>>: Good afternoon for those of you joining us in Redmond
campus. Good evening for those of you joining us across the
world, and good morning for those of you joining us across the
world but in other parts of the world.
Welcome to an exciting event here today at Microsoft and let me
start off by saying thank you to MS Pact and Microsoft Research
speakers series for making this event possible and Microsoft
GLEAM as well. It's definitely quite a nice treat and delight to
have such a great author with us today who will be coming in just
a second.
So today, we will have the format with the research series.
We'll have the speech, the remarks, and then we'll have hopefully
some questions from the audience. We want to see some good
participation. And at the end, for those of you that got the
book, we have them at the back. We'll be doing a signing of the
book by the author today.
So Armstead Maupin was born in Washington, D.C., in 1944 but grew
up in Raleigh, North Carolina. A graduate of the university of
North Carolina. He served as a naval officer in the
Mediterranean with a river patrol force in Vietnam. Maupin
worked as a reporter for a newspaper in Charleston, South
Carolina, before assigned to the San Francisco bureau of the
Associated Press in 1971.
In 1976, he launched a groundbreaking Tales of the City series in
the San Francisco chronicle. Maupin is the author of nine
novels, including six involving Tales of the City series, Maybe
the Moon, The Night Listener, and most recently The Days of Anna
Madrigal. It is a great privilege to be able to welcome Armstead
Maupin to Microsoft. [applause].
>> Armistead Maupin: Thank you. Thank you very much. This is
the end of a 40 year old story that I've been telling, the ninth
novel in the Tales of the City series. I've been very lucky,
because in creating these characters, I've not only created a
career for myself, but friends who grew out of the people who
came, eventually came and played the characters, I'm thinking
specifically of Olympia Dukakis, who played Anna Madrigal in the
PBS television series exactly 20 years ago. Olympia and I have
become great friend. She's very much Anna Madrigal in her own
life. She's in the sense of being an earth mother, a passionate,
loving person.
She invited me and my husband, Chris, to come to Hollywood this
year while she
when she got her walk on the Hollywood Walk of
Fame. When she told me it was happening, I said about fucking
time, you know. How long does
[laughter].
But it was a fun day to be with her on Hollywood Boulevard. Her
star is in front of the Pantages Theater, named after a Greek,
which made her very happy. And the person presenting the star to
her, formally making the speech, the appreciation speech, was Ed
Asner, Mr. Grant, for those of you who even remember The Mary
Tyler Moore Show or, if you're four years old, he's the old guy
in Up. And he's very much like the old guy in Up, actually. And
very funny.
He had a cameo in the Tales of the City miniseries, so I was able
to go up to him and said hi, I'm Armstead Maupin. Thank you so
much for being in the show. I said I'd like you to meet
I
should back up and tell you my husband, Chris, is 28 years older
than
I mean
[laughter].
Yes, my 112 year old [laughter]. Chris is 28 years younger than
I am and catches eyes. And I said to Ed, this is my husband,
Chris Turner, and Ed sort of looked him up and down and turned to
me and said, you've got good taste. And then he turned to Chris
and said, and I want to thank you for getting another senior
citizen off the streets.
So that compliment was paid me this year by somebody from Tales
of the City. And then my friend, Laura Linney, who played Mary
Ann Singleton really bowled me over by
I don't know if you
read, but three weeks ago, she gave birth to a baby boy, and the
baby boy's middle name is Armstead. So yeah, I did that too.
Well, actually, I was a little louder about it. I was in the
dentist chair in Sante Fe, flat on my back, getting my teeth
cleaned, when she called and told me that the baby had been born
and that she'd named him Bennett Armstead Shower. He better do
something important with a big cinderblock of a name like that.
So I want to read to you a little bit today from The Days of Anna
Madrigal, and then we can chat afterwards. Just throw questions
at me. I may even ask you to all move up closer at some point
just so we can make that more intimate.
But right now, I'll read to you from a distance. And I'll let
you choose. There are two passages that I conventionally read
from. Can you hear me all right, by the way? I don't need to
this is working, right? I don't have to focus on this at all.
This is the first and the second chapter, so they both sort of
explain themselves. This is the first time I've ever gone back
in time with Tales of the City. I've always written in realtime
and followed, you know, trusted my instinct in the moment.
Because this is about my matriarch, Anna here, I thought it would
be fun to show what made her, where she came from.
She grew up, some of you may know, in a whorehouse in Winnemucca,
Nevada. Maybe you didn't know that. So I had to go back to 1936
in order to tell this story and figure out exactly what that
environment was about.
First chapter busy Anna today with her caretaker in San
Francisco, a night at home the two of them. He's a trans man
who's not yet 40, and they have a kind of wonderful, odd couple
relationship, the two of them. He cares for her. She's 92.
So you get to vote on Anna today or Anna
or whorehouse Anna.
>>:
Let's have whorehouse Anna.
>> Armistead Maupin: All right. You want to do the brothel?
You want to do the 1936 stuff? Okay. All I need is my glasses
and I'll be right with you. I must say the internets with
enormously useful in researching this. You could Google
do I
get to say Google here? No. What should I have said?
>>:
Bing.
>> Armistead Maupin: You can Bing [laughter]
oh, there's so
many minefields. You can Bing 1930s whorehouse menu, and you can
actually see one. It will show you what items were for sale. I
mean not items, but services. And when we get to that, you'll
know, probably.
The chicken was in the pen out back, and the ruckus it was making
woke Andy from an afternoon nap. They had not kept poultry for
some time so he figured Margaret was turning a trick with the
Okie from down the road, who sometimes paid in livestock.
He wondered if Violet heard the chicken and if she would be ugly
about it at dinner and hurt Margaret's feelings again. Andy
couldn't see why doing it for a good hen was any less respectable
than doing it for a couple of bucks.
