The Mail
Sphere of Influence
Anyway, I just wanted to say thank-you; from someone who came close to cutting her wrists with a dull spoon rather than sit through another agonizing minute of the misleadingly reviewed Love, Actually. You, Matt Zoller Seitz, may very well be my savior. Bless you!
Tessa Campbell, Brooklyn
Out-of-Towner, Eh?
Regarding "MOMA BLCKR" (2/23): Why is it that so many supposed "true punks" from the late 1970s insist that punk is dead and doesn't mean anything anymore? Why is it that they feel the need to hog it all to themselves, not share it with newcomers and insist that younger people just don't get it? I say they are the ones who don't get it, or they would know that the whole point of Punk was that it was supposed to be open to anyone, at any time, in any place.
Maybe the writers stopped caring years ago, but there are plenty of kids today who still care, and for whom it means something. Maybe the writers don't go to CBGB anymore, but I do whenever I'm in town. I've been there more times than I can count in the last several years, and there are almost always a lot of people there. The place is still packed a lot of the time.
Even if it is to be admitted that CBGB's days are over as a place where music history is made on a large scale, there's still an important reason not to close the club. CBGB adjusted a long time ago to becoming simply a club where new and up and coming bands can play. How many of those are still around? Wetlands is gone; Coney Island High is gone; a lot of clubs are gone. As a place to go and see new bands of all kinds CBGB is as good as any club out there, and if it closes it will leave an even bigger hole in New York's club scene than already exists, simply because it will then become that much harder to get a show in Manhattan (and that has nothing to do with being "Punk").
Maybe your writers have become too conservative and reactionary; maybe they've forgotten what it means to be young. From the article it sounds a lot like they've closed their minds to new things. Kids still understand the importance of a place like CBGB; they always will, and they are the ones who will suffer if it closes down.
Barry Levine, via email
52 questions About the Pope's Life
Re: "The 52 Funniest Things About The Upcoming Death of The Pope" (3/2): You make fun of the eventual death of an elderly man of undeniable strength and good will, because you disagree with his ethics? The acclaimed anti-Nazi political revolutionary of WWII? The man who pioneered unprecedented work toward an understanding dialogue between Muslims and Christians? The man who made heartfelt amends for injustices committed by Christians and relentlessly worked to reconcile Christians to the Jews? The master of multiple languages and lifelong friend to hundreds of people? The younger mountain-climber and talented theater actor? The tireless and celebrated author? (Which books have you read?) The mind behind the most groundbreaking new philosophy, Personalistic Phenomenology? The man who forged a monumental friendship based on forgiveness with the Arab prisoner who shot him near-fatally in St. Peter's Square? A man who inspires people of all faiths worldwide? The man who one billion people in this world value as their Holy Father?
I am not Catholic, but the religious prejudice you promulgate is indefensible (even for laughs). You have publicly smeared something nobler than yourself. You have pandered to the lowest of intellects. How important is the revenue? Really, how important is the revenue? Is nothing more important?I cease buying your "publication" and sharing it with my family and coworkers until the day I learn of a complete renunciation of this feature and an apology for the insult it flings at a truly selfless man and Every Single Member of a Major World Religion.
Benjamin Urban, via email
A-Pope-a-lectic
Put simply, Matt Taibbi's article in this week's New York Press "The 52 Funniest Things About The Upcoming Death of The Pope" (3/2) is a disgrace to journalism and an incomprehensible insult to the world's one billion Catholics. Mr. Taibbi's article wholly lacks in professionalism and class; that this was the front-page article this week shows this same defficiency for the Press. It is my sincere hope that the Press and Mr. Taibbi will issue a public apology for this horrible and indefensible attack against the leader of the Catholic Church, appropriately placed on the front page, where the article itself appeared.
David Bonagura Jr., Farmingdale, NY
Cabal Takes On Koyen-And Loses
Alas and alack, we seem to have crossed the Rubicon with this latest issue of New York Press (Volume 18, No. 9). I was sorely dismayed at Russ Smith's gutter-level deal with the mercenaries of the New Regime, preserving his excremental Neo-Con screeds at the expense of John Strausbaugh's magnificent expertise as the Master & Commander of the only so-called "alternative" newspaper capable of challenging the very model of the form, the Village Voice, and prevailing.
