SGL Café

My favorite anchorman: TJ Holmes

I just realized why I watch CNN so much. Here's a great interview with the man who's bringing seXy back to the news desk. Oh baby, yes you are. While I'm overjoyed (and proud) to see Keith Boykin so regularly now, TJ Holmes is still my favorite television talking head. Those eyes, that voice, TJ Holmes can make the most boring news story interesting. Yes he can.

I Am Not Myself These Days, by Josh Kilmer-Purcell

Noshing With Josh Kilmer-Purcell By Taylor Siluwé (published Dec. '06, Out IN Jersey magazine) I went to the Upper East Side to meet the man himself, Josh Kilmer-Purcell. I’d just finished his debut, I Am Not Myself These Days: A Memoir, and was so nervous and excited that I got on the wrong train when I was already running behind for our Saturday brunch. It’s just like me to do something idiotic to make myself late for an important interview; just one of my many, many self-destructive quirks I’ve learned to live with. I arrived frazzled but still in awe, and finally sat down with this author/columnist, whose memoir Simon Doonan (author of Wacky Chicks) described as “… tawdry and brilliantly witty.” I couldn’t have said it better myself. Josh Kilmer-Purcell’s hilarious and poignant New York Times Best-Seller about a drunken drag-queen’s love affair with a crack-addicted call-boy had so many aspects that I loved, so many snapshots from the fringes of ‘normal’ society—drag-queens, chiseled über-male prostitutes and drug-fueled weekend-long sex orgies—that I was almost high with anticipation to meet the man who not only lived it but also had the balls to share the experience with the rest of us. I’ve dated drag-queens and have stalked my share of über-men … and as for drug-fueled orgies, well, that’s another article entirely. You see, ‘normal’ has never been my forte either, or an attribute I consider even remotely laudable. Because if you consider it a given that we are all fallible, that we all fuck up and occasionally make asses of ourselves for fame, for fortune, for love, for sex … then to be ‘normal’ only means that you’ve done better than most at hiding behind the faux-face that society demands we wear. No one is truly normal. And that’s one of the things I took away from I Am Not Myself These Days … that we all stumble on our proverbial stilettos occasionally, jump onto the right train going the wrong way when we can least spare the time, and of course, fall for the sexy but broken Mr. Right before passing out in puddles of our own bile. Anyone who says different, well … is just a liar. TAYLOR SILUWÉ: So, Mr. K-P … how long have you had your column in OUT Magazine? JOSH KILMER-PURCELL: Just since October. I just turned in the December one two weeks ago. TS: So this is all post-I’m Am Not Myself These Days? JKP: Yeah, yeah …. TS: I thought you were always a columnist, aside from still working in advertising. JKP: No. Somehow that book made me a gay-spokesperson or something. TS: How does it feel being a best-selling author? [I had to ask that question. I’ve fantasized about being that very thing most of my life.] JKP: Not that much different. You know … the difference between being in the advertising world and writing is I have clients. I actually have to please somebody else. The thing I found with writing is I can write whatever I want. When you’re in advertising you’re really aware of your audience all the time. Like, okay, I’m selling dishwashing detergent to white women over fifty; you automatically know who you’re trying to reach. So I sat down to write the book and I’m so trained to think of an audience, it was hard for me to overcome … not writing what I thought other people wanted to hear but writing what I wanted to say. It took me a few attempts to kinda find my own voice. Augusten Burroughs and David Sedaris, I love them … I used to try to write like them. TS: That’s good company, and I love those guys too. But it’s an amazing book; so real and to the point and revealing. I don’t think a lot of people, uh, open themselves up that way. JKP: People have said that to me, how brave and honest and things, but … I guess I’ve never really hidden much. I guess some of the things they think I should be embarrassed about I’m not. I’ve probably embarrassed myself on a far grander scale in that book. TS: So … is Aqua here right now? [‘Aqua’ being his vodka swilling drag-queen alter-ego Aquadiasiac, whose trademarks are goldfish-filled orbs for boobs and drinking herself into a sloppy coma.] JKP: Probably not … it’s too early. She’d still be passed out. TS: Aqua’s a part of your personality though. JKP: Oh, definitely. TS: So basically, she’s always there. A little? JKP: She’s always there … but it’s more evident when I’m among really good friends. It’s easier to be me, not me really, but, you know … funny insults and all that … it’s awkward when you don’t know people because you don’t know how they’re gonna take it. Every