ANOTHER SEASON CRASHES TO AN END Another season crashes ...
Another season crashes to an end
If you guys weren't so busy cracking on the Wall Street Journal on Page Two, maybe you'd hire a factchecker. There's no other reason for the appearance of a 1935 headshot of Boris Karloff as the Frankenstein monster accompanying your blurb about Hammer Films ("Incoming," 10/15), whose bottom-of-the-barrel 1950s Frank films starred Christopher Lee as the pieced-together monster.
Stefano Calidonna, Manhattan
Alexander the Great
As a politically conservative speech major/journalism minor who lived in Haight-Ashbury from 1968-69 and defended Angela Davis' First Amendment right to teach her brand of communism at UCLA (to the horror of my high school speech students and their parents), I am delighted to see the light at the end of Farber's tunnel ("P.C. R.I.P. 2003," 10/15)!
Clark Alexander, Huntington Beach
Spinsters
Would it be possible to castrate Bob Guccione, Jr.? Obviously his demon seed transforms aspiring young women into slobberingly right-wing, self-absorbed monsters who are then released onto an already suffering public ("P.C. R.I.P. 2003," 10/15). Of course, castration wouldn't help Guccione's victims (Farber, Ann Coulter), but it would prevent future women from going through the mental trauma of these, in their own words, persecuted and suicidal sufferers. And it would prevent crap like Farber's article from showing up on the pages of your paper again.
Jessica Wolpert, Brooklyn
Watch What You Say
Finally an insightful and lucid article that takes on political correctness and argues for a return to freedom of thought ("P.C. R.I.P. 2003," 10/15). Thank you, Celia Farber!
Sandra Sanderson, Manhattan
Peyton Moss: Schoolyard Victim
I had hoped with the semi-departure of Russ Smith, you people might display some common sense. But your "Legislating Niceness" ("Page Two," 10/15) piece shows that this was wishful thinking.
Apparently, being bullies yourselves, you cannot grasp the fact that bullying is an offense that should be slapped down?in the cradle, in kindergarten, in third grade, in middle school, in high school and in real life. Just as it is a disgrace that we graduate illiterates, it is also a disgrace that we graduate bullies... Neither should be tolerated. Both are failures of our education system (not to mention our parenting).
Persistent bullies should be expelled?or maybe sent to special-education "bully schools" where they can be treated as the ignoramuses they are and, if necessary, try to bully one another instead of "easy" targets (though in my experience, bullies are basically wimps in denial). They have no place in a civilized school?even if they can catch a pass better than the science geek. It seems to me awesomely wrong-headed of you to say "Boo-fucking-hoo" about kids who object to being mistreated and occasionally terrorized, when you should be condemning the terrorists-in-training (who should be either convinced early on to abandon their viciousness or prevented from ever becoming "respected" citizens, as their values are clearly not respectable). Expelling them would help?maybe earning a GED might keep them busy for a while and keep them out of managerial spots for another while.
If, as you suggest, they would then become murderous horrid people, we have SWAT teams to kill them, which is exactly what they deserve. Meanwhile, the "whiners" could pursue their lives without having gratuitous shitheads to whine about. What is wrong with you?
Peyton Moss, Manhattan
Badly Blown Boy
Armond White's interrogation of Clint Eastwood's specious Mystic River ("Film," 10/1) is the most important piece of film writing this year. He's the only critic in America who nailed how the film obscures working-class pain by attributing it to a quasi-mythological ethnic curse. I'd only add one note to Armond's comprehensive analysis: The two coincidences that set this far-fetched plot in motion are homosexual, and as preposterous as the film's South Boston accents.
The first shows a Catholic priest, whose driver stops and has a nice long chat with three boys on the street, then orders one in the car and slowly drives off, in the middle of the road, as the two boys gape at the license plate. We've read quite a lot about Catholic priests in Boston recently, but none who kidnap boys in broad daylight, lock them up in far-off basements in the middle of forests and use them as sex-slaves. Whatever happened to altar boys? They're easier to access and a lot less trouble, Clint?as no doubt many a priest with a bit of time on his hands might have told you.
Even worse is what precipitates the violent attack that sets this tedium in motion: the discovery of a middle-aged businessman getting blown in his car by an angel-faced twink. Never mind the illogic of a businessman getting off on a busy street outside a (straight) neighborhood bar; what's really offensive here is Eastwood's suggestion that middle-aged men put down money in order to get blown. Chickenhawks like to suck off, not get sucked by, little boys Clint?the blowjobs they can get from their wives!
To have thought through either of these scenes would have meant Eastwood confronting his source materials' profound homophobia. Instead we get the opposite: heterosexual tragedy built on homosexual pathology. Wow?just like American Beauty and The Silence of the Lambs. I smell Oscar!
Christopher Shinn, Manhattan
Conservative Struck
Argument with the likes of Robert Stacy McCain ("The Mail," 10/8) is pointless, as is arguing with any "snake oil" salesman. His poisonous, baseless crap is listened to by thousands of appallingly ignorant people whose primary interest is NFL data. The Kyoto treaty has been endorsed by most responsible nations. Those third-world polluters he yaks about can be found right across the U.S.-Mexican border. And are these gigantic polluters really owned by Mexicans? I doubt it, unless companies like GE, GM and so forth are really owned by Jose Herrero or equivalent.
