Muddy Thinking from Danny Schechter; George Tabb, Swine; Screaming for Mimi; Lionel Tiger and Vaginas; Morley Sucks, Hall Sucks, Caldwell Sucks, Slivka Sucks, DeFilippo Sucks...
Talk about being suckered. Okay, I will admit it. I was taken in. I stupidly spent an hour on the telephone with New York Press' David Grad ("Books," 2/7) at my own expense from Europe, discussing my book on Falun Gong's conflict with China (Akashic Press). (That's like the People's Liberation Army charging the families of victims they've "liquidated" for the bullets they use!) Grad represented himself as someone who was sincerely interested in my views and was planning to "review" the book. Hah! Naivete, thy name is Schechter for believing that a publication that once invited me to trash its own content in it own pages would be fair. No way. Payback is your signature, polemics your stock and trade.
Needless to say, my ideas were twisted shamelessly, with the kind of predictable arrogance one has come to expect from MUGGER's minions. What was I thinking? Why am I not surprised? Wasting my time?and yours, dear reader?so that New York Press could rave and rant once again at how stupid I am, and by extension anyone who stands up for the rights of more than 50,000 people who have been detained, thousands more tortured and more than l00 killed in China. Clearly they are not people worthy of sympathy, given your high standards of polished self-righteous skepticism. My book, as its title makes clear, is about Falun Gong's challenge to China, not the mystical beliefs of its founder, so I am rubbished for what I make clear I was not doing. Why let the facts stand in the way? Falun Gong practitioners are not attacked because their leaders' ideas are strange, but because there are so many of them defying President Jiang Zemin, who insists on, as another author put it, running a one-cult country.
Your put-down is hardly original: Christopher Hitchens in The Nation on the old left beat you to it, but he and the smarmy Mr. Grad on the new right seem to be making common cause, for different reasons, with the Chinese Communist Party. Hitchens labeled me a booster of that well-known duo, Pol Pot and Bill Clinton. Grad has me in effective cahoots with GWB's missile shield when I am not being a savvy capitalist roader. Guilty as charged. And as for personal motive: sure, David, I am clairvoyant. I cleverly plotted all of this out last year so I could cash in on the story. I just can't keep the talk shows away! And then there's the movie to come. "May the fa be with you..."
I may yet become an acolyte of Master David, but for now readers who want the unfiltered version can check out the book itself. It is a work of nonfiction, unlike the dump he took.
Danny Schechter, Manhattan
The editors reply: More muddy thinking of the sort Grad criticized in his review. Yes, in 1998 Schechter was one of several guest writers we invited to critique us in our own pages, but he's ridiculously flattering himself to think that we've been itching for "payback" ever since. And the remark about "polemics" is a strange one, coming from such a relentlessly self-promoting polemicist as he. No, Danny, we put out a weekly paper; polemics is your "stock and trade."
Finally, Schechter might be less mystified that both Hitchens and Grad slammed his book if he knew that there's nothing "new right" about Grad, nor is he by any stretch of the imagination "MUGGER's minion." Grad's political leanings are at least as far to the left as Schechter's, or indeed Hitchens', so there's no surprise in his agreeing with Hitchens over the book's intellectual and logical shortcomings, or its political naivete.
So?
George Tabb: "Nubile nectar" ("Music," 2/7)? You must have been wasted.
Shana Carter, Ridgewood, NJ
Hey Ladies
Why do you keep on publishing stories by George Tabb? Don't you know it encourages him? Just ignore him and maybe the sexist swine will crawl back into the mud he has come from. Shame on you, New York Press. Tabb has nothing to do with punk rock, and never will. And I bet his "10-inch cock" ("Music," 2/7) is more like 3 inches.
Susan Hudson, Manhattan
Kramer vs. Lamer
It really pissed me off to open the 2/7 New York Press and see not one, but two letters disparaging my favorite critic, the great Mimi Kramer. I had to write to let Ms. Kramer know that at least one person out here appreciates her work.
