Logging on to my email account, I was pleased to find a message from Evelyn, an ex-girlfriend, whom I hadn’t seen in years. Last I’d heard, Evelyn was married, with twins, living in San Francisco where she ran a store that sold stained glass.
I was less pleased after I read her message:
Judd-My husband and I find your emails inappropriate. Please respect our privacy and desist from trying to contact me.
-Evelyn
Oh God, I thought, I’ve been drunk emailing again.
Months before, there had been an incident on myspace where I received a response from a woman I didn’t know to a question I had no memory of asking. After searching my account, it became apparent that I had been coming home from the bars after hours and firing off messages of lascivious intent that, come morning, I had no recollection of ever having sent.
Much to my surprise, however, after an exhaustive search, I discovered that I had not sent Evelyn an email in years, and the last one I did send was perfectly benign.
So I replied:
Dear Evelyn,
Great to hear from you. Hope things are well in San Fran. I received your message but have no memory nor any evidence of having sent you ANY emails. Are you sure you got the right guy? Best to…. Max, was it?
-Judd
A few days later, Evelyn wrote back:
Judd-Come off it. You think we don’t know who Fish is?
-Evelyn
This was getting interesting. For two years, I had been writing a blog called Filth that chronicled the life of a fictitious character named Julius “Fish” Fischman, his best friend, Arty From Philly, and a woman known only as Intimate Relationship #9.5. I figured this was the Fish to whom Evelyn was referring.
Dear Evelyn-Either you’re putting me on or somebody is putting us both on. Take into account that your web address is revealed on your myspace page. Just because these mystery emails are signed “Fish” doesn’t mean they’re from me.
-Judd
She wrote one last time:
Judd-Figure it out and make it stops [sic].
-Evelyn
Her last message came with an attachment that contained copies of the various missives sent to her by one julius_fischman@gmail.com. Indeed, the emails contained material inappropriate to send to any woman, married or otherwise. They seemed to represent the unsavory intentions of a well-educated misanthrope whose sexual proclivities could best be described as criminal.
But they weren’t from me. Nor did I ever register a gmail account by that name, which led me to suspect that there was some imposter masquerading as Julius “Fish” Fischman in order to harass my friends and exes, all of whom would be easy to find for anyone with a myspace account and a link to my page. Perhaps the culprit was someone I knew, some friend playing a practical joke, or perhaps it was an enemy or con man running a scam.
I sent the following email to julius_fischman@gmail.com:
Dear Fish-Who are you?
-Judd Trichter
PS. Leave Evelyn alone.
Within seconds, I got the following reply:
fuck off
I had to find him.
I started with a search on myspace and, sure enough, located a profile for one Julius “Fish” Fischman, 32 years old, writer/actor, living in Los Angeles. And here’s the kicker: 218,596 friends. I only had 164.
But not only was Fish more popular than I, he was also taller (5′10″), richer (income $150,000 – $200,000), and better looking, or at least the avatar on his profile looked better than the photograph on mine. I couldn’t know for certain if the artist who designed it was trying to represent me, but judging by the frizzy hair, slumped posture, big ears, and crooked nose, it’s safe to assume the graphic was at least inspired by me if not modeled directly.
The myspace profile also revealed that Fish writes a blog called Smut which one can view at www.juliusfischman.com. It’s a well-designed page, more professional than mine with many more comments, links, and advertisements, though the writing isn’t nearly as good. Fish’s voice reminded me of a poor man’s Bukowski aspiring toward Haruki Murakami. There’s a whiff of misogyny prevalent in his descriptions of women and a lack of discipline to his style, though an undercurrent of self-deprecating humor does save it from being total trash.
The protagonist in Smut – in case you haven’t guessed by now – goes by the name of “Judd Trichter,” but the Judd Trichter on the blog doesn’t resemble me in any way. Instead, Fish writes Judd Trichter as a drug-addled freeloader who suffers from delusions of grandeur while treating his mother like shit, borrowing money left and right, masturbating constantly, needlessly rebelling against authority, and generally lacking the ability or talent to ever get anything done.
In other words, Fish’s page had the makings of a lawsuit.
I called Kenny Gutstein, my attorney, at once.
“Listen to this,” I said. “There’s some clown on the internet pretending to be me. Wait a minute. That’s not quite right. He’s pretending to be a character I created.”
“Okay.”
“And he’s harassing my friends and writing terrible things about me.”
“True things?” my lawyer asked.
“Some. But most are lies.”
“That’s slander.”
“And judging by his page, it looks like the sonofabitch makes money.”