Since the law prevents me from dealing with McCain as I'd like?if he stood still, I could drop him at 1000 yards with my "as issued" '03?a kindly fate would let him be mashed under his own Humvee.
Pete Kantor, San Diego
Down with DVD?
I wanted to personally thank you for instigating the DVD review section ("Film," 10/15). The In Praise of Love review is great and the layout very impressive. Of all the publications in New York that review DVDs (Entertainment Weekly, Time Out New York, New York Times, Daily News) the New York Press debut is easily the most impressive.
Though I don't really understand the direction in which this rag is headed, I do like it. Russ Smith was always a sub-level Republican stoolie, and the more it went down that road, the less I was interested in picking it up. You have cleaned house in a proper way. Taki and his ragged bunch were always worth?well, nothing.
Could you please mention, though, how people wander around like zombies, wondering what happened to the city we knew and where it went, and how New York Press says it's good for a Quiznos to be on St. Marks, and the homeless are a bunch of fucking scumbags, from the winos to the douchebags with their I-need-pizza sign. How I wanted to kill them.
The bars stink of ammonia to kill a hundred years of tobacco stench. At Roseland for Steely Dan, the haze of weed was wonderful. Imagine the stench without it. If you tried to buy a simple dimebag of weed you would either be ripped off or busted. Why bother? Parking sucks, traffic sucks, the whole pit that you desperately hang on to as some sort of "cultural institution" or whatever is nothing but a rapidly decaying, oh-so gentrified bag of pus. And I love it still.
Daniel Brewer, East Rutherford, NJ
The editors reply: We never said it was good for Quiznos to be on St. Marks. We simply noted that the presence of a Quiznos on St. Marks is no more or less heretical than having a Quiznos anywhere else, as St. Marks is generations past importance.
Son of the Father
I appreciated the homage to Hunter S. Thompson that Matt Taibbi wrote ("Cage Match," 10/8). Taibbi described via personal experience the clash of two worlds: the hallucinogenic open-doors-of-perception experience of existential explorers on illegal drugs vs. the soul-dead, repressive, human-spirit-crushing realm of Establishment politics.
Unfortunately the latter realm embodies power, the former mere spirit, the desire for personal freedom and autonomy. The fact that the latter trumps the former is evidenced most obviously by the drug prisoners in U.S. prisons, a vast number of POWs in the War on Drugs (which is really a war on alternative consciousness of any type, which is a threat to our rulers).
Of course, Thompson's original and best works?Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas?remain non pareil examples of the form. Too bad Thompson evidently burned himself out by overindulgence and pissed away his talent with egotism. His work lately is a pathetic self-parody. As for burnout, I saw him on the egregious Charlie Rose show a few years back (that he'd even appear with that establishment fop is a measure of how addled Thompson has become in his premature dotage). Rose would ask one of his typical super-schmoozy puffball questions, and Thompson was literally rendered speechless, staring wide-eyed and unfocused into space, with the facial expression of a Bowery drunk at the back end of a binge?totally out of it, just stupefied.
I hope Taibbi will carefully limit his intake of substances to avoid this fate. (Alcohol may have done the most damage to Thompson in this regard.) By the way, I'm curious; is Matt any relation to TV reporter Mike Taibbi?
Jason Zenith, Manhattan
But You?You?Liked Corn Mo!
What exactly was the point of the cover story about those dumb artists who hang stop sign decals over stop signs ("Trees Falling in the Forrest," 10/8)? They insult other artists (often ignorantly) yet the shit they're doing is just as brainless and worthless as Matthew Barney's. And their conceptualism is at least 100 years old, so for these twerps to pretend they aren't trite is a hoot. Their claims that curse words are vulgar is just as hypocritical, seeing that they don't use the Queen's English, but rather speak like low-class commoners with their slang and colloquialisms. And today's "fuck" is simply yesterday's "darn," so tell these idiots to shut the fuck up, please.
Why don't you write about smart stuff anymore? I liked the cover story on Corn Mo ("Corn Mo Rocks," 4/9) from a long time ago. That turned me on to an amazing artist.
Janice Amato, Manhattan
Overdose on the Way
MUGGER: Give up the ghost. You sold your paper to a bunch of liberals, and it is now a slightly upscale version of the Voice. Your columns from Maryland are irrelevant, and, let me tell you as an attendee of Game 3, your fellow Red Sox nationals are still a bunch of half-wit hooligans. I will always treasure the look on the faces of the crowd during the ninth?total, abject surrender. Hardly a peep!
On another subject, by my counting, under 100 brave soldiers have been murdered in Iraq over five months. Back in the early 90s, under David Dinkins, about 200 American civilians were murdered in NYC every single month! But, the New York Times supported Dinkins and mocked Rudy while he rebuilt the city and crushed crime. All these Bush-hating Democrats can't wait to politicize the paid, professional soldiers defending the world from terrorism as a heinous error. A decade ago, they weren't shedding any tears for the minority children being blown away in their beds. Isn't it grand that Iraq is 10 times safer than New York was after decades of Democratic rule?
