Deja Views

Blogging Before the Fact

2007-06-01T08:30:00.000-07:00

Back in the 20th century, I watched in horror as the first Republican crusade began its onslaught against our democracy. Feeding on a craven media and the absence of oppositional voices, the juggernaut gathered power in a relentless drive to dismantle the institutions and consensus that had guided us through depression, world war, civil rights, and the spectre of mutually assured destruction.

Like others who sought to speak out, my efforts were thwarted by the depth of the subversion being perpetrated. The means of political discourse were overtaken by a corporate media whose frame of reference legitimized the new order and marginalized dissent. Those who refused this framework were confined to the isolated subcultures of leftist politics or alternative culture, without the possibility of engaging the multitude, let alone building a community of opposition.

Throughout the Reagan-Bush years, I attempted to contest the media in its own terms. Not simply to respond to the latest Republican atrocity, but to scramble the words and phrases in which such outrages were imbued with legitimacy. Using satire, sarcasm and rank derision, I pushed the absurdity of the prevailing narratives to the point of collapse, revealing a world run by photo opp and simulation, where democratic values had surrendered to production values.

Today, in our 3rd or 4th iteration of the Republican revolution, these things are well known. At the time, however, the point was somewhat harder to get across. The outlets were few and far between and the language was novel -- further complicated by the fact that in those preGenX, preDaily Show days, comedy venues eschewed politics and political publications had no sense of humor.

Looking back, it's obvious that these outbursts of political passion, snark, and ad hoc analysis were stranded blog posts waiting for the blogosphere to happen. The familiar playlist is all here: bloodthirsty neocons, sanctimonious pundits, presidential imbecility, Sadam, and a media intent on insinuating its artifice into the skein of reality.

I offer them now in the format and to the communtiy for which they were unconsciously intended: A retroblog of the origins of our current catastrophe, which hopefully will add historical resonance to the critique rising like a beacon of hope from the progressive blogosphere.

Greetings from GrungeTown

1992-11-17T06:07:00.000-08:00

November 1992. The long, bitter struggle was over -- the Republicans defeated. My comrades in the Resistance laid down their arms and settled back to their civilian lives. Me, I couldn't forget so easy. I'd been fighting so long I couldn't remember any other life. The nightmare was over. . . . so why was I still waking up screaming?

The medics called it Post-Yuppie Stress Syndrome (PYSS). The hiss of a cappuccino-maker was enough to send me tumbling for cover. The sight of a brunch menu left me shaking. I couldn't open an op-ed page or watch a Sunday morning pundit without breaking into a cold sweat, on guard against some new assault upon my sense of truth, justice, and humanity. I could still feel them lurking behind every cafe window, hear the echo of their running shoes as they race-walked across our democracy.

I needed a break. So I packed up and headed out to Grungetown. The Republicans had never captured much of this rainy, backwoods terrain. The local people were simple folk who worked hard and played by the rules, preferring electric guitars to dreams of corporate empire. I got a job at the Grunge Works running the jeans-shredder.

Then one day the people of Grungetown awoke to find the clothes they'd always worn and lives they'd always led coveted by a world seeking to forget its LaCoste-sbirted past. The orders started pouring in and the Grunge Works hummed day and night.

Kachunk rrrip. Kachunk rrrip.

The plaid fader, the denim deconstructor, stain-maker, permanent-crusher and the other machines whirred and spun as the tokens of authenticity swarmed off the assembly line. Kachunk rrrip. Kachunk rrrip.

Like the sound of cash registers ... of Margarita blenders... of buildings gouged for renovation....

Suddenly, I was back on the battlefield. The foreman came toward me, only he was a waiter and his clipboard was a blackboard. I dashed for the storeroom before he could mesquite grill me. A trail of red spots stained the floor. Sun-dried tomatoes! They led to a trapdoor. I tugged it open and descended into darkness.

I lit a match. A thousand impressions surged out of the darkness. Barrels of bottled water. Wheels within wheels of Brie. California rolls. Photos of troops in full Yuppie uniform, all-cotton ensembles bearing the fearsome Polo Western insignia, Dockers and Nike crosstrainers, laptops and cellular phones at the ready. The Stairmaster race! Arms outstretched in the dreaded Yuppie salute, Gold Cards extended to the sky. I could hear their fevered chanting: "Heil, Gipper! Go for the burn! Greed is good! Government is not the answer!' Somewhere an alarm was sounding. My legs felt weak. Something thudded against my head....

I came to in an office, tied to a futon frame. A balding man in a power tie and suspenders hovered above me. "Vot vere you doing in ze grunge locker?" he asked, removing his monocle.

"Grunge! Why tbere are enough junk bonds down there to crash the world's economy five times over. You're nothing but a nest of Yuppie scum.'

"Yuppies?!' he interrupted. 'Ve vere not Yuppies, Sure ve drank Perrier but ve did not like ze bubbles. Ve did not know vot was happening in ze S&L's."

'That's what they all say. Never met a Yup yet who'd admit to it. Destroy and deny. That's how you guys operate.'

He leafed through my file. "It seems that u vere wounded in the Siege of Clarence Thomas." Ye

"Listen, buster, I was stranded behind enemy lines - so far up the Upper West Side even the homeless drank latte. For twelve years I lived by my wit and fought with any weapon I could get my hands on - puns, one-liners, sarcasm, collage, allegory, illogic, absurdism. But no satirical device on earth could match the insanity of those hearings."

"Ze last few years have been hard on us all. But now ve are in recovery. You must forget ze past!"

"Like the War never happened. Like you and your kind never tried to wipe out everything I believed in, No, Buddy, I've seen too many hostile takeovers, too many innocents gentrified before they knew what hit them, dodged too many J. Crews missiles... Remember the Marathon Oil Merger. A thousand temps went down in one arbitrage barrage. The Battle of the Brownstones - the poor, the old, the infirm, deported to make way for your co-ops. You never bothered to ask where they went, to wonder at the walking corpses you stepped over on the way to brunch."

"Ve vere only following orders!"

'Whose orders? That's what I want to know. Who gives the orders? Who tells you guys when to stop selling the Emperor’s New Clothes and start selling his old ones? To stop pushing smugness, greed, and self-seeking indifference in favor of caring, sharing and love of planet."

"I guess that's vhy ve're still in charge. Und you're just a two-bit satirist."

'I'm just satirist alright. Just another one of the faceless millions who look at the world and say this is absurd!' The guys without brains enough to know when to whistle a new tune. But a satirist's gotta do what a satirist’s gotta do, even if it's dated, even if it's been done, even if he'll be preempted by tomorrow's news. Someone's gotta set the record straight, to make sure your crimes are not forgotten.'

I wrenched at my restraints ... only to find that there was nothing binding me. My interrogator went in and out of focus. His suspenders were a stethoscope and his monocle was the ophthalmoscope with which he peered into my pupil.

'Worst case I've seen. This guy is so PYSSed I don't know if we'll ever get him back to reality.' I was lying on a cot.

"Where am I?" I said.

"In the infirmary. Delirious. You've been talking to yourself for hours."

