Today on Alphabet City: Jon Paul’s pops his (book tour) cherry on Fire Island. As a young gay in Texas, my first brush with Fire Island was the 1989 Oscar-nominated movie Longtime Companion about the early days of the AIDS epidemic. The movie’s powerful last scene of three surviving friends walking on a deserted Fire [...]
Posts Tagged as ‘alphabet city’
July 2, 2010
Oh Susannah
Today on Alphabet City: After a rocky start, Jon Paul’s relationship with his Mexican mother-in-law improves. Barely two minutes after my arrival at Chef’s home in Mexico City and already I had lost a bet thanks to his mother. In the taxi on the way from the airport, Chef and I laid down our wagers. [...]
June 29, 2010
Brokeback Books
Today on Alphabet City: Jon Paul suffers real reading glitches when Kindle goes on fritz. A few weeks ago, maybe closer to a month now, my Kindle broke. My lackadaisical memory of the exact date of Kindle’s passing should be a telling clue that I’m not all that torn up about the loss. The Kindle [...]
June 26, 2010
Pride Cup Runneth Over
Today on Alphabet City: Jon Paul’s book tour makes the New York Times. This just in: Kimpton Hotel‘s sponsorship of the Alphabet City Book Tour landed us in the Gray Lady’s Media Decoder column written by influential journalist (and die hard Mets fan) Stuart Elliott. In addition to efforts by the Las Vegas Convention and [...]
June 25, 2010
Reading Rainbow
Today on Alphabet City: Jon Paul and Chef battle a tough crowd of gay boys to sell some books; women save the day. Not to get all hot pants about it—but I’m starting to get concerned about literacy in Gay Boy America. Appearing at a recent men-centric networking event where I was billed as a [...]
June 23, 2010
Peek-A-Blog: OneFoodGuy
Today on Alphabet City’s Peek-A-Blog: While on book tour, Jon Paul tweets up with @onefoodguy to find out the secret sauce for one of Boston’s most popular food bloggers. Much has been made of Twitter as a virtual tool that can connect people in real life. But I hadn’t experienced that until a new online [...]
June 18, 2010
Ear Plugs
Today on Alphabet City: Jon Paul’s San Francisco Hotel stop reminds him of Connie Selleca and Josh Brolin As a kid, I often dreamed of running away to San Francisco—not to be out and proud, but to join the dishy workers at the glamorous St. Gregory Hotel owned by Bette Davis. When I wasn’t dreaming [...]
June 17, 2010
(Re)Designing Women
Today on Alphabet City: Jon Paul’s pangs of self-doubt are eased by reconnecting with three friends. Clouds of self-doubt would seep into my mind early every morning in Hollywood—like the June gloom enveloping the LA Temple outside my window. My body wrestled with time zone confusion as my East Coast early-riser syndrome became certified West [...]
June 15, 2010
Mind the Gap
Today on Alphabet City: Jon Paul dabbles in LA’s Gay Pride before finding out what Hollywood thinks of his book. New York and Los Angeles are two cities on opposite coasts that might as well exist in opposite worlds. New York, the World’s Financial Capital—compact yet tall with the odor of money. Los Angeles, the [...]
