JERY TILLOTSON

I still need some sleep after working from l0:30 p.m. until 3:00 a.m. this morning of May 16, 2009 on the movie shoot of PROVINCES OF NIGHT, that filmed at the wild and funky Barbary Coast Bar on Front Street in downtown Wilmington, NC.

It was fun working with Val Kilmer, who looked really yummy with his long, long hair and cowboy hat and HIlarie Burton, the sweet, heroic gal from ONE TREE HILL, who played a smoking hot singer-wannabee. I didn't recognize her until someone pointed her out.

It was my first bar in nearly thirty years. Front Street, notorious for its brawling, drinking, dancing, humping night life, was really jumping. Thousands of barflies were touring all the bars that line that fabled street and it resembled one vast, orgiastic blanket of half-naked flesh. That gives me an idea. You'll know where to find me on weekend nights in the coming steaming, blazing hot nights of summer.

Summmer's nearly here at beautiful Carolina Beach, NC where I moved to three months ago.

It's bumper-to-bumper traffic on the weekends as tourists from around the world come here and to wealthy Kure Beach, just up the road and one mile beyong that is stunning Ft. Fisher, a tourist mecca.

The TV series I often work on, One Tree Hill, is on hiatus, so I managed to take a trip back into time--back to Montgomery, Alabama which I left in May 1978. I was entertainment editor of the newspaper there and left mucho friends. But to my horror, the once bustling downtown is totally dead. All the buildings are boarded up, windows smashed, homeless people everywhere, crude murals drawn all over the store fronts. Also, all the people I used to know have long vanished or died. I passed by my former apartment building, the once snazzy, mod Capitol Towers where I had a beautiful apartment on the ninth floor with spectacular views.

That area, too, is now depressed and rundown.
Thomas Wolfe was right: you can't go home again.


I returned recently from my last trip to dear ole NYC for a long, long time. Sad to leave it all but it's now time to plan my move into my new apartment at Carolina Beach.

Back in NOvember, 2008, I was right there in Times Square one night the election returns came in and there were thousands of us there, watching the giant TV screen.

When Barack Obama was finally named the presidential winner, it became pandemonium. People screamed, laughed, hugged, wept. Strangers became intimate friends for just a few seconds. The power of the emotion was phenomenal. I couldn't sleep that night because of the amazing drama.

While in NYC, I brought tons of things for my new beach home but packing up my old apartment in Wilmington is going to be a nightmare. When New Year's comes, I'm gonna flop down in bed for a long, three month mental vacation.

I've survived the annual class reunion of l961 at Brevard College!

I arrived in Brevard, NC, for the first time in more than 45 years and it was raining so horrible and was so foggy I quickly checked into my motel room and fell into bed.

In many ways, I dreaded this occasion since I knew that so many of my intimate friends were either dead, or very ill and simply wouldn't show up. But I was absolutely thrilled when I encountered one of my all-time favorite buddies, Charlie Cort, class of '63 and he looked marvelous.

I actually went to the homecoming football game and hung out with another really fun couple, from the class of '63, Frank Caldwell and his charming wife. Yes, I got enough info and drama for a book and yes, I'm glad I went. Before the next one in 2009, I simpl y must lose 50 pounds and have my body given a major lift by a brilliant plastic surgeon I know. Stay tuned!

In the motion picture, A GOOD OLD FASHIONED ORGY, I was lucky enough to be featured in the big climax of the movie--The Sex Orgy--that culminates the story line of two naive, innocent guys who want to have a final blowout in the Hamptons. On this set, the l2 or l5 of us were able to dress up in crazy costumes--or lack of them--and parade around in decadent splendor. We were all given great camera time. There was nothing boring about this shoot! We worked from noon until midnight for two days and would have worked many more if they had asked us. We all had a ball and it was fascinating to meet other would-be actors/actresses who hoped this movie could lead to bigger things.

Since the movie stars several Saturday Night Live kids, it should receive prominent headlines when it's finally released in 2009.

That's me in the pic above along with three other gorgeous performers: adorable Norman, sweetie Jessie and an unknown extra. The dirctor told me the movie is a cross between AMERICAN PIE and THE 40-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN and KNOCKED UP.

