David Henry Sterry is the author of the national bestselling memoir Chicken: Self-Portrait of a Young Man For Rent (Regan Books/HarperCollins  2002), about his life as a seventeen-year-old prostitute in Hollywood.  Confessions Of A Sex Addict, included in San Francisco Noir (Akashic 2005) was a finalist for the Henry Miller award.  And his new memoir, Unzipped: a True Story of Sex, Drugs, Roller-Skates and Murder, (Grove Atlantic/Canongate 2007) detailing his experiences as the emcee of Chippendales comes out this summer in the U.S. under the title Master Of Ceremonies: A True Story of Love, Murder, Roller-Skates and Chippendales. 
 
 
 

David Henry Sterry has a lot of friends.  I just happen to be one of them.  I met him before I ever read Chicken.  So, I never had one of those moments where it hit me that “Hey, it’s kind of cool that I know this guy.”  But, I think a lot of David’s friends never have that moment. 

I don’t mean to imply that he’s not impressive.  He’s just not pretentious, but mostly because he doesn’t try to act as if he is specifically unpretentious.  If I have to think about what David is like, and incidentally I do, the image that comes to mind is of my brother.   

When Ben was young, any time company arrived, he would begin the toy parade.  He would bring out all his toys one at a time until he had excitedly shown our guests all of them.  He never appeared to have some point of reference about any of his previous displays.  

That is how I see David.  He’s more like an eccentric quixotic little kid than a jaded painfully idiosyncratic adult.  He will keep showing you his toys as if they are all equally brilliant.  And as his guest a person just never knows.  And while this still might sound insulting as it indicates that I don’t think every tiny thing that David does is totally awesome, what I mean is that David is one of the few people who could easily allow the aura of mystery often bestowed upon writers to be a veil between him and his fans and even friends.  He just doesn’t pretend to be this flawless entity of genius.  He also doesn’t pretend that he doesn’t believe that all of his toys are special.  He lets people in on that self-deprecating process of discovering that not everything one does is wonderful.  But, he’s also not afraid to tell you about the things that did turn out wonderfully.  This is where my fascination with David remains; in his ability to be like a child who is in love with everything he does at the moment he does it, but who also doesn’t spend a lot of time regretting when something doesn’t quite turn out the way he wants it to.  He just does something else.  And sometimes he pops into the living room with something completely original (like a special edition Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle).  
 

This might be a juvenile question, but why do you use all three names?

I’ve had a lot of problems with my name.  In my new memoir a casting director calls me David Scary and I never correct her because it reflected how I felt at the time…what a scary monster I was.  Honestly this is what happened, I had an acting career for twenty years and when I was done with that I wanted to change who I was.  David Sterry really was like my caterpillar name and I was ready to change.  David Henry Sterry is my butterfly name.    

Should we move on to the next question? 

It’s your fucking interview.  All right, what question are we on? 

Two.  What do you think is the allure of having an elaborate name? 

My editor at Harper Collins asked me, “Do you think that name is pretentious?”  And I said, “It’s just pretentious enough.”  And I happen to like long names.  I can take them more seriously; complicated names. 

OK, moving on to more substantial topics… 

We’re on number three now? 

Uh, yeah, number three.  So, you used to be a male prostitute who services women, as detailed in your memoir Chicken.  How was that? 

[laughter] Another excellent question.  Well, let’s see…I was really scared at first.  As a man I was really afraid that…well, there were certain requirements that I wouldn’t be able to fulfill.  There are many things in life you can fake.  And as I say in my book Chicken, which has been translated into twelve language- 

You can stop talking about that now [Mutual laughter about his humorous predilection for bragging] 

An erection is not one of them.  E-R-E-C-T-I-O-N (HA).  I was nervous about that.  You’ve got to be able to…

Get it up? 

I was going to use a euphemism…oh, I guess that is a euphemism.  I was going to say, “Deliver the goods” 

Do you think that a lot of people see your past situation as harmless when compared to that of a seventeen year old girl doing the same thing?  

Yes.  [laughter] 

OK I guess I’ll continue. 

You could ask me to elaborate if you want to. 

For example, there’s a scene where you are being forced to clean house in the presence of lesbian sex.  I laughed a lot while I was reading it.  But, you were a seventeen-year-old kid.  Why do you think it is difficult for people to empathize with a male in this type of situation? 

