Fried & True

by Fay Jacobs

January 2005

  I’M 130,706!

  That’s my Amazon number. Today. At 3:26 p.m. It fluctuates wildly. Of all the books Amazon sells, my book is ranked at 130,706. All things considered, I think that’s pretty damn good. I guess it’s all that holiday buying. Of course, tomorrow Frying may rank in the 300,000s or worse.

  With the exception of my family and friends whose stories, if not names, are in the book, and a few loyal Rehoboth locals, I had no idea who in the world would buy or read my book.

  I still have no idea, but somebody is. While 130,705 books are selling better than mine (DaVinci Code, 398; that oldie/goodie To Kill a Mockingbird, 705; and Augusten Burroughs’ hilarious memoir at 171), more than a million books are selling worse than mine—including one by Al Gore at number 541,456. Al Gore for pity’s sake! Okay, okay, it’s one of his older books.

  But who’s buying As I Lay Frying? I swear, it’s not my family. They stopped shilling for me in 1961 when they purchased 27 boxes of Girl Scout Thin Mints so I could win a cookie badge.

  A lot has happened since that girl scout started scouting girls and writing about it. And a lot more has happened since last May when my book came off the press and into the garage.

  As a result of press releases sent by the A&M Books publicity department (one part Anyda, two parts me, stir) gay and lesbian book stores began ordering the book.

  Here in town, Lambda Rising bookstore ordered 20 copies as well as extras for their D.C. and Baltimore shops. The two Rehoboth Avenue bookstores ordered a dozen as did a shop in Dewey Beach and another in our sister city of Lewes, DE. Then they all ordered more. And more. By the case, like Cabernet Sauvignon.

  This was getting weird. Wonderful, but freaky.

  Then I got a phone call from the Insightout Book Club, a GLBT (not a sandwich) version of Book of the Month Club. Their executive editor received a copy of my book and a gushing review from a Delaware reader. The editor told me that much to his surprise, he finished the book in one sitting, laughed his head off and wanted the book for the club—in hardcover no less.

  With visions of Certificates of Deposit and press junkets in my head, I received the contract from Insightout. Here’s how it works: They pay you an advance, in my case, the equivalent of one mortgage payment. And I have a cheap mortgage. It’s a far cry from those $2 million advances you hear about, but then again I’m not Hillary Clinton (and I’m glad…).

  So the book club manufactures the book itself, promotes it in their member magazine and tries to sell their version to club readers who don’t know who the hell I am. In reality, they have to sell a gazillion books for me to make any more money than the advance. But that’s okay, since the club has a gigantic membership list and being a club offering is publicity you cannot buy at any price.

  This was getting to be fun. I admit it.

  I almost passed out a week ago when the book club’s January edition arrived in my mailbox with a full color image of my book cover taking up the entire front cover of their magazine. I’m no Kate Moss but I’m a cover girl. Revenge of the nerds.

  Selling on Amazon.com on the other hand requires fortitude and the hide of an elephant. It’s great when Amazon sells my book at full price with A&M Books getting the wholesale price. The problem is, folks sell used copies on the page where Amazon has the book listed. There’s a link to a herd of entrepreneurs re-selling the book. Some offer Frying at a slightly lower price, with the book described as “used, acceptable condition, some markings.” Perhaps they did use it as a doorstop. Or “perfect condition, never read.” It begs the question why?

  There are also copies for $27.99, listed as signed collectibles. Just put me on a shelf with the Hummels and Lladros.

  By far the most irritating used book advertisement had the thing going for $2.40 with the comment “well used. There is a rip in the cover and a large ding on the back cover but it does not effect (sic) the pages.” I bet it doesn’t affect the pages either. What did they do, use the book to shore up a table leg?

  The online reviews are fun, too. The publisher gets to post reviews for the book and we submitted reviews from the Washington Blade, OutTraveler and Lambda Book Report.

  Readers get to publish reviews, too, and I’m happy to report that the ones from readers I don’t know are just as good as the ones I paid my friends to write.

  So that’s the scoop. By today, the Insightout Book Club web site had my book listed as a best seller (!) in the lesbian memoir category. I surmise there aren’t a whole lot of contenders, but seeing myself as Best Seller #7 was a kick.

