majenta #1
call this civilization again and i'll clock you:
TALK SLASH SUICIDE
There's so much talk. Do you remember that feeling that a conversation could
give you when you were fifteen? Utter frustration or elation. Chasing logical
ghosts that promise trips to other places, bright worlds with purpose. Ghosts
who disappear when asked to stand and deliver because you can't rob the dead
of anything. Do you remember that feeling of total hope and hopelessness? The
feeling of truth, though. Do you remember that? Of the pain of a lie. How
little we think of lies now that we're older. You'd think that kind of pain
would leave remainders, it's impossible to divide emotions evenly.
But the talk. That's what I wanted to get at.
Conversations lately. Is it coffee, cyberpunk, weather, hockey, local music,
literature, office gossip, talking about one lover with another? What sort of
betrayals are we engaging in daily? Little ones perhaps. Here's a proverb I
heard once: the smallest hole will empty the largest vessel in time.
What was the last thing you said that you were proud of saying?
Okay, new angle on the topic.
I heard a story lately that I liked: This frog and this scorpion are on the
bank of a river and the scorpion wants to get across. He says to frog, "Frog,"
he says, "I would like to cross the river. Will you take me?"
Frog says, "No. That's ridiculous, Scorpion. You'll sting me."
Scorpion says, "No I won't. Word of honor."
Frog says, "Really?"
"Really," replies the scorpion.
Frog proceeds to let the scorpion on his back and swim to the other bank.
Halfway out the scorpion stings the frog. The frog's dying words are: "Why did
you do it? We'll both die now."
The scorpion replies, "It's in my nature."
While I liked the tale, I had a seven inch pet scorpion named Cairo Noirsae
Bubbles and I held him in bare hands every day. I let him ride in my shirt
pocket. He never stung me or even tried to. He ate his crickets alive--which
was somewhat terrifying--because he didn't sting them either. Cairo was always
much more concerned with hiding than with doing harm; he'd try to wriggle
between my fingers when I held him. But that's my point about nature. It's not
in a scorpion's nature to destroy itself, just the opposite in fact.
Fables aren't Marlin Perkins. Fables are about us. Frogs don't talk with
scorpions much in real life. And there's only one animal on the planet that
regularly engages in self immolation. And the only way self destruction can
work is if it is passed off as something else, or if it appears the only way
there is; if it seems like the natural thing to do. So there are fables and
excuses, so we can be comfortable talking about this seemingly unique nature
of ours. That's where we left off: talk.
Back to the column (shoulder on the wheel, fingers in the grindstone, nose up
the... you get the idea).
Point being, I suppose: Talk but don't let it be filler, don't use it to plug
up the empty spaces in life; let it mean something, do something. Call your
girlfriend or her racism--call your boyfriend on his homophobia. Learn to ask
why again. Learn, like we used to want to so badly when we were children. Talk
about and do what you really enjoy not what you hear you ought to be enjoying.
If something feels wrong don't talk yourself into thinking it ought to feel
right. Don't let anyone. The nature of this human animal is no more suicidal
than that of a bug. If it truly was, you wouldn't be reading this, I wouldn't
be writing it.
I want to ask you a favor in closing. Look around yourself. What do you see?
Civilization?
I've heard tell it's bad style to end an essay with a question. What of it?
-Ashley Pond V
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The Scythian Shot
COLUMBO
I had this great idea--we could play a game I'd heard about involving three
drinks and two tabs of acid, then off we went in Raul's dreaded new Mustang
again not knowing which two had taken the acid and which one hadn't but really
starting to wonder while Raul played speed games down Sunset Boulevard for
this party we'd heard about. Soon we learned it was not Raul at all who'd been
left out of our little party but in fact the passenger whose name eludes me
for the moment, and then "Fuck it," we said, and gave him a tab after all. So
the game had been for naught.
Columbo's appeal to me is his effectiveness. He is a masterful detective
without a gun or anything to prove. His approach is multi-faceted. He presents
himself as harmless and irritating, and in this way most people are relatively
less cautious around him--even criminals--and less and less cautious as they
become more and more irritated by him because they want to get him out of
their hair.
But after a drive there and back to our house which, although only about
ten miles total, had enough close calls in those ten miles to help me believe
that there was a God and that he had given me second and third chances at life
all within about twenty minutes, and once we'd been indoors for a while,
conversed with our other room-mates who were on their way out for somewhere
one of us didn't want to go, we, as was inevitable, turned on the television
set.
Another technique he uses repeatedly is his exit and return--in this way he
gives the potentially guilty person a chance to take a breath, relax and let
his guard down; but that's always the moment he's saying "Sorry to bother you
again. Just one last thing for the records, purely routine I assure you..." As
often as he uses this, indeed to the point of being comical, it is to his
advantage to use it that often because again and again it works.
But first, of course, there was the awkward moment when people are around
who suspect you're on drugs but for some reason can't be bothered to ask, so
leaving you to establish it in your own good time. After I'd been massaging
the doorway for what could have been minutes, I'm not really sure (while said
room-mates watched with interest), someone finally asked: "Barnaby, are you on
mushrooms or something?"
"Well, acid," I said.
"Yeah, I thought your eyes looked weird. How much did you take?"
"Plenty," and then I thought it was strange that they all broke out laughing
at that point. "Really strange," I thought. "I've got to get out of here!"
Even his crooked eye is a weapon. It tends to make his suspects uneasy during
conversation, and Columbo always engages people as directly as possible, so
all things considered one might eventually grow desperate to be finished with
him, and one might then be prepared to say almost anything to get rid of
him--even the truth--at which point Columbo has won his battle.
Soon after the show ended we were back in the Mustang again.
L.S.D. has a way of making each moment as it passes seem strangely
significant, however meaningless those moments may be, and knowing this, it
took several episodes afterward to believe with certainty something of
importance had happened that fateful evening full of near fatalities--I'd
found a modern hero.
-Barnaby Hazen
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majenta #2
call this civilization again and i'll clock you:
who will watch the watchmen?
april 20, 1993
for the last four weeks i have been panicking over this column and the
lateness of the second issue and the multiple typographical and layout errors
in the first. i wrote some interesting fascist prose, tore it up. i sat for
hours writing silly crap and still nothing... but by yesterday afternoon my
savior had arrived. no, not david koresh--i am personally bored with, if not
somewhat afraid of, religious fanatics; especially those, like koresh, of the
christian variety--but the federal bureau of investigations, the a.t.f., the
attorney general and the president of the united states of america. finally,
somewhere to direct my anger.
okay, who to believe: fuck the media. the media has already slung its
ponderous bulk back to the side of public outrage and from there, back again.
last week they were on the side of the increasingly diligent federal agents
who protect us. they don't enter into this.
point two: killing killers is one thing. pick up a gun--expect to get gunned
down; that's what guns are, that's what they do. but there were over forty
children in that compound at the engineering of the crisis, and over twenty by
the end. children ages one year to ten. children are not targets, not even in
a war.
