If you ever want a cheap amusement while roaming through Amazon, punch in the name Lainie Speiser under books and read my book reviews. I’ve written six books, mostly about sex of course, and my reader reviews are the worst. And because of this, they are a fun read.
For example, a review on my first book, “Threesomes: For Couples Who Want to Know More,” by someone named “Einstein,” (because nobody has the balls to put their real name on these bad reviews,) he/she gave me one star under the title of “Terrible,” They write: “Totally disliked the writing and the stories, seemed way to amarish, coudn’t hit the mark of excitement. The story leads you in to many area’s that didn’t fit what the cover of the book was suppose to be about.” Well Mr. or Miss Einstein, you made up a word, “amarish” and the rest of your sentence was horribly constructed, so rethink your Amazon moniker.
Here’s another for my second book, “Hot Games for Mind-Blowing Sex,” from Hippie2MARS, with the title, “No Much Here for the Older Woman, Younger Man Scenario,” who found the photos in my book (featuring Penthouse Pets Krista Ayne and Heather Vandeven) troublesome. They gave me three stars and wrote, “I do have to say this book is great for setting the ground rules for sexual role-playing. The suggested scenarios are hot and sound like a lot of fun. However, there are a disproportionate number of role plays that employ the ‘Older Man, Younger Woman’ configuration, but NOTHING for those of us at the opposite end of the spectrum. I’d love to find a book that addresses real issues like body image and age differences. The pictures are all of a model couple, and it’s hard to imagine yourself in those same situations when you are and/or your partner are clearly not of the model variety. Just not my cup of tea. Most importantly, ‘letting go’ into a complete fantasy like this is really hard for some people, and the book really doesn’t address how to get past that mental roadblock. I’m rather dismayed that I spent the money on this one, when I didn’t really get a lot out of it.”
Then there was my third book, “The Little Bit Naughty Book of Blowjobs,” which got a review from Patrick who says, “Don’t Waste Your Money,” and gave me one star with these precious words of warning, “Don’t waste your money. I cannot believe they are charging this price for a 6 inch tall novelity book. There are lett then 100 pages. I thought it was a legitimate book to read to improve performance.” Patrick, I’m sorry you wasted your money but how about proofreading your review before judging me? Just saying, it would have a stronger impact. But being that I’ve blown men who are both heterosexual and homosexual, I believe I am the authority.
For my fifth book, “Confessions of the Hottest Hundred Porn Stars,” here’s a review by “hurtstothink4692,” who gave me five stars, which is the highest star rating you can get, and yet, he/she still shit on it with the title of, “Just Ok.” He/She wrote, ”To much nudity. Lol just kidding. It was a good and interesting and not worth the money. I would have been happier borrowing from the library but thats ok.” Hey if any of my books were in the local library I’d be thrilled.
Anyway, bad reviews have never hurt my feelings. Like I say to my clients about scathing online comments, don’t worry about bad reviews, worry about no reviews because the opposite of love isn’t hate— it’s indifference. I suggest they count the comments instead of reading them and be happy when you get a lot because that means you moved people enough to take time out of their day to tell you how much you suck. But if you suck so bad, why would they give a shit even to tell you? I have also read bad reviews about me on YouTube and Reddit where I’ve been called a pimp, spooky doll or a monster, or that I’ve ruined radio with my annoying clients. Then they’re are all the anti-Semitic remarks. I apparently have the Jewy-est Jew-Face in the universe, like that’s a bad thing. Some of the comments will say how disgusting I look, but then admit they would either love to fuck me or would like to see me in a porn movie. It’s all very conflicting: I’m the gross chick whom you’d love to fuck.
So yesterday when I heard I was mentioned in a book written by a former flame of mine, Gene Gregorits, I had to know if I got another bad review. But this time it was penned by a real writer, a good writer, and by someone who saw me naked and whose dick I had in my mouth. The book is called, “Bigger Than Life at the Edge of the City: A Novel,” and it came out last year, but this was the first I heard about it. I was tagged in a review of it by one of my favorite writers, Rob Rosen, who wrote an awesome book called, “Nowhere Man,” based on the diaries of John Lennon. Some years ago, when I worked with Rob Rosen in a series of monthly readings in the East Village, he told me we had a mutual friend, Gene Gregorits. “Gene told me you guys used to date,” he said. I was pleased to hear that. I wasn’t sure if what we did could be called a relationship, unlike today’s society who believe texting with someone you’ve never met on a weekly basis is dating. He lived in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and I lived in New York and we would basically travel back and forth to hang out with each other for a week at a time when we would fuck each other’s brains out, drink heavily, do drugs, watch tons of movies and go to the occasional concert, namely to see his favorite band at the time Primal Scream.