“Great,” said Gutstein. “What’s his name?”
“I don’t know his real name, but on the internet, he goes by Julius Fischman.”
“Stop right there.”
“What’s the problem?”
“He’s a client.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“You represent this fraud?”
“I represent Julius Fischman,” said Gutstein, “and believe me when I tell you, this fraud, as you call him, brings in ten times the revenue you ever brought.”
I asked if I was entitled to any of that.
“Not a cent,” Gutstein shouted into the phone before I could finish my question. “And if you intend any legal action against him, you can expect a counter suit and an injunction that will shut down your page.”
“But he’s my creation,” I complained. “Without me he doesn’t exist.”
“Well… I’m sure Julius Fischman would argue the same about you.”
There went my lawsuit.
I sent Fischman another email:
Dear Fish,Where can I call you? I want to talk.
-Judd
He responded with a terse imperative:
eat shit
The next step was to browse through Fischman’s thousands of myspace friends to see if we had any in common. I found one: Tracy Choo. Of course Tracy would know Fish. I should have known.
Tracy Choo was a half-Korean, half-android woman who worked as a barista in an internet cafe where I used to sip tea at two in the morning and write. She introduced herself one night, after her shift, when she sat down next to me and asked what I was working on. Turned out Tracy knew all about Filth and was psyched to learn I was the man behind it. We wound up talking for hours, constantly interrupted by the electronic gadgets she tended to at all times: some DJ from Japan calling her cell, some computer hacker IM’ing her, some web artist sending her a video text. To talk to Tracy was to interact with only half of her while the other half drifted through the constellations of cyberspace.
On our date, Tracy and I shoveled Kimchi into our mouths and washed down ecstasy with our sake. We danced at a crowded rave in an abandoned warehouse downtown. In the morning, we drove back to her apartment and its many screens and monitors, its criss-crossed cables, its overwhelmed power strips and webcams rigged to the ceilings in every room.
“Just so you know,” she said, “if we have sex, there will be thousands of people watching around the world.”
Despite what one might presume from my being an actor, exhibitionism isn’t really my bag, but ecstasy combined with a hot Korean android can do strange things to a man, and I decided to give it a try.
The sex wasn’t what I hoped. Even though she was eager and able to please, the fact that Tracy didn’t sweat or carry a scent had the effect of reminding me that she was only half-human. Nor did it help my self-esteem that as a condition of her manufacture, Tracy couldn’t lubricate naturally and had to shove a fresh battery up her ass between orgasms. It’s hard to say this without sounding like a bigot, but I’ve always thought that dating an android – even one who’s only half – was an admission of failure or at the very least a compromise I didn’t want to make.
We went out one more time, but after that, I lied and told Tracy I was getting back with an ex. She took it hard.
“What’s she got that I don’t?”
“Nothing,” I said. “It’s just that my ex and I have a history, and I want to see if we can make it work.”
We were outside at the time, and the rain drops collecting on her cheek made it look like she was crying.
“I thought we had something,” Tracy whispered toward the ground. “I thought we had something real.”
“I thought so too,” I replied. But that was also a lie.
After seeing her profile on Fish’s myspace page, I sent Tracy an email to feel out whether she’d be willing to talk:
Hey Trace-Long time no see. How’ve you been? Came across your profile on myspace and thought I’d say hi. Hope all’s well.
-Judd
Tracy replied with an indecipherable stream of words, letters, and symbols that might as well have been written in binary. I emailed her again and asked if it would be okay if I called. She responded thus:
Y
Though possible that she was asking, “Why,” I took the letter “Y” to mean “Yes” and gave her a ring.
Tracy and I spoke for about fifteen minutes, catching up on the last year of each others’ lives, until finally we overcame the awkwardness inherent in my calling. Then I brought up Fish.
“What about him?” she asked.
“I see he’s on your myspace page.”
“He found me in a chat room and asked me out.”
“Did you go out with him?”
“Couple of times.”
“What’s he like?”
“Kind of like you, I guess, but not exactly.”
I asked her to elaborate.
“He’s more angsty,” she decided. “Better looking. More stylish. Just sexier in a weird way.”
“Sexier than me?”
“Yeah. And he’s a better writer too. Have you seen his blog?”
“Yes,” I said, “I’ve read his blog. And thank you.”
I asked Tracy if she had slept with Fish, and she admitted she did.
“How was that?” I asked.
“Well,” she sighed, “he did make me come.”
“So did I.”
Tracy laughed.
“Uh… no.” Liar. “But I have to tell you,” she added right away, softening in her rebuke, “he wasn’t you. As much as I wanted him to be, he just wasn’t.”