I think people have this image that if you are a male then what better job could you have?  I still get guys contacting me who are like, “Uh…I like sex.  I like money.  Can I do what you did?” And for me, the things that these particular women inflicted on me were some of the most horrible things that have happened to me in my whole life.  Just sitting here right now, thinking about it I feel this rage.  I just want to hit my fist through a window.  You know?  Thirty years later.  I was so scarred by that.   

You have been candid in other interviews about your past sex addiction and the fact that you went through hypnotherapy. Could you explain how that was helpful? 

I could never seem to get to the whole bottom of things.  I think that with the way my mind works that I was able to very easily to access my subconscious.  I would just sit in the chair; the big comfy chair and she wouldn’t even have to hypnotize me.  I would just be out in that state. 

Would you say that it was a more fundamental way to deprogram yourself?  

I wouldn’t say deprogram.  I would say it was a way to just unscramble my brain…yeah, I mean a lot of people; their brains get in their way and I was trained as an English person to shut off my emotions and that was a problem.  I had a way to get past my brain to the other side of it.  And you know in psychotherapy there’s all these archetypes and for my brain to connect these images and pictures was helpful. 

You have also said that becoming addicted to cocaine and working as the emcee for Chippendales led to your sex addiction, because it was very difficult being the “ugliest man at Chippendales”.  But, what role did being a Chicken play in becoming a sex addict. 

Really, no one’s ever asked me that before and you’d think it would be obvious.  A guy who was very popular and handsome said, “Hey, I’ll give you some cocaine if you introduce me this certain way.”  And it was a cocaine culture.  Normalized.  So, I was getting into it and it was really fun and I really enjoyed it but then it got to this point where I really needed it and for me the whole relationship between love, money, and sex… 

The whole immediate gratification thing? 

And the immediate gratification…that was so much of being a Chicken.  I felt so little love and that was something I could be good at; love or what I thought was love.   

Just for deconstruction-sake what was so self-destructive about being a sex addict?  

I would put myself in these positions searching for sex that were just physically dangerous.  I woke up in a crack house on 127^th street.  And the woman that lured me there looked pretty good, but in the light she just looked like a painted up crack ho and her skanky crack ho pimps were behind her with fucking baseball bats and one of them whacked me over the head with a pipe and luckily I have an English skull.  It’s the hardest part of my body, thank God.  I just stood there and stared at this guy, just looked at him…just radical danger.  I didn’t think I deserved to be alive.  I didn’t want to kill myself cause that also leaves someone else to clean up the mess and I don’t think that’s fair.  And also they have to find your body, probably someone you care about.  I mean these were all subconscious thoughts at the time, but I would rather have had someone kill me than kill myself. 

So in a sense you were suicidal? 

Yes, I just wanted someone else to pull the trigger.  Yes, so that’s the downside of being a sex addict. 

You also have described yourself as a sexual revolutionary.  Could you elaborate on what you mean by that? 

Well, I feel like we’re brainwashed from the time we’re very little to think about sex and relationships in a kind of monogamous, monotonous, 2.5 children sort of way and there’s a lot of money at stake in us buying into this.  There are a lot of multi-million dollar corporations making money on this. 

Jewelry companies? 

Jewelry companies, clothing companies, vagina freshening companies, you could just go down the list.  And there’s just this way of being or conforming in a relationship, to sexuality with yourself and to other people.  Like when my book came out, when Chicken came out people wanted to know…they constantly asked if I was straight or gay or what was I and my position was just kind of like, unless you want to have sex with me I don’t see how it’s relevant.  But it was more about what box do you fit in?  My uh, the way I look at sexuality it’s a very fluid thing but I was forced to think about some way to come up with an answer to this question and so I thought about it a lot.  I tell people that I think of myself as 75% straight, 20% lesbian, and 5% gay. 

How do you see yourself as 20% lesbian (At this point the equation looks like 95% straight to me)? 

Well, there are certain characteristics sexuality-wise.  I like to make love to a beautiful woman.  I enjoy that as much as the next lesbian.  Um, but you know they have a way of communicating and talking, like I was the best man at my ex-wife’s lesbian wedding.  My mom was of course a lesbian and I grew up with part of that culture.  And I really like the parts of that culture that are different than people with penises. 

Could you explain your views on the concept of sex work as it differs from the way people generally tend to see prostitution? 

