letters to the editor, pt. 4
It's letter-writing time again! Since I don't have enough money for stamps, I'll just put them all out there, and hope the recipients all google-jerk themselves to the right place...
Dear KY,
Since when did 'tingling' mean 'burning'? Your lube totally cockblocked me.
Refund city? I think so.
speaking of rash chemicals...
Dear Everyone,
Apparently, when you mix paint thinner and Febreeze, you get a chemical burn. When you're working with oil-based paint, just expect your clothes to get ruined. Turpentine won't get the stain out anyway and you never know when the last time you might have used a "fabric refresher" was.
that PSA was necessary because of this idiot...
Dear Me,
Start thinking before you do things. All things. That drop of oil paint is going to be on your eyelid until the skin cells die. You don't want to get caught in your zipper again, do you? If word gets out, people will stop paying you to do things.
Heads up,
You
I should have thought of that, years ago. Oh well, never too late to start
Dear Me (Circa 2002),
Moving into that apartment on Atrill is a bad idea, not just because it'll fracture your relationship with your best friend, but because you'll be furthering the gentrification of Logan Square. It's 2006 now, Bush got re-elected, and I've just moved back into a slithly-nicer apartment in a much-whiter Logan Square. I am the product of your gentrification.
Peace,
You (from the future)
I wrote another letter with the new/old hood in mind.
Dear Logan Square Construction Park rats,
I forwarded the above letter to you, because it raises some issues that affect you as well. Because of the ongoing gentrification of the neighborhoods immediately surrounding the now-inaccessible Wicker Park, a lot of old buildings have been torn down to make way fotr condos. The cluttered, razed lots created by this construction have allowed you to expand your homes much further out from the alley. While I know you must feel pretty powerful now, display caution. Display humility. STOP RUNNING RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY TRICYCLE. It's the big, blue Schwinn and it will splatter your guts from here to Hell.
Just wanted to let you know.
...Which got me thinking about other self-destructive rodents
Dear Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert,
Fuck you. I am hardly a Zionist, but there are few things I want more than for there to be peace in Israel. You're fucking that up. I know, a soldier was kidnapped, that's a terrible thing to happen, but you're overreacting. Arresting 60 elected Palestinean officials is not preventing terrorism, it's an act of war. Buzzing the houses of Syrian elected officials with fighter jets is not a fair warning, it's an act of intimidation and AN ACT OF WAR. Most of all, depriving civilians on the Gaza Strip of power and water, and quite literally burning bridges, is not aiding peace. These are despicable acts that will create generations of terrorists and set the peace effort back decades.
Fuck you, for your complete lack of compassion, for your military short-sightedness and for fucking things up royally.
Your head belongs on a pike,
Eric (Mikhael ben Mayer)
Here's another angry letter
Dear Vice,
You are a decent free magazine, much better than your contemporaries Cool'Eh or Mass Appea, far more cohesive and far more readable than any of the places I've ever been published. I was willing to overlook the race-baiting shock value tactics employed by your editors, because you put out a good toilet read. For the most part, your writers use the same style, but it works for them and they do it well. You even outsource to talented, underground heroes like Jim Goad and Richard Kern and then, sometimes there are titties. You even almost won my heart by bringing Roky Erikson and the Boredoms over last week, but seriously, fuck you.
Your "Vice Guide to Chicago", the booklet handed out for free at last week's Intonation read like a "Vice Guide to Wicker Park." It also read like "Thanks for Having Us, Chicago. Fuck You from New York." Well, fuck you back. Fuck you for making me write what other people have written (recently and ad nauseum); fuck you for making me write something that echoes Chicago Antisocial; and fuck you for not getting the city.
There are a lot of people in this town who think that they're rock stars, and a lot of people who think they'd be better off in New York. Fuck em. We've never treated em right anyway. Who needs a Billy Corgan when you could have a Steve Albini, right?
It's easy to think you're a rock star here, because it's easy to know everyone. Not because we're some small Podunk but because there are so few people here that do just one thing. I don't just mean the artists, but everyone overlaps here, a million different ways like a Mandelbraut Venn Diagram...
The other day, I saw a South Side fireman throw down at a poetry slam on the North Side. All week, the guy I've been doing construction with has been telling me about the novel he's writing about 1930s Chicago, and just today, at a world music show in the Pritzker Pavillion, there were frat boys threw up devil horns, as they shouted out the lyrics to Amadou and Mariam's "Dimanche à Bamako" the way you'd expect them to yell "KEG STAND!" or "CHUMBAWUMBA!" or whatever it is frat boys are supposed yell.