Keep bending left, New York Press, and I'll have to get some of Rush's oxycontin to keep reading!
Mike Offit, Manhattan
As one of the founders of Carroll Gardens Supports Children and Abused Moms Proudly! (CG-SCAMP!), I must object to your portrayal of our neighborhood in your article concerning opposition to the battered women's shelter being opened in our community by the New York Asian Women's Center ("Page Two," 10/15).
Carroll Gardens is a wonderful community that combines a cutting-edge cultural scene with friendly neighbors and family values. Your portrayal of our area as "hairy men in wife beaters [whatever that means], statues of religious icons [and] social clubs" is straight-out anti-Italian bigotry. I am proud to say that there are many of us in the neighborhood who support the NYAWC facility, and those supporters include many prominent Italian-Americans, including community board members and civic activists, among them the president of our largest block association.
In further disproof of your stereotype (although I am less proud to admit this), at least some of the 75 folks who make up the bulk of the opposition would qualify as yuppies under any definition (e.g., they have no cultural tendency to either religious icons or social clubs). Surely a paper run by Russ Smith can understand that one can be both a yuppie and a reactionary.
On the other hand, you do accurately portray the opposition as ridiculous. In fact, their argument about zoning is nonsense; the facility is as-of-right. Other, more legitimate concerns (there are some) could easily be resolved by a Memorandum of Understanding, which NYAWC is only too eager to negotiate and sign. NYAWC is just as concerned as the community about ensuring adequate security. Luckily, our precinct commander, the fabulous Tom Harris, has already promised to do whatever it takes to ensure everyone's safety, up to and including positing a police car in front of the site 24 hours a day, if that's what it takes.
The facility's opponents do not speak for the majority of the community. This is proven by the fact the area's elected officials have called upon the community to accept the facility and work to resolve any legitimate concerns.
Howard Graubard, Brooklyn
From Natt Weinerdogg
A sampling of the letters from the 10/15 New York Press:
"Soft Skullfucking." Yeah.
"A news publication call[s] a blowjob a blowjob." Really?
"Christ on a crutch...Holy shit. For a whole fucking page."
"....sucking...Tom Pynchon's dick."
"C[hristopher] X[.] B[rodeur]'s Got A Dirty Diaper." No fooling. That a fact?
I have been reading New York Press for almost a year and a half. I enjoy articles that are off the beaten trail, such as Matt Bivens' masterpieces on the dangers of Indian Point. Having lived all my 41 years in the Bronx, I thoroughly enjoy C.J. Sullivan's "Bronx Stroll." I greatly admire the fact that unlike other "alternative" weeklies, you 1) print dissenting opinions, 2) engage in fair, even-handed journalism and 3) don't engage in yellow, liberal, "dig as deep as is convenient to our agenda" reporting, under the guise of progressivism.
I simply do not understand why you people have to print letters that are 1) laced with profanity and 2) contain disgusting, graphic, sexually explicit metaphors. Is this any kind of journalism you can feel proud of? It's wonderful to tell it like it is. Why do you have to be obscene doing it?
As for Brodeur having a "dirty diaper," I don't understand the metaphor. By accident, I stumbled upon his "Brodeur for Mayor 2001" website. Are you implying he's full of excrement? Not from what I've seen. Some of his ideas are impractical, some would take time to accomplish, but most are excellent. He identifies more with the common man than any other candidate I've ever seen. Are you implying that he's infantile? I don't think so. Maybe at 36, slightly lacking in emotional maturity. Maybe calling Giuliani is an exercise in tilting at windmills. But I find the dirty-diaper metaphor disgusting and unfair.
Please, guys. I'm begging you. Lay off the profanity and vulgarity. No call for it.
Nathan F. Weiner, Bronx
The editors reply: We were suggesting that Christopher X. Brodeur was a little cranky when he wrote the letter in question. But infantile and full of excrement cannot be ruled out.
Beyond Irony
MUGGER: "Sure, making fun of an adversary [Limbaugh] who's a drug addict plays well to party activists, but to the electorate at large...this is a cheap shot" (MUGGER, 10/15)? Surely you jest.
First, Limbaugh is?or at least, was?the acknowledged master of the cheap shot, so the "electorate at large" who recognized him as such can now see him get a well-deserved dose of his own medicine.
Second, and much more meaningful, his own medicine is steeped in deep hypocrisy, as Limbaugh has long called for harsh treatment of drug addicts. (I seriously doubt Limbaugh will ever suffer his own ideological penalties and see the inside of a cell.) In fact, there is a parallel with a certain hypocritical former governor who admitted to a cocaine habit in his past yet signed the toughest anti-coke laws in the country. Oh wait, he was clean then (cough, cough), so I guess the frailty of the human condition no longer applied to him. Rush's mistake was suffering his frailties after he made public his position.
It's all so stunning in its irony, as are many of the right's considerable inconsistencies and hypocrisies, that it would be like rant-and-rave O'Reilly decrying the lack of civil political discourse. Oh wait, O'Reilly did.
Kenny Herbert, Brooklyn