I forgot to mention that Tricycle magazine's blog noticed the buzz that Sex, Sin And Zen was getting and put up this article about it. Neat.Also, I got a notice in Scene magazine, the very same mag where I found the ad that Zero Defex placed for a bass player back a million years ago. And speaking of Zero Defex, we're playing again on Tuesday night at Annabelle's in Akron for anyone who missed the show at the Kent Stage on Saturday.
It was an amazing show, by the way. If you missed it, too bad for you because you missed something really cool. I feel like I can brag all I want about Zero Defex because it's not really my band, in the sense that I didn't start it or write most of the songs. Zero Defex is a force of nature. It's a creature that only exists when the four of us manage to get together and bring it forth out of wherever pit of darkness it hides the rest of the time. I'm telling you folks, last Saturday night we subjugated!
On Sunday, the day after Zero Defex destroyed Kent, Ohio, I got to go up to Cleveland and hang out with Tim McCarthy, my first Zen teacher (thanks to Zak for driving me up there and Jayce for hosting the get-together). He's still as foul-mouthed as ever. Someone told him that I talk about him more in my new book than I have in any of the previous ones. That might be true. I don't know. But every time I see him I realize how much of my schtick I've stolen outright from him.Speaking of reviews, the reviews for Sex Sin And Zen have been real interesting. My favorite line so far is, "Coming soon, the inevitable Brad Warner sex tape. It’s just a matter of time because I’m willing to bet the farm that this guy is getting laid like crazy." The same reviewer says I can't be a monk because monks are celibate and monastic. Not so. The guy ought to read up a bit on the Japanese Buddhist tradition. As for getting laid like crazy, that depends on what you mean by "crazy." Sorry. That's another one of my juvenile jokes.
It's just funny to read about what people imagine my life to be. It's intensely bizarre to have so many people you don't know commenting on your life and usually getting it so incredibly wrong. I used to find it far more worrisome than I do now. Now it's just silly.
I don't mind bad reviews when they're thoughtful. And the one excerpted above was actually OK. So far most of the reviews have been good, even the one I'm quoting wasn't really negative. The last time I got a bad review that was actually bad as a review was when Enlighten Next magazine (then called What Is Enlightenment) got pissy because I dissed their buddy Ken Wilber in Hardcore Zen. The reviewer gave no indication he'd read the book at all. But the editors wanted it trashed so he did his job.
Some reviewers think that I write in some kind of contrived persona. That I must not be really like whatever image that pops into their heads when they read me. And, of course this is true. That guy doesn't exist at all except in their heads. Same as the guy you are imagining right now does not exist at all except in your head. That's just how the game works.
People are always going, I've seen his videos on YouTube or I met him in person and he's nothing like his books. Which I just scratch my head about. I can only guess that these folks read what I write while imagining a voice something like Randy Blythe when he sings for Lamb of God. I ought to do an audio book so people can hear those lines delivered in my real voice. But then maybe I shouldn't destroy people's dreams. (This was a big deal when I worked at Tsuburaya Productions. We never allowed photos of people putting on or taking off the Ultraman costume because it would "destroy children's dreams.")
Anyway, I just write the way I write. My persona is as contrived as every other human on Earth's persona. Your persona is also a contrivance. So what?
Reviewers seem divided on whether the long interview with Nina Hartley was the best part of the book or the worst. Some say I should have devoted the entire book to interviews, others say the Nina Hartley stuff went on far too long. Me, I'm happy with it as it is. I think she makes some really important points that I couldn't possibly make myself. I don't agree with everything she says, but I didn't want to editorialize.
Some people didn't like the fact that the book is less of a memoir than my previous books. But I really did not want to write a book about my personal sex life. I don't think that would be very useful, and, unfortunately, it would be far less interesting than the reviewer quoted above would expect.
I thought it was high time someone addressed how contemporary Western Buddhists were dealing with issues of sexuality. It's an important subject and so far all we've really been presented with are what monastic Buddhists in ancient Asia did. Their solutions may be instructive but they really can't be applied to the world we live in, not without significant modification. And I talk about how those rules have been modified by people today trying to continue the tradition.
I was hoping the book would spark some discussion of the subject, and it has. This is one of the reasons I included some of my own views that I knew would not be accepted by a lot of practitioners. My views on pornography, S&M and prostitution, to give a few examples, are not shared by a lot of other Buddhists. So maybe this book will give those folks something to react to and talk about.
In the Zen school our only guideline for the past thousand years or so has been not to misuse sexuality. What the fuck does that mean? When Buddhism got transplanted in North America, a lot of people read that to mean what American conservative Christians mean when they say the stuff that they say about sex. But I don't think it comes from the same place at all. Am I right? Am I wrong? Only you know for certain.
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