Joi La profile picture

Joi La

Pieces, slivers and spleen... of Joi & co. ...LOTS of co.

About Me

I fall down quite a lot. I am permanently bruised...

I wrote a novel, Sleeveless, published by what I assume is the now defunct Phonylid Books, who basically sold out the run of my book, for which I have seen ZERO cents. La la la laaa so it typically goes. I am currently working on another about a girl who is obsessed with the past, Coney Island, sex, art, and all other kinds of smut you can think of.....

If you want to order the final remaining (and signed) copies of Sleeveless, contact me here. I've got a bunch left. I expect it to through a second printing at another publisher, so who knows, these will probably be worth something (to someone who is no doubt a freak or a weirdo, but cash is green...)

I like to read insanely intense books and watch similiar movies and I am obsessed with all kinds of music.

I like to spend time imagining that I exist in a very Southern tropical garden fanning myself whilst penning the great American Novel and drinking myself silly.

Another favorite pastime includes getting wasted alone on Chianti, while listening to old recordings of swing bands and torch singers, crying over the "good old days" (that I've never personally had). I'm really 105 years old, that's why.

I was the original co-owner of a lounge/club/bar/performance venue--The Lucky Cat-- in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, until November 2006.

I like to make cocktails for people.

I also like to drink cocktails...that I make. I am very particular.

I I I I I I I...

I hate crap literature, movies and music. I live to hate things. It's quite enjoyable for me, thank you.

Hubert Selby Jr. read my book and wrote me a letter and this was just about the happiest moment of my life.

I now leave you with my favorite review of my book, possibly ever:
From some Christian site called Lysamena Project on Self-Injury


Sleeveless by Joi Brozek (Los Angeles: Phony Lid, 2002). I couldn't finish this book. The cover description characterizes it as a book about self-injury, although I had yet to read about self-injury by page 45. In those 45 pages, however, I had encountered so much sexual slang and so many detailed descriptions of sex acts that I felt sick to my stomach. Readers may also be offended at the disrespectful way in which the author portrays Catholicism and may not appreciate that the storyline includes an abortion. I do not recommend this book simply because of the volume of sexual content and the detail in which these acts are described.

My Interests

Keeping my mind off of the bad stuff, falling from things, falling down, Dead Woman Haiku, traveling, being obsessed with new things, the past, thinking, drinking, dreaming, writing, yoga, Afrin, South East Asia, vintage clothing, music, old structures, witty conversation, Chinese furniture, gardening, visting abandoned places (especially beach towns that were once thriving), going to Italy (and buying shoes), fucking with people, walking over bridges, asshole humor, antiques, crapulence, sampling every flavored vodka in the world, TRESPASSING, and: sex, death and rollercoasters...

I'd like to meet:

Sunday is gloomy,

My hours are slumberless

Dearest the shadows

I live with are numberless

Little white flowers

Will never awaken you

Not where the black coaches

Sorrow has taken you

Angels have no thoughts

Of ever returning you

Wouldnt they be angry

If I thought of joining you?

Gloomy sunday



Gloomy is sunday,

With shadows I spend it all

My heart and i

Have decided to end it all

Soon therell be candles

And prayers that are said I know

But let them not weep

Let them know that Im glad to go

Death is no dream

For in death Im caressin you With the last breath of my soul Ill be blessin you

Gloomy sunday

Dreaming, I was only dreaming

I wake and I find you asleep

In the deep of my heart here

Darling I hope

That my dream never haunted you

My heart is tellin you

How much I wanted you

Gloomy sunday

Music:

Siouxsie and the Banshees, Joy Division, Billie Holiday, X, Patsy Cline, Gun Club, Peggy Lee, Blossom Dearie, Slim Cessna's Auto Club, The Smiths, Bauhaus, The Pixies, Ella Fitzgerald, Jeff Buckley, Loretta Lynn, IAMX, Gogol Bordello, Foetus, Kommunity FK, Descendents, 45 Grave, Diamanda Galas, The Cramps, Xmal Deutschland, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Devotchka, Etta James, Nancy Sinatra, Rasputina, LaVerne Baker, Sixteen Horsepower, Skinny Puppy, Nina Simone, The Birthday Party, Beat Happening, Swans, Edith Piaf, Les Paul (I've seen him live twice and he is beyond amazing, even at the ripe old age of 90-something--also I love his female bass player), the Knitters, Zydepunks, Lucinda Williams, Robert Johnson, Eartha Kitt, Keely Smith, which leads me to...whenever I am feeling depressed, if I put on LOUIS PRIMA, I can feel happy again...Sam Butera--the whole fucking band, god, those were the years (I wish I was born in 1925 or better yet 1905 so I could have been a flapper but that's besides the point
YET THERE IS TONS MORE...I love old country, punk rock, torch singers, old jazz divas, some sorts of noise, train wrecks (to give you an idea: my latest would be Amy Winehouse)...

