I have a nephew named Brandon.
Brandon has already had a pretty outrageous life, and he’s still in his 20’s. He’s been very high (literally) and very low. He’s seen and done lot he probably shouldn’t have, though it all served to make him what he is now. And what he is now is good.
I have always felt a very strong kinship with Brandon. We have the same dark appetites, we hurt the same way, we speak a similar language. Our early years were fueled by self-loathing, and we both wrestled our way to self-acceptance as we got older.
Now, we both enjoy a sort of grudging respect for ourselves. We may not completely love the person in the mirror, but we have to admit that we’re two of the toughest motherfuckers out there.
And we have something else in common. We both write.
I’ve read a lot of Brandon’s stuff over the years. I know he works on scripts and longer format pieces, but the things he’s shared with me are short — recollections and observations mostly. Little bursts of color and form; a scattershot memoir just a few hundred words at a time.
I’ve seen his writing change considerably over the years. As he gets more structured, his writing does as well. It seems more surefooted and easier to love.
Last year, Brandon started something called A Song a Day. They were short written pieces, accompanied by an mp3, and sent to your mailbox. He emailed it out to whoever wanted to read it. One a day, every day, for 45 days.
It was deceptively simple. He made his point on two platforms at once. A letter with a soundtrack. The multimedia was the message.
At first, I told him I was just going to steal the idea outright. But I can’t do it any better than he did it, so instead, I told him to keep going.
To my delight, he told me he was going to start a web site dedicated to this concept. He called it peanutbutterandjealous.com.
Today his web site, went live. Since it just started, there’s only today’s song and story, but the archives will grow over time, and you’ll get to see what I’ve been seeing.
Some of the pieces he writes are just funny. Some of them are painfully funny. And some of them just hurt like hell. It’s a nice mix. I like to think of him as non-fiction’s answer to James Frey.
Anyway, take a look and a listen. Bookmark it, and read it every day. Watch it grow into one of your favorite reads. I really think this could be the start of something.
But then, I wanted to invest in EuroDisney.
22 responses so far ↓
1 JohnnyBoy // Feb 1, 2008 at 11:40 am
As I wrote to Brandon, since I don’t have speakers here at work, it was hard to tell how much I liked the song.
But I’ll be sure to listen later !
Primero !
2 jasonthegreat // Feb 1, 2008 at 1:28 pm
If April were my aunt, I’d call her Auntie Mame and make her call me Patrick. We’d have fabulous parties and Auntie April would smile approvingly while I had gin-soaked male-on-male orgies in the Marie Antoinette Suite.
3 JohnnyBoy // Feb 1, 2008 at 2:13 pm
If April werre my Aunt, it’d be weird cos I’m older than her, plus which I’m deathly frightened of Rosalind Russell
4 JohnnyBoy // Feb 1, 2008 at 2:14 pm
Primero Segundo Tercero Tambien !
5 DavidinBerkeley // Feb 1, 2008 at 2:51 pm
JasontheGreat: You made me laugh out loud. The “Marie Antoinette Suite” was the perfect additional detail. Gay men always get it right!
6 DavidinBerkeley // Feb 1, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Please visit the April Winchell Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Winchell) to see a new picture of her. (I will attempt to post it here using her instructions from 9/25/07:
Now that I have loosed this picture to the public domain, it will probably get slapped on stuff and sell a jillion units for some mope who is NOT me, making him money that could pay off my student loans and buy me a house here in the land of people who squawk loudly about the latest PC/buy local/enviro-smoochy issue at public meetings, then are seen later in imported cashmere driving their SUV’s, to a restaurant six blocks away to eat organic tapas with fair-trade wine, while talking on their cell phones and drinking coffee from another hemisphere.
But I’m not bitter.
7 DavidinBerkeley // Feb 1, 2008 at 3:55 pm
The image post didn’t work. Sorry.
I’d appreciate someone telling me how I can get it to appear in the comments.
