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Show Me The Magic!!! (part 2) - February 16, 2007

Tripping my brains out, I managed to rip my gaze from the horrified faces of my three also tripping band mates and I looked at the source of their terror... my armpits.

They were the deepest, darkest purple anyone had ever seen. And the purple spread out almost as far as my tit and up onto my shoulder. It was the same on both sides. The purple death virus was spreading!

My stomach dropped. I was sure I didn't have long to live and when my friends saw the look on my face, they realized the severity of the situation and sprung up, plastering themselves on the far wall, as far away from ground zero as possible.

Ebola, bird flu, whatever all those ones are... please, this was way before those. This was the 1977 Vermontian purple underarm flesh eating bacteria virus. God only knew what pain and torment I was in for as this heinous viral death tribe marched it's way towards my brain, stopping for snacks on my heart and throat along the way before devouring my head and face.

"What the fuck is that?!" McCartney said, more frightened than he had ever been.

"I don't know!" I went to touch it.

"NO! DON'T TOUCH IT!!!" Ringo screamed.

"What the fuck, man! I have to inspect it!" I prodded it. Nothing. It didn't seem to have a mouth, this purple patch. It didn't bite.

"Does it hurt?" Harrison asked.

"No. I feel fine. I mean, I'm tripping my cunt off but other than that I feel normal." I pushed it, pulled it, rubbed and squoze it. Nothing.

Slowly, led by the courageous Paul, my three friends, like scared dogs convinced the devil they saw was only a shadow, okay maybe only a little convinced, crept towards the freak with the purple disease.
"You're sure it doesn't hurt?" Harrison asked again.

"Not at all."

"Maybe it's from the acid?" Ringo theorized.

"Could be. Do you guys have it?" Shit. No one had thought of that. With the grace and urgency of an Olympic Synchronized swimming team convinced they must score a perfect 10 to beat the Russians, they all simultaneously ripped off their shirts and checked their underarms. NOTHING! I was still the only freak in the room. They sighed a collective relief from deep inside their drugged out beings. I was happy for my friends that they weren't going to die along with me, but that joy was short lived as suddenly an evil thought burst into my mind.

What if it has spread to my dick and balls?

I immediately ripped off my pants and underwear.

"What the fuck are you..." Harrison asked, figuring it out before the "doing" had made it from his brain to his mouth. Again, like their nose plugged heroes, the boys followed suit and frantically ripped every stitch of clothing off until they joined me, buck naked in the freezing cold living room, tripping our asses off, searching for the purple plague all over our bodies with the microscopic attention to each pour of our skin as if this malady wasn't a large territorial dweller like under my arms, but might also be or start off small as a scabie, which, unfortunately, we had all had the year before.

While scabies are gross, at least they don't move. They're just tiny black dots buried under your skin. One friend gets em, you all get them. They're not as gross as lice, which actually crawl around. Another right of passage for the ninth grade alcoholic drug addict who will fuck anything that moves or doesn't.

I especially liked when, the first time I had my little new girlfriend over to family dinner, my dad asked straight out at the table, "How are your lice doing, Eric? Is the Quell helping?" I fucking shit you not.

Anyway, after a thorough inspection, nobody had any purple death on them anywhere except for me, and it didn't appear to be spreading. Everyone put their clothes back on and we decided smoking a joint would be the best course of action, you know, so we could figure this out. Waking my dad, going to the hospital, trying to cut it off with a knife were all considered, but getting more fucked up was settled on as the winner.

As we smoked the joint, sick Panama Red I had stolen from my dad's not so secret stash, we calmed down a bit and tried to wrap our minds around this conundrum. We traced the events of the entire day ending with the moment I had found the purple on me.

"We set up for the gig. Dropped the acid. Drank the rum. Smoked some joints. I changed into my outfit backstage and it definitely wasn't there then. We played. I made out with Hope Stillwell..."

"You did?!" Ringo apparently hadn't known.

"Yeah."

"Where?"

"In the balcony."

"When?"

"While you guys were putting the gear away."

"How far did you get?"

"She might be my new girlfriend so don't talk like that please."

"Wow." They all nodded their heads in agreement. I had scored. Back to less important things, like sussing out why I had an ailment that very well might kill me at any second.

"Then we came here and started playing that weird Weeble game and then I took off my Dashiki because it was soaked from me performing and then we saw the purple... Where the fuck?! Could it have come from the Dashiki?" I picked up the Dashiki. The Dashiki my step mother had loaned me to wear for the gig because it went really well with my platform boots. The p...u...r...p...l...e mirrored Dashiki that went... really... well. MOTHER FUCKER!!!

Everyone got it at the same time. I had sweat so much that the fucking purple Dashiki had run and stained my underarms. Hey come on, we were fucked up on enough drugs and booze to kill a small town, give us a break.

The next two hours were spent in that endless uproarious pot/acid induced laughing fit that only happens when you're that stoned and would cease to be funny to anyone else after ten seconds.

At least I wasn't going to die. And it did look kinda cool.

Those are the kinds of memories I get when I cross the border into the green mountain state.

So I got to my house in Vermont at around 5. I had stopped at the co-op in town and done a big shop in anticipation of the storm. I rarely leave my house in Vermont under normal circumstance let alone when 3 feet of snow are coming. I opened the front door, waiting to be hit by one of my favorite smells in the world. The combination of old candles, red cedar, and the country. Instead I was hit by a wall of pungent oil fumes.

My eyes started watering and I got a headache before I could but my groceries down on the kitchen table. Fuck! I opened the door to the cellar, home to where the furnace is and the smell intensified. It was 15 degrees outside and a massive storm was on the way in a couple hours. I needed to have heat. I shut the emergency switch off and the system shut down.

I better start a fire ASAP. A little light headed and not thinking straight anyway because I was hungry, I grabbed the box of matches. I figured I should open some windows and doors to fumigate the place but let me first just get the fire going. My caretaker had one all ready to go in the fire place, all I had to do was light it.

Wait. I know you're not supposed to light a match if the gas is leaking. Is it the same for oil fumes? Naaaa. That's just gas I think.
I opened the box of stick matches, took one out, and with the part of me that just can't not touch an electric fence to see if I can take the shock, I swiped the match across the box...

To be Continued...

Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 7:00 AM

Show Me The Magic!!! - February 15, 2007

I hit the road Tuesday at one so I could get to my place in Vermont before the snow started at 6. Most of you know I have a funky old farm house I got years ago because I love freezing cold and the nyc winters are too tame for me. I go there to retreat. I have this huge U shaped sectional couch that 6 people can easily sprawl out on. It's in front of a huge fire place that is always ablaze even in the summer, and a decent sized TV. That's the living room. Couch. Fire. TV. That's mainly what I do there. Lie on the couch in front of the fire watching TV and either eating a meal I'm made, recovering from gorging on the meal I've just eaten or planning the next meal I'm going to make.

It's ecstasy.

I'm usually alone. When I was still with Liza years ago she would come and we sometimes had another friend couple join but since she and I broke up, it's generally just me, which is fine. I love the solitude. Like a dog, I just melt into the couch with an old quilted comforter made out of my dead grandfathers suits. He was struck by lightening when I was one. I never knew him.

I know his suits.

I watch the snow fall outside or the rain or the sunshine or the night. All from the couch. The fire. The TV. The spaghetti. The cookies.

I got this couch in a neighboring town, the biggest one near me. It's 20 miles away or so. I went to High School there because my father was teaching college nearby when I was in junior high school and after being extorted by my best friend in 7th grade under threat of death, I moved up here to live with him to get away from that situation after it was resolved.

When I set out for my search to find my winter house 8 years ago, I scoured the North East from Buffalo to Portland Maine. I wanted it cold and snowy but not too far from nyc. I thought it was an amazing coincidence that I settled on this 1847 slanty floor joint only 30 miles from where I spent some of my high school years while living with my dad. Liza didn't think it was all that coincidental.

The first thing I did after buying the house was to go to the town to get a couch. It was the most important furnishing I needed next to the TV, which was already there. Cable comes before I do or I don't come. I had a mattress on the floor and the TV. I needed a couch.

I wanted a huge cheap one so I went to a furniture store on Main Street that seemed aimed at the locals. I went to the basement where the couches where and found this wonderfully ugly massive beige thing that was perfect and like, really inexpensive. A tubby, middle-aged, brown haired permed salesman approached me. "Can I help you?"

