Beauty is Imperfection

(Originally posted Wednesday, October 17, 2007)

In a heartfelt scene, Ellen DeGeneres broke down in tears on her talk show yesterday after an animal rescue group removed an adopted dog from her hairdresser’s home, claiming Ellen had improperly given the dog to the family.

Here is a list of things this is not as important as:

10. Reports of continued, unauthorized retrieval of the private phone records of U.S. citizens by the Bush Administration from Verizon without warrants, which would set a legal precedent for such spying in the future, making it easier to do and harder to prosecute.

9. The continuing war in Iraq.

8. The continued manipulation of monetary policy by the Federal Reserve mainly to bail out rich people who make bad investments

7. Climate change that has finally given us the Northwest Passage sought by Lewis and Clark, though it will likely come at the expense of the north and south poles, polar bears, fall and spring “seasons,” and the island of Manhattan.

6. The raping and pillaging Janjaweed in the Sudan

5. The genocide of the Armenians by the Ottoman Empire.

4. Increasing cases of staph infection

3. Iranian nuclear weapons

2. American nuclear weapons

1. And now that I think of it, this story is less important than any story out there in which a dog might have actually died. I mean, the dog’s not even fucking dead! What the hell, man? I thought Anne Heche was the crazy one in that relationship.

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(Originally posted Tuesday, October 16, 2007)

Dear Leticia,

The fall burns red in its autumn fugue colors, and yet you still haven’t written to me. But I don’t despair; I have several new writing assignments, and a dewy eyed optimism has borne me up in its sylph-like slender arms. I have been told to write a feature at the sump magazine about the dismal state of America’s pipes, especially those in our Lady Gotham. The original rough text given to me for this article by the hucksters and public relations people who call themselves scientists says that these pipes they want to install are the latest, most technologically advanced type of slip-sock boring technology. But I’m too much the poet to reiterate this in such crass, vulgar scientific terms. Instead, I intend to write it in my own supple, filigreed way, and thus have begun it: “Today in New York, great men are laying great, erect pipes into the gentle furrow of this, our sighing wench of a city, and as they sob their fluids into her, let our lady be better for it.” The editors were not happy with that one, I can tell you pointedly, Leticia, but I like to think that you are somewhere right now noshing a tender croissant in your pretty rouged mouth and having a small titter over it.

Yes, you were right in that letter you wrote me ten years ago to detect the note of sardonic sour cream in my observation of the jazz poetry we heard on the wharves of Monaco. Yes, I am of open mind. But I always try to regard such work with a bit of postmodern dismissive-ness, if only because it enhances my enjoyment of the form. If it gives you any perspective, this is the same attitude with which I approach agitprop theater, miniature golf and sex.

The last you heard from me, I was probably going on and on about my long-ago love for Mavis. Yes, as we all know, it turned out to be a grave mistake, yet once upon a time, however foolish it may sound, I did think of her as the great love of my life. I remember how we’d fight over Nietzsche and I would make her cry, and then we’d go back to her house and I would intensely roger her before we’d go hear Camille Paglia speak at the university center. Ah, the feelings of pain and the loss were intense and had their own taste and shape and smell. Good god, I’ve made myself hungry.

How is it that you and I were not ever lovers ourselves, Leticia? Only friends in the great platonic way men and women of the late Romantic period were? Oh yes, people wondered about us, and sometimes even wondered if, given our abstemiousness, I were a flaming homosexual. For convenience’ sake, I let them think so. We laughed over that too, at least I did until I realized later that your beautiful flatmate Yssa was only kissing me ironically. Meanwhile, you would spend weekends with your boyfriend Brutus at his dacha and do God only knows what in his sweaty arms. I would like to think that our long talks about quantum physics and Wittgenstein only made your sex life with another man that much richer.

But for two such as you and me to be romantic…that was beneath us. Because you and I, we negated our physical instincts. Better yet, as Marx would say, we sublated them until they became something more profound, of a more intense truth. For us it was not sex: It was all watching punk music and the speaking of French poorly and buying dime bags from a guy named Jo-Jo on St. Mark’s in the cold. I think of Jo-Jo often whenever I delude myself that I am being an outlaw. Mostly when I throw away parking tickets. That fucking man, Giuliani.

Think of me often, Leticia, and when you are down, try to recall what we used to say to the kids in the soup kitchens: “Every time you vote for a Republican, children, an angel gets syphilis.”

The country will give us no peace,
Salo

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(Originally posted Monday, October 15, 2007)

Dear Leticia,

You’ve been a frightfully horrible Valkyrie this week, this month, this decade; leaving me subjected to spells of paranoia about the nature of our continued friendship. I feel winter approaching, a hoary ache in my molars, an atavistic feeling that someone’s old age is approaching, maybe even mine… though nobody can ever really be sure whose old age they are feeling. Maybe that of some unlucky paraplegic from the Spanish Civil War, or mayhap of some old London pensioner, or of some American poet with British pretentions, if you dare to live in your imagination.