He rolled on his side and gazed at the window shade. It had
darkened amber during his nap and the acacia bush swam against it
like mint in a glass of iced tea. These hot afternoons made him
languid and dreamy. They made him think about the bask boy at
the drug store with the raven locks and the long eyelashes.
Listen up, ladies, Margaret's voice, addressing the various
cabinettes. Who nabbed my Lysol? Not a good time to open the
shade. Do you hear me, ladies? No reply. If I get knocked up
explosive laughter. Probably Sadie's. I mean it, yelled
Margaret. You ain't having no baby, grandma. This time it was
Violet being mean. Margaret was 45, the oldest girl at the Blue
Moon, older even than Andy's momma, who ran the place, so the
other girls could be spiteful.
Andy figured they were jealous that Margaret had repeat
customers. She was even asked for by name when college boys
drove in from Reno, drunk as Lords on casino gin. Violet's wise
crack brought raucous laughter from the cabinettes, because there
was no response at all from Margaret. Andy felt bad for her so
he cupped his hands and yelled through the shade, there's a
bottle of Lysol in the crapper. Another silence, then Margaret
spoke in a more subdued tone. Now, there's a gentleman.
Andy knew where this was leading. Want me to get it? Would you,
lamb? If I move an inch this tapioca's going to make its way to
glory. [laughter] I read this for a PBS show called West Coast
Live, and they made me sign a paper beforehand that said I wasn't
going to say any dirty words. And I thought, okay, tapioca's not
a dirty word. [laughter].
The urgency of the mission was underscored by the crank in
flatulence of a jalopy coming to life just beyond the cabinettes.
The customer was already leaving. Andy hurried out to the
crapper and found the bottle. By the time he got to Margaret's
cabinette with a basin, there was only a distant plume of dust
trailing out to the highway.
Margaret was sitting on the edge of her bed in her peach
camisole. She looked weary and resigned when he set the basin
down beside her on the bed. That's got to be watered down, she
said. He nodded. Already done it. You have? She touched the
pea colored solution with a look of tender amazement as if he had
just presented her with the Hope diamond. If that don't beat
all, she murmured. Where can I find one like you, Andy? He
shrugged, since it wasn't really a question.
Margaret grabbed a sponge off the night stand and dipped it into
basin, turning away from him as she began to scrub vigorously
between her legs. Andy headed straight for the door, eyes to the
floor, but Margaret was still talking. I swear, what did ladies
do before Lysol? Another shrug. I ain't taking any chances.
That Okie has 13 kids of his own.
Andy knew that already. Two of the girls were classmates at
Humboldt High, compulsive gigglers who lived with their aunt on
Mizpa Street. One of them had flirted with Andy on the bus the
day before. He wondered if she would be trouble. Margaret knew
a lot of things about Andy. She knew things that happened before
he was born, back when momma was teaching piano in Rapid City and
Margaret was her friend working at the five and dime.
Margaret had always claimed that they were both ready to get out
of there, and the opportunity presented itself when Margaret got
pregnant by a piano pupil whose father was, in Margaret's words,
a big muckety muck in the Chamber of Commerce and a hot headed
Greek to boot.
Margaret's mean as a snake husband had keeled over dead at the
cement plant a week earlier, so she paid her debt to the almighty
by helping momma through her ordeal. She was our salvation and
our flight from the Pharisees, was how momma had put it,
implicates the unborn Andy in this Biblical sounding event. But
it would be years before he would learn that their midnight motor
trip to Nevada had been paid for with cash Margaret had lifted
from the notions counter at the five and dime.
He would learn this from Margaret, mind you, not momma. Momma,
when pressed on the matter, had said only that Andy's father was
a hero of the great war, who succumbed to his wounds, an
explanation that even at the time Andy found unconvincing, since
he knew the radio show she was referencing.
They had listened to it together, in fact, him and momma, down in
the parlor on a slow night. A dough boy and a crippled Irish
girl finding true love in New York City, if only briefly.
It embarrassed Andy when momma's lies became this bold, but he
could see how a casualty of war would be easier to explain than
some horny 15 year old she had taught to play Clair de Lune.
Even now, Andy's paternity was vague in his mind, since he had
never been able to put a grown man's face to that nubile phantom.
Momma had been straight with Andy about her business. She was
proud of that story. She and Margaret would tell it in tandem
sometimes, playing to a crowd of rowdy customers in the parlor.
Momma banging out the funny parts on the piano, shaking
everything she had. They had been, quote, two sweet ass gals
flying on a wing and a prayer, though truthfully, that prayer had
not been uttered until their third night in a Bridge Street
hotel, when a railroad man, perfectly nice gent in a suit,
offered Margaret five dollars to go upstairs and give him a blow
job. Margaret had been a knockout back then, a genuine Swedish
blond with cornflower blue eyes who never forgot her makeup.
It had been a natural mistake, momma had insisted. What with all
the plug ugly women out here in the desert. But maybe it had
also been a sign from heaven. Maybe a nice girl, mistaken for
something else, had just been shown her true calling in life.
Especially if she'd gone upstairs as readily as Margaret had.
Their initial arrangement that the been simple. Momma would find
the Johns and take their money, and Margaret would haul their
ashes. There were already a few girls working in cribs on Bridge
Street so momma took them under her no nonsense wing, promising a
steady income and protection from the Johns. By the time Andy
was born at Humboldt General in the spring of 1920, momma was
offering six ladies, including Margaret, and setting her sights
on a big, private spread out on the road to Jungo.
The old house was already there, so momma added the cabinettes, a
semi circle of cinderblock huts painted with tall, organ piped
cacti, though there was nothing remotely like them growing on
that barren expanse.
