I signed a book deal this week. I owe it to the publishers in nine months.

I've always wanted to write a book. I read voraciously. Like, all the time. Maybe not as much as Brother Mouzone or Henry Bemis (fictional), or Art Garfunkel and Harvey Keitel (real), but it's close. I love the effect of the printed word on my brain -- the sounds, smells and emotions the process of reading evoke. Reading, to me, is like feeling the infinite, four or five times a page, and page after page after that.

And, except for a few "novels" I wrote in high school (a silly, post-apocalyptic mutants-with-guns-galloping-across-wastelands-conveniently-strewn-with-more-guns "epic", plus a my-suburb-has-mutated-residents-living-under-it Stephen King ripoff) I've never written a book. And I really want to write this one. And more.

Last year, I had a screenplay assignment that I bungled, big-time. I got some producers -- people I respect, and whose work I'm a fan of -- all excited about an idea I had, and then NEVER FUCKING DELIVERED IT. A lot of it was due to my usual dithering, plus me not being able to handle my travel, acting, and stand-up load in relation to my writing commitments. I've since delivered them a SECOND screenplay, which they love, but the experience of just flat-out, no-excuse NOT DELIVERING was terrifying. And, as it turned out, freeing. I'm writing much better, having stood back and, with a sickening sense of fatalism, watched a huge career opportunity burn to the ground.

All the while holding a fire hose, one I never used.

So I don't want to do the same thing with this book. And I've been in a sour, jittery funk these past few days, and I shouldn't, you know, what with my home state going to Obama and the world choosing intelligence and optimism over smug, terrified ignorance. And I realized my funk came from not having started any work on this book. And I don't want to go down the same path I went last spring on the screenplay. Because even though coming through that blazing wall of failure was freeing, it's also made catastrophic failure not so bad, at least to me.

What I'm saying is, this blog will become a bit more...terse...for the next year or so. I mean, I'll still write in it, and update my calendar and photos, but this won't (and shouldn't be) the main repository of my creative energy. That's got to go into the book. The book the book the book.

See, the thing about a blog, at least for an obsessive-compulsive like me, is you FINISH IT IN ONE SITTING. An entry, at least. You sit down, and you start blasting away at the keys, and then sooner or later (almost always sooner, another plus) the entry's finished, and you can lean back, and wait for the comments to roll in, and then start sparring with your delightful, freaky cyber-foils. It's writing turned into a game of Galaga, where you have unlimited lives.

If I wrote, say, six pages of my book (which is INFINITE JEST, in blog terms) I've basically dinged an elephant with a BB gun. I've got to pull that trigger a hundred million times before I've got an umbrella stand.

What I'm saying is, not so many updates from now on.

Or maybe not. Banging this out, I feel my juices firing up. There's butane in the blowtorch now, so maybe this blog will become the 30 minutes of jump-roping a boxer does before sparring. Not so fun to watch, I guess, but it's useful to me. And really, isn't that what this blog's all about?

With that in mind, I now present a blog which, when the idea broke in my brain, even gave me the heebie-jeebies. I certainly can't put this in a book (could I? Wait, no fucking way. No, fuck no) but I need to wring this out of my system.

It starts with Sarah Palin.

And before my spelling-deficient conservative commenters start cracking their knuckles and flipping their "rage" switches, keep in mind I come to praise Palin here. And not in a smarmy, ironic way.

I never said this during the campaign -- but I found her achingly sexy.

And not for her considerable, physical charms. No, it's a life-long fetish/hang-up I've had, and never been able to shake. I don't have a clever name for the syndrome. The best I can do is WOMEN WITH NOXIOUS IDEAS.

The turn-on, for me, about Sarah, was the fact that she believes in ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING I DESPISE. Creationism, anti-intellectualism, aggressive ignorance, American exceptionalism, and that eerie sub-category of religion called "triumphalism", where your respective God chooses YOU, and searches for YOU, instead of the other way around. George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden are our most famous, most recent advocates.

There's an actress named Christy Hartburg. Or "Christina Cummings", as she was listed for her appearances in NATIONAL LAMPOON GOES TO THE MOVIES, BJ AND THE BEAR and SHERIFF LOBO.

But under the name "Christy Hartburg", she appeared in Russ Meyers' SUPERVIXENS. She's got about 8 minutes of screen time, and she's the pinnacle of the curvy, healthy, early 70's pinup girl, before everyone started starving themselves into rib-tastic bonerkillitude:



Good Lord! Oh, where are you, Christy?

Well, turns out she's alive and well and a RAGING NEOCONSERVATIVE, living somewhere in Las Vegas. Her views on America, and George W. Bush, and the direction this country's been taking make Ann Coulter look like Janeane Garofalo.

Which intrigues me all the more. How do you reconcile ideas -- ideas which are so repellent to you -- being inside such an angelic package? "Christy Hartburg" would hate me. HATE ME. And I'd probably hate her. But somewhere in my mind, she'd still be SuperLorna, the motorist who go-go's at the gas station at the beginning of SUPERVIXENS. Sigh.