I was lucky enough to be chosen as a character known as 'The Man on the Leash.' I wore a beautiful burgundy lace corset with crimson bikini briefs and a leather dog collar with spikes. A leash was attached and securely held by my 'Leather Mistress', played by a marvelous gal named Janet who looked a knockout in her leather domniatrix skirt and boots and no top.
Our role called for us to stroll past two young bug-eyed innocents whose uncle introduces them to a sex club. While several couples writhed passionately on the beds, my mistress and I strolled by the boys and they nearly fainted. We did look so decadent!
The cast and crew were fantastic! It was so much fun meeting fellow liberated libertines who were hardly the Wal-Mart or K-Mart type. They were gorgeous, funny and it was fascinating listening to them tell of their experiences. Hopefully my latest role will lead to a major contract in the porno industry. As a retiree from NYC, I don't want to settle back and play golf and go to church and play bingo at the Senior Citizens Center. I want to kick up my heels and be evil and naughty!

Since moving here to Wilmington,N.C. from my home in New York City, i've worked as an extra on major movies like BOLDEN and its sequel, THE GREAT OBSERVER. Just recently I worked on the cable cult favorite, HBO's LITTLE BRITIAN. For our first day, we filmed at the beautiful Orton Plantation, near Southport, and I was among a very emotional church congregation. Other LITTLE BRITIAN shoots have been just as fascating: filming at the famous Blockade Runner resort on wrightsville Beach and also in a beautiful old mansion near the waterfront of Wilmington. So keep your eyes open! You might just catch a fleeting glimpse of me in the background in these productions and perhaps one day, I'll get that all-important closeup that will lead to true stardom.
To my fans and friends, I'll be winging in to New York City in early November--my first visit back to my favorite city in a year. I can already feel the excitement, the nervous energy of Gotham and I plan to refurbish my Southern wardrobe. They don't dress up much here in Wilmington. It's ultra casual and laid-back and very mellow--which is okay sometimes. But I often get the impuse to put on some designer threads and Acqua Di Parma perfume and kick up my heels--a la Big Apple style.
I'm working on three screenplays, based on my Andrea D'Allasandra books--Death House, House of the Screaming Clowns and Master of Hell Mountain. Since I'm in show biz, I might as well exploit by becoming a famous screenwriter--since there's where the big money is. You might remember in my biography that I wrote for the Wilmington newspaper for four years. I've found a great little condo just minutes away from Wrightsville Beach and Carolina beaches and a block from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington where I hope to meet lots of students. I'm working out at the Wilmigton Athletic Club where I've found a really yummy personal trainer. I'll also be attending the annual Homecoming at Brevard College in October to meet up with some of the old gang from the early 60s thanks to the urging of Gene Ingram of Lexington. So, the next time you read this space, I'll be reporting to you my newest adventures in beautiful North Carolina.
Jason, Andrea, Kandy Kristmas and 'Big' Bill and even myself all have major works in your bookstores - or coming soon.
From JASON FURY:
" My memoirs, NIGHTS OF FURY, came out in late 2004 and has proven a sensation. I'm still getting tons of e-mail and letters from readers who want to know more about the incidents I describe. They all want to know what happened to all those gorgeous, complicated men, too! Then, I'm also working on more short stories, that occur in the forties on up to the present. I'm losing interest in modern life. Most of my work centers on the 40s and fifties--two fabulous eras that I wished were here again.Yet another story collection, ZOMBIE FURY, will all take place on North Carolina's coast. These tales will be weird, eerie, and naturally very erotic. I also hope to complete by mid-2007 THE SEX OF ANGELS, a memoir about my growing up in the Deep South and all the mean and good things that I went through. Another novel I'm working on is THE LAST OF THE SEVEN LOVERS. This originated from my short story of the same name, about a group of middle-aged gay men who have one final reunion. This proved to be one of my most popular stories. Aging gay men, in particular, loved it.-
ANDREA D'ALLASANDRA: "My latest thrillers, THE CREAKING DOOR and HOUSE OF THE SCREAMING CLOWNS are both doing fantastic business. The latter has only been out for a few months but I'm already being deluged with fan mail. I've turned down most requests for interviews with both print and television media. I don't like discussing horror stories because you give so much away. I want the reader to dive in and come up with their own take on these scary tales..Also, I'm typing away at another thriller, SWAMP MAMA, and AMAZONS.
'BIG' BILL JACKSON: "Jason's making me sit down each night for an hour and scribble away at something called SAVAGE BE THY NAME. It's about a Southern family of lusty men and I begin back during the Civil War and work on up to World War II. These guys are hot. I explore the relationship between master and slave. Nobody's ever written about the intense love affairs between some of the white plantation owners and their male slaves. When I finish this one, me and Jason and Andrea are taking a trip over to Europe. We need some fresh ideas, ya know?"
Okay and now for myself. I've just completed, under my real name of Jery Tillotson, something new: a young reader's novel of the paranormal, JASON FURY, about a young sorceress who falls in love with a handsome werewolf. Together they fight the bigots at school and vicious corporate raiders who want to turn Grizzly Mountain, home of the werewolves, into a modern resort. There's magic, death and revenge in this one. I'm plotting and fleshing out all the characters in my semi-fictional, MY NAME IS SCARLETT. This is all about that incredible star search made by David Selznick for the perfect Scarlett O'Hara for the fabulous, "Gone With the Wind." I'm having a blast researching the styles, the movies, the Hollywood of l939. Several books have already been written about this topic but I'm making sure mine's the most original. To anyone who read my THE KISS OF KING KONG, which is also about that era, then this one will be the perfect dessert.
From KANDY KRISTMAS: Countless readers have asked me when I'll be publishing the sequel to my hit book, DOOFUS, THE LITTLE CHRISTMAS BOY. I hope to have the sequel finished by the end of the year. It's tentative title is DOOFUS AND THE CHRISTMAS MONSTER. Readers, especially those in the South, appear to enjoy reading about a young Harry Potter hero from Dixie. I'm creating him as a youngster with all the best attributes of a Southerner: loaded with charm, good looks and charisma. Not to mention being resourceful and gracious. There are such creatures like this who actually exist and most populate Southern tip of our nation.