"Years,' I said....

It's midwinter now. We've got a new President and a new look. I'm still not sure who's who or what to trust -- the rosy world of rehabilitation and recovery or my vision in the darkness. I only know that I'm through talking to myself.

Gulf Today, Gaul Tomorrow

1991-07-09T06:04:00.000-07:00

Just as victory over Hitler brought us face to face with Soviet expansionism, the Gulf War has nurtured a new menace within our midst: the French!

A medium-sized European nation not much larger than the state of Wyoming souffléd, France has never renounced its Napoleonic ambition to rule the world. With vast reserves of crude style, its stranglehold on consumers reaches far beyond the boutiques of Fifth Avenue and Rodeo Drive to the malls of middle America. The United States and its fashion-loving allies have no choice but to draw a hemline in the sand and declare war on France.

America's dependence on foreign style first reached critical proportions during the Jeans Crisis of the late 70s. OFAB (Organization of Fashion-Aggressive Bullies) exercised its longstanding designs upon our social fabric, glutting the market with over-stitched, status-mongering Euro-denim. Americans reacted by turning to domestic style sources, rallying under the leadership of Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein and the GAP to beat back the buttock-captioned behemoth.

But the upwardly mobile excess of the 1980s has renewed America's style dependency. Over the last decade France (and its Northern Italian client state) have taken control of the trendy dollar, imposing a regimen of haute couture and cuisine on status guzzling Americans. No major city or university is without its fifth column of Eurotrash, willfully deconstructing and recycling our culture at five times the price.

Many believe a war with France would be long and bloody. Not so the experts. According to retired general Helmet Shirtscuff, military consultant to the Home Shopping Channel:
“We'll probably knock out most of their fall line right on the runway. Seventh Avenue and the Millinery-Industrial complex have developed a whole toolbox of high-fashion weaponry. Once we've established hair superiority with our coiffure-seeking missiles, we can decoordinate their ensembles in a matter of days. Our chic bombs will demolish their shoulder pads and designer labels while leaving foundation garments intact. Of course, there's bound to be collateral damage -- some accessories may not survive the war. But we want to avoid couture house-to-house combat. If we have to send in the models, fighting could get Condé Nasty.

“We've heard a lot about the enemy's fabulous wardrobe, but much of it's overrated. It looks great on the rack, but try maneuvering in it without making stains. Sure they've got Charles Jourdans, but they're no match for our Air Jordans. We can run faster, jump higher . . . when it comes to sportswear those sedentary café potatoes are hopelessly passé. In short, nothings too haute for our troops to handle....

"They do possess weapons of mass deconstruction. They've assembled a gruesome semiotech arsenal. They may resort to verbal-mental terrorism, leaving a cloud of verbiage and Gauloise smoke that could hover over Europe for years to come. But we've stockpiled enough Sartre bombs to give them a bad case of existential anguish if they so much as try.

“Our only real worry is their underwear. The French are well ahead of us down there. But if they resort to lingerie warfare, they're in for a few surprises. They have the bustiers, but we have the bodies. A couple of our well-toned battalions will have them retreating in shame if they try to outstrip us on the battlefield.

"Our ultimate weapon, though, is our own bad taste. No self-respecting Fashionist can take it. Our attacky helicopters armed with leisure-guided missiles can swathe them in enough polyester to destroy their fighting fiber. After the screams of humiliation subside, we can just strike a pose and watch them crowd into our POW camps. After all we’ll be showing Jerry Lewis movies in the commissary."

Armies of the Blight

1991-06-05T19:32:00.000-07:00

Amid the confusing welter of organizations and armies marching in next Monday's parade, lesser known groups tend to fall between the cracks. This is unfortunate. The Gulf War stirred patriotism in many unlikely sectors, whose representatives deserve no less recognition than their better-known peers. In the interest of fairness I have compiled brief statements from the leadership of several groups omitted from the official roster of participants:

National Organization of Ambivalents - We were and were not for and against the war, but we are totally behind the parade. Many of us were sorry to see the Cold War go. America was at war and peace simultaneously. But the Gulf War taught us that you can fight and not fight a hot war just easily. Kill and not confront death, kick butt and still watch Oprah, win without defeating the enemy. Desert Storm gave new meaning to ambivalence. We consider it our duty to march, though we're not quite sure in which direction.

Association of Vietnam War Movie Veterans - We were there for the big ones -Apocalypse Now, Platoon. The enemy came at us in quadraphonic, dolbies blazing. Some of us still wake up screaming the soundtracks. We're glad we've finally got the Vietnam War Movie Syndrome out of our system. Desert Storm gave us a great new set of special effects and enough hightech ordinance to keep the Cineplexes air-conditioned till the year 2000. Gulf War movies may not be as bloody, but we can take the whole family and leave the theater smiling. You bet we'll be at the parade -- if we can pry our members loose from their smart bomb videos.

Lord Jim (Crow) Society - We are a group of middle-aged white men who avoided service in Vietnam through grad school, ROTC, and national guard commissions. Though we have risen to positions of power and prominence, we have always wondered whether we would have the courage to do the right thing if tested again. We need question no longer, for when the clarion sounded we were able to send our troops off without cowardice or hesitation. It is an honor to march with the dark young men and women who risked their lives for our conscience, as long as they don't get too close.

Committee in Solidarity with People of Royal Families - Queen Elizabeth's visit demonstrated America's deep-seated longing for monarchy. But what is bowing before a king or queen compared to dying for one. Our victorious troops have the honor of being the first American soldiers to shed blood for a hereditary monarchy since our forefathers brought forth freedom upon this continent. The Gulf experience has done more to kick the 1776 Syndrome than a thousand Nancy Reagans, Leona Helmsleys and Madonnas put together.

Committee to Abolish Sixties Nostalgia - America's been romanticizing the sixties since the day they were over. For years kids have been running around with pony-tails and peace signs, scalping Grateful Dead tickets. The Gulf War showed how truly terrifying it is to be a long-haired peacenik when the majority of Americans would just as soon string you up by a yellow ribbon. Now that they've had a taste of the real thing, we can start reviving the 70s. You'll recognize our contingent in the parade -- we'll be wearing leisure suits.

The American Lesion - Most thinking Americans agree that their brain is an outmoded organ. It doesn't have remote control or as many channels as cable. As lesionnaires, we welcome the wound the Gulf War opened in our craniums as the portal through which mind and video will merge. The War helped us achieve oneness with our TV sets. Regardless of our physical location, we will all be at the parade. Many bodies, one consciousness linked by satellite and the voice of Bernie Shaw.

Act-out - We are a collective of passive-aggressive former yuppies who will never know a six-figure income or a Corner office. The recession has robbed us of our birthright and our future. The Gulf War gave us a focus for our hostility and helped restore our self-esteem. We may never boss around our countrymen, but our countrymen can boss around the world. Marching at the side of conquerors is a far more fulfilling way to pound the pavement than what we've been doing for the last then months.