"Yes thanks. I want this couch please. I live about thirty miles away, can you guys bring it to me now please?" I said politely but in an over enthused way, knowing people don't normally talk like that and that's why I do. It brings me pleasure to bring the circus to town and hopefully change it up for people who ordinarily get the same thing all the time.

"I don't see why not." He said, unphased by my flatlander speak. Maybe things had changed here. Fucking MTV. The whole world's homogenized now. No more red necks, no more flatlanders. I mean I like the upside, which is less hate, but I miss the differences in people. That's the downside. Everyone has a nose ring. When I was in high school here, although it was only a few hours from nyc, it was a miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiillion miles away. Now I was just like everyone else to this guy. Oh well. Or so I thought. Suddenly, he looked at me a little sideways. Hooray! Maybe he's gonna make fun of my blue Elmer Fudd hat and I can disarm him with my charm.

"Are you Al Schaeffer?"

Get the fuck out of here! In high school they called me Al, apparently because the only other nyc kid that had ever moved to that town was called Al so it became my name as well.

"Yeah."

"Bubba. Bubba Bouchet? Brian?" This guy was at least ten years older than me.

"Oh my God! Bubba!" No he wasn't. He had been in my eighth grade class. I still had pencil led in my calf from him from 1978 science class and believe you me, it was not an assigned experiment. That was all Bubba. He had been one of my many nemeses.

"I'm good. I saw you on TV last year and I told my wife. Hey come here! That's Al Schaeffer! I know him. I went to high school with him." He was excited then and he was excited now. I guess in his mind bygones were bygones since I was marginally famous now. I smiled. You dream of these moments in your vindictive, cunty fantasies and they almost never come true.

"That's great. Yeah. I'm doing okay, you know. Can't complain. Life's not too bad. I just made my third million dollars (all that money's gone now btw. Broke but with a bunch of movies for ya'll to watch) and bought this second house up the road for me and my hot girlfriend to hang out in. I mean, when I say 'hang out' of course I mean fuck in every single of the 10 rooms in the place.... You look like you're happy. How's the furniture business?"

Of course I didn't say that. One of the pesky things about a spiritual practice is that, well, it works. So in spite of my baser self I seem to actually have this kind of massive ability to forgive. It fucks up being an asshole pretty good... thank God.

"Oh thanks a lot. It's great to see you. You seem well."

"So you remember me?"

"Dude. I still have pencil led in my leg from when you stabbed me in eighth grade." I said with a water under the bridge smile

"No. Really? Sorry."

"It's good to see you Bubba. I'm glad you remembered me."

And with that, another scar was mended... and I had a rockin' couch. Bubba had them bring it to me that afternoon.

There wasn't any traffic leaving the city, I had beaten the soccer mom rush on the Merritt and was flying through Hartford by two O clock. That's when the Lenyrd Skynard starts playing on the radio and I know I'm nearing New England. Thank God at least that hasn't changed. I used to be the lead singer in a band in high school in Vermont called Distorted Visions. I wanted the name to be Genocide but my father vetoed it, explaining to me what it meant. I had no idea. I thought is sounded cool and scary. Yeah. The scary part. I agreed it would be better to go with Distorted Visions.

Our shining moment was a concert at the Rec Center. I was in knee high brown Jethro Tull leather boots, a purple mirrored Dashiki, had hair half way down my back and was wasted on three hits of mean green blotter and a fifth of rum. I was a fucking golden God. Until I forgot the third verse to Stairway. The collective groan of the audience could be heard as far as Lebanon, New Hampshire I'm sure. I mean American Idol lost it. Just gone. A song I knew better than my middle name, which I couldn't spell until I was 16. Michael. I'm just not book smart okay? Give me a break. "He's very smart but doesn't apply himself." Don't suppose any of you have ever heard that...

In true underdog Schaeffer fashion I was able to win them back with a rousing rendition of Freebird and Hope Stillwell, the Home Ec teacher's daughter, the prettiest girl in school, to me at least, let me get some third base in the balcony after the gig.

Does anything on God's green earth feel better than third base with a girl who you still don't know whether or not your hand's gonna get grabbed signaling the end of the road for that night... but she doesn't and you get the green light when you undo that top button. Fucking sexy! Damn! Anyway, for the most part that only really meant high school. I kinda know the landscape of the ball game these days with anyone who I'm angling for a triple with before we get into it.

That night didn't end as well as it began unfortunately. After Hope went home, me and the rest of my band mates, still whacked on nasty acid went back to my house and started playing some weird game we invented with my little sister's Weebles in the living room. She was sound asleep in her room, as were my dad and step mom down stairs. I took off my shirt to change out of my concert outfit and into another one and all at once, Paul, Ringo and George looked at me aghast and pointed at me.

"WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU?!"

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Look at your underarms?!!!" They were horrified. I looked down and, with my hallucinating eyes, saw what they saw, so it must be real because I didn't think we would all have hallucinated the same terrifying vision.

My underarms had...

To be continued...

P.S. Please remember to always check my MySpace page for updates as to my work and how to reach me. There's a link here now on the menu to the right at the top. Thanks.

Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 9:31 AM

Into The Storm or I Love That You Love Asparagus - February 14, 2007

I'm asking all of you who already get it to please indulge me continuing to try to be clear for those who don't. Because it seems a lot of people who profess to hate me read what I write.. They really don't or they wouldn't be so attracted. There's something here for them and I know that that very statement makes them cringe and they would point to it as the quintessential reason why they think they hate me. But I don't care. I was and am sometimes still them and what can I say, I'd don't quit.

But I promise to mix it up a bit more after this writing. I promise. So just hang in for one more day and then I'll feed all of you who have been nodding your heads going, "I know, I know. Come on E, let's get back to it." But this is important and I know you know that.

And for all of you concerned about me, know that I really, really mean what I write and I am grateful for all the weather in my life. I truly thank God for everything that happens regardless of appearances and know that pain is the touchstone to spiritual growth and ultimate happiness.

I often feel most comfortable it seems heading the opposite direction than the many. When I was on the 8th floor of the St. James Hotel in LA on Martin Luther King Day when the earthquake hit and most were heading down the stairs, I went up. My friend Donny was on the 10th floor and I needed to make sure he was okay.

I didn't consider my act. It wasn't a thought process. It was just instinct. It wasn't until we were both safely on the ground and he remarked how odd it was to see me coming up the stairs to find him when everyone else was rushing down that it occurred to me I had done something most hadn't.

I'm sure most of them, had they had a friend above them, would have gone up as well. I don't think I'm very unique in that regard.

I really don't think I'm very unique in any regard. I don't consider myself. I don't consider my actions. I just exist. I just do. I mean I consider what to eat and when to eat. Who to call, who not to call. Obvious necessary life choices I consider. But my writing, my movies. Never. I just behave.

As I've said many times before, I do consider being kind instead of mean. Generous instead of selfish. I have to since my predisposition is to be mean and selfish many times and I don't want to act out on those impulses. So by constantly considering the choice before me, I can chose generous and kind. If I just existed I would be mean and selfish way more of the time.

I really am grateful for this latest storm. It is crystallizing so clearly the absolute truth of the concept of emptiness.

Half the letters I have gotten my whole career but especially these last weeks have been intense love letters. Not in a romantic way but a deeply human way. They all say the same thing. They thank me for being honest and bearing my soul, bearing myself, good and bad, pretty and ugly, successful and failing. They applaud my bravery and selflessness and lack of ego. They say because of me being myself in my work, I inspire them to be more themselves. A lover of people. I'm hot, sexy, cute, real, open, and generous.

The other half of the letters say I am completely disillusioned and blinded as to my true character. A hater. A misogynist. Untalented. A narcissist. The biggest egomaniac on earth. Full of myself and a fraud who uses spiritual dogma as a device to selfishly feed my insatiable hedonistic hunger. Ugly, disgusting, selfish, malicious and dangerous.

So who's right?

It's so clear. It's 2+2 easy.

People see what they want to see. They see themselves in me. And as with me, usually they see parts of both descriptions and that to most people is profoundly untenable to them. They want good or bad. The idea of both and a million colors in-between is much too scary for most. But it's real. At least for me and everyone I know and respect.

How could they not be seeing themselves in me? Why else would anyone get angry at what age I want to have children? Unless at what age they have children is a burning source of discomfort for them and they can't stomach the choices they have made for themselves.