point three is we're supposed to be in a liberal phase of government. the
first two clinton nominees for attorney general (the highest office of law
enforcement) were admitted criminals. usually, as we know, women don't commit
crime but these ones did. rich white women who knowingly and with full
culpability broke the law. how did they pay for these small affronts to
society? they lost the chance at a higher profile job and had to retain their
six figure ones.
back to the a.t.f. agents. let's not quibble about incompetence (yet)--the
agents are dead and their families are left with severance pay instead of
husbands. let's not argue about probable cause or bicker about the
constitution--the davidians' firearms were legal in texas unless converted to
fully automatic. there was no evidence beyond testimony of disgruntled
cultists that the guns had been converted. the davidians hadn't hurt or
threatened anyone with these weapons... let's face it, there's no substantial
evidence they'd hurt anyone at all, including their children who were
supposedly the victims of physical and sexual abuse. well, koresh let more
than half the children out when the siege began and none of them showed any
signs whatsoever of the abuse that aforementioned ex-davidians spoke of. in
fact, these kids showed as completely normal except of course for their
conditioned distrust of the world outside the davidian compound. this fear
seems irrational to me; i trust the government and all their agencies, i trust
my neighbors' addicted teenagers, i trust my banker, i trust my local police,
my news stations. i only pray that these poor deluded children koresh
torturously brainwashed can come to love and trust the world again. after all,
what good are sheep you have to carry to the slaughterhouse?
check out the scenario: crazy spiritual guy and his devotees are holed up on
home turf with a great deal of guns, supplies, and suchlike. add some gun
waving, music blaring, screaming f.b.i. guys. now--for nearly two months this
cult leader promises, death, suicide, brimstone and fire. so the f.b.i., as
advised by the attorney general and approved by the president, decide he's not
that serious, we're the best, we've got the technology, we can take him alive.
okay, raise your hand if you think you already know how this scenario will be
played out.
so the feds call koresh on the loudspeaker from a tank (a tank for godsakes)
and tell him: we're gonna be shooting some tear gas around, but it's not
lethal. just come on out and you'll be okay. but the feds knew that the
davidians had gas masks. they start shooting dozens of exploding canisters
into the wooden buildings. if they didn't start the fires, they sure gave a
good attempt. when the gas isn't working, they run out their tank to start
pushing over the building; which for all they know is filled with children.
raise your hand again if it's starting to be real hard for you to tell who is
the criminally insane in this black comedy.
a friend of mine told me to try this recently; a little nietezsche--now,
sometimes obvious questions seem too obvious to ask, so we all keep quiet, but
i'm going to ask anyway: why were they, the g-men, there at all? really, think
about it. try to answer it. why?
the probable cause the a.t.f. had was slim, if even real. the kids who were
released are fine; we'll never know about the others. so doesn't it follow
that if the abuse allegations were false then it's much more likely that the
bit about the guns was false too. it wouldn't be the first time a situation
has been distorted or even created to get a warrant. and forgive my ignorance
about police work but is it proper to stage a full scale assault with said
search warrant as your license to kill? it looks like koresh would have had a
hell of a civil case in the wings if he'd had the presence of mind to
surrender at the outset. so who were the federals, with all their guns and
tanks, there to protect? how were they earning their paychecks? who were they
there to serve? and don't let them sway you with big terms and sympathy for
the people they killed. this was not a hostage situation. agents testified at
the scene that they tried to rescue people from the fire who ran right back
into it when they saw their only option was the help of the feds. if someone
would rather burn to death than run to a government cop, that speaks of a
strong and free (albeit messed up) will to me.
but, hey, let's not cloud the issue with facts.
what happened in waco? it was business as usual for koresh: wacky every day
apocalyptic spiritual garbage, sleeping with girls who are plenty old enough
in two or three states to be considered adults. the stuff the american dream
is made of. because, for all we know, koresh was a prophet. when you talk
about religion, you talk about the unseen, the untestable, the unprovable, the
undefinable. when you talk religion, you are necessarily involving the
irrational. a contest of gods and interpretations, a series of theorems whose
proofs lie beyond the grave. it doesn't matter so much if koresh was a holy
man or a manipulative psychotic, they're both a penny a pound. what matters is
that the government, which we pay outrageous sums of money to be ever sane, to
protect us--failed us. what matters is that clinton and his underlings carried
out this operation with even less finesse and more violence than the reagan
regime might have. the first one hundred days of the new presidency are gone
and they have set tones and precedents for the thirteen hundred to come. it's
not just incompetence at this point. after the years of repeat episodes:
police inspired riots, kent states, s&l scandals, politically motivated wars
(from the mexican-american to the gulf), ever more creative bending and
thrashing of the constitution, and failure in the government to serve the
people beyond the capacity of a trained gibbon... it's not excusable as simple
incompetence anymore--to steal from alan moore--it seems nothing short of
deliberate.
what matters is that twenty one more children are dead and no one is going to
pick up the check... because it can't be paid for.
-Ashley Pond V
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The Scythian Shot
To My Oblivious or Masochistic Reader
My skin turns black and falls from me,
and my bones burn with heat.
My lyre is turned to mourning,
and my pipe to the voice of those who weep.
-Job 30:30-31
I loathe you, but the question is whether or not your simplicity is genuine.
Either way I'll despise you all the more, but my curiosity has been piqued and
I must learn before I leave this world--are you as stupid as you appear, or is
it a sham?
I have been especially miserable, it's true. Only just now, managing to start
this bit took a lot out of me; I was out the door and back probably three
times before finally arriving at this place; a dubious goal to have reached
after such a process, but here I am and I will continue to write until I've
found a suitable completion for the unlikely possibility of an audience;
pathetic though you may be, you are my reader, and if I hate you enough to
continue writing so be it.
Now, if only I can convince myself you'll have the courage to read further...
but don't get the impression I have an exaggerated idea of my position; that I
think simply by writing I might intimidate you. Far from it. I mean, rather,
that my life is compelling and repulsive to you; compelling enough for you to
take notice of me wherever I go (particular notice, in fact, with strange,
contorted expressions on your faces), but also frightful enough to hold you
outside the distance I've established; it is this distance which provides a
situation finally tolerable and interesting for me.
So to my question--ladies and gentlemen, strangers and acquaintances; the
gentlemen I ignore yet live painfully aware that you play a crucial role in
defining me, and the ladies of my even stranger acquaintance, those I've
wanted and despised or had then soon been finished with, not to forget those
I've loved, of frigid, calculated beauty to be feared, and too, the men they
eventually chose, those laughable and enviable puppets--who are you to me? Why
do I have this burning contempt for you?
It's a question of responsibility. The corner of lonely suffering I wake up in
again and again is not a corner to which I've been forced, it is the place
I've chosen to live. When I reach for a connection with a stranger my attempt
is either so shy as to go by practically unnoticed or so bold as to offend the
person I'm trying to reach, and in this way I encourage myself into deeper
alienation where I'm to face the horrors and pleasures of realizing my
freedom. It is this realization which most of you will be desiring and
avoiding most of your lives, and it is this concept which, I'm confidant, you
will never fully grasp.