Folks just naturally expected a touch of the old west when they
drove out for pussy in the middle of nowhere. So Mona Ramsey
intended to oblige them. Momma used the third person when she
got herself really fired up, as if she were talking about someone
else entirely.
Andy's first memory was not of the house or even the huge neon
moon momma had erected by the highway, but the cool vaulting
interior of the Catholic church on Malarkey Street. At four,
Andy was a little too old for a christening, and momma wasn't
even Catholic, but St. Paul's had just been completed, and it was
the grandest place in town, a Spanish style edifice with towers
like a castle.
Momma wanted folks to see that her son was being raised a proper
gentleman. To that end, Margaret had made him a christening
outfit with Irish lace she ordered from Denver. Technically, it
was a dress, since she had simply enlarged an McCall's pattern
meant for babes in arms. But Andy had not complained. He had
worn it all day, in fact, chasing a billy goat around the yard.
He could still remember how fine it felt against his skin and the
Flinty look in momma's eyes when he refused to take it off. When
hard times came and poor folks headed west in droves, momma had
never left faith in the business. There were rumors in town that
gambling was about to be legalized in Nevada, and she reckoned
that was a good thing, since the fools who went bust at the
tables would be even more needful of female consolation.
She had been right, as usual. The Blue Moon Lodge thrived,
gaining a fresh coat of paint and a scarlet slot machine in the
parlor, shiny as a new Hudson and emblazoned with an Indian head.
Customers came from as far as way as Boulder City, where
thousands of workers, predictably starved for ladies, were
building a colossal new dam.
Lately, momma had her mind set on gold. She had heard from old
Mrs. Austin, whose hunt ran the general story in Jungo that Mr.
Hoover himself, the former president, had arrived in a private
railway car with an oil man from San Francisco and inquired about
George Austin's claim in the slumbering hills.
It was common knowledge, momma said, that old George and his
college boy sons had been poking in the ground up there. They
had recently shipped two bags of gold ore to the mint in San
Francisco. Somebody in town was talking about
everybody in
town was talking about it, but Mrs. Austin had been tight lipped
with momma, saying only that Mr. Hoover had been a regular feller
and that she had grown accustomed to famous folk when she was a
nurse in San Jose.
The nerve of that woman, said momma, wielding her folk like a
saber at the dinner table. There she is, selling chaw tobacco to
the goddamn section hands and she's acting all high and mighty
with me. A tiny fleck of mashed potatoes flew off momma's fork
and hit Violet square in her hennaed spit curl. Margaret winked
at Andy. Violet had not even noticed.
The old biddy
added sourly,
What were you
talking Cajun
is about to get filthy rich on that claim, momma
and she don't even have the decency to say so.
doing in Jungo? This was Delphine, the back
girl, but Andy was wondering the same thing.
Jungo was over 30 miles up the road, a piss ant little railroad
junction that made Winnemucca look like Gay Paree. Mom was
glowering now. Hush up, Delphine. If you're looking to buy
property, there ain't that much poontang in Nevada. Delphine, I
mean it. Another word out of you and you're getting that fatty
from Battle Mountain the next time he comes in for a dry bob.
Delphine stared down at her plate as a cautious silence fell over
the table. Andy knew from experience that it was in everyone's
interest to change the subject. None of these girls wanted to
give a dry bob to the fatty from Battle Mountain.
What famous folks, he asked? Momma frowned at him. Mrs. Austin,
he explained. Who did she know? This brought a grunt. Some
feller named London. Who cares? Jack London? I reckon, yeah.
Wow, Andy said, under his breath. You heard of him? He wrote
the Call of the Wild. We read it in English last year.
Momma stabbed a sweet bread with her fork and poked it into her
mouth. Well, don't go telling that old battle axe. She's
already too big for her britches. A smile flickered at the
corner of Margaret's mouth, but she managed to conceal it by
turning toward Andy. How was cool, then? He shrugged. Okay.
You pass your history test? A minus. Get you, said Margaret,
beaming. You're heaps smarter than the rest of us.
Momma shot Margaret a crabby look. Where do you think he got it
from? Momma had finished high school while Margaret had dropped
out early to go to beauty school in Rapid City. Momma used that
dubious advantage to Lord it over Margaret whenever they
squabbled. Lately, there had been more squabbles than usual,
though Andy was not sure why. Maybe momma was just worn out.
I saw the Watson girl at the post office today, momma offered,
resembling her face to look more pleasant for Andy. She asked
after you. He doubted this was true. If anything, momma had
probably raised the subject herself, since Gloria Watson's family
was known to be well fixed. Her father was a doctor, a widowed
doctor to boot, who had once conducted the monthly exams at the
Blue Moon. Momma's coquettish overtures had failed to get a rise
out of him and most likely scared him off the job so now she was
working on his daughter.
I think she's taken a shine to you, Andy. Andy sighed so she
could hear it. What's the matter with Gloria Watson? Nothing.
She's very nice. She's dating the class president, that's all.
Well, that don't make no never mind. Margaret glanced at momma
sideways. Leave him be, Mona. Andy's a dam sight better looking
than any class president. Mona. Well, look at him, Margaret, he
could get any pretty girl he wants.
You're a stitch, momma.
Andy rolled his eyes.
Don't you sass me, kid. You know I'm right. He stayed calm and
smiling as he rose and took his plate to the sink. Half the
time, momma was just spoiling for a fight so he had learned not
to engage her. I've got homework, he said, heading off to his
room.
By 9:00, the yard was full of cars so Andy stayed in his room
reading under a lamp shade printed with a map of the world. Down
below, you could hear the usual music from the Victrola, the
usual howls from the customers and counterfeit squeals from the
girls. Not an awful sound, really. Just an awfully familiar
one. And the wrong accompaniment to Richard Halliburton's book
of marvels.