And if the argument is that I am somehow the ringleader of the conspiracy involving other like minded men to continue this awful trend of wanting babies when we're 50 (as if that's a destructive thing) and that's why I incite such rage and it has nothing at all to do with a woman's internal choices about her own life I would say that I only have the power to awaken a person's awareness about themselves, not supplant their beliefs with my own.

If they didn't like cookies, my giving them my cookie recipe would not make them like cookies no matter how good my cookies were.

If you love asparagus. And you tell me you love to eat it morning noon and night. I would have nothing but love for you and your relationship with asparagus. I would love that you love asparagus. As long as you weren't hurting yourself by only eating asparagus or somehow hurting anyone else with your asparagus eating habits I would support you in eating as much asparagus as you enjoyed eating.

I don't care about how much you eat asparagus. Your asparagus intake does not threaten me. You know why? Because I am content with my own relationship with asparagus, therefore your love of eating truck loads of asparagus only fills me with joy for you because I know what happiness it brings you. I revel in your aparagul bliss. I joke, laugh, love and honor you in your asparagusness. I rejoice in every stalk of your asparagosity.

On the other hand, if you made a movie that has been met with wide spread unilateral praise and love and catapulted you from film school to being a your-shit-doesn't-stink-with-anyone three picture deal filmmaker, I can be, not always mind you, but can be prone to envy, jealousy, hatred and vicious condemnation of everything about you from your looks, your tastes, your talent, (lack thereof) your character, you upbringing, your luck, your privilege, you worthiness as a person and though it rarely comes out, in my mind I will character assassinate you in speeches that I invent all night long for days that I plan to write, shout, film, and sneer from the podium when I win my first Oscar.

And why is that? Because I am hurt by not having achieved some of my career goals and scared that I never will.

So instead of sitting with that fear. That hurt. Having a good cry, a batch of brownies, a mediation, a talk with a friend, helping someone in need, making proactive choices that will help me achieve some of the goals I want to achieve, I.e. writing another script, making phone calls to raise money to shoot my next film, etc, because all that is scary, I do the easier thing, the thing I perceive to be the easier thing but of course really isn't in the end, and hate the person who has what I want.

They're just who they are, doing what they do, the best they can.

I'm just me, doing what I do the best I can.

I eat asparagus. I don't eat asparagus. I make a movie. I take a piss. I help an old lady with her bags. I envy like a pig. I succeed. I fail. I try. I have a baby at 50. I have a baby next year.

You want babies tomorrow, you want babies in ten years. Since I'm completely comfortable with my choices around fatherhood, I'm completely comfortable with your choices around motherhood.

You eat a lot of asparagus. I don't. Can you handle that? Is that okay? Can you still love me? Or at least respect me for that choice? Right.

I love snow and cold. You don't. I'm driving into the storm tonight so I can be where 3 feet will fall. Everyone else in driving South. Have fun in the sun. I'm going to have the time of my life is the blizzard.

Next time I promise I'll give it a rest. I just wanted to try one last time for now.

P.S. Please remember to always check my MySpace page for updates as to my work and how to reach me. There's a link here now on the menu to the right at the top. Thanks.

Two Girls and a Guy - Gang Rape - February 12, 2007

Well, it seems both in spite of me and because of me, as has been a part-time occurrence my entire career, people only interested in furthering their own evil agendas at the expense of the truth are at it again.

As you know, most of the time, since their ideas are so innocuous and banal, I don't spend our precious time on them, but when they rise to a really heinous level, a level of social harm, then I find I must address them.

On the surface, these recent offerings appear so ludicrous that they are laughable and easily discounted and you would wonder why I would spend our exquisite time on them instead of just giving them a prayer and moving on to more important matters, but when you look more closely, their insidious nature and cancerous viral appearance is clearly observed and that's why we have to shine the light of truth on them to kill them.

By way of back story for those of you who didn't hear or read the latest salacious, spun piece of not so thinly veiled self hate masquerading as a- it's hard to say with a straight face...journalism?... here's the gist of it. It was written by a writer who,-unfortunately I have to say- surprise, surprise, lied her way into my good graces by telling me she had no pre-conceived agenda or interest in painting anything other than an honest portrayal of who I was, and under those false pretenses got me to agree to an interview with her, then turned around and revealed her true character by attacking me as a man, a human, an artist and what else is there, I don't know, I'm sure there was something.

She hadn't seen any of my films yet she seemed to have a strong opinion about them... maybe one ten years ago when it first came out. I asked her if she wanted to see them, you know, by way of research. Isn't that kind of important to a journalist? I didn't go to J school but I would kinda figure, you know for, what's that word again...? Accuracy? Anyway she said she would love to but wouldn't have time before she wrote the piece on account of a head cold. I sympathized. Head colds are certainly more important than journalistic integrity.

Let me just say that again in case it didn't land.

This journalist, who said how untalented I am, HAD NOT SEEN ANY OF MY FILMS save maybe one ten years ago. Her piece on how untalented, uninteresting and unattractive I am inspired 165 letters, all sent in by its readership. I don't know what the final tally was but by noon, the other front page story on Bush had gotten 29. Hmmmm. I mean, as vastly reported, I'll be the first to tell you how fascinating I am, but even I, someone who boycotts the media, still kinda thinks our political salutation is a tad more important than whether I messed around with my cousin when I was 6. But apparently not to Salon's intellectual readership.

Just so the facts are clear. I've made 6 feature films, and 2 television shows that have been distributed theatrically all over the world for the last 13 years which are still being shown everywhere, all the time, like, I don't know, on Comedy Central yesterday? I wonder why Comedy Central buys and shows movies that people hate? Especially old movies that no one has ever heard off on top of hating? Probably because they are a not for profit network funded privately by people who hate Eric Schaeffer's work and don't need advertising dollars so it doesn't matter that people don't watch their network. Yeah. That must be it. It couldn't be that If Lucy Fell, like my other films has been re-bought by networks and cable stations world wide for the last 10 years and watched over and over again and beloved by millions. Na. It's the perverse work by the privately funded ES haters Comedy Central station that wants to show the film for all the haters to enjoy.

With all the people who have never heard of me like Rebecca pointed out, and hate my films and TV shows, I don't understand how I've continued to make a living all this time. Movie after movie, show after show. In a business where few have ever made one movie let alone 6.

The reason you think this is my 15 minutes Becky, is because of all that tireless journalistic integrity and footwork you did in researching me for your interview... oh wait, I'm sorry, I'm dyslexic so I meant the opposite. Forgive me. Because you lied and actually did have a single, pointed, clandestine agenda you failed to research me enough to find out that I've been working steadily for 13 years. I know you're not so good with numbers.

In her piece, she asked me a question which, again, obviously telegraphed her own ridiculously conservative, naïve, childish and right wing views on the sex industry, about my "Habit" of fucking whores. By the way, I asked a friend of mine who is a wonderfully smart and insightful ex-escort turned writer what the politically correct term was for prostitute and she told me that "whore" was making a come back and was actually totally fine and that "hooker" was frowned upon. I found that fascinating. Anyway, I clarified to Beckster that 8 visits to whores in 40 years of sexual activity was the opposite of "habit" and actually constituted a "rare" behavior pattern. So we'll give Rebecca the benefit of the doubt on the mix up about me having "just" arrived at the party.

I accept and applaud anyone's right not to like my work, just have the balls and brains to admit the accurate truth that there are millions who do and have for years. And if you really want to act like a person with an above 12 year-old intelligence, try giving reasons for not liking my work (It would also help if you saw it) other than one's fueled by not having been asked out to the prom by the boy you liked and taking it out on me. Or, eek, not actually having been asked out by me. Or having been asked out, not asked out for a second date. This isn't aimed at Rebecca, I didn't ask her out. But some of the other haters recently have fallen into this category shockingly enough. The scorned woman? I made up that term didn't I?

Honestly, I'm not being mean. We just weren't right for each other. I love and respect all girls who I go out with even once; sometimes the chemistry just isn't there. It doesn't feel good, I know because sometimes I like them and they don't like me, but I try to take it like an adult and not let it fuel my feelings about them as a whole. You know, as if they were pressing on an unhealed hurt from long ago that I hadn't resolved... sorry, sidetracked again. It's just that I keep thinking if I SAY IT OVER AND OVER ENOUGH TIMES PEOPLE WILL GET THE MESSEGE AND GET INTO THE SOLUTION AND WE CAN ALL BE FRIENDS!!!! THAT WOUILD BE SO MUCH MORE FUN AND USEFULL THAN THIS. TRUST ME.

