By Barrett White
Sex, drugs, and the gays of Houston. Just a few characters in the zephyr of cynicism, sarcasm, and witty one-liners that makes up author Anthony Ramirez’s third book, Less Than Butterflies. Ramirez, editor-in-chief of About magazine, tells all in the autobiography, exploring his life as it was dragged through the underbelly of Houston’s raunchy gay scene. The book jumps from Montrose to Washington Heights, Midtown to Third Ward, and never a dull moment between them.
Under the shady trees that line the patio of “Gaybucks,” the Starbucks on Hawthorne Street in Montrose—the only Starbucks that matters—Ramirez laughs bawdily, beginning our interview by telling me that, earlier that day, he had been locked out of the house and forced to bathe in a backyard kiddy pool prior to our meeting. This on-brand deprecating humor is second nature to Ramirez, who recognizes the pain at which his audience is laughing, but decides it is his right to laugh first.
Ramirez revels in showing the tightness of his grip, never losing control to the audience—in his writing or otherwise. “If we can beat somebody else to it, they can’t do it to us,” he explains. “If we can laugh at ourselves, it eliminates the chance for them to bully us, to put us down. I know for me, as a kid growing up knowing that I was gay from a young age, a lot of that was a self-defense mechanism. Like, if I can make them laugh, then they’ll like me and they won’t pick on me.”
Before stepping into his role at About, Ramirez told many of the autobiographical stories featured in Less Than Butterflies as a column by the same name in a Los Angeles-based magazine. When creative differences prompted Ramirez to cut ties, About adopted the column for their LGBTQ audience. Some of the vignettes might seem familiar if you’re an avid About reader, and that’s because they are. But much of the book is still original content, never before seen except by those who lived it.
A portion of the book surrounds Pride Houston, where Ramirez worked for three years. “I’ll always love them, some of my closest friends, and the main love interest in the book, [as] people will read, I met at Pride.” The insights into Ramirez’s life in the book may be fleeting, but are well said. His professional relationships (and those not so professional, but purely erotic) are not only somehow relatable, but delivered with such casual cynicism that you feel as though he’s letting you in on a secret over coffee.
“I cannot write at home,” Ramirez tells me. “I physically cannot write at home. I’m sitting here, at this Starbucks, or on the patio at Barnaby’s, or at my old job for hours after my shift ended to just write. The distractions there are different than here. I don’t know, maybe I should stop drinking so much,” he continues, giving another glimpse of his trademark humor. “I was literally everywhere I mention in this book, as I was writing it.” Any scenes at Barnaby’s were written at Barnaby’s. (“Which Barnaby’s?” “Fairview—only Fairview, the only one that matters!”)
All in all, Less Than Butterflies—albeit messy, vulgar, and filled with enough debauchery to make a club kid clutch their pearls—is honest. Ramirez knows who he is and is not ashamed to tell his story (and that of those peripheral to his own). May we all read ourselves with such transparency.
Less Than Butterflies is now available for pre-order on Amazon and is scheduled for release on August 31, 2018. Join us on September 1, 2018, for the book’s Houston release party at Guava Lamp. Read more of Ramirez’s work on About magazine.