He wondered if momma truly wanted to go on like this forever,
selling good for all night tokens unto death or if she ever
dreamed of being somewhere else entirely. That would be fine
with him, unless her escape plan involved the acquisition of a
wealthy daughter in law in which case leaving would be just as
grimly unimaginable as staying.
He had just turned 16, though. There was still time to figure it
out. You there, lamb? Margaret was cooing from outside the door
so he invited her in. She was wearing a calf length green velvet
gown that was balding in places like the arm of an old settee.
Her palomino hair was now loosely corralled on top of her head
with a bobby pin. She was holding a parcel about the size of a
shoe box, wrapped in the funny papers and tied up with twine.
Guess what's playing at the American next week? What, he
replied, before snatching an answer out of the blue. Charlie
Chan? She sat down on the edge of the bed, setting the parcel
beside her. Much better, Jeanette McDonald. Oh, he said,
remembering San Francisco. He had passed the glass encrusted
poster on his way to Eagle Drugs, but the chance of laying eyes
on the bask boy again had dulled its impact considerably.
With Clark Gable. Together for the first time, said Margaret,
quoting the poster. Andy did not much care for Clark Gable with
his big tombstone teeth and wooden ways. Even if he had starred
in Call of the Wild. It was the dog that Andy had most admired
in that film. Jeanette McDonald, on the other hand, was lady
like elegance itself and not to be missed under any
circumstances.
Wonder if she sings, he said. I expect so. Margaret gave him a
winsome smile. Wanted to go on Saturday? Sure. Unless you've
got some chum you'd rather take. No. She clamped her hands on
her knees and stood up. Well, then, okay, it's a date. She
headed for the door, leaving the parcel behind her on the bed.
What's that, he asked? She stopped in the doorway and silenced
him with a finger to her lips. Happy birthday, lamb. Latch the
door behind me.
His heart was pounding wildly as he obeyed her order, pushing the
metal hook into the rusty eye on the door frame. He had used
this latch hundred of times before without giving it a second
thought. But now, with the din of strangers rising from the
parlor, it struck him as woefully inadequate for any secret worth
keeping.
He went to the bed and sat where Margaret had sat, pull the
parcel into his lap. It was soft and squishy, obviously fabric.
But lighter than the woollen shirt she had made him last
Christmas or even the seersucker suit of an earlier birthday.
The twine on the parcel was so lightly knotted that he finally
gave up the effort and tore a hole in the newspaper. A Maggie
and Jiggs comic, in which Maggie, as usual, was chasing Jiggs
around with a rolling pin.
Within second, he had liberated the contents, a billowing cloud
of lemon silk chiffon printed with roses in pale pinks and
greens. The betrayal blooming in his lap made his eyes dart to
the door again. The latch was still firmly in place, but true
reassurance came in the fact that momma had turned off the
Victrola and started playing the piano. That meant folks would
stay put for a while. She was playing her favorite song, Smoke
Get in Your Eyes.
He rose and went to the corroded mirror on the back of the closet
door. The gown was long and sleeveless. There were cape like
flounces at the shoulders and hand rolled seams at the neckline,
all of it diaphanous as a dream from which he was sure to wake at
any moment. He slipped it over his head as momma began to sing.
They asked me how I knew my true love was true. I, of course,
replied something here inside cannot be denied.
The tissue fine silk slid down Andy's body, like a lover's
whisper.
There we are. [applause]. Thanks. The word
was the dry bob was the expression. I use it
book and I never tell people what dry bob is,
to their computer to find it out. She's just
He said no.
Let's talk.
>>:
I learned on Bing
all through the
so they have to go
said, do you know?
Ask me some questions.
What's a dry bob?
>> Armistead Maupin: What's a dry bob? It's penetration without
ejaculation. Apparently, in brothel terms, it's cheaper because
it's not as messy. The Lysol detail, I also found on the
internet.
>>:
Used as an anti spermicide?
>> Armistead Maupin: It was used as an anti spermicide
or a
spermicide. Yeah, it was, by women for a number of years. Lysol
sold it that way. And later, when they couldn't get away with
that anymore, they sold it as a freshener, a personal freshener.
I saw ads in Look magazine where they would be like the husband
and wife and the husband was like
[laughter]. The wife was
and the headline was for the secret even your husband won't tell
you. For the problem even your husband won't tell you. It seems
to me like the problem would be that she smells like the kitchen
floor. [laughter]. But it was there. It was amazing to be able
to time travel and find these things.
Anna, in the first chapter, at 92, has a copy of Richard
Halliburton's Book of Marvels, which is referenced here. And
she's sort of teasing Jake, her companion, because he's there
with his eReader, and she's got the Book of Marvels, and she's I
can smell my book. You can't smell your book. And her book
smells like rosewater and Lysol, which is the smell of the Blue
Moon Lodge.
So it's sort of the
I use it, it's like Proust's madeleine,
the sensory experience that takes her into the past. That and a
big vaporizer with some pot from a local cannibis club. Yes,
sir?
>>: Can you talk about what it was like as you put the finishing
touches on this manuscript, considering it's the end of such a
long running story?
>> Armistead Maupin: Did you hear the question? He's asking
about what it was like to put the finishing touches on a long
running story. I was exhilarated when I got to the last two
pages, because they kind of wrote themselves. That almost never
happens. But I suddenly had
it was off and running in some
weird way that I hadn't, for the entire book, just a visual that
took me out of it.