Rebecca's a good actress. She had me. I thought she was honest and truthful, her laughter and conviviality. Her chattiness about her lack of a boyfriend and how she lamented gaining all that weight from not smoking, which I am really glad she finally did. I certainly identify with wieght issues and dating troubles and thought she was very pretty the way she looked and was proud of her for having the courage to quit smoking and told her so. Anyway, she had me believing she was a woman of substance and her word, like people of substance was her bond.

When I was 6 years old, I and my 3 girl cousins, ages, 4, 5, and 6, would play sexual games. If you use Breck shampoo you get to go in the closet and kiss for three minutes. Don't ask me why, that was the game. Luckily, all of them did use Breck. We played "family" one time. My middle cousin Tina, was mommy, I was daddy. The youngest cousin Heather played one daughter, my oldest cousin Debbie played another daughter in this family. Tina and I went to bed like parents do and like parents do took off our clothes and started kissing.

I should warn my easily offended readers that what follows is very intense so you might want to stop here. I'm sure me and my cousins are the ONLY ONE'S OUT THERE WHO EVER BEHAVED LIKE THIS so you might not identify with us and as a result get frightened and I wouldn't want that.

I took of my pants and went farther, to 4th base, assuming since that's how babies are made and that's what mommies and daddies do, make babies, that that what was supposed to happen next. I WAS SIX YEARS OLD. Neither Tina nor I knew what was supposed to happen in this situation, I was taking my best guess. After two seconds Tina said she didn't want to play anymore. I said fine and stopped playing immediately. She ran off to tell her mother about the game and that she didn't like it. WE WERE SIX AND FIVE YEARS OLD RESPECTIVELY. I don't know if you got that part.

WE WERE SIX AND FIVE YEARS OLD RESPECTIVELY.

My father had a talk with me and explained that that wasn't an appropriate game to play when you were little and we shouldn't play that game again and that was that. My cousins and I, before and since that episode, have been very close and loving and there was never an incident like that again and not as a young man or adult have I ever, even as a drunken college lad slammed on hormones and cocaine so much as kissed a girl who said no to me, let alone done anything more to any woman who asked me to stop when we were involved in a mutual make out.

For the above described incident, Rebecca Traister, editing our interview, of course taking out the bridge dialogue which would have clarified the story more, to incite misogynist propaganda, and prove her theory that I am evil, insinuated that I was guilty of at best abuse and at worst, rape.

An insinuation that other readers then trumpeted.

I maintain that you would be hard pressed to find ANY child psychologist, lawyer, law enforcement officer, good teacher or healthy parent or healthy non-parent for that matter who would verify these sick people's accusation that the above mutually consented to child sexual exploration could be described as rape. It is so far fetched it really boggles the mind. I would feel you could leave it at that, or at worst say people who said that it was rape were joking, which I don't think is off limits IN A CERTAIN CONTEXT, NEVER ONE WHERE REAL PEOPLE WHO WERE RAPED WERE INVOLVED THOUGH, however in this case I submit it is criminal to utter the words they did in accusing me of being a rapist because they were not joking and if they were, did not make that clear. And that's what we have to discuss here.

When we throw around such a cartoonishly ridiculous accusation of rape, attaching it to an episode such as I described I had with my cousin Tina, we mock and minimize the real and evil and violent crime that is unfortunately visited on so many women every day by sick criminals.

Many of my female friends who have suffered the heinous crime of rape have corroborated this point of view and I feel safe in saying that no woman who has had to go through that outrageously awful crime would think it anything but destructive and ridiculous to categorize two 6 year olds engaged in mutual consented upon sex games that ended when one wanted it to end, as either of them raping each other.

Say you don't like my movies, say you think I'm a bad writer, actor, director, say it even without seeing any of my movies if you want to announce clearly what a kind of person you are. Call me narcissistic, call me self absorbed, call me short, bald, ugly, fat, a bad lover, a queer, small-dicked, creepy crawly. I don't give a shit... but do not call me a criminal. Do not call me a rapist.

If you come with that, come with more than a that I had consensual child sex with my cousin when we were both 6 years old and stopped when she said stop.

And try this on for size. What if the roles were reversed? What if I was messing around with my little girl cousin when we were both 6 years old and I was aroused and she said she was going to sit on me and I said why? And she said, because that's what mommies and daddies do when they sleep and I said okay and then she sat on me and after a couple seconds I felt uncomfortable and said get off and she did and then I told my dad what had happened.

How many of you would have said I was raped?

Huh. Kind of interesting. Maybe there's more to this than meets the eye? More about you and your agendas and how you feel about what's right and wrong in your life and choices around sex and your sexuality and things you've done? No, you probably don't have the courage to admit that. Safer to just say I'm a rapist and think there aren't any ramifications in the world. That you're not part of the problem. But the truth is this.

You are desensitizing people's understanding of what rape is and numbing them to the profoundly wrong and violent crime that it is.

And to the few of you who would call the aforementioned reverse scenario rape, it would be equally as ludicrous an idea as calling the original scene that actually happened rape.

We've all been hurt. We all have deep wounds. I am truly sorry for yours, I really am. I'm sure many of you are very talented. I know Rebecca is, that's why I was so disappointed in her turning out to be a liar. She and all of us are destined to much bigger things. Our world is falling apart, not because of six year-olds messing around with each other but because of six year-olds growing up and not healing their wounds so they can shine in a helpful and loving way. So they can tell the truth and in doing so inspire others to feel safe to tell the truth. The hard truths. The easy ones are easy to tell. We're all good at that. But the hard ones. The under bellies we all have that are hard to admit and confess to having but in doing so, frees us to feel human and allows our fellow humans to feel human too. And not like ogres.

I called Tina today to ask her if she would be hurt if I wrote this. Though we've been friends over the years, all of us, she and my other two cousins and my Uncle and aunt, we haven't been able to see each other as much lately as lives take over. They all have families and we all live in different parts of the country which is sad. I miss the family. She was excited and surprised to hear from me. In talking to her about all this explosion of misdirected hate stemming from our innocent game 40 years ago, tears welled in my eyes when she corroborated my memory of the events and said she was and always had been fine with what happened and treated it like the harmless episode it was. I realized that aside from joking about it over the years when my first film came out where I first talked about it in a public way, we had never had a serious conversation about it and I was glad we were now, and that my suspicions were correct in thinking her okay with it all but it was nice to hear it in the context of a serious talk.

She offered up these thoughts in a letter to me after we got off the phone and said it was fine for me to print them.

"Hey Eric,

What a wonderful surprise to get your call. I literally just got off the phone with you and wanted to write sooner than later.

I want you and everyone who is accusing you to know for sure that what happened between us so many years ago was not rape. I feel as though that was what you were asking me but were unable to say the word.

We were kids exploring the differences between boys and girls, as all children do. "Show me yours I'll show you mine" I think is how that goes. Nothing you did with me was out of line and I was just as much involved as you were. The reason I ran to my Mom was because we went farther than I was able to understand at the time and I got scared of what we were doing. You did nothing wrong as I'm sure you know. It was just a case of kissing cousins.

Please remember Dad at that time was a practicing child psychologist and Mom was a grade school teacher, and they both knew what we did and that it was kid stuff.

I really think all the stink about this is ridiculous and hopefully the people who are looking at this as some lude act will leave it alone.

I love you and am so glad you called.

Please do call when you are up again and hopefully we all can get together and have a big family time. I'd love to see you ice skate!!!

Namaste,

Tina"

And for another perspective, and although we're dating, trust me, she and I have our share of deeply differing views on subjects and she is the furthest thing than a push over, and despite liking me, certainly isn't afraid to speak her mind when we disagree, Melinda had these thoughts she was eager to share.

"When I was little, every summer I went to a great summer camp. I made friends there who lasted me throughout my entire childhood; one of them was Casey. When the conversation in the cabins turned to sex - as it always did - Casey offered with little resistance or shame that she'd had sex with her cousin in a barn when they were about five. "We were just playing," she said with a shrug. She refused to feel guilty about it. Since I was a bit of a naive child, I was horrified at the time to hear it. I shut my mouth, though. I remember later asking my mother about it, and her replying with something along the lines of "They probably were just playing. There's no sense in making her feel dirty or bad if she doesn't."