In article after article, she illustrates George Bernard Shaw's maxim that "criticism written without personal feeling is not worth reading" by finding the meaning behind her own reactions to art. She takes even bad art seriously enough to grapple with the question of what makes art bad, without ever resorting to ridicule or the attitude of superiority so alluring to the modern critic. When confronted with a truly good film or play, she acts as an advocate, encouraging those who created it and exploring its strengths; but again, never hiding behind her own sophistication, always sharing her own experience of the work unashamedly.
This personal commitment is probably what enables her to delve so deeply into her subject matter. What other critic would think of rendering David Mamet lines in blank verse, or assessing John Malkovich's entire career by way of reviewing Philip Seymour Hoffman? The first letter-writer, Jeremy Sterrit, derides Ms. Kramer for writing about "old" movies, but I applaud her for it?a thoughtful critic's opinions shouldn't be subject to the marketing schedule of theatrical releases.
In short, please keep Mimi Kramer for as long as you can, because she's a true gem; and to Ms. Kramer, please don't "keep your next big idea under your hat," just keep doing your thing.
Paul Sherrard, Brooklyn
White Minority
Yes, yes, yes! Absolutely brilliant! I am a native-born Californian, and Scott McConnell's 2/7 "Taki's Top Drawer" article on overimmigration was absolutely 100 percent correct. Our Golden State is going to rapidly become the Ghetto State if something is not done soon, and I am not optimistic about that. No one will admit what the real problem is. It is like the elephant in the room that no one will notice. I have been saying many of the same things that he noted in his column, but to no avail. It's as if there is this giant cloak of denial among people here. They want to blame anyone and anything except the real problem.
I have also said that our problems will not be limited to electricity, but will extend to all resources and areas of our life. We do not have the resources to support the population numbers. We are in trouble.
Thanks for your column.
Name Withheld, Visalia, CA
Rolling Brownouts
Scott McConnell is, of course, correct.
Name Withheld, Long Beach, CA
Pseudo.com
MUGGER: I live way over here on the left coast, but your articles make me feel like a New Yorker! Love hearing about your kids and your dinner parties, and reading your regular dissections of the New York media. Your 2/7 piece about the two obits of Auberon Waugh was priceless?I directed a liberal English teacher friend of mine to them. Keep on muggin'!
Ron Bryan, via Internet
Sure Will, Matt
MUGGER: Great 2/7 article on the hullabaloo surrounding the nomination of John Ashcroft. I was particularly inspired by your insight from early in the piece:
"Junior's had an odd habit since he was a baby: when his nose is runny, after repeated swipes with a kleenex, he licks his mouth in a circular motion, leaving a bright red ring. Chap Stick, or a more potent balm, applied after he's asleep usually softens the crud."
Please be sure to keep us updated on your child's snot-licking habits.
Matt Harrigan, Manhattan
Debunking Archie
MUGGER: I don't think Norman Lear (2/7) originated All in the Family, or at least the idea behind it. It came from a British sitcom entitled Till Death Do Us Part, where the Archie Bunker role was a low-class Londoner, and his son-in-law was an Anglican priest. I saw about 20 minutes of it one night on a Tonight special, hosted by Jack Parr, and it was a lot harsher and funnier than the Lear version. Likewise Steptoe and Son, which was the inspiration for Sanford and Son. If you can find some of those episodes in a video store, you ought to try them.
I enjoy your column. Keep up the good work.
Bill Rees, Plano, TX
Russ Smith replies: I know that both shows had British origins. But Lear brought All in the Family to Hollywood and made Archie Bunker a 70s icon.
Inhuman Clay
Thanks to my "friend," noted Andrew "Dice" Clay impersonator George Tabb, for giving Napalm Stars our first-ever ink in the 2/7 New York Press. However, considering his public admission of our friendship, you'd think my "friend" would know how to spell my name! It's "Stegall," Tabbulon. Not "Steigal." Call me a "glam rock pussy," or whatever, all you want. Even ignore talking about our music, which is the usual purpose of a music article. I don't care, as long as you get my name right.
And one more thing. Yes, our special guest that evening, Sami Yaffa, was part of the incredible Hanoi Rocks. But he hardly deserves to be called a sissy. That guy's got more class and talent than virtually anyone I know, and he could certainly stomp Tabb into so much fine powder were he so inclined. Take note and be appropriately humble, Monkey Boy.