I was fourteen when my first words were published in a newspaper. I couldn't sleep the night before. And when the weekly publication, The Denton Record, finally appeared at our only drug store down the block one fall day in l957 and I saw neighbors reading it, I was one happy freak. "The Denton School Report" was the dramatic head for my weekly column that ran for three years. At first, I stuck with obediently recording the time and date of the next PTA meeting and other profound occasions. Gradually, I transformed the column into something casual, gossipy, chatty. It became popular with everyone. I had learned the first lesson of writing. I pretended I was yakking with a best friend. Paint a picture in words to entertain the reader. This became even more important after I began work at a real newspaper in Wilmington, North Carolina, in l965. I had just experienced five, tumultuous years in college. My effiminate personae repelled many while attracting others. Straight men, then and now, were the main ones I liked being with. Most were just buddies. Several became more than that. Gay men had nothing to do with me. I was "too" obvious. That didn't bother me. I wasn't interested in attracting them anyway. I was fascinated by rugged, macho men and even today, my best friends are your ordinary Joe Six Packs. I don't like intellectuals. I find them pretentious and a pain in the neck. My first real newspaper editor on the Wilmington Star-News was an egotistical monster. "Chip" was the Hollywood version of a charismatic, temperamental, handsome editor. At first, he tried to hide his sharp interest in me by yelling at me and testing me. He'd order me to go out into the rain to get him coffee. He expected me to refuse. I eagerly obeyed and always asked: "Do you want anything else?" He blushed, because he was a real Irishman and that made him even more attractive. We eventually became more than friends. The newsroom knew. You can't hide much at a newspaper. When I told this really troubled man I was leaving to take a job with the Associated Press, he became violent, emotional and vowed I would never leave his newspaper alive. He saw this as a slap-in-the-face to his reputation for keeping the cream of the crop of journalists. He vowed to ruin me if I took the Associated Press job. I made my escape and never saw Chip again. He died soon afterwards. Cause of death: an overdose of pills.
Chip was, indeed, an unforgettable man but there were to be many others in the future. The Associated Press was a good place to learn the craft of journalism but it was no place for romance, either in Charlotte, N.C., or in Fargo, North Dakota. Although I was to discover that men in this last city of forbidding terrain can be quite fabulous. I met dozens and dozens of North Dakota farmers and regular guys at the cozy little family bars that dotted main street in Fargo. All were lonely. All were desperate for companionship. I used all my experiences in that snow-frozen metropolis in many stories I was to later write while in New York City. Even today, people ask me in disbelief: "You actually lived in Fargo?" I was glad to leave the snow-drenched universe of North Dakota and accepted a job in Montgomery, Alabama as "star reporter" for the Montgomery Advertiser newspaper.
Most of the men I worked with were bigots, as were many of the those I met outside the newspaper. But--my job allowed me to interview some of the most fascinating Southern guys alive. I interviewed prisoners, politicans, preachers, actors, wrestlers, cops, troopers, mixed-up artists and writers. They gave me tons of material for my future stories. One real tragedy on the eve of my departure from Dixie: my long-time buddy, Art, a jazz pianist, was murdered and eviscerated by a group of black thugs, as he left my apartment building. His killers were later tried in court where they laughed about the killing. Since they were all not l8 years of age, they were sent to a youth detention center and released one year later. I considered them animals and wished that I could have killed them all. That gave me a bitter lesson in American justice.