I went to camp with Casey for years and years, and each year when the topic turned to Who Had and hadn't, she told the same story with the same shrug. Even when our adolescent confessionals turned to darker things, as they tend to do when girls are all together, she never mentioned it as harrowing. In a really peculiar twist of fate, though she grew up in the state of New York, she ended up going to the College of Charleston. I ran into her my freshman year. We interacted briefly, but she seemed like a happy, involved girl.

So when the man I'm seeing told me the same things he told Rebecca Traister in the Salon article - and yes, he told me, he's not trying to trick me - I didn't bat an eye. I worked in a preschool classroom for years and years. If it ever happened that a parent told us that two kids of kindergarten age engaged in sex play, I think that every teacher's response would be "Don't worry. Your child is not a sexual deviant. You need to talk about some issues around bodies and privacy, obviously, so this event is not repeated. But the last thing you need to do is make a child feel deeply ashamed for something he didn't know was 'wrong.'"

Nor am I, by the way, shocked if a man has engaged with prostitutes. I have lots of male friends who are lovely people and who have paid for sex or fantasy. I don't think this sort of thing is inherently pathological. Anything can become pathological, at any rate. What pisses me off is when men engage in sex with prostitutes in countries where women are basically kidnapped as girls and forced into prostitution; when they have sex with minors, or women who have been working without hope of escape since they were minors. I'd much rather a man admit fully to having willfully hired an adult prostitute in America or Europe than mumble about that "one time in Thailand" or the like. To my knowledge, the man I'm with has had no such encounter.

I bristle when people send me emails saying, "Watch out, little girl, he did dirty stuff with a Dominatrix!" I'm sorry that some people, to this day, find others' harmless sexual proclivities disgusting. That mode of thought strikes me as a little too conservative to agree with. I'm surprised, as a southerner - a "yokelette," as one blog called me - that this sort of attitude is trickling down from New York. Contrary to popular opinion, we in the south - especially southern cities - are much more respectful of things like someone's sexual needs and orientation. Perhaps this is because the bulk of us are tired of being defined by the vocal evangelical Bubba minority who always seem to be on camera boycotting France or something inane, and so we're very careful. Perhaps this is because we just have better manners than to call someone gay if he hasn't found a wife yet; the rude insinuation is that gayness is something hidden and to be outed by others at their will, and even ruder, that failure in

the heterosexual world equals homosexuality. Or perhaps it's our respect for the deeply eccentric - something vividly wrought in fine southern literature, if you feel in a Faulkner or Percy mood. Maybe it's our inimitable southern mothers, telling us aphorisms like "every pot has a lid," e.g. that we're all deeply quirky but there's someone for everyone, a relaxed and generous view of humanity. I grew up thinking that New York was the opposite of provincial, but now I'm not quite so sure at all. It's a lovely city, and I love visiting, but I do feel an especially strong affection for my part of the country that refuses to be whipped into hysteria by variations of human nature. I only wish the man I'm seeing were more fond of it, but perhaps he'll come around.

Anyway, we tend to let a lot of complicated stuff just be what it is, down here, if you have a big heart, treat people well, have good manners, and like your mama. The man I'm seeing does. It's just humane, and liberal, and a lot more fun to think that way. "

While I pointed out that Melinda's and many other southern states were red states and that scared me, and I didn't like her saying some New Yorkers were "unsophisticated" but dare I say that the one's that are piling on this hate certainly are being so, I still thought her point of view was important to share on this subject.

So be a true warrior and have the courage to fight the real enemy people. It's not me. I'm a mirror. As you are for me, and I thank you Rebecca and all you others who mirrored back this false, deep seeded fear that I didn't even know I had that I had done something wrong as that little unknowing boy, and that lie has now once and for all been vanquished by the truth that of course I didn't do anything wrong. I might not have ever known that for sure had some of you not had the reaction you had so thank you. I love you.

I thank God for all that happened today, regardless of appearances. Even in the dark, there is grace if I look for it. My enemy is my teacher.

The demon you see in the mirror will melt from the tears of your self acceptance and self forgiveness and be replaced by the pure God that is you. May we all have the courage to say "devil get thee hence from me now," or in whatever language is meaningful for you and get on with the business of love and light. Om Bolo Shri Sat Guru Bhagavan ki. Jai! I bow down to all the teachers who have come before me. Namaste, xo e

P.S. Please remember to always check my MySpace page for updates as to my work and how to reach me. There's a link here now on the menu to the right at the top. Thanks.

P.P.S. As I have previously announced, I'm psyched to report that the link to the page to pre-order my book on Amazon is up as you can see. If you're so inclined, you can get it now. I saw the first galleys (the actual book, not a manuscript) and being the first time I ever saw galleys as this is my first book, I felt as excited as the first time I saw the dailies of my first film. It made it all seem terribly real. I hope you guys like it. I think you will. And thanks to any of you who get it. It's for you.

Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 11:44 AM

Thank You, I Love You - February 9, 2007

Bhagavan Das is this wonderful man. I met him on the beaches of Tulum a couple years ago. It's a place I go often to retreat. Yoga, sun, sand, ocean, stilted Swiss Family Robinson tree hut bungalows dot the 7 mile stretch of funky, wind swept shoreline, the thick tropical forest hiding them right up to waves lapping four steps from your bed.

It's not precious. St. Barts it's not, which I like. It's 40 bucks a night, not 400 or 4000. Those joints can be fun sometimes but generally I like it rougher around the edges. And because of my strange job I either have enough money or not enough, so in the "not enough" times, which are more frequent, I'm glad I can be happy in the 40 buck place. I grew up middle-class, my mom was a social worker, my dad a teacher. I like the rafters and courtside at the Garden. Both are important and fun and valuable perspectives but my people are in the rafters.

So two years ago, I was staying at one of the cheap bungalows and I took a walk on the beach. I looked up from the sea shells and saw this massive mound of man strolling towards me on the beach. He was made even taller than his 6'3' frame by another what seemed like 3 feet of dread locked blonde hair piled up on top of his head. A thousand necklaces and bracelets hung from him and nothing else. Other than that he was buck naked. He was celebrating a friend's birthday by wearing his own birthday suit all day long. Genius.

I knew his friend, the birthday girl he was walking with, an old party girl restaurateur turned yoga teacher named Trixie. I hadn't seen her in 15 years.

"Trixie?"

"Oh my God. Eric. How are you?"

"Perfect. And you?"

"So good."

"Do you know Baba?"

"No. Hi. Eric."

"Hi. Baba." The jolly Santa Clausian love emanating from this colorful naked giant brought tears to my eyes. I knew his music well. I had practiced yoga to it often.

"It's such a pleasure to meet you. I love your music."

"Oh, thank you. I love you." It rolled off his tongue so naturally it was like the hum of the wind. Completely disarming. We chatted for a few minutes and Trixie invited me to come to a party they were throwing to end their yoga retreat up the beach a hundred miles or so in a neighboring village called Morales I think.

"That sounds fun. I'll be there. Thanks for the invite."

"Great. See you tonight," Trixie said.

"Thank you, I love you," Baba said again, and they turned and left.

I quickly understood that the reason he said "Thank you, I love you" the way most of us say, "Thank you," or "Hello," or "Goodbye" or any other number of polite responses, was because, well, why should we say anything else?

If we were to say "Thank you, I love you," instead of hello or good bye wouldn't we all be a lot happier? What about even saying it instead of "Fuck you." Can you imagine? It would be infectious.

The world would change overnight.

Over.... Night.

I got home to New York a couple days later and was dying to try out my new toy. I met my friend Blair and we got on the subway, heading downtown. It was rush hour crowded. A tired, grumpy middle aged black woman somehow was in-between Blair and I, who had been separated in the stampede to find a place in this car. We were all holding the chrome bar above our heads for support. I continued the conversation I was having with Blair as the train left the station. I wasn't shouting but it was a noisy subway train so I had to speak up in order for Blair to hear me. Suddenly, the woman, inches from my face, turned to me and angrily said, "Do you have to talk right past me like that?!"

My first impulse was to say, "Yeah I do. Fuck off." Of course I didn't. I paused, as I have been taught as a spiritual discipline and waited for the grace of God to instruct me. Quickly it did. I smiled at her genuinely and said, "Is it annoying you?"

"Yes it is. Very much." Even though I was smiling, she was ready for a fight. This is New York. We're the friendliest people in the world... it's just sometimes under a few layers of fuck off and die.

"I'm sorry." I said sincerely.

"Uhkay." She grumbled, somehow not satisfied with the outcome even though she had gotten her way.

