A Writer's Diary Entries From Late April, 1986 | Thought Catalog

A Writer's Diary Entries From Late April, 1986 | Thought Catalog

A Writer's Diary Entries From Mid-April, 1986 | Thought Catalog

A Writer's Diary Entries From Mid-April, 1986 | Thought Catalog

A Writer’s Diary Entries From Early April, 1986 | Thought Catalog

A Writer’s Diary Entries From Early April, 1986 | Thought Catalog

A Writer’s Diary Entries From Late March, 1986 | Thought Catalog

A Writer’s Diary Entries From Late March, 1986 | Thought Catalog

A Writer’s Diary Entries From Mid-February, 1986 | Thought Catalog

A Writer’s Diary Entries From Mid-February, 1986 | Thought Catalog

A Young Writer's Diary Entries From Early January, 1984 | Thought Catalog

A Young Writer's Diary Entries From Early January, 1984 | Thought Catalog

How Brooklyn Alt-Lit Saved Literary Culture, Part X: March-December 1979 | Medium

How Brooklyn Alt-Lit Saved Literary Culture, Part X: March-December 1979 | Medium

Richard Grayson's "SPRINGTIME IN LAUDERHILL" Now Available as Trade Paperback or eBook at Amazon Kindle Store

This week Superstition Mountain Press published Richard Grayson's Springtime in Lauderhill. It is available in a 196-page trade paperback edition for $11.99, as well as an e-book published by Art Pants Company available at the Amazon Kindle store for 99 cents.

The promo stuff says in part,

Richard Grayson started writing a daily diary in the summer of 1969, when he turned 18, and has compiled daily entries since then. In the six volumes of THE BROOKLYN DIARIES (SUMMER IN BROOKLYN, AUTUMN IN BROOKLYN, WINTER IN BROOKLYN, SPRING IN BROOKLYN, MORE SUMMER IN BROOKLYN, and A YEAR IN ROCKAWAY), Grayson published selected entries from 1969 to 1980.

Now, in THE EIGHTIES DIARIES, Grayson describes his itinerant life in his thirties during the Reagan era. Following the three previous volumes, SOUTH FLORIDA WINTERS, WEST SIDE SUMMERS and INDIAN SUMMER: PARK SLOPE is this book, SPRINGTIME IN LAUDERHILL, recounting two months Grayson spent living in a mostly African-American apartment complex in a fading Fort Lauderdale suburb.

It’s 1986, and Grayson is struggling with his lack of success as a fiction writer after publishing three books, disenchanted with his past jobs teaching college composition and remedial writing, and starting a new career as a teacher trainer in the nascent field of computer education with the first Apple machines ever used in schools.

Meanwhile, he’s taking an assortment of courses at a couple of universities, causing controversy with a legal challenge for age discrimination to a savings and loan company’s discounts for senior citizens, amassing a huge number of credit cards and credit lines, obsessing about the AIDS epidemic and wondering if he is infected, publishing his humorous nonfiction in places like People Magazine, and being interviewed on The CBS Evening News with Dan Rather and other media outlets.

Grayson’s diaries are a window into an individual sensibility and a particular moment in time: the spring of 1986.
An excerpt:

Monday, March 31, 1986
9 PM. Today was one of the more satisfying days of my life, probably because I could see myself doing well in a variety of roles. If I’m not quite a Renaissance man, I’m something more than a dilettante.

Up early, I read the paper, walked to the credit union to deposit $700 I’d gotten in cash advances from ATMs, and paid the rent.

Stopping off at the Publix Teller on Broward Boulevard, I went into the supermarket and discovered the news dealer had arrived with a fresh shipment of magazines, including People, which I took from the his piled-high shopping cart before he put it on the racks.

I couldn’t find my story in the table of contents, but I thumbed through and discovered it: “Unless We Bag a Few New Stars, the U.S. Will Face a Tragic Celebrity Shortage” by Richard Grayson and Fred Bernstein.

Illustrate with a full-page photo of paparazzi shooting a bejeweled, glamorously dressed woman with a paper bag over her head, with the Hollywood sign in the distance, the whole article took up four pages, with another photo page devoted to a model pretending to be Barbara Walters interviewing a tree (“If you were a star, what kind of star would you be?”)

I’m very pleased with the piece. In Davie, first Jonathan and then Mom and then Dad read the article, and they all thought it was good; of course, they’re my family.

While in Davie, I got a call from Joyce Brown of the Human Relations Division, reminding me about tomorrow’s hearing.

Also, the People publicity department called to find out if they could give my number to radio stations wanting interviews. Of course I said yes, though Fred is probably taking the good ones for himself, but I hope he’s not going on Live at Five and getting TV exposure I could use. I’m kidding!

