TOC/MAIL 27 THEMAIL This Week: Donna Larsen takes a little more abuse, ...

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This Week: Donna Larsen takes a little more abuse, Alan Cabal enters the cage with Matt Taibbi and Matt Zoller Seitz gets an earful from the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art. Plus: Is Russ Smith a mutant maggot?

Free Advice

This is to Donna Larsen ("Apply Fist Here," 6/30): Listen real close. I was a "George." No safe words. If sub did not like it, she left. Same way for 30 years.

I had one lady after another for 20 years straight. I had one sub; we went to the extreme. Weekly sessions pretty much without missing a week. No contracts, nothing in writing. She now has permanent damage and was in hospital for about a month, five years ago.

I have learned that what I did for 30 years was just abuse. Period, that's it. I have since met and learned from true BDSM people what submissive is, what being a dom really is.

Donna, join some BDSM groups; go to a meeting and learn.

Steve Loon, Manhattan

Chateau? Ooh, Fancy!

This is Master R writing, from La Domaine Esemar, the oldest S&M training chateau in the U.S. I just read Donna Larsen's piece on her black-eyed desires ("Apply Fist Here," 6/30). I would like to thank you for running the article. It was a refreshing change to see a well-thought-out piece of introspective thought published without the usual prejudice toward our sexuality.

Master R, Address Withheld

From Your Lips to God's Fist

I just got through reading your feature story (Donna Larsen, "Apply Fist Here," 6/30), and I have to say I am completely disgusted! The woman in the article needs extensive counseling. I was in an abusive relationship for five years and I did receive a black eye, and I will tell you and her, it was not pleasant. This woman is so lost she doesn't know right from wrong or what it's like to be in a healthy, loving relationship. For you to print this is wrong. Abuse is not love; abuse is abuse-period! I was too stupid and naive at the time to get out of my relationship, but I will tell you and her one thing, no man-and I mean no man-will ever abuse me again. I pray this woman gets the counseling she needs, and I also pray she finds real love and happiness as I did.

Brenda Lancour, Vermont

We Don't Publish Fiction

Here's my take on Donna Larsen ("Apply Fist Here," 6/30): She's bored (and boring), emotionally and intellectually bankrupt, has nothing to do in her life, isn't getting the attention she craves and her writing career is going nowhere fast. Then she gets the greatest idea she's ever had: to make up the sickest, vilest, ugliest, most frighteningly repulsive story she can imagine, one that will provoke the most extreme reaction possible from the reader. I've run across some brilliant put-ons in my day, but this one wins first prize.

How she must be laughing her head off at all the mail she'll probably get from those who read that piece and take her seriously.

C.J. Gelfand, Manhattan

Somebody Is in Love

To Russ Smith: I hardly ever get a chance to complete New York Press. Today I did. You, Russ Smith, are the worst form of racist because you have the power of the press. Your inflammatory toilet-paper writings show you are good for nothing but inflaming whites against blacks ("B&W Road Movie," 6/23). How did a turd like you get to write about human beings? You're a mutant maggot. You'd like nothing better than to have a race war. Your last name, Smith, says a lot. An impotent scumbag, a gutless nerd who gets off on denigrating blacks especially. Your mouth is where the dicks hang out. By your writings, I can see you slap the salami often (wash your hands?). All those handjobs must keep you busy especially after you write a piece of Montezuma's revenge like this. Your works show you are a piccolo player, and down deep you're hoping someone (Sharpton, Jessie, Kerry and family, Clinton) will ask you to pick up the soap, you paleface cruiser.

I wouldn't use writing paper to write to a double scrudfantods like you. You're not worth all the shit in the toilets of New York.

Sissy Robbins, Manhattan

Got 'Em if You Smoke 'Em

Regarding Russ Smith's article that touched on having the choice of a smoking section in a restaurant ("Smoke on the Water," 6/30), you may be interested to know that just a few months after the passage of an unpopular law banning smoking in restaurants and bars here in Lexington, KY, restaurants are openly violating the law-and advertising the fact! Civil disobedience may work here to protect business owners' rights.