“How so?” I asked.
Read more ›
Tags:
I wanted to get my watch fixed before I hung myself. The battery had run out weeks before, and I hadn’t the energy to replace it. Nor the money. And then I worked all month painting walls, loading trucks and folding shirts until the holidays came. I made some deliveries and held a sign on a street corner. I still couldn’t cover the rent, but at least I made enough to get my watch fixed. At least I’d know what time it was I died.
There’s an old Jew with a kiosk at The Farmer’s Market near my apartment. I handed him the watch and asked if he could replace the battery. He told me he was busy on account of the holidays and I should come back in a couple of hours. It was 1:50 in the afternoon. If I came back in two hours, I’d still have plenty time to hang myself before Intimate Relationship #9.5 came home from work. A body needs to dangle a good fifteen minutes for there to be no chance of resuscitation, and I didn’t want IR#9.5 getting worked up trying to save me. I felt no malice toward her and only wanted to be out of the picture so she could return to her family and raise our unborn child in a better environment than I could provide.
I decided to see a movie to kill time. Nothing interested me at the multiplex, but I bought a ticket for Blood Diamond because it was about to start. It was a terrible film. The story felt like it had been concocted by mooshing together three articles in an issue of Vanity Fair: an expose of the diamond industry, a report on ecotourism destinations and a fluff piece about a Hollywood star who cares. The star is, of course, Leonardo DiCaprio, who hops and jumps about the frame with the frenetic grace of a wet marmot. Though better suited to playing a disgruntled figure skater, DiCaprio is somehow cast as a Rhodesian mercenary, who, over the course of the film, goes from being a racist soldier of fortune to a hero who will sacrifice his life to save a young black boy and bring down the biggest diamond company in the world. And in case we don’t know what we should think of this unlikely scenario, the director, a talentless hack by the name of Ed Zwick, forces his actors to indicate what they are feeling at all times while providing a soundtrack that tells the audience exactly how it should react.
Blood Diamond is the kind of movie Hollywood makes in order to raise awareness about an issue. Or so they claim. In this case, the issue is conflict diamonds: stones used to fund both sides of various civil wars in Africa. According to the film, diamond companies mix conflict diamonds into their store of regular diamonds and release them into the market without notifying consumers of the blood spilled between their mining and their distribution. By making Blood Diamond, the actors, producers and Zwick get to show that Hollywood cares about the content of its movies and strives to educate audiences about parts of the world that hold our natural resources. I believe their motives, like those of Angelina Jolie and Madonna, are sincere in their desire to raise awareness. What I don’t believe is that raising awareness is worth a rat’s ass.
While watching the movie, I began to wonder when in the backsliding values of our country the definition of altruism became so watered down that it no longer involved sacrifice. In their attempt to raise awareness, the producers, actors and Zwick risk and sacrifice nothing — especially not their eight figure salaries. They change the names of the diamond companies in the movie so that no slander suits could be levied against them. They don’t shoot where it takes place in Sierra Leone, thereby supporting the local economy, because it would have been too dangerous and therefore uninsurable. They don’t even take the time and effort to make the movie with artistic integrity or believable characters. In fact, it can be argued that movies like Blood Diamond do nothing to raise awareness about an issue because they place that issue in the context of a fantasy world where heroism is rewarded, good triumphs over evil and everything works out in the end.
“You’re just a cynic,” cries the voice of protest to my argument. “You think it’s better to make movies out of comic book characters? Or art films composed of empty formalism? Or would you rather do nothing but sit there and criticize?” Quite the opposite. So angered was I by this film, so inspired to action by the drivel I had been subjected to in these final hours of my life, I decided the only sensible recourse was to use the last four hundred dollars in my checking account to buy IR#9.5 the biggest fucking conflict diamond I could find.
I approached the old Jew at the kiosk and made my demand. “I want a blood diamond,” I said. “I want a stone that came into your possession at the expense of an African village. A gem that was mined by limbless children and trafficked by unsavory arms dealers. I want the bloodiest diamond my four hundred dollars can buy.”
Behind his long gray beard, the old Jew, tall and rotund, frowned at my request.
“If you are looking for a cheap stone,” he said, “I can show you some synthetic gems that only the most practiced eye could discern.”
I told him that I was not looking for a cheap stone so much as I was looking for a stone with history. “A history of suffering,” I said. “Because in these, the final hours of my life, I have come to realize that value is not determined by color, clarity and carat, but by risk, sacrifice and the shedding of blood.”