I felt less melancholy then than I do right now on book tour
because I'm sort of feeling the impact. I'm seeing people that
are saying really nice things to me. And so it's like any
beautiful closure. It's beautiful and it's closing, and it was
it's oddly disarming right now.
I'm not sorry I did it. I thought it was time. It had the right
shape to me. This is book number nine. There are three
trilogies. Basically, the first one was pre age. The second one
was post age, and this is in the new millenium when everybody's
pretty old.
That has been
that's been
I mean, the realization that
these people are old is making me realize that I'm not going to
escape it, however hard I write. Very unusual thing. And people
also who have grown up with these books have said the same thing
to me, that it's really making them feel not so much their age,
but their moment, a moment in their lives.
So, you know, I've been given a gift. It's an amazing thing to
have something that has this kind of power over 40 years that
it's not one of those series where, you know, they all remain
pretty much the same and just have adventures. They really are
getting old and getting sick and, in some cases, dying and
getting wise. Learning things. Finding love, eventually. All
of that. So it was a mixed
a lot of mixed emotions around it
all. Yes?
>>:
In your research for the book, did you go to Burning Man?
>> Armistead Maupin:
to Burning Man.
>>:
I did.
I was dragged kicking and screaming
How many times?
>> Armistead Maupin: By my 28 years younger husband. We went
for our second time last year. So obviously, I must have really
had a good time the first time. I'm not fond of dust and heat
and camping out and hauling in your own food and water and
listening to dance music all night long. Never have been,
actually. Even when I was young, I wanted to go home and go to
bed. Michael says in the book, I'm never liked an all nighter,
and this is an all weeker.
But you get there, and there is a visual treat like you have
never experienced anywhere. Has anybody been to Burning Man?
There we go. Did you have a good time? It's beautiful. That
was what struck me. It's just beautiful. I describe it as a
Fellini carnival on Mars in the book. Trying to let people grasp
exactly what the experience is. But, you know, ever since El
Wire came into being, it's this just phantasmagoria of color.
And you see a city scape, but there are no commercial
you
know, there's no commercial neon. There's nothing you recognize.
It's just large stretches of splendid color and great,
imaginative things that are funny, that make you laugh, that has
an enormous sense of humor about itself. People create really
whacky stuff.
I was reading the program. I put this in the book. I was
reading the program, and there was some event that was being held
at Dr. Scrote's circumcision wagon and calamari hut. [laughter].
There's something called a hug deli. You're out in the middle of
nowhere, and there's a little booth like something you'd see in a
Roadrunner cartoon, like little general store, just right
can't see anything. There's just whiteness all around you, and
there's a guy, a sort of hippy dude from L.A., I think I found
out, who runs the hug deli. And they have the short,
affectionate
they have the affectionate hug, the Beverly Hills
air kiss hug, the long, uncomfortable hug. And there's no money
changing hands. So, you know, you pick the one you want, and he
gives you that hug.
Shawna, the youngest character in the book, does that, has that
experience. The port a potties are infamous, as port a potties
tend to be. You just plan your day around getting over going to
the port a potties. Absolutely vile. 60,000 people in the
desert, you know. Basically using the same port a potties
because even people with RVs can't use them because you can't
take out your gray water or whatever they call it.
started.
Don't get me
But how do they make something fun out of the port a potties?
One camp had a thing they set up, they'd wait until somebody
would go in
they'd pick a person, wait until they went into a
port a potties. And when that person came out, a red carpet had
been rolled from the front of the port a potties. There were
bleachers on the side with cheering people and paparazzi and a
receiving stand with someone. It was just completely celebrated
as a movie star as they came out of the port a potty. It's a lot
it's really a lot of fun, and it's sweet. There's a lot of
genuine camaraderie, kindness. People have playa names. You
make up a name for yourself. I guess it partially diminishes the
embarrassment that you're in a Tutu or however you're dressed for
the first time.
And I had named myself Sofa Daddy because I like sofas and they
had them all over the place. You know, people hauled sofas out
to the middle of the desert. So if a camp had a sofa, I was
headed there.
>>:
Are you Mouse?
>> Armistead Maupin: No. I'm not I'm sort of. I use things for
me for Mouse. But yes it is, his book, the name in the thing.
You can't say yes, that's me, because some of the things that
happen here did not happen to me. My grumpy attitude about it is
reflected in Mouse in the beginning of the book. And my husband
did buy a sewing machine just for this and went to some lady in
the marina district in San Francisco who caught him to sew in an
afternoon, and he was making, almost through instinctively, was
making wonderful costumes for us.
There's a thing, there's a class division, interesting class
division at Burning Man where the people who have been going for
a long time and are proud of the roughing it element of it all
and, what do they call it? Radical self sufficiency. It's not
really radical self sufficiency if you have to stop at Home Depot
before you go. I mean, you really have to spend a lot of money
preparing yourself for your radical self sufficiency.
And some people, who have the money, fly in for a day or two, and
they have very elegant RVs set up and a staff and barbecue is
served in the common area and, naturally, I had Mary Ann do that
in this book. Her
she says her RV looks like Reba McIntyre's
tour bus, and it kind of does. So I had fun exploring all of
those notions with Burning Man. We're not going back this year.
Taking a little bit of a break. It feels like it's barely over
before you have to start planning for it again, because there's
so much pre planning necessary. But it's really worth doing.
Yes?
>>: All of the books are based in San Francisco, except for this
one. Is that on purpose that you took them out of the element of
the other character being the city?
>> Armistead Maupin: Yes. Not really. It occurred to me after
I'd done it that that's what happened. I didn't want people to
think, oh, this is his
in some ways, I suppose there's an
element of saying good bye to the city so you feel this journey
that they're all on that's away from San Francisco. But it
really had to do with the fact that I had the Burning Man
material in my head, and that I wanted Anna to go back to
Winnemucca, and I wanted to write a story that wasn't in my own
time. I wanted do historical fiction, if you will.