You may ask: "So why bother writing about it, you cynical fuck?"
Interesting word, cynical. I've often heard it whispered from corners in
reference to me and wondered if it weren't being misused. If it's meant to say
that I'm distrustful of people's motives, I fully agree; but there's this
common and modern use which refers to vague hopelessness and dissatisfaction,
which besides being incorrect is simply not true of me. On the contrary I find
it inspiring that I might take responsibility not just for little decisions
along my way, but for everything about my place in this world or lack thereof.
Rather than your having stupidly and carelessly insulted me all my life
thereby pushing me into my pit of ruin, you have served as vehicles for my own
decisions leading to the contempt and hatred for you I've now expressed
explicitly, for you to read with pain, pleasure or indifference, as you
please.
As for why I bothered, I wrote it to laugh at you of course. To make a joke
both insulting and out of reach, so if only for a moment I might bring you to
feel as alienated as I've been since the unfortunate day I entered our
strange, despicable world. Ha!
-Barnaby Hazen
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majenta #3
call this civilization again and i'll clock you:
Psycho Aquarian New Age Hose Bag Cracker Bitches
5.8.93 12.38
Time again to regale you with my wit. To sweep you off your feet with my
genius of prose and clarity of thought. But that's bullshit. I know it, and
even you probably know it. I'm feeling rather non-p.c. at just this instant.
I'm going to run with it. To rub you the wrong way and make it feel right.
Hence this installment of my little milk crate.
Now I have a story to tell. I don't wish to humiliate a particular individual,
but the lot of you. So don't think of this story as one person Think of it as
all of you in general. Anyone who falls within the bounds of the title.
I was at work last week when this woman came in. My work place is an
adventure. Why just today, my ex, of two years, who I lived with and then we
tried to destroy each other and then we just kind of cut each other off, but
that was three years ago and I've been fine for a long time... well, she came
in just minutes ago. So you can see how things stay exciting in the copy biz.
But that's another story all together. THAT'S ANOTHER STORY. You have to keep
your humor in situations like this. But don't forget, writers! Every
relationship in your life, every tear chock full of melodrama, is a chance to
exploit someone for your writing! Okay, this is past digression. Back to the
psycho crackers.
I was at work last week and a woman came in. I watched her two little boys
through the window. They seemed nice, happy children. She seemed a nice happy
woman. She struck up a conversation. Anyone who knows me will tell you what a
friendly philanthropic human being I am. So I naturally spoke with her.
She asked me what I'd heard about the floods in middle America; the
breadbasket, the heartland, the home of true old fashioned goodness. I have
noticed that disasters seem to bring out the best in people. Not self-
sacrifice, but hard work to make things right. So even talk of a distant
disaster can make life better here. I was enchanted that this woman had so
much care in her heart.
She said she didn't pay much attention to news and such so she was curious how
the folks along the Mississippi and Missouri were faring. I said, "Oooo, not
too good, you know. More rain expected and all." She told me she did a lot of
reading. And that the floods were predicted, "-you know." That it was the
beginning of the end.
I gave her my best skeptical, "Well..." She told me how all the disasters were
the earth retaliating for the horrid damage we've done her. That the entire
planet was cleansing itself in order to move to a new level of vibration; of
harmonic. The two little tow-headed larvae outside suddenly took on a sinister
appearance.
I told the woman that many religions predicted doom and destruction around the
turn of the millennia, to which she replied, "Century?" No, Sharpie, the
millennia. The world was supposed to end in one thousand anno domini (boy
weren't those friars' faces red?). It's supposed to end in two thousand as
well. I got news for you. It's ain't gonna happen. It's called reality. Look
into it. So this nutty bitch--because she read it down at some metaphysical
journal rack--thinks that the world is shedding its mortal coil to ascend the
next level of karmically correct hierarchy. Blah-blah-blah. Bonk, bonk on the
head.
Okay, I can detect some pissed off people, especially of the feminine variety,
who have bothered to read this far. You're mad, I'm mad. It's a relationship.
Why am I picking on the women in this category? What's the category at all?
Well, it's the new age aquarian crystal toting herbal smoking nirvana come
latelies that I'm after, and I'm going to single out the women for one special
reason. They, in particular, make it happen. They believe in it. They think
it's reality. The men who tend to assume the roles of gurus, bishops, holy
men, Koreshes, Freds, Baghwans, Robertses, L. Ron Hubbards; these boys... they
are not saviors (with a direct line to God's front office) and they know they
aren't. They're the lucky ones who found the well spring of belief; the
cistern of insecurity. They are making money, they are spreading their
nonsense, and they are giving nothing in return but some diluted form of
spiritual comfort that empty eyed psycho aquarian new age hose bag cracker
bitches find keeps them thoughtless enough at night to sleep through another
day in the stumbling journey towards menopause and midlife crisis while the
real world spins around them. E.g: wouldn't it be nice if mothers worried more
about their children's extracurricular activities, whereabouts and well-being
than they do about Saturn obscuring Venus in the first half of February. I
don't blame the gurus much, they'd be homeless, talentless beggars if they
couldn't draw checks from these employers.
Now that you believe I'm a typical pig male of my breed I'll let you in on a
secret. I'm pro-feminist. But wait! I'm pro-masculist. In a less convoluted
word: humanist.
Did you think that personal security came from without? Do you really believe
you are empowering yourselves by building a community of reliance with the
astral and ethereal? Is there a single new ager "feminist" out there who
really believes that switching from a codependent relationship with Man to a
codependent relationship with Woman is a change? There is going to come a day
when you are a worn out fiftysomething, with nothing to show but a family who
hates you and a catalogue of new age junk collecting dust in a cheap teak box
from Indonesia. By then, manifesting your magnetism will no longer plug up the
leaky dike of religion, and empirical data is going to flood through--and you
are going to freak. Wondering why this happened to you; how the Universe could
be so cruel, what aspect, or God, or crystal will save you now... Don't call
on those of us who have made it through, happy with ourselves and with
everything to show for the years. Don't ask us, you should have known all
along. Here's a piece of advice for you dizzy bitches: learn to respect
yourself. Don't call it unconditional cosmic love, don't call it identity,
don't call it cyclic growth or attunement. Find something that makes you
respect yourself... doing a good job, working hard at something you care
about, improving yourself, learning a new language, not giving your soul away
with a fifteen dollar check to whoever got airtime on public access this week
and told you they had your answers. Find your own answers. Self respect will
make you whole. And it cannot be prayed for, bargained over, or acquired from
others. It is self respect. Only you can give it to yourself or take it
away. No one else.
And one more thing. Learn a little history would you?
-Ashley Pond V
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The Scythian Shot
The Proper Length Of A Modern Sentence
If the essence of culture is to rely increasingly on technology then our
concentration should turn to efficiency and not convenience--we've heard this
and it's obvious--but to a writer, what does it mean specifically? It means
that as the attention span of the public decreases, so should the length of
our sentences accordingly and in all good proportion; we must strive to
express our thoughts using as few words and as little punctuation as possible.