HERE WAS MY CHANCE!!! I COULDN'T BELIEVE I WAS GOING TO ACTUALLY DO IT!!! FUCK IT. IT'S NOW OR NEVER.

She was still looking at me, hoping I would say anything that might incite a riot. She wanted to take out her day, her life, on me. I looked her dead in the eye...

"Thank you. I love you."

She looked like one of those robots in a bad 70s sci-fi movie whose head explodes from a short circuit or something. She wanted to hit me, scream at me. Something. I mean I must have said "Fuck you, lady. I have just as much right to talk as anyone!!!" She couldn't have heard me right, but she had, and she knew she had. And while she wanted to say "Fuck you, too" back to me, like she was sure I had said to her, of course she couldn't and had only one alternative.

Half heartedly, in spite of every cell in her body that was crying out for her to say something else, in spite of a lifetime, a collective unconscious of generations of anger begging her to spit in my face, kill me with hate, instead, she quietly mumbled, "I love you too." And bowed her head. It's as if her mouth was possessed by a mind of its own and was saying words she didn't intend for it to say. She shook her head a little, trying to figure out what had just happened.

But she was calm. That much I could see she knew.

Blair almost broke out laughing. She could not believe what had just happened. Nor could I really. It was beyond my wildest imagination of how it would go, trying out this lovely grace from Baba for the first time.

Blair and I got off at Times Square.

"Have a nice day," I said to the lady.

"You too." That she could handle much more easily. She had said that before. She was just grateful I hadn't said, "Thank you, I love you" again. I didn't want to blow her out of the water. Baby steps.

Whenever I'm used as the object of misguided hate from people who for whatever reason are too afraid to look inside themselves at the real source of their fear and pain and hate, which has absolutely nothing to do with me, as hard as it is because it can set off my own unresolved pain and fear and make me forget that their hate has nothing to do with me really, I just say, "Thank you, I love you." And like a poof of magician's smoke hiding his false slight of hand, their power to take me down with them disappears, and I am free. Free to say and really feel love, which is really all any of us want.

So again, I say, haters, thank you. I love you. Baba, thank you. I love you. Trixie, thank you. I love you. And of course, to all the rest of you, thank you. I love you.

Life is short. We're all going to be dead really really soon. Believe me, I know it's scary to think who you'll be if you drop the self hate, but trust me, the small amount of time I'm able to, it's really not that bad. You don't explode like a robot and the ability to like, even love, feels really nice. Try it some time. What do you have to lose? "Thank you. I love you."

P.S. As I have previously announced, I'm psyched to report that the link to the page to pre-order my book on Amazon is up as you can see. If you're so inclined, you can get it now. I saw the first galleys (the actual book, not a manuscript) and being the first time I ever saw galleys as this is my first book, I felt as excited as the first time I saw the dailies of my first film. It made it all seem terribly real. I hope you guys like it. I think you will. And thanks to any of you who get it. It's for you.

Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 12:07 AM

Page 190 - February 8, 2007

I didn't want to send Melinda to her house in her Benadryl daze. And she was out through the 2 AM SportsCenter anyway so my whole need for privacy after our fun Saturday night date was achieved by the drugs... She woke up at 3.

"I better go to my house," she said half asleep.

"No. Stay here."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. Go to my bed. I'll be in in a little while." She shuffled off to my bed room; I shuffled the other way, to the kitchen to polish off the rest of the batch of cookies and then joined her.

She woke up early, like 9 o'clock since she had been asleep since 11 the night before. She adhered to the rule of kissing me good bye before she left (I think it's sad when people just leave the bed without a kiss. Kind of like people who don't kiss good night or say, "good night" before falling asleep? I've known women like that.) and split for her house. I assumed she'd come back around 11:30, knowing that's when I usually get up these days.

I stretched out and felt free. As much as I do like feeling the safety and solace that someone I care for's body brings lying next to me, I still always feel a bit cramped until I have the bed to myself.

I was awakened at 11 by the front door and the smell of the perfume I had gotten Melinda. She marched into my room and set a box on the floor.

"I wanted to get you a hair dryer because I told you I would. I'm going to get a cab to the airport now. Good bye."

"What are you talking about? Your plane's not for hours."

"I just wanted to drop off your hair dryer and say good bye in person. I'll go now."

She was clearly upset. She had said she would get me a hair dryer when she went to the drugstore on Saturday and forgotten. It wasn't that big of a deal. Something had happened. Sunday mornings weren't good for us. Maybe on getaway day we were sad so we manufactured fights rather than just feeling sad. Rather than feeling the separation anxiety. I had done it in Charleston; maybe she was doing it here.

"Honey. What's happening? What are you talking about?"

"Nothing. I brought you the hair dryer and now I'm going home."

"But what's wrong? What happened? Why are you acting like this?"

"Nothing." She seemed close to tears.

"Come here. Sit on the bed." She did. She looked beautiful. Like a really pretty Audrey Hepburn. Black turtleneck, diamond studs, red cheeks from the cold, and sparkling blue eyes. Always a little sad, but usually excited and hopeful underneath, now though, frightened.

"I don't want to get hurt." She said softly, like a child.

"What happened?"

"I read page 190 of your book." She had the galley and had been reading it since I knew her. I didn't think there was anything scary in there that would freak her out. I mean, she knew about my sexual proclivities and was into them. She didn't particularly like reading about my exes which I liked. I'm jealous in the same way and make her play a game in which if she ever talks about sex in the past she must refer to it as something she knows about because a "friend" of hers participated. She, of course, was a virgin before meeting me. I feel her pain in this area. But she knows it's in there and deals with it how she deals with it. This was something else. Something much worse. I had forgotten about page 190.

"What's on page 190?"

"You talk abut how whenever you date someone and tell them you want to still see other people before you go steady it always means you're just wishful thinking and really just staving off the inevitable which is that you don't really like them enough."

Melinda had told me she wasn't interested in seeing anyone else. I told her I needed some time to get to know her and trust her and even though there wasn't anyone else in the picture right now except for her, I just wanted more time to see if I liked her enough to want to be exclusive. All fair. All understandable in normal circumstances she agreed... now, understandably upsetting in light of the feelings I expressed on page 190.

"Oh right. I'm sorry I didn't talk to you about that before you read it, Melinda."

"Is that how you feel about me?"

"Here's the deal. As with everything in that book, and I think as you know, it's how I feel about everything in my life that I think... I half completely believe it and I half completely challenge it in myself. In the past, what I wrote on page 190 has been true. Do I think that it has to remain true? Absolutely not. Do I believe whole heartedly that I could be entirely wrong about everything I hold to be true? Absolutely. I go forward with the best that I know in the moment, it's well thought out, it's based on my life experience so I get behind it and live it with complete devotion, but at the same time, am completely willing to have it's validity and usefulness and worth challenged by myself or anyone else. Does that make sense?"

"Yes." She was instantly relaxed. It was the answer she was hoping for and believed. And she should have, because it was the truth.

"I do want to get to know you. I don't want to fall in love anymore with someone I don't know. I like the feeling and believe it's okay to have but I don't want it anymore with someone I've decided I'm gonna have it with just because. I want to dial the drama down a couple notches and see if I like you and you like me. As people. As friends, and then if we fall in love, great. But I've fallen in love too many times with people who ended up being people I didn't really like and I just don't have the heart for it anymore. Because once you're a pickle you can't be a cucumber again as they say. And even if I don't end up liking her, if I've fallen in love with her, my heart hurts the same."

She nodded in agreement.

"I mean, this is all stuff you said to me in that first week when we were talking on the phone."

"I know. And I agree with you. I just wanted to hear you say what you said."

"And you believe me right?"

"Yes."

"I really like you and I like you more and more as we get to know each other."

"And I you."

"Okay, so stop reading my book like it's Dianetics. You scared me."

"I'm sorry."

"May I fuck the shit out of you now?"

"Yes, please." She smiled and jumped on the bed. The bright midday sun filled my room and bounced off my white duvet and her alabaster face and we were good again. This Sunday's disaster not nearly as harsh as the previous one's. Maybe we were learning each other a little better.

We had it off. She caught a cab to Newark and I went to buy Super Bowl supplies. As she flew home to the South, I binged old school on home made bacon cheese burgers, French fries, and a pint of Hagen Daz and three Chocolate Nemos. I would be sick on Monday, but not from a Sunday morning fight, which made the smell of Melinda on my pillow all the more sweet.