Tons of mail, including the AWP Job List, with some creative writing vacancies I’ll apply for; loads of banking stuff, including my CBI credit file, a Virginia Beach Federal money market account checkbook, the PIN number for my Chase money market account, and applications for credit line increases on my Bank One and Chemical cards; and the leader of Americans for Generational Equality told me to “give ‘em hell” on senior discounts.

After xeroxing the article at Jaffe’s and having lunch at the Broadway Diner, I came home to read newspapers and prepare for class.

“It’s the computer man!” said the Sunshine Elementary school secretary as she opened the door for me at 3:30 PM. I showed the teachers the SRI math software today.

It was kind of disorganized because I’d never seen the material before, but I enjoyed myself and I think they learned a lot just by using it and experimenting with it.

One thing I stress is that the computer is dumb compared to a teacher because it makes the teachers feel better knowing how limited the machines are. After a quick bite, I went to my FIU Community College class, where Kitty Hunter, BCC’s Academic Vice President, was our guest.

Like most of the BCC administrators, she surprised me by her intellectual depth. She’s very future-oriented and interested in issues ranging from the role of the community college in relation to business and government to the need to educate people for a world economy and a world culture. Her remarks and the discussion which followed were stimulating.

Can you tell me why today was so satisfying? I felt competent in all my roles as writer, “computer man,” banking maven, social activist, and educator. I feel integrated and whole. Let’s hope tomorrow isn’t a big disaster.

Tuesday, April 1, 1986
11 PM. Not exactly a disaster, but I need time to digest today. Before I left this morning, I got a call from a producer at WXYT radio in Detroit; I’ll do an interview tomorrow at 5:30 PM, which means I’ll have to get out of class and go over to my parents’.

I didn’t really know what to expect when I walked into the Governmental Center in downtown Fort Lauderdale this morning. A black woman ran the hearing, with me in my corduroys, sport shirt and sneakers on one side of the long table and on the other side, five business-suited attorneys and AmeriFirst Vice Presidents. One man was apparently an outside counsel, but a woman V.P., presumably also an attorney, did most of the talking.

I suppose it was rather intimidating, and I’m sure the absurdity of the scene – like something in a movie – will stay with me for a long time.

Of course the situation triggered all these weird childhood feelings, especially when I saw how much trouble the S&L had gone to in its marketing studies and accounts of other banks’ practices.

I couldn’t help feeling I’d caused these important people a lot of trouble and would be punished for it. But since I was in touch with those feelings, I could act and react more calmly.

First, they went over my complaint and each side agreed or disagreed with each charge. Early on after that, after a huddle between the attorneys, they offered me the AmeriFirst 55 plan.

But a condition of my accepting it would be confidentiality; I could not tell anyone about the settlement or I could be sued for breach of contract.

I asked to leave the room to “consult my attorney by phone”; actually, I called Mom. She said that if I accepted the offer, I would be doing something other than what I set to do: namely, to expose and to try to stop age discrimination.

Of course Mom was right, and her remarks confirmed my own judgment. I let them wait for a good while as I went outside and took a walk around the block a couple of times.

Then I came in and rejected their offer, saying I wouldn’t be happy until their discriminatory practice – the AmeriPlus 55 plan – was ended or made available to everyone, regardless of age.

Naturally they didn’t want to do that. The hearing officer took me aside and said that the S&L had offered me total redress of my complaint, and that if I didn’t accept it, she’d probably have to end the case on the argument that since I wouldn’t accept their offer, no hurt was done originally.

Had this been a class action suit, I could have gone further, but she said the Human Relations Division had a narrow scope. After some testimony and questioning about the plan versus other AmeriFirst accounts, the hearing was adjourned.

I expect to hear that my complaint has been dismissed. But in a way I will have gotten what I wanted: the public awareness created by the publicity I got over the senior discount issue.

Having rejected their offer, I was free to go to the press, so I called the Miami Herald and gave them a rundown of what happened. Since I intend to go to New York soon, I don’t really want to come back before another hearing before the Human Rights Board this time.

I guess there’s still a slight chance the case could go on, but it’s over for me, whatever happens. Right now I’m too close to the situation to tell how I really feel.

It will also be available on Scribd and Lulu for free online reading.