We are plagued, however, endlessly, it seems, by those stagnant minded
traditionalists who can never seem to finish a sentence; indeed it's as if the
period were meant only for the most desperate of occasions, when a point
couldn't possibly be dragged on any further or when the end of the piece of
writing in question is no longer avoidable by any of the technical dodges so
well worn and diverse; for justification these writers will often refer to
Franz Kafka (in the case of those who overuse the semi-colon), Charles Maturin
(for those shameless abusers of the dash), Herman Melville (violator on all
counts but infamous for the three page run on sentence), other pedantic
obsoletes while consistently threatening with a glib sort of exterior gloss to
exhaust the breath and patience of anyone foolish enough to pay attention to
their work at all, much less read it aloud.
-Barnaby Hazen
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majenta #4
call this civilization again and i'll clock you:
Thomas Paine Will Buy Me My First Beer In Hell
Puxa! Number four, the year's end. Who would've thought I'd last another year?
Winter is upon us. In an effort to make this issue less Satanic than the last
we brought in a curandera. She's okayed the magazine but recommended that I be
burned at the stake. Which would be okay with me, it's cold at night now, and
I've fallen down and skinned my knees again since the last time we talked. You
know the story: boy meets girl, boy falls in love, boy loses girl, girl meets
girl, girl falls in love, girl goes to lesbian rally, girl vandalizes private
property for the approval of her chubby lover. At least it wasn't that great
New Mexican Christmas story: boy meets girl, has two children with girl,
cheats on girl, girl drowns the children, girl becomes living dead. La
llorona and the wicked witch, eat children's hearts beside the ditch...
Enough chit-chat. To the column!
I had intended to write a column entitled the mechanism of evil about
how evil is nourished and allowed to exist when everyone is in general
agreement that they'd like an end to it, but it was growing into the twenty
page range and with the recent assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy still
such big news, I figured, what the heck? If you know anyone in the CIA and you
want to limit my possible future in governmental jobs, or perhaps have me
killed, get a copy of this majenta to them. These 1341 words may be the
only things that jump out of the closet and ruin my 2016 Presidential bid. So
have your friends buy their copies now!
JFK. I don't have a memory of where I was when JFK was assassinated. I wasn't
alive yet, my parents were in junior high. I did not experience the national
pathos. I have no emotions surrounding the event to color my interpretation of
historical record. How about you? The cover ups, conspiracies, and magazine
covers continue. The hero worship, glamorization, and regaling the glory days
of the finest first family ever. Boy, those were the days. Life was simpler,
and we could trust our leaders. I guess I had no choice but to jump into the
ring. Hey man, it's alright, one time won't hurt, everyone's doing it.
First off. What's all the worry and debate about conspiracies, and foreign
assassination plots? Who cares who did it? Just so long as it got done. Don't
look a gift horse in the mouth. And since Bobby got popped riding the crest of
glory to the Presidency we should be thankful we didn't have to attempt to
survive a second Kennedy in the White House. Sirhan Sirhan, whatever cell
block you're in, thanks! Now if someone would just get Teddy I think the
younger generation of the clan might be diffused in time to prevent further
fatal plunges off bridges, movie star murders, miniseries, and Florida
underwear incidents. The cult of personality--these modern day Borgias--will
die with Arnold Schwartzenegger's kids as the last of the line.
Okay, I can forgive JFK's cheating heart. We've all been cheated on, right?
What's the big deal? So what if he screwed around on his wife? All the time?
While she was in the next room? What is so great about Jacqui O anyway? I mean
just because a man treats his marriage vows like cold caca doesn't mean he
can't take the oath of his job seriously. And mob ties? What mob ties? You
can't prove that!
So, to the facts. Let's review our historical data. JFK won his party's
(Demoncrats) nomination by one vote. You can't get less popular with your own
party and still make it into the Presidential race. JFK won the 1960
Presidential election with 49.7% (to Nixon's 49.5%) of the popular vote. You
can't be less popular and still win the popular vote for President.
Let's check on the policies that swung the vote for him. He said the
Republicaaners were not aggressive enough in hunting out and destroying
communism, and that he would be. He said that Soviet military was amassing
huge stockpiles of nuclear weapons and that he would make sure the US had more
and better to maintain nuclear superiority. At the time of this campaign, the
Soviet military had between four and six nuclear bombs, none of which could be
delivered on any US target with any likelihood of success. The incumbent party
was honest with the public about this issue, sharing the intelligence
information that the Soviets were not even remotely a nuclear threat. That's
part of why they lost and part of why it's so fucking tough for honest
politicians to survive. The boneheaded public would rather hear paranoid
rantings about commies, overseas threats, bombs, and burned hospitals than the
stone cold sober gristle of the truth that our responsibilities, futures, and
lives are on this continent. Thusly, JFK, nearly single handedly (give
Kruschev some credit for playing along and barking loudly), began the nuclear
arms race that has decimated our economy and left the capability for near
total annihilation of life on earth's surface in the hands of multiple
nations. Don't blame Reagan. By the seventies, the Soviets had been forced
into this imaginary arms race and were forcing us to devote most of our
economy to continuing it. Mutual Assured Destruction may be a dickheaded
scenario, but it has worked so far. Maybe if we had it to do over again 0.2%
of the population would have changed their vote and there never would have
been need of an MX program.
Kennedy's domestic policies were ineffective, at best, and he could not budge
the Congress to pass much legislation at all. So he did what all poor
Presidents do in peacetime in the face of economic backslide. He shifted the
focus of our nation to foreign policy. He began by extending support in South
Vietnam. Part of his pledge to wipe out the commies. I think we all know how
this do-it-yourself kit finished up. But hey, without this President and this
political experiment, what the heck would Oliver Stone be doing? At least this
proves there's no God. If there was a God, Stone would be a janitor.
Can't leave out the Bay of Pigs. To sum up: Kennedy ordered the botched CIA
assassination of that evil and horrible dictator Castro, tactical strikes
against Cuba, and the initiation of a nuclear strike against the Soviet Union
in response to the alleged (though probably real) installation of nuclear
weapons in Cuba. The Soviets backed down just in time. A few more hours and
Kennedy would have been the single man who decided to plunge the entire world
into a full scale nuclear war, finally a war to end all wars. By a single
person's will, we all came literally within minutes of dying, or being left
for what passes as alive in a nuclear wasteland.
So, you ask, how did JFK--the originator of nuclear proliferation and upscaled
US involvement in Vietnam--go from being a wealthy mob supported commie
hunting Catholic womanizer to probably the most celebrated US leader today? He
got his brain shattered on camera in Dallas with a piece of lead. Therein lies
the secret of his success. Because up to that moment he was debatably one of
the worst US Presidents (though competition is fierce) and certainly the most
unpopular President (save among Irish Catholics, gangsters, and women ages
16-35) since Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1868.