Tim Stegall, via Internet
Bar Brawl
Yes, James Morrow, yes! Two days after my own angry storm-out from Acme Bar and Grill, due to the inattention of the wait-and-wait-and-wait staff, most of which time I spent second-guessing my decision, I find sweet vindication in your 2/7 "Food" column. Sweeter still was to turn the page just as you hammered the last nail into their aw-shucks, faux-countrified, down-home pine box, and see a big-old shoot-ain't-it-cute ad for the place! Hope they paid through the nose.
One note, though, in case the owners decide to clean house: the Sunday busboy's been there for years, and I've never seen him be anything less than friendly and helpful.
Adam Paul, Manhattan
Nubile Nectar
Why would you deface your newspaper by printing such an article? Is Lionel Tiger ("Human Follies," 2/7) gay, and is that the reason he has so much animosity about vaginas?
What a terrible misunderstanding of what I and many other female theatrical artists consider to be an innovative piece of work. Dick jokes for women. How ridiculous. Nothing in The Vagina Monologues is really funny. Nothing about the misuse and abuse of a sacred part of the human body is funny. Why print this? There is nothing that I read or saw that harms men in any way. The article seems quite defensive and quite closedminded. Although Mr. Tiger seems to have a grand way of using large words and flowery phrases himself, it seems he has no idea what the piece was about. Could it be that he actually is so full of himself and his own pseudo-intellect that there is no room for further education?
I presume Mr. Tiger does not have his own vagina and therefore should not be commenting on such a piece in the first place. I don't see articles by women in your newspaper lambasting men's pieces (almost without exclusion, every piece ever produced on, Off- and Off-off Broadway).
I will refrain from reading this manly rag, and if in the future I want to read about women and their art?both theatrical and otherwise?I will be sure to look elsewhere. Thank you for proving that there needs to be an even stronger voice for women in the theater and in the arts in general. I say, Goddess bless The Vagina Monologues, may it run forever.
Mary Elizabeth MiCari, Manhattan
For Most Dumb Women
Hard to believe academic Lionel Tiger, of the "Pursuit of Pleasure" thesis, would characterize The Vagina Monologues as an act of female revenge. The Vagina Monologues is a purely pleasurable theatrical experience for women and men who love them. Playwright Eve Ensler would have had foresight to rival the Delphic Oracle to have predicted her play would become a pawn in the Giuliani-Hanover marital spat.
As far as Tiger's labeling of The Vagina Monologues as a female dick joke, this comment issues from an androcentricity that borders on the maniacal.
By the way, Tiger, for most women, all of Western culture is one big dick joke.
Artemis Furie, Manhattan
Hang the DJ
While I'm pleased to find out that Mike Bruno ("Music," 2/7) finds value in his newly discovered forum of open turntable events, I regret to inform him that they are nothing new.
This April, Scatalogics will be marking its third anniversary at the Rivertown Lounge on Monday nights. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I can't help but feel left out, however, when a forum I helped kick-start into existence is presented without my party?or any of the other new open turntable events?being mentioned. While Scatalogics doesn't offer the longest sets for the budding bedroom DJ, it's certainly the most democratic party out there. All music is welcomed, all skill levels. No demos are required to sign up for a slot, only quick reflexes. The party is almost wholly detached from my taste in music?with the exception of the special guest I drag in every week.
I wish the new party the best of luck, but next time Mr. Bruno decides to write about music-related events, he'd be well advised to do a little more research.
Elliot "Ulysses" Taub, resident DJ at Scatalogics, via Internet
Dead Flowers
This note is in response to the Charles Glass article ("Taki's Top Drawer," 2/7).
While I was shocked to see the story about the wholesale "parts snatching" of dead children in England, I was even more shocked that this story was used as some sort of launching pad for your pro-life views! You filthy limey bastard! How dare you sit in London and try to provoke the kind of mindless slaughter that leaves medical professionals dead at the hands of religious zealots? I refer to the statement, "If someone is trying to commit murder, you can stop him?even if you have to kill him to do it." As far as I know, abortion is still legal in this country (at least until Bush and Ashcroft manage to overturn Roe v. Wade).
