Writers With Finks, I mean Drinks

On Saturday I went down to check out Writer's with Drinks http://www.writerswithdrinks.com hosted at the Make Out Room on 22nd near Mission. Just to watch someone read by the mottled light of a disco ball made the experience more than worth the risk 0f a parking ticket. I got there a little late, and the place was packed with at least couple hundred people. Above the heads I could see a shapely, stout blond reading from her confusing, a little bit interesting treatise on sex and politics. This was Mellisa Gira. She said the word "Cock" a lot and talked about George Bush a lot too. Oddly, her last line of the evening was a total knock out, "I'm a good mistake to make" and I wondered if I hadn't missed something in the circuitous rant that led up to it.

My friend, Trevor, ( I couldn't go alone, I just couldn't) stared hard at me. We're staying, my eyes said back. I wanted to find out if this was my crew, my people. I'd read a lot about cadres of writers who lived together or knew each other, like Virginia Woolf who had her Bloomsbury Group, but what existed today? It was comforting to think that I might be surrounded by a bunch of people parading as writers. Think of all that loneliness and unrequited artistic juice filling up such a small space. Just look at their lost, introspective, pensive expressions. And whatever wasn't showing up emotionally was definitely compensated by true-to-form writerly accessories: I've never seen so many button up t-shirts and thick, dark frames in my life. The frames were especially popular with Asians for some reason. And petite white girls in summer dresses. Well, actually, this one petite white girl in a summer dress who was hanging out with the stout, shapely blond writer and probably knew a lot about George Bush and cocks and what it took to get into bed with a woman like Miss Gira.

The host was a man parading as, (or simply being) a badly dressed woman. The coolest part about him were his flesh colored leggings, and not tattoos, sadly, covered with action packed comic book panels that I almost got close enough to read in the floor space I had carved out for myself by the stage. At one point, the host's high heel just missed my sidecar. Next time, I should probably get there early.

Jennifer Solow read from her book, The Booster, and totally upstaged the host tranny with her bloo hair and shiny black pants. She wore tank top with the words "famous author" across her chest which she claimed she had printed up before her book on shoplifting became a national best seller. (ironic but generic references to "Steal This Book" come to mind) Even though her reading really bored me, I decided she was cool. Her delicate, deft prose did a great job of setting the scene for an idea that didn't interest me in the slightest. This is normal since I'm pretty picky. However, Jennifer Solow, you write really, really well. So kudos to you, Ms. Solow. She's the same woman who had each word from a short story tattooed on about fifteen hundred different volunteers. The host tranny tried to make a joke about how Ms. Solow had lost the hard copy to the piece and was busily lining up all the volunteers in naked repose. A few people chuckled. It was a little bit funny. I wonder though, do these tattooed people know each other? Do they talk? Are they writers? Do people like Solow and Gira actually hang out together? Or do they just communicate via email? As I looked out over the crowed, the same question kept coming back to me: who are these people, and how many of them are sleeping together? In other words, is this *the* group of writers in SF? And if so, how do I break in? Aside from Groop, and an MFA, I've always written in a vacuum.

After the intermission, Guillermo Gomez-Pena read. He also did a lot of talking about sex and politics, and managed to make the one really good joke of the evening, with apologies to Mr. Pena, (well, not really) has been dumbed down due to my questionable, drunken, memory: "The government censors everything these days, TV, Radio, poets--" at which point he stopped talking to make the point. I suppose he liked the reception he received because he then went on for no fewer than ten minutes starting and stopping in the middle of his prose, eventually reducing his language down to a few audible grunts.

At this point Trevor made eyes at the door. But I want to stay, my eyes said back. Five minutes. Okay, five minutes. Fine. Then we're going to the Elbo Room to meet some straight women. These women are straight. His eyes shot over to the large ape-like thing in the corner with her arm draped over two blonds in torn jeans. Okay, five minutes. We waited for a break in the action and left. Still, I'd go back. It's nice being around my crew, my people, even if they have no idea who the hell I am.