Perhaps if Hinckley had spent the extra cash in 1981 for the thirty-eight
instead of the twenty-two, those bullets would have pierced Reagan's cardiac
muscle instead of ricocheting off a rib, then Reagan's popularity would be
rocketing today just like JFK's. And the Brady bill wouldn't have taken a
decade to pass, plus the extra two hours it took Clinton to show up and sign
it into law.
-Ashley Pond V
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The Scythian Shot
LORD KELVIN'S ZERO SLICKED MY NIGHT
THERE ARE THOSE FEW SLEEPLESS NIGHTS YOU LOOK FORWARD TO-
LIKE THOSE YOU SPEND WRITHING, CATERWAULING, SURGING--YOUR BODY WARPING FROM
THE FRICTION BETWEEN YOU AND A HEDONIST WHOSE NAME YOU DON'T EVEN CARE TO
KNOW. PLEASURE VERGING ON TORTURE, COVETING VERGING ON IDOLATRY-
OR LIKE THOSE YOU SPEND TRYING TOO HARD TO THINK INTELLIGIBLE THOUGHT, TRYING
TO SOLVE ALL THE MYSTERIES OF GOD, LIFE AND CHAOS, BUT INSTEAD YOU END UP
WRITING THE BEST USELESS POETRY IN THE ENTIRE WORLD-
FOR ME, LAST NIGHT WAS NEITHER, THE WHOLE EIGHT HOURS WAS WASTED, ALONE, AS
ALL THAT RAN THROUGH MY HEAD WERE THE SONGS OF THE NOT-SO-GREATS OF THE VEGAS
MARVEL EXPERIENCE--TOM JONES, NEIL DIAMOND, B.J. THOMAS (OKAY, SO HE'S NOT SO
VEGASESQUE). SINGING, IN FULL COSTUME, SONGS I HAD NEVER HEARD BEFORE, AND NOW
KNOW WHY. THE HARDER I TRIED TO THINK SOMETHING SUBSISTENT, THE FLATTER THEY
SANG AND THE MORE ENRAGED I BECAME. I'VE FOUND THAT TORMENT LOVES COMPANY--MY
NIGHT WORSENED. I FELL ASLEEP TWICE DURING MY TOURGUIDED MARCH TO SEQUINED
HELL. BOTH TIMES FALLING IMMEDIATELY INTO THE SAME DREAM-
I WALKED INTO AN OLD, ABANDONED WAREHOUSE TO FIND AN ALREADY IN PROGRESS GAME
OF HOLLYWOOD SQUARES. FROM THE TOP LEFT CORNER OF THE SET CAME THE VOICE OF AN
INTOXICATED NIPSY RUSSELL SCREAMING, "HEY, BABE, I'LL GET YOU AN X." AND BOTH
TIMES IMMEDIATELY WOKE UP TO THE GERMAN VERSION OF KRACKLIN' ROSIE BEING
BELTED BY DER DIAMOND MANN HIMSELF. BUT WHY??? COULD THERE BE A POINT.
TODAY, AS I WENT ALONG PERPLEXED BY MY NIGHT I FOUND NO GREAT ENLIGHTENMENT,
BUT DID LEARN WHAT I'D LEARNED LONG AGO AND HAD FORGOTTEN. THAT IS, THAT
EVERYTHING, EVEN THE SMALLEST, STRANGEST THINGS ARE LINKED WITH OTHER SMALL
AND STRANGE THINGS. IT IS ALL CONNECTED IN SOME WAY, WHETHER OR NOT WE ARE
CONSCIOUS OF IT, WHETHER OR NOT WE KNOW THE REASONS, WHETHER OR NOT THEY HAVE
ANY SELF-ACTUALIZING REVELATIONARY EFFECT ON US.
WHEN I TURNED ON THE TEEVEE THIS MORNING, I CAUGHT THE TAIL-END OF REGIS
TELLING THE EVERSOSPARKLING KATHIE LEE AN ANECDOTE ABOUT NIPSY RUSSELL. IN MY
CAR, FLIPPING RANDOMLY THROUGH THE RADIO STATIONS, I STOPPED MID FLIP TO LIGHT
A CIGARETTE. WHAT DID I HEAR? KRACKLIN' ROSIE, BUT IN ENGLISH OF COURSE. AND
FINALLY, WALKING THROUGH MY FRONT DOOR, I FIND MY ROOMMATE LAUGHING
HYSTERICALLY AT A CHRISTMAS SPECIAL--THE OPENING ACT BEING MR. TOM JONES. I'M
STILL WAITING TO HEAR FROM B.J., PERHAPS I'LL BE OFFERED SOME "...LITTLE GREEN
APPLES" OR GET RAINED ON.
BUT NOW I KNOW THAT LAST NIGHT'S DELIRIUM WAS NOT TOTALLY FOR NAUGHT. AND
TONIGHT I CAN GO TO SLEEP WITH A MYSTERY TO SOLVE AND POSSIBLY A USELESS POEM
OR TWO, BUT ONLY DREAMING ABOUT HEDONS AND FRICTION.
-Andrea Herndon
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majenta #5
call this civilization again and i'll clock you:
The Fawn & the Stone
over a year apart. how do we stand it? do you suffer it too? it's raining
tonight. can you believe it? middle of winter and it's raining. who needs
seattle?
the press has a new address. please check the inset pages if you're prone to
write or send material. i sincerely apologize to those who did write and got
responses months after the fact. we're also on-line, if you can believe that.
e-mail address is on the inset too. i can't decide if that's exciting or not;
this new information paradigm. e-publishing for majenta is in the works
but some time off yet. [Ed: some time, as you now know, became nearly
four years]
it's 1995, tra-la! after a year at this we were becoming so conventional
around here that i forgot my own... je ne sais quois? annoying eccentricities.
so out with the capital letters! they are evil, EVIL! sorry, the laudanum and
lithium are having a hell of a tug-o-war with me.
the good thing about being back in taos is that i can tell taos stories
without having to explain everything.
i've thrown a lot of stones in this column. let me refresh you. the sub-titles
of this column have so far been: talk slash suicide, who will watch the
watchmen, psycho new age aquarian hose bag cracker bitches, and thomas
paine will buy me my first beer in hell. i don't live in no glass house. i
wasn't worried about who caught the flak. i knew it wouldn't be me or anyone i
particularly cared for. i learned something about throwing stones lately. so
this time i'll digress. i think i've got to go after myself.
i'm not proud of this story, you must realize, but i also have to tell it.
perhaps you'll understand why.
i was in a high school band (autumn moon for those of you who actually heard
us nine years ago). we sucked really. or rather i sucked--being the
vocalist--the music was pretty good for a bunch of teenagers. we only played a
couple real gigs, one in front of a real crowd, maybe two hundred people by
the last song (in these hours of violet skies).
