Is that all You Got Is that all You ...

Do You Know Who I Am?!?

Why don't you sissies mention that you came to my book party ("Best Media Whore Over the Age of 25," Best of Manhattan, 9/24)? And that you gladly sucked up to everyone at the page when you started? And that I didn't write the fucking review, but that someone in Russia did?

You're supposedly in the news business, and you feel free to publish things we said in confidence. You rank amateurs. I should use Page Six as a venue against you. But the next time you're mentioned in this column is when your impotent little rag folds, which, judging by the desperate tone of your latest issue, will be mighty soon, and see how much fun I make your lives when you're out looking for work.

I could kick the living shit out of both of you at the same time and you fucking know it, faggots. But I'm going to do it one at a time, so I can enjoy it more. Wait for it, you little girls.

Ian Spiegelman, Queens

Is It Molestation When It's Consensual?

"Colored People" ("Reader's Poll," Best of Manhattan, 9/24)? Oh, that's really funny. Too bad the little coward who wrote it isn't man enough to put their name to it. Which makes it probably the little cowardly little-boy-molesting editor Koyen. Well, he'll get punched in the face after his boxing match next month for writing it or making sure it appeared.

Robert Clark, Manhattan

Respect Tradition

Here's an award you should add: "Best Brother-in-law's a part-owner and they're blowing members of our staff" to New York Press for giving Mexican Radio another "Best of" award ("Best Flan," Best of Manhattan, 9/24). How many years do we have to put up with this ludicrous crap? Having dined at Mexican Radio on a number of occasions (and ordered from both the specials and regular menu), I can say the food is just not that good. That New York Press would give Mexican Radio another award given the sheer number of better Mexican restaurants in the city (Rosa Mexicano, Maya, Mexicana Mama, Dos Caminos, Hell's Kitchen, Zarela, etc.) makes me conclude that you must have a family connection and/or be getting serviced below the belt. Give it a rest, already!

Jafe Campbell, Manhattan

And Eat it, too

The best cake ("Best Cake," Best of Manhattan, 9/24)? Give me a break! I bought a piece of the red velvet cake that you called "best" in New York. Yes, it looked great and tasted good; but to have been worth God-knows-how-many calories in the huge slab they gave me, it would have to have been superb. It wasn't. So I took a few bites and threw it away. Yes, people are starving, and I wish I could have donated it somewhere. There was certainly enough left. So much for your recommendations.

Jon Harris, Manhattan

We are all Idiot Man

I think it's time to let "Idiot Man" fall by the wayside. Am I mistaken, or is he the schoolboy son of the guy who sold your newspaper and now cracks wise regarding all that pee on the floor of CBGBs from the suburbs of Maryland? What is he, 10 years old and with little to no artistic skill? Weird.

While you're at it, scrap the "Best of" edition as it stands, too. It is rife with inside jokes and loaded with places people don't and won't know about. No one wants to know the best places to meet your writers; their written words are tough enough on the eyes already.

Peter Kehoe, Hoboken

Flip Flops?

This is what happens when the kids stray from the B61. I don't know about the slices, but 14th Street and Ave. J is definitely not in Bay Ridge ("Best Bay Ridge Slice," 9/24). Not even close. It's past Ocean Parkway for Chrissakes. Here's a failsafe rule of thumb: when the "Streets" start running north-south, you're not in Bay Ridge anymore. You're not even in Bensonhurst. Or Borough Park. Stick to the flip-flop neighborhoods guys; it'll be less confusing for the readers.

Thomas Brown, Manhattan

MUGGERyland

Having lived in Washington, DC, and its surrounding suburbs, I have an idea of how tedious reportage regarding the Eastern Shore of Maryland is. Outside of that book about the horses being driven across a strait of water, I can't recall anything of non-regional significance emanating from southern Delmarva. And that is not meant to denigrate the area or the people who live there. They have their lives, and local papers to record them. Church bake sales and crab boils, upscale horsey events for the Tom Clancy set?no doubt there are many, many things happening there. But why should it be nationally advertised?