It was a short but intense courtship. We met when I emailed him asking if he would be interested in interviewing my client at the time, Evan Seinfeld (the leader of the band, Biohazard whom I was working for after porn star Tera Patrick (his wife at the time) told him I was a good publicist and worked cheap. Well, I imagine she said I worked cheap because he paid me so little I won’t even tell you how much. But I was in debt and desperate for any way to pay off my insanely high credit card bills. Gene had a magazine called, “Sex and Guts” with his then much older girlfriend Lydia Lunch, who I worshipped in my late teens and early 20s. Truth be told I emailed the inquiry to her, but I got him instead, telling me they no longer worked together, but he would consider my pitch. That leaded to emails that led to him asking for a photo, that led to him telling me I was gorgeous, that led to me telling him he was handsome, that led to late night phone calls that would last four hours, that led to me inviting him to come to NYC and hang out with me.
But this wasn’t just any kind of seat-of-your-pants, devil-may-care hook up, for Gene is seven years younger than me (and incidentally kicked off my young stud period where I dated young pups in their 20s who could keep up with me in the sack) with a history of mental illness and cut himself whenever the mood hit him. Gene confessed this to me the night before he came to New York for that first visit because he knew he was going to take his shirt off and didn’t want to freak me out. “Do you still do that to yourself?” I asked concerned. I didn’t know much about cutters other than the fact it’s something done mostly by pubescent girls. “Oh no,no,” he assured me. “I don’t do that anymore it’s immature and stupid. I’m better now, but I look like the illustrated scar man. If that’s a deal breaker, I understand.” Honesty always earns you points with me, so I let it go and said come on down baby! Gene wasn’t kidding; he was covered with scars all over his chest and arms, not to mention cigarette burns. But despite that, he was quite a handsome young man in his early 20s, tall and well-built with beautiful blue eyes fringed with thick black lashes. Picture a white trash, intellectual, edgy Ashton Kutcher who wore nothing but tight jeans and tight white undershirts with a motorcycle jacket that matched mine. Hard to pass up, especially when he’s covering you with affection, appreciation, compliments, a huge hard dick and a love of cunnilingus. I had a great time, and I needed it. I had just gotten out of a mind fuck of an abusive relationship, had just started my career all over again working for Penthouse Magazine part-time and had said abusive boyfriend working at the same place. I don’t look back on this period of my life fondly. I had to swallow a lot of shit, but I also knew if I got through this there would be a pot of gold on the other end; I just had to walk through it. And Gene was the spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down in the most delightful way.
But as these things go, it didn’t last. I couldn’t cure a mentally troubled person with my company, adoration and blowjobs, which he said were the absolute best he ever had. Gene cut himself after hour first argument, he lied, he hadn’t stopped with the self-abuse, and I found it extremely manipulative. Also, he was utterly exhausting. He didn’t work a nine to five job. In between writing he sustained himself by selling underground movies, documentaries and hard-to-find bootlegs on eBay, so he could stay up drinking and snorting blow until 5 a.m. and then sleep it off the next day. Gene slept a whole lot, aside from party recovery, a sign I knew was depression. He was either insanely happy or inconsolably sad, and after three months we both knew this wasn’t the best fit. The last night at the last time he visited me, drunk and drugged he yelled, “You’re gorgeous and sexy, and you’re the best lover I’ve ever had, but I won’t marry you! I won’t marry you. I won’t! So, get these ideas out of your head!” I had never mentioned marriage to him, not even once, and to him of all people? I don’t think so. But it was time to end it, we both knew it, and when he left the next day, I didn’t think I would ever hear from him again.
But that’s not how it went. He kept calling me. He would read what he was working on, turn me on to great writers like David Peace and kvetch about how his life should be a lot better than this. Your standard tortured writer crap. Gene was lonely; he talked a lot, and I listened. Sometimes when we were both equally lonely, we had phone sex, but it had little to do with each other. He dated girls, each he said was the one— the way he thought I was— and each woman, like me, got exhausted by him. But being a handsome young man with a big dick and an equal amount of charm, it wouldn’t take too long before he found another willing woman. Most of these women like me were older and artsy with a maternal edge. He never asked me about my own love life but enjoyed calling me a sex maniac and a pervert. I made him care packages at work, filled with porn, wasabi peas, tee shirts and a wool hat that had a big G on the front.