S. Charles Hite, Lexington

Xanax is for Housewives

I just finished reading "Shoveling Coal for Satan," (Matt Taibbi, 6/30). I think it's time for Taibbi to find a good psychiatrist, a bottle of Xanax and a relaxing place for a nice long vacation.

Carter Tracht, Dallas

Finally, a Real Cage Match

I just got around to reading last week's piece by Mike Taibbi's son, the one where he made all of those sweeping generalizations about what he calls "journalists" (Matt Taibbi, "Shoveling Coal for Satan," 6/30). Christopher Hitchens is an easy target, an overpaid hack, and references to his relationship with alcohol are too easy, having very long ago been beaten to death with a stick by Alexander Cockburn. I recognize that young Matt may have been traumatized by growing up in the household of a genuine media whore, and thus may bear some prejudice against the industry as a whole, but in all fairness, he could have spared himself the trauma of laboring in his father's house by endeavoring to earn his daily bread in some field unrelated to his father's work, like waiting tables or stand-up comedy.

As William Burroughs was wont to say, "Count me out of your 'we', Mister." You may be a coward and a "presstitute" (nice neologism, is it really yours?). You have denounced the war, but I have yet to see you take the real risk of criticizing the nation for whom it has been fought. Are you afraid of AIPAC, JINSA, and the ADL? You are certainly a recipient of the disgraceful and decadent nepotism that marks our age, and you should be more graceful about it. Your lack of noblesse oblige goes so far as to insult those, your betters, who have taken very real risks in the pursuit of truth.

I cite just a few of your betters: Greg Palast, Joe Sobran, Charlie Reese, Mike Levine, David Mullenax, April Oliver, Dr. Carl Jensen, Philip Weiss, Alexander Cockburn, Nat Hentoff, Monika Jensen-Stevenson, Gary Webb, John Kelly, Robert McChesney and the inestimable Kristina Borjesson. These people have taken enormous risks for the sake of truth, and your puerile column does them a great disservice by lumping them in with hacks like yourself and your father.

For the record, I am a polemicist, not a journalist, and I have no college degree. I am not related to anyone that I know of, and I have no rich daddy to fall back on. I have never been a "shoe salesman," but I am well-known in the debt-recovery business as the Master of Ass-Clenching Fear. I have pushed circus tents from one end of this country to the other and back again. I am "real people." Shut your mouth.

Alan Cabal, Manhattan

Kill Your TV

I hope Taibbi's piece is the break in the dam ("Shoveling Coal for Satan," 6/30). Sure journalism has earned its kneepads, but it's television that's taken us down the tubes. Watching them attack Moore is just the latest example of their depravity. On a more serious subject, think back to the coverage of the Abu Ghraib scandal. This important story was not reported; it was handled. They selected culturally repulsive images, showed them to saturation levels, then announced the American people thought they were giving it "too much coverage." Trouble is, they never reported the story, the facts of it or its implications. Meanwhile, right-wing radio promoted the it's-no-big-deal angle. Story buried, mission accomplished.

Peggy Hirsch, Ashland, OR

He Who Throweth The First Shit?

I just want to say to Matt Taibbi-thank you ("Shoveling Coal for Satan," 6/30)! Shit doesn't roll uphill-somebody has to stand up and throw it uphill. Thank you Matt for having the courage to become visible in a world of ass-coverers.

Terry Spohn, San Diego

Iced MOCCA

Despite his initial regrets regarding his "condescending" remarks about Spider-Man 2 ("Two-Legged Freaks," 6/30), Matt Zoller Seitz goes on to say that it "is a personal film made from junky material."

Considering that much of what Seitz enjoyed in Spider-Man 2 comes directly from the original comic-book source material created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, I suspect that Matt hasn't completely moved out of his ivory tower. What Matt may not "understand about Sam Raimi" is that Sam actually respects his source material, while adding his own creativity and vision to this personal film. Of course, as a Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art trustee and a former Spider-Man comic book editor, I may just be a tad sensitive about such things.

