About “Confessions of A Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated”:

For seven years, Alison Arngrim played a wretched, scheming, selfish, lying, manipulative brat on one of TV history’s most beloved series. Though millions of Little House on the Prairie viewers hated Nellie Oleson and her evil antics, Arngrim grew to love her character—and the freedom and confidence Nellie inspired in her.

In Confessions of a Prairie Bitch, Arngrim describes growing up in Hollywood with her eccentric parents: Thor Arngrim, a talent manager to Liberace and others, whose appetite for publicity was insatiable, and legendary voice actress Norma MacMillan, who played both Gumby and Casper the Friendly Ghost. She recalls her most cherished and often wickedly funny moments behind the scenes of Little House: Michael Landon’s “unsaintly” habit of not wearing underwear; how she and Melissa Gilbert (who played her TV nemesis, Laura Ingalls) became best friends and accidentally got drunk on rum cakes at 7-Eleven; and the only time she and Katherine MacGregor (who played Nellie’s mom) appeared in public in costume, provoking a posse of elementary schoolgirls to attack them.

Confessions of a Prairie Bitch cover

Arngrim relays all this and more with biting wit, but she also bravely recounts her life’s challenges: her struggle to survive a history of traumatic abuse, depression, and paralyzing shyness; the “secret” her father kept from her for twenty years; and the devastating loss of her “Little House husband” and best friend, Steve Tracy, to AIDS, which inspired her second career in social and political activism. Arngrim describes how Nellie Oleson taught her to be bold, daring, and determined, and how she is eternally grateful to have had the biggest little bitch on the prairie to show her the way.

Blurb from YAMS:

I know it’s been available for awhile, but if you haven’t heard, Alison Arngrim has a new book entitled, “Confessions of A Prairie Bitch” and I am buying it. Oh yeah, I am buying it. I read the Village Voice interview early this morning on the train coming home from Burlesque Yes! and honey, Ms. Arngrim is a trip-and-a-half!

Here are some quotes from the interview:
Musto: Congrats on the book, Alison. It’s so real.”
Arngrim: “I laid shit out.”

Musto: In other scandalous developments, was your real-life father really gay?
Arngrim: It was a deal between he and my mother. They were madly in love, yet there was always some third party, some guy, hanging around a lot. Then, two years later, it would be some other guy.

Musto: I guess Mom was as malleable as Gumby. And you’re very brave to talk about how your brother incested you. Did you read Mackenzie Phillips’s book about consensual incest?

Arngrim: Yes. Being drugged into a stupor and waking out of a coma to find someone on top of you with his pants around his ankles is not my idea of consensual. I sent Mackenzie a message on Facebook saying, “This sounds as consensual as being hit on the head with a brick.” Then I read the book, and she makes it sort of clear that he was the one who called it consensual.

Please read the full article here. I feel Gusto asked all of the right questions to get me interested, although Little House on the Prairie is a bit before my time. Gusto, you are a flipping doll-baby <3

Picture this
There is a man who plays piano like it’s his job
Not like
It’s his job to make some money to feed his kids to maintain a socially acceptable home life slash cocaine habit
But like it’s his job
To remind everyone else that music is brutal and real love makes you sick
To keep people guessing when all they really really want is the whole world’s cheat sheet
To warm a room with his hands and to hand out chills to the few who deserve them.
This man plays piano like it’s his lover
Like he
Keeps his face so close to the elephant to be sure it won’t walk out on him
Like black and white bleed and he writes stories on a minor chord because the major ones
They don’t end happy like he grew up thinking they would.

You can bet
His piano fingers
Grip tight to the things he needs to stay awake
For Saturday night jazz and Sunday afternoon blues
And you can tell by the way his wrists bend,
Like he’s about to break into eighty eight pieces of black and white beautiful
That he needs it.
Like he’s got a girl back home with a middle C painted right in the center of her back and
You can bet
That when he loves her, he watches her real close to be sure she ain’t about to walk out on him
Oh, he is cool.
Like black turtleneck sweatshirt black baret because he’s not French but hell, he’ll sure smoke like it COOL.
He’s hoping hard for a cancer to eat him away because
He just has too much
And no one to play it to and
He only sees in colour on the days he speaks in greys.

