Disasterama!: Adventures in the Queer Underground 1977 to 1997

by Alvin Orloff

DISASTERAMA: Adventures in the Queer Underground 1977 to 1997, is the true story of Alvin Orloff who, as a shy kid from the suburbs of San Francisco, stumbled into the wild eclectic crowd of Crazy Club Kids, Punk Rock Nutters, Goofy Goofballs, Fashion Victims, Disco Dollies, Happy Hustlers, and Dizzy Twinks of post-Stonewall American queer culture of the late 1970s, only to see the “subterranean lavender twilit shadow world of the gay ghetto” ravished by AIDS in the 1980s.

In Disasterama, Orloff recalls the delirious adventures of his youth—from San Francisco to Los Angeles to New York—where insane nights, deep friendships with the creatives of the underground, and thrilling bi-coastal living led to a free-spirited life of art, manic performance, high camp antics, and exotic sexual encounters.

Orloff looks past the politics of AIDS to the people on the ground, friends of his who did not survive AIDS’ wrath—the boys in black leather jackets and cackling queens in tacky frocks—remembering them not as victims, but as people who loved life, loved fun, and who were a part of the insane jigsaw of Orloff’s friends. In Disasterama, Orloff tells their story: the true tale of how a bunch of pathologically flippant kids floundered through a deadly disaster.

Genres: Nonfiction, Queer, Memoir, LGBT, History, Gay, Biography

232 pages, Paperback

First published October 8, 2019

About the author

Alvin Orloff began writing in 1977 as the teenage lyricist for The Blowdryers, an early San Francisco Punk band. He spent the 1980s dabbling in avant garde theater, underground cabaret, performance art, and nightclub DJing before remembering all he ever wanted to be was a writer. His memoir, "Disasterama!: Adventures in the Queer Underground 1977 - 1997," an alternately hilarious and heartbreaking coming-of-age-story set during a time when youthful exuberance and flippancy collided with the deadly seriousness of homophobia and AIDS, was nominated for the Lambda Literary Award in gay memoir. He is also the author of four novels: I Married an Earthling, Gutter Boys, Why Aren't You Smiling? and most recently, Vulgarian Rhapsody.

Reviews

[Richard Derus · Rating 4 out of 5]

2020 UPDATE Nominated for a Lambda Literary Award in the Gay Memoir/Biography category. The Awards are announced on 8 June 2020.

The Publisher Says: DISASTERAMA: Adventures in the Queer Underground 1977 to 1997, is the true story of Alvin Orloff who, as a shy kid from the suburbs of San Francisco, stumbled into the wild eclectic crowd of Crazy Club Kids, Punk Rock Nutters, Goofy Goofballs, Fashion Victims, Disco Dollies, Happy Hustlers, and Dizzy Twinks of post-Stonewall American queer culture of the late 1970s, only to see the “subterranean lavender twilit shadow world of the gay ghetto” ravished by AIDS in the 1980s.

In Disasterama, Orloff recalls the delirious adventures of his youth—from San Francisco to Los Angeles to New York—where insane nights, deep friendships with the creatives of the underground, and thrilling bi-coastal living led to a free-spirited life of art, manic performance, high camp antics, and exotic sexual encounters.

Orloff looks past the politics of AIDS to the people on the ground, friends of his who did not survive AIDS’ wrath—the boys in black leather jackets and cackling queens in tacky frocks—remembering them not as victims, but as people who loved life, loved fun, and who were a part of the insane jigsaw of Orloff’s friends. In Disasterama, Orloff tells their story: the true tale of how a bunch of pathologically flippant kids floundered through a deadly disaster.

My Review: I'm Author Orloff's age. Despite being born within hailing distance of the place, I spent little time in San Francisco, more in Austin (a surprisingly queer place even then!) and New York, but the world we lived in as young men has utterly vanished. Many of the guys I knew are dead...many aren't...but all of us have empty slots where loved people once stood. But enough long-face!

