Love and Sex Addiction: It’s the New Black

For most of us, self–realization is something to which we aspire, but are only compelled to seek in the aftermath of painful encounters with others. It’s not a system without  pitfalls, but it’s the one we’ve got. If we’re lucky, we don’t lose too much of our pride, money or health in the process of hunting down human affection. But, in all likelihood, we leave behind a little bit of each with those we choose and lose over the course of our lives. And sometimes we leave more than a little.

Yet, whatever our losses or setbacks, as Americans we believe in redemption. We are the country who puts our trust equally in both God and in the promise of a comeback. We believe we can resurface after being pulled under by scandal, illness or heartbreak — and we can come back stronger and better. However, before we can ascend from our ashes, protocol requires us to confess our sins — just ask Bill Clinton.

Love Junkie, is Rachel Resnick’s confession to forty-plus years of looking for love in all the wrong places, and the devastation in almost every aspect of her life, to which that obsessive search led. She begins the memoir with her “ah ha” moment. This is the instant known in twelve-step programs as “hitting bottom.” It goes like this: One night she comes home and discovers that her house has been broken-into and vandalized by an ex-boyfriend. Instinctively she calls a friend for support who consoles her, in part, by telling her that her ex is a “psycho.”

“Her words comfort me, though there’s a dull nagging thought — who’s psycho? I picked him. I kept him. I kept him even after he began debasing me, just as I picked and kept a lifetime of other men who seduced and then debased. So, if he’s a psycho, aren’t I a psycho, too?”

Ah ha!

As Resnick shows, a breakthrough in consciousness is only the beginning. Transformation happens only after painfully honest self-examination, and she devotes her narrative to just this kind of self-scrutiny. How did she get to be a forty-something with an Ivy League education and little more than a string of failed love affairs to show for it? Well, kiddies, as Freud once one said, it all starts in childhood.

Employing a well-crafted, deceptively conversational style, Resnick’s memoir uncovers the roots of her compulsion to pursue serial, abusive relationships; namely, her parents. She was born to an alcoholic, love-addicted mother and an emotionally (and literally) abandoning father, and then shuttled between various foster homes throughout her adolescence. Her narrative alternates between past and present to illustrate adult situations and then compare them to the childhood traumas from which they sprang. If she has, as she suspects, an attachment disorder, its basis is abundantly clear.

She is fearless in telling stories that others would not tell to their priest. Resnick admits, in detail, to submitting to serious sexual and emotional degradation. She explains how her addiction to having a partner at any cost made it difficult to pursue her career, financial security or motherhood. Instead of working on her paid writing, she admits to crafting dozens (or hundreds, or thousands) of obsessive emails to men — like the one she calls, Winchester, who tells her point blank, that he does not love her.

“Winchester — who fits perfectly, chemically, into my crazy need — writes back just enough to keep me going. And periodically, of course, he comes over for mind-blowing sex.

“Winchester is like pure heroin. But that’s only because I am an addict.”

Obsessive emailing is only the tip of the iceberg of self-defeating behaviors that Resnick finally recognizes are classic symptoms of love and sex addiction. At least that’s what they call it at the Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (SLAA) meetings she finds herself in after getting out of the long, brutal relationship that is the centerpiece of her story. And while the program she enters helps her personally, as an author she is too thoughtful to rely on hackneyed twelve-step jargon to tell this tale.

In the end, it is this innate thoughtfulness, searing honesty and self-effacing humor that save her from blindly plunging down a path that leads to irredeemable tragedy. And, not incidentally, those same things save her book from the dull, self-obsession of lesser memoirs.

Rachel Resnick’s Love Junkie, with its stark examination of a rarely discussed addiction, heralds the next wave of mass psychological awareness in the U.S. It took decades for Americans to expose the closeted skeletons of alcoholism, drug addiction, rape, spousal abuse, child molestation, eating disorders and co-dependency. As each of these issues stepped into the light of media scrutiny and spawned a cable television movie or Oprah appearance, it seeped into the mass consciousness and began to be seen for the pervasive problem it had always been. And, like some kind of national group therapy, once a problem had been named, it could finally be owned and treated.