People for the Orwellian Way - 1984 came and went and all we had to show for it was a teflon ninny in White House and some junior league photo opps. But in one short year we've seen the advent of global television brainwashing, a war to rival Oceania's assault on Eurasia, and a president worthy of the name Big Brother. We will join the masses in celebration of the Brave New World Order, and no matter how lost we feel in the crowd, we know someone will be watching.

Soundbiting the News They Feed Us

1991-04-17T11:10:00.000-07:00

America cannot stand by and let Saddam Hussein massacre his people -- we reserve that right for ourselves.

If stun guns were outlawed, only outlaws would be cops.

There are no bad policemen, just bad victims.

The People camcorded will never be defeated,

Stalin: socialism in one country. Gorbachev: no socialism, no country.

How many Poles does it take to restore capitalism? One to hold power, ten million to be unemployed.

To incur debt is human. To forgive it, executive privilege.

If I accept capitalism, will they forgive my debts too?

Lessons of the New War Order

1991-04-09T09:10:00.000-07:00

Never have so few killed so may with so much.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilanteism.

We would have won in Vietnam too, if we'd all worn yellow ribbons and the enemy hadn't fought back.

The Mother of God beats the Mother of All Wars, when deployed in a Hail Mary play.

Former allies makes the best enemies. Former enemies make the best financial contributors.

Hell hath no fury like a president slipping in the polls.

Americans support just causes -- just the causes, not the consequences.

The Republican Guard is easier to defeat than the Republican party.

You can fool all of the people all of the time.

The world should have listened when Kurt Waldheim met with Saddam and said, "I knew Hitler. I worked with Hitler. And Mr. Hussein, you're no Hitler!"

A Pax on Both Choices

1991-03-15T17:00:00.000-08:00

"I am and am not for and against the War, and I believe the majority of the American people share my opinion," said Leona Tolstoy, a long-time war-and-peace activist.

Wearing a black armband and a yellow ribbon, Ms. Tolstoy was one of several thousand people who gathered last weekend for a meeting of Ambivalents Not Not Against the War. "We aren't against being for the War, but we aren't not against it either. There are two sides to every issue and we ambivalents try to take both of them."

We spoke with Ms. Tolstoy in the lobby of the Howard Johnson Motor Hotel where she prepared to chair the plenary session. "Ambivalence is as American as apple or cherry or blueberry pie," she informed us. "Ever since our slave-owning forefathers brought forth freedom upon this continent, we've wanted to have our cake and eat Ultra-Slimfast too. We want to run the world to make it free. We go to war to ensure peace. We're ready to sacrifice our youth, so long as we don't see their blood. . .

Her diatribe was interrupted by a sudden outburst from the crowd. "What do we want?' a voice bellowed.

"Something!" shouted the crowd.

"When do we want it?'

"Soon!"

Placards reading "Casuistry, Not Casualties" and "Vacillate Now!" waved in the air. The chanting continued until many of the protestors changed their minds, breaking up into small discussion groups to deny what they had just said.

"Looks like the Gulf War has got your organization pretty agitated," we noted.

"Alot of us miss the Cold War. We were at war and at peace simultaneously. We could be as hostile and aggressive and kinder and gentler as we wanted without disrupting our lifestyle. This war is different. We may actually have to fight! We believe in patriotism, 'kicking ass,' and Kuwait's democratic right to live under the monarchy of its choice. But we also believe in Oprah, EARTH Day, and the security of small furry animals. We're afraid we may have to choose between our inconsistencies."

"So you disagree with the way things are being handled?"

"Yes and no. So far this has proved to be a short winnable war that will take a long-time to win, in which we have and have not established air superiority, having wiped out all the Scuds except for those still being fired the night we decimated the enemy's still functioning command control, assuring that we will and will not have to fight an all-out limited ground war in which casualties will be kept to a very heavy minimum. The administration has done a superb job of maintaining ambiguity in the heat of battle. But there's always the danger that something decisive might happen and force us to take a stand."

"For instance?"

"Casualties. Soldier moms crumpled in the sand. Incinerated pen pal partners. Unsightly burn victims on city buses. The preempting of baseball by special reports. A surcharge on taxes. Anything that brings us face to face with the consequences of having done the things we're in favor of doing. As Americans we like to support just causes -- just the causes, not the consequences. .. ."

"So how can we keep the war's consequences from affecting our opinions of it?"

"That's the job of the media. As long as we can represent ourselves as ready for the sacrifice whether we are or not, we'll be okay. As Ted Turner didn't say, 'Television is reality by other means."

"But if the networks fail, it could be the sixties all over again with an unpopular war and mass dissent."

"The coming era will be another 1960's, and another 1930's with a collapsing economy, and another 1940s with global mobilization for war, and another 1914 in that war's potential for carnage, and another 1890s in its fin de siecle stirrings, and another 990s in its millennial fervor.... These are heady days for ambivalents. So many pieces of history to not learn the lessons of at the same time. Unlimited positions not to take on every issue. The hour of indecision is approaching Hopefully our leaders will have the good sense to keep putting it off till tomorrow.”

Let Us Now Praise Downwardly Mobile Men

1991-02-12T11:39:00.000-08:00

And their spouses, such of them as still have jobs and such as have lost them, such as were partners and such as merely associates, such as whose firms are failing and such as whose firms having restructured their debt must yet endure unhealthy levels of stress, not having received a year-end bonus, forced to commute by subway in the cold and car-serviceless dawn carrying their lunches, their brave little lunches, in the obscenity of brown paper bags ...

Let us praise their Children, never to know a nanny's love, the fitted grace of Baby Dior designer kidsware, the thrill of overachievement with a Fisher Price developmental plaything, trust funds frozen to pay off VISA charges, Aprica strollers rusting no less than prospects for a fast-track pre-school, replacing hopes of Harvard with the bitterness of Nintendo with last year's games....

Let us praise their power ties and Rolex watches, hands sweeping time's pitiless face unbroken by appointments, praise also their designer logos, Izod and Polo Western pony flapping from the frayed all-cotton fibers of a once defiant breast, linen crushed like expectations, Peter Pan collars forever young while dreams grow old, blunt cuts that cannot blunt the pain, Reeboks worn thin on pavement pounded not in preparation for the marathon but in search of work....

Let us praise their cuisinarts and croissants, and the tortellini salad days of youth, the red of their radicchio, the extra-virgin olive of their oils, their wild porcini and the sticky running of their Brie, conspicuously consumed in lingering brunch beneath a firmament that sun-dries all tomatoes, days of white wine and mimosas so swiftly turned to nonbalsamic vinegar of grief; oh Haagen-Dazs for umlaut the bell tolls, praise these who yet can summon courage to grind the beans for their espresso, to eat of foods that have not been reviewed, to face plates whose minute portions signify starvation not nouvelle cuisine ....

Let us praise their health clubs, and their bodies aerobic, misled by Stairmaster to an ever upward climb, going for the bum and getting burnt: Lifecycle's programmed karma coming due, sweatsuits become the slothful signs of unemployment, daily workouts replaced by days spent out of work ....