we were opening for the boheims. one of whom asked my live-in girl friend out
on band trips regularly some years later. ah, don't things just come full
circle without even trying? anywho, the point is: i can't sing in front of a
friend or even a band of guys i don't know. but in front of two hundred
people, i sang okay, you know? and i'll tell you how that works. there was
this night, working on one of klein's plays or something, and i was in the
t.c.a. by myself. as a teenager i was rather enamored of pink floyd's the
wall. i got up on the stage and closed my eyes and i sang; filled up the
auditorium (like i would do in woodward hall my freshman year at u.n.m. when
the janitor would leave the top door unlocked after one a.m.). the song at the
t.c.a. was comfortably numb. after i had just dropped off the last note
i opened my eyes to see becky hopper sitting in the fourth row in the dark
staring at me. she said, "that's the most beautiful thing i ever heard." i
thought i was alone.
when you're in front of two hundred people you're alone. i'm telling you this
story because now it's in your hands--so i'm alone and i can tell you
anything, i can admit anything. and i can tell you something i haven't been
able to tell any one person.
i'm ranch-sitting. it's very nice up here. lots of coyotes, magpies, and deer
and such. my only real duty is to feed the horses. the deer come up in herds
and eat the hay as soon as it's down for the horses. they also break the
electric fences which leads to my only real chore. i have to fix the fence
every time the deer break it, or the horses might split and then i've got
problems.
oh, it's novel enough at first. "hey! lookit that! there's deer right over
there!" but then they don't run when you walk up, or even run up to them. they
just wait for you to leave so they can break the fence and get some free grub.
pretty soon they seem more like flies. "get outta here!" you yell but they
don't care.
i had a hard day at work, went home, started writing, thinking of everything
that was good in life. i played with my cats; i felt alive regardless of the
world around me. feeding time rolled around. i went out.
there were lots of deer. i was still fighting a bad mood. i picked up a rock
and was going to toss it at the nearest deer. but it was just a yearling so i
hissed at it instead and dropped the rock. i even barked, that usually works.
i got the hay and started giving it out. a bunch of deer had congregated
almost out of sight in the dark. that's the mark of the herbivore,
persistence. i was pissed off that i'd have to get up early to fix the fence
if they all came through so i bent over to pick up a rock. it was frozen to
the ground. so i kicked it. it took five or six tries to get it loose which
made me even more angry. impotence of any variety is a pisser.
i got it in hand. not a big rock you understand but what i'd call a stone.
there were seven or eight bucks and does in a clump, i figured i'd hit one for
sure and they'd all panic and run. i swung my arm and there was that moment.
what zen is supposed to be like. before i even let go i knew the aim was super
true. i knew that rock was gonna connect before it left my hand. it didn't
feel like doom, it felt like expertise; like majik.
there was a thunk of flesh catching stone, not a crack of granite on bone,
just a thump. the deer ran and i was pleased. i was just turning around to
distribute the rest of the hay when i saw it.
there was a little lump in the snow eighty feet away. and you know what? my
brain put it together against my hopeful ignorance before my heart could force
blood through it twice.
i ran desperately to where the fawn lay; kicking, trying to stand. i fell in
the snow beside it. i held it still and put one hand under its head. i checked
its face for blood. even in the dark i could see there wasn't a mark on it. so
my panic subsided. i'd just stunned it and i could wait till it felt a little
better. i'd keep it calm and warm as long as it took.
i petted her side. after a couple minutes i decided to move her off the snow
into the barn where she would be warmer and less shocky. i carried her in
carefully. set her down and ran to get a flashlight to examine her a little
better. no sweat. my first job was for a vet. i'd handle it and i'd be more
careful about throwing stones. consider myself warned, you know.
when i got back a minute and a half later she was dead. i didn't believe it of
course. i put the light in her wide empty eyes, her pupils stayed fully
dilated, bottomless like dried up wells. i felt for breath, nothing. i looked
her head over in the light, not a mark, just a thin pink ribbon of tongue
lolling out.
i went on auto pilot. i picked her up again. carried her to edge of the woods
where the coyotes would at least benefit. it's funny, you know, this thing
called flesh. i was as careful with her as when she was just alive. my arms
were aching by the time i got to the woods. but i was slow and gentle. setting
her down under a tree, expecting a disney turn of events somewhere in my soul.
i guess i thought she'd just start kicking again and get up and run away. you
know what? dead is dead. she just fucking lay there under the pi-on in the new
moon darkness. this fantastically beautiful line of her back into her neck; so
scythian. art appreciation knows no bounds of sanity. good thing for me.
i walked back to a waiting bed calmly, until i got halfway there. i fell on my
knees on the frozen mud and couldn't move, cry, or process thought for the
longest time. i'm unaccustomed to shame. since i escaped home and the age of
sixteen i haven't really been ashamed of anything. when i thought, when i
think, of that fawn lying dead by my hand i feel shame. not because i killed a
deer. if i went hunting i'd pull the trigger, i'd eat my share. i kill every
time i go to wendy's for a burger. the issue isn't killing an animal for food.
because that is right and good, that is the order of things from amoebas to
jaguars. it's why i sport canines. the issue is that i murdered a child out of
annoyance. the issue is that i lashed out with no thought. the issue is that i
chose violence casually without believing i was being violent. for no reason
did this fawn die. not to feed me, not to clothe my children, not to protect
my crops, or even adorn a wall.
i walked out to her the next morning before the coyotes and crows had found
her. what struck me in the daylight was her perfect black hooves and clean
fur.
i get to remember those hooves forever now. and a brave telling of a coward's
tale isn't alchemy.
i want to tell you something about throwing stones. there is only one possible
result of violence, it's pain--there is only one valid reason for directing
violence at a living being: murder. what are the chances that i could've
killed a deer with a little rock from that far off? well, the chances are
exactly one hundred percent 'cause it happened. and the only real shame i've
felt in ten years comes from the fact that i should have known that before i
pried that rock out of the frozen soil. i'm telling you because i know that a
lot of you are holding stones of your own, or thinking about picking them up.
and if i can help anyone to avoid feeling the way i've felt the last two weeks
then maybe i'll be able to sleep again. and maybe i can save one of you from
your own perfect black hooves.
-Ashley Pond V
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The Scythian Shot
A YEAR WITHOUT BUKOWSKI
motherfucker, come back, he said to his soul
Somewhere in L.A., there's a typewriter that, after years of merciless beating
by the stiff, dry fingers of a reluctant legend, is rusting away in peace and
obscurity. Job done, give this old machine a swift kick and pitch it in the
landfill where it belongs. Today I crack a beer, scratch my ass, sit down for
a good think. I haven't washed. I'm thinking how stupid it is, and how
unavoidable, that this moment should come. I'm following advice that's not
advice, from a man I never knew, so I can get it off my chest, how I feel
remembering him now that he's gone, and that's one thing he never would have
wanted from me. If he could look down on me right now, it'd be with a contempt
that none of you could match if you had a million bucks to spend and a
thousand years to live. He'd tell me I'm wasting my time. I guess he'd be
right.
