Missing Knipfel's Point; Go Eddie Breen, Hurrah Eva Neuberg; Acme Strikes Back; Debating NYC Cabbies; Danny Schechter's Army of Complacent Dolts
Fast Eddie
Jeff Koyen: Thank you so much for your Eddie Breen article ("Eddie Breen, the Paint Machine," 2/7). I've been enjoying his site and eBay offerings for a couple of years. It's great to read such a compelling article and find out all about the "real" Eddie. He really had me fooled. I thought he was a backwoods crazy recluse. He's laughing all the way to the bank. Love it!
Kiyotei, via Internet
No Quarter
I like the content of your paper?it's more literary and engaging than the Village Voice?but for Christ's sake, could you please stop making childish asses of yourselves like you did in "The Quarter-Way House" ("New York City," 2/14), when you couldn't resist playing catch-up with the Joneses? Jim Knipfel, in an aside hardly worth the energy it took to read, mentioned that one of the mental patients at the facility he wrote about did a stint as a part-time receptionist for the Voice, and you just couldn't help yourselves, could you? "For the record," Knipfel wrote, "New York Press put a mentally ill man behind the switchboard back in '95."
I realize it may or may not have been the writer's choice, but I like to think you guys have more self-respect than that.
Christopher Bosch, Brooklyn
The editors reply: Welcome to the party, Chris, but readers familiar with Jim Knipfel's books and column will know that he 1) spent time in a psych ward years ago and 2) used to be New York Press' receptionist. So the passage to which Bosch refers wasn't "playing catch-up" with anybody; it's what's known in the trade as a "self-deprecating aside."
Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me
When are you no-balls fags going to stop this filth? Get a red-light district and cut out leaving this garbage in stores and on street corners. Kids read it, and look what we have: children raping children and women being raped on the street. I bring five copies to burn in my fireplace and the mothers in my luxury apartment house are refusing to shop in stores that carry your shit.
Rome and Greece were brought down by this crap. As you could read if you ever read anything longer than four-letter words.
Name Withheld, Manhattan
Free Jazz
Eva Neuberg ("Music," 2/14) wrote what I would have about the Jazz series?that is, if I had been a splendid writer able to think with supreme clarity. So I have to conclude she's just real, real good. I expect you agree.
Thank you for publishing her article and for the other consistently interesting pieces in New York Press, which has become a daily necessity here. I've managed to get my daughters at college addicted to William Bryk's "Old Smoke" series; they keep writing to say, Geez, I never heard of that. Well, I was taught history when it was taken more seriously than now, and I never heard of a lot of that either. Wonderful, valuable stuff.
It's dorky to write a letter to the editor anyway, completely inexcusable unless the letter says everything sucks. I'm terribly ashamed, naturally, but it just seemed necessary to say you people have assembled a magnificent thing down there.
Larry Allis, via Internet
Turn of the Screw
I would like to thank the eloquent James Morrow for bringing to my attention how poorly he was treated in my establishment ("Food," 2/7). I can't imagine how a waitress could overlook anyone who has such a high opinion of women. Could it be that this treatment was a result of his?to borrow from pop psychology?repressed sexual desires? It must be hard to be such a geek. But I am heartened that he got his waitress-lesbian-rock-'n'-roll-group-sex-in-a-vacant-building thing out in the open. Though if I may offer a suggestion, I think that his fine writing talent might be better put to use in another weekly?namely, Screw.
Still, I would like to reassure Mr. Morrow that all critical assessments of Acme Bar & Grill are taken very seriously?especially when a knowledgeable and well-regarded food critic from New York Press offers them.
Oh, and by the way, we are not a "Tex-Mex" restaurant. One would figure that with all the time Mr. Morrow had to wait for someone to pay attention to him, that he would have had time to check out the menu. Still, feedback is feedback, however lazy.
Craig Dietsch, general manager, Acme Bar And Grill, Manhattan
Father Robert Shea, RIP
A minor anecdote about a character.
An acquaintance of some 15 years' standing, Father Robert Shea, died last Thursday morning after a long illness. He was a Harvard man with degrees in engineering and French literature, went into the Army Air Forces and then into the Air Force in 1947, spent 25 years in the USAF and then retired to a second career.
For about a decade, he was director of the American Legation Museum in Morocco at Tangier (through some bizarre accident, His Majesty the Sultan recognized the United States in 1777; we have enjoyed diplomatic relations with Morocco for longer than any other nation, which relationship is the Museum's reason for being). The museum, of course, has absolutely nothing to do with the Central Intelligence Agency. When Shea retired from what some might have thought an interesting but relatively unimportant post, King Hassan granted him the honor of Knight Grand Officer of the Order of Ouissam Alaouit Cherifien, the sort of thing the King might give a foreigner for the most distinguished service. Somewhere along the line, the Holy Father had also made Shea a Knight Grand Cross of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre, which is the context in which I knew him best.