Movies:

I think Pan's Labyrinth is the best movie I have ever seen. It left me breathless and stunned throughout and unable to speak afterwards. If only all works of art could do this, I'd be a happier person. Ok, so I just recently saw a VERY close runner up: La Vie En Rose...Je l'adore!!!!!!!!! So, yeah. I love movies!!! I also love to death: Notes on a Scandal, Gloomy Sunday, Dans ma peau (In My Skin), Running With Scissors, The Reflecting Skin, Nights of Cabiria, La Dolce Vita, Donnie Darko, White Oleander, Devil's Backbone, Ed Wood, Hard Candy, Mysterious Skin, Requiem for a Dream (one of my favorite movies of all time), The Talented Mr. Ripley (ditto...I've seen it about 20 times and it never gets old), Night of the Hunter, Rear Window, Babydoll (any movie where a wife sleeps in a crib has to be good, right?), Walk the Line, Happiness, Rosemary's Baby, Head On, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, A History of Violence, Welcome to the Dollhouse (okay, anything by Todd Solondz), Hollywoodland, Pollock, any movie that is a profile about some fucked-up, tortured artist's life hits a soft spot for me. OK and Moonstruck. There, I said it.

Television:

You're blind, baby, you're blind from the fact of who you are, cuz you watchin' that garbage...

Books:

Geek Love, Mysterious Skin, The Talented Mr. Ripley, anything by Patricia Highsmith, Middlesex, The Hangwoman by Kohout, Love in the Time of Cholera, Lolita, Rain Village by Carolyn Turgeon, White Oleander, A Confederacy of Dunces, Requiem for a Dream, almost anything by Dostoyevsky, Last Exit to Brooklyn, Portrait of Dorian Gray, almost anything by Toni Morrison, City of Night by John Rechy, Mishima's Tetrology, Slammerkin, Girl with a Pearl Earring, Black Dahlia, anything by Kafka...

Heroes:

Hubert Selby Jr., Billie Holiday, Joseph Cornell, Dorothy Parker, Amelia Earhart, Josephine Baker, Peggy Guggenheim

My Blog

You look like lady monster!!!

Sometimes I love my day job.Yesterday my office door was open and this one consumer walked in...he's like 4 foot 5 or something, moderately retarded, dysarthric speech...He said hello and I said hi ba...
Posted by Joi La on Sat, 05 Jan 2008 10:54:00 PST

Got Goth Juice?

Holy fucking fuck on the (upside down) cross.I am going to draft a letter to the bloody geniuses at LUSH cosmetics for coming up with this one: Goth Juice. It's...get this...A HAIR GEL. "Made from ...
Posted by Joi La on Sat, 27 Oct 2007 12:59:00 PST

On impulses whilst enduring the MTA...or, warding off unwanted advances

There are not one but two things that you can do that will make me lose my shit and act rather unladylike in public:1. Interrupt me when I am listening to my headphones.2. God forfuckingbid you try to...
Posted by Joi La on Sun, 26 Aug 2007 02:34:00 PST

Floored and destroyed

I can barely speak.Just saw Nights of Cabiria.Easily one of the best films I have ever seen.Giuletta and I share the same birthday. Of course you can see it-- in the Piscean eyes and the clumsy natur...
Posted by Joi La on Wed, 22 Aug 2007 11:33:00 PST

Did anyone else grow up thinking it was normal to have plastic on your couch?

I mean, we weren't even allowed to sit on the couch. I'm not kidding. It kind of was like a joke with our normal friends, especially my brother's friends, who'd all try to sit on the couch and becau...
Posted by Joi La on Wed, 01 Aug 2007 08:28:00 PST

Still can't get it out of my head...

La Vie En Rose.I can't stop thinking about it. I am obsessed with this movie. I am going to see it again next chance I get, alone...I need to absorb every second of it. I wish it was on DVD already...
Posted by Joi La on Sun, 15 Jul 2007 02:32:00 PST

It's that time again...

Welllll holy fuck, is Joi climbing the walls again, son?!YES...a resounding YES FUCKING YES!!!!Never to sleep, never to sleep...my mantra!It's a beautiful, glowing dawn, and I am glistening with mania...
Posted by Joi La on Sun, 20 May 2007 01:38:00 PST

The Story Behind My Ripped Pants (photo that starts my PAGE TWO OF PHOTOS)

First of all, I HAVE THE BEGINNING OF TWO PAGES OF PHOTOS!!i am allergic to getting my photo taken. I am also afraid to look into cameras, hence, unless I am taking the photo in a mirror, I typically...
Posted by Joi La on Sun, 06 May 2007 02:02:00 PST

I can't tell you how much...

I'd rather be looking forward to a night of sitting out on my deck, billions of candles and fairy lights aglow, making my half-verdant, half-sleeping yard look ethereal...a bottle of wine and some clo...
Posted by Joi La on Sun, 22 Apr 2007 04:14:00 PST

The Kind of People I Attract

I've always been Le Freak Magnet Extraordinaire. For example, I have had at least five stalkers, one which resulted in an order of protection from this girl who read my book, (AFTER JEREMY THOUGHTFUL...
Posted by Joi La on Sat, 21 Apr 2007 02:00:00 PST