By the way, how many Irish citizens are still in English prisons because they killed to stop British thugs from killing their families and taking over their country? Hmmm? To answer your question: What happens in New York? Suggestible idiots read your filthy little screed and decide to take out an abortion clinic or a doctor or two.
Perhaps you Brits butcher babies because that's the type of evil thoughtless scum you are! History don't lie, pissant!
Ann Brockschmidt, Manhattan
Full Fathom Five
In his 2/7 column, Taki wrote:
"...he panicked, left a girl to drown and chose to lie rather than try and get help and perhaps save her life..."
A trivial note; Mary Jo Kopechne did not drown. John Farrar, captain of the Search and Rescue Division of the Edgartown Volunteer Fire Dept., was the diver who found the body. The car was upside down and turned around from the direction it left the bridge. The rear end was angled toward the surface of the water, the front window was cracked and the side windows smashed from the impact with the water. The body of Mary Jo was found locked in the position she died in, trying to breathe the air remaining in the rear footwell. Farrar surmised she survived for some time there.
Also, for what it's worth, I believe the ME report says she was wearing a mini-skirt and no underwear.
Richard Riley, Santa Monica
Back Forty
Cracker frontman David Lowery ("Music," 1/10) complains, "Where's mine?" Meaning, where's his share of the $40 million that Napster raised in venture capital for its music-swapping software. "And why is it that anyone who defends Napster seems to think they are only ripping off the record label? Has no one heard of songwriting royalties? Whether CDs cost too much or not, the fucking artist needs to get paid," he bemoans.
Umm, I hate to break this to Lowery, but I scoured the song-swapping service high and low for all the Cracker songs I didn't already own, from the last few albums. I found a measly four or five, tops. What's he in a huff for? Not too many people are posting Cracker online. If Lowery isn't getting royalty checks, it's not Napster's fault.
Joab Jackson, Baltimore
Ghost Stories
I applaud New York Press for printing a hunting article that does not cast hunters in a negative light.
As a hunter, it was refreshing to read Scott Bowen's "The Ghost Buck" ("First Person," 1/31). He obviously takes his hunting seriously. Too often, the only articles printed in newspapers such as this are written by members of the antihunting community.
Please continue to print meaningful articles such as this. I will continue to read your paper as long as real stories are presented.
Brian Cooper, Stroudsburg, PA
Time Fades Away
MUGGER: What do you expect of Time magazine (2/7) when they keep Margaret Carlson as an editorial writer?
Eugene Hiller, via Internet
Sort-of-Full Disclosure
Andrey Slivka ("Dirty Jubilee: Warring Sects Assemble for the Bush Coronation," 1/31) needs to get off the amphetamine pills, man. He's just been, well, he's been doin' too much, too often, it's burnt his brain, and he, well, he can't put a sentence together anymore, a sentence any simple bastard on the F train or the R train can understand.
I just got back from Moonshine Land in Virginia, drinking moonshine with good old boys in shit F-150s, good men, bootleg runners, raced a couple of s-curve roads at 100-per (hmm, Slivka-esque), and I mention I'm a journalist, they just want to know if I'm gonna turn whatever they say into bullshit, my own amused masturbatory experiment, and I tell 'em, Sheet I'm gonna write just what you've told me tonight, and that's it, and if we get drunk later, I'll write it a little drunk, but I'm not gonna write anything about you that you won't understand.
See, Slivka wants to be understood by the Somethin'-on-High, which I take to be his own teased-hair vanity, a hall-o'-mirrors strut. Look at me! He needs to just get off the drugs, write simple, and say somethin' that does not mention yeomanry in the lead and other feu d'artifice. For sure. We, the knowers, the elite, know what yeomanry is. 'Nuff said.
Christopher Ketcham, via Internet
Andrey Slivka replies: Ketcham might have mentioned that I've personally rejected a number of his story submissions and ideas, but whatever. An "A" for effort?that's my motto. I congratulate Ketcham for finally getting another piece of writing published in New York Press, and all of us here are eager to read his piece about Virginia in another publication.
