New Edition of Tune in Tokyo: The Gaijin Diaries Now Available!!

Well, the big day is here, folks, and I know how happy you must be. The new edition of my book Tune in Tokyo is out now, available on Amazon or at any discerning/misguided indy bookstores. Order yours here!

Congratulations, You Now Have Plans on Wednesday!

Y'all, my book Tune in Tokyo will officially be published tomorrow, yay! So it's officially Tune in Tokyo Eve, and I, for one, will be partying tonight. (Note: "partying" = tuna noodle casserole + diet cherry 7up)

BUT THERE'S MORE. On Wednesday, myself, Amazon Publishing, and the good folks over at Wix Lounge here in NYC are hosting a party to celebrate the end of Western civilization/publication of TiT, and you are cordially invited to attend with all of your unsavory friends. If you are on Facebook, you can RSVP here. Or you can just show up and plunder the sushi, beer, and nibbly things on offer. I'll be reading a little excerpt and then I'll be doing an old-fashioned strip tease involving a hula hoop and a box of Crunch 'n Munch.

YOU SHOULD COME.

Wow, Sure Glad I Decided to Check in on Occupy Wall Street on Sunday, Before They Released the Dogs

Wow, that was some great timing. Jimmy and I biked into town on Sunday to see Cave of Forgotten Dreams and afterwards Jimmy suggested we bike down to Occupy Wall Street and see what all the hippies are doing. I thought this was a great idea because I hadn't been there in over a month and surely the interpretive dancing is off the hook by this point. (See video above.)

So we twirled on down there and Lord Almighty it smelled. Like, it wasn't a pungent smell like sewage or fart or piss--it wasn't that obvious. It just felt like, as we made our way through the encampment, we were walking through a big brown cloud of... something. Something that smelled... unpleasant. Kind of sort of deeply, deeply, profoundly unpleasant. Something you couldn't bear to put your finger on.

Anyway, on to the pictures:

Should have brought my viola, my weave, and my earnestness. Left all three at home.

This is where they keep all the dildos.

Cute bicyclist powering a generator with his blurry legs.

Flu shots, first-aid kits, condoms, lube, mints, dental floss.

The PB&J preparation table.

Entrance to the library, which sadly has now been destroyed, probably by illiterates.

Now that's more like it. What I came here for. Thank you, Mr. Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test!

Wait, what's a krip? Isn't that racist? Or, no, I think it's a really potent weed. If so, I think I've found my favorite contingent.

We'll always have Zuccotti. (Well, not in the literal sense.)

And, in conclusion, here's more of the interpretive dance that was taking place across the street from the park. Maybe this is the reason behind the police crackdown?

Camera Phone Denied: The Anderson Cooper Show

I recently decided that I should take advantage of being unemployed and attend the taping of a terrible daytime talk show, because I'm in New York, and what could be worse than being unemployed and getting sucked into discussions about meaningless bullshit and/or awful personal tragedies? That's right: getting sucked in in person.

Did you know that Anderson Cooper has a new daytime talk show? It really makes perfect sense, because, though he has a perfectly respectable career as a swoon-worthy silver fox newsman, his biggest and most devoted fans are housewives with no gaydar and gay dudes who work the pole at night, so why not tap into that Cooper-ready audience of Nancies? Anyway, I got tickets to a recent taping because I figured it would be a great opportunity to talk to Anderson about my new book and, you know, give him a copy and encourage him to tweet about it or something. Or maybe I'd have a chance to hold it up in front of the camera? So me and my friend Rachel trolled on down to the Time Warner Building in Columbus Circle at the dreaded hour of 9 a.m. and got in line.



It took forever to go through all the security rigamarole and get taken to our seats. To our delight, the usher with the Madonna microphone headset on, after consulting a person on the other end, escorted us right up to the front row OMG! We quickly decided that it must be in Anderson Cooper's rider that the front row be filled with only beautiful, camera-ready people, and they took one look at us and decided we were the very definition of that. After sitting down, we leaned back and soaked in the looks of envy showered upon us from the commoners behind us. "Hey girls," I waved to the queens staring daggers at me from the balcony seats. Soon enough, though, Rachel and I realized that we were absolutely out of range of any camera in the entire studio. There was one immediately behind us, one behind us on the other end, and several in the audience, but we were uniquely positioned to remain forever completely unknown and anonymous to the America viewing public. Was Anderson fucking with us?

The topic for the day was a doozy: transgender children. Jesus, Anderson, can't you just chill out, it's daytime teevee, for God's sake. Why no Kathy Griffin? Why no empty-calorie celebritard interviews? Why no cooking segment? This dead-serious topic ensured that Andy had to wear his Concerned Face for the entire two-hour taping, which was kind of a bummer, because when's he gonna do a segment in his Speedos?