It behooves us to remember that at the time of the Press' triumph over knee-jerk political correctness, the Voice cost readers $1.50 per issue. I gave Koyen and Zaitchik the benefit of the doubt, as I do with people in almost all circumstances. Their initial efforts seemed feeble and clumsy, but I felt that with some measure of support from the Old Guard they might be able to keep the transgressive pulse that drove the paper intact and keep it steady in these perilous times. I accepted the reduction in rates as a necessary sacrifice to keep the fiscally floundering effort afloat, assuming that at some point in the future, the disastrous decline in advertising revenues triggered by the 9/11 event might be reversed.
It's been two years now, and New York Press has succeeded in only one thing: it has become precisely what we used to mock. Flip-flop-wearing Williamsburg hipsters with body odor babbling about MDMA and getting finger-fucked by tattooed anorexic women with black eyes and a voracious appetite for abuse. Gone are the great iconoclasts attracted by Strausbaugh's unerring command of syntax and context. Cockburn, Caldwell, Andrey Slivka, R.S. McCain, J.T. LeRoy, Ned Vizzini, the incomparable Tony Millionaire, Taki, Szamuely, Bill Bryk, Amy Sohn, my dear friend Darius James, who first introduced me to John Strausbaugh-all gone.
What fills the space? Bullies like J.R. Taylor and dickless juveniles like Matt Taibbi, whose hack tendencies clearly run in the family. Daddy does Michael Jackson on NBC, Sonny Boy trashes the Pope in a meaningless cat box liner. Instead of Amy Sohn, we get a sex advice column from a High Times reject. Lightweights all, desperately striving to be dangerous while leaving open the possibility of some safe and secure upward mobility in the defanged world of mainstream media. I'm a certified Satanist, and our current issue featuring Taibbi's adolescent assault on the Pope embarrassed me. It was a waste of paper, and a mere insult, not in the least bit challenging, to the city's Roman Catholic population. He could have gone into P2, Marcinkus and the assassination of John Paul I, but no, the lazy brat just ran off a stupid and ugly list that a 12-year-old Marilyn Manson fan could have done better.
My loyalty has its limits, and here we are. Take my name off the masthead. I am no longer a "contributing writer" to this sophomoric mockery. New York Press once challenged the Voice-now it can barely compete with the Onion.
Alan Cabal, Pluto
Jeff Koyen replies:
Boy, I should've taken my peers advice a long time ago, and shown Alan Cabal the door. This is what charity gets me?
Cabal is an over-the-hill, anti-Semitic, paranoid, talentless Thompson wanna-be who's seen his glory days fade into the past. Glory days that never were, actually. We stood by Cabal, even as he ranted and raved against manufactured enemies, cannibalizing internet postings and calling them his own. We published his work because we admired the person he could've been, if only he would have stopped chasing windmills and picking fights with people who accomplish more than him. As Cabal knows, I have nothing but respect and admiration for all of the people he mentions above-several of whom remain my friends-so his attempts to put me in conflict with them are distasteful. He disagrees with the paper's direction? Fine. At least we're trying to push forward in an increasingly bland world where dipshits like Cabal think they're being transgressive, when all they're being is cantankerous.
No one cares that Alan Cabal is jumping ship. He's a hack who never was, desperate to be associated with the Old Guard of New York Press when he's just another name that passed through the pages on occasion. I wonder how he'll feel if this newspaper becomes just another Midwestern-style alt-weekly, and he did nothing to prevent that.
My best wishes to Alan for having his head removed from his ass. I don't think Medicaid covers that. Or is it Medicare at this point?
And What About this Week?
Once again Matt Taibbi has managed to translate my thoughts more clearly than I'm able to think them ("I Spy a Sellout," 2/23). As a minor addendum, might I add that rooting for Bush's medium-term "success" in Iraq, in spite of all the lies it took to get us there, would merely justify the neoconservative belief that significant anti-war sentiment before, during, and after the invasion is completely ignorable, in every meaningful sense.
By following Kurt Andersen's advice, the left clearly would encourage additional pre-emptive American invasions, any one of which is likely to be even more "risky, very possibly reckless" than was Iraq. The obviousness of these points makes me feel slightly ridiculous even making them, but obviously someone should.
Robb Hamilton, Long Beach, CA
Succinct, to the Point
Armond White is a sucker for esthetics and lacks the sensitivity to
formal invention.
