British Memoirist Is Denied U.S. Entry

[Mythos]

Sebastian Horsley, a British author who has written an eyebrow-raising memoir detailing a life of rampant drug use and voluminous encounters with prostitutes, was turned back at Newark Liberty International Airport on Tuesday as he tried to enter the United States for a book party and New York news media tour.
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Sebastian Horsley on the cover of his memoir, "Dandy in the Underworld."
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'Dandy in the Underworld,' by Sebastian Horsley: I, Narcissus (March 9, 2008)
An Excerpt from “Dandy in the Underworld” (harpercollins.com)

Mr. Horsley, whose memoir, “Dandy in the Underworld,” was published last week in paperback by Harper Perennial, a unit of HarperCollins, said he was detained by United States customs authorities for eight hours and questioned about his former drug addiction, use of prostitutes and activity as a male escort.

“I’m absolutely shattered and upset and gutted about not being able to come to America,” Mr. Horsley said in a telephone interview from London, where he had returned on Wednesday. “I was very much looking forward to meeting everybody.”

Lucille Cirillo, a spokeswoman for the New York office of United States Customs and Border Protection, said she could not comment on specific cases. But in an e-mail message, she said that under a waiver program that allows British citizens to enter the United States without a visa, “travelers who have been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude (which includes controlled-substance violations) or admit to previously having a drug addiction are not admissible.”

In “Dandy of the Underworld” Mr. Horsley, who is notorious in Britain, writes of being raised by alcoholic, sexually promiscuous parents and bouncing through several schools. He details a debauched life of cocaine, heroin, opium and amphetamine use, writing that he spent more than £100,000 (nearly $200,000) on crack cocaine and £100,000 to consort with more than 1,000 prostitutes. He also chronicles his trip to the Philippines to be hung from a cross, an event that was recorded by a photographer and videographer and formed part of an art exhibition that was extensively covered by the news media in his home country.

Carrie Kania, publisher of Harper Perennial, said Mr. Horsley’s party, which was scheduled for Wednesday in Manhattan, would go on without him. “I believe this book is very important,” Ms. Kania said. “It certainly moved me, and we’re going to continue to back it 100 percent.”

British public records are not available in the United States, and it was not possible to verify independently many of the details in Mr. Horsley’s memoir.

In interviews, though, he has been repeatedly coy about what is real and what is contrived. “It’s better to be quotable than honest,” he told Time Out London in February. In an interview with The Independent last September, he said: “I don’t speak, I quote. I am a fraud. I have cobbled together my personality from hundreds of little bits. I am simultaneously the most genuine and the most artificial person you will ever meet.”

In his interview with The New York Times on Wednesday, Mr. Horsley insisted the memoir was true. “I’m a dandy, so I like to play with words,” he said. “I am real, but in an artificial way, because I like to play with language. But my story is completely true.”

Ms. Kania said that the book, published in Britain in September by an imprint of Hodder Headline, had been through a “lengthy legal review” by the British publisher. But Harper did not independently fact-check it.

Mr. Horsley said he was surprised he was deported, since he had previously traveled to the United States six times, twice to visit relatives in Boston and four times to New York.

“God bless America, land of the free, but sadly not the land of the depraved,” he said. He referred to the recent resignation of Eliot Spitzer, the former governor of New York, in the wake of revelations that he had frequented prostitutes. “I’m not a politician, I’m an artist,” Mr. Horsley said. “Depravity is part of the job description.”

He added that he regarded his memoir as “a very moral book in the same way that Bret Easton Ellis’s ‘American Psycho’ was a moral book.” He added, “I’m not a bad person.”

Jack Begg contributed reporting.

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So what do you think? Right decision? Is this a metastasizing of the American surveillance thing into people's individual liberties?

[Gaidin]

Yay customs law.

It's either right or the law needs to be changed.

[s.rwitt]

“travelers who have been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude (which includes controlled-substance violations) or admit to previously having a drug addiction are not admissible.”

[mongrel]

“travelers who have been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude (which includes controlled-substance violations) or admit to previously having a drug addiction are not admissible.”