Judd Lear Silverman Reviews Richard Grayson's AND TO THINK THAT HE KISSED HIM ON LORIMER STREET

On his eponymous blog, Judd Lear Silverman reviewed Richard Grayson's And to Think That He Kissed Him on Lorimer Street on September 9, 2006:

If you're not familiar with the writer, Richard Grayson, you should be, especially those who love the short story form. Besides spending time on bogus runs for political office and publicity stunts that have graced People and Page Six in the Post, Grayson's been writing prolifically for years, and his first anthology, With Hitler in New York, was recently reissued. Other humorous writings have included the collections I Break for Delmore Schwartz, Eating at Arby's: The South Florida Stories, and Narcissism and Me, as well as a novella, The Silicon Valley Diet. [Some of these stories have also been reprinted in Highly Irregular Stories (Dumbo Books).] But his recent collection, entitled And to Think That He Kissed Him on Lorimer Street, is perhaps the best collection to start with, reflecting not only his gifts as a satirist but his ability to keep the mind so busy it doesn't know that the heart has been touched. Like a reality TV junkie, Grayson mixes seeming fact with fiction, borrowing names, places and people from his own life and shaping them into odd and effecting commentaries on the passage of time, family relationships, sexuality, race relations, and America's pathological preoccupation with celebrity. Some stories are quick brushstroke sketches of people and a particular time. Others are journeys told in vignettes stretching spans of 20-30 years. Friendships are explored in sideways glances, showing how the most unlikely of alliances can turn into lifelong relationships. Numerous stories (perhaps one too many for the same collection) are subdivided by real estate locations: old movie palaces, libraries, and shopping centers, where seemingly innocuous events are recalled that by the end of the story add up to a whole lifetime of experience. Grayson shape shifts from gay to straight, white to black, male to female, kid to aging wit. Grandparents and childhood buddies play recurrent and important roles, but discerning fact from fiction in Grayson's work is tricky until one considers these stories in the aggregate. In the biography of the great Italian filmmaker, Federico Fellini, the maestro is quoted as saying that the truth of his life is not in the facts reported by birth certificates, death notices and journalistic reportage, but in his art, his dreams, his films--it is in the revelation of the imagination that the real artist is known. Likewise, the truth of Grayson is in these tales, invented and reinvented versions of his life and experience. The facts may not be verifiable, but the affection and care he displays in his description of life's travels and the people in his life are real, resulting in stories that are affecting and sharply observed. Recommended.

Richard Grayson and Fred Bernstein Report on Nation's Critical Celebrity Shortage in PEOPLE Magazine

Richard Grayson and Fred Bernstein have an article in PEOPLE magazine this week (April 7, 1986) reporting on the nation's critical celebrity shortage.




UNLESS WE BAG A FEW NEW STARS, THE U.S. WILL FACE A TRAGIC CELEBRITY SHORTAGE

By Richard Grayson and Fred Bernstein


In New York, paparazzi, driven insane by a growing shortage of celebrities, began to photograph each other. In Los Angeles, tables at Spago are suddenly easier to get than splinters on a boardwalk. All over the country gossip columnists are beginning to reveal their own indiscretions.

Then just as it seems as if things couldn't be worse, officials at Walt Disney begin making plans to thaw out their founder. Syndicated TV's Robin Leach offers to interview "The Rich but Practically Unknown." In Washington, the President personally appeals to Elizabeth Taylor to marry somebody the public hasn't heard of yet. And all three Gabor sisters appear on a single episode of Merv.

These scenes could soon become reality if the United States doesn't take action to stop the rapidly dwindling supply of celebrities within its borders. The problem, according to dozens of star watchers on both coasts and maybe one or two in the middle of the country, is that the American public has been consuming celebrities at an ever-increasing rate while failing to take steps to replenish the supply. Analysts estimate that to keep up with demand, the United States needs to produce at least two new celebrities every day. But in 1985 that didn't happen, and the demand for celebrities outstripped supply for the first time in our history.

For centuries there were plenty of celebrities to go around. (Did you ever wonder why the U.S. government bothered with a $50 bill? There were too many former Presidents for just the useful denominations.) As recently as 22 years ago, talk show host Ed Sullivan had so many guests waiting to get on his program that the Beatles, in their first U.S. television appearance, got only 13 1/2 minutes. And when the powers that be in Hollywood tried to memorialize the early movie stars on a sidewalk, they had to settle for footprints; total body prints, which were originally planned, would have required too many sidewalks. Today we have sidewalks to spare.

With the explosion of celebrity journalism in the '60s and '70s, the demand for stars continued to increase, while the number of household names leveled off. For a while the problem was kept under wraps. Although the U.S. had formerly been the leading celebrity-producing nation in the world, it imported just enough foreign stars, such as Boy George (British), Olivia Newton-John (Australia) and Michael Jackson (Uranus), to alleviate the immediate shrinking of the available pool of famous people. At the same time Americans resisted what they perceived as a flood of low-quality celebrities from foreign parts. Meanwhile other countries have been importing U.S. stars in record numbers (France can have Jerry Lewis, but only Lewis).

Some star searchers scoff at the notion of a shortage. They believe it's all a plot on the part of a cartel of greedy agents to drive up the price of celebrities. But, according to a source close to Pia Zadora (who may soon be the most talented person in America), the fame drain in a real, not a manufactured, development. Reports of celebrity-filled cruise ships floating outside New York harbor, waiting for prices to go up, are almost certainly false. (It's easy to understand how such a rumor might have started: Someone watched Love Boat and thought it was a documentary.) Nor is it any accident that an article about Madonna and Sean Penn appears in every edition of your hometowm newspaper. There simply aren't enough celebrities to go around.