Let us praise these simple time-share croppers, Information Age Arrivistes, Postmodern Proletarians, who tilled the soil of our supply side with the sleight of their hand and the sweatbands of their brow. Salt-free of the Earth, Turners of the Rolodexes, Makers of the Mergers, who brought forth profit from junk, co-ops from tenements, nutrition from Tofutti. Broke but yet unbroken. Credit poor but infinite in self-worth. The mesquite grill still glows within their hearts. They have not lost their faith or self-esteem. The Chapter Eleventh hour may yet issue in the dawn:

Networkers of the World Arise!

You have Nothing to Lose, but your Stocks and Bonds!

Marginal Notes

1990-06-08T15:26:00.000-07:00

I am a marginal man. An office temp. Proofreader. Word processor. I make my mark between the lines and at the page's edge. I take my cues from messages scrawled outside the text. Additions. Revisions. Deletions. The better I do my job, the more I disappear, the place in which I toil becoming empty space.

I am a marginal employee. A midtown migrant. I make my living in other people's places. I do the same thing in many locations. I go to different offices on different floors of different buildings. Each one does something different. Each one has a different view. I have many views. But none of them is mine.

Every morning I call the agencies to say I am still available. Sometimes they have jobs. These days, more often they do not. They always have reasons. Usually it's "the holidays.' The Jewish holidays. Christian holidays. Ground Hog's Day. Secretaries' Day. Day of the Dead. Holidays frame time like margins. The agencies are running out of holidays. Some of them have begun to substitute the word 'recession."

Recessions happen when the profit margin shrinks. A few years ago the profit margin was expanding. Corporate entities were as fluid as the words on their computer screens. Capable of infinite reprocessing. They merged and divided, invaded, revised, and deleted each other. Each shift produced profits and documents. There were many margins to work in. And there were many shifts. Nine to five. Five to twelve. Weekend and graveyard.

In those days there were many marginal people. Some of us called ourselves artists. The margins provided us with space in which to develop. We did things to documents in order to do the things we really did. The margins also equipped us with a blank spot. What we really did is what we would do in the future. Therefore what we did now was not real.

To finance the present against a future profit is called 'buying on a margin'. We, who lived on the margins bought time on them as well, used them to invest in a future where everything would pay off. We invented the slash / to secure our speculation. "I am a proofreader/writer, /screenwriter, /actor-drector , /performance artist, /independent filmmaker," we said. The left side of the slash was definite, rooted in the world, the right side another name for marginality.

We were not the only ones who borrowed from the future. The people who created margins, profits and documents balanced their accounts against the future as well. Eventually they lost their balance. The left side of the slash crashed into the right. "I am a proofreader/unemployed attorney, word processor/former investment banker," we began to hear. Displacement displaced marginality.

The margins continue to contract. All space enclosed within the corporate stanzas. The slashes have come out of our identities. Either proofreader/proofreader or unemployed proofreader/unemployed writer. Our employers demand unity. Codependent no more, they tell us as their documents repossess the page.

I am a marginal man and can no longer depend on an economy's dependency. Marginal without utility. I must turn myself inside out to avoid disappearing.

Through a Glasnost Darkly

1990-02-21T15:46:00.000-08:00

First came Reagan, the actor. Then Havel, the playwright. In 1992, as Glasnost swept America, Swifty, the agent, became the 42nd President of the United States. How well I remember his inaugural address:

Friends, citizens, members of the motion picture academy, I did not seek to stand before you, but the people called upon me and after many weeks of evasion I returned their call.

Four months ago I was confined to an office, denied the simple dignity of a car phone or fax machine. My name was unknown beyond a small group of celebrities and entertainment lawyers. Society slumbered beneath a system that vested all power in the hands of the rich and famous, while those who supplied them with ratings and audience share toiled in obscurity.

How quickly things have changed. The viewers have awakened. They demand better treatment. They seek the leadership of ideas. And we, who know a good treatment when we see one, whose commerce is the free market of ideas, have been summoned to lead. Democracy is hot!

I come to you as living proof that ideas matter. Ideas are our most treasured properties. Properly developed they yield multi-media packages -- blockbusters, tie-ins, sequels, prequels, spin-offs, and ancillary merchandise. Ideas provide us with options. Ideas tell us what to think.

Not long ago the world was divided between two camps -- those who made history and those who watched it. But in our age of global media, governments derive their just consensus from the polling of the governed. Leaders can rule only insofar as the people will buy it. And what the people will buy is what we promote.

It is uncivilized to live in a society where some people do not have development deals simply because they do not know anyone in the business. My fellow Americans, of the left coast and right, every time I take a cabinet meeting you have a friend in the business. The pitch stops here! Let me make this perfectly clear: You’re beautiful. Don’t change

In the Sixties it was said, "the whole world is watching." And what the whole world is watching is up to us. We, the producers. We, the publicists. Editors. Executives, be we cable or broadcast. We can never abandon our public responsibility, and what the public gets is ultimately our responsibility.

We hold these concepts to be happening; that all properties are created commercial; that they are endowed by their salability with certain contractual rights - among them development, production, and the pursuit of points. Come let us do lunch together, so that programming of the people, for the people, by the media shall not vanish from the surface of our tubes.

Grand Mall Couture

1989-05-09T06:00:00.000-07:00

It's about time that fashion victims came out of their cramped closets. Unlike substance abusers, sex addicts, and women who love too much, the plight of the style-dependent has not yet been recognized as a Disease. Without the benefit of made-for-TV prophylaxis and celebrity support groups, the untreated trendy must turn the other chic and suffer in silence. In hopes of correcting this deplorable situation, I offer the results of my clinical research in the wards of Manhattan.

Tie-Dye Shock Syndrome - Neoplastic mutation resulting from Sixties Cell Anemia. Endemic to late stage adolescents with a history of affluenza and MTVenous feeding. Inflammation of joints and loss of textile sensation through acid-washing. Progression to peace signusitis, sequestering in Grayful Dead Matter. Emergency head bandectomy required to prevent outbreak of Cerebral Paisley.

Euronary Trash Infection -A Parisitic infestation potentiated by overproduction of Bergdorfins. May present as Comatose Des Garcons depending on body type and credit cardiac history. Thickening of shoulder pads and other Epauleptic disorders during latency. Ponytails and Cartier-vascular arrythmia in secondary stage. Eruption of Bennetomas culminating in full exposure of designer labels in tertiary. Early detection through Armaniocentesis.

Open Bar Virus - Opportunistic eating disorder induced by underlying Boholemia. Leads to hardening of the art galleries and Tompkins Square Parkinson's Disease. Characterized by chronic fatigues syndrome, distressed denimentia, prefrontal Tenex formations, and streptococktail inversion. Sufferers complain of nonspecific existential pain and performance space anxiety.

Permatitis - Swelling of moussecous membrane resulting in big hair. Transmitted through secretarial staff infection of PATHogenic Train origin. Can be contracted from subway seats under rush-hour conditions. May subside with onset of wedding ringworm, Degenerative strain produces Down Town syndrome, an excess of Tama Globulin resulting in brain death. Presents in males as Bon Ginjovitis, an early warning sign of metalbolic dysfunction.