Well, there’s a reason they call prostitution the oldest profession in the world, cause I think that from the time people were exchanging goods and services they were exchanging sex.  And people want to abolish it.  And I say look they tried to do this with alcohol and all it does is put the means of production into the hands of gangsters.  That’s all it does.  We exchange all kinds of intimate goods and services you know, from Shiatsu massage to therapy to getting a good haircut.  That can be very intimate.  No one would say that you can’t be a hairdresser cause it’s too intimate.  In my mind it just keeps coming back to that puritanical thing where sex is bad and should only be used for procreation and that people who in indulge in it recreationally are bad people.  I often talk about it in terms of other professions.  Like a nurse might often times be called upon to suck fluids out of a person in distress [Me, laughing.  David attempting to continue the analogy with a straight face.] much as a sex worker might...  If you ask a little kid what they want to do when they grow up and they say a nurse…Well, Oh, that’s great, but if the kid said, “I want to be a sex worker when I grow up.”…can you imagine if your five year old kid said that? Oh my god! 

Your newest book, which is already out in the UK and receiving good reviews will be coming out here in July.  The UK title for anyone who can’t wait is called Unzipped: A True Story of Sex, Drugs, Roller-skates and Murder, but the American Title is Master Of Ceremonies: A True Story Of Love, Murder, Roller-Skates And Chippendales. Anyway…could you give us a quick pitch? 

This book is about several subjects actually.  It’s about what it was like to be at the epicenter of one of the greatest party cultures that our civilization has ever known.  The 80s in New York City; cash happy coke crazy, just an amazing time to be alive.  Incredible music, big hair, steroids which had found their way into the middle of American culture.  To be at Chippendales, the hottest show in the city that never sleeps was such a wild ride.  That’s part of it.  Part of it is about what it’s like to work for a man who saw himself as a true revolutionary. Talking about Nick DeNoia, this sort of creative genius…if you can use that word very loosely.  A man who was one of the most generous, charming, sweet natured men I’ve met on the one hand, on the other hand one of the most brutal, cruel, abusive bullies, I’ve ever had the opportunity to meet, certainly to work with in my life.  And this book is about what it’s like to work with a guy like that and to work with a man who is assassinated in cold blood.  It’s also about what it’s like to be the ugliest man at Chippendales working with 25 of the most beautiful men on the planet.  The crazy soap opera that went on behind the scenes.  And it’s about the women.  Lily Tomlin did a bit where she talked about how if aliens came to Earth to see what theater is like they would think that the audience was putting on the show.  That’s what it was like for me at Chippendales.  I would fall in love at least once a night there.  And they would come in packs with the same clothes and the same hair and get drunk and they were just fantastic theater.  I just loved watching them.  And eventually it’s about coming to grips with this dark demon that was inside of me.  I mean I came to Chippendales to become a star but in the end I believe I got something which was much more valuable.  I got love.  How’s that? 

Not short.   

[laughs] 

I find it interesting that both of your memoirs are essentially about gender role reversals within, I don’t know how to put this…erotic subcultures.  You have described Nick DeNoia, the creator of Chippendales as a visionary.  Do you really think that DeNoia believed he was doing something profound? 

He was totally convinced.  That place was totally unique…it was like a Broadway show, in that direction anyway.  You got all kinds of people, tourists from Iowa and they wouldn’t have been there if it was some sleazy thing.  He really did create an environment where women were free to fondle, ogle and sexualize hot male flesh.  That is revolutionary.  And it comes out of the women’s movement. You could also argue that it was a way for men to make money off of women.  Actually you could make a very good argument for both of those things. I do believe that DeNoia had a profound effect on this culture and was picking up on things that were just bubbling along the surface.  

OK, The UGLIEST man at Chippendales?  How did perceiving yourself this way affect you?  Did you look in the mirror a lot and obsess about your pecs? 

Well, it affected me on different levels.  In a culture where beauty and youth are worshiped, I was.  And, mind you, it’s not like I’m some hideous gargoyle of a freak, but compared to these guys who are like Adonises I was like a frog desperately trying to get kissed by a princess. So, to have these women look through me to the hot young dumb stud behind me who’s soul was actually rotting away and was a miserable fucking human being, that was troubling, happening over and over every night.  And yes I did vow like twice a week, “Oh, I’m really going to get myself in shape, I ‘m going to have big pecs.”  And I did actually get myself pretty fit, but I realized pretty quick that I was never going to look like a stud so it was really pretty much a waste of time. 