With books like Love Junkie, television dramas like Californication (and actor David Duchovney’s admission to real-life sex addiction) and the VH1 program, Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew, love and sex addiction is about to become the new black. And while, as Resnick discovers, “No one is going to save you,” this cumulative closet-opening will likely move many suffering people one step closer to recovery.

Now, we just need Oprah to get on board. After all, no one likes redemption better than Oprah.

Three Down

This week I found out that three people I once knew are dead. Writing that sentence reminds me of the ludicrous adage: “they always go in threes;” a saying which supposes that when three celebrities die, their importance supersedes the thousands of unknown others who died at the very same moment — as if none of them counted. Though my three acquaintances were not as famous as, say, Michael Jackson, Patrick Swayze or Farrah Fawcett, they were famous within their own worlds — and certainly within my mine.

HAMILTON CAMP AND RASHADA CAMP

I came to know the Camp family in the mid-1980s. During a one-year period I spent a great deal of time at their sprawling, Hancock Park house. “Camptown,” as the sign outside declared, was an entertainingly hectic homestead with new-agey crystals hanging from the windows, a band rehearsal space permanently set up in the living room and the smells of illicit experimentation wafting from beneath closed doors. It was also overflowing with the family’s six teenagers, an extended group of boyfriends, girlfriends, aunts, musicians and various members of the World Subud Association — of which the Camps were members. It was, at the time, my dream home-away-from-home.

Hamilton, or Hamid, as he was known, (he used his Subud name around the house), was rarely home during my visits. After all, he was the breadwinner for a large family and a successful working actor. So, while the cat was away, it was Rashada Camp, the matriarch of this kooky brood, who I got to know best and with whom I played. In fact, when one of her sons taught me the rudiments of bass guitar, I became a semi-regular player in amplified, living room jam sessions that included Rashada, my pal Gina (who had introduced me to the family), various Camp kids and other drop-ins.

Rashada, at least 20 years my senior, was one of those witchy, earth mother, hippie women for whom I’ve always been a sucker. The stories she recounted about her past were by turns, hair-raising, outlandish or examples of authentic eccentricity. Once she told me about a heroin addict she’d known who nodded out for so long that when he awakened, he discovered that his arm needed to be amputated due to the prolonged lack of circulation. On another occasion she explained that she was from gypsy stock, and that on New Year’s Eve it was her family’s tradition to go out into the back yard, drop their pants and urinate on the dirt at midnight for good luck. And, in one of many stories about her childhood she said,  “When I was a little girl, I had lots and lots of dolls. I guess that explains it.”

When Rashada asked me to put together a press bio for an upcoming reunion concert Hamilton was giving with his old singing partner, I discovered that he wasn’t just the voice of cartoon Smurfs, but was a renowned folk singer. A contemporary of Peter, Paul and Mary’s, Camp teamed with Bob Gibson in 1960 to form a duo that, though never as famous as Yarrow, Stookey and Travers, had recorded one of the most influential folk albums of their era, Bob Gibson and Bob Camp at the Gate of Horn. Camp also wrote the song “Pride of Man,” most famously recorded by the band Quicksilver Messenger Service. But his musical talents played second fiddle to his thriving, four-decade career as a working actor who appeared in countless movies, theater productions and television shows, from The Andy Griffith Show to Desperate Housewives.

Hamilton also found time to play gigs with his family. As the Camptown Family Band, he, Rashada and their offspring would amp up and perform old folk songs in places like L.A.’s Heliotrope Theater.

Hamilton Camp recorded his final album Sweet Joy, during the summer of 2005. He died from a sudden heart attack a few months later. Rashada predeceased him by three years. The couple is survived by their six children and 13 grandchildren.

While the period of time I spent with the Camps was brief, the impression they made remains indelible.