And as I predicted, I worked through my transition and life got better. I was working for Penthouse Magazine full-time, I was writing again and got a piece published in an anthology called Naked Ambition, was actively dating and was slowly pulling myself out of debt. I got busy with work and wasn’t returning Gene’s calls, not because he was out of sight and out of mind, but because I started finding him vampiric. All he did was talk, talk, talk about himself and his frustration with his own life, but did the minimum to dig himself out of the hole. He took menials jobs at car washes and in restaurants as a dishwasher, and while he wrote masses of books, I found a lot of his work self-indulgent. I loved his stories when he told them to me, but when I read them, they didn’t translate the same way. He wrote like Kerouac in the stream of consciousness, acid trip style that I always found hard to get emotionally invested in. I did enjoy his interviews with musicians, writers, actors and directors because he was such a charming weirdo with a lot of persistence and absolutely no shame, but they were not the kind of interviews I could talk Penthouse into publishing. They were way too out there for the mainstream, but I liked them. They had an Andy Kaufman/Tom Green quality, and I told him if he pulled his style back just a touch perhaps he’d get work in magazines.
One day he called me at work and I picked up the phone this time. He was angry, he was hurt that I was blowing him off, and I made no excuses. I told him, when I met you, we were both in transitional places, and I’ve moved forward, but you’ve stayed the same. I remember shouting, “People aren’t life preservers for you, Gene!” Because I felt he kept our friendship going so he could keep a sexy mommy figure in his life where I would praise everything he did smart or stupid, listen to him for endless hours and receive nothing back. I thought this would be the last I would ever hear from Gene Gregorits after that. What I said was on the money, but I was also kind of a smarmy cunt, too.
But I heard from him again, this time through Facebook. We were Facebook friends and I would watch his ridiculous antics, like the time he cut off a piece of his ear and ate it. He didn’t stop cutting— no, he moved on to cannibalism. And all so he could keep a fan base of dorky boys and twisted girls who thought he was an unsung genius of sorts. I wrote him, “Don’t you know these people are just enjoying the freak show? You’re lucky you’re good looking, because an unattractive man couldn’t pull this off, but eventually you’re going to get to old for this.” Gene moved from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. To Detroit, Michigan. To Gainsville, Florida. Going from job to job, writing books he was now self-publishing, going from woman to woman, and with each pronouncing that she was the angel and his patron saint, for now, he could write his masterpiece because he was getting fed and fucked on the regular. He got angry at my criticisms and comments on Facebook, more than once. I just found it a waste. I said to him “Do you know you’ve got more advantages than a lot of people out here? You’re young and white, smart and handsome and you’re pissing it all away and destroying yourself day by day.” He made a comment about his dishwashing job one day and I posted, “You must be inspiring to the illegals in the kitchen. They are probably thinking, wow now that’s the American Dream.” To which he posted, “Shut the fuck up Lainie, you’re not a real writer! Your books are just sex pamphlets! You’re a smut writing hack that nobody gives a shit about!”
Ouch. Talk about a bad review. He unfriended me, then he blocked me and this time I never heard from him again.
Then a mutual friend of Facebook told me. Gene was arrested for having sex with a 17-year-old fan. Her parents got worried when she never came home, tracked her through Facebook and the police found her in Gene’s apartment, in a compromising position. I was shocked to be honest. He had always chased older women, but things change, tastes change. Who knows? We hadn’t been in each other’s lives in quite some time. His younger brother, a successful lawyer, had posted his bail, and then Gene ran, which is a shitty thing to do. And it did him no favors: He was convicted and sentenced to 10 whopping years in prison. I was stunned; there are people who have done a lot worse and have received a lot less time. I do not feel he deserved that, not at all. But I did hope that perhaps prison would be a rehab of sorts and maybe he would do half the time for good behavior and truly start his life over again. I sent him a long letter, explaining my hot and cold behavior toward him, caught him up on my life now, basically extended the olive branch, but it got sent back. He was transferred to another prison in Florida, and I didn’t know his new address, until now. His new book “Bigger Than Life at the Edge of the City: A Novel,” contains his new address and I am thinking of writing to him again, after I read what he wrote about me of course.
I immediately ordered his book through Amazon. But I have to wait a few days for it to arrive. My curiosity got the best of me and I texted Rob Rosen, and asked, “So did he totally trash me?” Rob was kind enough to indulge me and answered back right away, “No you were one of the few people he said he liked. He called you a super-hip Jewess in her mid-30s.” So a decent review, I’m guessing, despite the mention of the Jew thing, yet again. I swear I could cure cancer and the first thing written about me would be, “The life-saving Hebrew is getting a Nobel Peace Prize for curing cancer.” But that’s my cross to bear, like the greatest Jew, Jesus Christ. The truth is I’m sure my time with Gene will garner a paragraph in his life at most; he’s never written about me before and this nut job is prolific to say the least. But still, it’s nice to be acknowledged. Because the opposite of love isn’t hate— it’s indifference.