I'll Make Out With James Franco, Sure. Even With Kamiko-San, Just Don't Make Me Read Any More of His Fiction. I Beg of You.

For Alex Espinoza and Lindsay Fitzgerald and anyone else who has suffered through an MFA program only to see James Franco publish a story in Esquire

I'm doing some spring cleaning as of late, and not the 409 kind.  I'm revamping my website (to be revealed later this week) and as you can see, I've changed around my blog too.  Just trying to move the old shit out and make room for the new, some virtual Feng Shui if you will.  Also, neither have been updated since 2006, and well, it's just time.  I've acquired so many things since then, most importantly, a hunky boyfriend who vaguely resembles this guy, my personal ad of sorts that I posted on my original site.

 I've never seen Matt do that weird pensive move with his thumb in his mouth, but he's 

all about the typewriter and the paper.  Did I mention he's hunky, too?   

This whole reorganization started because a few weeks ago, my agent let me know that The New York Times had turned down my piece for Modern Love, which was, I have to say, really fucking good and a perfect fucking fit for the column.  The editor turned it down mainly because it had cancer in it, and he's tired of reading stories about cancer, as well as publishing them, as he says, "in a column about love."  Well, mine was all about love, my love for Matt, for my Mom, for my unborn children, sort of the cycle of love and how we move it from one person to the next our entire lives.  At any rate, I was unbelievably frustrated, so I freaked, wept and generally fell apart for about 48 hours, gave up writing, gave up life, gave up everything, including getting out of bed in the morning.  Then I talked to my mom, who said:

"Well, fuck, that sucks. Ok, you can give up writing for a little bit.  But listen, then you have to go back to it. You can't really give it up, you know."

Damn, she's good.

So after I pitched my fit, I got reorganized, got distracted in redesigning things and got some perspective.  In the last four years, I haven't published the memoir I wrote in that time or written my second book for that matter, but I have managed to slowly build more publication credits, scored a column and overall, haven't done an entirely shitastic job of being a writer. 

Which brings me to this blog, one of my favorite things I do, simply because the pressure's off, and it's really only for me. (And those of you who get it, of course.  You know who you are.) Because so many of you do get it, it also affords me some instant gratification in a career that is all about slow, painful and usually mediocre success at best.  I've wanted to name my blog for awhile now, so with a little help from Matt and the name of one of my favorite restaurants in Portland - Veritable Quandary - I now present you with "Irreverent Quandary: With some beautiful ferocity thrown in for good measure."* I had to plumb the web to find some synonyms to better define it, and here's what I found:

irreverent = cheeky, fresh, profane, unhallowed, saucy

quandary = plight, predicament, situation, position, context

I think what most closely matches what I do here is writing things from a "saucy position" and besides, I love the sound of both words irreverent and quandary, separately and together, and I know for sure that my off the cuff rants are always irreverent, no matter what the topic and by coming here, you end up in the middle of whatever my particular plight may be, and it is always a plight, I assure you.  At least in the moments I'm writing it all down.  If you're still unclear, perhaps the visual thesaurus can help. 

At any rate, all of this brings me to the plight of James Franco, or perhaps the plight of all of us who (miserably) read his story,"Just Before the Black" in this month's Esquire. I guess my beef lies more so with the editors there than Mr. Fanco, as the magazine has dropped a few notches in my book after publishing this 1,000 word or so piece of do-do. It is bad enough that the celeb memoir trumps all that sells in the book world these days, but now I have a special chip of ice in my heart for what I fear maybe be a new genre, a fresh hell: celebrity literary fiction.  Sure, Lauren Conrad (and her team of ghost writers) can churn our LA Candy in a week or so, but I'm pretty sure Mr. Franco wrote this little gem all on his own.  Did I mention he's also getting his MFA at Columbia? One of the best writing schools in the country? Oh, and I'm sure they didn't know who he was when he applied, just like Yale had never heard of Natalie Portman or Claire Danes.  Shut it.  (This just in: he apparently got turned down at UC Irvine, my alma mater, also one of the best writing schools in the country.  I take an ounce or two of solace from that snarky piece of information.)

Here's why it all makes me sort of furious:  Esquire publishes 12, count 'em, 12 short stories a year.  And they wasted on on Franco? This is on par with at least 2-3 Updike stories appearing every year in the New Yorker.  Are you fucking kidding me? Like he needs more exposure? He's actually the one who should know better - stop submitting, Mr. Updike, please.  Remember when you were a poor and struggling nobody writer?  Even just for a second?  Because here's the thing: The New Yorker may publish 48 or so stories a year, but that equals less than half of the MFA programs in the country.  Multiply that by 20-50 graduates a year, add in the half million or so writers who never went to graduate school, minus those who have either given up or committed suicide trying, and what do you have? A shitload of pretty good, maybe great writers who are getting jack shit published.