Comprehension Gap
I think if anyone ever wanted an example of the reverse elitism of artsy-fartsy New Yorkers, they should read Jill Morley's "Gap Leather Dykes" ("New York City," 1/31). Oh my gosh, someone bought leather pants at the Gap! That must mean they are shallow people. Whereas Jill Morley, I'm sure, buys her clothes at secondhand stores but not, of course, on St. Marks Pl. Rather, I'm sure she has found some out-of-the-way neighborhood in Brooklyn that she and her elitist friends have designated non-gentrified. This makes her much more real than the rest of us, who live our lives without wondering where people buy their clothes and passing judgment on them for those choices.
Maybe one day Ms. Morley will realize just how obnoxiously elitist it is to categorize people by where they buy their clothes. This is certainly one of those stories where the writer has revealed more about herself than her subject.
Randy Schultz, Manhattan
Jill Morley replies: I do not buy my clothes at secondhand stores.
What Do You Do for Money, Honey?
This guy Tim Hall ("New York City," 1/17) is hurting. I mean ha, it's pathetic. Money money money?too funny, the fool. Where is your pride, pedophile peddler of pop rock rubbish? This person actually makes me laugh. I'm laughing! (That was me laughing at the misplaced sense of self this person has, or has not, I should say.)
We can't all be architects I suppose, but then again, even Costanza didn't stoop to such levels.
Aaron J. Cooper, Norfolk, VA
Raiding the Gantry
So, Chris Caldwell, you think ("Hill of Beans," 1/24) that our culture doesn't permit preachers to use the pulpit to get rich and get sex? I would think you were joking, except I've seen similarly flawed statements in your other columns. You have an apparently uncontrollable tendency to make up a truth (or two) in service of your arguments.
So, with the aforementioned statement, you singlehandedly wipe out the long and glorious history of American preachers making billions, and babies, directly from their pulpits. Do you need a list of names? No, you don't, because you don't want one. Your revisionist history was all in the service of a higher cause?to make Jesse Jackson look like the spineless bitch we already know he is. So, I asked, why did you bother?
And then I realized that this is just one example of the sloppy rhetorical style, in service of an Agenda, that I have come to expect from our bastion of Truth, New York Press. It's not enough to say that Jackson is an awful man and "preacher" because he had an affair, and a daughter as the result, and hid the whole thing for two years. The only reason you brought it up in the first place is?hold on to your seats, folks, this is a shocker?to discredit liberal politicians. Your purpose is betrayed by your revisionism. Only a liberal preacher like Jackson would dare to make money from his pulpit, or use it to bag babes. Laughable, man. And it's straight from the pages of the Russ Smith playbook. Your pathetic "fans" lap it up each week, and hate those you're pillorying so much that they never question your methods, or your assertions. It's gone to your head.
Another baseless assertion in the service of your agenda was printed on 1/17, when you stated that our economy would grind to a halt if not for the sub-minimum wages earned by our hardworking illegal immigrants. You did state, correctly and honestly, that the intent underlying our government's policies regarding the hire of illegal aliens is designed to promote the practice. The politicians and courts can't admit it, but that's what they're up to. The notion that our economy requires an underclass to maintain itself, however, is unsupported. It's an argument made by right-leaning economists and right-wing fatcats (the same free-market fatcats who accept billions in corporate welfare), but one that certainly isn't proven or even capable of being proved. You were just making excuses for yourself and all your journalist friends who use illegal workers to help raise your children. I guess you felt bad for Linda Chavez, who got the shaft for doing just what you do. Why don't you take a minute to feel bad for your nanny? She's got it a lot harder than Chavez ever will. But you just sweep any empathy for human suffering right under the rug with another baseless politically conservative assertion.
This week's article (2/7) is no exception. You love Bush's "across the board" tax cut (even going so far as to say that it is the reason he won the election), as it gives you and your cronies a much larger tax cut than poor and working-class people. How about an across the board tax cut for those earning, say, 80 thousand a year or less? Or a tax cut with a percentage that decreases as income rises, thereby allowing poorer Americans to have a substantial tax cut without bankrupting the country?