Why is this a problem? Imagine if Barbara Walters had to interview trees ("If you were a star, what kind of star would you be?"). Imagine the chaos in Manhattan if thousands of writers, directors and limousine drivers were suddenly without work. Imagine if there were no one to join the President for White House photo-opportunity sessions.

In the optimistic '60s, Andy Warhol predicted that in the future everyone would be famous for 15 minutes. But Warhol could not have foreseen that nearly 20 years later, few young Americans would want to serve their society as superstars. Recent surveys of high school and college students indicate that the percentage who plan to be celebrities has fallen to its lowest point in 50 years. Embarrassed by attention, wary of the lack of a clear career ladder in the world of celebrityhood, young Americans are avoiding the spotlight in record numbers. Only three percent of college freshmen agreed with the statement that "becoming a celebrity is a worthwhile goal."

Sadly, the few who do intend to become famous tend to have lower SAT scores and less photogenic faces than their media-shy classmates. The youth of the '80s seem set on low-profile, high-security careers in accounting, computer programming and corporate law. These students have spent their lives watching and reading about celebrities, and they have seen that making it as a star requires more hard work, stamina and plastic surgery than they can stand.

It takes so long to become a successful celebrity," said one Fort Lauderdale marketing major. "Look at Don Johnson. Sure, he's made it now, but it took him a long time. If I waited that long before celebrityhood paid off, how could I pay back my student loans?"

Long hours, "flashbulb blindness," writer's cramp from signing autographs -- these are the reasons the new generation has decided to drop out of the celebrity sweepstakes. The heavy price the famous pay in the form of drug and alcohol abuse, divorce and bad haircuts has not gone unnoticed by the youth of today. "These kids are conformists," one professor complains. "They just don't like to stand out in a crowd and have people crawl all over then. What, I ask, has happened to the values that produced such role models as Ed McMahon and Dr. Ruth?"

Are there any solutions to the shortfall of stars?

Celebritologists say that drastic measures are necessary. Certainly future celebrity creation is vital, but that will not solve the short-run problems. The American public must learn to conserve celebrities, to make do with just one supermarket tabloid,one juicy tidbit about Larry "Bud" Melman each week. President Reagan, a celebrity for most of his 75 years, is cognizant of the crisis, political analysts say. But faced with problems like the federal budget deficit, the Gipper believes that individual initiatives, not government programs, are the answer. Others have proposed a variety of solutions:

(1) A federal regulatory agency should monitor celebrity levels around the country. This agency, using convoys of stretch limos, would allocate celebrity resources where they are needed most and issue strict guidelines on such matters as how many times a person's photo could appear in USA Today.

(2) Displaced workers, debt-burdened farmers and unemployed inner-city teenagers should be retrained. Small-scale efforts, like the proposed George Hamilton Institute in Youngstown, Ohio, are already getting under way.

(3) Youngsters should be encouraged to volunteer their services. Chapters of Future Celebrities of America could be set up in every grammar school, and programs in celebrity literacy (i.e., how to talk back to Joan Rivers) instituted in the primary grades.

(4) Academics should recognize celebritology as a distinct discipline and should create departments and majors in the field. Scholoarships would be offered to students who composed the best answer to the question, "Why do you want to sit next to Madonna at the Grammys?"

(5) Penalties for celebrity abuse must be made more stringent. Otherwise our most talented celebrities will decide that being on Donahue just isn't worth the effort. Too many authors are already spending the majority of their time writing rather than hitting the talk show circuit.

Though the future seems bleak, dramatic breakthroughs are possible as technology progresses. Some scientists, for example, believe it is entirely likely that celebrities exist on planets outside our solar system. There may be enough talk show guests and magazine cover subjects in the Milky Way galaxy to satisfy all of America's celebrity needs for the next 200 years.

After all, Americans are relatively lucky compared with others with whom we share Soundstage Earth. In Communist Eastern Europe, men and women live and die without ever seeing a single celebrity. Cruising Moscow's back streets and sinister black marketeers who whisper to passersby and then fling open their raincoats to reveal tantalizing photos of Princess Stephanie and Rambo.

But the real answer lies not in our own stars but in ourselves. We must look for our future celebrities in unexpected places: In our own communities, on the job and even among members of our family. The best and the brightest of us should prepare to meet
the challenge. If Mike the Dog can make the sacrifice, can we expect any less of ourselves?

PEOPLE Magazine covers Jane Wyman's reaction to being named presidential candidate Richard Grayson's Vice-Presidential running mate

In People magazine this week (January 9, 1984), actress Jane Wyman responds to being named Presidential candidate Richard Grayson's running mate for Vice President.