Makes you wonder how the Rolling Stones can cross the border.

[Carach]

apparently there isnt any drug abuse or crime of any kind in the US.

C/D?

[Gaidin]

apparently there isnt any drug abuse or crime of any kind in the US.

Are you saying you support the idea of deportation of citizens for 'moral' crimes?

That's a bit different than not granting a access to a foreign visitor.

[Gaidin]

America makes more money off their concerts than this guy's books.

[s.rwitt]

Makes you wonder how the Rolling Stones can cross the border.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

[Garbarsardar]

Makes you think how Bill Clinton crossed the border.

[bushbush]

make you think how i crossed the border.

[Каие]

Quagmire? Good point...

After questioning him and the fact he doesn't do it anymore, doesn't he get to go back in?

[s.rwitt]

apparently there isnt any drug abuse or crime of any kind in the US.

Hardly relevant to who the US lets in.

[Carach]

Hardly relevant to who the US lets in.

what they did in the past doesnt really reflect on what theyre doing now...

Mr. Horsley, whose memoir, “Dandy in the Underworld,” was published last week in paperback by Harper Perennial, a unit of HarperCollins, said he was detained by United States customs authorities for eight hours and questioned about his former drug addiction, use of prostitutes and activity as a male escort.

they let him fly off to the US, then stop him and question him for eight hours on what he did in the past... its just ing idiotic.

What exactly did they have to say? "so.. u used drugs before...".. "yea long time ago.." "..prostitutes too?" "we all have needs..." (America are the ones with legal ing brothels ffs...).... jeeeeeeeeeeeeez

i guess i wont be let in the US the next time round either..ive done naughty things in the past too...

[Erwin Rommel]

so he was that guy who got nailed in the cross

[removeduser_487563287433]

It's not particularly relevent to the 21st century to be denying entry to people on the basis of their moral character.

[Da Skinna]

Reminds me of the Salvadoran mothers organization in the 1980s who couldn't enter the US to accept the Robert Kennedy Human Rights Award, yet a leader of the far-right death squads was allowed entry immediately. He was responsible for mothers forming in the first place, killing and kidnapping and disappearing their sons and husbands...


US doesn't like it when they're pointed out to be abhorringly hypocritical.

[Oldgamer]

Reminds me of the Salvadoran mothers organization in the 1980s who couldn't enter the US to accept the Robert Kennedy Human Rights Award, yet a leader of the far-right death squads was allowed entry immediately. He was responsible for mothers forming in the first place, killing and kidnapping and disappearing their sons and husbands...

Are you sure that they were "right-wing" death squads? Are you aware that the rebels in El Salvador operated death squads, also, and that many of their targets were their own "people"? Anyone they killed immediately resulted in an accusation against the government (or the CIA).

The denial of entry probably had more to do with the political positions of the "Co-Madres", rather than anything else, and the fact that they were being invited to speak to Congress, in a shameful propaganda effort by the DEMs.

By the way, what "leader of the far-right death squads" was allowed "immediate" entry?

US doesn't like it when they're pointed out to be abhorringly hypocritical.

Why should the Reagan Administration have participated in what was a shameless propaganda campaign by the DEMs? Naturally, the news media would have made it a circus.

[Da Skinna]

Are you sure that they were "right-wing" death squads? Are you aware that the rebels in El Salvador operated death squads, also, and that many of their targets were their own "people"? Anyone they killed immediately resulted in an accusation against the government (or the CIA).

The denial of entry probably had more to do with the political positions of the "Co-Madres", rather than anything else, and the fact that they were being invited to speak to Congress, in a shameful propaganda effort by the DEMs.

By the way, what "leader of the far-right death squads" was allowed "immediate" entry?



Why should the Reagan Administration have participated in what was a shameless propaganda campaign by the DEMs? Naturally, the news media would have made it a circus.

Roberto D'Aubuisson, leader of the right-wing forces in El Salvador.