>>: Speaking of class distinction, you mention in the book a
little bit about the issue in San Francisco with all the tech
workers coming over, making the rents go high, all of that. I'm
kind of curious what your perspective is on that and if that had
any impact on your decision to move away.
>> Armistead Maupin: Our decision to move away was partially a
matter of finances, that we could get something nicer and bigger
and with a great deal of character in Sante Fe. I cannot, in my
heart of hearts, trace it back to tech workers invading the city.
Life changes. That's just the way it is. When I came to San
Francisco in the early '70s, Herb Cane, our leading columnist,
was complaining about how it wasn't nearly as much fun as it was
in the '30s and '40s when Bennie Goodman was there, you know.
Yes, it's alarming how the prices have gone up, but what am I
going to say? If I were a tech worker. If I, you know, I worked
for any of our local tech companies and I would want a place in
San Francisco. I would want to come and find the neighborhood
that I lived in and find something nice for myself. And if I had
the money to do it, I would do it.
And I cannot freak out over the Google bus, because it's a bus.
If all those people were driving cars, that would be a higher
impact on the city. I mean, maybe there's something I'm not
seeing here, but it strikes me as a thoughtful thing.
>>: Do you think there's a solution to the whole issue or do you
think that's just something that folks are going to have to get
used to?
>> Armistead Maupin: Well, I mean, I don't know who's going to
be even getting used to it, because it will be other people that
are living there, because it will be other people that are living
there, because I wrote
I was exchanging a realtor on Facebook
said can
I said something about it would be nice to have a
little pied a terre still in San Francisco, and he said what
would you like? And I told him. His response was naming how
much we could spend, and what we wanted, that it be pet friendly
and have a parking space and he wrote back, I think you're going
to have to put out for this.
The whole city is just something that's happened. I don't hate
the people that are making it happen. It's the way that life
changes.
>>: I was fortunate to see the musical, Tales of the City
musical a couple years ago, and I'm just wondering if there's
anything going on with that, any further tours, productions?
>> Armistead Maupin: I wish. He's talking about the Tales of
the City musical that was at ACT. It was very popular, extended
three times in the city, and we knew creatively what needed to be
done to it to make it better. But so far, there's no forward
momentum about getting to do that somewhere.
It didn't help that our creative team were all so young and
talented that they got hired off in three different directions
immediately after it happened. So I don't know. I don't think
that's going to
I wish I could be hopeful about that, but I
don't think we're going to see that again. You saw a rare thing
if you saw it. You liked it? Good. I did too.
>>: I'm a huge fan of the books and miniseries.
to, you know, be in the prepares, you know.
It was so great
>> Armistead Maupin: And a wonderful cast. Wes Taylor playing
Mouse, I think that's the best Mouse of all. He really caught
his spirit. Betsy Wolf as Mary Ann, she's gone on to be a big
Broadway star, basically. And to sing at the Met and deflate a
Mouse three weeks ago. Yes?
>>: So what's next for you? Do you have a new series in mind,
perhaps inspired by your second Burning Man?
>> Armistead Maupin: A new series inspired by my second Burning
Man? No, I don't have that in mind. I don't
you know, I
don't know. I'm allowing myself a little breathing room now that
I have it. Keeping in mind that the mortgage still has to be
paid, but I've thought about memoir, because I have had a number
of interesting things happen over the years that might make for
good memoir.
And I've actually talked to my husband, Christopher, about a one
man show, a thing I could take around, we could take around. We
have this fantasy of having like an Airstream trailer and doing
Uncle Armistead's Medicine Show or something and taking along our
friend Matt Alber, who is a singer songwriter, and putting on a
little thing we could do. We could go to places where I'm not
normally sent on book tours and, you know, support ourselves with
it.
>>: And how are you going to deal with the end of the
are you
going to do another book? Are there going to be
these
characters. I don't want to lose them.
>> Armistead Maupin: We have a support program. [applause].
For $300 a weekend, you can gather in a room with similarly
troubled people. And I will make up things that have happened to
them. I'm being completely glib. No, I don't have plans for
their further, you know, for their continuation. This is the end
of the series.
>>:
Can you tell us about your writing process.
>> Armistead Maupin: My writing process. I generally write in
the morning, try to start in the morning when I have the energy,
high
better energy. I do this weird thing. I know other
writers who do it too. I go to sleep thinking about the story
but in any kind of formal way, just kind of
I used to do it as
a kid. I told myself stories. I had serial, I had three
different serials running in my head when I was a child.
And I would move them a little further along as I went to sleep.
It became a sort of technique for going to sleep. Now I require
Ambien, Alteril and a couple of tokes on a joint. But I still do
it. I still let the story percolate while I'm sleeping, I guess,
is the best way to put it.
And then it's just hard. It's just grunt work. My friend, Ann
Lamott, has written a wonderful book called Bird By Bird. You
know it? Yeah. And I always think about it, because she remind
me that you just have to basically write about a moment, tell
yourself I'm not writing a novel. I'm just writing the moment
when the woman comes in the room and talks to her daughter, and
that's it. That's all I'm doing. I'm not going to freak out
about it. I'm just doing that scene. And then you do another
one the next day. And that's how this happened, you know.
It's two pages at the most, every time I discipline myself to sit
down and write.
>>: Do you know how it's going to end? Do you already know
that? Are you trying to get to that destination?
>> Armistead Maupin: Roughly. I had roughly in mind how this
was going to loop back on itself. But not really. I have a sort
of general road map in mind. In this case, quite literally.