A year ago March 9, Charles Bukowski finally disembarked from Planet Earth,
off to wherever dirty old men go when their number finally comes up. The dry
facts: not quite 74 years old, of pneumonia during treatment for leukemia. We
were surprised--we never thought he'd die, for christsake, and certainly not
as a frail old man in a hospital gown, plugged into a machine. But what stands
out a year later, thinking about Bukowski, is the growing realization of what
a black hole remains where he used to be. Nobody did what Bukowski did. Yeah,
he was a literary disgrace in nasty shorts; sure, he had the unsettling knack
for telling you why and how to fuck off when you least wanted to hear it. But
who else gave enough of a shit to do this for us? To look us in the eye and
say, hey friend, I'd just as soon jack off in the shower and call it a day?
Nobody, that's who. We owe him for that.
revolution sounds very romantic, you know. but it ain't. it's blood and
guts and madness; its little kids killed who get in the way, it's little kids
who don't understand what the fuck is going on. it's your whore, your wife
ripped in the belly with a bayonet and then raped in the ass while you watch.
it's men torturing men who used to laugh at Mickey Mouse cartoons. before you
go into the thing, decide where the spirit is and where the spirit will be
when it is over.
About twelve years ago, it seemed like everybody was turning on to Buk's poems
and stories--his stuff-- and man, did we have a lot to learn. We were at that
age just getting the hang of challenging the preconceptions that weighted us
down, the fixed stares with which we greeted the world everyday, how we never
attempted a new take on life, never changed channels. What Buk helped us
learn, what his death would demonstrate, was that writing was more than just a
miserable way to spend a life. The act of writing carried with it
responsibilities, and the first of these was to tell the truth, naked and
unvarnished. The words you write will outlast you, friend, on your short trip
from birth to eternity. The short of it: tell it like it is, or don't bother.
The other thing was Bukowski's durability. Before he died, it seemed like he
was immortal, this writer whose poems smelled like hangovers of the soul, who
chronicled the bleak and nameless life of drunks without a decent haircut, the
humanity of whores along the strips of L.A., whiskey-shot eyes catching a long
shot come into the home stretch, maybe paying 6-1, another week's rent, a
bottle of wine. Bukowski's life, as recounted in his art, was tough and
gruesome, and more than a few have mistaken his drinking, puking, fighting,
shit-stained world for the stories, columns, and poems which it engendered. We
respected him when he wrote, "Endurance is more important than truth," because
he had the authority to make it stick and maybe because we came to realize
that they were ultimately the same thing.
I fought a guy who later ended up very high in the United States Navy. I
fought him one day from 8:30 in the morning until after sundown. Nobody
stopped us although we were in plain sight of his front lawn, under two huge
pepper trees with the sparrows shitting on us all day. It was a grim fight, it
was to the finish. He was bigger, a little older and heavier, but I was
crazier. We quit by common consent. I don't know how this works, you have to
experience it to understand it, but after two people beat on each other eight
or nine hours, a strange kind of brotherhood emerges.
What about Bukowski as rendered by Bukowski? An ugly, drunken, ill-tempered,
arrogant son-of-a-bitch who'd drink your whiskey dry and then fuck your wife
behind your back. How can you give a shit about a man like that? The answer is
simple. Not a word he wrote was ever a lie. Bukowski's world, bars and whores
and losing days at the track, cheap whiskey and third-rate blowjobs, fighting
and drinking and fucking to block out the empty night, the day after day, and
coming back for more--that's our world, too, folks, yours and mine, and Buk
wasn't about to let us forget it. You don't have to like it, motherfuckers,
but you can't deny it. It ain't gonna go away. We're all whores, so many sheep
getting led by the nose daily to the ongoing slaughter of America. It might
not all be great poetry--you have to find that where you can--but it's truth.
His writing never was intended to pander to the stale illusions of the masses.
He was, as my friend Wayne put it, the consummate iconoclast, busting down the
illusions of whitebread America, scraping reality off the wheel and pouring it
straight, beer back.
So now we embark on the post-Bukowski years, or something like that. Buk
brought it home time after time, like it or not. He blended his life and work
into an almost seamless whole for thirty-odd years, often publishing his work
in nameless, faceless rags like the one you're reading now. He did the work,
walked the walk. For all its rawness, Bukowski's writing was never lowbrow or
simplistic. He was at home with Celine and Dostoevski, Beethoven and Mahler,
Whitman and Miller. He showed us that knowledge need not be barren, that
refinement wasn't confined to the drawing room. He loathed in print the effete
intellectualism of the coffee house elite, the academics with their grants and
in-house vehicles, and the wannabes who came to his door, seeking counsel. How
in hell, you can hear him asking them, can you want to be a writer? There's no
wanting about it. Either you write or you do not. That's something we should
remember, not because we owe him, but because we owe ourselves.
to learn, do not read Karl Marx. very dry shit. please learn the spirit.
Marx is only tanks moving through Prague. don't get caught this way, please.
first of all, read Celine. the greatest writer of 2,000 years. of course, the
Stranger by Camus must fit in. Crime and Punishment. The Brothers. all of
Kafka. all the works of the unknown writer John Fante. the short stories of
Turgenev. avoid Faulkner, Shakespeare, and especially George Bernard Shaw, the
most overblown fantasy of the Ages, a real true-blown shit with political and
literary connections beyond belief. the only younger guy I can think of with
the road paved ahead for him and kissing ass whenever necessary was Hemingway,
but the difference between Hemingway and Shaw was that Hem wrote some good
early work and Shaw wrote completely flip and dull crap all the way through.
so, here we are mixing Revolution with Literature and they both fit. somehow
everything fits, but I grow tired and wait for tomorrow.
will the Man be at my door?
who gives a damn?
i hope this made you spill your tea.
2/11/1995 tibetan new year
-T.M. Weissenberger
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majenta #6
call this goodbye to civilization:
Who will punish the punishers?
[Ed: to be placed when our typist's paycheck clears]
-Ashley Pond V
return to top
The Scythian Shot
The Donut Factory
[Ed: to be placed when our typist's paycheck clears]
-TM Weissenberger
return to
top
majenta #7
call this goodbye to civilization:
Who is John Galt?
It's early Sunday morning, March 10th [1996]. I have thirty hours left in
America. This is the last issue of majenta, I suppose... It's hard to
begin; it is.
I misspelled majenta for the first time exactly three years ago out of
political angst (caused by chiefly by the American apathy surrounding the
incidents near Tiananmen Square) and writing frustration (caused chiefly by
the fact that I have known six or seven superior writers who don't care to toe
the industry line in order to be published by a major house). Note: Random
House just ate a two million dollar Joan Collins advance because of this
bullshit and I couldn't be laughing harder on the inside (although for some
perspective consider that it's roughly equivalent to this press losing about
forty bucks). They will with any luck be destroyed eventually by their short
sighted-fall-list mentality.
Anyway, during my last week stateside I was awakened to several facts. One of
which was how valuable honest fellowship is. My assistant editor and paisano,
Todd Weissenberger, bought me quite a few drinks over the last week; more than
I've ever deserved. He knew I needed to be liquored up this week of my
departure; I didn't have to hit him over the head with it either. You see, I
hate America. I believe in freedom and equality so I can do nothing but hate
what is masquerading in its place. Every cliched dead daycare child, every
drug addict, every auto-union worker fighting for a twenty dollar an hour wage
with less than a GED to turn out some of the worst automobiles made in the
world, while I and at least a million like me struggle with full awareness and
with college degrees for minimum ing friends by color, clothes or party/church
affiliation. In short: selfishly taking responsibility for ourselves.