Back to Palin. I honestly don't think I'd have found her attractive if she'd supported gay marriage, believed in evolution, was humble before her God and wanted us out of Iraq. And I don't fantasize about her, or want to be with her sexually. I realized -- and this goes for Christy, and every other conservative Nexus 6 pleasure model out there -- that I want them to feel EXACTLY THE SAME WAY ABOUT ME AS I DO ABOUT THEM. To be repulsed, disgusted, and yet secretly intrigued. And then we'd mutually reject each other. That's the turn-on, in the end.

Which is why I've been thinking about female Nazis. I can't think of a group of people who are filled with such nougat-y horror. And, unlike Hartburg and Palin, most of these women aren't even attractive. In fact, the uglier ones intrigue me more. It's not often than someone's inner ugliness manifests itself physically, like a Dick Tracy villain. Who wasn't sort of turned on by Shirley Stoller in SEVEN BEAUTIES? Oh, just me?

Oh, fuck, I guess it really is just me.

So herewith, I present my Top 5 FEMALE NAZIS, and how I'd attempt to turn them from their evil ways. Think of me as Kevin Bacon in FOOTLOOSE, and they're my Teutonic Lori Singer. Eugenically bred to be my opposite, my nemesis, but...do I see a faint glimmer in their eyes? Can I find the perfect 80's dance step, one that will make them renounce Hitler, spill their secrets to the OSI, and then join me for a nosh at Ben Ash? I can dream, can't I?




1. ILSE KOCH

Like Christina Ricci with a thyroid problem, Ilse was the wife of the Buchenwald commandant. Maybe you're a Silverlake hipster who's into tattoo culture. Groovy. So was Ilse. Although, instead of desecrating her kugel-stuffed bod with ink, she COLLECTED TATTOOS BY CUTTING THEM OFF PRISONERS. Kinda makes the belly-button ring you got to piss off your parents look like a booger, huh? Known as "The Bitch of Buchenwald", she's the only one on this list who wasn't executed. She took her own life during the Summer of Love, in September of 1967, after living to the ripe old age of 60.

HOW I'D WIN HER OVER: Force her to get a groovy tattoo that says "DEUTSCHLAND UBER ALLES" -- in Hebrew. I think the brutal irony of it would break her stony exterior. She'd end up living in the East Village of New York, teaching bookkeeping to disadvantaged youth.



2. ELIZABETH VOLKENRATH

Dig that New Wave hairdo! Elizabeth, along with Irma Grese (see below), trained under Dorothea Binz at Ravensbruck, before transferring to Birkenau. She and Irma were hung on December 13th, 1945.

HOW I'D WIN HER OVER: Get Fred Armisen to do an impersonation of her, then take her for a hair and clothing makeover (all set to the song "Brown Eyed Girl"). She was only 26 when captured by the Allies, so maybe she was just a mixed-up kid. Hey, I thought Offspring was a good band when I was 26.



3. IRMA GRESE

Bearing a disturbing resemblance to actress Elisabeth Moss (Peggy on MAD MEN), Irma was herself a frustrated actress who took to the pageantry and costume design of Nazism with a particular zeal. She reportedly carried a whip with her at all times, set dogs on prisoners, and took lovers from among her fellow guards as well as the prison population -- male and female. Unrepentant at her trial, she barked "Schnell!" ("Faster!") at the hangman before the trap was sprung beneath her.

HOW I'D WIN HER OVER: Make her watch THE HILLS, Ludovico-style, until her brain imploded.



4. MARIA MANDEL

Nicknamed "The Beast", Maria was directly responsible for the deaths of 500,000 inmates. She also created the Auschwitz orchestra, to accompany roll calls. And she kind of looks like James Gandolfini in a wig. She was hanged on January 24th, 1948.

HOW I'D WIN HER OVER: Color Me Mine appointment.



5. DOROTHEA BINZ

Dorothea Binz's evil hangs over our collection of Aryan death-flowers like poison smog. Irma Grese and Elizabeth Volkenrath ASPIRED to her brutality, and never came close. Dorothea and her boyfriend, Edmund Brauning, were fond of romantic walks around the concertina wire of Ravensbruck, where they'd watch prisoners flogged and then walk away, hand-in-hand, laughing. French prisoners nicknamed her "The Binz". No Fonz jokes, please. She was hung, thankfully, on May 2nd, 1957.

HOW I'D WIN HER OVER: I wouldn't. Bullet to the head. Yeesh.

Okay, that ought to give you guys enough to talk about for awhile. I'll see you in a few weeks. I'm feeling nothing but hopeful and strong, so I wanted to get this one grainy gob of evil out of my goddamn head before I walk in the sunshine of an Obama presidency. A symbolic goodbye to horrific Nazi women, I think, is a good gesture.

Who wants ice cream?