And that's another thing you're missing: You can have a lot of fun in Chicago when you're poor. We've got parks, parks with zoos, zoos with parks and beaches running the length of the city. In the summer the city opens up to free outdoor concerts and movie screenings you could never get away with in Central Park. That's just the shit the squares know about, but you've still got crusties and gangbangers freaking about with mothers, children, and the whole wine-and-cheese set. We, don't as a city, rely on bars and clubs. We don't need to and, at least in the counterculture, don't want to. We've got a million apartments, houses, lofts, factories and assorted "spaces" willing to hide illegal and semi-legal and totally underground restaurants, galleries and venues. There are still speakeasys on the South Side if you know where to look, and places where you have to say the password to a guy through a door to get in.
It's a diverse city, full of rich browns and yellows and blacks and tans, and your "Guide" was so white. In a city where hip hop thrives and house music was born, where so many different races get along so well (and also not-so-well) alongside one another and you ignored it. Believe all you want that you've got it better in New York. Just do me a favor and stay there.
Kind regards,
Eric
speaking of people that just don't get it
Dear Me (2002),
Shave the moustache. Stop fucking your ex-girlfriend already. Make out with Natalia the next time you get the chance. Ask Lucy out at the Halloween party because you won't be able to get her number from Kafi later. Ask out Missy Calypso before she loses interest. Ask out Kristen before she gets knocked up. Ask out Miriam while you're both single. Don't ever move in with Curran. Don't start taking diet pills. Get a cell phone. Go to the Vegan House the next time Omnipresent Steve says you should. Adult three wheelers exist, invest in one. Enjoy your mohawk. It will grow tall and healthy, but you'll probably develop male pattern baldness early because of it. And start using condoms, for Christ's sake.
Your country's about to go to war,
You (from the future)
...and to end on a happy note...
Dear Someone Who Knows Amadou and Mariam,
Please translate this to French, transcribe it in braille, make two copies and hand them to Amadou and Mariam:
Your show tonight was awesome. I missed Seu Jorge but your band was so fucking tight it didn't matter. I can't believe you ended the night with an afrobeat cover of the Who's "I Can't Explain". Weird, unexpected, and super awesome.
Love,
Eric
Listening: World/Inferno Friendship Society - Hallowmas Live at Northsix
Dear KY,
Since when did 'tingling' mean 'burning'? Your lube totally cockblocked me.
Refund city? I think so.
speaking of rash chemicals...
Dear Everyone,
Apparently, when you mix paint thinner and Febreeze, you get a chemical burn. When you're working with oil-based paint, just expect your clothes to get ruined. Turpentine won't get the stain out anyway and you never know when the last time you might have used a "fabric refresher" was.
that PSA was necessary because of this idiot...
Dear Me,
Start thinking before you do things. All things. That drop of oil paint is going to be on your eyelid until the skin cells die. You don't want to get caught in your zipper again, do you? If word gets out, people will stop paying you to do things.
Heads up,
You
I should have thought of that, years ago. Oh well, never too late to start
Dear Me (Circa 2002),
Moving into that apartment on Atrill is a bad idea, not just because it'll fracture your relationship with your best friend, but because you'll be furthering the gentrification of Logan Square. It's 2006 now, Bush got re-elected, and I've just moved back into a slithly-nicer apartment in a much-whiter Logan Square. I am the product of your gentrification.
Peace,
You (from the future)
I wrote another letter with the new/old hood in mind.
Dear Logan Square Construction Park rats,
I forwarded the above letter to you, because it raises some issues that affect you as well. Because of the ongoing gentrification of the neighborhoods immediately surrounding the now-inaccessible Wicker Park, a lot of old buildings have been torn down to make way fotr condos. The cluttered, razed lots created by this construction have allowed you to expand your homes much further out from the alley. While I know you must feel pretty powerful now, display caution. Display humility. STOP RUNNING RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY TRICYCLE. It's the big, blue Schwinn and it will splatter your guts from here to Hell.
Just wanted to let you know.
...Which got me thinking about other self-destructive rodents
Dear Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert,
Fuck you. I am hardly a Zionist, but there are few things I want more than for there to be peace in Israel. You're fucking that up. I know, a soldier was kidnapped, that's a terrible thing to happen, but you're overreacting. Arresting 60 elected Palestinean officials is not preventing terrorism, it's an act of war. Buzzing the houses of Syrian elected officials with fighter jets is not a fair warning, it's an act of intimidation and AN ACT OF WAR. Most of all, depriving civilians on the Gaza Strip of power and water, and quite literally burning bridges, is not aiding peace. These are despicable acts that will create generations of terrorists and set the peace effort back decades.
