lord? Nobody, only a fool would not want to be there. And also I'd have to say that Berkeley, Berkeley might be the right place exactly for that interception as well. I mean, I'm pretty fucking lit. You taught me well, Alvin. You taught me very, very well, Alvin. I don't know that I taught you anything, Ron Tess. Oh, we have to wait much, much later for the full... Oh, okay, I got you, Alvin. All right. Oh, you can tell me. What did I teach you? You can tell me. As I mentioned, I don't have a memory anymore because I'm old. So it's, you know, it's all kind of guesswork. You know, I sort of like, you know, I do remember we were going to catch it at Sadie's Flying Elephant. Okay, do you feel like alienating any of your fans? Do you have any TV shows that you hate or bands that you hate, like actors that you just can't stand? I can't. I don't know who actors are anymore. People will bring up names and I'm just like, I don't, I just don't know who that is. I currently write for TV and I still don't know enough about TV. Sometimes I'll be in the writer's room and people will be surprised about how little I know. Tell me about this. You write for TV. What TV are you writing for? I write for the, I'm writing for the new reboot of Queer's Folk. Oh, okay. That's very exciting. And when, when will your fans such as I be able to see this new reboot, these photos? Probably sometime next year, but if there's a part that you don't like about it, I didn't write that part. So I would assume not, of course. Those are the same. Okay. So we're getting, I think we're reaching the point now where we might want to take audience questions. It's closing in on A. And I think our friend Kevin here is going to be conveying audience questions. Let's see if I can figure out how to do this. I can just read them to you. We do have some. Okay. Cool. Let's hear them. Okay. Cool. So here's the first one. 100 Boyfriends has been described as a transgressive book. What does it mean for a queer book to be transgressive in 2021? They only say that because I have feelings. I mean, I think it's transgressive to have feelings about the sex that you're having. That's the transgressive part at this point. Yeah, I'll leave it at that. Cool. Okay. Here's a question about cruising. Carnations on lapels, swiping on grinder. What's the next cruise? What's the next cruise? What's, I guess, what's coming up? How are we going to cruise going forward? You know, ever since COVID, it brought out the fucking fire-branded, like I don't care, burn them all down, whores, you know, the guys that'll meet in the parks again and stuff like that. I think no matter what, people who need it will always find each other in glances and fingertips, slight touches. Perfect. Let's see. What do you wish your younger self knew about relationships? That it's all my parents' fault. Okay. Oh, and we have one from YouTube. Hold on one second. My favorite television program is Big Mouth. Okay. Here's a question from YouTube. Do more people want to be your boyfriend after 100 boyfriends was released? Um, no. Not at all. Unfortunately. Okay. Sorry. I think I'm missing some questions. Let's see. Okay. Any recommendations for a writer looking to publish in today's world? I self-published for a lot of years and then eventually, I felt like it became a feedback loop effect. Like after feminist press came FSG and then they soaked up the backlog of the stuff that I used to do. So I don't know. I say get in where you been in. Johnny was, Johnny, the first novella Johnny was done by Roodos and Rubes. I don't know. I still believe in San Francisco small press power or Bay Area small press power. So. Okay. And here's a question from someone who just bought your book. They want to get, how do they get it signed? Um, like just like text me on Instagram and tell me where to go and I'll buy my bike and I'll come sign it. Oh, cool. Okay. Mark Abramson says to Brontes and Alvin that he just wants to say I love you both. Happy June 1st. Thank you, Mark. It's, it's Marilyn Monroe's birthday and also my father's birthday, who has deceased. So it's a very special day. Oh, also some love from Terence Smith. Love from who? Terence Smith. Okay. So I think that about does it for audience questions and we have about, we have about seven minutes left. I have a question maybe for Brontes. Um, you know, because I work in a book store, people are always asking me, what should I read? Um, what do you think people should read? What, who are some authors that you're excited about right now? Oh, wow. Um, some authors that I'm excited about right now. I don't know, like all during COVID, I went to like my whole clutch of like comfort reading. And so, Well, what's your comfort reading then? That's good to know. What qualifies as comfort reading for you? Um, just like kind of go to stables or just things that are like kind of like my Bibles that I always go back to. The first things I go to, they kind of refill the well. Before I go back in, I don't know, commit. So what is this page? There's Johnny Panic in the Bible of Dreams by Sylvia Plath. I've been trying to turn it into a