|
First
and foremost: If you're under the age of 17, you need to hit
the back button on your browser now. Skinema is rated
NC-17, and you guys can come back when the material held within
is less warping to your precious young minds. The HBC only
has your best interest at heart. Honestly.
In order
to sum up the nature of this book handedly, please consider
the following phone message from page 19:
Listen.
What I'm about to tell you is probably going to ruin your
entire day but I need to say it because I'm in a bit of
a bind. So here it is: I was partying with your girlfriend,
got her real good and drunk and fucked up on pills and
cocaine, then I brought her back to her place and started
fucking her in the ass but she got all sick and started
puking everywhere. She turned blue for a while but she's
white again. Now she's in the tub bleeding out of her
head, gagging, and she's probably going to die if she
doesn't get some medical help real soon. That's where
you come in. I'm too drunk to drive and even if I wasn't
I really don't need to be involved in this kind of shit.
What I'm saying is I need to get out of here, I've got
things to do. And since she's technically your girlfriend,
I figure she's your responsibility.
The proceeding
is what author Chris Nieratko thought of leaving on a girl's
boyfriend's answering machine when she was ODing, and had
split her head open on the faucet. It is, if the book is to
be believed, a true story. That's the unique charm about Skinema:
the author is a complete and unapologetic asshole.
Oh, and
this story is in his review for the DVD I'm Your Slut #3,
from ClubRedLight.com. It was directed by Manuel Ferrara,
and Nieratko rated it a 6.
Ostensibly,
Skinema is a collection of porn reviews and features
published in Vice, Bizarre, Big Brother,
and other magazines written by New Jersey's native son Chris
Nieratko (you may know him as "that guy on Jackass
who puked trying to eat fifty eggs"). The "reviews," of movies
he admits he rarely watches, only mention porn about 15% of
the time, and it's often just the author using the title (i.e.
Cousin Stevie's Pussy Party: Anal Mimosas) to segue
into one of the personal anecdotes he uses to fill the space
for the review he'd been assigned. These too-intimate looks
into his life, according to one of the forwards, are generally
situations Nieratko would willingly get himself into so he'd
have something to talk about instead of doing his job. The
reviews are merely springboards to trot out these stories
of drugs, sex, drugs, porn, drugs, fights, drugs, sex, and
how much he loves his wife.
Now,
perhaps you've picked up on one of the book's chief flaws.
If lurid tales of debauchery don't interest you, this book
has nearly nothing to offer. If you don't have a weakness
for vicariously enjoying the humorously-told exploits of a
sexist asshole, you're better off finding something else.
Even for those who experience a sick glee reading about a
guy burning his penis by dipping it into coffee in a sexual
come-on gone wrong, this book may be oppressive. Two-hundred
and fifty pages of the same three or four topics can become
monotonous, and one gets the impression this book is to be
more of a coffee table book than something to read straight
through.
The other
chief flaw is that, with that cover, you cannot read this
book anywhere but inside your house. Even there you
may need to be covert. Explaining what it's about quickly
becomes a series of half-truths, at best.
Though,
if you've made peace with God and don't mind poisoning your
soul a bit, Skinema has story after story to make readers
laugh and feel uneasy, shocked, and occasionally jealous.
The pseudo-journal writings are a character study of the author.
He paints his severe self-portrait with his blackly humorous
rants and opinions on life. Skinema's stories about
thinking the author has AIDS, youthful trips to strip clubs,
trying out for reality shows, and working for Disney are all
amusing and are generally well-told for a guy who'll start
an article with the sentence, "Briana reminds me of this girl
I used to fuck in college." Some stories, shockingly, even
occasionally border on being emotionally affecting. And as
icing on this filthy cake, the book features a parade of absolutely
amazing porn titles like Dead Men Don't Wear Rubbers;
My Ass Is Trippin'; Hey, Grandma Is a Whore 8;
and the classic Fucking in the Name of Science.
It's
tempting to call this book a guilty pleasure, but mainly in
the sense that one might feel guilty for enjoying it—guilty
as in "I've done something wrong and should repent." Purchasing
this book is almost assuredly putting pill-money into Nieratko's
pocket, but damn it if it's not a perversely entertaining
read. It's about as low-brow as it gets, insanely self-centered
and egotistical, possibly rife with lies (I simply don't think
Nieratko is good-looking enough to get laid as often as he
says), rarely free of grammatical errors, an obvious bad influence,
and full of references to movies with titles like 1001
Ways to Eat My Jizz. It's like a voyeuristic look into
the life of someone who does drugs all the time, is a misogynist,
only cares about sex, and has the balls and lack of human
decency to attempt the adventures contained in this filthy
tome.
(July
2008)
|