No, according to you, Americans won't believe it unless it's across the board, and they voted for Bush on that very basis (you omit one minor fact?that they didn't vote for Bush!). So you get your non-progressive tax cut (the wet dream of the soulless wealthy) while feeling superior to the mob for another con job well done.
Oh, and by the way, separation of church and state was not formulated to protect religion from the state, but to protect subordinate religions and atheism from the dominant religion, historically manifested in the state.
Jeremy Bartlett, Manhattan
Poll-ish Joke
Christopher Caldwell ("Hill of Beans," 2/7) shows just how deluded he is when he writes that Bush's tax cut was "extremely popular in the polls?it was his top issue," and thinks that makes a case for adopting the President's tax plan.
While it may have been popular "in the polls," it was not popular at the polls. A reality check for Mr. Caldwell?the majority of Americans voted against Bush and his tax plan. Yes, more than 50 million manjacks, Joe Sixpacks and Mary Jo Chardonnays didn't buy Bush or his "top issue" when they went to the polls.
As for why Bush is in the driver's seat?that, along with who shot JFK, will be debated long after we're dead. But one thing's for sure?it's not because Bush hit on a "formula that could convince voters," because he didn't?unless you mean the five Supremes. No matter "who won Florida," Bush lost the majority of the nation's votes.
And lest we forget, those polls that Caldwell says showed the tax plan to be extremely popular are the same dubious polls that showed Bush winning the popular vote but Gore taking the Electoral College, Florida going to Gore, no, Bush, no...etc.
Caldwell ought to be careful when using the words "polls," "popular" and "Bush" in the same essay. He might remind readers what happened last November. Caldwell obviously needs to be reminded himself.
Curtis Ellis, Manhattan
It's Near Kansas
MUGGER: I was born and raised in St. Louis (2/7) and the pronunciation of our state has been discussed for a long time. I first remember it when I was 13 and a priest friend of ours told me that he never voted for a politician if they pronounced it "Missouruh." It's usually a rural/urban split. More politicians from Kansas City or St. Louis are starting to pronounce it "Missouruh," whereas I can't recall any politician from out of state calling it "Missouree."
After the priest pointed out what he felt was the correct pronunciation ("Missouree," of course), I did some research when I got to college. The best I could come up with was that both pronunciations were acceptable. Either way, most people in Missouri I talked to were unhappy at Teddy Kennedy's grandstanding during the Ashcroft hearings.
Don Zeiter, St. Louis
F-Stop
Frank A. DeFilippo's article on Paul T. Graziano ("New York City," 1/31) was a waste of paper! Did you have to use a full page to discuss a person using the f-word? The message that was being sent was not clear. At the beginning of the article you're bashing him, and at the end of the article you're praising him.
People use these ugly words all the time?not that it makes it right. What made Graziano so special? Officials holding higher positions have used worse language to more important people without all the hoopla. The article acknowledged the man was drunk and not in his right mind, so what was the point? The article even pointed out that an openly gay person, whom Graziano named top deputy in New York, was supportive of him, so again, what was the point?
I'm sure you could have found something more important and/or interesting to print on that full page.
Sherrie Morales, Brooklyn
The Day After
Okay, I'll take my whupping with a smile. Submit an over-the-top polemic dissing an article by a New York Press staffer (The Mail,'' 2/7) and expect a nuclear armageddon of ad-hominem vitriol in response. Got it.
Try this: Read Andrey Slivka's original "Dirty Jubilee: Warring Sects Assemble for the Bush Coronation'' article (1/31). Read my letter. Read Slivka's response. In the second paragraph of my letter, I cited?without quotation marks?those whom Slivka had written about with apparent disdain: rustics from the provinces, suburbanites in Volvos, etc.
It seemed to me, though perhaps I was mistaken, that Slivka went out of his way to portray these various nonurban Americans as inherently menacing. The suggestion seemed to be that the very fact that these people (blondes, preppies, housewives, Southerners) supported Bush was evidence enough that his presidency was illegitimate and dangerous.
Is such an American Beauty/Pleasantville view of suburban Middle America and its inhabitants typical of the bicoastal urban counterculture? I think so. And that is why I was so miffed at Slivka for advancing that view.