There are two different road trips that are going on. And then I
let detours pop up as they will. So partially it's about keeping
myself surprised. And it about play too. Finding the playful
heart of what you do.
I wasn't entirely joking about I don't smoke it the way I did in
the past, and I use vaporizers, but a few little
a little puff
on a vaporizer can sometimes put me right in the place to
continue with that play. I don't try to actually contact with
the keys in that stage. I'm perfectly sober when I actually
write. But it works
they work together.
>>: Huge fan, obviously, and I know I'm not alone. When I came
out years ago, my friend pointed me to the series and I read the
first three, and they've been an amazing kind of almost charter
for me coming out. Do you
>> Armistead Maupin: If you were any closer, I'd be hugging you
right now, so you're safe. But I love hearing that. Thank you
very much.
>>: I don't know if you set out to write something that people
who are coming out could kind of identify with, and I wonder if,
now that you look back at the legacy of the nine books, if you
have any special message for people who are coming out today.
You know, it's a very different world than when you wrote the
original books, but I think so much is applicable. I'm curious
to hear your words on it.
>> Armistead Maupin: Thank you very, very much. What happened
to me was I was coming out in the process of writing this. I was
working at the San Francisco Chronicle telling the story. I'd
already introduced a gay character, but I had a bunch of other
characters, so it wasn't going to incriminate me with my family
back home, who were following the serial.
But then Anita Bryant began her campaign in South Florida and
like a lot of other people of my generation, we said that's it.
That's enough. And we understood that the power
that how we
could take power was by making ourselves public, by showing the
world who we were. And I had this amazing vehicle where I could
do it.
I had freakishly, I had already decided that Michael Tolliver
should be the son of Florida orange growers. And Anita Bryant,
of course, was the spokesperson for Florida orange juice. So I
had Michael's mother write him and say how proudly say that she
had joined the Anita Bryant Save Our Children Campaign and
Michael writes back to say, hey, guess what? Your own child is
gay and I don't need saving.
And that letter, which took me 45 minutes to write, has been
reprinted and used more than any other thing I've ever written.
It was made into a big choral piece for gay choruses. Jay Shears
made it into a very sweet little song for the musical. It's had
its own life.
And I realized at that point that that was my purpose of
activism. It was entirely intentional and it's activism that
just emerges from the fact that gay people are not only in it,
they are there in it alongside their straight and trans friends.
And everything's fine. It's working for them. And I knew that's
what I could say to the world. And I was accused of sort of
utopianism at the beginning, but I don't feel it.
I mean, it's caught up. I watched the Grammys the other night,
and Christopher and I were sitting there weeping on the sofa. I
was also shaking my fist at Queen Latifah, by the way. But
eventually, maybe after she's married 30 couples in public, she
herself will come out.
But it was very moving. And here, right from Seattle, McLemore
and Ryan Lewis, Seattle bred and born and internet bred. I mean,
am I not right? They did this basically off a YouTube video?
They're spreading this word to this whole room full of people who
are equally moved. I mean, you looked out there and saw all
those big stars crying while that was going on.
The world has changed right in front of our eyes. There was a
time when that would not have been permitted at all, and the only
time I ever say anything to younger generations, because I think
fundamentally they're a lot smarter than my generation in many,
many ways, is that know where it's coming from, you know. Know
that when I started writing Tales of the City, my love was both a
crime and a mental illness. And that that's happened in these 40
years. And it a beautiful thing. It a beautiful time to be LGBT
in the world to feel the wheels of history like this.
And you had as the second part of that question, I can't even
remember what it was right now.
>>:
Do you have anything to say to people coming out today.
>> Armistead Maupin: Yeah. Just first of all, do it. It's
important. Do not let people sort of minimalize it and say, oh,
it doesn't matter anymore. We're all everything. Well, yes you
are. But that's usually said at avoidance of saying that you're
gay or that, you know
it is. It must be said.
We're not too sophisticated for that yet, obviously, as Queen
Latifah proved the other night. There's work yet to be done.
And I like her, by the way, very much. I just want her to be
happy and admit that her personal trainer is her girlfriend or
whatever it is.
>>: I'm hearing a little bit more every year about the nostalgia
of the old society where gays were sub and hidden, and the
tantalization of being a hidden subculture. Do you feel that?
Do you see that at all?
>> Armistead Maupin: Fuck that shit. [applause]. That's pretty
much the answer. Yeah, I hear it. I see it around and I
actually see people of my generation. But there's usually some
shame involved. Gore Vidal has talked in some of his last
memoirs, he talked about oh, how great it was, the old days
because you could get more straight men into bed with you because
things weren't defined as the way they are now.
There was shame attached to everything. Shame and criminality
and danger. Not things that I liked to have as a component of my
love life. So I don't miss it at all. I mean, I don't
I'm
happy where we are today, and I'm happy that young people do not
have to go through the torment
many of them don't. Many of
them in our country.
There is a worldwide epidemic of institutional homophobia that we
have to address now in places like Nigeria and Russia, and I
think that that's what we're here for. I think that's what the
people who have made the journey and are happy with themselves
and aren't putting up with the shit anymore, we need to make it
right for others. Help to make it right for others.
But no, I don't have that nostalgia of the bushes or whatever it
is. At all. You know, we've all got imaginations. We can be
nasty anywhere we want at any time. I think a good sex life,
whether you're gay, straight or stray is about having an
imagination.
And that goes, I have to say, with getting older. Yes, the
libido doesn't veer up as frequently, but it can be wonderful. I
always like to quote Aunt Augusta from Travels With My Aunt, the
great Graham Greene novel, and she's played by
helps to know
she's played by Maggie Smith in the movie. She says, I've always
preferred an occasional orgy to nightly routine. [laughter].
I think of that often.