[Crippled by a corrupt government that is so far astray of the Constitution
that revolution is about all that's left to be done. The fact of Doctor
Kervorkian's acquittal is all that makes me believe this nation can last
another fifty years without major bloodshed inside our own borders]. Anyone
who is not selfish cannot be responsible for themselves, this is the
definition of the word. To deny such reality is insane and worse than foolish,
it's ultimately fatal. There is a line from Red Rock West... "You know
what? I am better than you." I'm leaving, you see I love America.
This is the last majenta and the most hasty, probably the ugliest.
There is a character named John Galt in Ayn Rand's opus Atlas Shrugged.
He is the man who stops the motor of the world; will no longer shoulder the
care and feeding of an incompetent nation which demands entitlements and
guarantees for a life which precludes such fecundly puerile poison. Our cover
(by Dan Atyim) is direct allusion of course. I don't have what Galt had...I'm
not the man to convince each person of ability to stop being held hostage by
their love of their work and walk out on the world. For all these people
(scientists, judges, poets, doctors, novelists, artists, composers, engineers)
to leave the world would be death...the stone age for the rest. Every robber
baron puts dinner on the tables of a thousand families, every exploitive
capitalist like myself would die to protect your freedom and life, but I'd be
locked away before I'd be trusted with a public office... most people, most
Americans, want what they can't earn, what they don't deserve, what they don't
even understand or appreciate. In a land where spilling coffee on yourself can
make you a millionaire I am a traitor; every page of majenta is
sedition.
I have no time to consider my essay, think of brilliant, lucid, tricky ways to
convince you of my point. I can only talk to you as I would my closest
friends. The advantage of this magazine of mine soon to dispel into the ether
off the wings of a 767.
This magazine was a roller coaster, a fantastic time, a learning experience I
couldn't have equalled on staff at The Times, and I personally believe a
superior publication never extorted for the concerns of a public which vaunts
Danielle Steele and Rush Limbaugh over Hemingway and Paine. But these things
are obvious, that's why you buy majenta. You know them. So what I want
to say is: it's possible to be right, and strong and not hurt anyone in the
process.
Life is so happy, so wonderful, there are so many artists releasing joyous
work, so many engineers helping to make this possible and affordable. We live
in a age not of wonders but of miracles. How often do we hear the words, "the
miracle of birth"? The miracle that occurs every other second, the miracle
followed by an infanticide somewhere every couple minutes. Birth is a right of
being animals with split genomes in our seed; it's no miracle, it's a natural
fact. Miracles: Alanis Morissette won a grammy, I am listening to Tori Amos
sing to me (perfectly and beautifully) through a laser beam, I can write my
friends in Italy to tell them my flight arrives at 8:05 am on the 12th and by
e-mail they will have the message in five seconds, cancer is often curable,
people can fly in the air on machines made of steel, a simple infection will
not kill you, eyeglasses can allow anyone to see as well as I can, food
doesn't spoil during winter, scurvy won't take your teeth for want of a single
lemon, a house of superior quality to any castle built in history can be had
for the salary of a handful of years, you can have your guts spilled out of
you in an accident and doctors can put them back charging you a small fraction
of the money you will earn in the lifetime they have given you back, books
from all lands can be read, there is one country in the world where people are
nearly free, I can talk with someone on the other side of the world right now
by dialing ten numbers and spending less than I would in a night at a bar,
human beings have walked on the face of the moon... any idiot can have a baby
or ten, it's not a miracle, it's commonplace. Raising a child to understand
the true nature of miracles, that's amazing. Understanding how much happiness
is available in the world if this evil is merely brushed off like a
fly...that's a miracle. The miracle of human existence is that we can all be
John Galt, we can be true, create while making our destruction self-
sustaining.
I'd like to think we've awakened everyone to a couple facts here over the last
three years. I'd like to think if someone offered you their life you'd say no.
I'd like to think you wouldn't call a happy person cynical and narrow minded.
I'd like to think you'd worry more about yourself than zealots to freedom like
me. I'd like to think that if you saw Atlas holding world up for you on
bleeding shoulders and sweating skin you'd tell him to shrug... and that's
exactly what I'm going to try to do until the day I can come home.
return to top
call this civilization again and i'll clock you:
tha 'VERT-choo-ill dis-TINK-shen IZ 'BLUD-ee
[Ed: This essay does not appear as it was written specifically for an analog
audience and wouldn't work here.]
return to top
The Scythian Shot
Dearest Jennifer,
Note: Fiction. Similarities? You're fuckin' paranoid.
Dearest Jennifer,
Ran into David at Jack's. I was with Clay, David was hitting on Tanya. Shoos
Clay out the door with promises of whiskey at my place just before he started
a fight.
Seeing David used to remind me of how enormous was your lie to me in the last
several months of our relationship. Now I see something else in him. Siv has a
picture with you, David, Caroline and myself leaning against your old car. I
don't know this guy, but we ended up in a picture because we'd both grown fond
of Caroline (I did lunch with her, David and she were fucking); she was
leaving, we had breakfast. I remember he seemed uncomfortable when Caroline
first asked me to lunch, but that doesn't mean anything. In the picture I
might just as well have been wearing donkey-ears because of the information
known by everyone in it except for myself.
Siv brought your name up after she came crashing through my door. She left in
a huff, as usual, and accused me of being bitter when I showed active
disinterest in the fact that you had called and said to tell everyone, "Hi." I
knew it before, but there is no common ground between Siv and I; now I'm
certain.
One thing though -- probably old news. When Siv came out to LA with DJ, she
was really fucked up. I felt for her, comforted her. I put my hand on her head
and this helped. She at least told you and Marcus that.
But when DJ when out to the truck to go to sleep because my room was so tiny,
Siv took he pants off, then wrapped her legs around me. We talked, maybe
pretended to go to sleep. I was more turned on that night than I've been
since, other than with you. I expressed concern of someone walking in and
"getting the wrong idea," and she became indignant., pushed away. Of course I
missed the lust, but just as must I missed her company right then. I was
miserable, Jennifer, because you'd been putting me through hell over the phone
with that bratty ambivalence everyone who has ever been close to you will
identify instantly.
Her body, her scent, these were things I craved after a long binge of your
absence and careless cruelty.
Soon we were entangled again. I was throbbing like when we had that fore-play
marathon on Valentine's Day -- remember? -- I touched her legs and hips as if
to be simply resting my hands. Bullshit! At some point it occurred to me you
might've wanted us to sleep together, to ease your self-induced guilt trip.
Never turned towards her, only kissed the top of her head, eventually went
into the bathroom for a short, insipid masturbation.
Wish we'd fucked. Mind telling her that if you get the chance?
-Barnaby Hazen