Hip-Hopatitis - Type B-Boy infection originating with Bronxitis and culminating in hysterical defness. Freshtrogen imbalance eventuates in full-body sweats, gold sores, and baseball capillary inversion. Coronary verbosis. May lead to FADES. Epidemic among inner city youth due to Run-DNA; spreading to politically occluded Caucasians in need of Public Enema. Don't believe the hypochondria.

Derailed

1988-05-12T22:11:00.000-07:00

When I was going to college in the early seventies, I often spent the weekend in New York. As my bus wound its way toward the Uptown Port Authority, the phrase "Taki 183" scrawled across the side of a tenement welcomed me to Manhattan. The memory of ghetto uprising and racial hostility was still strong in those days, and this assertion of individual identity emerging from the faceless cityscape held a double message. On the one hand it was a simple declaration of presence; on the other, a warning that that presence was not going to go away. Taki's tag caught on. By the time I graduated, kids scurried about with magic markers leaving their names and block numbers on every unguarded surface.

I returned to New York as the decade drew to a olose. The city had survived its brush with bankruptcy. Its streets had lost their angry edge. Fists once clenched in black power salutes now curled around huge radios blaring disco and the "Rappers Delight." White middle class artists ventured guiltlessly into once forbidden neighborhoods, young professionals hot on their heels.

In the subways the scattered markings had become a tangled thicket of hieroglyphics as the anonymous multitude vied to put their tokens of individuality into public circulation. Occasionally this dense overgrowth blossomed into startling images, spray-painted scenes of city life populated by figures from the comic book pantheon, as some graffiti artists went beyond the assertion of existence to proclaim their right to remake it.

For a few glorious years subway riding came to feel like membership in a secret and exclusive society. The spay-paintings that surrounded me confirmed my participation in a city that reached beyond the protocols of Manhattan to the South Bronx, Brooklyn, and the Lower East Side. My fellow riders and I might be strangers to one another, but we all knew Dondi, Zephyr and Futura. The act of commuting baptized us all in the democratic spirit of our metropolis, and graffiti which gave expression to that spirit equipped us with the irony to withstand the world upstairs. Whatever our role in the city's hierarchy, as New Yorkers we shared in something else, the exhilaration of our collective energy.

New images began to appear on the trains and station walls as art school dropouts and renegades of white suburbia, drawn to this energy, offered their version of the subway experience. Graffiti artists welcomed these newcomers to their medium, just as in the world above, the neighborhoods they came from accepted the incursion of artists and bohemians into their midst, believing that spatial proximity might promote a closeness of spirit as well. Traditionally hostile communities opened to the possibility that people who could appreciate their culture might respect that culture's makers as well. For a moment it seemed as though a new and multi-racial solidarity might come about through art, that graffiti's redefinition of the city's surface might lead to a transformation of its depth.

In 1983 I attended the first gallery opening of Keith Haring, a young white graffiti artist, and watched his entire collection of paintings sell out in one evening. A few months later Michael Stewart, a young black graffiti artist, died in the care of the Transit Police.

Like so many utopian dreams, the democracy of graffiti squirmed on the pitchfork of money, social class and authority. As artists climbed the subway stairs to embrace the world of commerce, the long arm of city hall reached into the tunnels to protect the public's property from art. Private collectors spent thousands for canvasses spray-painted with images that the city spent equal sums to sandblast from the trains. New York restocked its underground arteries with silver corpuscles, paint-resistant and antiseptic, while in the world above, its streets surrendered to glassed-in cafes and sanitized exteriors. The new middle class that drew its tag across the city wanted no reminder of the unrenovated life that preceded it.

Last month the last graffiti train was officially removed from service. There was little fanfare; the press was preoccupied with the Central Park jogger and its discovery of "wilding." Tabloid headlines screeched of "wolf Packs," while more sober publications deplored the sorry state of "race relations." The slum-scarred city that graffiti had sought to depict through art and humor came back to public consciousness in the form of mindless violence. The last representation of urban rage had been expunged, leaving us to confront its bitter reality.

Desperately Fleeing Sushi

1988-03-05T17:45:00.000-08:00

When I moved to New York in 1979, I had the misfortune to find a rent-stabilized apartment on the Upper West Side. Inexpensive. Quiet. On an elegantly brownstoned street close to Riverside Park and a few blocks from Zabar's. Rents had not yet made the quantum leap of the coming decade, but living space was already hard to find. Friends assured me of my beginner's luck.

The only problem was that I had come to Manhattan in hopes of becoming a punk, lured by the poetry of urban squalor that I heard in the music of Patti Smith and glimpsed in photos of a new race of beings cloned from the ruins of metropolis. After a decade of enforced mellowness, these evocations of jagged reality had jolted me into wakefulness. I wanted to be part of this new attitude, and New York seemed to be its epitome.

But my idyllic surroundings provided little fodder for dark romance. No glowering tenements. No alleyways of ecstatic risk. No sidewalk garbage rotting with the stench of the 20th Century. Just newly co-oped buildings with well-wrapped trash bags, presided over by a block association that saw grime as a call to renovation, not art. Sweatsuits clothed the Naked City, its mean streets pounded into submission by joggers' feet.

I began to head downtown every night. In abandoned warehouses and gutted storefronts I found oases where the Future was being constructed. Black-clad figures who had rejected everything created the sights and sounds of an alternate universe, drawing screeching chalk across the prison walls of convention. The gratifications of everyday life meant nothing to them, for they had discovered how to rearrange the present to produce the New. I watched them, imbibed their spirit. But I was a dilettante of their future; the subway awaited to drag me back to life as it had always been lived.

I grew adept in the art of uptown survival, inventing a system of checks and balances to counter the influence of my neighbors. The "ham-hashbrown-overeasy" cry of a surly Greek waiter on upper Broadway could wipe out the memory of the mimosa-hungry masses lined up for Sunday brunch. Cafe con leche at a Cuban-Chinese counter relieved the horror of Zabars bags bulging with decaffeinated blends. I learned to exist in the hollows of upward mobility, searching out those experiences too stubborn or delirious to be swept up in the cheerful consumerism that renovated the facades and sanded the floors of my neighborhood. I told no one. It was my unspeakable secret, the price I paid to reappear downtown, a self-respecting nihilist.

Eventually, I met others like myself, trapped by fate and three-year leases in our outpost of shame. We devised elaborate theories of why the 'Scene" was about to move uptown. Just a little while, we said to ourselves, sitting in coffee shops shadowed by sushi bars and Perrier emporiums, and the epicenter would shift. But we were wrong. Columbus Avenue kept getting longer and the rents kept going up. The salad bars spilled over onto Broadway, and our neighbors installed Jacuzzis. We accepted our lot stoically -- our punishment for living with one foot in the past -- for there was always the subway ride downtown and the future.

I don't remember when I first noticed the change, only that the downtown streets I nightly prowled were coming remarkably to resemble the ones from which I was descending. I followed the Scene's forced march east, over the edge of the known world, beyond Avenue A. Being artists, the others did not look back. Being less sure, I did, and found that where the avant-garde had been, real estate now was. The portals of the New had become floor-to-ceiling windows, behind which lurked tax attorneys, frozen margaritas and The Gap; the whereabouts I'd fled had become my destination.