Jim Salicrup, Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, Manhattan

Done, Done and Done

I'm not sure how that Pulitzer Prize stuff works, but if it is done by submission and/or nomination, please submit Mark Ames' article regarding Ann Coulter ("The Coulter Challenge," 6/30). You should double his pay, wash his car and procure him a $1000 hooker for his work.

I am just praying for him that Ann doesn't take him up on his challenge.

Matt Archambeault, Miami

One Man's Horseshit Is Another Man's Life

Shame on you for having published Donna Larsen's article "Apply Fist Here" (6/30). Am I to assume that such horseshit is what passes now for a memoir of sorts of an alternate lifestyle? Since when did being fucking nuts become an "alternate lifestyle"?

In her article, Larsen states, "As much as some feminists bandy about the evil of men, finding one who will actually punch you in the face is harder than they imagine." Really? Go tell that to Hedda Nussbaum (whose assailant, the convicted child-murderer Joel Steinberg, was released from prison last week) or any of the thousands of other women who are victims each year of spousal or domestic abuse.

Believe me, if Larsen wants someone to punch her in the face, I'd be willing to bet that she could find enough bad men to form a line around the block to beat, first, a path to her door and second, her. Do not tell me that in our land of plenty, a bad man is hard to find, or that malice doesn't live here anymore, because I simply will not believe it. Bad men are easy enough to find. Perhaps Larsen is just looking for hate in all the wrong places.

Here is what I do understand. I understand that an article provocatively entitled "Go Fuck Yourself" could have some redeeming social value if written, say, by a man entreating others to practice yoga daily. If, however, it were nothing more, say, than the (not particularly insightful) musings of an internet porn junkie, it would be the same sort of pandering to prurience that the publication of Donna Larsen's dark fantasies about being given a shiner constitutes. I would have thought you'd have been able to recognize such a distinction. I see I was mistaken.

What Larsen needs is not someone to punch her in the face. What she needs is for someone to knock some sense into her, and make her realize that her masochistic walks on the very wild side are not the forays of someone who has chosen to make misunderstood lifestyle choices that prudes like me could not possibly begin to comprehend. Rather, they are the compulsive symptoms of a mental illness that should be treated and cured, not exploited by New York Press. That Larsen, insofar as she authored the article, wishes to be complicit in the exploitation of her mental illness is unfortunate, if not entirely unexpected. That you allowed her to be by publishing her article is disgraceful.

Congratulations! You've succeeded in giving responsible journalism a black eye.

Matt Penn, Manhattan

He's a Hobbit

Matt Taibbi's column, "Shoveling Coal for Satan," (6/30) floored me. Who are you? Are you real? The sight of so many "objective" journalists going after Michael Moore as if he were a cross between Josef Stalin and John Wayne Gacy (or, let's be real, Martha Stewart and O.J. Simpson) has been truly sickening. Journalism is indeed a miserable profession, but it could be admirable if we had a few more like you. Thanks for the truth.

Mike Compton, Memphis

No Robot, Taibbi

Finally, someone who is truthful ("Shoveling Coal for Satan," 6/30). I have been so outraged with the media since this bogus administration took over that I cannot watch tv news or read newspapers anymore. So when I received this article by email, I almost cried. Thank God there are some people out there who are not Stepford Journalists. Keep up the great work.

Judi Lewis, Omaha, Nebraska

Must've Been Naptime

Thank you for Matt Taibbi's piece "Shoveling Coal for Satan" (6/30). The first lines of his editorial following the Christopher Hitchens quote were the best description of that windbag ever. The image of Hitchens crawling out of a bottle is priceless.

Taibbi's comments about today's journalists are very true with one exception: Helen Thomas. I think she yelled "bullshit" many times during White House briefings. I just think the rest of you were sitting in your cubicles not paying attention.

Debbie Ratliff, Miami

Fee, Paid

I would like to thank you for the article, "Shoveling Coal for Satan" (6/30). Please extend my regards to Matt Taibbi, for it is he that causes me to draw my breath in at his various turns of a phrase.