Anyway, by then a widower, Shea entered the priesthood, was incardinated in the Diocese of Gibraltar (he visited Gibraltar every year to pay his respects to his Ordinary, but he disliked Gibraltar and its people with unusual passion) and returned to New York. He served as chaplain at Leo House and several senior citizens' homes; he occasionally appeared at formal dinners in his cassock wearing the plaques of the Holy Sepulchre and the OAC (someone once murmured that Bob Shea was a truly remarkable man, as once a knight was quite enough for most of us); and he was delightful company. Unlike many priests, he was refreshingly masculine; although a voluntary celibate under a vow of chastity, he liked women and they liked him; he could hold his liquor; and he was deeply considerate of other people. He was a good listener, which may have grown out of his second career: he had the gift of making even quiet people talk well.
William Bryk, Manhattan
Frilly Lace Teddy
Sam Schulman: If you have to trash The New York Times ("Taki's Top Drawer," 2/14), please get your facts straight and don't mislead your readers. Ted Kaczynski's Unabomber manifesto was only published by The Washington Post, as a separate pullout, on Sept. 19, 1995?not by both the Post and the Times, as your article suggests. And in their joint statement of the previous day, Sulzberger of The New York Times and Graham of the Post made it clear that the Unabomber "threatened to send a bomb to an unspecified destination with 'intent to kill.'" Why blame them for having for once averted a tragedy?
Thomas Girst, Brooklyn
The editors reply: While the manifesto ran only in The Washington Post, the decision to publish it, as Schulman wrote, was made jointly with The New York Times. Sulzberger stated that the Times shared both the responsibility and the costs of publishing the document.
It Ain't Lenexa
MUGGER: Your column suggests to me that New York City may contain at least a few individuals who are thoughtful and sane. No offense meant, but most of my understanding of New Yorkers comes from television. Thanks for putting a human, sometimes even sentimental, face on what always seemed to me like a very dark, very alien city.
Best to the family, and keep up the good work.
Matt Loehrer, Lenexa, KS
Hacking Cough
Jack Trask ("Yellow Peril: Good Cabbies Are Being Punished by the TLC," 2/14) is right?the TLC is barbaric, arbitrary and needs to be disbanded. A test like the one appearing below would turn every applicant into a bona fide New York cabdriver in one lesson. Here goes:
1. Feel free to stop wherever you like when picking up and discharging passengers?crosswalks, the middle of the street, wherever. Stop suddenly and do not use your signals for any reason.
2. Ask, "Where are you going?" at night after you've pulled over for a possible fare, and keep the doors locked until the passenger tells you it's not Queens or Harlem.
3. When the passenger is in your cab, do not respond when they tell you the street address they want to go to. Just drive. In fact, do not respond to anything; drive as if you are alone. The passenger will figure out you heard them.
4. If passengers persist in their attempts at two-way communication with you, let them ask the same question three times, then say, "I have ears!" or "I heard you!"
5. A yellow light means "speed up."
6. Get into fights with other drivers at the slightest provocation. Cut across four lanes to yell at someone.
7. If you do choose to converse, remember that New Yorkers are very interested in the lives of immigrants and their adventures because we have none of our own. All of us got jobs and cheap apartments with no trouble at all. Keep talking even if the passenger shows no interest or can't hear you.
8. Hit on female passengers at will. Feel free to inquire about any personal information you may wish to know about them, including their sexual habits.
9. Blame new passengers for the ones that were rude to you earlier in the day.
10. Blame passengers for the fact that you're far from home working a high-stress job for comparatively little pay.
Janet Detwiler, Brooklyn
Tender Loving Care
Jack Trask: You hit the nail on the head when you stated that the TLC is responsible for replacing good cabbies with smelly, ignorant, poor-driving, inexperienced shitheads by busting the balls of the good cabbies in a preposterous, one-sided sting operation.
It's remarkable that the lousy new cabbies also figured out in very short order that not only will a filthy, crack-addled panhandler of any color, race, size or dimension kill him, but he will probably be a lousy tipper if he chooses to forgo murder. While there's no guarantee that a rider in a business suit will be any more generous than a wino or crack-addict, at least such a rider gives the initial appearance that he will not stiff the driver out of a tip. Not only that, a person in a business suit generally has a more difficult time sprinting from a cab without paying. What most cabbies realize is that baggy pants and gym trainers are very useful and appropriate attire to be used when dodging a fare altogether.
I've seen it happen many times over. A cab stops for a light and the passenger sprints off. What's a cabbie going to do? Run after the guy? Catch him? Risk assault and battery charges for doing the right thing? It's probably not politically correct to assume that one is a criminal for running from a cab without paying. Therefore, the cabbie must let him go.
TLC Chairwoman McGrath-McKechnie sounds like some political hack who's probably deaf, dumb and stupid on top of having her head up her ass. I'm fed up with bureaucracy and the oppression of the working stiff. Fuck Danny Glover and his self-righteous moralizing. Isn't he the same guy who's in those murder/explosion movies?
