Email Author Tom Austin

1995 Stories by Tom Austin

• Swelter

  published December 28, 1995

  Another New Year's Eve looms on the horizon, the great white whale of hope and horror in the nightlife game. At this stage of the journey,... More >>

• Swelter

  published December 21, 1995

  What with Christmas coming up and all, I've been trying to exorcise hatefulness from my being -- without much luck, unfortunately. Leave the house... More >>

• Swelter

  published December 7, 1995

  It's been a week of limited social engagement, removed from the hoopla and horror, the spirits soaring amid a host of quiet rewards and epiphanies... More >>

• Swelter 33

  published November 30, 1995

  Once in a while, even an idiot savant of gossip has to gush a little, and Ingrid Casares -- homegirl image consultant, Madonna pal, and co-owner... More >>

• Swelter 32.10

  published November 23, 1995

  Standing there on Washington Avenue for the midnight reckoning, confronting the nasty mob waving VIP opening-night invitations around the front... More >>

• Swelter 33

  published November 16, 1995

  Aside from the usual jaunts down the humiliation highway, the pointless theatrics and endless hook-up requests to dark world, the onerousness of... More >>

• Swelter 30

  published November 9, 1995

  While rampant dementia might be tough on the citizenry, insanity does lend pungency to the more popular cultures, and soon enough there'll be no... More >>

• Swelter 29

  published November 2, 1995

  Let's jump right in and confront the important, chew on the big issues: art, life, illusion versus reality, truth, sex, class chaos, and whatever... More >>

• Swelter 28

  published October 26, 1995

  Unlike the drawing rooms of Henry James and Edith Wharton, redolent with intricate ironies, the comedy of manners that is contemporary nightlife... More >>

• Swelter 27

  published October 19, 1995

  As with the more respectable strains of journalism, the lifeblood of pop reportage is information, from mere frippery to the legitimately sordid.... More >>

• Swelter 26

  published October 12, 1995

  O.J. ruined my day, my week, and if his sorry story keeps being chewed over in the media, he'll possibly ruin my life. Overnight America... More >>

• Swelter 25

  published October 5, 1995

  In this particular line of work, the twin polarities of existence -- the glorious and the sordid, the soaring of imagination and the sober... More >>

• Swelter 24

  published October 5, 1995

  Contrary to Saint Barbra, people who need people, party kind of people, aren't the luckiest people in the world. People are crazy, they invariably... More >>

• Swelter 23

  published September 21, 1995

  Admittedly, the perks are great in this job but it can work on your nerves, and everyone seems to being trapped in an interactive mystery... More >>

• Swelter 22

  published September 14, 1995

  Night and day, a psyche at war with itself: In darkness the inner sanctum becomes a vast lollipop of lowbrow magical realism; by day all the... More >>

• Swelter 21

  published September 7, 1995

  September song, and the angst of August -- if the heat doesn't get you, the stupidity will -- dwindles down to a foul psychic sinkhole, infested... More >>

• Swelter 20

  published August 31, 1995

  The signs were all there, a red alert of bad karma and a quiet death instinct warned against a spontaneous trip to California. All the... More >>

• Swelter 18

  published August 17, 1995

  The glamour drought of August, a kind of purgatory for normal social columnists. Though to our way of thinking, admittedly not an advisable... More >>

• Swelter 17

  published August 10, 1995

  What with the truly feminine pathology of Hurricane Erin A she might fuck you up, and then again, she might not A the week turned out to be... More >>

• Swelter 16

  published August 3, 1995

  Sometimes you just get lucky, and lately life's just been coming up roses: Expecting nothing, and for once getting back everything in return.... More >>

• Swelter 15

  published July 27, 1995

  There's a certain pathology to this pop life, this culture of the damned, a sick compulsion shrouding the worship of the superficial. Once you're... More >>

• Swelter 14

  published July 20, 1995

  Maybe it's in the air, all this churning of spiritual anorexia, these studies in dumbed-down concerns, but then, they're always good for a snarky... More >>

• Swelter 13

  published July 13, 1995

  America the ugly, darkness visible, an eternal pinball journey through the seven circles of a tabloid Hades. The final exorcism may be at hand,... More >>

• Swelter 12

  published July 6, 1995

  And so we all go, to and fro, talking of Michelangelo and the Delano, the media locusts drifting momentarily from the Hugh Grant mess to little... More >>

• Swelter 11

  published June 29, 1995

  Home sweet home, immersed in a dangerous fallow period, nurturing our pet obsessions -- sex, fame, making a living -- and taking a breather from... More >>