By the time I moved to Manhattan in l978, I was ready to let down my hair and celebrate my freedom! My stories had become fixtures in many gay magazines and fan mail poured in. I still receive notes and letters and e-mail from my fans who discovered my work back in those halycon days of Disco. Those days wouldn't last long, though, because in l980, we began to hear about a strange "gay sickness" affecting many of the young swingers in Gotham. Quickly, it became an epidemic. Men I knew began dying. The whole landscape changed. In the meantime, I'd managed to finally get my story collection, ERIC'S BODY published and it became an overnight sensation. The collected stories were mostly those that had already appeared in leading gay magazines. More than 200 editors and agents had turned ERIC'S BODY down. Those few who said anything about it laughed in my face and said I should be ashamed of writing "porno garbage." These were the same men busy promoting and gushing over Jackie Collins lusty, graphic hetero adventures that were being pushed in mainstream bookstores. That I was doing exactly the same thing as she--with the exception that I had all males doing it--was seen as too perverted to even imagine. My second novel, THE ROPE ABOVE, THE BED BELOW, came out in late l994. I literally copied pages from my personal journal to describe the wild, feverish hedonism that obsessed Manhattan before the AIDS epidemic hit. My publisher demanded that I cut out much of my original manuscript and cram it full of sexual passages. I fought back. I did not want to write this book as another "porno" job. He took control of my book and when it appeared I was not a happy author. Whole chapters were torn out and it was so heavily edited that the book only ran l50 pages--when it was originally 350! A year later, I sued my publisher for he refused to publish three of the novels that he had brought--because he demanded that we become more than friends. We settled our problems out of court after Court TV wanted to feature my case on their program. The publisher nearly had a heart attack for he had pulled this same little game with other writers who were too frightened of his power to threaten legal action. Over the years, I've written several popular novels as Jason Fury and 'Andrea D'Allasandra.' My long-time companion, 'Big Bill Jackson asked me to help him put together his memoirs and as EIGHTH WONDER, it became an instant hit with his many fans. In Europe and Russia, his cult following is even bigger than mine, darn it. Big Bill shuns parties, the bars, book signings. He's an independent cuss. Men and women have offered him fortunes for a good time. He turns them all down.
When the terrorism attack hit Gotham on Sept. 11, 2001, I was exactly on the crime scene that horrible morning. I had planned to have breakfast with one of my fans, a young off-duty fireman. He and some of his fire fighting buddies had read both ERIC'S BODY and THE ROPE ABOVE, THE BED BELOW and we had all become close. Especially this beautiful fireman who I'll call Cameron. We had discovered many similar interests and we became very close. As our group sipped coffee and enjoyed bagels and eggs, someone in the place screamed. We watched in horror as the first plane exploded into the Twin Towers. Cameron and his buddies all jumped up. He embraced me and raced away.
That was the last I saw of him and his two close firemen buddies. Their remains were never recovered.
The horror still lingers here, although the nightmare occurred more than six years ago. I attended many of the heart breaking memorials and funeral services for our New York firemen and cops. It's like having a large family wiped out by brainless psychos. And since the killers also perished, there's no grim satisfaction to be enjoyed in seeing them receive their punishment.
Last year, New York City had its worst blackout ever! I was trapped in an underground subway for seven hours. There were more than one hundred of us. We eventually had to climb out of a window and walk in absolute darkness along the sides of the rails, avoiding giant rats that scampered alongside us. I arrived home four hours later and took a long, long cold shower.
Me and Big Bill are planning on leaving New York City and moving back to God's Country--the Piedmont area of North Carolina. Or maybe the Wilmington coastal area. Both are fabulous places to live and more importantly, a hell of a lot cheaper to live there than here in the Big Apple. We've both had New York City, having living here for over 20 years. In North Carolina we have families and friends and fans.
The next time I write here may well be from some North Carolina city where civilized and friendly people live.