Fuck you, for your complete lack of compassion, for your military short-sightedness and for fucking things up royally.
Your head belongs on a pike,
Eric (Mikhael ben Mayer)
Here's another angry letter
Dear Vice,
You are a decent free magazine, much better than your contemporaries Cool'Eh or Mass Appea, far more cohesive and far more readable than any of the places I've ever been published. I was willing to overlook the race-baiting shock value tactics employed by your editors, because you put out a good toilet read. For the most part, your writers use the same style, but it works for them and they do it well. You even outsource to talented, underground heroes like Jim Goad and Richard Kern and then, sometimes there are titties. You even almost won my heart by bringing Roky Erikson and the Boredoms over last week, but seriously, fuck you.
Your "Vice Guide to Chicago", the booklet handed out for free at last week's Intonation read like a "Vice Guide to Wicker Park." It also read like "Thanks for Having Us, Chicago. Fuck You from New York." Well, fuck you back. Fuck you for making me write what other people have written (recently and ad nauseum); fuck you for making me write something that echoes Chicago Antisocial; and fuck you for not getting the city.
There are a lot of people in this town who think that they're rock stars, and a lot of people who think they'd be better off in New York. Fuck em. We've never treated em right anyway. Who needs a Billy Corgan when you could have a Steve Albini, right?
It's easy to think you're a rock star here, because it's easy to know everyone. Not because we're some small Podunk but because there are so few people here that do just one thing. I don't just mean the artists, but everyone overlaps here, a million different ways like a Mandelbraut Venn Diagram...
The other day, I saw a South Side fireman throw down at a poetry slam on the North Side. All week, the guy I've been doing construction with has been telling me about the novel he's writing about 1930s Chicago, and just today, at a world music show in the Pritzker Pavillion, there were frat boys threw up devil horns, as they shouted out the lyrics to Amadou and Mariam's "Dimanche à Bamako" the way you'd expect them to yell "KEG STAND!" or "CHUMBAWUMBA!" or whatever it is frat boys are supposed yell.
And that's another thing you're missing: You can have a lot of fun in Chicago when you're poor. We've got parks, parks with zoos, zoos with parks and beaches running the length of the city. In the summer the city opens up to free outdoor concerts and movie screenings you could never get away with in Central Park. That's just the shit the squares know about, but you've still got crusties and gangbangers freaking about with mothers, children, and the whole wine-and-cheese set. We, don't as a city, rely on bars and clubs. We don't need to and, at least in the counterculture, don't want to. We've got a million apartments, houses, lofts, factories and assorted "spaces" willing to hide illegal and semi-legal and totally underground restaurants, galleries and venues. There are still speakeasys on the South Side if you know where to look, and places where you have to say the password to a guy through a door to get in.
It's a diverse city, full of rich browns and yellows and blacks and tans, and your "Guide" was so white. In a city where hip hop thrives and house music was born, where so many different races get along so well (and also not-so-well) alongside one another and you ignored it. Believe all you want that you've got it better in New York. Just do me a favor and stay there.
Kind regards,
Eric
speaking of people that just don't get it
Dear Me (2002),
Shave the moustache. Stop fucking your ex-girlfriend already. Make out with Natalia the next time you get the chance. Ask Lucy out at the Halloween party because you won't be able to get her number from Kafi later. Ask out Missy Calypso before she loses interest. Ask out Kristen before she gets knocked up. Ask out Miriam while you're both single. Don't ever move in with Curran. Don't start taking diet pills. Get a cell phone. Go to the Vegan House the next time Omnipresent Steve says you should. Adult three wheelers exist, invest in one. Enjoy your mohawk. It will grow tall and healthy, but you'll probably develop male pattern baldness early because of it. And start using condoms, for Christ's sake.
Your country's about to go to war,
You (from the future)
...and to end on a happy note...
Dear Someone Who Knows Amadou and Mariam,
Please translate this to French, transcribe it in braille, make two copies and hand them to Amadou and Mariam:
Your show tonight was awesome. I missed Seu Jorge but your band was so fucking tight it didn't matter. I can't believe you ended the night with an afrobeat cover of the Who's "I Can't Explain". Weird, unexpected, and super awesome.
Love,
Eric
Listening: World/Inferno Friendship Society - Hallowmas Live at Northsix
2 Comments:
This was hysterical! I will have to come back for more and read at length. Kinda reminded of something I'd find in the ad hoc readings of Harper's.
(please don't be offended; didn't read it all; was only able to skim)
But, I am a fan of Seo Jorge. Somewhat of Amadous and Mariam. And smitten with Cesaria Evora (the only concert of the four that I actually caught--back in April).
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