For my part, I am thankful for his submissions to New York Press. Those thoughtful, well-reasoned pieces are like a gift that I allow myself to savor. Please thank him on my behalf for writing them. I tend to share them with my children (my son is 17; daughter is 15) as examples of good writing with a unique worldview. He is worth all that you pay him-maybe more!

Mark Douglas Fee, Fayetteville, GA

And More Moore

I think it's funny that most critiques of Hitchens mention his affinity for alcohol (Matt Taibbi, "Shoveling for Satan," 6/30). It's his affinity for alcohol, and his ability to write about it, that I find one of his most admirable qualities.

As for the talk of the media in general being cowards, it sounds like the typical, radical-left, self-hating, anti-corporate, anti-capitalist BS which is, unfortunately, becoming more and more common these days. If tampon making is such noble work, by all means, submit a resume.

It's too bad Matt Taibbi doesn't know the slightest bit about Hitchens. If he had taken the time to read one of the succinct biographies available on the web, he would have learned that, in fact, Hitchens did resign from his job at The Nation, which he held for nearly 20 years, precisely because of his own political beliefs.

Michael Moore is a coward. I doubt we will see him debating the merits of his film and his opinions with anyone who hasn't already showered him with praise. I am still hoping Moore can excrete some sort of response to Hitchens' claims that he is a liar. Moore would much rather stand on a stage, embrace the standing ovations and the adulations of the sheep he has misled, misinformed and manipulated, and go home to sleep on a pile of their money.

Jonathan Sitzer, Rochester, MN

And So Are His Library Books

Finally, a response to Christopher Hitchens that puts intellectual honesty and journalistic courage in its rightful place (Matt Taibbi, "Shoveling Coal for Satan," 6/30). This tat for Hitchens' righteously indignant tit is long overdue.

Daniel Skinner, Brooklyn

Wade in the Deep End

I'm still cheering and high-fiving Matt Taibbi for his brilliant excoriation of the current state of journalism ("Shoveling Coal for Satan," 6/30).

I hope to hear much more from Taibbi, and perhaps others who call themselves journalists will allow the dam holding back the flood of secrets and lies from the dysfunctional administration currently in power to come pouring out. We can certainly hope so, for unless that happens, this country is doomed to an insipid repetition of government-sponsored pablum. It has been a very long time since I've heard the phrase: "The press is the watchdog of the government." For the sake of civilization, I for one hope that credo comes back in vogue.

Wade N. Kelly, Lake Charles, LA

Do the Math, Voter

Are you aware that each State bill is supposed to have a requirement of five minutes of voting time on the floor (Page Two, "So Long, Gentle Ben," 6/30)? That day in particular when the governor considered the budget more important, the Senate passed 167 bills, total voting time of 13.91 hours, and in the Assembly they passed 175 bills, which by all rights should have taken 14.52 hours when the actual session time for that day was 12.25 hours.

You may as well add to the mess above that the senator actually took the exotic animal bill out of committee, changed the bill, did not send it back through proper channels for preparation of vote. Instead, Sen. Marcellino sent it to the floor for vote and rushed it to the Assembly under a new number for voting and got it passed deceitfully. Many Assembly members are upset that it was not known; many had plans on debating it on the floor.

Deborah-Ann Milette, Telling Felids Exotic Educational Facility, Warrensburg, NY

How 'bout Rebbe White?

We have the Angry Young Man and the Angry Black Man, and in Armond White we have the Angry Film Critic ("Film of the Fascist Liberal," 6/23). Case in point: his "review" of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11. Not a movie review, really, but a political assault motivated by White's revulsion for Moore's politics. He faults Moore for making a polemical movie, but as polemics go, Moore's are quite good, both in style and content, with the virtue of being basically true. White is enraged at what he perceives to be Moore's anti-Americanism. This is the typical right-wing line of equating criticism of U.S. actions and regimes with hating the country. White's verbiage sounds like it's straight from talk radio.