The Jew smiled, revealing teeth that were yellow and rotten with decay. “I recognize you as a connoisseur,” he said, “though of something much more perverse than precious stones. And whereas I do not do business in the kind of gem you are looking for — at least not to my knowledge — I do believe I have something that might be of interest to you.”
He motioned to his wife to watch over the kiosk while he bent down to unlock a file cabinet behind the counter. Inside I could discern the first steps of a staircase that descended into the ground. It seemed too narrow a passage for the Jew’s girth, and yet he maneuvered his body inside with great ease. “Come,” he said, and I followed him into the darkness, spiraling beneath the market with one hand on his shoulder and the other grasping at the damp, stone wall. “A little further,” he said, as I listened to the sound of his footfalls and a steady dribble of water on rock. “A little further,” he said, as I became lost in the circular motion of our descent, wondering if we were actually moving downward, deeper into the Earth, or just spinning blindly in a pitch black room. “A little further,” he said, as we reached the final step, where a faint light from a gas lamp revealed the contours of a room cluttered with antique furniture, curtains and tarnished Judaica. “A little further,” he said as he took up the lamp and led me to another room, and then another, unlocking door after door to reveal more rooms filled with books and scrolls and broken tablets made from rock. “A little further,” he said, and the old Jew handed me the lantern as he stooped to lift the sheet from a cracked wooden desk that stood at an angle on two uneven legs. He opened a drawer that was so small, it could only fit the bit of cloth the old Jew pulled from it.
“Have a look,” he said, as he unwrapped the cloth to reveal an indistinct diamond, half the size of my pinky nail. “Hold it,” he said, as I took it from him and rolled it about in the tips of my fingers. “Let me show you in the light,” he said, as he held the lamp near my hand. “Now sit,” he said, before collapsing his weight onto a dusty couch. I sank down onto a chair that seemed to slide beneath me the moment I considered sitting.
Read more ›
Tags:
Intimate Relationship #9.5 is pregnant. She informed me of this while we were eating lunch at a diner in West Hollywood.
“We’re due in February!”
“Wow,” I said. “That’s great.”
“I can’t wait to tell my parents!”
“I’m sure they’ll be thrilled.”
There I was talking to someone I’d known for years, someone I’d lived with and been in a relationship with for years, and I had never before seen this glassy-eyed look on her face. It was a look usually associated with young jihadis committed to blowing themselves up on a bus, or with malnourished Scientologists wandering Hollywood Boulevard offering free personality tests to baffled tourists. It was the look of someone who had taken faith in an entirely irrational belief: that these same parents, her parents, the mother who speaks about her daughter as if she were dead and the father who twice hired thugs to beat me, would suddenly rejoice upon hearing that their daughter was pregnant with my child. I understand that all parents, once they’ve reached that age, desire to be grandparents, but only insofar as their sons or daughters expect healthy and respectable offspring with a mate of whom they approve. Did IR#9.5 actually believe that her parents were going to forgive their grudge against me and accept me as one of their own just because one night their daughter and I were drunk enough to fuck but too drunk to remember our contraceptive responsibilities? How could she delude herself to such a horrible extent? And yet, judging by the tone of her voice and the gleefully stupid look on her face, IR#9.5 seemed to think that the phone call she would make to her parents would somehow go as it does in the movies or on television or in healthy families built around love, respect and understanding, instead of fear, prejudice and other evangelical values.
“That’s wonderful!” her mother would say. “Oh, sweetheart, I’m so happy. Let me put your father on the phone. Honey, come quick, your daughter has news. Remember that Jew she brought to Thanksgiving last year? The one who showed up drunk and clogged the toilet? Who chewed with his mouth open, dropped his fork so he could peak under your niece’s skirt and petted the dog in a suggestive manner? Who clearly had no money, no prospects for making money and no intention of ever having prospects for making money – yes, remember that virus your daughter introduced into our home in order to humiliate and get back at us for the wrongs we committed against her in her youth? Such wrongs as grounding her when she was 12 and got caught smoking with her friends? Or buying her a Volvo for her 16th birthday instead of the convertible she wanted? Our daughter, who has always despised us for raising her in the bosom of prosperity; for protecting her from poverty, disease and miscegenation; for showering her with love and affection even after she quit college to pursue a career on the stage – do whatever it is you want, my angel, my rosebud, Mommy and Daddy’s little actress! We will always support you, dear, whatever career you choose, dear, even if it is clear to all and every that you lack the talent, the looks or the drive necessary for prospering in such a competitive field — but come quick, honey, and pick up the phone! Our wonderful daughter, 37 years old now, an adult herself now, has made the very adult decision to enter the next stage of her very adult life. She has decided to eschew tradition, skip marriage, cut right to the chase, and to do so not with any of the nice boys from the club (who are no longer boys really, but men themselves now, with jobs and families and fortunes of their own now, with houses down the block – what houses! – I see them on their way to work, in their suits, a kiss for their wives as they descend their driveways, briefcases in tow, to provide wealth and security for their families, for their community, for the country they love) — but our daughter has no interest in these young patriots and has instead decided to have her child, her firstborn, with that thing that floated here from the East, much like his shit floated onto my hall runner that fateful Thanksgiving Day. With that thing from New York our daughter has decided to couple and bear fruit. With that thing that shows none of the attributes of a human being other than his apparent ability to impregnate another human being, and not just any human being, mind you, but the very human being we hoped would bring meaning to our lives, who instead brings forth the mixed-blood child of a Jewish mongrel, polluting our line and forever sullying our family name. So pick up the phone, husband, and hear this wonderful news, straight from the mouth of the babe. Tell her how proud we are of her accomplishment. How grateful we are of this gift. How much we respect her choices, admire her decisions and look so forward to the miracle of this degenerate birth.”
