UNPROTECTED at the Music Hall of Williamsburg

Originally uploaded by chinese_fashion

A few years ago, I saw God’s most hated haircut rocking around Williamsburg. And I was motivated to write a blog post about it, complete with a drawing on my office’s whiteboard of the thing. “Thing” is a relevant term here, too.

I’m not opposed to outlandish spectacles or ridiculous self-expression, mind you. I made that pretty clear, too.

BoingBoing picked it up, and so did Gawker. It was fun while it lasted, watching the traffic spike and getting a bunch of comments and generally feeling brilliant and witty and bright.

I started feeling pretty bad about all this fun at someone else’s expense, though.

But whatever. Fast-forward two years to last week when I got an e-mail from a nice young man named Zachary Timm:

I am making a short film about the infamous Williamsburg Hair, that you made so popular a year or so back. The film is going to be screened exclusively at the Filmshop Presents Unprotected film screening @ Music Hall of Williamsburg, on Saturday, February 27th. The film is basically about his experience and unwanted celebrity that came from the coverage on your site and gawker. Since you had such a big part in the story I figured this would be a great follow up blog post for And I Am Not Lying since this will basically be the first time Chris speaks up about the experience.

You read it right. My blog post two years ago was the impetus for a short film that’s screening at the Music Hall of Williamsburg at 66 North 6th Street, Brooklyn this Saturday, 2/27. Doors are at 8PM. Click on the image of the poster (above) for more details.

I’ll be damned. I’ll be there to check it out, shake Chris’s hand and have a laugh — hope to see you all there, too.

I checked with Zachary — wanted to make sure there wasn’t any bad blood or anything. He assured me there wasn’t, and sent this photo as proof:

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happy ending (302 broome st., new york, ny, 10002)

Originally uploaded by cjkershner

It’s late and I’m screwing around instead of writing. I’m tired, too tired to get any meaningful writing done, but not so tired that I can’t sit here and stare at my lava lamp and wait for it to really start gooping around in earnest.

What I’m supposed to be doing is preparing a story for the “How I Learned” series, which I’ll be performing in at Happy Endings (302 Broome Street, Manhattan) this Wednesday, January 27th. The show’s at 8, doors are at 7, and there’s no charge. Happy Ending used to be a seedy massage parlour in Chinatown/Lower East Side, but now it’s a cool bar with pretty good drinks, most of which have names that are cheeky double entendres. I’ve found that if you get there early, it’s a good time. Stay too late and the Ed Hardy Army starts to creep in, though.

Don’t let the outside fool you — there’s no sign that says Happy Ending. If you get to a place that looks like the photo on this post, you’ve got it.

I can guarantee that I’ll be reading/telling a story. What it’ll be is eluding me right now …

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Emmet is my neighbor. He’s a Vietnamese pot-bellied pig. His owners found him in a gutter in Louisville, Kentucky, a tiny little neglected piglet crying and dying in a pile of wet leaves. They rescued him, nursed him back to health and it looks like he hasn’t missed too many meals since.

Emmet is the physically densest mammal I have ever seen -he feels like he is made out of warm, bristle-covered cannonballs. He loves having the spot between his little piggy shoulder blades scratched.

I only ever see Emmet on misty, overcast mornings – the kind of mornings that really activate New York’s greyness, the ones that give this grey city some serious character and color. It’s like Emmet emerges from the city’s hazy, sleepy dream state. Nobody else is ever around to see him except for me, my girlfriend, and Emmet’s leash-holders.

We always talk about the South, me and Maggie and Emmet’s people. We talk about how great it is, what an amazing, rich and Gothic creepiness the South has and how we are so glad it runs through our blood. And how glad we are that we moved up here, too.

The South is a spectacular place to be from, but not always a good place to be at. Love the culture, hate the crippling willful ignorance, I say.

But enough gabbing. Here’s Emmet:

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Jef Aérosol 2008 – "Post No Bill" (Woody Allen)

Originally uploaded by Jef Aerosol

I’m not a colossal Woody Allen fan by a long shot but most mornings I’ll click on any damn thing to avoid starting work. This passage from an interview with Woody Allen really hit home for me, though:

One of the things that’s so fascinating about an art form is that it may be good, mediocre or terrible but it’s not perfect, so when it’s over you’re constantly impelled to try another one because you suffer from the delusion that you can get perfection. Intellectually, I’ve given up and I’m happy that the picture is not an embarrassment. I start out thinking it’s going to be the greatest thing ever made and when I see what I’ve done I’m always saying, ‘I’ll do anything to save this from being an embarrassment.’

There’s some delusions you don’t want to get over. And maybe that’s why creative people are all kind of nuts. Because you have these delusions, and some of them really, really work for you and others hold you back. And the problem is, you have NO idea which ones to keep and which ones to get over.