I really do admire Slivka's writing. He is observant in reporting and picturesque in his style. Slivka is right that I admired his Gulf Coast travelogue. I also admired his Mississippi Baptist Convention piece, and considered writing a letter expressing that admiration, but somehow never got around to it. So I was stunned and horrified that a fine writer like Slivka, in reporting on the Bush inauguration, resorted to stereotypical antisuburban cheap shots. It was sort of like learning that a favorite actor or singer had taken up with PETA or the free-Mumia crowd. I felt betrayed.
Slivka will, I hope, forgive me for having forgotten his attacks on "the Clinton administration's viciousness in Colombia.'' But if he was aware of the idiocy of the hippie protester's fears of BUSH GENOCIDE IN COLOMBIA, why did his article not reflect that awareness? His solicitousness toward the hippie misled me; I think readers would have benefited from a sentence or two explaining just how misplaced the hippie's fears were. Or am I mistaken? Does Slivka truly believe that Bush favors Colombian genocide? Maybe this is one of those irony things we rustics never seem to get.
Having ignored my specific complaints, most of Slivka's reply to my letter is personal abuse, some of it misleading. I did not call him "a Clinton defender'' or "a New York City liberal.'' I said that his description of Republicans' "decadent, ignorant and destructive complex of ideas,'' when combined with his apparent sympathy for the BUSH GENOCIDE IN COLOMBIA protester, reflected a "prejudicial conceit" comparable to the "soi-dissant civil-rights groups'' who raised hell about the Ashcroft nomination but never condemned Janet Reno's abuses.
Like I said, maybe there was an ironic quality to the antisuburban, anti-Republican element of Slivka's article that eluded me. And my criticism of the article was unnecessarily arch and personal. But a "dishonest little twerp''? A "chump"'? A "roach''? I feel like the fellow in the Monty Python sketch who mistakenly thought he'd walked into the argument clinic.
Just one little final point. Despite Slivka's horror at its tree-lined streets, Silver Springs, MD, is by no means the sort of vanilla suburban bastion he implied. John Rocker would hate the place.
Robert Stacy McCain, Gaithersburg, MD
Andrey Slivka replies: I didn't write that Silver Springs is a "vanilla suburban bastion," and saw no "tree-lined streets" there by which to be horrified. I like tree-lined streets: the excellent small town I grew up in was defined by them. What I said was that the part of Silver Springs I saw was rather a treeless, dreary, strip-malled, sprawling, dehumanizing, edge-city, low-density wasteland of the sort that has come to define the American geography?the sort of environment that works against precisely the sorts of small-town values McCain professes to admire. I'll never understand why "conservatives"?who are after all supposed to be conservative?sanction the radical, revolutionary, wasteful, destructive transformation of the American landscape into a junkscape. That was the point of the passage in question.
White Supremacy
Regarding Armond White's 1/31 "Film" column about The Wedding Planner, with Jennifer Lopez:
I disagree with your saying that a Puerto Rican doesn't look good playing an Italian in a movie. First of all, not all Italians are milk-white. Some are tan, especially Sicilians. Second, white people have also played Hispanic roles in movies. Madonna played an Hispanic in Evita. Al Pacino, who like Madonna is Italian, played an Hispanic role in the movie Scarface?he was the Cuban Tony Montana.
Not all Hispanics are brown-skinned. Cameron Diaz is part Cuban, and she is milky white with blue eyes.
Maybe you should judge Jennifer Lopez as an actress, not just by her race or color.
Michael Caraballo, Bronx
A Dry Meursault
I am being forced to write your publication a letter to the editor. Our writing professor at school handed out a copy of the 1/31 New York Press to the entire class after announcing the aforementioned assignment. I read your publication from cover to cover and found it engrossing, racy, ribald, angry and informative. Nothing it contained caused any sense of fury within my middle-aged soul.
Beginning with the humorous front-page photo (that accompanies Andrey Slivka's entertaining slant on the tone of exchanges between gloating Republicans ("Dirty Jubilee: Warring Sects Assemble for the Bush Coronation"), smug with their win-at-any-cost President, and the seething outraged masses that gathered as demonstrators at the inauguration of the thief), through the tits-and-ass advertisements with the phone numbers promising they'll fuck us 'til we shoot blood, it was an enjoyable read.