In December 1984 D'Aubuisson visited Washington to attend a dinner held in his honour by a group of US conservative organizations, and to receive an award recognising his "continuing efforts for freedom in the face of communist aggression which is an inspiration to freedom-loving people everywhere." [1]

http://www.newslinx.org/articles/12-...DAubuisson.htm


I know why you are defensive about this, we've spoken already, and you have more than enough right and ground to be defensive. But I just cannot believe or take it at face value that this is black and white as we are told.

Co-Madres has just enough right and ground to talk to Congress as anyone else involved.

In '84, CoMadres got the Human Rights Award. They weren't allowed into the States. The guy who ordered Romero's assassination was.

The only black and white to this, the only "good guys" here are the civilians, the ones just trying to live their lives. Not D'Aubuisson, not the government, not the death squads and certainly not anyone who impedes progress, as in human progress, not progress in the yes of the left or right or East or West.

[Oldgamer]

Roberto D'Aubuisson, leader of the right-wing forces in El Salvador.

I know why you are defensive about this, we've spoken already, and you have more than enough right and ground to be defensive. But I just cannot believe or take it at face value that this is black and white as we are told.

Co-Madres has just enough right and ground to talk to Congress as anyone else involved.

In '84, CoMadres got the Human Rights Award. They weren't allowed into the States. The guy who ordered Romero's assassination was.

The only black and white to this, the only "good guys" here are the civilians, the ones just trying to live their lives. Not D'Aubuisson, not the government, not the death squads and certainly not anyone who impedes progress, as in human progress, not progress in the yes of the left or right or East or West.

Chele wasn't a saint (and Archbishop Romero is!), but notice who he was denounced by. Robert White, one of the worst American America-haters I've ever had the misfortune to meet. And even more unfortunately, the guy's still around, as President of the Center for International Policy.

I'm emotional about this issue because I had the very great honor of interviewing the Archbishop. This was an assignment that I looked forward to. My report (based in part upon the interview and in part on information I gleaned on the streets) was that it was in the interests of the people of El Salvador and the United States to protect Romero with every resource at our disposal.

Note that one of our sources indicated that the Martis were very interested in assassinating him, knowing that the world would put the blame on the United States. I then went home, the report went to Washington, where it obviously languished on someone's desk, somewhere, and Archbishop Romero died.

The Co-Madres were part of the rebels' international propaganda effort. Note that the United States is not obligated to allow people onto its soil, in order to trash our country.

The "black and white" of the entire issue was on the part of the national media, which was totally dominated by the Left, at that time. To them White = Movements of National Liberation. Black = The United States of America, and Ronald Reagan. Let the Co-Madres in, and it would have been months of anti-American propaganda, with 15-second soundbytes of opposing opinions, each followed by the ubiquitous, "However ...".

[Dromikaites]

Note that one of our sources indicated that the Martis were very interested in assassinating him, knowing that the world would put the blame on the United States. I then went home, the report went to Washington, where it obviously languished on someone's desk, somewhere, and Archbishop Romero died.

Well, here is the thing: even though the communists allegedly toyed with the idea of killing the archbishop and then blame it on the US, the guys sponsored by the US were the ones who killed him.

The Co-Madres were part of the rebels' international propaganda effort. Note that the United States is not obligated to allow people onto its soil, in order to trash our country.

The US government was doing an excellent job trashing America by choosing "carefully" whom to support in Central and South America.

I've lived for 20 years under one of the worst communist dictatorships. After 1989 I've visited South America several times. What I can tell by comparing the standard of living of the majority of the population under Ceausescu and the standard of living of the majority of the population in countries like Brazil, Bolivia, Peru or Ecuador (those are the only ones I know directly) is Nicolae Ceausescu's regime at its worst, (the 1982 - 1989 period) would have been probably 15 times better for 99% of the population in any of those countries. And keep in mind I'm one of those who would shoot Ceausescu again today, not a commie-era nostalgic.

I really cannot understand why the US fought communism in South America through supporting regimes which were worse than the communists for the respective nations. Both Fidel Castro and Ho Chi Min had initially asked for America's support in rebuilding their countries. Both were pushed by the US government into the arms of Soviet Union. [/QUOTE]