P.S. I'm psyched to report that the link to the page to pre-order my book on Amazon is up as you can see. If you're so inclined, you can get it now. I saw the first galleys (the actual book, not a manuscript) and being the first time I ever saw galleys as this is my first book, I felt as excited as the first time I saw the dailies of my first film. It made it all seem terribly real. I hope you guys like it. I think you will. And thanks to any of you who get it. It's for you.

Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 3:52 AM

Two Days Old - February 7, 2007

I slept okay with Melinda in the bed, not great, but better than in Charleston. I was slowly getting used to her and she did sleep like a stone so I wasn't as afraid that my tossing and turning was keeping her awake.

And it was nice having her there in the morning.

We had some fun frisky time and then went apartment hunting for her second home... The hotel. I slung my yoga matt on my back as I was going to head off to my usual 3 o'clock Saturday class after checking her into her house. We found a very decent joint just around the corner from my house. They've turned all these old SROs into cheap hotels that are very nice and affordable and since she wasn't really going to be in the room very much and it really was more of a psychological tool than a real place she was going to be, I felt fine about getting her one of these houses. She was totally cool with it. It was above my diner on Broadway and a place where busloads of Swedish tourists always stay. I felt it had good vibes.

I kissed her good bye and went off to yoga, she went off to read and get a mani/pedi from the Koreans, although I had scared her off them a bit by telling her about the marginal cleanliness of some of the joints. I think I had fallen prey to one of those awful local evening news "watch dog" pieces on a particularly nasty establishment that offered staff infections along with their treatments and told Melinda about it. She had brought her own tools to give to the ladies to use on her so she wasn't all that freaked out.

I was going to meet up with her for dinner on 6th Street for Indian and Donny was going to join us. Yes. The first "friend meeting" was going to be that night. That's why I couldn't invite her to what I was doing after yoga before dinner because it would have been intimacy overload at this stage of the game.

My friends Tom and Jenny had just had their second baby on Thursday. He was two days old, just like take two of Melinda and my relationship. Having her come along to meet two of my friends with their newborn baby no less was just way too much, so I went alone.

I've never been that into hospital shows on TV. I never really got the drama. I've never been sickly or accident prone. I've always been healthy and an athlete and in pretty decent shape and so has my family thank God, so I haven't spent much time in hospitals. But going in this one for some reason I was suddenly awestruck with this extra wave of humility. They really are places that make you think abut life and death. I mean, obviously, but it just had never landed for me like it did on Saturday.

I made my way to the 13th floor, the same floor I grew up on, the same floor my mom still lives on in the apartment I grew up in. I found Tom and Jenny's room at the end of the hallway. They were both beaming and happy to see me. They are both in their early 40's and as a result, their two year old son is very calm. All of my friends who had kids in their late 30s or early 40s have calm kids. I think it tends to follow, the more serene the parents, the more serene the kids. Not that age inherently breeds wisdom, obviously it doesn't or our world would look a lot different. Maturity only comes with ceaseless self appraisal and tireless spiritual study and discipline. Having as far to go as I have, having worked as hard as I have to this point, it's easy to see why we're in the predicament we are since most are clueless that there's even anything they need to be looking at. The world's run by 60 year-old 13 year-old boys who never got over getting sand kicked in their faces.

I held this tiny little human in my arms and was blown away. He was a cesarean like I was. My mother had been in labor for 48 hours until they finally had to get me out because I was strangling on my umbilical chord and would die in 60 seconds if I wasn't liberated. I was afraid of this world it seems and wanted to stay in the cozy warmth of my mom. But it all worked out well. It's my theory on why I feel comfortable rushing. I always have. On the rare occasion I get to an airport early, I'll still find a way to have to run to the plane before they shut the door. I just feel more comfortable with some pressure. High stakes. I think that's why.

So I left the hospital and walked downtown on Second Avenue. It had been a tough week with all the hate aimed at me from the scared, sad, people who only know that way to deal with it. And even with all the love from all of you and my friends who are also to some extent sad and scared but like me, have figured out a better way to handle it than misguiding it as hate towards others who have nothing to do with it, I still felt a bit drained.

But having held this two day old boy in my arms... A little me... A little everyone, all that went away and the majesty of this life came slamming gently into me like the strong cold wind pushing me in the chest as I walked. It was 3 below with wind chill. I was in heaven. I've always loved the cold. Like me, the tiny one I had just held, was born Aquarian. He would love the cold too.

I got on a cross town bus at 14th Street to meet Melinda at Union Square so I could walk with her to the restaurant on 6th Street. I stood in the front. It was crowded. A disheveled man wearing only a dirty, stained Tee shirt under a light windbreaker sat to my left, facing me. He had thick glasses, 4 day scruff, matted tossed hair and a medicated gaze. He was holding a DVD off an old, lesser known Bruce Lee movie. Out of nowhere he announced, "I love Bruce Lee. I always have. Ever since I was a kid. He Made movies and then played Kato on the Green Hornet." He was aiming his conversation at an elderly woman, who clearly didn't know him, sitting across the isle from where he was sitting. She ignored him. He was nonplussed and forged ahead. "I like 50 year old women. I'm attracted to them." By elderly, I mean she was 70. He didn't mean her. He was just sayin... "40, 50. I don't care. It's normal. I'm 40." A few people started to look at each other and laugh that laugh that people do when they want to collude against the crazy guy. I never join that group. I have more of the "but for the grace of God go I" point of view. It's a smaaaaaaaaaaaaaall degree, a sliver of luck that separates that guy and me and I never forget it or take it for granted. I'd be his friend if no one else would.

"Women are beautiful at all ages. 50, 60, 70. Amazing creatures."

"Well not 70. I'm 40. But 50 is good." He didn't want to wax poetic with me. He was talking nuts and bolts. I joined his sensibility.

"Absolutely."

"I would like the woman. I would like to meet the nice woman and marry her."

"I think you should. You're clearly a talented man. You like Bruce Lee. I'm sure the perfect woman is out there for you."

"You think?"

"I know."

"Okay. Thanks."

"I have to get off now, but you have a nice night."

"You too." It's amazing to me how many people are hanging on by a thread, me included at times. As long as you don't commit any crimes you're allowed to be out in society, walk, talk, ride busses, go to delis, eat hot dogs from hot dog stands... be a normal person like the rest of the normal people out there. Out here. Yeah.

You're gonna throw the first stone? Hysterical.

I'm gonna throw the first stone? Even more hysterical.

I met Melinda and we met Donny and had a nice dinner at my favorite Indian joint. They got along well though Melinda seemed a little tired which she remarked on as we headed up town in the cab.

"I feel like I wasn't very social. I'm just so tired."

"You were perfect. Donny is only ever sort of present anyway, like me. He didn't notice."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive."

We got back to my house and I of course made my special cookies. By the time I was back from the kitchen Melinda was passed out on the couch. The SNL opening monologue wasn't even over yet and she was out.

"Here's your dessert."

She popped up and started eating it. "I just don't know why I'm so tired.... Ohhhhhhhhhhhh"

"What?"

"I'm so stupid! I just realized."

"What?"

"I took a Benedryl before I met you because of the allergies." She had complained of allergies when she woke up at my house that morning. I told her it was just the dry air from the radiators. A winter in New York thing.

"Honey, that shit'll fuck you up! It's like Tuinalls. Haven't you ever taken them before?"

"No." For such a smart girl, she has a little Alabama Whirley in her. It's what I like about her but the downside is she doesn't know Benidryl will knock you out.

"You have enough energy to give me little half comatose blow job before you pass out again, baby?" She grinned and started crawling over towards me.

"You were thinking about that at dinner weren't you."

"Maybe."

"I think your cookies might just have given me the boost I need," she said as she unzipped my pants.

"What if I get inspired and want you to sit on me?"

"I don't know how long I'll be able to stay awake. You might just have to keep fucking me in my sleep." Her eyes were closing as if she was already starting a dream.

"Well maybe I better just let you blow me then."

"No. I wanna fuck."

"But what if you fall asleep and fall off me and hit your cute little head on the ground."

"I won't." And she was asleep on my lap... which was so sweet and so fine. My pants would need to be open in a few minutes anyway after my third helping of cookies and Rice Dream so it was all good.

I thought of how much I enjoy my life. The little things. How lucky I am to be able to walk and talk and get a doughnut and a cup of coffee in a coffee shop and listen to the bitter wind howl out on Second Avenue.

Wait for a bus.

Watch a TV show.

Have a soft girl asleep on my lap.