But I digress.

Little known fact, unless you are a literary nerd like me -- Esquire has a reputation to uphold.  This is the place that first published Hemingway and Fitzgerald, people. It is not GQ. It is not, thank God, Maxim. I actually have a subscription to Esquire, because it's articles and fiction are usually so good, better than most any women's magazine you'll pick up, I'm afraid.  Also, I'd rather read articles on "The Well-Dressed Man" and "How to Build The Best Hoagie Around" than yet another "How To Drive Your Man Wild/How to Let Go of Your Inhibitions/How to Keep Your Man By Acting Like a Whore in The Bedroom" article, e.g. "Flick his nipples. Make circles on his stomach  with your tongue. Don't be afraid to put your finger --" and -- I'm out.

In fact, Esquire published an amazing article about Roger Ebert last month, which I told everyone I knew about.  It was stunning, and you should read it.  Here's the link. However, this does not make up for this Franco debacle.  And don't get me started on when the last time was that they published a piece by a woman. I know, I know, it's a men's magazine.  But still.  

I'm sure you're dying to know what I hate so much about this story, as it's taken me a long time to get here.  First of all, he's ripping off Carver left and right with his dark, sparse prose and story of white trash (or Mexican trash, as the case may be) boys in peril.  Except it's not Carver-esque, it's just plain awful.  With descriptions like,"The building is tan with white trim," which lead to more descriptions of the building like, "Joe and I sit and stare at the wall of the building.  The building is beige, but the shadows make it shadow color," When someone spits out an open car window, it's called a "black gaping gap." (As noted in the Salon article below, there are so many gaping gaps gapping gappily in this story, it's sort of one giant black hole..  And get ready for how he talks about sex. Gaack.) What's worse than all that is that there is not a shred of understanding of this narrator or the people around him, and not one interesting thing ever comes out of anyone's mouth.  It's supposed to be a story about death, but what it is is a story about boys talking about shitting, fucking and sucking dick, which ramming cars into walls for no reason and threatening each other with large knives, when they are not too busy deciding what is worse, being a woman or being gay.  Oh how edgy! And dark! And weird!  It's not even so much the content (ok, maybe a bit) as it is the writing. Or perhaps the combination of the two.  Here's the link if you want to read it and see if I'm just bitter. I mean, I am, but I think I'm also right.  This Salon writer agrees that it's awful.  And she's pretty funny about it to boot.

Oh, and just to round out my general annoyance, Mr. Franco's collection titled (edgily?) Palo Alto, will be published later this year by freaking Scribner. Matt assures me there is a "bad" part of this posh town (perhaps like living adjacent to Beverly Hills?) so I'm sure that's where these stories take place, mostly likely in the black gaping gaps between shadow-colored beige buildings.

My only caveat to all this is that Mr. Franco seems like a very nice person, and he's very attractive and a pretty damn good actor as well.  Overall, I really enjoy him. It's just that honestly, and totally irrationally, it's simply not fair.  He doesn't need to write, it's a hobby for him, and should be treated as such.  Sure, maybe a obscure literary journal or two could publish him, but not Esquire, and not a freaking collection (which every agent and editor in New York will tell you are silly to write, impossible to sell and just a waste of your typing skills apparently) put out by a major publisher.  So if you're reading this Mr. Franco, here's my plea: knock it the fuck off. The rest of us, us homely normals who have no successful acting career and also lack the ability to make women (and gay men) swoon, need more of the writing pie than you do.  Publish your stories and then go away. Make great movies, reappear on 30 Rock.  Leave us with something. It's only fair.  And really, come back to 30 Rock. It was genius.

 He plays himself in this episode, and is also madly in love with a Japanese Anime body pillow named Kamiko-San.  Perhaps if you watch the clip below it, it will wash the stink his story left on your eyes.

Bravo, Mr. Franco.  Now leave the writing to people like me, Alex and Lindsay and the rest of us real writers and I think we can all get along.

*The term "beautiful ferocity" in the IQ tagline (which I'm sure you were all wondering about) was coined by a graduate school professor of mine, who said it was something I possessed.  I've been trying to cultivate it ever since.