Pimpin’ Ain’t Easy

…is it, James?

I heard this alluded to on the Bat Segundo Show podcast interview with James Lipton, but my jaw dropped when I looked it up.

Actors Studio host Lipton was a pimp in France
Last Update: 10/22 5:04 pm

James Lipton, the host of U.S. talk show, Inside the Actors’ Studio, once worked as a pimp in Paris, France.

The revered TV presenter, who has sat down with Hollywood’s biggest names for in-depth chats about their life and work over the last 13 years, has revealed he once procured clients for French hookers.

He says, “This was when I was very very young, living in Paris, penniless, unable to get any kind of working permit… I had a friend who worked in what is called the Milieu, which is that world and she suggested to me one night, `Look, you’ll be my mec… We would translate it perhaps… as pimp.”

The Reading List

Yes, this one’s overdue, just like all my other entries. Deal :). So, two weeks ago, I read some cool stuff, mostly from The Best of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet and a couple of old issues of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine

  • Geoffrey H. Goodwin, “Stoddy Awchaw”
  • Theodora Goss, “The Rapid Advance of Sorrow”
  • Sarah Monette, “Three Letters From the Queen of Elfland”
  • Gigi Vernon, “Solomon’s Wedding”
  • Gigi Vernon, “The Maidservant’s Letter”
  • Janice Law, “The Girl Watcher”

Yeah, I said I was gonna read Dogeaters by Jessica Hagedorn. Sue me. I’ll get to it this week ;).

Speaking of Reading

…I have to pass on listing the various short stories I’ve read this week, unless you want me to regurgitate the table of contents for the last half of Barry Hannah’s Airships.

To tell the truth, I’m going to slow the short-story reading for a bit, even though I want to just continue with reading more Hannah. I snatched up a used copy of Hannah’s collection High Lonesome at one of the used bookstores. Instead, while I edit my last couple of stories, I’m going to read American Son and Dogeaters, slated to be the 6th and 7th novels I’ve read in the past four years.

It used to be a point of pride with me to be able to brag about how many shorts I’ve read at the expense of novel reading. I’ve come to realize, since I devoured Nick Sagan’s Idlewild trilogy and Ben Tanzer’s Lucky Man, that I do just shove them down my literary throat. I go through novels like I go through showings of Scent of a Woman or A Few Good Men on cable TV–before I know it, I’ve spent a couple of hours–2 to 3 days in the case of novels–doing nothing but taking it all in. Case in point, I’m a third of the way into American Son, and if I did nothing else for the rest of the night, I know I could finish it.