  Reports from independent bookstores out in the hinterlands are good, too. I’ve shipped stock to stores from Minnesota to Maine, Arizona to (get this) Alabama.

  A distributor has picked up the book (along with the Sarah Aldridge titles) for West Coast distribution and we have just signed a contract with a distributor in jolly old England.

  It’s all happening so fast, I’m dizzy. In fact, Bonnie clicked the garage door opener yesterday, letting us into the book depository and we started counting the remaining cartons. It seems like a second printing is on the horizon.

  Needless to say, Anyda and Muriel are assembling all the press clippings and reviews, and are tickled by the success of A&M Books’ latest opus. They are delighted that another author is now published under the A&M imprint.

  Meanwhile, I added all of the Sarah Aldridge titles to my Amazon.com account last week, and already we’ve had a few sales. Neither Anyda nor Muriel have a clue about dot.coms so I’m printing pages out for them so they can see that the Sarah Aldridge books are being advertised and sold the new millennium way.

  Of course, I haven’t the heart to tell Anyda that one of her thirty year old titles is on the Amazon sales scale at number one million, six hundred thousand and something. I think Amazon has sold one copy of that novel in three months. But give it time. If we sell a few more a month she will be right up there with Al Gore.

  January 2005

  LETTERS FROM CAMP REHOBOTH

  THE BOOB TUBE

  Somebody help me here. I’m confused. It’s Super Bowl eve, and CNN is crazed over how the NFL will protect the children of America from another accidental breast at half-time.

  Baby-faced, uber-trustworthy Paul McCartney has been imported to make sure that a Janet Jackson redux is not even a remote possibility. We recall that one year ago Janet’s bitty titty had the Federal Communications Commission and the Concerned Women for America in a sizzle over that naughty wardrobe malfunction. Just this morning, a commentator, tongue firmly in cheek, hoped that this year, McCartney wouldn’t accidentally sing Oobla Dee Oobla Bra….

  I’m confused, because right in the middle of TV’s talking heads expounding on the Super Bowl horror of a nipple making a forward pass, I was treated to a commercial for Levitra.

  Now it used to be that advertising for ED drugs, as the common medical malfunction used to be called, was discreet, with spokesperson Bob Dole talking about the little blue pill that would help men with the long-closeted condition.

  These days, though, we have romantic television images of very young, exceptionally virile men, and their grinning female partners touting the drug as providing a longer-lasting, better experience. They imply that the drug is not so much for dysfunction as for dissatisfaction.

  All well and good, if in between commercials all those concerned mothers aren’t getting hysterical about a breast on the 50-yard line. Evidently they have no problem with women broadcasting their thoughts on the quality of erections, but the sight of a female breast makes them queasy. What the hell is that?

  Never mind that warning on the Cialis commercial (or is it Levitra again?) telling men that if their erections last longer than four hours they should seek immediate medical help. Go explain that to the kids. (Hell, explain it to me.)

  Conservatives, emboldened by what they thought was an election mandate, but what was, if a victory at all (paranoid lefties unite!) just a razor thin win, have gone bon
kers. Recently they flogged the entertainment industry over that frighteningly salacious character SpongeBob Square Pants. To hear Dr. James Dobson of the Family Research Council tell it, the problem is not so much SpongeBob himself—although I’m sure he’s a little light in the swim fins for Dobson’s taste—but that the We Are Family Foundation produced a video for the schools starring SpongeBob, Barney and a variety of other subversive cartoons. Dobson says that the Foundation is, gasp, “pro-homosexual with a sinister agenda.”

  That sinister agenda teaches youngsters about tolerance by suggesting they take the following pledge: “To help…make America a better place for all, I pledge to have respect for people whose abilities, beliefs, culture, race, sexual identity or other characteristics are different from my own.”

  Disgusting, don’t you think?

  Dobson heard the pledge and urged parents “to keep a close eye on your sons and daughters. Watch carefully everything that goes into their little minds.”

  Little minds, indeed.

  All this wouldn’t be so frightening if the media didn’t find it contagious, spending the entire pre-Super Bowl week tittering, if you’ll excuse the expression, about Janet Jackson’s 2004 one-point conversion.