What a fast-paced and nostalgic look back at a moment when being young was fun! It can't be helped that AIDS took the lives of so many. It feels like the world Orloff describes (and illustrates with candid snapshots and collected ads, posters, and the like...who the hell keeps this ephemera?!) is as distant as World War II. These days, fun seems dead and young people have to think about what we had the luxury of ignoring.

Selfishly, I'm glad I could ignore it. Responsibly, I wish I hadn't had that choice.

[Jennifer Blowdryer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, just wow. Loved it 89 times. Cogent and deep. I don’t think I’ve seen philosophy and sociology brought into the context of contemporaryish memoir this way before. Disasterama! gently explains the life of a boy and his soulmate/debating partner (the exotically named Diet Popstitute) living in period where friends, lovers, former lovers, and frenemies were dying frequently and fast from The Virus. It asks important questions such as: do nightclubs change culture? Is high culture elitism? What are virtues of being glum vs. chipper? And how do we talk to the bedridden? Along the way, Orloff rescues Sex Work from pop academia, recasting it as the manageable survival strategy it is, and has always been, for lively slackers. He sings the glory of 1960s go-go music, as well as synthpop hero, Marc Almond, and defines “new wave” as the best time in the musical history of mankind… or is that peoplekind? This is a witty, saucepan boiler of a book. Stay smart, read Disasterama!

[George Ilsley · Rating 5 out of 5]

A memoir of life in San Francisco (and some time in New York) which is full of life, humour, creativity, tragedy and everything else that lives bursting at the seams are made of.

Despite the need for chapter titles such as this one: "AIDS, AIDS, and More AIDS," I laughed out loud several times reading this book, and that itself is an accomplishment. When Daisy Chainsaw dies and her ashes are distributed to loved ones in tiny clear plastic bottles filled with glitter and plastic babies— doesn't that deserve at least a wry chuckle at the absurdity of life?

I had to adapt to the prose but Orloff won me over. The sentences are florid and ornate, overstuffed in a rococo style, but the wordiness grew on me and soon imparted a sensation of overflowing memories, evoking the chaos and feverish creativity that flowed through these lives, many of whom bloomed for a short vivid season and died.

This book actually has an ending! So many authors don't seem to bother, but the final chapters of this book touched me and when I finished and put it down I said, okay, 5 stars. There is a completeness to the structure.

A feature of this memoir is all the camp personalities. Among many, there are Kiki and Herb, a faux lounge act who also appeared in one of my favourite all time christmas movies "Imaginary Heroes."

[Erik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Far too many queers who have come of age in the 21st century (myself included) see the recent sparks of queerness challenging traditional forms of gayness and gender as novel and original, but Alvin Orloff's "Disasterama!" serves as a reminder that our queerness comes from a rich history of political and social disruption that we shouldn't coverup.

Orloff's story starts in San Francisco in the late 70s, a kid from Berkeley who meets his lifelong best friend Michael and enters into a decades-long adventure. Orloff participates in numerous social movements from the punks through new wave and AIDS activism. With a voice that is reminiscent of Ethan Mordden but so much more richly queer, Orloff uses his wit to remind us of just how horrific and drastic the AIDS crisis was, as he recounts the numerous people he met, loved, and lost to AIDS.

"Disasterama!" is a unique and important story of just how deeply the AIDS crisis stuck the hearts of those who survived and does so with vim and vigor and gives the beautiful retelling these stories deserve.

[Mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very well written memoir about queer life
In the bad old, but in some ways good old ( I’m younger than this author, but I was there during the late 80s early 90s of this scary yet also exhilarating time only in L.A. not S.F.) days of queer life when so many ( gay men mainly) died of A.I.D.S and really not too many people gave a shit outside of the LGBTQ community.

It’s funny and inspiring in a lot of parts, sad in so many parts and a great reminder in these now again uncertain and very dangerous times, even when the odds seem stacked against you, community is everything.

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm a huge fan of well-written memoirs, so maybe it's no surprise that I finished this book in two nights.