He is the man who wakes up like an earthquake
And goes to sleep every once in a while.
He plays to the moon to serenade her down to his level
So he can whisper waltzes in her ears
And he pronounces “nightmare”
Like Toccata and Fugue
Mr. Piano man holds keys like they’re all he needs to breathe
Plays like it makes him cry and
God Damn, I wanna love something that much.

Now, Picture this:
There is me
And you.
Standing on bridges on fire and we don’t move
We need more heat
Because summertime will never be enough to just live for.
So for now
You be water. I’ll be air
And we’ll make those waves like we never knew the color blue and salt
Were something to be sad for
Or
You be that fire, just make me some of your air
And we will shine
We’ll have background symphonies
Because we shine
And damn, Baby, when we go toe to toe to toe with the angels
To sky and back
We’ll wear shades because that’s just how bright we SHINE
And Dear God, my dear God won’t know what hit him.

But beneath everything else
I’m taking chances you don’t want to know a thing about
Because I am brittle
And my fingers aren’t long like an elephant needs them to be.
And you have hands that make my face too small and my bed too big
Those piano hands, but you don’t play
And you are walking ivory irony and
You don’t believe in ghosts in quarter notes.
But you don’t run away from a bad sound and
I appreciate your appetite and those greys you play when it rains
Because I know
That music is brutal
And real love Hurts. Like. Hell.
So just give me little black answers
And I won’t mind their sharp edges cause I don’t need to know you mean it
I just need it.
Because beneath everything else
There is a man who plays the piano
Like the sky’s collapsing underneath him
Like its all he needs to inhale
And there is me
And you,
And when your shine runs out, mine will remain
And I wont forget those waltzes you danced with the moon.
So play me, Mr. Piano Man
Make me your beast.
Because, pale or not, your fingers are just strong enough
To measure the ivory sliding down MY back and
God Damn, I want something to love me that much

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Slice Harvester Issue 2

Blurb from YAMS:

As Book Thug Nation became my latest literary fatal attraction, I saw an ad for a zine release and decided to contact Slice Harvester for an interview.

The ad read: The Slice Harvester has eaten a slice of pizza in every pizzeria in Manhattan north of 42nd street and lived to tell about it! Join him, and free pizza from his favorite pizzeria, Thursday night as he reads from the highly anticipated release of Vol. 2 of Slice Harvester, The Zine.

Not knowing much about his mysteriousness, I prepared myself for a video interview. Wrong! Though, we weren’t able to take photographs of him or show you what he looks like via video, we were allowed to extract the audio from the video we recorded. He held the camera and pointed it at me whilst he spoke into the microphone.

Who is Slice Harvester? Why in Pete’s name is he such a f*cking big deal?

This guy is eating a slice of pizza from every pizzeria in New York City and writing about it on his website and quarterly zine! I am sure many have thought about something similar and frowned upon this idea for health reasons, yet I find him very intriguing, daring, creative, crazy, and fun!

To leap into Slice Harvester’s cheesy world, support his zine, and follow him on his quest, kindly click here! I absolutely love his style of writing and I think Denis Sheehan will get a kick out of Slice Harvester. Enjoy!

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Special Interview with Slice Harvester

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Photo: Caits' ' The Wolf & Me' Cover

12 minutes of nourishment and discipline. You can’t hang or can you? To leap into Caits’ world, kindly click here. Stay tuned for the release of ‘The Wolf & Me’ on Saturday, May 1st, 2010. You don’t want to miss it!

MP3: “Blackest Blood” by Caits Meissner

Poet Caits Meissner releases her second EP, The Wolf & Me, May 1, 2010

Executive Produced by Just Plain Ant; featuring Maya Azucena, Jesse Boykins III, Dunce Apprentice and Broke MC; with production by Blu, Cazeaux OSLO, Just Plain Ant, Bisco Smith, Cave and The Aftermath.

Caits Meissner, well-known for her writing in respected poetry circles, and work as an educator/community organizer in youth circles, now steps out with a fantastic music project. Embedded in and influenced by the experimental hip hop community, Caits’ songs are word-driven vignettes delving deep into the heart of human experience: loneliness, inspiration, love and loss set over visually lush landscapes from current hip hop/electronic producers.