Now Columbus Avenue stretches the length of Manhattan. The future I longed to be part of has passed, and the past which entrapped me has become an unrelenting present. I came to New York to join the avant-garde, and, while seeking it, stumbled into the city that was to come. Today, all Manhattanites live between the condos and health clubs, uncertain of their identity in a world of pale neon and cold pasta. Considering their rents, I'm glad to be paying so little for my share.

An Apple A Day Keeps the Contras at Bay

1987-11-15T13:49:00.000-08:00

The details of Mayor Koch's meeting with Daniel Ortega have yet to be revealed, but the conciliatory tone of the two leaders leaves much room for conjecture. New York and Nicaragua share many problems best addressed in a spirit of partnership.

Nicaragua, for example, must struggle with poverty, and so must many New Yorkers. The Sandanistas might profit from some of Gotham's know-how in dealing with the problem. Instead of going to the trouble of restructuring the economy, just raise the rents, replacing slum dwellings with trendy restaurants and boutiques. Poverty may not disappear, but at least it will disappear from sight.

Moreover, years of American pressure have left Nicaragua's economy in shambles. Coffee pickers and cane cutters are desperately needed. In New York the recent stock market crash has put many able-bodied portfolio managers out of work. Why not send them off to Nicaragua, where they can help with the harvest while earning extra cash to pay off Visa charges. Tropical agriculture is a great way to stay in shape, and many of these unfortunates have had to let their health club memberships lapse.

New York, for its part, could use help on more than a few fronts. Postal service, to name but one. If MTA monies were diverted to the Sandanistas, the long awaited trans-Nicaragua canal could finally be built, providing a faster route for crosstown mail delivery

Of course, New York is not confronted by armed insurgents on its borders. But it does have bridge-and-tunnel people. A simple trade would handle things quite nicely. The contras could direct their firepower to Queens' crack wars, where their cocaine stockpiles and body count prowess would fit right in, while New Jersey's finest could invade Nicaragua every weekend, swilling beer and honking horns loudly.

This may seem a pipe dream. The corpse-littered villages the freedom fighters have left in their wake may have made the Nicaraguans too bitter to forgive and forget. But not if they had a New York medical examiner to inspect the bodies and certify them dead of natural causes. Then we could all let bygones be bygones.

In the last analysis, the greatest difficulty besetting both our homelands is the threat of "Yankee Imperialism." Nicaraguans don't want the Yankees storming their shores, and New Yorkers don't want them leaving ours. If only madmen like George Steinbrenner can be dissuaded from their greedy schemes, the hour of peace may well be at hand.

Metrophysics

1987-10-13T20:57:00.000-07:00

The approaching millennium poses a real dilemma New Yorkers. The lackluster turnout at last summer's Harmonic Convergence proved Manhattanites unprepared for the apocalyptic outpourings of an era in which Nostradamus threatens to replace Page Six as the arbiter of what's happening. Our Aquarian island needs an occult science consonant with the demands of its restless lifestyle. Here then is guide to the mystical essence of our metropolitan lives.

Past Lofts - New Yorkers progress through a never-ending cycle of lofts. If we develop good character reference in our present loft, tipping the super and accepting that heat which is given, then in our next loft we will have more square feet and perhaps a lease. Sometimes one has the feeling that one has met someone before in another loft. And often one has. For in very loft there are networking parties, and the same people keep showing up at all of them. They leave their cards with us, which we retain long after we have forgotten who they are and the lofts where we met them.

Pistol Healing - It is hard to remain positive under the stress of urban life. Pistols are a powerful tool that man has been given to focus his will and dispel the negativity that daily besets him. The pistol radiates a continual flow of energy which interacts with the human energy field. Those who work with pistols find they are no longer affected by the negative vibrations of crowded subways, hostile receptionists, and nightclub doormen. Whether carrying it on their person or placing it under their pillow, their pistol helps them regain a state of calm and tranquility and, as they learn to channel its energy, to get the things they want out of life.

Channeling - Most of us experience reality only through the major networks. But anyone can unlock their TVs potential, picking up messages from hundreds of unincorporated broadcast entities. In the denser boroughs, access to the subtle channels is blocked by excessive materialism. Those wishing to expand their receptivity must resort to bribery or buy a VCR.

Tantrum Yoga - Many people spend their days standing in line at sales counters, banks, and token booths as if life had no further purpose. The practice of Tantrum brings release from this queued-up state. Such techniques as the withholding of the breath and shrieking of the mantras unleashes a fire under the chakras of the least enlightened dawdlers, and sends out a powerful vibration against line jumpers. Certain Long Island adepts have developed the Tantrum art of sexual withholding to the point where they can materialize fur coats from cancelled charge cards.

Atlantic - Legends tell us of a great ocean once visible from Brooklyn that sank beneath the sewage.

Lincoln Centering - It is easy to forget our true identity, especially when we are a waiter or a legal proofreader. We must transcend such narrow labels, get in touch with our cultural center, get some headshots, grab a seat at the cafe looking bored. Then we remember who we really are --a dancer, a musician, an actor/actress - and what we are seeking -- an agent.

Freeing the Inner Shelf - Deep inside your closet there is a place. Underneath the clutter - there is space. Your innermost shelf. Once you clear it, you will never again have to wonder where to put your sweaters.

Encounters with Alien Beings - The traditional image of little green-carded men piloting unsafe cablike objects is way off. Aliens are among us, only better dressed. Often sighted at restaurant and gallery openings, they can be identified by their jaded expressions, claims to be "filmmakers," and ability to rematerialize wherever large amounts cocaine are being consumed.

Holistic Stealing - Conventional stealing depersonalizes its victims, treating them as no more than a set of parts -- a wallet, a gold chain, a bomber jacket. How much less alienating to rob the whole person, taking not only his money, but his entire neighborhood. Through renovation and conversion, holistic stealers transmute decay and downward mobility into flourishing centers of wellness.

The Astoral Place - Between the material plane of waking life and the dream sphere where unemployed spirits cavort in mohawks lies the Astoral Place. At night, many career-bound souls shed their outer shells -- business suits, filofaxes, Walkmen -- and travel to the Astoral Place. Here they experience the exhilaration of multi-directional mobility, hopping freely from club to club, encountering other insubstantial bodies. All that connects them to their former selves is the Golden Card. Don't cross 14th Street without it.

The Doormen of Perception - The normal person uses only a fraction of his or her wardrobe. But everyone harbors the desire to really see and be seen. By opening up to fashion, one can realize total fabulousness, getting past the ropes of the VIP room even when not on the list.

Out-Of-Borough Experience - How painful it is to spend a lifetime in the confines of our borough as the rents creep slowly up. It is hard to believe that there are other realities where the soul roams freely through three bedrooms, wood-burning fireplace, and separate kitchen, at half the price. People who have experienced these realities report a sense of lightness, airiness, and fullness of bank account.