mean thing Aqua ever said was always said with heart. It’s like … you were worthy enough for me to insult you. [A long awkward pause as I try to see ‘Aqua’ in his eyes.] TS: My question went right out of my head. This is going to be the most unprofessional interview you’ve ever endured. I always want to write down a thousand questions and then I never do. JKP: That’s okay. It’s much better just chatting … I always get the same questions all the time anyway. [Food arrives. I find I can’t eat, so I pick and stare.] JKP: Growing up I had very low self-esteem. I could never do anything. That’s where Aqua came from… not wanting to be shy, wanting to be bolder, having to create this other personality in order to do it. TS: Interesting. Growing up shy with low self-esteem, and then creating this larger than life persona... JKP: People think you have to be really brave to be a drag queen, but actually I think it’s quite the opposite. Because you’re just putting on a mask … it’s like Halloween every day. Like, there’s always this shy girl in the office that dresses up as a prostitute for Halloween. But I think you can experiment with being bolder … as long as you have a mask.” TS: Right. That’s probably why I like Halloween so much. The first time I did it as an adult I really enjoyed the transformation that took place. That one day of the year you can be anything you want. Anything. JKP: Yeah, and you always pick something that’s sort of opposite of what you are … or at least, something you’re not in real life. TS: Exactly. I always pick something scary though. A dark side. I don’t know if it’s opposite of me or if its my true me trying to get out. But I understand what you said about the whole self-esteem thing, creating this other personality. Just talking to you now I realize that’s probably what I did in my younger days. Not with a literal costume … but with false bravado. JKP: A lot of people didn’t like the ending of my book. TS: Fuck ‘em. [It just popped out. Thank God he laughed. Being inappropriately crude in another one of my quirks I’ve learned to embrace.] JPK: I wrote my story as it happened to the best of my recollection. It honestly just ended that way. It just ended … like most love stories don’t end with a Prince Charming or a suicide-pack … they just sorta end. And that’s how I had to write it. TS: Has he gotten in touch with you since? [‘He’ being ‘Jack’, Aqua’s beautiful male prostitute love interest.] JKP: Yes, he has. TS: Do tell. JKP: I can’t say too much. But he’s happy and healthy … and he likes the book. The only thing he didn’t like was … uhm, he said he didn’t swear. TS: Really? [But my expression said more, like I expected a crack-smoking hooker to cuss now and again. I certainly would.] JKP: Yeah, I know, it’s an odd thing to be. But that’s memory, when someone’s acting in an aggressive way … you try to reflect that in your writing. My book came out the same time as James Frey [A Million Little Pieces] and the Oprah thing … I was petrified that Jack would call the papers and say ‘its all lies.’ TS: They say there’s no such thing as bad publicity. I doubt the whole thing hurt James Frey financially. JKP: Maybe not, but it hurt him. TS: Oprah made such a big deal over it. I never understood the big whoop-de-doo over the whole thing. I thought that’s what writers do, you know, creative license and all that? JKP: The publishing world had a bit of a dilemma too … they’ve been telling memoir authors that if you didn’t remember something to make it up. Make it colorful. You know … a memoir isn’t an encyclopedia, it’s a memoir. But the public starting talking about it saying they thought it was 100% true. People were really upset. I don’t remember what I had for breakfast ten years ago. In order to tell a story, you have to take the memories you have and make them as concrete as you can be. TS: What’s next for you, Mr. K-P? JKP: I’m writing fiction next. And I’m working on the screenplay for I Am Not Myself These Days. That’s why I went to see Augusten Burroughs’ Running With Scissors, to see the transition from best-seller to screen. A good book doesn’t necessarily make a good movie. But his movie stuck very closely to the book. We wrapped it up after that. Hindsight being what it is, I should have asked who he’d cast as himself in the movie version … who could play the dynamic Aqua? But I didn’t. As I write this, my lack of foresight is annoying the hell out of me. But my deadline was … uh, yesterday, so a couple of more hours won’t hurt, will it? So I emailed Josh: TS: ‘Hey, Aqua … who do you see playing you in the screen adaptation? I need an ending to my piece; you know how that goes.’ JKP: ‘Someone younger and prettier than I actually was. I believe in revisionist glamour.’ Oh … classic Aqua … and what an ending too. I Am Not Myself These Days is a must read for anyone whose ever got on the wrong train, but found it still took them just where they needed to go. ~~