In regards to her past work, Erykah Badu calls her “fresh, honest and loving… a delicate heart like mine.” Doodlebug of Digable Planets describes her as “melodic words of wisdom… streetjazzoetry.” This round, surprising her fans by singing at times in her honest and edgy tone, Caits reveals the soulful songwriter beneath her poems. Something precious, her words beat like a full heart without false bravado, a seeking for something beyond, a prayer. The Wolf & Me is something that will linger in your soul.

The Wolf & Me is a multi-platform project, inspired by classic elements of the vinyl era, which includes a PDF download of the lyrics designed by Caits (who also holds a BFA in Graphic Design from Pratt Institute), art directed by designer Tishon Woolcock and shot by renown photographer Seth Kushner. London-based poet Warsan Shire contributes her words, reviving the lost of art of liner notes. According to Caits, The Wolf & Me aims to be “a multi-sensory journey, the kind of album you listen to under headphones, in the dark hours of the early morning.” She hopes the words bring you alive.

Caits has a substantial background in performance poetry but recently transitioned into working with music, most notably with German producers Comfort Fit and Portformat on the Tokyo Dawn record label. Originally from Albany, NY, she has been Brooklyn-based for the past eight years. Caits studied in Africa under Pulitzer Prize winner Yusef Komunyakaa, and building off such legacies as Gil Scott-Heron, works to create a musical experience rooted in storytelling.

Blurb from YAMS:

In my obsessive MySpace days, I befriended Denis Sheehan’s Bone Print profile and fell in love with the synopsis of his book, “A Nobody’s Nothings.” I knew it was going to be a good read, so I ordered one and later ordered one for George (Gutty). We have been telling everyone we know about the language, character, and emotion of this book. Folks are intrigued, but they aren’t the folk that indulge in reading so they smile, agree, and never act… and that’s fine. In hopes, that you are different from the others, you will order his book and we can share insiders. We love you Sheehan!

A Nobody’s Nothings is a collection of short stories, poetry (not the type of poetry Father wrote to bed Mother), “Brain Scribbles” ramblings, and one comic. Words are fiction and nonfiction weaving stories of screwed up love, sex, self destruction, and everyday life of every day slobs. Most of content is new and previously unpublished, but some of the pieces are older and appeared in the author’s long running zine, Askew Reviews. Content is mature and not suitable for children or sensitive doodyheads.

About the Author: Denis Sheehan, single dad of a six-year-old daughter living on the South Shore of Massachusetts. Has been publishing/editing (print and online) the movie, music, and book reviews zine Askew Reviews since 1997. Author of the short run, self published Longsberry Letters, which will reprint in early 2008. Is a paid freelance reviewer for AVN Magazine. Denis is available for interviews. Contact: boneprint@gmail.com

MP3: “Audio Interview” with Author Denis Sheehan

Photo: Courtesy of PZero

GrungeCake: Are any comic series available to purchase at this time?

PZero: I’m currently working on a comic now based on some famous game characters. My first comic is going to be free to anyone who is over the age of 18.

Photo: Courtesy of PZero

GrungeCake: Your views on transsexualism?

PZero: Well, it doesn’t bother me unless it’s in my face. They can do that… cause you only live once and you should be able to live it how you choose. But when it comes to forcing it upon people. That’s when I’m against it. I don’t find it attractive in anyway. My style of drawing is Futanari. Not shemale or transart. I have nothing against those artist. I have a few who have great line work that I look up to. But Futanari is a female with an over-sized clit. Which, we then say, in real life.. “Wow… girl your clit is so big it’s like a tiny penis.” My art is a exaggeration of that — with a big twist of kink.

GrungeCake: You teach online classes, what will it take to join your class?

PZero: Yes, I do teach online through an old program called, Open Canvas. The newer versions of the program took out the networking. But the old one is fine and easy to setup. It has its own little chat room within the program. I wish that some one would make a new one with more and better features. To join my classes are easy. First, contact me via email morezeroart@gmail.com, and tell me what it is you want to train on. I teach a lot of basics and key points on how to improve faster.

Photo: Courtesy of PZero

GrungeCake: What’s next for PZero?

PZero: Hmm, I don’t know. I hope to get license or get some big commissions. I want to try to do some traditional work, but Futanari for some fans.

Futanari (二成, 二形; ふたなり; a compound word meaning “two form”) in Japanese can mean both the subjects of a special type of pornographic anime or manga (commonly known in the West as hentai), or the genre itself. Futanari depicts hermaphrodites, intersex or other individuals with female body-types and sexual organs resembling penises.

