¡une 1. 2001 * Jaaft M H43
BOOKS
..............¥ ..............
He bangs
Heavy metal scribe Paul Gallotta
writes a brutally honest journal
by
Division of Sherman Clay
Exclusive dealers for:
J.S. H all
L iving and D ying in 4/4 T ime
S T [ I N W A Y
by Paul Gallotta. Upstart Press, 2000;
softcover $12. 95.
aul Gallotta can’t be accused of having a
heart of pure gold—can anyone who refers
to people as “human speed bumps” and
“Spam-sucking parasites” really be described as
wholly charitable? But like all of us, he has his
moments of good deeds. Most of these deeds
have come from working or volunteering at
various AIDS service organizations, mostly
Center One in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
As this collection of excerpts from his jour
nals (“Women keep diaries, men don’t. I keep
a journal”) attests, he has made quite a journey
thus far in his life. When the journal began in
1985, Gallotta was a miserable closet case in
New York City living with a girlfriend named
Eva, writing for the heavy metal magazine
Circus and drinking and drugging his way to
oblivion on a regular basis.
As the years passed, he spent a decade
with a loser boyfriend (aptly named Dick),
took care of his father as he died of cancer
and eventually got into a healthy relationship
with a man. Together, they raised a young
adopted girl.
Gallotta’s bad habits, though, remained a
steady companion for many years. Despite
occasional bouts of clarity (“If I behave like my
friends do when they’re hammered, I’m amazed
that nobody has shot me yet”), it would be
many years before he went sober.
Although it borders on schmaltz, the senti
ment he expressed in his introduction seems
genuine: “If a drug-addled borderline psychotic
piece of trailer-trash such as myself can make a
difference in other people’s lives, anyone can.
You just gotta
wanna. And imag
ine what a planet
this would be if we
all gave it a shot.”
As a semiclos-
eted gay man in
the less-than-toler-
ant world of heavy
metal, Gallotta
often found him
self in the unenvi
able position of lis
tening to rock
stars such as Axl
Rose and Sebast
Paul Gallotta
ian Bach spout
anti-gay, anti-AIDS rhetoric yet not having
the courage to call them on their prejudices.
As he came to accept his sexual orientation,
his journals reflect a growing awareness of the
daily injustices faced by gay men and lesbians.
O f the August 1987 death of civil rights
activist Bayard Rustin, he observes: “Every
obituary I read mentioned that he was
instrumental in helping Martin Luther King
with his civil rights campaign in the early to
mid-’60s. None mentioned he was gay. You
know they’d have said something if he were
a child molester.”
Gallotta’s AIDS activism began with Gay
Men’s Health Crisis in New York and contin
ued in several states. His substance abuse often
blunted the depressing parade of clients, and as
he gradually eased off drink and drugs, some
person or incident would make him bitterly
regret his efforts.
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But rather than succumbing to the ennui of
daily bureaucracy, he remained fiery, even
though he seems fueled largely by exasperation.
Some of his journal entries certainly will give
one pause— imagine going into a bar and rec
ognizing “about 60 percent of the patrons as
being clients of Center One” and discovering
many of them either giving or receiving blow
jobs in the hallway connecting the outside and
inside bars.
And what would barebackers think of
someday having a syringe of drugs injected
directly into an eyeball in hopes of saving their
vision? If such brutal honesty, delivered with
all the tact of an echoing fart in a fancy restau
rant, gets some people to reconsider their sexu
al behaviors, then so much the better.
Gallotta’s scathing wit offsets the grimness
of his daily work. Not since actor Tom Baker’s
darkly comic autobiography Who on Earth Is
Tom Baker? has there been such a successful
mix of heartwrenching moments swiftly fol
lowed by moments of hilarious lunacy.
For example, Gallotta often asked his dying
clients if they wanted any embarrassing items
disposed of before their families discovered
them. After one such run—with dildos, vibra
tors and other sex toys bouncing in the back
seat— he gets pulled over by a cop.
Some might accuse Gallotta of name-
dropping (a staff writer of a highly acclaimed
but short-lived magazine of his would become
much more famous as the freaky rock star
Marilyn Manson), but if the initial paradox of
a gay man immersing himself in heavy metal
gets more people to read Living and Dying in 4/4
Time, then that’s a great thing.
Bracing yet searingly funny, the book
might lack subtlety, but its heart is in the
right place. Downheat yet strangely uplift
ing, it’s the literary equivalent of a cold
shower with an exfoliating scrub. The prod
uct of a small press, it might not look quite
as professional and polished as some of its
shelfmates, hut its message certainly deserves
to be heard, read and spread. J D
J.S. H all is a free-lance book reviewer.
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