My recent post about Alan Moore reminded me that way back in the mid-60s, when I came to L.A. to try my hand at conquering the written word, I wrote porn novels and short stories and even edited various slick publications of the same wondrous genre – pseudonymously, of course. That phase of my career didn’t last very long, fortunately, and it was onward and upward in the loveliness of showbiz within the blink of an aspiring eye.
Many years later, in the early 90s, I retired from showbiz and moved to Santa Fe, NM, where I donated all of my papers to the local college, including the porn because I am, if nothing else, a completist. A few years later, the college threw out all the material I’d given them. I assumed it was because of the porn, but the head of the Visual Arts Department confided in me that it was because the school didn’t want to be “tainted” by TV.
The second-best agent I ever had, the late, great Leonard Hanser, liked to say, “Ain’t life unfair!” as a statement instead of a question. Of course, life’s unfair, but my journey through this world has shown me again and again that a sort of bizarre (and often stupefyingly unfair) irony is the real name of the game.