It was hard, though. While I didn't personally know any of the people about whom Alvin Orloff wrote, I knew many of their analogs. I was a "club kid" in Portland, Ore.. Having done a lot of theatre, I also know a good many LGBTQ+ people ... and I will never forget my nurse friend calling me one night and saying "There is this disease attacking gay men. They don't know quite what it is yet, but they think it's sexually transmitted. Please tell your friends to be careful."

So, as you have no doubt surmised, this book starts in the earliest days of HIV/AIDS.

Orloff has an erudite authorial voice, but not so much that he's off-putting. He brings us into both gay and club culture in the San Francisco Bay Area from 1977-97, with humor and depth. I definitely came away with the idea that he was finding ways to be kind even about people of whom he was not particularly fond, because it was the right thing to do. in other words, there's no catty edge here.

Club nights at the Mabuhay Gardens, I-Beam, and On Broadway (all of them familiar to me from my earliest days in the Bay Area, but now all defunct) were described not only within the text but also via photos and ephemera (now housed in a collection at Cornell University) like handbills/flyers in a central section of the book.

Orloff also isn't shy about the seamier side of his existence, giving us a view of his time as a rent boy and stripper. I learned a great deal about these subcultures of which I was unaware.

Highly recommended ... but be advised that this is not for the faint of heart.

[Trebor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alvin Orloff has written his most important and absolutely best book to date. It’s important because it’s not only an essential historical document about an explosively creative period in San Francisco and in queer history at a brutally devastating time, but because it’s written by someone who wasn’t just there, but who was one of those creators (songwriting, dj-ing, cabaret, theater, performance art, spoken word, ad infinitum). It’s his best because it brings out all his many talents, and is really a kind of tour de force of new journalism and a beautiful memoir of community found and celebrated. And, if that’s not enough, it’s just plain fun to read - even the tough parts - because Orloff has an uncanny ability to be hilariously funny, then heartbreakingly poignant, and somehow suddenly sagely wise and intellectually spot on, all the while telling a really good story in such a human way that he manages to communicate and lay bear the politics without ever resorting to polemics. He’s the kind of narrator you fall in love with, and moral in the best sense of that word. And what a cast of characters! Camp and punk and then some, and all of them with nutty, brilliant ideas. Move over Dada, move over Surrealism, it’s Klubstitute! Taken all together, this is a very well-written and hugely entertaining book. Orloff is a treasure and this book is a gift to all of us – and not just the queer movement, but for all who survived the ‘80s. Books like this don’t come along that often, so don’t miss it.

[Blake Fraina · Rating 4 out of 5]

While his up close and personal recollections of the AIDS crisis certainly pack the biggest emotional punch, Alvin Orloff’s memoir Disasterama is so much more than merely a document of a dark time in America’s recent past. It’s the funny, colorful, poignant, smart, sometimes outrageous and surprisingly relatable story of a shy, geeky kid from the ‘burbs who finds his tribe and comes into his own in the big city (in this case, San Francisco). I’m just about the same age as Mr. Orloff so his story of discovering art and music as a teen in the early 1980’s really resonated with me. His memories of looking for love (and sex) at clubs while dancing to Gang of Four, Joy Division and the Flying Lizards in his funky vintage thrift shop clothes brought back fond memories of my own misspent youth clubbing at Danceteria, Maxwell’s and Hurrahs. I think anyone who wants to get a real flavor of (or reminisce about) that era will enjoy reading Orloff’s adventures.

I’ve read similar LGBTQ memoirs that might fall into the same category (notably, Wayne County’s Man Enough to be a Woman), yet what gives Orloff’s book its particular charm is that he comes across as a very down-to-earth and oddly “normal” person. Even his longstanding gig as a go-go boy and a brief foray into porn don’t come across as sleazy simply because he presents them in such a matter-of-fact way. Unlike County, he never seems to be saying, “Look at how outrageous I am!” That said, much of the story chronicles the artistic pursuits of the author, his circle of club kid friends and their ad hoc leader, “Diet Popstitute” (ne Michael Collins). In their heyday, they formed a pop group (the Popstitutes), hosted an ambitious cabaret night held at various Bay Area venues (Klubstitute), published ‘zines and mounted elaborate avant garde theater productions. This is certainly the lightest and most entertaining part of the book, before the inevitable specter of AIDS crashes the party and brings everything tumbling down.

