Sexual Perversity in Philadelphia

"Three perverted Jewish writers" hit Bar Noir.

by Meredith Broussard



photo: John Fellows

Some might argue that the midst of a military conflict is an inopportune time to publish a rollicking, crack-fueled, ultra-violent novel about two junkie criminals who discover contraband photos of George W. Bush’s tattooed testicles.

Jerry Stahl is not one of those people. His new novel Plainclothes Naked (William Morrow) is irreverent to the point of insanity, taking on Bush’s balls as well as casting Dick Cheney as a gay icon. From botched sex-change operations that result in obese mutant transsexuals to spousal homicide via Drano in an Internet mystic’s Lucky Charms, Plainclothes Naked sodomizes every sacred cow of American culture.

"I’m not a nice writer," growls Stahl, nursing a cup of hot tea in a Manhattan diner. "You want a nice family novel, go read The Corrections. Knock yourself out."

Stahl, who chronicled his own heroin addiction in Permanent Midnight, is one of the rare writers whose life is as strange as his fiction. These days, his arms bear only the ink from two of his five tattoos, but he rubs the inside of his elbow when he’s nervous or pensive — feeling, perhaps, for phantom track marks. "I was on smack for 15 years, so it kind of preserves you," explains the 48-year-old. "My liver lives in an adjoining county, but other than that, I’m OK."

"I don’t think any of us are the kind of writers who read at a Borders in a strip mall," says Fairmount’s Neal Pollack, who joins Stahl and writer/storyteller Jonathan Ames Tuesday at Bar Noir for what Pollack’s unofficially dubbed "An Evening with Three Perverted Jewish Writers." "It’s a good group, an appropriate threesome," Pollock reflects. "In fact, maybe we’ll have a threesome afterward."

"I’m not sure what to expect," e-mails Ames. "But we are seven short of a minyan, so we won’t be reading from the Torah."

Expect outlandishness. Pollack, the author of the Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature (due in paperback next March), is known for offbeat, superstar-style readings — including July’s McSweeney’s fest, where Arthur Bradford read a short story about a slug while playing a guitar which he smashed at story’s end. Ames, a former New York Press writer and Guggenheim recipient, is the author of two novels, including The Extra Man. His recent memoir/essay collection What’s Not to Love? The Adventures of a Mildly Perverted Young Writer (Vintage), collects his Press writings and will be followed by a second edition of essays as well as an anthology and another novel in 2003. Ames’ performances in New York and L.A. have become underground sensations, with offbeat elements like audience handouts diagramming his rapidly receding hairline, or appearances by one-legged performance artist Patrick Bucklew sporting a gender-manipulation device called the Mangina.

"At my last storytelling show, I was talking about the joys of licking women’s vaginas and asses, and everybody went up to my parents afterward and said, ‘You have such a talented son, you should be proud,’" Ames remembers. "My mom said to me, ‘I’m so proud of you, and your timing is great.’ Later, I asked my dad, ‘Isn’t it weird that people told you that you should be proud of me, and I was talking about licking assholes?’ He agreed that it was strange."

"I’m just the guy cleaning up after the elephants," sighs Stahl. "They’re both so fucking loud and hysterical, and I’m just this low-key guy, so I don’t know what to expect."

Reading about drug addiction, rape and violence (Stahl), addiction, neuroses, gastrointestinal distress and obsessive onanism (Ames), or off-the-charts egomania (Pollack) might sound like a strange way to have fun. But in dredging though the darkest muck of the human psyche, all three writers have found hilarity and conveyed it with an elegant literary style that is both painfully frank and wonderfully refreshing. Plus, they all talk about penises. A lot.

Ames has been called "The George Plimpton of the colon" and "a man mordantly obsessed with his own penis." Pollack’s eponymous 80-something journalist is known not only for winning every literary award at least twice, but for his sexual prowess: he’s bedded hundreds of women, from Catherine the Great to Toni Morrison. Plainclothes Naked is the title of a hypothetical porn movie starring the book’s hero, a cop endowed with an oversized nightstick.

"What is the fucking obsession here?" asks Stahl. "Every third e-mail is ‘Enlarge Your Penis!’ I think that anybody who’s ever ordered a book from Amazon is suddenly on the Jumbo Penis mailing list. So, I’m writing the book, and suddenly I get an idea: This is such a cultural obsession, I’m going to try to invert it. Here’s a guy given what so many men are obsessed and worried about, what so much press is written about, and to him it’s this total liability. He attracts the wrong kind of women, he’s mortified and embarrassed. That’s never been said before, and I think it should be."

Apparently, it’s a sentiment that strikes a chord. Says Stahl, "Women really like this book, for some reason."

Jerry Stahl, Jonathan Ames and Neal Pollack will read Tue., Nov. 13, 8 p.m. at Bar Noir, 112 S. 18th St.