Russ Smith was a horrible bore as an essayist when he lived in Tribeca and owned the paper. But now that he has moved away, he has edged into self-parody. Please let it end.

Seth Barron, Manhattan

Dick Bilton

This week's issue was chock full of little surprises. At first I was thinking it was the dreamy cover that brought me in, but when I turned the page and saw the completely accurate sketched portrait of Mr. Nick Bilton, I knew I had found a little nugget of love sent from heaven above. Nice job to you fellas.

Paula McAleese, Brooklyn

Lost in the Supermarket

Signorile: I feel your pain! ("The Gist," 9/24) I went food-shopping last night, and in my neighborhood, it's customary that you drag along at least five family members to buy a loaf of bread: mom and pop, nanna and a few kids that touch and squeeze everything low enough to reach.

Hermann Thoni, Los Angeles

Sensitivity Training Required

Thank you for wasting ink and paper on a cranky faggot's whining about breeders ("The Gist", 9/24). While I hate ill-behaved children making a public nuisance of themselves, they are much less irritating than this melodramatic homosexual.

Boris Kogan, Monterey, CA

Bloomberg vs. Best Of

The "Best of" issue was hate-filled, angry, irresponsible and fun to read as usual. But still, in presenting critiques of city policies, you made a couple of mistakes.

On "Page Two," you said that Bloomberg wants us to rat out illegal dumpers, which you erroneously defined as everyday littering. Illegal dumping is when people put their home or business trash in the sidewalk trash cans, causing them to overflow faster than the Sanitation Dept. could ever empty them. This is why, in my neighborhood, corner trash cans are usually full by nine a.m. Somebody needs to rat these people out.

Your writers also mentioned how wasteful it was for the city to buy new walk/don't walk signs for all the intersections ("Best Waste of Public Funds," Best of Manhattan, 9/24). In reality, though, the new signs use a fraction of the electricity that the old signs used, and will probably pay for themselves in a few years.

So in this case, it's Bloomberg: 2, bitter, depressed, smoke-jonesing Press writers: 0.

Tom Patterson, Queens

At Least We Got That

So are you people ever going to get over the smoking ban, or is next year's "Best of" going to contain another 200 pages of bitching about being unable to force your disgusting and selfish habit upon New York bar-goers? Get used to it; it isn't going anywhere. Twenty years from now, the idea that you could once smoke in a bar is going to seem completely laughable everywhere but South Carolina.

Pretty much everyone else in this town has managed to get over it. Sure, there was some whining at first, but now, a few months later, almost everyone agrees that it's nice to come home after a night out without reeking of smoke. Musicians, who used to come home smelling like tobacco with their priceless gear covered in a brown haze, love it. Smokers with even a glint of social ability have been delighted at the sidewalk meatmarket they encounter every time they step out for a fag. Most of the bartenders secretly like it too; just ask them. So who doesn't? Well, anonymous bitchy New York Press editors and another few other cavemen who refuse to admit that they have no right to poison the lungs of others just because "It's a bar, man!" Really, tough shit. Grow up.

And speaking of shit, wow, that nice picture of a loaded toilet on page 108 was really great. You guys are really way ahead of the Voice when it comes to delighting the 12 and under set.

Levi Nayman, Manhattan

Because He Was There

Why attack Stephen Whitty ("Best Pandering by a Movie Critic," Best of Manhattan, 9/24)? He's a good writer, often funny and original, and his Sunday film column in the Newark Star-Ledger is one of the few regular cinema features in a U.S. daily newspaper that goes out of its way to honor old, obscure or uncategorizable stuff that isn't approved by Hollywood's publicity machine.

Added to which, he's an ethical, open-minded, literate person?qualities in short supply these days, especially among film critics. And ironically, the "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" line you excerpted to illustrate your item?Whitty praising the film for restoring Captain Nemo's original East Indian ethnicity?was a fresh and valid point. Whitty made this point in a mixed but fair review of a summer movie that I myself said had been unjustly dismissed by other film critics. In my opinion, the dismissal was due to pre-release articles implying (arbitrarily, it seems to me) that LXG was an out-of-control Hollywood blockbuster?as if all Hollywood blockbusters are not, to some degree, out of control.