But when I share these thoughts with you, you are the one who always has the upper hand because you are the silent critic, and your diffidence gives you the facade of strength undeserved, like it does all beautiful women, Leticia, especially the ugly ones. I’ve written to you many times and shared with you silly poems I wrote about love when I was 14, to which you, in your reticent silence, said, “Oh, Brav-!” Brav? Was that supposed to mean “Bravo?” You did not even grant me the dignity of my second vowel, you c—! I have lived in New York for 12 years now, and when I first got here, I wrote to you of snow and hot coffee and warm bread and old friends. We said to each other that Williams Carlos Williams was right, because he had, in turn, said Raleigh was right, when both insisted, in verse: “The country will give us no peace.” And by that they meant: We must stay here in this cold city and face our neighbors/persecutors/others, because they are actually us and we are actually them … and all of us are behind on last year’s taxes. It’s not enough to get lost in an idyllic life and crawl up what Swinburne called one’s ass. That’s no kind of life for Eurotrash like us, even the ones of us who are unfortunately born in Tulsa.

So I say to you, Leticia, this will not be my last letter, but the first of many, in which I tell you my ongoing travails of being a failed Southern writer in the big city. My work for the specialty magazine I call “Sump Digest.” My continuing dedication to a life of anomie and joy and sadness and pain and loss and all the things that the Kardashian sisters call a life well lived.

You are my feminus salvator, because you believed in me when others saw only the man who sliced the pickle for them in quarters. And so let this be my philippic and my ongoing appeal … to you. My inspiration who is so far away.

As we used to say in Montmartre, may a smile be your colostomy bag.

To be continued,
Salo

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(Originally posted Sunday, October 14, 2007)

Much has been made about the inability of the government to update the levees in New Orleans and make them even safer than they were before Hurricane Katrina. But there are many other possible disasters we are not even thinking about such as:

10. A major California earthquake strikes and shuts down the San Fernando Valley porn industry.

9. A nuclear facility near a major U.S. city is infiltrated by terrorists wielding KFC “sporks”

8. A Goodyear blimp armed with a specially designed dart-gun device lands during Janet Jackson’s half-time show at the Super Bowl

7. A cannibalistic race of furry, red-eyed Morlocks emerges from the caves and drags away the more docile and peaceful members of society, otherwise known as Eloi.

6. Mars Attacks!

5. The Pied Piper of Hamelin leads away all the children with his pretty music.

4. An outbreak of smallpox kills all the Indians.

3. A “three-sigma” event occurs in which the Mississippi River floods at the same time Africanized killer bees attack California and eco-terrorists drop bad brown acid in the water supply

2. God changes His mind and once again floods the entire Earth

1. Did we mention California earthquake and terrorist attack? Maybe we should again.

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(Originally posted Saturday, October 13, 2007)

I read a headline the other day: “Half of the world’s coral reefs could be destroyed.” And they let that conditional sentence hang like that. “Half of the world’s coral reefs could be destroyed,” and in my mind I’m adding, “If we only had the guts.”
Meanwhile,

A motivational speaker has unearthed the 10 habits of highly effective psychopathic dictators.

1. Take a mistress, and if she makes demands, strangle her
2. Follow to the letter the instructions given to you by the Torah, the New Testament, and the Koran, including the stuff about how many shekels you must pay for a sheaf of millet
3. Keep your urine stocked in a row of carefully labeled jars
4. Say to yourself every day, “I’m a winner.” Whenever you hear somebody else claim that he is a winner, kill him in front of his wife and children
5. Don’t eat your enemies until you’ve thanked God for them, unless you are God, in which case you are free to smite the infidels and covetous ones as you see fit
6. Kill cats
7. Create many statues of yourself. This will act as a magnet to your enemies and bring them like lambs to slaughter.
8. Don’t buy a German car; the parts are way too expensive over here.
9. Enjoy a drink now and then, perhaps during a beheading.
10. Start a war against somebody who has not attacked you

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Just a reminder, there’s music at ER Salo Deguierre’s page: here.

Yes, it is me.

(Originally posted Oct. 11, 2007)

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(Originally posted Thursday, October 11, 2007)

The mayor of Atlantic City recently relinquished his post after going missing for two weeks amid charges he embellished his military record. The city has been plagued by many other scandals involving city officials in the recent past, including allegations of graft and extortion. Locals call it a national embarrassment.

Here is a list of ways that city officials have said they hope to clean up Atlantic City and make it a safer and more fun place.

10. Offering $10,000 TIPS hotline reward for anyone who catches sight of a naked city councilman running free.

9. Creating an evacuation route in case of hurricanes or a riot preceded by the absconding of local leadership.

8. Offering a pamphlet explaining how, in case of emergency, to stockpile boiled water, flashlights, batteries, and several pounds of Trump Steaks.

7. Offering a pamphlet to all visitors reminding them that if they bet seven ways on the slot game “Betty Boop,” they increase their chances to win.

6. Offering a free night at the Borgata Spa for any visitor on the boardwalk who is hit by a car driven by an inebriated city official.

5. Repealing certain short-sighted health ordinances so that we can once again reclaim our city motto: “Smoke Any Damn Place You Please.”

4. Promising to crack down on unnecessary and dubious-sounding nicknames among local government officials such as “Lefty,” “Speedy,” and “Gummo.”

3. Offering a raffle for guest spots on “The Apprentice” or on HBO’s “Atlantic City Hookers: It Ain’t E-Z Bein’ A Ho.”

2. Reassuring all of New York City’s old women and Asians that Atlantic City is still a safe place to come and lose all their savings.

1. Just admitting to ourselves: Who cares what we do? You’re coming anyway.

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