>>: So I remember after Sure Of You was written that you were
very adamant about I'm not coming back to this series. I'm never
coming back to it again.
>> Armistead Maupin:
Yeah.
No.
>>: So I was very surprised when the first book came out and
now, I haven't read it, but the closure of this. So what drew
you out to write these last three books and sort of your question
is, like, could there be some time in between and all of a sudden
>> Armistead Maupin: You're saying you don't know how to believe
me anymore? Is that what it is? I don't blame you. The
motivation for stopping with Sure Of You was I had established
that Michael Tolliver was HIV positive. And in 1989, that was a
death sentence.
So I thought I had written a series of books in which it made it
clear that Michael, the every man, had this thing that was taking
so many of my friends. I didn't want to continue, because I
didn't want to write one more story where the gay man dies at the
end.
>>:
Right.
>> Armistead Maupin: Or the gay character, period. When you saw
movies, you know, Peter Russo's wonderful Celluloid Closet was
about that, about how movies always
we had to pay for it. We
paid for it. We might have had our fun, but we would die. Or
like in
I think it's a movie called The Fox with the lesbians,
where one of them has a tree fall on her. You know, you paid for
it. And that way, the viewing audience saw that it wasn't being
endorsed by the film makers.
And I didn't want to do that in Tales. I wanted to leave him
bravely fighting. And then after, you know, after the millenium
came about and I started thinking about what I wanted to do next,
and I thought, well, I'll write a novel about a gay man who
survived. Celebrate my own generation.
And then I realized I had that guy. I had Michael Tolliver, and
people were familiar with his history. So it would have an extra
resonance. I wrote that. That's the only one that been written
in first person. Got a lot of criticism for it, because people
thought it was heavily autobiographical. I used a lot, but I'm
negative, HIV negative myself. So that wasn't me.
And said it wasn't part of the Tales of the City series because I
didn't want to disappoint people who were used to the old multi
character tapestry. And so that's how I got back into it. And
then as soon as I got into Michael Tolliver Lives, all of the
other characters were madly auditioning to be in it. [laughter].
I put them in, and, yeah, and the big health crisis that comes to
Mary Ann in Mary Anne in Autumn was something being experienced
by a close friend of mine so I had a close up look at that and I
wanted to use it and it just kind of got me back into the swim of
it. So that's kind of the reason.
>>: You think about the team of people that works with you,
editor, publicist, et cetera, to bring a book like this to life.
What would you say are some of the most important functions where
you need alignment?
>> Armistead Maupin: Among the people that help out to bring a
book to life? You know, well, first of all, if you have a good
editor that's really
if you have a hand on editor, that's a
great thing. Somebody who knows what you're trying to do and
looks at it.
Publicity is not to be underestimated. I'm here, I'm standing
here right now because a publicity department arranged it and got
me here. Because nobody knows you have a book out, then it
doesn't work.
I didn't get into social networking until about five years ago,
when my husband said, you really should, and now I'm just the
most pathetic old Facebook geezer. Sitting here with all these
other old people scrapbooking online, you know. And here's how
good I looked in 1982, you know. Very useful for older people,
actually. And maybe only that particular one. I'm still not
really terribly comfortable on Twitter.
And I know that people refer to Facebook as face lift, and but
it's been terrific. This is probably not the right group to ask,
but you're here because you're with Microsoft and I was put with
Microsoft. Does anybody follow me on
oh, there we are. On
Facebook. Yeah. Great. Thank you. I think it's very useful
for a writer, particularly, because you can directly hook up with
the people who like your work. They've already been on there and
liked you or whatever, and you can hook up with them. And then
when you go to a city, you can say I'll coming tomorrow and I'll
be so and so. And I've watched it happen in book stores
repeatedly.
So that's recommended. That's pretty
I don't want to minimize
anybody else's job at a publishing house, but it's all a team.
Do you have a book you're
>> I'm toying with something, and I'm trying to understand what
are the different functions and elements and where it's most
important if you've got the alignment. And if you have a few
minutes afterward, I'd love to take it offline for a couple
minutes.
>> Armistead Maupin: Yeah, sure. Okay. I mean, happily. You
don't want to do it publicly, I understand. Agent, by the way.
Agent. I should have probably started with that. Yes?
>>: Any modern authors who you think might be carrying the
torch.
>> Armistead Maupin:
>>:
Of what you're
>> Armistead Maupin:
>>:
Of what?
There will be none after me.
[laughter].
Do you have any modern authors that you like?
>> Armistead Maupin: Oh, sure. Sure. And it's always hard to
immediately name them. But some of them are not that much
younger than I am, but I love the work of Peter Cameron, Patrick
Gale, who's an English writer. Oh, where do I start? What have
I been reading lately? I read that Gone Girl thing this year,
and I could not put it down. I thought it was so beautifully
written. I thought that's a really well deserved success.
Gillian Flynn.
Annie Lamott, I talked about her manual earlier, but her writing
in general is just beautiful and humane. Oh, it's always my
least favorite question because I can't conjure it up right away,
but there's some of them.
>>:
I didn't mean to put you on the spot.
>> Armistead Maupin: No, no. It's a legitimate question. And I
would like to be able to serve my fellow authors by trotting out
their names, but I'm not doing it right now, am I?
>>: Actually, this is more just a thank you. The books you
wrote sort of helped illuminate and are a companion for a very
interesting times in my life in California in the '70s and '80s,
and you illustrated the frightening, the horror of the plague
coming like very few other people, and I remember that time in my
life as friends died. And the books have meant a lot to me.
>> Armistead Maupin: Thank you, sir. Very much. I appreciate
that. It's been my pleasure and honor, I might say, having the
opportunity to tell these stories. And thank you very much for
coming today. [applause]