BRENDAN MULLEN

Much has been written about Brendan Mullen during the handful of days since he suffered a fatal stroke on Monday, October 12. The Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, Variety, Fishbowl LA, LA Weekly and other publications have all sketched out his biography, the circumstances of his death and his legacy. Additionally music writer, Greg Burk, journalist and curator Kristine McKenna and Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers have published online remembrances. More will surely follow. But, if for some reason you have missed all of these, here’s the skinny:

Brendan Mullen was born in Scotland in 1949. He worked as a journalist in England, before moving to Los Angeles in the 1970s. In 1977, he turned the rehearsal space he had rented in Hollywood into a venue for local bands to practice and perform. His club, The Masque, became the nexus of the Los Angeles punk music scene, hosting bands like the Germs, X, the Weirdos and even the pre-plastic surgeried Go-Gos. After the Masque closed in 1979, he began booking Club Lingerie. This nightclub on Sunset Boulevard became a showcase for Mullen’s eclectic musical tastes; featuring acts that played punk, blues, jazz, reggae and any other genre that captured his fancy.

By the mid-1990s, Mullen returned to professional journalism, writing for the LA Weekly and other publications as well as writing his first book We Got the Neutron Bomb: The Untold Story of the L.A. Punk, with Marc Spitz, which was released in 2001. He also wrote Whores: An Oral Biography of Perry Farrell and Jane’s Addiction (2005) and Live at the Masque: Nightmare in Punk Alley, with Roger Gastman (2007). Before he died he was working on a book about the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

I met Brendan in 1982. In those days, he would come into the LA Weekly, where I worked, to oversee the design and production of the Club Lingerie ad. At the time he was dating a person who I was also pursuing, so I wasn’t predisposed to friendship. Still, he was always affable, if a little skittish, greeting me with his Scottish-inflected hellos and attempting conversation.

It would be a stretch so say I was Brendan’s friend during that era. Still, over the course of the next two decades, he was one of those people whom I would frequently hear about or see around Hollywood. He commanded the respect of the local underground art and music scene-makers, and sat at the top of a world in which I cluelessly dabbled, so I always kept him on my radar.

In 2004, Brendan and I ran into each other at an LA Weekly reunion and I was surprised to discover that he remembered who I was. More surprising, was that this past summer we reconnected again — and began an actual friendship. (As opposed to a Facebook friendship, which wasn’t that hard to come by.)

It began when I was invited to a July 4th barbeque at the Echo Park home he shared with his longtime companion, Kateri Butler — who I also knew from the LA Weekly. For the first time in over 25 years, Brendan and I had a substantial conversation; about his new book, his life in the UK before he came to Los Angeles; and how his difficulty with the writing process — hell, the process of just getting through the day — made it almost impossible for him to meet deadlines. However, as he told it, this time around he had gotten a burst of creative inspiration and met his current book deadline.

“You know,” he told me candidly, “I have a hard time coping. I wouldn’t be able to survive without Kateri. I can’t imagine being without her.”

That night, he was a charming mix of über-talkative, impishly flirtatious and sweetly self-effacing. He posed for pictures in which he made one ridiculous face after another — all the while claiming he was trying to look dignified. Plus, as host, he made sure I had all the potato salad I wanted.

Some weeks later, I was again thrown together with Brendan, this time in the back seat of a car going to an art opening with mutual friends. During the 45-minute drive from Hollywood to Culver City, Brendan held forth without respite; about Kim Fowley and sexual shenanigans in the rock and roll world of the 1970s; about his first job in Los Angeles at a company that managed corporate barter — and which turned out to be a scam; and about a run-in he had with the FBI during the Masque years.

Over dinner after the opening, I turned to him and said, “I guess I’ve finally made it.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“I mean, that I’m hanging out with Brendan Mullen. So, I’ve finally made it.”

He laughed.

I ran into Brendan twice more times during the next month, culminating with a final visit to his home on Labor Day for another party. Again, he was charming and seemingly glad to have me there among his long-time friends.

Sitting in his back yard, he confided that he was saddened by the idea that no matter what he achieved in life, he would always be known primarily as the founder of the Masque. “Nothing I did after the age of 30 will be remembered or matter. ‘He started the Masque.’ That’s what my obituary will say.”

He was right about the Masque becoming the ubiqutious obituary lede, but he was wrong to think it’s all he’ll be remembered for.

