GLR May June

did you wait so long to write your first book? JB: I did do some early writing. When I came to New York, I wanted to work for magazines, got into book publishing in- stead, did some freelancing for a while. Then the drinking took over. I was a func- tioning alcoholic for a long time, so I kept my job and I kept moving up in the publish- ing world. I even made the decision that I didn’t have time for any other artistic en- deavor because I was busy working and out living my life. I didn’t say, “out drinking”; it was “out living my life.” CS: At the age of five, you watched Peggy Lee sing “Is That All There Is ?” on TV and it became your song. Why the instant attraction?

I wanted to laugh but was so horrified that a fifteen-year-old had to go through such em- barrassment. Have you overcome your shame? JB: I have. As for the STDs, I never had crabs and never had the clap, but I had anal warts and scabies and HIV. So when I do STDs, I go the full gallop. CS: Are you always as transparent as you are in the book? JB: If it makes for a good joke, I’ve never had problems making jokes at my own ex- pense. But no, I was not always that trans- parent. That comes from being sober, because part of how you stay sober is by being unflinchingly honest—not necessarily with the public but with yourself and with one other person.

believe that,” never once thinking that might be me.

CS: Speaking of booze memoirs, there’s al- most a sub-genre of gay men writing about addictions: Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man , by Bill Clegg; Dry , by Augusten Bur- roughs; Ron Nyswaner’s Blue Days, Black Nights, to name a few. What makes your story different? JB: Well, it’s my story, for one thing. We all have our different stories. I tell it through the prism of my relationship with my mother. When I started, I had to decide, am I going to write a book about my mother, or am I going to write a book about my alco- holism? I thought about it, but not for too long. They’re integrated because she was, in a way, my conscience throughout.

JB: She was unlike anything I’d ever seen before on television. She was this large, ghostly, sparkly, freaky image in a fog of lights and white chiffon. Her appearance drew me in. Then, the song itself is this great story. I related immedi- ately to the melancholy of it and to the acceptance of disappointment. If crap comes your way in life, let’s just have a party and keep moving. CS: Now that you’re sober, do you still have the desire to “break out the booze and have a ball”? JB: I still like to have a good time. But I don’t throw myself into a party, i.e. drinking, to get over life’s disappointments. These days, for the most part, I face them head on. Some alcoholics say that from the beginning they drank to avoid reality, but I started drinking be- cause I like to have fun and drink- ing got me there faster. CS: My heart went out to you sev- eral times when you related how you’d go out for a drink after work and then you’d realize the sun was dawning on the next workday. This

CS: You ask yourself throughout the book, “W.W.M.J.T.”? (“What Would Mama Jean Think?”) JB: Exactly. For a long time, it pissed me off—and then it worked for me. CS: What pissed you off? JB: That I couldn’t get her out of my head. That no matter how far I traveled, no matter how much I drank, even when she wasn’t there—she was there . At one point fairly early in our relationship, my husband Michael and I had a terri- ble fight in Zurich. It was pretty awful. He was hurt and went for the jugular saying, “What would your mother think?” I said, “Don’t bring her into this!” but she was always there. But it worked for me in the end. Because when I was struggling to stay sober—after I had gone to a rehab that Mama Jean paid for— and I had been relapsing, she went into decline due to dementia. I was seven months sober when I saw her in the hospital. I didn’t even know if she knew who I was. As I turned to leave her, she grabbed my arm in a

CS: While you were at home, your mother warns you that you have a predisposition to alcoholism due to family history. JB: It was something I ignored because I thought she was a bit of a wet blanket when it came to drinking. She was always on my father’s case about his drinking—and I thought unfairly so. Then, when I saw other people with drinking problems crash and fall, I thought I’d figure it out before I be- came one of those people. I even read booze memoirs long before I thought I had a prob- lem or considered getting sober. I was riv- eted and thought, “Oh my god! I can’t

account must have been painful to write. JB: I’m glad you said it was painful to read, because then I’ve done my job of telling the story, which was painful to live. The guilt and shame were the worst part—worse than the physical hangovers, worse than the money spent and the money lost. Worse than any of it was the self-loathing that it caused. CS: You’re unflinchingly honest in your storytelling. When you describe how the anal warts you picked up while still in high school looked like “a cauliflower bouquet,”

vise grip. I turned around and she was star- ing me down. She was Mama Jean, when that whole visit she had not been herself. All of sudden she said, “You’ve been drink- ing.” “No, I haven’t.” I wondered how could she know I’d been relapsing. She said, “Don’t lie to me.” I said, “I’m not.” She said, “Okay, promise me.” “I promise.” That moment I told myself, “Listen, if you can’t stay sober for yourself, do it for her.” I haven’t had a drink since.

Court Stroud works in Spanish-language tele- vision in New York City.

May–June 2015

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