The same randomly brutal treatment was given to Ishtar, Hudson Hawk and Last Action Hero, big-budget summer movies that are far from great, but that have idiosyncratic personal qualities that eluded other, less harshly treated blockbusters released in competition against them. I've often complained about this phenomenon in New York Press. American film critics spend a good part of the year sucking Hollywood's teat, then every six months they gang up in dismissing one expensive, heavily promoted (often interesting) release in a transparent attempt to prove they aren't whores. It's a grotesque phenomenon?one you should have given Whitty credit for not being a part of. His summary judgment on LXG was anything but pandering: He called the movie "a concept whose promise is never quite fullfilled."

Overall, I just don't think your item was fair. You could just as easily have randomly plucked any line from my far-more-spirited defense of LXG to illustrate that I, too, am a Hollywood suck-up. Or you could have pulled some of Armond's against-the-grain praise for Gigli to prove the same point about him.

Whitty's reviews may contain other lines that would have made your case. But the one you chose made it look as though you were vilifying the man for having independent thoughts, which surely could not have been the point.

Matt Zoller Seitz

Alpha Masta Betas

Over the years I had been an avid reader of New York Press. However, recently I've noticed a change in tone that has caused me to add your editorial staff to the growing list of scribblers that fall into a category I like to call "lacks any real insight or relevance to actual life in New York." Your being placed somewhere between Cindy Adams and Candace Bushnell comes at this time from your recent "Best of" issue's snippet on the Rumblers NYC Car Club ("Best Sorority," Best of Manhattan, 9/24).

Not only is your Hunter S. Thompson notion of what a "gang" should be pathetic and way off the mark, but your over-compensating homophobia is downright laughable. Sure, it's easy to poke fun at greasers, but the truth is, there's simply no more pathetic male creature than the frat boy with pretensions of hip-ness. A creature, I'd venture, who finds habitat in your offices.

By the way, should you actually want an insight into the rockabilly subculture, I suggest you read your former editor John Strausbaugh's E: Reflections on the Birth of the Elvis Faith. Perhaps he'll make himself available to you to help with any particularly large words.

Ilise Carter, Manhattan

Dynamic Duo

In this age of instanto-pundit, I was immediately impressed with Matt Taibbi's "Cage Match" columns when I discovered them on your site a few months ago. These are desperate times, and his bare-knuckled gonzoism is just what is needed. I was also glad to see the recent addition of Paul Krassner. While his many recent books have filled a void since the demise of the Realist, a biweekly dose of his timeless stories is also a much-needed salve for the current malaise.

Greg Lipman, Hiroshima, Japan

He Sleeps with the Bear

First off, keep up the good work. Next, I've noticed that in past months, you've had more than your share of encounters with one Christopher X. Brodeur, many of them unpleasant. Because I can sympathize, I'd like to let you in on a little semi-secret pleasure of mine: the girlbomb.com message boards. Moderated by one of CXB's performance-artist peers, our mutual friend posts under variations on his stage name, Touching You.

A perusal of the archives finds CXB admitting to romantic failure, harassment, stalking, aimless political crusading and, most recently, smashing his leg through a plate-glass window. And CXB's peers don't spare him any sympathy. A girlbomb regular aims this barb at Brodeur: "I'm so fucking glad you have some money now! Because it's much nicer to sue people who have money! after [my boyfriend] gets through with you, I'll bet you'll be wishing you died for real, you low-IQ, histrionic poseur!"

Here's to monomaniacal self-absorption and bad decision-making. Also, I know you've been printing a lot of letters lately denigrating "Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles," but it always gives me a perverse laugh. Does Neil Swaab have a girlfriend?

Janna Foster, Astoria

Full Frontal

Thank you for your "Page Two" piece on Giuliani's war on boobs (9/17). I was one of the people who attended the public hearings in front of Giuliani's puppet "zoning board," and it was the most frightening thing I've ever witnessed. (Maybe you could get the transcripts and print them.) Half the people who spoke were in favor of getting rid of the adult shops, but they were repeatedly begged by the boob-lovers to provide a single example, piece of evidence or study to back up their ridiculous claims that "we must eliminate all smut because it hurts our communities."

Maybe you could get Taibbi to dig up some dirt on Giuliani's lies about studies proving that adult bookstores and strip clubs promote crime and lower property values. A lot of my friends lost a lot of money when Giuliani's Nazi crusade partially succeeded, and you'd be doing a community service if you turned over these rocks. Also, maybe Taibbi could do a statistical comparison between the number of rapes in strip clubs versus the number of rapes in Giuliani's beloved Catholic Churches.

Janice Amato, Manhattan

Yes, Yes She Does

Bela Lugosi "rocks the party Eddie Munster-style" ("Picks," 9/10)? Does your writer understand Lugosi's Dracula predated and inspired The Munsters by three decades?

Fran Tetoro, Manhattan

Judging Hate

Mark Gauvreau Judge ("Rotation," 9/10) seems to be taking his last name too much to heart. I'm no Holy Joe myself, but I thought Mr. Judge, as a proud Christian, would remember that it is his own Bible that quotes his own savior as having said, "Judge not, lest ye be judged." Judge heard an advocate pleading for reproductive freedom for some young girls who were already pregnant (an urgent cause if ever I have heard of one), and 10 years later he realizes that he hates the woman for her efforts?or was it for the style in which she pursued her goal?

Did Judge offer financial support to the pregnant young girls so that they might bear and keep their unexpected offspring, even if at great physical and emotional cost to everyone concerned? I think a more caring attitude would have led Judge to search for practical ways to help those who work to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place. This takes thought and action, not 10 years of nursing hatred and brooding self-righteousness.

Unreflecting gut reactions such as "Bring Back Hate" do much to give organized religions a bad name, as just another fig leaf for channeling out with impunity, and even with approval, the rage and hostility that every human harbors.

Helen Derringh, Brooklyn

Crank Wanker

I was walking around with my girlfriend a few weeks ago, picked up a New York Press and said to her that Jeff Koyen's name sounded real familiar. It was about a day or two later that Crank popped into my head. I remember a good rant about Dave & Busters and getting kicked out of that horrific "entertainment" place. Sorry to say I didn't buy more issues of Crank; that's the zinewriter's fate, being appreciated too late. I know a little about that. I put out Rat Blood Soup for a few years, then it morphed into a website and I doubt I'll ever put out another issue on paper again. But I wouldn't complain; I've had some good [i.e. intelligent] reviews and some good responses from readers.

Mark Ames' attack on Klosterman ("The Flip-Flop King," 8/27) was great. I was laughing out loud on the train and read it twice. The venom, the way he just went at him without holding back, it had that zine feel and was refreshing, in light of the criticism I'm used to reading?in the weeklies, in the Times, etc. It had that mix of being critically sound and bombastic at the same time. My girlfriend thought it was poorly written, but I disagreed completely. I said it was well-written, but just wasn't the type of thing people are used to reading.

About people's objections to the article: I see from the letters that people were more offended by Ames' thoughts than by the idea of someone like Klosterman as an author. I don't think many understand how offensive something like a Klosterman is (I bashed his Fargo Rock City in one of my zines). I guess you really have to be close to these things?rock music, underground culture or whatever you want to call it?to have a full understanding of crappy criticism of it. I have several friends with encyclopedic knowledge of rock music?Klosterman wouldn't stand two minutes in a debate with them?and they are intelligent and literate. They write very well and wastefully, I think, on internet message boards and the like. No one is leaping forward to offer them positions at Spin or book deals, though any book they wrote would be many times more sophisticated and interesting than Klosterman's.

Klosterman got a somewhat bad review in the Times recently. But I think that chick was fooled by Klosterman and failed to grasp the essential nature of that book, its author and their problems. She mentions his complaint that "his chances of finding true love are nil." How old is Klosterman? Fifteen? One could vomit. I think I will.

Will Von Ratblood, Philadelphia

Come Again?

Signorile: Good point you make regarding words having consequences. "Bring 'em on!" would certainly have greater consequence than "I am ashamed, etc." especially coming from the Commander in Chief.

By the way, the fact that America has become Israel is precisely what the Zionists who control Bush (and this country) want. They have achieved their objective. America, great and powerful, has been captured by the most conniving, sinister force the world has ever seen: World Jewry. Will we ever get our country back? I am beginning to doubt it.

George Josiban, Hamilton, NJ

Jack Ripper, Reporting for Duty

There is probably also a "Plan C" at the Pentagon ("Time for Plan B," 9/10). That plan is to thin out the population, probably using some variation of smallpox.

Consider the following:

a) We and other select nations have vaccine stockpiles.

b) We have a ready-made fall guy: Islamic terrorists.

Not a very pretty plan, but then neither is nuclear warfare?and we plan for that.

Alan Gould, Brooklyn

Get Those Rocks Off

Mark Judge is right ("Rotation," 9/10): It is loads of fun to hate when there's an acceptable target for it (especially when so many unacceptable hatreds have built up). It is enormously enjoyable to believe that the Master of the Universe hates the ones we hate, and will torture them for eternity once we're through with them. It would be comforting to believe that we will never label someone as "evil" just because we need to make our preexisting hatred acceptable.

If only that weren't corrupting of us and corrosive to our purposes. If only hate weren't ultimately counterproductive, leading us as it does to fighting not our opponents but the phantasms born of our hate and fear, simultaneously super-potent and subhuman. ("We don't need Jewish Science, and the Russian beast-men can't stand up to us," or "How many divisions does the Pope have?") If only hating our enemies weren't a distraction from defeating them.

But hatred is in fact that hazardous, and we should forego it in favor of keeping our sanity, keeping our souls and prevailing.

M. Turyn, Boston

Soy Balm

Lester R. Brown forgot to mention the significant environmental impacts of America's meat-based diet ("Time for Plan B," 9/10). Cattle, pigs and chickens require lots of grain, as well as the land, water, and chemicals needed to grow that grain. Confined animal facilities generate large volumes of nutrient-rich effluent that harms rivers and coastal waters through eutrophication and low-oxygen dead zones. Cattle grazing destroys millions of acres of range land. The U.S. government should stop subsidizing meat production and should publicize the human health and environmental benefits of a vegetarian diet.

John Cantilli, Cranford, NJ

No, You're Ugly

The subhead on Russ Smith's (MUGGER, 9/10), "Dems play ugly politics," is an example of a common phenomenon?how reactionaries invert reality. Of course it's the Republicans who play ugly politics against the Democrats and others, and have been at least since the 1920s. (The latest manifestations include Ann Coulter libeling Dems as traitors, thus worthy of death, one presumes; Tom DeLay trying to gerrymander Texas; and the GOP unseating Georgia Sen. Max Cleland, who lost three of his limbs in Vietnam, by smearing him as unpatriotic.)

Jason Zenith, Manhattan

Oh Bluegrass, Where Art Thou?

Koyen: I'd like to think you're finally realizing that all this critical-theory-inspired, alterna-rock, hiphop/trip-hop/shit-hop music "journalism" crap that gets spewed out in the pages of free weekly newspapers everywhere is for kids. Kids with disposable incomes. Pure and simple. Rock music is kid stuff?it's meant to be. It has very little to do with making music and almost everything to do with marketing a certain combination of political, economic, sociological and sexual values.

Band A (insert weird meaningless name here) is better than Band B because they stand for this or that and look cooler, give off a smarmier attitude, etc. It's kid stuff for teenagers who just discovered philosophy or grad students with too much time on their hands. Welcome to adulthood! Don't "retreat" into jazz or blues?just listen to it.