performance piece for like probably seven years now. But it's like, it's the most beatnicky thing or beatnik piece of writing she ever did. And it was kind of her like her sci-fi short story. And I, I don't know, I like, I've been really sitting in a room like just getting, getting, getting, getting into it. Of course, like Cotton Candy on a rainy day all the time. There's my copy of Lunch Poems by Frank O'Hara that was given to me by Bambi Lake outside the Eagle when I was 24. I thought about that a lot. Solitude's crowded with loneliness. Kauffman, it was given to me by this boy I loved in San Francisco. We were both young poets at the time. He hates my guts these days. But then, yeah, like, but then also old zines, just old zines. My friend, Aida's zine called Finger on the Trigger. That's like from 2001. And for whatever reason, a roommate I had that moved out had a pristine copy of this zine that I lost 15 years before, but she had the pristine issue of it and gave it to me. And I was like, oh, this is totally rad. So yeah, that was, that's, that's always fun. But then I don't know, also like new stuff in like old diaries. I kind of, I have this thing of, it's the one thing that I hoard is old notebooks. Like, and then in this technological age, I feel it's the most grandiose thing I do where I still like will hold on to these these tablets where there's just like doodles and like starts of poems or whatever. I've never done a full poetry book just because I don't think I've ever given myself permission. I'm still trying to give myself permission to write a whole book of poetry because every time I do it, I'm just like, who the fuck do you think you are? You better start explaining yourself. And it always turns into a book. But, you know, there's, I don't know, just kind of like things like that. And I think what's really cool about tablets and journals and all of these things is there are mile markers and they can like chart time, you know, especially when it starts, you know, I think I'm at the beginning of when things start to feel a little fuzzy. Like, 20 years ago feels like, you know, when I met all my bandmates that moved me out here and zines that I were into and I don't know, things from that era are all in this little tiny box like that split between my garage and my mom's garage in Alabama. And I pull them out and I'm just like, Oh, like this, this is a bunch of tablets and old phone numbers and shit like that. So I think from here on out to the next 20 years, I'm going to just keep these things. I have one right now. I started journaling like this again. And I talk to myself a lot. So having something that can accompany your straight thoughts is pretty, it feels revolutionary. And it makes things easier for your biographer when your biographer is coming to do your life story, you know, or your biographer is maybe plural, then they can look at those and it'll help, you know, they'll be able to like get in your head. Like, what was he thinking when he wrote that? To be like, that's when she really fucked and that's when she really fucking lost it. Yeah, totally. Um, I think the thing that I always take away from you, Alvin, is the first I was interviewing you for fad school. This had to be 2002. Okay, I still have pictures from it too. I was in my altar room at my home. I still have polar interview. You're like, yeah, you said something about writing something in real time. I remember you saying something about if you write something 20 years later, you may not remember it. I always had a bad memory. Yeah. So, um, so yeah, like I that was, I definitely took that energy into the cruising diaries. And I took that energy into Johnny, would you love me if my dick were bigger? That was me following your advice. Yeah, I'm glad you did. And you know, you can always, if you don't want to be like writing, like while you're standing up on the subway or whatever, you can always just get one of those little like, you know, those phones, you're just gonna be like talking to the phone and do note taking. I don't know, there's some app that like, you know, you can just like a dictaphone, you talk into it and you walk up and down the street and it looks very, very important. So there's lots of ways to skirt it. Yes. But let me say though, I do think that it's important to always have that one extra editing step. Like if you have like, yeah, transcribing is what essentially the hardest thing about being a writer is the typing, essentially. So whatever step that you need from the voice box to the memo to the typing, just make sure you have that one editing step in between and nothing, you know, that's where careers are made. Editors, we love them. Even when they're us, it's like, you know, important job. Super important. Crucial. Yes. So, oh yeah. Kevin, you just appeared. Yeah, well, it's eight o'clock. So it's, we can keep going if there's more or we could wrap it up. I think it's dinner time. Okay. Cool. Well, thank you both so much for being here. And thank you for having us. Thank you for having us for sure. You goodnight. Good night, everybody. I love you, Alvin. Thank you.