Revisiting Peyton Place

Grace Metalious’ infamous novel, Peyton Place, was published in 1956. In a year marked by such media events as Elvis Presley’s first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, Marilyn Monroe marrying Arthur Miller, My Fair Lady opening on Broadway and Grace Kelly moving to Monaco to become a princess, Metalious’ novel about small-town scandals competed for, and won, its own sensational niche. And, while musical adaptations of Pygmalion don’t exactly blow our minds anymore, Peyton Place still has the ability to shock.

Peyton Place tells the story of that eponymous, small, New England town and its inhabitants during the last years of the Depression and into WWII, but is focused primarily on the experiences of two girls, Allison MacKenzie and Selena Cross. On the surface, they are strikingly different. The former is the daughter of Constance MacKenzie; a single widow who owns a respectable business, and the latter is a “shack dweller” who lives in filth and poverty with her syphilitic mother, Nellie, and a violent, drunken stepfather, Lucas Cross. While the girls begin the story as best friends, their differing temperaments place them on separate trajectories. Allison is bookish and immature. Selena is world-wise and world-weary. One derives her comfort from fantasies, the other from cold reality.

Yet, they are not as different as the prudish Allison would believe. Hidden skeletons in their respective closets bind them to each other and to their small-town neighbors. And, as Metalious reveals, what spectacular skeletons they are. Incest, illegitimacy, cuckolding, alcoholism, abortion, venal acquisitiveness, power wielding, pettiness, religious hypocrisy, sexual deviancy and murder are all happening just behind the whitewashed picket fences. There is not a deadly sin left unearthed in Peyton Place, and it is from the strangely contemporary-feeling scandals depicted throughout, that the novel derives its ability to shock more than 50 years after its publication.

Metalious accomplishes this trick by first setting up the superficial, moral parameters of the townsfolk and then systematically throwing each character into a crisis. For instance, the neer-do-well town scion, Rodney, gets a girl pregnant and then has his father pay off the girl’s family to get her out of town. Norman, a cloistered mommy’s boy who is given “medicinal” enemas — well into his adulthood — peeps on a man performing cunninglingus on his pregnant wife and never recovers from the illicit shock. Allison MacKenzie finally discovers that she is a bastard and that her fantasies of a princely father are just that. Most shockingly, Selena Cross becomes pregnant after being raped by Lucas, and the town’s upstanding doctor gives her an illegal abortion. Selena later murders Lucas, when he tries to rape her again, and buries him in the sheep pen.

The descriptions of sex, the inquisition of the era’s mores and the dialogue hold up as well as anything from fiction written by more accomplished and respected authors. This might be because two unsung editors at Julian Messner purportedly rewrote the book before publication. But, who writes their own books anymore anyway?

While it would be easy to scoff today at the uproar caused by the publication of Peyton Place in Ike’s America, there is no theme explored in this story that isn’t still being beaten to exhaustion on the Lifetime Television Network or in the media generally. The recent disapproving uproar caused by Mackenzie Phillips’ revelations that her father drugged and raped her when she was a teen, and the flock of apologists who descended upon the world’s stage to protect that other child rapist, director Roman Polanski, illustrate that the plight of Selena Cross is just as relevant today as it was in 1956. (See related story in the New York Times.)

In 2006, it was reported that actress Sandra Bullock had signed on to portray Metalious in a biopic about the author. Nothing has been reported since, but, given the utterly-contemporary feel of her 50-year-old best-seller, a fresh look at the author seems relevant — though hopefully Bullock will do a better job at depicting Grace Metalious than she did with her uncomfortable rendering of To Kill a Mockingbird author, Harper Lee, in the film Infamous.

Peyton Place is worth another look; if only to realize anew that, though American women have come a long way, baby, we still have much further to go.

Fuck Facebook! I’m here now.

Like every other American of my generation, I’ve spent the last year addicted to Facebook and Twitter. I’ve reconnected with many old friends and frenemies. I’ve been able to stalk one or two people. And I’ve learned that if I were an ’80s movie, it would be some drek made by John Hughes.

But, baby, I’m done with all that now. There’s nothing left to find out. There’s no one left to connect with whose email address I don’t already have. Plus, I used to do something more serious and fulfilling with my free time, and, though I can’t exactly remember what it was, I’m on the road to find out. (You know, like Cat Stevens.)

If you were looking for my old site, you can still find its sad, fossilized bones here.