And we weren't given ANY free shwag! None. All the guests on the stage were sipping from cool Anderson mugs and I was hoping we'd get one on the way out, but we didn't get shit. I know Anderson is no Oprah (yet), but still, couldn't he have at least put a Snickers bar under our seats or something? And the only photo I was able to take before the handlers got all stern and grabby was the one up top, taken quickly and under duress.

Okay, so I'm being pretty negative, but here's the good stuff: Coop is, of course, devastatingly gorgeous, and he was dressed adorably in fitted slacks and a snug sweater with a collared shirt. (Fun fact: I used to go to his gym, so I've seen him in his underwear, bitches.) And the stage manager was hella sexy. Rachel almost took a bite out of his butt when he placed it in front of her for a minute.

The episode will air on this Wednesday, apparently, if you're interested. Two days after the one where Joy Behar gives money saving tips, ARGH!

TMInformation Dept: '80s Singer Limahl Overshares

You guys remember Limahl, right? The new-wave mullet-sporting leader of Kajagoogoo and singer of the Never-ending Story theme song? He was sure ridiculous, even for the '80s, my favorite decade, amiright?

Well anyway, there is a new book out called I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution, and in it we get all sorts of juicy stories from the likes of Ann and Nancy Wilson (bestill my heart), Dee Snider, Lionel Richie, and, yes, Limahl, who, in a preview of the book up on Pitchfork, has this to say about his personal experience with video making:

I'm going to tell you something, but I'm not going to name names. In one of my solo videos, the director came to my hotel while I was in Sydney, to discuss the video, and we ended up having sex. There was kissing and it was quite passionate. We both ejaculated. He was a famous director and he was considered very important. I was thinking, Oh my God, I'm having sex with him. I mean, at that point I was pretty famous all over the world.

Of course, when he was directing me on the set with lots of people around, there was a twinkle in his eye, and in mine, because we knew what had happened a few nights before. The video was great.

Gross, Limahl. Gross. You just used the word ejaculate, ugh. I can count on zero hands the number of people who want that from you, Limahl. No one is interested, unless this director's name is Eli Roth, in which case everyone is interested but would rather just hear the story from him, thanks.

I'm in a Glossy Gay Mag!

Y'all, Tune in Tokyo is reviewed in the #1 gay magazine in all the land, Instinct, and they call it "occasionally hilarious"! Occasionally, always--these words mean pretty much the same thing, yes? Anyway, the November "Leading Men" issue is on stands now, so I'm on my way to the Barnes and Noble now to pick up several hundred copies to paper my bedroom with. See the review below:

Booklist and Kirkus Like Tune in Tokyo!

The reviews of the new AmazonEncore edition of my tawdry book Tune in Tokyo are starting to roll in, and so far so good! Booklist and Kirkus had nice things to say, Booklist even going so far as to compare it to David Sedaris's Me Talk Pretty One Day. From Booklist:

Sayonara, America. Hello, Kitty...Aside from such classroom encounters and problems of his own with the Japanese language that...recall David Sedaris' Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000), Anderson regales his readers with tales of Japanese popular culture and his own social life, clubbing and karaoke-barhopping around Tokyo...diverting observations on a country that gaijin Anderson calls "America on Opposite Day.

From Kirkus:

Anderson reliably mines the rich comic potential inherent in simple, innocent miscommunications and misunderstandings, but most impressive is the author's ability to sustain his hyperactive comedic voice throughout most of the book without losing his edge. A laugh-out-loud look at the East/West culture clash.

The book is out November 29, you can reserve your copy here, so what are you waiting for?

Right-Wing Trannie Ann Coulter Loves Right-Wing Blacks

Ann Coulter is the right wing's #1 trannie. She is also Fox News's #1 trannie, the Internet's #1 trannie, and the #1 trannie of nine out of ten dentists (that other guy prefers Orly Taitz). Anyway, when a top-tier aging right-wing trannie talks about black folks, people listen. Because it's bound to be hilarious.

So Ann claims that "our blacks" are so much better than "their blacks", which is self-evidently true, because, come on, Herman Cain? Alan Keyes? Allen West? These are grade-A, top-shelf super-blacks who are not at all crazy or dumb or in any way sociopathic. There's also Michael Steele, who has the best porn name in American politics, though he's disappointingly coherent and likable. But still, he's ten times better than "their blacks" because he tastes like dark, small government chocolate.

In conclusion, Ann Coulter's neck still, even after all these years, looks like the shaft of an erect penis.