The Bad News

Hello, you dearly neglected Money Shot Blog readers. I am not your usual host. My name is Julius Hoffman. But you can call me “Ray”.

I come to this here esteemed porn blog with terrible news. Your esteemed porn-blogger, and my dear friend and business partner, is dead.

Sherman McCoy is dead.

A Chorus for the Dead Hash Smoker

But before we go on… Here’s some transcendental reading music. Yeah, it’s Guns-N-Roses, but also Julian The Angel, which is both like me, since I am Julius, and like Sherman, because he is dead like a fucking Angel.

Perhaps you want to know how it happened…

We were having a fine time in Copenhagen. Smoking lots of hash. Putting together plans for the building of a series of wild and innovative new porn sites. Meeting and chatting with other producers of porn, most of whom spoke with these funny hoodie-hoodie Nordic accents.

What Killed Sherman McCoy

Then Sherman started to feel unwell.

At first he thought it was just some allergies. Or maybe a cold. Or maybe just a physical manifestation of his existential angst– he did, after all, summon up the dead spirit of Søren Kierkegaard and practically beg the old existentialist to pitch him a philosophical fastball.

But by the start of July, he was convinced that he was really sick. More dramatic ideas started to come to mind: Swine Flu? Some sort of nasty, life-threatening virus caught from a Tijuana whore-girl?

Turns out that it was indeed some sort of infection that killed him. Nobody knows precisely what it was, and nobody knows precisely where he got it from. The doctors labeled it a “generalized systemic infection”. That sounds all generalized and systemic and not the least bit like the lethal microbial beast that it was.

Kicked Out of Denmark

As the month of July progressed, Sherman turned into a total mess. He even tried to come back to porn-blogging, but he just couldn’t do it.

He did keep on smoking hash though. Perhaps it was the hash smoking that alleviated his discomfort somewhat and allowed him to convince himself that his health problems were not as serious as they actually were.

He was taken to the Kingdom hospital in Copenhagen on July 22. When the Danish authorities realized that Søren Kierkegaard was about to drag his summoner back with him into the afterlife, they promptly put us both on the next Continental Airlines flight back to Newark.

They even sprung for first class! People get awfully generous when they’re dealing with a walking zombie.

We never made it back to California. Sherman was transported to Mount Sinai in New York City as soon as we got off the plane. All his family from upstate came down to be at his bedside. He expired after a week of heroic efforts by the doctors.

Guess Who Ended Up With His Ashes?

Sherman’s body was cremated. And is it any wonder that yours truly has ended up with his ashes? Here they are, right here in this fucking Folgers Coffee can (à la Lebowski) on my kitchen table, looking at me as I write this to you.

We talked on the plane about what to do with his ashes if he were to kick the bucket. He wanted them spread all over the place, and I am happy to oblige.

Some of his ashes he wanted thrown off the end of the Oceanside Pier at midnight on the date of the new moon. That was the night of August 20, a few days ago. Done and done. It probably looked a little wierd… but, eh, whaddayagonnado?

You can now swim with the fishes for all eternity, Sherman!

He also wanted some ashes sprinkled atop the graves of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Sartre. Apparently Sherman wants to spend part of the afterlife in good existential company.

Kierkegaard is no problem. I know where his grave is because he’s the fucker who started this whole death-spiral. I’ll be going back to Copenhagen in a few weeks to take care of that.

Sartre should be easy; I don’t speak French but I’m sure I can find it.

Nietzsche might be a little more difficult.

And As For The Porn Blog?

Well, dear friends… I’ve inherited it!

No sense in wasting a perfectly good domain just because the blogger is dead, is there?

So I will, in the spirit of my good dead friend, build this blog up from a very crappy and neglected porn blog into a real good fucking porn blog!

I start with the tagline. You can see it atop this page now.

The Porn-Blogger is Dead. Long Live the Porn Blog!

What more is there to say, really?

It’s June 30. 7PM as I write this. Or 19:00… what-fucking-ever. It’s been an unusually hot and sweaty day…

Hear that rumbling in the sky, Denmark?

That’s our good dead friend Mr. Kierkegaard coming back to the land of the living.