For PZero’s work visit this link.

Photo: Jazzlyn Kirkland

Blurb from Jazzlyn Kirkland:

Imagine being a 5-year-old child trapped inside of your own body with no way to verbally communicate. At such a young age, verbal communication is key to living because you are at the beginning stages of learning. What would you do? Would you teach yourself to read and write so you could at least communicate with adults? Being in pre-school, would you turn to poetry as an outlet for creativity while the other kids are on the mat playing toy trucks? What about reading books way beyond your grade level or skill to prove to your teachers that you have been wrongfully placed into a special education class because you cannot speak? Well, I know a man — a very wonderful, brilliant, intellectual, intelligent man who has done everything to beat the odds that face him and that man is Author Richard K. Lofton.

Lofton was born on June 29th, 1965, which began the slow climb toward success. Throughout his elementary years, Lofton was considerably strange, odd, slow, and to some retarded. He was anything but those titles. He was not able to speak due to having a deformed tongue palette. As he grew older, he faced a lot of adversary, so he turned to his writing to help himself through and maintain his sanity. He started to become very comfortable with the person that he was becoming — the person that was going to be “okay” but he would soon to face more obstacles before he saw the light.

Lofon’s writing caught the attention of his English teacher who felt that he could take his writing beyond what he was writing at the time. In 1998-99, Mr. Richard K. Lofton wrote the book entitled, “To Stand Naked Before God.” It took about three years to be published, edited, and paid for. Also, that included three years of living off the bare minimums; three years of eating rice and beans everyday and being told he was crazy.

In April of 2001, he released his book. Richard K. Lofton is often faced with the question of why did he write this book and he answers with “I have gone through so many trials and tribulations and in my mind I saw this as simply another challenge. It says in the Bible – “Endure hardness as a good soldier which translates to no pain no gain” and thus this is when he started to come up with the formula for “To Stand Naked Before God.”

Lofton writes in such a way, as to teach lessons and to make you open your mind to a different way of thought. His book is a tale of life, survival, and the vices we face as being humans. He writes about the struggle of alcoholism, prostitution, questionable sexuality, drugs, suffering, and strife in a thought provoking way. The book is classified as a fable so it is written in parables:

ie: The Bible and will keep you wanting more as he takes you on a journey that some must travel to understand life’s gift.

I decided that I had to meet this remarkable man. I had to sit down and converse with him about his views on life and everything else. I finally had the chance to do so, we met in down town Las Vegas, Nevada on Fremont Street known as the Glitter Gulch (or to the average person as the old strip,) and we sat down at a coffee shop outside of a casino underneath the famous Fremont street experience. We went in grabbed a coffee, made ourselves comfortable, and began chatting.

GrungeCake: Hey Richard, I am glad I finally got a chance to track you down and have you take time out of your busy schedule to sit down with me.

Richard K. Lofton: No problem.

GrungeCake: How have you been doing lately? Any new projects since the book was written?

Richard K. Lofton: Yes. Actually, I have a movie script that I am pushing around to producers by the title of TTrans.

GrungeCake: That is awesome! What is the movie based on?

Richard K. Lofton: Okay, are you ready because this one is a doozy!

GrungeCake: (Laughing) I read your book Richard. I am ready for anything you throw at me.

Richard K. Lofton: Okay, TTrans is the story of a trans-gendered prostitute who is befriended by an eccentric scientist who turns him into a woman by rearranging the atoms in his body, the experiment works with one flaw. This leads to a relationship between the two, which is compounded when his body is becoming weaker because of the flaw, the movie is pretty much a sci-fi slash horror love story that will amaze any audience. The film is unique and explores the boundaries of love, gender, and sexuality.

GrungeCake: Whew… that was a lot to soak in at once, but if anyone can write a script with that subject content it’s you!

Richard K. Lofton: (Laughing uncontrollably) Well, I told you it was a doozy, but I am looking for a producer… So, “if you know anyone” (wink, wink) I’ll give their contact information to my agent and we can work something out from there.

GrungeCake: Since the concept of TTrans is pretty “out there.” What was the thought process when writing the script?

Richard K. Lofton: The spirit of today’s age. You see more and more female impersonations by men and with the controversy over gay marriage; it remains a hot topic.

GrungeCake: How did you come up with the main character “Chris”?