How else could her mother respond, and how could IR#9.5 imagine otherwise? Unless this was precisely the response she hoped for. Unless an angry and bitter response was the very aim of her carelessness — or her very careful planning, for who’s to say this pregnancy was truly the accident she claimed it to be? It certainly wasn’t my idea to have a child, but convincing a 37 year old woman to have an abortion is no easy task. Especially IR#9.5, whom, I must admit, I had never seen looking so happy. Not even when we first met, before I had drained her of any hope and optimism, any feeling that the world was not the cruel and meaningless abyss that it so blatantly is – not even then had she ever glowed with the greasy luster she glowed with now, ordering herself a bacon burger, a waffle, a biscuit, a vanilla milkshake, a diet coke and a slice of pie. As if the reason for getting pregnant was to justify a guiltless eating binge, her face shining like that of a cultist-religious-zealot, enlightened by the seed that sat festering in her womb. You’d think she was pregnant with the child of God Himself and not the spawn of an unemployed writer living on the Hollywood skids.
“What about your career?” I asked, as she slurped the last clumps of her shake.
IR#9.5’s favorite topic of conversation had always been her career. The woman had worked all of five days in the last ten years, and yet she could hold court for hours on the exhaustive research that went into every role. Roles that included the audience member with a question in an infomercial and a victim of strangulation on a cop show.
“I can still do voiceovers,” she slurped. “And after the baby’s born, I’ll lose the weight and start auditioning again.”
I didn’t believe for a second that IR#9.5 wanted a baby. She just wanted to be pregnant. Wanted to see the mugs on her opponents as she strolled down Larchmont Boulevard in her maternity dress. “When are you due?” the competition would smile. And IR#9.5 could tell them. She could tell them when she was due, what method of childbirth she preferred and what names were being considered. And wasn’t that what she really wanted? To make other women jealous? To create the illusion that she had found love? That she was worthy of love? That she was worthy of the attention she could never garner as an actress. That she could never garner from me. That she could never garner from her father, who found his other daughters more interesting, especially the middle one, who had developed perky little breasts at puberty, who may have been touched by the old man, one lonely night, in the bath, while her mother lay asleep in the next room. In their home, the accusations were echoed and denied for years. This Orange County Treasurer, friend of Oliver North, linked to missionary groups in oil-rich South American jungles, careful with his finances, careful in his council, careful in his testimony before Congress — but careless one night with an eleven year old girl. So careless, in fact, that, years later, bribes would have to be paid to prevent her leaking it to the press, as she threatened, even though her mother never believed the scheming bitch was telling the truth!
And what effect did this have on IR#9.5, the youngest daughter, who normally would have benefited from the full range of her father’s affections, but instead, due to the man’s shame, he could never dote on her the way a father wants to dote on his youngest and most precious child? Compelled by these accusations, true or not, to deny, to ignore, to neglect his baby daughter. To turn away and re-enter the house every time she sunbathed by the pool, so that IR#9.5 became ashamed of her body and thought her body abhorrent to men. So that she began vomiting up her meals at the age of thirteen in order to have a body worthy of Daddy’s attention, or so the shrinks would argue when her parents carried her 80-pound skeleton to that recovery center in Ojai. He never attended her swim meets, dance recitals or gymnastics tournaments. And then, even when she was older and he too feeble to ever accomplish anything untoward, he walked out again, this time from that production of Equus at Chapman University.
Read more ›
Tags: