GOT A FOOT-AND-A-HALF OF UNREGISTERED STEEL Got a foot-and-a-half ...

Lawyers, Guns and MUGGER

Warren Zevon, a "mere footnote in rock 'n' roll history" (MUGGER, 10/8)? Of course, we can always argue about who's better than whom, but Zevon's body of work will stand up as well or better than just about anyone's. To those that know his work, it's a rare blend of challenging, funny, insightful lyrics and excellent musicianship. What more could you want? It's a damn sight better than most of the dreck cluttering the airwaves today. Besides, who else has written about mercenaries, werewolves and hearses with such uncommon wit and style?

Mark Carlson, Moorpark, CA

Neilswaab.com

Hey again. I'm serious-can you get me a date with Neil "Mr. Wiggles" Swaab (and, um, his non-ursine, humanoid companion) ("The Mail," 9/24)? I'm cute and I'm smart and, if that's not enough, I'm a mortician/trade embalmer. What more could you ask for than a girl who knows how to handle a scalpel?

Janna Foster, Queens

Soft Skullfucking

Regarding Henry Flesh's article, "Boning up: The Resurrection of Soft Skull Press" ("Books," 10/1). I have been represented inaccurately by a writer with a chip on his shoulder.

Flesh reports I took a leave of absence from Soft Skull Press, Inc. "under pressure from Soft Skull's board." He ignores that the primary reason was the untimely death of my Bush biographer James Hatfield, a month earlier. The financials were in the hands of a competent accountant and were not "a disaster." Flesh's obsession for the past years has been his own personal feud with his own former publisher, the independent Akashic Books. His multiple attacks on me in New York Press are largely a projection of his own subjective rage.

Sander Hicks, Founder, Soft Skull Press

No. Could you Mention Skullfucking?

After reading Jeff Koyen's article ("Trees Falling in the Forest," 10/8) I must ask: Who gives a fuck about these pseudo artistes who smoke too much pot while eating pizza? Vulgar enough for you?

Matt Nuskind, Manhattan

Hummer for the Hummer

Thank your for the article by Alan Cabal ("Rotation," 10/1). It is refreshing to see a news publication call a blowjob a blowjob. It is also important that we American sheeple be at least warned of what George and Ashcroft have in mind for us. But relying on the Americans is a waste of time. They (we) will never stop this terrible duo. After all, they have our safety and well-being in mind; what are we going to do about it?

Someone much wiser than me once said, "If elections really made any difference in the system, they would be illegal."

Nolan K. Anderson, Covington, LA

Conservative Strike

While panning Jim Hightower's phony aw-shucks populism ("Books," 10/8), John Dolan admits he was aroused by Hightower's chronicling of "environmental crimes" committed by Republicans. But as far as the evils of GOP environmental policy are concerned, it looks like that ol' hayseed Hightower has done pulled a fast one on the city-slicker Dolan.

The Kyoto global warming treaty was a non-solution to a problem that might not actually exist, and would have strangled the American economy. While there has been an increase in temperatures in the past century, there is no clear proof that this increase has been caused by the types of emissions that would have been regulated by Kyoto. And that treaty-filled with loopholes-would have heavily penalized auto-dependent America while letting Third World polluters off the hook. It deserved rejection, and Republicans weren't the only ones to say so. The Senate voted 95-0 to condemn Kyoto.

It is hard to believe a suave urbanite like Dolan could be fooled by Hightower's arsenic-in-the-drinking-water scam. This was one of the Stupid Politician Tricks played by Bill Clinton in the last lame-duck days of his presidency. The EPA's current limit for arsenic in tap water is 50 parts per billion. This was the standard before Clinton took office, and remained so throughout his presidency. There is no evidence that such miniscule levels of arsenic (which occurs naturally in ground water) have adverse health effects. But, days before he left office, Clinton signed an executive order which would have reduced the EPA's arsenic limit to 10 parts per billion in drinking water-but the new standards would have only taken effect after Bush was inaugurated!

That new arsenic standard would have been a huge unfunded mandate to communities (especially in arid Western states) with naturally occurring arsenic in their ground-water resources. Tiny desert towns might have been bankrupted by the costs of new filtration equipment to comply with this dubious EPA mandate. All of this trouble would have fallen on Bush's administration and-here's the beauty of the Clinton scheme-if Bush reversed the executive order, Democrats would then accuse him for poisoning America's drinking water. Bada-bing! Hightower does just that, and Dolan falls for it like a sucker.

Look: You are now drinking water regulated by the 50-parts-per-billion arsenic standards, just as you have been for many, many years. The arsenic's not killing you, and it's not going to kill you. So why pass a ridiculous new regulation that's going to drive Buzzard Gulch, UT, into bankruptcy, just to make yourself feel good about your environmentalist credentials?

As for Hightower's claims about the GOP's efforts to shrink the boundaries of 19 national monuments, Clinton's Interior Department declared "national monument" status for millions and millions of acres of Western states, over the objections of the people who live in those states-including many Democrats. Arizona or Nevada cannot tax federal land, okay? So every Western acre grabbed by the feds is a direct attack on the tax base of those communities, including taxes that would pay for schools, social services and other programs beloved by liberals. Dolan can't understand this, but you New York fellers would be a mite offended if Uncle Sam started grabbing block after block of Manhattan.

Would it be an "environmental crime," as Hightower claims, to allow oil and gas drilling on public land? No. The caribou in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge have survived in the frozen northland for many millennia, and there's no good reason to think a few oilrigs will drive them to extinction. Almost every politician in Alaska favors drilling in ANWR, as does a majority of the state's citizens. Who is Jim Hightower, of oil-rich Texas, to tell Alaskans to leave their oil untapped? And by whose definition is it "populist" to thwart the will of the local citizenry, in order to pander to a bunch of elitist enviro-weenies?

Tapping the ANWR oil reserve would ease America's dependency on foreign oil, and thus deserves to be considered a national security measure. Drill ANWR and drill that sumbitch good, y'hear?

Robert Stacy McCain, Washington, DC

Gonzo Needs to Go?

Matt Taibbi's "Hell and Back" piece about the Democratic presidential debate was a bit overdue ("Cage Match," 10/8), don't you think? Surely it couldn't have taken Taibbi two weeks since the debate took place to write the damn thing. Not that it wasn't worth the effort. It was funny, subversive and smart-and a Canal St. rip-off of Hunter S. Thompson.

If meant as an ode to Thompson, then clap Matt on the back for a fine fucking job. But spare readers of New York Press a year's worth of psychotropic-inspired missives from the campaign trail. Sure, there are striking similarities between 2004 and 1972: McGovern-Dean, Nixon-Bush, Vietnam-Iraq, etc. And the average Press reader probably hasn't heard of Fear & Loathing beyond the Terry Gilliam movie. Still, an imitation is an imitation. And Taibbi's story, while entertaining, lacked any meat. He added nothing to the understanding of the 10 talking heads, and good journalism, even Gonzo journalism, gives the reader more than a wild and paranoid personal narrative.

Taibbi is talented, and I'm glad he's fighting for the right side, unlike that Jackass Russ Smith and his BUGGERER column, half of which is a tired rant against the New York Times. Hey Rusty, your harangues are as pathetic as the simpering lies of your boys in the Bush Administration. Good thing you skulked off to Merryland where you can lick your wounds privately when the cold hand of history comes to bitch-slap your empty head.

Taibbi, get back to substantive and original stories. Stop recapitulating Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72, unless you plan to re-write the ending where that "dark, venal and incurably violent side of the American character" wins.

Matt Higgins, Queens

Scarfed Face

Your article on Scarface by Armond White ("Film," 10/1), and how the white media and buff sites ignored a film that has shaped our culture for the last 20 years, has set a new low for New York Press. I could barely get more than two paragraphs in before I was ready to vomit.

First off, Sean Combs and OutKast are hardly representative of the entire African-American or "minority" caucus. Second, everyone I knew growing up loved Scarface, regardless of their race. The movie was hardly ignored, more like overplayed. The show Miami Vice, the crack years of the late-80s and early-90s and plenty of other mass-cultural phenoms were clearly inspired by that movie. Third, the difference between your "white cultural events" such as Memento and The Blair Witch Project and the Scarface DVD re-issue is that these movies were new and Scarface is old.

Furthermore, it's just another "digitally remastered" reissue of a movie. Big deal. If you want to pick up the DVD, great, go ahead. It will join the ranks of all the other DVD reissues that people can fawn over, at least until the next digital format comes out, at which point it will be reissued again.

Armond, if you are white (which you probably are, given your need to prove that you, too, listened to Public Enemy), stop hating yourself. And if you are black, go out and meet some white folks-you might be suprised at how similar we all are regardless of our skin color.

James Golden, Manhattan

Kids: Bad

Bravo to Mike Signorile for having the courage to speak out against the prevailing breeder mentality! ("The Gist", 9/24). As head of the New York chapter of No Kidding!, an international social group for childfree and childless adults, I agree with a great deal of what was said about today's kid-centric culture.

I shared the article with the other members of our chapter, and it generated some lively discussion. Even in New York City, a supposed bastion of free spirits and alternative lifestyles, those of us who don't have children are often judged and criticized by people who (at least in my opinion) often appear to be doing a shoddy job of parenting their own kids.

I want to thank Signorile and New York Press for giving voice to the childfree point of view. If any of your childfree and childless readers are interested in learning more about No Kidding! or joining our local chapter, they can contact us at nokiddingnyc.com.

Amanda Jones, Brooklyn

So Shot the Sheriff

I picked up New York Press three months ago and I am totally hooked; there's nothing better in New York, especially Matt Taibbi. Matt, you are the greatest, and we wanted to let you know that there are few of us out there that are very thankful, very thankful. God bless you all.

Daniel Sheriff, Manhattan

The Clock Ran Out

MUGGER's suggestion that the age for Social Security recipients be raised to 70 (MUGGER, 10/1) because life expectancy is now longer might be cool if we didn't live in an era in which companies regularly slash employees for being too old when they're 45, and the chances of actually getting hired for a new job after 55 are about zero. Unless MUGGER has some plans for altering those realities, let's keep the S.S. age about where it is.

By the way, I used to more or less enjoy MUGGER's whimsical musings on the Boston Red Sox, but now they seem jejune and monotonous-you know, boring. I am sure I am not alone in this impression. The stuff lacks freshness.

Some months ago, didn't you ask readers to submit questions for a post-ownership interview that the new editors were going to do with MUGGER? What ever happened to that interview?

Dennis Bell, Cos Cob, CT

We'll Consult the Focus Group

Like father like son, I guess. MUGGER Jr. in his "Best Of" cartoon wrote that only communists would vote for Bloomberg. Uh, yeah ("Idiot Man," 9/24). Right.

Bloomberg should lose his job as mayor because of his hyper-capitalism. The jerk even sold out the city to Snapple! To get the votes of commies, Bloomberg would have to share his four billion dollars with everyone else, keeping only a paltry 40K a year for himself to live on.

The little right-wing brat probably said "communists" because his stupid father Russ Smith told him that a ban on carcinogens (aka, the smoking ban) hinders freedom.

Speaking of idiots, Judy McGuire wrote about not wanting to have children, but if she's younger than 34, her opinion is invalid. But then, she says when she lost her virginity at 17, she thought she was pregnant even though the guy didn't come inside her! Maybe you could rename your paper Idiot Press.

Janice Amato, Manhattan

C'mon, Koyen Doesn't Pay

A little late, but I just stumbled across Jeff Koyen's "Dusk Patrol" (9/17) and had to comment. All I can say is, leave it to a New York critic to talk about the death of rock. So much going on in his own backyard, and still he shells out his money and time to see the bands he loathes, and then writes about it. Seems more pathetic than the people he's trying to knock.

Obviously if it's lively rock 'n' roll Koyen seeks, I'd say he's looking in all the wrong places. Before he spends his next dime, maybe he should first try the radio-yes, the radio. That means trying a frequency besides K-Rock's-a bold step, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. I'm not going to give any specific directions, but if Koyen has ears, he'll know something when he hears it. There's also something called the internet, and there's literally a world of radio out there with a world of music, if New York proves too small.

As for revivalists, nostalgists and homagists, since when was Mudhoney original? Blues rock played a bit louder and faster, not a radical departure from any Led Zeppelin, save the bummed-out lyrics exchanged for fairies. And what it is that is being revived? I think Mudhoney has pretty much always been around, putting out music and touring. Maybe they should all just throw in the towel and get jobs in music stores?

I recently went to a "dinosaur" show that had Sonic Youth/GBV/Bob Mould on the bill, among others. Although I've never been a GBV fan, what was going through my head when I heard the other bands play was some great music. I had nothing but respect for the music that these bands made, and what they brought to music. I could only be so lucky to be able to write such music. Maybe Koyen should think about what he's writing and what it is that he's contributing instead of blasting others' efforts in order to cry about his lost youth.

Mike Gallagher, Chicago

CXB's Got a Dirty Diaper

Thanks for printing yet still more factually wrong information in your paper. (Perhaps you felt New York didn't have enough error-prone media?)

I know that Koyen thinks contributors to New York Press should just take our lumps, but factual mistakes are a whole different ballgame, and Janna Foster's letter ("The Mail," 9/24) slamming me in last week's issue was filled with typical kill-the-messenger nonsense.

She wrote that I "admit" to "harassment," "stalking" and "aimless political crusading" on a website, but these are completely fabricated lies. Even worse, they're remarkably ironic considering I not only have never stalked or harassed anyone in my life, but numerous juries and judges confirmed this in courts of law, which isn't open to debate.

In fact, I'm best known for kicking Giuliani's ass in court 100 percent of the time when the crook forced his female staffers to lie in court papers that I had harassed them. When questioned whether she was "asked" to be the complaining "victim," Giuliani's ex-press secretary, Colleen Roche (also crooked District Attorney Robert Morgenthau's former press aide-what an uncanny coincidence!), she admitted under oath on the witness stand that she was in fact "told" to be the "victim." Ouch!

But facts aren't interesting to right-wing pieces of garbage. And considering that I'm best-known for being one of the few Davids to fight Goliath Giuliani's repeated Nazi maneuvers as mayor, Janna's claim that I admit to aimless political crusading is clearly another big, fat fucking lie and not some "mistaken" opinion.

Janna also quotes another kill-the-messenger imbecile from girlbomb.com whose boyfriend keeps threatening to sue me (to which I predicted he couldn't and wouldn't because he's a charlatan) and wherein I'm called a "low-IQ histrionic poseur."

Bad news, dingbats: Half of my staunchest enemies have called me "brilliant" over the years (some even admitting that my intelligence is the most annoying and aggravating thing about me), so you look like the actual histrionic posers. But that's to be expected from right-wing pieces of garbage.

Man, what I would give for a single intelligent enemy.

Christopher X. Brodeur, Manhattan

James O'Meara: Failed Writer

Christ on a crutch, are you guys still publishing Knipfel? Oooh, how edgy! How al-ter-na-tive! I've never read anything like this before! Nope, we're "not talking about the typical 'we call 'em subs, they call 'em hoagies' spiel." Instead it's "soft pretzels" and "fish on Fridays" ("Slackjaw," 10/8)! Holy shit! For a whole fucking page!

Nope, no one else in New York City to publish at all. I guess anyone who doesn't rate space on that page must be some loser, huh? Chaos in Iraq, new stock bubble, fascism in California, nope, pretty slow news day. Thank Allah for the economic system that gives you the choice of what to print on that rare bit of paper.

By the way Knipfel, if that is your name, sucking washed-up Tom "I wrote a book 45 years ago" Pynchon's dick (though I imagine it wasn't all that washed-up, eh?) can only go so far. Your new book is $1.53 on Amazon. If it weren't for hacks like you, reviewers couldn't afford new scumbags.

James O'Meara, Queens