Richard K. Lofton: To sum it up, it is pretty much just the average struggle of a man that desires to become a woman with a sci-fi twist.

GrungeCake: What was it that made you start writing? Not the movie, but just in general?

Richard K. Lofton: My reason for writing was to get me out of Special Education.

GrungeCake: What made you think that your writing was going to help you do so?

Richard K. Lofton: Well, it made my intelligence shine, and it set me apart from the rest of the class, it showed my genius and it made them investigate why I was not talking and that was when they found out I had a deformed tongue palette. Which lead to everyone giving me a fair chance and it made me more creative as a person to have another wonderful outlet of expression.

GrungeCake: Aww, sorry! I teared up a little bit. You are such an intriguing person. Okay, back to the book. Why did you decide to write “To Stand Naked Before God”?

Richard K. Lofton: I had stomach tumors and I questioned God and asked why was I allowed to endure such suffering. I started to read the Bible in a greater depth and discovered that we have to meet our lowest point for us to prosper to a higher level.

GrungeCake: What was the creative drive to write on that subject?

Richard K. Lofton: I wanted to help people realize that pain is an intricate part of life and that it’s a necessity.

GrungeCake: Why do you think that pain in life is necessary?

Richard K. Lofton: Because pain in life will strengthen you, and will give you the personal power to meet your goals. One of my favorite sayings is “A metal craft to make an effective sword it has to be beaten into shape.”

GrungeCake: Very true. I agree. So what authors, books, or subjects personally inspire you to write in such a way as you do?

Richard K. Lofton: The King James Version of the Bible, but the stuff they (the bible) do not talk about. The stuff they don’t preach about, the sexual propriety, the murderers, the incest. One of King David’s children raped his half sister, Tamar.

GrungeCake: Oh, I never knew that and I went to a private school. They (the teachers) never taught us that part.

Richard K. Lofton: Exactly, my point.

GrungeCake: For people that have never heard of you and or your work what sets you apart from all the other authors? Why should they read something written by Richard K. Lofton over the next author?

Richard K. Lofton: Power. The way I project power… I write in a powerful manner. I consider myself a literary Bruce Lee. Due to the fact that I take the best components of writing in general and put them into one style.

GrungeCake: (Agrees) You will make someone believe something even if they go into the whole thing not wanting to hear a word of what you have to say.

Richard K. Lofton: I greatly appreciate that, but you know what I would appreciate more? A chance to get my movie into the right producer’s hands.

GrungeCake: Why willn’t you convince them that they need to have this movie on their side? Tell the readers of GrungeCake Magazine why they should see your movie “TTrans” and what knowledge or understanding will they take with them?

Richard K. Lofton: It’s fresh, innovative, it will enlighten them. Due to the facts that I take the average topics, love, gender, and sexuality in another prospective.

GrungeCake: I want to see it on the big screen. Hopefully, sometime in the future. Are there any last words you want to say to the GrungeCakers?

Richard K. Lofton: There are two things to aim at in life; first to get what you want, and after that to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind has achieved the second and can I give a shout-out to Queen Tiger of Detroit?

And there we have it — an author with a whole new prospective on things. No more getting half way through the book without having the urge to finish it. Get ready for the excitement and fantasy mixed with real life situations and life lessons that Richard K. Lofton has waiting for you.

Blurb from YAMS:

A day before my 24th birthday, I met with Caits Meissner to talk about inspirations, body image, vegan-sexuality and her initial thoughts about GrungeCake, the brand. To hear what Miss Meissner had to say, kindly press play. We’d love you to pieces.

Cait Meissner’s Bio:

Albany, New York raised, Brooklyn based Caits (Caitlin) Meissner is a poet, performer, educator and graphic designer with a BFA from Pratt Institute. Using her background in visual art, anti-racism work, disability advocacy and youth empowerment, her poems are visually rich testaments to the complexities of the human spirit. As a performer, she has featured for the progressive literary collective louderArts; Opened for the acclaimed Page Meets Stage series (with Thomas Lux); Shared sets with musicians such as Immortal Technique, Grandmaster Caz, Boot Camp Clik and many others; And has performed on countless stages- from street corners to Columbia University, The Nuyorican Poets Café to Rikers Island, including a tour throughout the San Francisco Bay Area in September of 2008.

MP3: “Audio Interview” with Caits Meissner