8 jasonthegreat // Feb 1, 2008 at 4:48 pm
JohnnyBoy, your fear of Roz Russell is unfounded.
But you should walk in mortal terror of Lucille Ball.
9 JohnnyBoy // Feb 1, 2008 at 6:18 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Winchell
10 JohnnyBoy // Feb 1, 2008 at 6:19 pm
ok, all i did was copy DavidinBerkeley’s link, but sans brackets or whatever they call parentheses these days
11 JohnnyBoy // Feb 1, 2008 at 6:24 pm
I do not fear the Ball
I ain’t scared of much, but Rosalind Russell
12 pal Jacky // Feb 1, 2008 at 7:59 pm
what a fucking kindred spirit. How scary is that? I wrote him an e-mail suggesting he listen to Mahler’s sixth in a dark room. I kno0w, I say this all the time as a joke, but as one who actually does this, I think this guy could benefit. How fucking scary is that?
13 JohnnyBoy // Feb 1, 2008 at 9:21 pm
Not as scary as Rosalind Russell, that’s for sure
Didn’t you suggest that to Heath Ledger or something?
Did you leave instructions to call an elfin washed-up sitcom childstar if anything happens?
True story, Lillian Russell once stayed at what is now my house
14 pal Jacky // Feb 1, 2008 at 10:57 pm
I say we kill one of the ashley twins and that way we will never mistake them again. Furthermore, the only elfin child star I’ve met personally was David Faustino who played Bud Bundy. He’s really lucky that he kept good tabs on the ‘married…with children money’ more than marcia brady, he will always be bud bundy.
15 pal Jacky // Feb 2, 2008 at 2:28 am
actually, I tell everone to lock themselves in a room with mahler or shostakovitch, However, very few people I say it with sincerity. I do, I spent the last week listening to the complete works of Alban Berg. here’s a quiz question. Name thr first openly lesbian character in a film, opera and stage play. Hints, it is the same character and the film was silent.
16 jim // Feb 2, 2008 at 10:15 am
Brandon’s hot on vowels & consonants, worthy of more & wider respect for daring to go in on the scribe-gig. In another time, he’d've nailed an easy living making sweet money from big magazines, back when they didn’t suck yet & made heaps of dough.
The Interwebs changed everything. Now everyone’s a writer, which is kind of ironic, given that it seems fewer & fewer people can spell, parse out lucid syntax or construct a paragraph.
Oh, & it took me a good 20 minutes to even GET “peanut butter and jealous” … prone to marathon brainfarts? Sure! They’re grrrrrrrreat!
17 JohnnyBoy // Feb 2, 2008 at 7:47 pm
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0018737/
hehe hehe …it says box
18 Turntablist // Feb 3, 2008 at 10:46 pm
I have been reading these. They’re great. Thanks for plugging it.
19 speledwrong // Feb 16, 2008 at 3:48 am
Hi April,
Thanks for plugging my site. I changed it over to wordpress and the link changed to http://www.peanutbutterandjealous.com
Oh, And you’re rad and I love you. Especially because you have readers that say nice things about you and me.
And for jasonthegreat – April used to sign my birthday cards “Auntie Mame” until I asked her who Auntie Mame was and she slapped me. OK, she didn’t slap me, but she told my gay uncles and they slapped me… emotionally. I’ve still never seen the movie.
20 JohnnyBoy // Feb 16, 2008 at 4:06 am
Lucky you…I am deathly afraid of Rosalind Russell
21 JohnnyBoy // Feb 16, 2008 at 4:10 am
Have I said that already? Well, I can’t say it enough
22 DavidinBerkeley // Feb 19, 2008 at 6:12 pm
“April used to sign my birthday cards “Auntie Mame” until I asked her who Auntie Mame was and she slapped me. OK, she didn’t slap me, but she told my gay uncles and they slapped me… emotionally. I’ve still never seen the movie.”
http://www.amazon.com/101-Must-see-Movies-Gay-Men/dp/1555838669
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