Unfortunately White's political/ideological animus makes it impossible for him to write a movie review. That's too bad for him, for his editors and for us readers. In place of substantive content, we have shoveled at us the cheap sensationalism of calling Moore a "fascist," a ridiculous, baseless insult on the level of schoolyard name-calling.

Granted, Moore's film isn't balanced. So what? It's a tonic and a corrective to the sea of pro-Bush propaganda in which the corporate media immerses us. Moore performs the valuable service of presenting scandalous facts that the media refuses to tell the public. In short, White's beef with Moore is political, not artistic.

The larger thing about White is that all his reviews are enraged at someone or something. White seems to be filled with free-floating rage that requires an outlet. I've been frequently baffled at the level of his bile over abstract beefs and alleged cinematic sins. This week the target was Moore; next week it will be someone else. Often it's a puzzle just what he's so mad about-a giveaway that the fault lies not in his target, but in White himself.

Now, if only White could weld a carapace of consistent right-wing ideology to his perpetual anger, maybe he could move up the media feeding chain and get a better job (higher status and greater remuneration) at, say, the Wall Street Journal or Weekly Standard or somewhere like that. Or maybe Commentary, if he's willing to convert to Judaism.

Jason Zenith, Manhattan

Blue Blood's Green

In Jeff Koyen's book review ("Books," 6/30), he wrote:

"SuicideGirls was the originator of a new kind of porn: amateurs with ink. Countless clones are now popping up on thumbnail sites like The Hun and Richard's Realm, yet as the second generation proliferates, the genius of SuicideGirls is made clear: The imitators come from some dude with a camera paying a woman with tattoos to show us your tits. Missy Suicide, on the other hand, has a reputation for sharing the wealth."

Blue Blood is the inspiration, not a clone. I'm a bit distressed, because Blue Blood sites are the only ones that both feature amateurs with significant ink presented in a flattering light and appear on both the Hun and Richard's Realm. I assume that line was from a press release and it was a direct reference to my work. My sites had free sample galleries linked on both the Hun and Richard's Realm for literally years before anyone started using the expression alt-porn, much less claiming to have invented it.

I have links on those sites partly because I've been doing what I do for a long time, partly because I put out original content and partly because I actually do share the wealth. If someone like that links to me, I don't just send them a t-shirt; I offer to split the money with them. If you like Voltaire, I have photographed her more than "Missy" has, and Voltaire has also shot with Gatewood, who predates pretty much everyone in shooting nude girls with ink.

If I am thinking of the right person, I believe that, in the glorious heyday of the zine explosion, Jeff Koyen did a very highly respected angry lit publication. If so, I know I personally sent him copies of Blue Blood in print back in the day. If this is the same person, I'd ask him to please cast his mind back to the glossy pages I produced at great personal cost. Blue Blood in print featured real-life couples from the counterculture doing whatever they wanted to do. If he was a zinester, I'm sure he can relate to the starvation, the lack of health insurance, the sucky car, the bankrupt distributors and all the other things that made producing zines a labor of love and not about the dollars.

I had to deal with distributors who just could not understand why anyone would want to look at a girl with purple hair and tattoos all over her body. I presented this esthetic when it was hard, when I had to go hungry and do without medical attention and drive a rusted-out old Camaro to do it. I did it for love, because I wanted to make a difference.

I would be happy to be Lou Reed to a new generation of creative people. Newcomers with big venture capital can keep their millions, but I want the props for being an activist for an esthetic and a lifestyle. The fact that people can make a dollar off of tattooed cuties now is because of the hard meaningful work done by me and people like me who paved the way. People cashing the checks now are not the activists; they are the beneficiaries and they really are overdue for sending out some thank-you notes.

Amelia G, BlueBlood.net, Los Angeles

Jeff Koyen replies: I wasn't thinking of Blue Blood when I referenced other alt-porn thumbnails. I certainly remember the magazine, however, and apologize for not mentioning it as an originator of this brand of erotica. Amelia G. is correct in taking credit as a porn homesteader, and though SuicideGirls remains a major innovation in the genre, I'd agree that it owes a nod of thanks to its foremother.