He is going to be joining our neophyte porn company.

His position? Chief Dead Existentialist. Every company needs one of those.

Nobody Gave Him A Chance in 1849

Only a dead man can dominate the situation in Denmark. Licentiousness, envy, gossip, and mediocrity are everywhere supreme. Were I to die now the effect of my life would be exceptional; much of what I have simply jotted down carelessly in the Journals would become of great importance and have a great effect; for then people would have grown reconciled to me and would be able to grant me what was, and is, my right.
– Søren Kierkegaard, 1849

Wow was he right.

But times are different now. We aren’t so hostile toward new ideas or new ways of thinking. In fact, we invite them; or at least the smart people and the creative people and the conscious people do.

Anyway, you get to go another round, Søren.

This time there’ll be much more hedonism involved. That much is sure.

The End of June

Ray and I agreed that we would take the month of June easy.

Brainstorm. Think of every possible idea. Look at even the most basic concepts in a new way. Unwind in a different environment.

I was making coffee when Ray stumbled out of his room this morning.

Coffee?

Yeah.

Ray opened the fridge, browsed, shut it.

Do we have any hash left?

We didn’t have any hash left and I told him so. In consolation he could have the last piece of CHOKOLADE KAGE if he wanted it. Chocolate cake for breakfast just like Bill Cosby makes for his kids…

And anyway it was time for us to get going. It was time to start the project. No more messing around.

Time to really begin the next chapter of our lives. Time to Yell Fire! Time to do something god-damn important! I was beginning to psych myself up…

Are you with me, morning boy? Are you with me?

He was with me. I explained that he should take the day lightly. Rest. De-tox. Whatever. Just stay here and sober up so we can look at the plan with fresh eyes tomorrow.

I was going for a walk and then I was going to write.

Hey Ray… Stay off the hash for a while, OK?

OK. You too, right?

Right.

Walking in Copenhagen

I walked.

I walked down to Christania and it was really crowded because the Roskilde Festival was beginning and I went to our usual dealer’s stand to buy a super-hash joint.

Some new dude was manning the stand.

You want the small one for fifty kroner?

Or this one for eighty…

Another dude standing with his back to us turns around and it is one of the normal dealers and he recognizes me and I look at him and shrug and he looks at the new-dude dealer and then hands me the super-hash joint that normally costs 120 kroner but we get them for the 100 kroner ‘cuz we’re such fucking good customers.

I walked. Smoked. Thought. Wondered if Ray would show up.

…at Søren Kierkegaard’s grave.

Those are my iPod earpuds laying there on his final resting place.

I wanted to give him the chance to hear some good modern music. He was listening to Silversun Pickups when I took the snap. Growing Old is Getting Old. Somehow that seemed appropriate…

The Sex Life of Dead Spirits

When I got to his grave, there were two touristy-looking young women staring down at his old dead existentialist bawawa…

I took a little stroll around the old part of Assistens Kirkegård, waiting for some time along with him.

I wonder if Søren’s spirit haunts this place.

Does he, in the night, wander around?

Is he… perhaps… looking for a drink?

Does he ever get horny?

These are important questions.

As I’m pondering this, I come across the grave of one Miss Ellen Margrethe Seknner.

She died back in 1871. Was 22 years old.

Does the statue look like she does?

I mean… it’s angelic and graceful and all that… but still…

She’s sorta hot. In an angelic-dead-marble sort of way.

Betcha Søren’s spirit is fucking her.

Every night he probably strolls over to her, looks down at her sweet angelic face, and…

What’s it gonna be, baby? Either we’ll make love together in a wonderful sensual merging of our long-dead spirits… Or I can just slam you round and do it rough in your heavenly ass.

For last few days I listen to Super Taranta!. Is from Gogol Bordello– that is hottest Gypsy punk band of… ummm…. 2007.

I am little late. Usual case. Trend train already left station. Arrived at fucking destination long ago while I fucking spend time fucking Tijuana whores.

Guys in band are genius. Totally existential. Confronting serious psychological and philosophical issue with smart analytical rational thinking.