  Since then, the FCC cracked down on Howard Stern, Dr. Dobson squeezed SpongeBob and right here in Rehoboth, the Film Society got the evil eye for showing a movie that was no more graphic than many others at the multi-plex.

  Then came The Vagina Monologues. Last weekend, CAMP Rehoboth presented a production of the show at the Rehoboth Convention Center and I was lucky enough to be the director. We drew two sell-out audiences—mostly women, but a nice contingent of men as well. And the diversity astounded us all. Gay, straight, young old, Goth girls, Red Hat ladies, women in Ralph Lauren, flannel shirts, the works.

  I had imported three actresses from my old Maryland theatre days and we had a blast putting the show together. Believe me, after working with the script for days on end, hearing the word vagina repeated or discussed a hundred times, we got pretty comfortable with it.

  Which is why it was hilarious that at first mention of the play’s title in area newspapers (not using the word vagina in any of the headlines, I might add), there was an outcry from some Sussex County folks, hollering that the play promotes lesbianism.

  Frankly, the play is 90% heterosexual. But let’s face it, 10 percent homo in a sea of hetero is red meat to those conservatives.

  Never mind that the play had been on Broadway since 1997 (with the word Vagina in 6-ft letters on the marquee) or that it has been done in 76 countries, translated into 35 languages and produced in thousands of communities.

  I was most amused by one newspaper, which printed The Vagina Monologues press release, but changed the headline to read “Tickets going fast for play.”

  But the capper was the ride into town two days before the show to read the Convention Center marquee: CAMP Rehoboth Monologues 8 p.m.

  I guess the City staff comes from a more repressed generation.

  But there’s a big difference between keeping “Vagina” off the marquee (now there’s a mental picture) and renaming the play “CAMP Rehoboth Monologues.” I don’t exactly know how that happened but it gave us a laugh.

  In fact, at the show’s dress rehearsal, the actresses started substituting the words “CAMP Rehoboth” every time they were supposed to say the V-word. We all had a good howl.

  So what do we do about this selectively outraged society and the free press that gives them more air time and credence every day?

  I say we make good and sure the world is still safe for the mention of biologically correct body parts and small spongy cartoon characters. I say we fight to make sure the FCC allows us to watch programming that’s at least as explicit as commercials hawking “a quality sexual experience.”

  It’s going to be a fight, but there are signs we will eventually win. My optimism comes from a four year old. As her mother prepared to leave for the Convention Center to perform in the “CAMP Rehoboth Monologues,” this child sat on my living room carpet amid a pile of well-dressed Barbie Dolls. But one was buck naked.

  “We need to put her clothes on,” the child calmly said, “so you don’t see her vagina and her bum.” Good girl.

  But while we wait for the toddler generation to grow up, we can pray that the vituperative conservatives don’t try to put words like vagina back in the closet. Hell, we hope they don’t try to put gay people back in the closet.

  And I so hope that nobody at the Super Bowl drops their drawers, alludes to a penis, or puts one small breast forward for mankind.

  People will laugh so hard they’ll miss the Levitra commercials.

  February 2005

  LETTERS FROM CAMP REHOBOTH

  PRIME TIME VIEWS

  Hallelujah! After years of offering up my unsolicited opinions, this week I actually got a formal request for my preferences. I’m a Neilsen Family!!!!

  Yes, after my more than half a century of watching the boob tube the ratings folks finally found me and want to know what I watch.

  For fifty years the Neilsens have gotten their information from couch spuds watching Car 54 Where Are You, The Gong Show, Mr. Ed, and, my choice for situation comedy sludge The Beverly Hillbillies. Meanwhile, my favorites, Route 66, Cagney & Lacey, and Designing Women suffered premature rejectulation.

  It’s about time they queried (queeried?) somebody who dotes on PBS, devours the news and lies in wait for high-toned TV dramas. Actually, there hasn’t been a really high-toned TV drama since Playhouse 90 went off the air in 1961. But I’ll take West Wing.