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female hercules moth

Originally uploaded by cjkershner

Last weekend’s New York Times ran a story about The Moth, bringing apeloads of free publicity and NYC cred. The author name-checked a number of my friends from the Moth scene. I told a story on the night the writer was there, saw the same performances he did. It’s nothing but good for my friends, and the Moth staff, who I also consider a collective group of supportive friends. I’m really happy for them all.

It only took a day or two for the little voice in me to stop whimpering “but, but what about MEEEEeee?” Which, to be honest, is a lot less time than it usually takes. The Moth has helped me grow in many, many ways.

Here’s an excerpt from the story, “Going Solo Gets Crowded.“

Since they began in 1997, storytelling nights hosted by the Moth, a nonprofit, have helped aspiring writers try out new material in a nurturing environment. But lately, storytelling has exploded into a thriving genre all its own, a new avenue to prominence for writers and, increasingly, for actors and comedians. In a sense, storytelling has become the new stand-up — a way to be noticed by the literary agents, actors and directors who increasingly populate the audiences.

The Moth — the dominant name in the live storytelling scene — has expanded its number of shows to 85 this year in New York and Los Angeles, from 26 in 2006. The group now holds four open-mike slams in different New York venues each month, compared with once a month in 2006, and has expanded to Los Angeles, where it holds two slams a month. Attendance is surging, to a projected 15,000 this year from 4,000 in 2006, organizers said. Events continue to sell out, even at larger venues. In the next two years, the Moth plans to expand to at least 10 cities.

If you read the entire story, you could be forgiven for thinking that performing at The Moth is a shortcut to fame, riches, and creative fulfillment. I’m here to tell you that it ain’t exactly Lana Turner at the soda fountain, people.

It’s possible to show up at a Moth Slam, get on stage and win straight away and go home feeling like you’ve hit a home run with one hand while saving a baby from a fire with the other. However, nobody’s going to recognize you on the subway the next day.

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eraserhead with death piggy

Originally uploaded by wesh

This essay is by my friend, muse, and hero(ine), the irrepressible Juliet. She pitched it to any number of papers in Philadelphia and failed — as you’ll see in just a moment, it probably wasn’t her fault.

Philadelphia has a problem with its statuary: we build lavish monuments to to the wrong people while letting the right ones go unmarked.

We have statues of people who polarized us (Frank Rizzo), who could have cared less about us (Charles Dickens) or who never existed (Rocky Balboa). Meanwhile, we overlook people who logged real time here and did great things.

This problem has a solution: put a big-ass statue of the title character from the movie Eraserhead, directed by former Philadelphia resident David Lynch, at the corner of 13th and Wood.
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So, it’s as official as it gets. I just heard from the producers today who confirmed it as a “go,” with the caveat “anything can happen, but we’re looking good.” I’m going to have a story on this week’s episode of “This American Life,” and I couldn’t be more thrilled about it.

It’s a new version of a story I performed at The Moth’s GrandSlam a few months ago. I pitched it to This American Life with that video, and they brought me into the studio for an interview a few weeks ago.

And here’s the REAL dirt on Ira Glass:
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Carl’s evil army dies a little more each week. Fast-moving doctors toppled the heart of Carl’s vicious empire and now the stragglers are huddled in their bunkers reading the tarot to make the simplest decisions and waiting for orders that aren’t likely to come. Perfectionist that I am, I’m not going to be happy until the last lonely soldier scratches out a suicide note with its nerve-chewed nails and gargles a muzzle full of lead.

My doctors are a hard-hitting unit of Inglourious Basterds that are willing to drop in and detonate at the slightest hint of an insurgency which is harsh and excessive, but come on — this isn’t 4-square in the schoolyard here.

For those of you that are rolling your eyes and thinking “Jesus, easy on the hooptedoodle, Simmermon”:

Now that my cancerous non-seminoma is out, the markers it releases in my blood have dropped dramatically, and continue to decline each week. My doctors refuse to take chemo off the table, which is smart both from a scientific and legalistic ass-covering perspective. I’m recovering pretty well from the actual surgical procedure, but it’s a three-steps-forward, one-step back kind of thing.

Some days I can walk fine and hang out a little bit. Other days the incision burns and everyone on earth is a complete barking bozo and everyone needs to just SHUT UP, JESUS CHRIST.

And then there’s this …
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200682351343_fat elvis

Originally uploaded by CaraMaya

The good news is, the cancer’s probably not going to kill me directly. However, there is this:

I’m in a fair bit of pain from the surgery. It’s not like they gave me a belt of whiskey and a broomstick to bite while it happened, but still. I’m constantly hooped to the gills on Vicodin, which eliminates most, but not all of the searing yank I feel 4 inches below and 3 inches to the left of my navel every time I cough, laugh, or move.

My coworkers were colossally thoughtful and sent over meals for me and my mom for a week the day after I came out of the hospital. Included was a massive tray of velvety, sensual macaroni and cheese. I’ve been having a spoonful or two every time I have to take a Vicodin — you’re supposed to take it with food.