The Dow I Ching - Everything is flux. For every increase there is decrease, for every ending, new beginning. The tides of fortune rise and fall in accordance with the Dow. The superior man lives in harmony with the Dow, seeking balance in the ceaseless war of bear and bull. In times of peril, the superior man plays Lotto, not the market.

Mercs just want to have Funds

1987-02-21T14:09:00.000-08:00

Someone Left a Cake Out in Iran

1987-01-17T17:48:00.000-08:00

The biggest mystery of the Iran-Contra affair is why the press has suddenly become so outspoken against Ronnie. For six years the share-croppers of the fifth estate blithely swallowed everything cooked, up by their master in the big white house. No scenario was too absurd to merit unquestioning repetition. No photo op too corny for adoration. Contradictions disappeared in a blur of images consigned to yesterday's news; breaches of appearance labeled misperception. But ever since November, the journalistic profession has outdone itself in its zeal to set record straight

What is the cause of this sudden about-face? The sheer outrageousness of supplying arms to Iran? A resurgence of liberalism? Watergate nostalgia? A political seven-year itch?

There is a simpler explanation: The War on Drugs is finally taking effect! For the first time in two decades a significant portion of the electorate is without a trace of cannabis, cocaine or opiate in its bloodstream. Americans have regained their short-term memories. They can remember what the president said and when he said it. Small wonder, then, that the administration slashed anti-drug funding in its latest budget.

Because drugs first gained mass acceptance in the 60s, they are often associated with 60s politics. But consider the record. As drugs replaced protest as the vocation of youth, Republicans replaced Democrats in the White House. The 1970s, a decade notable for its political apathy, were also notable for the enormous quantities of chemicals consumed in middle schools, discos and shag-carpeted vans alike.

Many drug users report difficulty in distinguishing reality from illusion. In the 80s this fear was compounded by the advent of a president who seemed to share the difficulty.

Thus, the Reagan administration has fallen victim to its own prohibitionist hysteria. Far from constituting a national threat, the continued consumption of drugs is the only way to insure the kind of faith in our elected officials without which democracy must surely falter. As society sheds its trust in images, its leaders lose their image of trust. Those who do not wish to return to the self-questioning and doubt of our liberal past must work to get America stoned again.

The task will not be simple. Just saying No becomes as much a habit as the vices it refuses. A nation of naysayers will not be easily persuaded to resume the substance-positive attitudes of yesteryear. What we need is a new set of drugs, not identified with the amoral hedonism of the past, drugs that promote the values of a bold and patriotic America. Here are some suggestions:

National Heroin: Experience the gall within you.

Poindexedrine: Forget what you know and when you knew it.

TylenOllie: Low-intensity relief.

NSC: Sense of omnipotence. Access to
ineffable secrets.

Trickle Downers: Achieve bottom-line consciousness.

SDI: Delusions of invulnerability.

Lebanese Rehash: Get bombed 24 hours a day.

South African Gold: Go with the cash flow.

Muammar's Little Helpers: Induces a terrorist state.

Meesecaline: Heightened sexual awareness. No release.

Breakfast at Murdermer's

1986-01-12T16:12:00.000-08:00

The advent of Homicide Chic has made it difficult for unindicted guests to get a table at many of Manhattan's more elegant eateries. Not every restaurant can boast a Claus, a Crispo, or a Carl Andre among its clientele, but as the pages of the Social Register and the New York Post converge, none is without its coterie of upscale miscreants.

Murdermer's, the watering hole for ladies and gentlemen of the first rank who stand accused in the first degree, has become a pre-trial institution for new offenders and recidivists alike. On Sunday morning the room fills with faces whose mug shots have just hit the tabloids - the window corner reserved for the defendant with the highest TV-rights sale of the week. Those parties favored by a Barbara Walters exclusive merely flash their charged cards and head for the Bloody Marys. The rest cover their faces with their coats while their lawyers plea-bargain for a good table. Allegations must be up to snuff for the accused to be bound over for brunch:

I'm sorry," the maitre d' informed the attorney ahead of me as I stood in
line last weekend, "but manslaughter only gets a table by the wall."

"My client is willing to implicate himself in a string of unsolved slayings in exchange for a seat near the window."

"That section is overcrowded. However, the kitchen will entertain a plea of
Murder Two -- if you plan to order a la carte."

My press card earned me a seat in the character assasination section close to the men's room. Around me sat the student drug dealers and white collar hopefuls who had not yet made the Exhibit A list of one of the better grand juries. An automaker whose entrapment video had done some heavy CNN rotation glowered in the corner. 'Today anyone can be framed-up for fifteen minutes,' I overheard him snarl.

Of course, the ultimate social currency at Murdermers is a capital offense. All eyes centered on the drop-dead glamour of the front room. At the best tables, I recognized several up-and-coming suspects, as well as the tried-and-true but still appealing regulars. Jean Harris tweeds predominated, though a trendy few had taken advantage of their notoriety to leather up. Waiters for the accused scurried among the diners, often having to resubmit an order to which a lawyer had objected. Crime makes for hearty appetites, and I noticed several brunchers not only clean their plates but wipe them free of fingerprints as well.

I had just ordered some eggs Sunny-side up when a commotion broke out up front. News had just arrived that a major celebrity sociopath had won his appeal. The unfortunate fellow was summarily evicted. The best may lack all conviction, but at Murdermer's the greatest faux pas is acquittal.

Barnum & Beirut II

1985-07-23T18:11:00.000-07:00

Mass Mediation

For those still confused by the bloody tangle of Lebanese politics, here is an up-to-date synopsis.

ABC camera crews have taken the airport. No one goes near the plane of interview the hostages on-board without their permission.

CBS has deployed minicams throughout West Beirut in a house-to-house search for militants not yet signed by the other networks.

NBC controls the bar of the Beirut Hilton, John Chancellor's monologues having driven out the competition.

Meanwhile the CNN camp is overcrowded with refugees from the Big Three. Commanded by shadowy strongman Ted Turner, its guerrillas roam the streets with Portapaks and phony securities, itching for a hostile takeover.

The feuding erupted into open warfare during the Iranian Hostage Crisis. In a bold series of Quantel moves, ABC's prime time forces under Ted Koppel succeeded in advancing their night line. Armed with sophisticated video graphics and satellite technology, they seized control of the ratings, deposing NBC from the peacock throne.

Flanking actions by the other network's late night new teams failed to dislodge ABC. In the meantime, militant young anchormen, abandoning their blow dryers for Koppel tactics and coiffure, have grown restless to test themselves in the heat of hostage crisis.

So long as the ratings war flares, there will be enough solid entertainment to last through the summer reruns. The only fear is some act of retaliation by Aaron Spelling. The news cannot challenge the supremacy of the miniseries and expect to go unpunished.

Barnum & Beirut I

1985-07-19T17:49:00.000-07:00

Jihad is my Copilot

As the latest hijacking demonstrates, aspiring terrorists ought to spend less time at commando camp and more time at flight attendant school. The service provided TWA passengers was nothing short of atrocious!