I felt a little sleazier, actually, following Frank A. DeFilippo's "New York City" story of the zigzag descent into alcohol delirium of the one-time HUD commissioner of this great city. It reminded me of O.J. in the Bronco, driving down a California freeway while a voyeur nation salivates in their living rooms.
We don't need Quentin Tarantino, or Andrey Slivka for that matter, to tell us, "You're only as good as your last gig" or "It's a dog eat dog world out there." "The truth is the only explanation most people want to buy," is quoted in Armond White's "Film" column, from Wim Wenders' The Million Dollar Hotel. The truth be told: Human beings are fallible, and I'll tell you that for free. Making "fag" the theme of the drunken night is not as bad as killing an Arab on the beach like Meursault in Camus' The Stranger.
Perhaps Mr. Paul T. Graziano can transcend his current personal crisis and make some symbolic gesture of atonement for his verbal sins against the gay community. I'm more amazed at the resiliency of the human spirit and the human ability to heal. We all make mistakes. What is important is humility and integrity, to admit your mistake and take steps to rectify the damage or hurt you have caused, something John Ashcroft has consistently failed to acknowledge. It is my hope that the suffering HUD commissioner can help himself and put this "Go to Baltimore, get drunk, talk trash, get in trouble" black cloud behind him, to one day restore the stellar reputation that Mr. DeFilippo suggests he, up until this singular incident, once had.
R.L. Oeser, Manhattan
Tears of Rage
I enjoyed reading Crispin Sartwell's "Farm Report" in the 1/24 issue of New York Press. Of note was his comment about Seatrain sounding like a "rural Blood, Sweat & Tears."
Well, here's a bit of trivia for you, Crispin. During the middle to late 1960s there was a great New York band called the Blues Project. When that band broke up, the drummer and bass player, Roy Blumenfeld and Andy Kulberg, formed Seatrain. The Blues Project's organist, Al Kooper, and guitarist, Steve Katz, went on to form Blood, Sweat & Tears.
Just thought you might like to know!
Paul J. Maringelli, Sunnyside, NY
Confirmed Believer
MUGGER: You excoriate Rich Galen (2/7) for his remarks about Jean Carnahan's voting against John Ashcroft for attorney general. I read Mr. Galen's comments and found nothing offensive in them, or for that matter unfair. Indeed, his remarks were very appropriate. That Mrs. Carnahan suffered a deep personal loss in no way excuses her from her truly graceless behavior. One is not allowed to act with impropriety because they've suffered some sort of setback. Too, while she, with her husband, had in the past opposed Mr. Ashcroft politically, the confirmation hearings are not an election?that was ended weeks before, and Mrs. Carnahan, along with the rest of the ostensibly loyal opposition, need to get used to it.
Historically, the Senate has never disputed a president's Cabinet selections, except in the case of illegal or unethical behavior on the part of the nominee. Sen. Ashcroft had no such history, and the pompous windbags who were most virulent in smearing him are not even worthy of drinking his bathwater. That Mrs. Carnahan decided to go along with them was a thoroughly classless act, and it proves once again the old adage: You lie down with dogs, you get fleas.
Paul M. DeSisto, Cedar Grove, NJ
Russ Smith replies: I disagree. I think for Galen to single out Jean Carnahan, just because she's from the same state as Ashcroft, and because the latter did graciously concede the election when he could've made a stink, was unfair. Had Mel Carnahan not died, and defeated Ashcroft, he'd have voted against him. There were 42 Democrats who voted nay on Ashcroft, and much bigger targets for Galen to pick on. Barbara Boxer, Charles Schumer, John Edwards, Joe Lieberman, Dick Durbin, etc. I do think it was tacky to single out Mrs. Carnahan, given that she lost not only her husband but her son as well just last fall. I don't agree with her politics either, and I think Ashcroft will be excellent as attorney general and was smeared. But reserving indignation for a recent widow is just plain unseemly.