Author Steven Milliken
What made you pursue writing? I began writing humorous essays shortly before I became a high school English teacher. I exchanged emails with a group of high school friends after our 30-year high school reunion. They were so much fun (and funny) that friends told me I should save them and turn them into a book of humorous essays. One friend told me I wrote just like David Sedaris, and I had no idea who he was! I began reading his books and thought I could do the same thing. However, since being a high school English teacher is so work intensive, I only wrote a couple essays per year; but once I retired, I realized it was time to get it together and so I did…. So basically, my book took 20 years to write!
Tell us about your most recent work. In a nutshell, the subtitle to my book, Late Bloomer Baby Boomer, basically says it all: (a collection of humorous essays about being gay back in the day and finally finding my way). There are 38 essays in all, chronicling my life beginning in the 50s through modern day. For example, while teaching in the inner-city in the 2000s, with an implicit “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, I led a double life, somewhere between Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde and Hannah Montana. My book has a universal appeal in that it’s for anyone who is gay, knows someone who is gay, or any “straight” guy who’s had a gay experience, like wearing a belt that matches his shoes.
Who has been your biggest influence in life? Aside from the great Buddha, Alfred E. Neuman, a much underrated cultural icon. The burp song, “It’s a Gas,” inspired me to become a champion belcher. I have “What Me Worry?” tattooed on a place I can’t mention here. I still have a subscription to Mad Magazine even though it’s out of print. One can only hope….
Words that best describe you. While I can be intelligent and insightful, I counter this by being gullible and naïve. I’m strong, yet timid, caring but sarcastic, and while having no sense of direction, I’m driven. Rare, yet well done, I’m hiding, yet seeking, and all the while being very public, yet particularly private. I’m all about the balance. Although I am never a contradiction in terms, I might be the nicest oxymoron you’ve ever met….
When did you become out to friends and family? Perhaps a better phrase for the question would be when did you start coming out, since the coming out process never truly ends. I hesitantly started going to gay bars in my early 20s.
It’s all in the book!
I would give anything to meet… Oscar Wilde, so I could ask him why he had to kill off poor Dorian Gray. I don’t see what’s wrong with looking young forever, which I eternally strive to do, and how living the good life is a bad thing.
Your idea of a perfect evening is? Watching my favorite John Waters movie while eating myself into a chocolate coma.
The last book I read was …. A Confederacy of Dunces, for the 8th time and counting….
My favorite movies/plays are? My favorite play is The Crucible by Arthur Miller. During my tenure as a high school English teacher, I taught and read it over a hundred times and each time I’d find something new in its powerful indictment of accusatory lies leading to mass hysteria and intolerance. It takes on a whole new meaning nowadays with Trump’s continual references to witch hunts and his own lies and incitements to violence. One of my favorite movies is Cool Hand Luke. After watching the movie, I tried to duplicate Paul Newman’s feat of eating 50 hard-boiled eggs. I got to ten and then decided it would be easier just to cut the tops off the annoying parking meters on Santa Monica Boulevard. I’m also fond of The Exorcist and never could quite figure out how Linda Blair could twist her head 360 degrees. She should have won an Oscar for that as well as setting the record for the longest projectile vomit in screen history.
Nobody knows that…. My best friend is the Fart Machine #2, especially when things get dull in supermarkets, libraries, and boring dates.
What’s your favorite place in the entire world? I haven’t found it yet, but lots of people recommend venturing out of your comfort zone. So, I’m thinking Death Valley in the summer or Antarctica in the winter. I haven’t decided yet. I’ve also heard there is a Groupon for a boat trip down the Congo River which is just as fun as Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. There’s an extra charge for engaging the cannibals though.
What’s the most spontaneous thing you’ve ever done? I write about many spontaneous events in my book; but having an aversion to spoiler alerts, I’ll refer you to my essays…. I’ve tried scheduling my spontaneity, but something always happens at the spur of the moment….
What odd talent do you have? – I can burp the Pledge of Allegiance. I can also belch Happy Birthday in perfect pitch to the delight of children and the consternation of adults.
What had been your biggest setback or failure in life and how did you overcome it? After I scheduled my mid-life crisis, I chose the wrong profession and became a hair stylist
It took several years to realize it was a subconscious, unrequited desire to play with dolls and I eventually became terminally bored. Fortunately, a client who was a teacher and desperately needed color every four weeks informed me that due to a teacher shortage, you just needed a bachelor’s degree to become a teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District. So thanks to a necessity for gray coverage, I became a teacher….
If I could meet my younger self, I would tell him… Believe in yourself and don’t wait until you’re a senior citizen to get published.
What would you like to say to the Gay Life after 40 tribe? In the book Getting Over Getting Older, Letty Pogrebin recounts a survey she took of older women asking them if they could be any age again, what age would they chose. You’d think they’d choose their 20s or 30s, but the vast majority chose 50! That’s because your children have left, you’ve got priceless wisdom, and all the medical concerns involving aches and pains that tend to happen after 60 haven’t started yet. Now in my late 60s, I see this “truth” all too clearly….
Where can our readers find you or know more about you? LateBloomerBabyBoomer.org, linktr.ee/stevemilliken, and Instagram: @stevenmilliken53
How can they purchase your book? Amazon.com book page for Late Bloomer Baby Boomer (a collection of humorous essays about being gay back in the day and finally finding my way): https://www.amazon.com/Late-Bloomer-Baby-Boomer-collection/dp/B0BQ58KJPZ/ref=sr_1_1?crid=27T31MEBSIKIJ&keywords=late+bloomer+baby+boomer+steve+milliken&qid=1689574483&sprefix=late+bloomer+baby%2Caps%2C140&sr=8-1