In the 1980s and 1990s I read quite a bit of LGBT fiction. I devoured all genres - drama, romance, erotica, humor, mystery, coming out and coming of age, yet steadfastly avoided anything specifically about AIDS because it was just too disturbing. This book finally forced me to look at that horrific period in history and truly understand how devastating it was. The reader experiences the spread of the disease through Orloff’s eyes as he first learns about its existence, then as it afflicts men he’s seen around but doesn’t really know, as it moves on to those on the fringes of his circle, then to men he’s had brief or casual encounters with and eventually to former lovers and close friends. I can hardly imagine the magnitude of it or how frightening it must have been. As the story draws to a close, what started out as a quirky romp takes a turn for the heartbreaking. Orloff really takes the reader on an emotional journey with this book.

This is a terrific memoir and highly recommended.

[Laurie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Disasterama! By Alvin Orloff. Three Rooms Press, 2019

Orloff’s memoir takes us through the late 70s, 80s and 90s club scene in San Francisco. In 1977 he took a bus to Polk Street, and his adventure began. While much of the first part of the story is about relentlessly cruising for sex, whether it be in bars, parks, or bathrooms, there is more to it. There is endless dancing (it was, after all, the disco era), a lot of humor, parties, fashion (both high and vintage), a deep knowledge of old movies, Broardway, and Art Deco, and, above all, irony. While he was a very shy person, he performed with the Popstitutes and Klubstitute before becoming a deejay. He is open about his time spent as a sex worker and as a stripper. He comes across as a genuinely kind person. Then AIDS hit. No one knew where it came from, or what it would do. People were dying, right and left. Friends and lovers were lost. A way of life came to a close as the landscape became grim. This part of the story is difficult to read, but the author is so easy to read that I was engaged just as much as in the times that were more fun. The book is absorbing and humorous; I stayed up nights reading it. There are some marvelous photos and posters from the club years, too.

[Richard Loranger · Rating 5 out of 5]

With this personal account of the AIDS crisis told through the eyes of an indefatigable bon vivant and alt-culture maven (or as he puts it, “the true story of how a bunch of pathologically flippant kids floundered through a deadly serious disaster”), novelist Alvin Orloff’s voice takes flight to tell an absolutely essential tale from a dark period of queer history. Frank and self-effacing yet infused with wit and verve, Orloff’s account takes us on a romp through death and grief in late 20th Century San Francisco, and, perhaps more importantly, through the many forms of resistance that sprang up in response. This is an irresistible and seminal work that gives us a glimpse into an historical moment that’s been nowhere near enough documented – an explosive era of outspoken and unprecedented art, breathless interpersonal discourse and dysfunction, dug-in protest culture, and mind-bending fashion that put the word “flamboyant” to shame. Told in an engaging novelistic style, Orloff’s memoir poses joie de vivre as a survival technique, adding that much more joie to our vivres.

[Jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

This simply needed to be an exercise in competent documentation to ensure my investment, so what a pleasure that this far exceeds that relatively low bar. Sharp, funny, poignant, unsentimental, elegiac—sometimes spanning all these different registers within the space of several rollicking sentences—it briefly reanimates a San Francisco that has all but vanished under the shadow of nearby Silicon Valley & the homogenizing influence of its money & self-obsession over the last decade or so.

And of all the subcultures that once flourished here, the gritty punk community of this type, fueled by a DIY spirit & an anti-establishment, anti-capitalist rage, has all but gone extinct as market forces devoured the environments in which it was able to once thrive. I just feel lucky & grateful now that I was able to experience some of the lingering vestiges of this scene that managed to survive into the late 2000s/early 2010s.

And yet, it's also a reminder of how much I continue to love this city, & reaffirms my belief that the idiosyncrasies & defiant ethos captured within these pages still lurk quietly & unobserved, simply waiting to be unleashed once again.