Going back to Chicken, I think that it is one of those superior memoirs that reads much more like literary Fiction.  There was only one thing that bothered me.  As a character, I found the girlfriend to be quite underdeveloped.  Does that criticism resonate with you? 

If it were fiction I would completely agree with you, but at the time when I was seventeen I couldn’t really see this girl for what she was.   

So you were being vague on purpose? 

Yes, yes…. Looking back I wish I said something to that effect, “Wow, I’m probably not doing any justice to this girl.” I don’t think that it was even close to a realistic portrayal, but that’s how I saw her. 

So you wish you would have done something to make that a little bit more obvious…a little more intentional about your vagueness. 

If I had to rewrite it that is one of the things I would put in there, yes. 

I find that you manage throughout the book to balance effectively between seriousness and humor.  And, also I love that it ends well.  Given the subject matter it could have been preachy or overly sentimental, but wasn’t.  What do you think it takes to end a book well in a literary sense?  

I feel like ending things is one of the most difficult to do with anything: a novel a short story, a play, a comedy sketch.  Like Monty Python would just drop a sixteen pound weight on the characters at the end of the sketch.  That’s how you end a sketch.  It’s just so hard to do.  To me one of the greatest endings of any nonfiction or fiction I’ve ever seen was the Full Monty.  You’re going through this whole movie and wondering if these poor shlubs are going to be able to do this thing and it looks like they’re not and at the end when they do take their clothes off it’s such an accomplishment and what they’re accomplishing is not going to make their lives all better.  They’re not going to live happily ever after cause they took their fucking pants off. These characters succeed in doing this one thing in this one moment of life.  Everybody has something like that…just this one thing that you want to do and once in a while you manage to pull it off in this way that’s just spectacular and it’s transcendent and joyful and it makes you a better person. 
 

I think one of your major strengths is your ability to create a writing style that mirrors the action of the story.  This is definitely the case with Unzipped.  The style is brilliant in that it is Gaudy, obnoxious, and decadent, and even unoriginal and cliché at times, much like Chippendales in the eighties.  It’s exhausting to imagine you laboring over your gratuitous use of zany adjectives. Was writing this way as arduous as it seems? 

Well, it was awfully arduous but it’s kind of pain staking work that I actually enjoy.  If I didn’t enjoy it I wouldn’t do it.  But it’s like making a mosaic. You have to think about and rearrange all the pieces and when you’re doing it, it doesn’t look like anything.  It just looks like jumbled garbage.  But the act of discovering exactly what word you want and how to change a word around, um it’s so exciting when you finally get it right…very satisfying.  I really enjoy the task of doing it.   

How would you address criticism about the book not transitioning well toward the end as things get more personal?  

You know, I struggled a lot about timing but in truth the way my life unfolded at the time I wasn’t revealing to myself, especially not to anyone else.  And that’s how I tried to write it. 

You adapted Chicken into a one-man show that you toured all over the world with a few years ago, which was incredibly well received.  Are you planning on doing the same thing with Master of Ceremonies? 

I would like to make it into a musical.  A review suggested it.  I already have a whole opening sort of montage thing in my head with all the music and the Chippendales dancers coming out and doing their ridiculous pelvic-thrust-dances.  Then everything stops and the pin light comes on the emcee and he says something and then it goes back to all this craziness.  

What is the process like when you are adapting a piece of writing into something that can be performed? 

David ford in the bay area. This man is a fucking genius.  He’s a one-man-play-specialist and what he told me is that when you are presenting something visually you can take out so many words.  You can communicate with an eyebrow raise half a page of prose.  

Do you feel then, that in a sense you are actually communicating more this way? 

Yes, I totally do.  

I have just a bit of obscure information to throw out before we leave.  You were in a few episodes of The Fresh Prince Of Bell-Air.  Would you please describe that experience in three words or less? 

Fan-Fucking-Tastic. 
 
 
Aimee DeLong is a writer, living in Brooklyn. Some of her fiction has been published by Hotel St. George Press, Cherry Bleeds and Lit Chaos. Slightly more information about Aimee can be found at her website, www.aimeedelong.com. She thinks that everything ever is totally awesome.