Hold a baby boy whose eyes focused on me and wondered what any of it was and would be. That wonder doesn't have to be gone, I thought. I can have it now. I just have to want to have it.

That's the hard part.

Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 1:35 AM

Blast Frozen - Melinda In New York - February 6, 2007

Melinda was lying next to me in my bed, half clothed, fully red-cheeked, looking up at me from the crook of my right arm. She buried her nose in my arm pit, ripe with both nervous and sex sweat, a uniquely musty man combination, took a big whiff and smiled, "I love how you smell." Only two women my entire life have been that enamored by that particular style of scent. To varying degrees, others have either liked or disliked my smell, both when freshly bathed and squeaky clean, (with Halston Z14 from ages 21-37 or CK1 ages 37 to present, or au natural,) and when a little funky either by choice or because of a recent work out or yoga class, and have let their feeling known in either case, but only Melinda and one other ex lover have ever been so taken with it... which obviously is deeply excellent. You feel seriously accepted if that smell is not only not abhorrent to your lover but in fact a turn on.

It's all about smell. That's why I sent her the perfume. I wanted to set myself up for the best chance to love her. I love how she smells in the perfume and I love all her natural smells as well. Very important.

"I like that you love how I smell. Only one other girl has ever loved my funkiest smell and we had amazing sexual chemistry."

"Better than me?"

I could tell she wanted the truth in this instance. I respected her enough and knew that while it's not always the case that brutal honesty is the best course to take, (sometimes it's just brutality cloaked in the honor of honesty) in this instance, it was important for me to tell her the truth.

"Yes."

"Was she better because you loved her?"

"Yes."

"And you don't love me yet?"

"No. Not yet."

"Do you think if you did I have the potential to be your best lover ever?"

"Absolutely."

"Okay." She cooed, smiling happily, like she knew if she at least had the potential to win, she would and that made her happy. "You like me though, right?"

"Yes, I do."

"What will make you like me more?"

"Trusting that you're deep frozen and not blast frozen."

"What do you mean?"

"You know when you did the big flip-flop after I left Charleston..."

"Yeah..." She had told me she never wanted to talk to me again that last morning when I first visited her but then called me the next day upon my return to NYC and told me she had made a mistake and hoped I felt the same way and wanted to see me again, feeling our fighting could be worked through and not wanting to lose what she felt were a lot of good things we had and might have. I agreed. That's why she flew up to see me for another date.

"Consistency is really really important to me and that flip-flop kind of rocked my fledgling trust and scared me. I need to get to know you now, slowly, in order to believe that when you say you have strong good feelings for me, you know, a day after you said you never want to see me again, that they're real and not just trying to get me back for the sake of just getting me back. That you're deep frozen as opposed to blast frozen."

"I understand what you're saying but I don't get the difference between the two kinds of freezing."

"When I was in college I worked in the Alaskan salmon cold storage plants for two summers. You could make tons of money... I would bring back thousands of dollars and buy coke to deal at college. My strange duality of old fashioned work ethic and drug addict. I started on the slime line which was the worst job. Freezing cold, standing in water for 20 hours a day. You chopped the heads off, pulled the guts, cleaned the blood line from the spine with a spoon shooting water out of it or threw them in a bin. After doing that for a couple weeks I managed to get in good with this guy who was manager of the back room, which was much cushier. Warm, dry. He was a dancer for some strange reason, but since I was too, we bonded. You can always find like minded souls even in the machoest of environments.

He got me a job with him. I just had to lay fish on a big cookie sheet and put the sheets on these big steel things like you see in hotels that hold lots of trays and then wheel them into these blast freezers that would quick freeze the fish over night. Then we'd send them through a conveyer belt that washed them in a sugar glaze and then box them up and they'd get shipped out to restaurants around the world to be eaten within two days. The excess went into these amazing icy catacombs.... The deep freezers, where they would get frozen hard as a rock.

I wonder if your affection for me is blast frozen or deep frozen."

"Deep frozen... but I understand you need time to trust that."

"I do."

I kissed her and asked her to stay the night. It was already 3am.

"You don't want me to go to my house?" The hotel room I was going to put her in was euphemistically referred to as her house. In an effort to try and date as "normally" as we could and not increase the pressure, I didn't want to feel obliged to have her spend the night or to spend all my time with her even though she was in New York to see me. If it was a normal fifth date and we had known each other a couple weeks, we may or may not want to spend the night together or do things on Saturday.... In all likelihood we would go our separate ways at some point. I wanted to create a landscape of normalcy, much like I did by having my own place in Charleston. She was okay with that idea, not thrilled, but understood where I was coming from.

But I was happy having her warmth next to me.

"We'll figure it out tomorrow... I mean if you want to stay over tonight."

"Of course." She kissed me sweetly.

"Don't be a bed hog."

"Just push me if I do... I won't wake up."

"Okay. I'm glad you came."

"Me too." The first lovely, bitter, icy night wind of the winter whipped off the Hudson rattling the windows, the full moon and clanking radiators serenading us to sleep. There was hope. We'd be at least blast frozen by the morning.

That was day 1. Day 2 tomorrow.

P.S. I'm psyched to report that the link to the page to pre-order my book on Amazon is up as you can see. If you're so inclined, you can get it now. I saw the first galleys (the actual book, not a manuscript) and being the first time I ever saw galleys as this is my first book, I felt as excited as the first time I saw the dailies of my first film. It made it all seem terribly real. I hope you guys like it. I think you will. And thanks to any of you who get it. It's for you.

Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 12:03 AM

January - February 2, 2007

Historically, January has always been a month of beginnings for me. While there's the new year that we all celebrate, I also have January 3rd, which is the day I got sober in 1983, and my birthday on January 22nd in 1788. Can I please stop making age jokes on myself? That just started recently. I even lately said, "I've been living on the upper west side for nearly half a century" to make a point to someone. Why the fuck am I claiming, even as weight for the correctness of my opinion, an extra 5 years at this point?! I have to stop that. I'd rather be wrong than 5 years older. Fuck it. You win.

So, January is always a challenging month for me. Introspection, honest self-analysis always is. Also, very celebratory in that whatever I find, whether stuff I want to nurture or discard, having made the journey inward, is the victory in itself.

I'm glad it's February.

This year's survey (and mind you, it's a daily examination I do year-round but it just seems iridescent in January because of the big days that are symbols of radical change that exist in that month) has been particularly revealing. You already know the how and why of it so I don't need to repeat it.

One of my beloved spiritual advisors who is no longer with us, whose birthday also happened to be in January, the 27th, the same day as one of my closest friends, an ex girlfriend from many years ago, Kate, taught me this prayer. "Thank you God for all that happened today, regardless of appearances."

I can't always see the grace right away. Sometimes it takes a little while to incubate, especially if it didn't feel good at the time. But if pain is the touchstone to spiritual progress sometimes, which I believe and have seen evidenced countless times in my life, then our tribulations are, in their very essence, gifts, and knowing that on a meta level, like a whisper from an all mighty protector in the heat of battle, makes those moments not only more bearable, but sneaking suspicions of blessings to come.

So, again, thank you to all who were with me last month. For those of you who don't write me, you must know how amazingly beautiful your co-readers express what I know is in your hearts as well, and how inspired I am from the love from all of you, seen and unseen.

I'm starting February without my Internet dating profiles active. While Melinda and I are not going steady yet, and are just getting to know each other more, I've decided to take them down anyway, just cuz. I don't know what will happen with her. I am open to everything the universe has in store for me, and as hope is the enemy of the now, I am letting my present feelings guide me until and if I want to make more of a commitment, and until and if she wants to make more of one as well. Whether or not she ends up being HER for me and I HIM for her, or someone else becomes that person for us, is in the Great Spirit's hands... and of course whether she'll let me watch football, (both in reality and euphemistically of course and if I continue to smell nice to her) but for today, though I've met many wonderful girls on the dating sites and had many interesting, sexy, excellent experiences, I want to focus the chi a little more, so they're off for now. MySpace and this site are always ways to contact me if you need to. I try to respond as quickly as I can to all who come with love.

The month of romance is here... hearts and cookies for all!! Namaste, e

P.S. One of the funniest, most absurd chapters in the book, which celebrates just how wonderfully crazy I (all of us) can be, is about online dating. Pray for me to have the strength NOT to spoil it for you by telling you about it here. 100 days and counting kids!!!!! That was a little mean... You like it a little though, I know. xo e

Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 5:05 PM