I used to admire New York Press for including reviews of bluegrass albums. I like bluegrass musicians because they don't stand for anything but playing their instruments well. There is little hope of making a fortune as a bluegrass musician. There is no "scene" to aspire to. Everyone who is in it does it, purely and simply, for the love of it.

Come to a bluegrass festival and check it out. You may be depressed by the number of middle-agers in the crowd, but at least you'll hear some good music.

Bob Jackson, Manhattan

Not Jaded, Bored

I find it difficult to believe that Mr. Koyen is, as he claims, 34 years old ("Dusk Patrol," 9/17), because he writes and thinks more or less like a fairly precocious 16-year-old with that "life is black or white, a or b, and there is no middle position possible" mentality so typical of the vast majority of American teenagers.

Yes, there are many, many older rock 'n' rollers around the world making a living pandering to the tastes of shallow, nostalgic middle-aged men and women who can never hope to be as intelligent and discerning as Koyen. And who can probably never hope to be as unhappily jaded as Koyen either.

And yes, there are many younger musicians who are more or less recycling the music of those who came before them. Thank goodness the Beatles and Stones and Velvet Underground and Sex Pistols and Replacements and so many other great bands of previous eras were miraculously able to avoid the influence of older musicians and come up with absolutely unique sounds beholden to no tradition!

But the truth is, the future belongs not to the young but to whomever takes the future and makes it a more interesting, better place in which to live, whether he or she is young, middle-aged, or old. I can't speak for Mark Arm, because I'm not familiar with his band's music, but Robert Pollard, at 45, is still creating intelligent, interesting rock music and certainly contributing far more to the future than I expect Koyen will ever be able to claim to have by writing poorly conceived, narrow-minded diatribes using ideas that are at least four centuries old.

Koyen, much like people such as George Bush and his cronies, wants to live in a world of either/or, but most discerning human beings realize that's just not the way life actually is. Blanket condemnations for the most part are made by fools, and I know Koyen is not a fool. I hope Jim Shelley of Book of Kills wasn't thinking of you when he wrote the following lyrics, but they seem rather applicable:

"It really is too bad/Somehow you've become so jaded/That there is no new/Inside your ears and eyes/It really is so sad/Somehow you've become so faded/Measuring out your days/By the things that you despise"

But Jim's just another old fart with nothing to contribute to the world of the arts and life in general, so never mind.

James Bowman Nipe, Harrisonburg, VA

This Is His Time

Ah, yes, another writer (in his 30s, no less) who has decided to declare rock 'n' roll dead, because, well...because he says so ("Dusk Patrol," 9/17). Nice work, Mr. Koyen. Please wallow in your necrophilia on your own time and save the space for people who have something to say.

Derrek Carriveau, Tampa, FL

Say it, Brother

Upon reading your latest edition, I noticed that there was nothing in it by Russ Smith. No offense to your other writers, but without Smith, what's the point of publishing?

Paul DeSisto, Cedar Grove, NJ

Watch Your Back

Michelangelo Signorile is dead on-target with his most recent article ("The Gist," 9/17). I don't consider myself a paranoid individual, but the whole "big brother" concept is so great at this point in time that I'm glad someone brought it to the surface. This is far from an outlandish possibility.

Let's think a moment; many new cars have the "OnStar" system with GPS to help drivers find their way or call for roadside assistance. This is also something the government can tap into and monitor if they so choose. Additionally, there has been talk over the last few years about the ability to better protect our children from predators. Many have toyed with, and some have even looked into the idea of installing a small "chip" into our children for the express purpose of keeping an eye on them.

Their selling point is, "Imagine being able to track your child with satellites. Imagine the improved security against child abduction and kidnapping" (quoted from www.pediatric-doctor.com/child-tracking-chip-implants-safety.htm).

Think about the ramifications of this device. Your every move monitored at their choosing, and now with the potential change in the Patriot Act. Ladies and gentlemen, we are screwed. There will be a new sign on your doormat?instead of "welcome," it will say, "you are here, and the government is well aware of it!"

Gail Bentley, Manchester, NH