I joined Vivian Manning-Schaffel (whose riotous essay on Nonnacore excoriates current values around aging), Elena Sheppard, and host Elyssa Maxx Goodman at September’s Miss Manhattan, Elyssa’s long-running monthly series featuring nonfiction. Read from chapter 8 of AFTERLIFE OF A KEPT BOY, “Are U Available?” which covers my friendship with Dean Johnson. About Dean’s core grievance with the music industry:
I later attended a screening of the film Mondo New York in which he appeared with his first band, the Weenies. I found the film’s wide-eyed, sensationalist framing of New York’s underground scene tiresome freak-gawking, but Dean’s incendiary performance of the song “Fuck You” woke me right up. His appearance in the film had led to a deal with Island Records, immediately followed by a run-in with the music industry’s homophobia that he was still railing against years later when I met him. It was the open wound that drove his work and I got behind his righteous crusade. The success he craved would be a victory for all of us.
Thanks to Elyssa for making me a Miss.