  So can this be my opportunity to bring a more cultured, erudite and discriminating queer eye to the ratings pie? No, the truth is that I’m going to have to admit to shilling for The L Word, and never missing that new Monday night disaster The Medium. The acting is painful and the dialogue embarrassing, but like a traffic crack-up on Route One, I have to stare. Just as those Brady Bunch fanatics and Dynasty suckers ponied up the truth about their viewing habits, I too, am determined to reward the Neilsen people for their faith in me by simply returning their diary with my actual television choices for sweeps week 2005.

  Oh, but if it had been that easy.

  They give you a damn diary for every working TV in your house. Hell, the one in front of the treadmill has been off since my 2003 flirtation with the Adkins Diet.

  But there’s the Sony in Bonnie’s home office droning on all day long as white noise while she works. At any given time she has no idea whether she’s watching an old Victor Mature movie or an Abmaster infomercial. Is this even watching? Do we dare give people the impression that each morning, somewhere in Delaware, somebody’s actually paying attention to an old Who’s the Boss?

  Here’s a question: does proper diary entry require intent or actual consciousness? What about those 10 p.m. episodes of Law & Order where, despite our best efforts we watch the gruesome murder but doze off, mouth agape, on the sofa before the jury comes back?

  If they’d asked us to be a Neilsen Family 20 years ago this wouldn’t even be a question. Our diary would show St. Elsewhere and Hill Street Blues followed by Johnny Carson, followed by Dave Letterman. Back then, I never even understood why they broadcast 10 o’clock news. “I can’t believe people don’t stay up for Carson,” I’d sneer.

  Somewhere in the early 90s, following that wicked lesbian kiss on L.A. Law, the question morphed into, “Do you believe people don’t stay up for the news?”

  Now, without Delmarva 10 p.m. news I’d have to wait until morning for word of the number of chickens with influenza.

  But here’s the real question. If we-are-fa-mi-ly Neilsen, who’s included? The dogs watch Animal Planet when we go out. Should this be in the diary? I really need to know.

  On our bedroom TV, our late-night choice is the Travel Channel. We routinely fall asleep somewhere between the Grand Canyon, Monster RVs and an Albuquerque Chile Cook-off. Is everything after toothpaste and before REM sle
ep legit?

  So this week I’ve been busier running back and forth, pen and diary in hand, between TV sets than I ever was on that treadmill. Frankly, it’s a wonder I’ve had time to watch anything. But I did make certain I reported taping The L Word in its 10 p.m. time slot, while watching The Academy Awards, a.k.a. The Gay Superbowl on another channel.

  I also let the Neilsens know that while I was watching Hilary Swank’s va-va-voom backless gown, I was taping that cutie on Cold Case. Then, I propped my eyeballs open and watched, and duly recorded that I watched, the repeat of The L Word at midnight. The things you do for love.

  One day, as I loped between the living room (CNN People in the News) and Bonnie’s office (the fifth Murder She Wrote of the day) it occurred to me that perhaps these opinions were not as crucial as some I could offer about the actual content on television. Especially on news shows.

  Like what’s with the U.S. Armed Forces spending 200 million dollars to train new translators and logistics experts because they kicked out a whole lotta smart gay people because of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell?” Hey, Neilsens, I got those stats this week on CNN. Somebody do the math and give me the ratings for that stupid Pentagon policy.

  And then on Larry King, 60 Minutes and the rest I heard about “reporter” Jeff Gannon, in reality a schmo named James Guckert, who’s had a daily press pass to the White House for over a year so he could lob softball questions to the President. His questions also included overt criticism of liberals and inaccurate information about pretty much everything I hold dear.

  Never mind that Guckert (Delaware’s own, by the way), purporting to be a family-values Conservative, is linked to various X-rated gay escort service web sites and other risky business. What a family values hypocrite.

  And legendary reporter Helen Thomas lost her front seat in the pressroom. I give this shameful situation terrible ratings.

  But no, during this Sweeps Week (“Woman has 160 lb. tumor!” “Stars Without Make-Up!”) people will probably just fill out their diaries with nights spent watching contestants wade through worms on Fear Factor, shove miniaturized cameras into open wounds on CSI, and argue with each other as they bungee-jump canyons in The Amazing Race.