"People have told me they found us inspiring, which I take to mean our ostentatious rejection of prissiness and passivity made them feel less alone in choosing to be loudmouth freakazoids. And I like to think that The Popstitutes, along with all the other obscure queer performance artists, did produce at least some resistance to the normalizing tide."

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

A new book by Alvin Orloff is always a big joy for me, so you can imagine my delight at the chance to review an advance reader copy of his latest book (out in October). I was already looking forward to it, since I knew it was a memoir, and was eager to learn more about the life of one of my favorite authors. (Full disclosure: I also knew he would describe the “scene” that I was lucky enough to encounter when I arrived in San Francisco, so it had a certain personal nostalgia factor as well.)

Disasterama! ends up being several books in one: The fascinating memoir of one delightful and quirky person; an insider’s view of a very creative queer underground performance art/club scene; and a social history of that scene that flowered in the midst of the worst horrors of AIDS. I think that combination is powerful, not only for those of us who want to remember the particular people described here, but also for those who may come to know them only by reading this book.

Of course, this is a book by Alvin Orloff, so it is not only insightful, wise, and full of love, but also very, very funny. I am tremendously moved by much of what is recorded here, but I must tell you that it was fun to read, just the same. How does he do it? It’s that magic Alvin Orloff touch, which I can’t explain, I can only adore! I think you’ll adore this book, too, so look for it in October (or pre-order now!). Don't miss out!

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

In his new memoir, fiction author Orloff details his personal experiences as part of the birth, rise and fall of retro-camp San Francisco queer culture, specifically the nightlife mini-phenomena of the band The Popstitutes, the events Klubstitute, and the spinoff Sick & Twisted Players. In between the descriptions of the club events, fashion, and his romances with celebrities of the subculture, he shares his charmingly sordid past as a gogo boy, stripper and sex worker. All the while, his search for his own identity and true purpose remains elusive.

The "disaster" element arrives in the early 1980s when, while able to frequently retreat to his family's basement, his friends and acquaintances begin to fall to the growing AIDS epidemic. Orloff bravely shares his own denial, fears, and compassion, but also the frenetic impulses of his generation's determination to live fiercely in spite of AIDS. The tone of his writing alternates between glib, concerned, flippant, doubtful and sincere, just as many of us dodged reality and conversely confronted it as our friends died.

The memoir brings nostalgia and cultural memories for those who lived through these years, and a personal perspective on these years for those who wonder just what happened to this specific subculture of creative, brave souls.

[John Marr · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm sure there are many reviewers who will describe with far more skill than I how fascinating, hilarious, and often touching this memoir of SF before, during and after plague years is. And I second all these sentiments heartily. But I would also like to add kudos for how this is the first gay memoir I have ever read where the memoirist cops to not getting laid every time he goes out.

[Theo · Rating 4 out of 5]

An immensely readable memoir of friendship, art, and gay sex in the 80s and 90s in San Francisco during the HIV/AIDS pandemic. I felt so much for Alvin by the end, as I too had a soulmate friend who died, and I would trade it all to have them back.

While Alvin is open about how he didn't really do any activism and wasn't a leader of any movement, the art he and Diet made is the joyous stuff we live for, and that matters too.

[Kristin]

Reviewed for Library Journal.

[Roger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Telling the story about the AIDS crisis in San Francisco with some humor. Difficult task but he was able to pull it off. This book tapped into past sadness of lost friends.

