Writer/comic/storyteller/actress/poet/performer Beth Lisick is profiled in the San Francisco Chronicle upon the release of her new collection of true stories, Everybody Into the Pool. The book chronicles her life from homecoming queen to professional punk rock slacker to San Francisco art scene doyenne to thirty-something mother of a baby named Gus. Now, she's being accused of selling out because her book was published by Regan Books, publishers of Jenna Jameson, Amber Frey, and Kimora Lee Simmons. Either way, Lisick's road to success has been anything but normal.
Since quitting her day job at SFGate.com and having her son, Gus, now 3 1/2, Lisick has freelanced and done odd jobs. One of her odder jobs provided fodder for one of the most hilarious stories in her new book, "The Lowly Hustle." Lisick wore a giant banana suit for a friend's fruit delivery service, the Fruit Guys, during lunch hour in Justin Herman Square.
"That was seriously last year," Lisick says, laughing. "You know, and I say this in the story, I realized as soon as I put on the foam banana suit that I wasn't really embarrassed about it, but I felt bad for other people seeing me, a thirtysomething mother in a foam banana suit, who felt bad."
What does selling out even mean any more? You can't exist outside the machine without almost completely isolating yourself from society. Even the people thrashing around in the name of anarchy or what have you are still part of the machine, whether they like it or not. Who can you sell out to? Who can say that they haven't sold out? And it's little things, like who makes your toothbrush, your toilet paper, your socks and your bandaids?
susannah_breslin
I'm lost
June 2005
JUL 13, 2005 11:48 AM