Imagine flying back and forth between Athens, Algiers and Beirut with only one in-flight film! Passengers are used to complying with the request to fasten seatbelts, but when buckling up involves ropes and blindfolds, the gag's gone a bit too far. Of course the decidedly macho stance of the Arab world precludes the solicitous male stewards to which we Westerners have grown accustomed. Still it seems needlessly discourteous to greet a passenger's inability to decide between Salisbury steak and creamed chicken with a rifle butt to the solar plexus.

Customer service improved at Beirut Intn'l., where though denied access to the duty-free shop, hostages were offered free accommodations and beach trips. Perhaps Amal leader and former Michigan gas stationist Nabih Berri had remembered his "service with a smile" credo.

It suggests a possible solution to the Lebanese bloodbath. Why not give each of the bickering factions its own airline, thus transforming the holy war into a price war? Travelers could decide for themselves whether to fly the hostile skies of Pan Amal, Airafat, People's Militia Express, or just hop a Druse jet. Once aloft, nattily attired terror-tendants would brandish grenades and AK-47s while the captain explained the safety features. In the unlikely even that it became necessary to shoot some hostages, blindfolds would automatically appear above their seats.

Though passengers could never be sure of their ultimate destination, advance booking would allow them to plan for unexpected detours and lengthy negotiations. Planes could be cleared for takeover at regular intervals, avoiding the situation where hijacked jets must circle Beirut for hours while rival terrorists hog the runways.

Of course, the big problem would still be transportation to and from the airport -- make sure your cab's not on suicide run.

Open Letter to the American Writers Congress

1981-09-15T21:23:00.000-07:00

At the same historical moment that the media of communication have expanded the sum of possible experience, our ability to discern, judge, and comprehend that experience is shrinking. As the power of the media grows more absolute, only those ideas bearing its sanction are deemed fully real.

The writer today confronts an interlocking directorate of consciousness, by which each medium verifies and substantiates the fictional creations of the others. To turn off the TV tonight is to face it tomorrow in People, novelized the day after. What power can the testimony of lived experience aspire to before this omnipresence?

We are not the first generation to know the war between literary vision and the literary commodity. But in our times the terms of that battle are are more extreme. The ability of the media to penetrate all facets of life and disseminate themselves universally has destroyed regional difference, historical peculiarity, and personal eccentricity as outposts of cultural alternative. All lived experience stands devalued before the prefabricated image of the world constantly before our eyes.

The absorption of all facets of life under the media rubric means that no aspect is free of their imposed fragmentation. There is a place for everything which consents its prior definition. Those items which defy the categories cannot be named and are thereby decreed not to exist.

Like Aztecs surrendering their gods to the icons of the conquistadors, the writer must relinquish the creations of his being and imagination before the mythology of the technologically superior foe.

It is not a question of arbitrary censorship, repression of those writings which frighten the powers that be. Instead a system has evolved through which such decisions make themselves. Those who control the media operate with a particular vision of the world, a vision reinforced by its constant reflection in their own vehicles of expression. Whatever goes beyond that vision or calls it into question becomes invisible, at best noncommmerical, at worst incomprehensible.

Writing creates a language through which experience can declare itself. Language legitimates experience and the media legitimate language. The prohibition of a language of opposition from the media ends with the shrinkage of intelligible experience "That of which we cannot speak we must pass over in silence."

The dominant language of the moment reduces experience to deja vu. The Times announces, the Voice denounces, and vice versa. Each is a known quantity, its pronouncements prefigured in our expectations. Is it real or is it Memorex? What is forbidden is the development of a language which carries the force of spontaneity, the logic of discovery.

The act of writing is a political act, wherein the writer upholds or contests a given order of reality. That writing which proceeds by received categories, tacitly admitting the dominant mythology, ends with submission to the given, despite its intent.

Every generation has given rise to its avant garde of writers who must struggle to make themselves understood. But today's writer must justify not only his work, but his very mode expression. Today one becomes avant garde merely by maintaining the desire to write.

Literary culture has been the historical carrier of that consciousness which seeks to remake life. The mute world must be broken into its articulate units and reconstructed according to the writer's vision. That which simply occurs becomes story, drama , disclosure. The dictatorship of the visual media, with the de facto complicity of the publishing apparatus, means the force of this perspective can no longer be brought to bear upon the present.

When the power to make meanings of our own is stifled, the world becomes meaningless, subject only to the definitions of those in control.

The disjunction between lived experience, with is absence of meaning, and produced experience, with its density of meaning, creates a social schizophrenia in which the media image of life is prized more highly than one's own experience. Soap opera replaces gossip, talk show replaces conversation. Promotion replaces the work. With schizophrenia comes linguistic dysfunction: writers no longer trust their voices and their audience can no longer read.

Without a language that can express actual existence, the literary act becomes impossible. Instead we are offered a recycled imagery which proceeds from the media to the media, and with respect to which the audience can only watch. No one places his faith in the power of words to transfigure, but only in their power to appear and thereby turn the wheels commerce.

As that species for whom the transformation of life into meaning is not simply a need but existence, writers bear the brunt of this conflict. Shall they pursue an art which is fast losing its audience, power, and authenticity, or devote themselves to means of expression requiring the surrender of the verbal imagination? As heirs to the craft of language at its most concentrated, will they consent to a marriage of convenience with the media bent on their divesture?

Just as the industrialization of publishing made the reader a consumer, the science of marketing reduces the consumer to a calculation. The division of the audience into collections of buying habits requires the bureaucratization of the imagination according to preset formulas. Each word beyond the predictable means the loss of a mathematically determined percentage of sales. Discarded is that multiple resonance and merging of the categories capable of producing vision.

The apparent diversity of literary expression, like that of the conglomerates which manufacture it, masks the fact that none of it really matters. The magazine rack spells possibilities: gay or straight, feminist or Cosmo girl, chic or serious, rocker or jogger, or any combination thereof. No one sector is essential as long as all the sectors maintain financial solvency and the overall expansion of profit. That language for which identity is in question and the world yet to be revealed can no longer find an outlet when the object of writing is not to recreate but simply reconfirm.

Certainly one can now write and continue to write for oneself and friends or avail oneself of the mom & pop apparatus of small presses and independent bookstores. But what is forbidden from the outset is the belief that one's creation can lay claim to the same terrain as the dominant mythology. Among the multiplying fragments of the social whole, the literary world is just one more. For all but the most resolute, the most inspired , the most blind, the urge to verbal creation is undercut by a pervasive sense that hollow victory will be its only form of triumph.

To cure ourselves, the suicidal weapon at our temple must be turned against the present in homicidal rage. Our words must become dumdum bullets, penetrating the cranium and expanding within. We must pronounce the words that undo the media bewitchment, creating visions from our own existence equal in their power to the images which fixate the public mind. This is as much a matter of self-definition as of means. The vehicles of expression and forms of organization may vary; the commitment is to the uncompromised imagination.

The truth remains unknown. All the facts and all the reasons are not at our disposal. Reality is constructed through fictions, but the fictions of our rulers have been declared the only reality. Shall our fictions lead us to a vision of our being and possibility or to denial, limitation and repression of the human spirit?