[Elizabeth Wenger]

Though this book is categorized as memoir, it is so much more than the story of one man. As Orloff writes in his introduction, “You can read it as an elegy, apologia, cautionary tale, or social history, but it is also my memoir...” The book ripples out from Orloff’s personal story, coming out as queer and joining myriad misfits in the streets of San Francisco. It recalls drag shows, performance art, poverty, youth, and sex. It can be read as a first-hand history of the city’s ever-changing queer club scene, or as a tale of life outside the norm. But, at the memoir’s center is the slow march of AIDS.
While in many recountings of the AIDS crisis the happiness and love that still existed in the community can be grazed over and the pain dwelled on, this book chooses to laugh. Disasterama! records the joy and playfulness that queerness was and continues to be despite hardships. Powerfully, the comedy in this book is never overly flippant, but almost reverent. Orloff captures the humor in the darkness and eulogizes his friends with determined laughter instead of mourning. Even when the book does have its tender moments, it is adamant in its refusal to reduce his friends to martyrs in a larger political game. He insists on the details and on the individual moments that make up people and make up communities. In this way, he acknowledges the personal as political but urges readers not to forget the day-to-day existence of those personally affected by politics and prejudice. This book is a must-read for memoir-lovers, history-nerds, punks, misfits, amateur artists, clubbers, and anyone looking to laugh and learn.

[Dev · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received an ARC copy of this book from Edelweiss

I read about a quarter of this and then skimmed the rest of it pretty heavily. I guess there is nothing really 'wrong' with this book but I'm not usually one for memoirs [I was trying to step out of my comfort zone] and I'm way too asexual to enjoy reading what is basically an extended 20 year summary of this guy's sex life. Also, as mentioned by another reviewer, this is a pretty narrow 'white cis gay man' view of the time period except for a few very short diversions. I'm not necessarily mad at the author for that because I guess that was just his life and his experience and he has related that here, but again it was not very interesting for me to read and definitely not relatable to me either. I'm sure there will be a lot of people who really enjoy this book and it was a nice sentiment for him to want to honor people he knew by writing something about queer history of this time that wasn't sad, but to me it just didn't come across well.

[W. Stephen Breedlove · Rating 5 out of 5]

“WE DOUBLED DOWN ON THE QUEER”

In his introduction to Alvin Orloff’s Disasterama! Adventures in the Queer Underground 1977-1997, Alexander Chee, who was in San Francisco during this period, observes: “There’s lessons here if you want them.” Orloff writes in his preface: “As denizens of what used to be called ‘The Underground’ we were prepared for lives of social exclusion and unrelenting bohemian squalor. We were not prepared for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.” He tells us, “You can read . . . [Disasterama!] as an elegy, apologia, cautionary tale, or social history, but it’s also my memoir.” Orloff’s beautifully written memoir teems with wit and humor—and love. Orloff’s tributes to friends and lovers who died too soon, such as Diet Popstitute, are heartbreaking. The book includes sixteen fabulous pages of photographs of the queer punk scene in San Francisco.

I highly recommend Disasterama! I will say that Alvin Orloff’s third novel, Why Aren’t You Smiling? is one of my all-time favorite gay novels.

[Glen Helfand · Rating 5 out of 5]

I inhaled this book. Part of this is the fact that it is a time and place that I myself lived through, but more of its deceptive ease is Orloff's wonderful balance of wit and heartfelt observation. Often those attributes are so quotably intertwined. It is the story of lost bohemia, a lost friend, and employing nightclub artfulness in the fight against real political turmoil, AIDS and homophobia. The book intertwines Orloff's own trajectory, which may involve some archetypal scenarios--it is a queer odyssey that involves broken hearts, sex work, funky apartments in the Tenderloin--but it is the voice, far more sweet than bitter, that sets this one apart. As he admits early in the book, Orloff was smitten with 1960s GoGo aesthetic, shiny pop with polka dots and a danceable beat, and there is a sense of optimism that pervades (even if our humble narrator admits to all sorts of anxieties). He's a great character, as is Diet Popstitute, the friend at the heart of this book as a creative and personal catalyst. It's ultimately a book about friendship and community, in a world, in a city that has such an indelible, historic relationship to both.

[Kest Schwartzman · Rating 5 out of 5]

__received as part of LibraryThing's Early Review Program__


Like many memoirs, this is secretly a love story. Because it's a queer, punk love story, it's a love story to many people; to chosen family, to practical strangers, to lovers, to crushes, and to one great love who, as is so often the case in punk queer love stories, was never a lover at all.