Andy Irvine, Long Island City
Our Cousin is Retarded
Re: "Retards for Bloomberg" (2/23): Be more careful about using the word retard please.
Andrew Woffinden, Manhattan
And You Too
Re: "The New Screw Review" (2/23). I was one of the co-hosts, with Gillian McCain, of the book release party for The Other Hollywood: the Uncensored Oral History of the Porn Film Industry by Legs McNeil and Jennifer Osborne with Peter Pavia on ReganBooks.
I don't see how J.R. Taylor can attempt to judge a museum he didn't visit-I refer to his disparaging remarks about the Museum of Sex, where the party was held. In an era of increasing repression and denial by extreme factors in our society and our government, I regard the museum as an oasis-refreshing, smart and necessary. Both current and permanent exhibits display a great range, from stag films of the 30s (where else would you see them running on a loop, in all their grainy, hand-held splendor-"hurry up, honey, I'm so hot!!!") to naughty postcards from the Victorian era, to historical Asian erotica, to the surprising display of sex toys for sale in the well-stocked museum store. (Believe me, it's not like any museum store you've seen this side of Amsterdam.)
I'm sorry Taylor chose not to attend the party. I would have welcomed him warmly at the door, offered him some food and drink and he would have had a chance to read the book, talk to some of the people featured in it, and even chat with some of the people he disparaged in his article-my dear friends John Holmstrom and Legs McNeil included.
Frances Pelzman Liscio, Upper Montclair, NJ
President Bush: Going Soft?
Russ Smith's 2/23 column was right on target ("A Toke Too Far"). Rather than worry that his past marijuana use may inspire kids to try pot, President Bush might want to consider the effects of the zero-tolerance drug war on the very same youth he sought to shield from the truth. According to the "Monitoring the Future" survey, over half of all high school seniors have tried an illicit drug.
Denying a majority of the nation's youth an education is not in America's best interest. Most students outgrow their youthful indiscretions. An arrest and criminal record, on the other hand, can be life-shattering. After admitting to smoking pot (but not inhaling), former President Bill Clinton opened himself up to "soft on drugs" criticism.
Thanks to the Doug Wead tapes, it's now clear that President Bush is also politically vulnerable when it comes to drugs. While youthful indiscretions didn't stop Clinton or Bush from assuming leadership positions, an arrest surely would have. The short-term health effects of marijuana are inconsequential compared to the long-term effects of criminal records. Drug abuse is bad, but the drug war is worse.
Robert Sharpe, MPA Policy Analyst, Common Sense for Drug Policy, Washington, DC
Verily, We Say Unto You: No Error
Your March 2, 2005 article by Matt Taibbi "The 52 Funniest Things About the Upcoming Death of the Pope" was the unfunniest article I have ever had the unfortunate experience of reading. It was also the most hate-filled article I have ever read. Whatever possessed you to print it? Is your publication all about hate? It verily took my breath away. Taibbi has written a despicable article about a person facing perhaps his final moments, a test that we all must undergo in this life. The writer must be a very sad and hate-filled man, and your publication appears to be a poor one indeed.
Also, why is that I could not locate the article on the internet? The only copy that I could locate was a cached version. Don't you stand by the articles that you publish? Perhaps this article was printed in error, and you are trying to rectify that error? I hope so.
Miguel Andres, New Mexico
Matt Taibbi: Just Like Hitler?
I'm not religious, but I sure hope they are right and there is a Hell, because you've just secured a seat right next to Pol Pot, Mao, Stalin, Lenin and Hitler ("The 52 Funniest Things About the Upcoming Death of the Pope," 3/2).
Mick Neary, via email
Respectfully Disagree
Not one funny thing about that story ("The 52 Funniest Things About the Upcoming Death of the Pope," 3/2). There is nothing funny about hatred.
Matthew F. Mess, via email
John Doe. Yes, John Doe
Dear worthless sacks of shit: I can't tell you about how offended I was from Matt Taibbi's "The 52 Funniest Things About the Upcoming Death of the Pope," (3/2). But I guess that that is why your so-called newspaper printed that.
You all need a life and should all spend your time doing something productive and positive like what the Pope has done his whole life. I hope that He will pray for you because I would rather see you rot in hell.
John Doe, via email