Mongrel

Ever wonder how someone copes with the pain of an anal fissure? Chin imagines three elves having ""wild adventures"" in his colon. In this ragtag collection of essays about being gay, being Asian-American, being an artist and every permutation thereof, Chin offers his take on such topics as delicate surgery, the importance of class, his Asian upbringing, San Francisco's Castro neighborhood, Thai sex clubs, his disenchantment with poetry slams and pretty much anything else that enters his mind. At his most flippant, Chin is downright charming. In a piece titled ""Don't Ask Isadora, Ask Me,"" he advises: ""never serve semen with fish or seafood."" He's also engaging when he turns unexpectedly sentimental--as he does in remembering his grandmother's meatballs. Even when Chin lapses into straight journalism, as in his description of the pay scales for boys in Bangkok sex clubs, the book is still endearing. The real tossers come when he tries to present himself as a social commentator. Would anyone who's so much as seen a picture of Marx be shocked to read that ""Class is all around, and sometimes, we don't see until it is too late""? How surprising is it that ""porn may be morally or politically good or bad depending on whom you ask""? Yet despite the occasional bland insight, Chin's eclecticism and voice make the book, like a poetry slam, an enjoyable, if transient, entertainment. (Feb.)