This book could easily have tipped into the maudlin. It did not. It is sometimes nostalgic, but in the good way. As the author explains retro camp, so could he explain this book; and I can't do any better.

This is a book we need about a time when there was so much death, and so much fierce life raging around, in between, and before that death. We, the next generation of queers, hear about the death, and we're stopped in awe f the magnitude of it, afraid to ask about it, but we need to know about all the rest of this; just so very much love.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

A million stars! Thank you Alvin for writing this.

Disasterama made me laugh out loud, cry, wince, and feel all the things. It contains one of the funniest stories I’ve ever read (the toaster 🤣). Alvin’s stories and memories of SF during AIDS crisis are ones that everyone should read, queer or not. Here were some of my fav parts:

1) discussion re: politics of respectability and masculinity for gays and what that looked like in 80s-90s in SF during peak aids crisis. A lot of good content here for folks interested in that aspect.

2) lots of funny stories involving drugs, sex, and pretty boys

3) counter culture SF!

4) beautiful (hilarious) tributes to friends who were killed by AIDS

5) laugh till you cry stories about the author’s stripping career

I’m a queer person with a “stable” life—wife, a mortgage, a job, etc. and this book gave me a glimpse into what my life might have been like in another time, another place, totally different. I identified (a LOT) with Alvin in his heartbreaks, awkwardness—his desire to fly as fast as possible in a land of endless hedonism bc it was very likely he didn’t have long left. This books forces you to think about the question: what does it look like to live fully and authentically?

[Allison Floyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh man, this book is so great:

"I would become a writer! It made perfect sense: I'd always been socially awkward, pretentious, moody, self-loathing, judgmental, and besotted with the sound of my own voice. What else could I be?"

Bwahhahahaaha!

Who doesn't love a glitter-spackled, tongue-in-cheek contrarian? Yes, the end of this book, if you have a shred of human feeling in you, will probably make you cry, but hey! Catharsis!

[Trish Mullahey]

When I started reading , I thought well okay, another tell all of details that may or may not lead to the most compelling part of any book, a love for the narrator , the hero or heroine .
Alvin is the most endearing character . Funny as hell , but deep and sentimental too.
It is a thing Americans in particular struggle with, Self Love . He tells that story so redemptively.
And I love knowing more about the people of San Francisco .
The Blowdryers ! His college band!

[Lawrence Rinder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alvin Orloff, thank you for writing this book! You captured a very important, very evanescent moment that might otherwise have simply disappeared. I lived through part of it, in NY and SF, and felt much that was familiar, though you jumped in the deep end of the pool and I only waded. It was fun times! Darkly tinged with tragedy as you so well evoke. Really, you are a wonderful writer and a great historian. Congratulations!

[Olga Zilberbourg · Rating 5 out of 5]

A hilarious and poignant account of a couple of heady decades in San Francisco's queer scene. The tone is irreverent and playful, and the story has very much a Bildungsroman drive -- combined with the virus pandemic narrative. Down with the bourgeoisie! Maybe. The book is a must-read for anyone who wants to know what San Francisco is all about.

[Vincent Meis · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is always something to be learned when a writer gives us an account of people living on the edge. But when the writer is as adept as Orloff, we get a thoroughly entertaining romp that is both hysterical and heart-rending. He does not hold back while giving voice to the heroes of the queer underground who fought to survive during the most devastating years of the AIDS pandemic. The language is so rich it practically makes the reader dizzy at times.

[Kevin Carter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this. It was like reliving my youth in SF in the 80's (minus the hustling and stripping part.) I went to the same clubs and cafes and bars as the author, and even knew some of the same people. It was wonderful to see that time and that world captured so lovingly.

[Dustin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Documenting the half+ generation before me, in locales much more exotic than where I was raised, it was great to see a novel that shed light on punk and early club-kid scene of the 70’s – 90’s. Detailing 80% of the journey I wanted at the time and 10% of the journey I actually had, Disasterama! brings humanity to a scene and subculture that should not be forgotten.