Thing is, Vicodin’s not exactly a laxative. Neither is mac and cheese. Quite the opposite, actually. Like drinking a glassful of Quikrete, really.

So I may not die from cancer itself. But I could well go out like The King himself: lit up on painkillers, chock full of mac and cheese and straining my way to an aneurysm hunkered over the can.

I am Elvis Aaron Presley, minus the hair and the hits. I’m either going to have a heart attack or all that mess is going to come streaming out of my incision in a hellish imitation of a Play-Doh Fun Factory.

On the other hand, my heart is soaring with hope about once a day. I either get a great phone call from someone, a letter, or a visitor drops by. Its been so great hearing from everyone, seeing everyone, and I really feel loved and supported. There’s no substitute for it.

Maggie came up on Monday, and we took a walk around Williamsburg, up to my favorite bookstore and back. It was magnificent. I could see every crag in every brick like it was the first time, loved every tag on every wall, every tiny broken beer bottle in the gutter was like a little pile of diamonds. Being out in the air, in the sun for the first time felt like coming up out of a yearlong stay in an undersea biosphere. Each breath was a jewel. We stuck our heads in bars, fiddled with pinball machines, got a cup of tea and browsed in little overpriced boutiques. It was magical. Like Disney World when I was eight.

Then on the way back I got the fear again, really bad. Felt this clenching inside, like my organs were making a fist. I broke out in a cold sweat and had to lie down. For about sixteen hours.

But that fog, that dog-breath malaise that’s been panting all over my life for a month is gone. It’s replaced by opiates for now, but that’s going to go too, and I’ll be myself again. And that feels really, really awesome.

Tomorrow we’re going back to Sloan-Kettering to get the biopsy results, the CT/PET scan results, find out if I’m done with all this or if I’ll spend the summer getting chemotherapy. But one way or another, I’ll be back in action by the fall, I think. I hope.

I keep joking about this because really, I can’t do anything else. I default to clowning around every time I open my mouth. And when I see other people laugh at the jokes I’m making about all this, it makes me feel better — because if they’re laughing at it, it can’t be that bad.

So if I can keep making you laugh about it, then you won’t be scared. And then I’ll see that you’re not scared, and I won’t be scared either.

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testicles

Originally uploaded by ai pohaku

My friend Rob and I have this ongoing juvenile argument.

He loves to ask people:

Which is better, having one testicle, or having three?

He’d rather have one, he says, because

I’d rather be a little sad than a lot creepy.

I disagree. I’d rather be strange than pitiful, myself. But it turns out I might not have much of a choice.

A few weeks ago, I was doing a bit of a self-test — got to do these things once you’re in your ’30s — and I discovered that one of my testicles was the approximate size and weight of a Cadbury Creme Egg. I made an appointment with a GP who gave it a perfunctory juggle, shrugged, and put me on antibiotics for a week.

It didn’t work. I got referred to a specialist who I went to see today. He ran some ultrasounds, then frowned and called up NYU, sent me across town for an emergency sonogram.

“That can’t be good,” I thought as I got into the cab. But it was all moving too fast for me to think about it.

So there’s this mass growing in the center of one of my nuts, making it all big and really hard. It feels like I could pound nails with the thing. Or really surprise someone in my Muay Thai class. But instead of being useful it’s consumed a lot of the healthy tissue in there and needs to come out.

As the doctor says, if it’s benign, it’s a problem because it could keep growing. If it’s malignant — out it comes, too. The procedure’s called a Radical Orchiectomy, and it’s about as fun as it sounds.

Luckily it doesn’t seem to have spread anywhere, and it’s been caught early. This is one of the few truly curable cancers in the world. Lance Armstrong let his go WAY further than mine, and he’s fine.

But still. Ain’t THAT a bitch. I’m going to lose one of my testicles, sooner rather than later. And I’m not even going to get to lose it to a hungry octopus, or at the tip of a pirate’s saber, or some other cool way. Just to one of the most common, curable cancers in the world.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m getting a second, third, opinion. And I feel lucky that this isn’t gonna take me out. Or at least not for long. Reproductive health and hormones should still be ticking right along. That’s why we have two of these things, apparently.

But I’m reeling, feeling betrayed by my body and mourning the loss of a body part already. I know it’s not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but I mean, SHIT.

So tomorrow’s going to be more doctor’s appointments and blood work, just to be sure. I’m told that I can get a prosthetic testicle put in during surgery if I want one. Not sure what to do about that one just yet. Does it even matter? Or, more importantly: does it cost much extra to get two prosthetics in addition to the real one?

**Update** I just had an idea. I wonder if I could get a musket ball from the Civil War encased in silicone and put in there instead. That could be really cool — keep a little Virginia with me at all times.

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