And there even song of Grand Unification Theory. Will titillate your inner physics geek!

Is music that help navigate you the absurdities of stupid modern American life… with vodka and marinated herring!. In face of so much existential absurdity, what can possibly ask of art except that it be helpful?

They become with Silversun Pickups one of my favorite band. Check out performance with Postmodern Queen herself from 2007 (just first part of video). And also session on show of clueless David Letterman.

(I think Madonna performance is one best things I’ve seen in year… I remember Andrew Sullivan blog it many many times ago. I never knew who Gypsy dudes were until now, tho’.)

I’m back here because I have an existential quandary… a life question to answer… a fork in the road, if you will, and the only way to pass it is accept that there is no fork and indeed there is no road, and that any idea of any path at all is just an illusion.

An Existential Question

I came back to consult with The Porn Guru. He works from the Kearny Mesa section of San Diego. He is Existentialist, Ph.D., guide to rich men and Dostoevskian Idiots like me. He introduced me to the whole Existential philosophy, and indirectly to postmodernism too. I trust him more than anyone.

Of course, The Porn Guru will not give me an answer to my question. He does not give answers. He will only help me realize things that I have not thought of. And he is very good at that.

Today– my first full day back– has been a beautiful day. Bright and sunny, the slightly salty smell of the warm sea air providing the life breath to lungs and to mind… and also to loins, of course.

I sat at the front patio of Starbucks at B Street and 28th, in Golden Hill, for a couple of hours. Reading Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. It is a spectacular book. Sure, it stretches plausibility sometimes, and Rand is a much better dramatist than a novelist. The best way to regard it is as a thought-provoking mini-series in book form. And its most potent effect is what it inspires you to think about, not the plot or the story it feeds to you directly.

I should have read it when I was 17. Well… I’m 34 now, and that’s double 17, and anyway there is never a reason not to seek out inspiration. Perhaps when you stop seeking inspiration, you die, one way or another.

Problem is that the book is so fucking long. My copy has 1,069 pages of text. The plot is revealed on page 677. Page 677!!! Luckily there is plenty of juice to keep you interested- and thinking- along the way. Rand writes about sex… lots and lots about sex… and about power and sex… and about submission and sex… and about achievement and sex… and all that sex-writing is quite thought-provoking in itself.

I realized, sitting there, that I needed to get up and take a walk. Walk and think. I had been reading and thinking and reflecting there on the Starbucks patio far too long. So I decided to walk downtown.

As I’m walking down B Street, the Symphony Towers overhead, I stride past a 30-something black dude walking with a toothless, worn, wrinkled woman who is only slightly older.

He looks at me. “How you livin’, man?”

Huh? What’s that? It takes me a minute to escape from my thoughts about Dagny Taggart and how the three leading men of the book want to fuck her… neigh, to own her, sexually and in every other way… because of her ability. “Wha..?” I mumble to the dude.

“You look like you livin’ large”, he states, assuredly.

How could he know? Is that why is he commenting? Does he see it in my gait? In my face?

A moment passes. And then I respond, “No, man… I’m living… free.”

“Living free, huh? Dude here is living free.”

I have the novel in my right hand. I had walked rapidly passed him and the woman during the exchange. I turn, point my hand with the fat book in it at him. “That’s right. And living free is better than living large. Living free is better than anything.”

Without missing a beat, the black man replies, “You got that right, man.”

I turn back around and walk on.

Or, more precisely, a “boulevardier, whore-monger, and drooler over pornography”.

That’s how this review summarizes James Hawes’ description of Kafka in his new book, Excavating Kafka. Hawes was able to get into Kafka’s porn stash and includes copies of this wank material to illustrate Kafka’s humanness, in contrast to the saintly picture that Hawes claims is painted by Kafka scholars.

And according to this write-up in Times Online, it’s not just soft vanilla erotica:

“These are not naughty postcards from the beach. They are undoubtedly porn, pure and simple. Some of it is quite dark, with animals committing fellatio and girl-on-girl action… It’s quite unpleasant.”

So basically it’s the pre-Nazi equivalent of furry porn, plus some sapphic delights. That doesn’t sound unpleasant at all.