Sean Seamus MacDiarmada, Manhattan
Pass the Driver
How did Jack Trask ever manage to track down three good cabbies among the 41,000 in New York City? That was truly investigative journalism of the highest order. I didn't think there were that many good drivers until I read his article in New York Press.
The fact of the matter is that New York City's cabdrivers are bad, and the only recourse to the average citizen subjected to their rudeness or incompetence is the Taxi and Limousine Commission. New York's taxi drivers seem to follow the rule of the old country: namely, the bigger vehicle gets the right of way and everyone else crosses at their peril. They toot their horns as if that was an essential element in the fuel-injection process?or perhaps to reawaken their lost manhood?and it doesn't matter that they awaken sleeping people at 4 a.m. as they mass together to chaotically converge on stragglers making their way out of closed discos and bars.
And while every citizen is sorry about the number of cabbies killed on the job (although really it is livery drivers who suffer the brunt of that tragedy), why do newspapers never report the number of pedestrians killed and maimed each year by those selfsame cabbies, who fall asleep at the wheel or gab on cellphones or just plain drive like shit? I'm sure the numbers would amaze if they were ever to be reported. And why is there no penitent contingent of cabdrivers at the funerals of citizens killed by one of their own? They won't come to my funeral; I'm not going to theirs. And the speeding! My Lord, the taxi business is truly one where an abused gas pedal is the ticket to increased disposable income.
God bless the TLC. When the Life club was open across the street from me, and taxi drivers honked all night in pissing matches over fares, or as they fought the gridlock of their own making, the TLC was the only body to listen to my plaints. I reported these violators of the night. The honking violation fines were minimal at $50 and should have been higher. But the TLC judges imposed them nonetheless, and I had the satisfaction of knowing that the unnecessary honking cost them a good five fares.
As for the three good cabdrivers Mr. Trask found, I thank him for making me once again believe in miracles.
Gary Rosenberger, Manhattan
Crosses the Alps
Thank you for that worthwhile review ("Film," 2/14) of Hannibal by Matt Zoller Seitz. I'm glad that someone finally got it right. The Silence of the Lambs was not that great, and Hannibal is substandard and glorifies violence.
I think it's important to note that Harris' novel Hannibal does exactly the same thing. All of his victims in this book seem to deserve what they get. It reminded me of the Leopold-Loeb case, or Rope by Hitchcock, where the killers believe they have a superiority that makes them able to make decisions about who deserves to live or die. Keep up the good work!
Beth Younger, Baton Rouge
Can We Just Be Friends?
Lionel Tiger: I am sorry to read that you had such an allergic reaction to The Vagina Monologues ("Human Follies," 2/7). Do you have many women as friends?
Gina Seghi, Manhattan
Danny's Boy
I can't decide whether David Grad is a twit or a child. After reading his review of Danny Schechter's Falun Gong's Challenge to China ("Books," 2/7), I think he's both. Not only was the review lazy, naive and boorish, but it seemed motivated by jealousy over Schechter's "guaranteed employment as a talking head for the foreseeable future, as tv and radio news programmers scramble to cover what promises to be a war to the death between Falun Gong and the geriatric Beijing regime." This kind of crybaby crap permeates the entire review, and, while entertaining, does New York Press readers a real injustice.
As for the hour and a half conversation between author and reviewer, Schechter probably thought it was for Grad's high school newspaper, and Grad has every right to feel slighted. It's natural for adolescents to feel a certain amount of inferiority over not being taken seriously, and that certainly comes through. But Grad reveals his true twit nature when he concurs with the official Chinese government position that Falun Gong is nothing more than a suicidal cult, and gives his blessing to the religious persecution of its practitioners, presumably because nobody can explain Falun Gong theology to Grad's satisfaction. Torquemada would be proud! Finally, Grad blames the proposed U.S. missile shield on the "human rights journalism" of Schechter's book, and the frenzy of anti-Chinese feeling it will engender, a poor specimen of sophistry that left me convinced that Grad hadn't even read the book. He certainly doesn't engage the book, an important work that is the best resource on Falun Gong currently available.
All of this I blame on the New York Press' talented editors, who should have assigned the review to an adult, or at least asked Danny Hellman to come up with a different illustration to accompany it, rather than the nasty, Hearst-era caricature of a self-immolating Falun Gong practitioner holding a copy of Schechter's book. In the future, when you choose to run something penned by someone so young and inexperienced, please have the piece vetted by the writer's mother, at least. Children can be so cruel.
Joe Fodor, Brooklyn
The editors reply: Last week Grad was a right-winger, this week he's an adolescent. If their letters are any indication of the quality of mentation among Schechter and his minions, we remain confident that the book was every bit as bad as Grad declared it. And Hellman's illo was brilliant.
Dog Days
Alexander Cockburn's 1/31 "Wild Justice" column on Ariel Sharon the terrorist, while most likely factually correct, tells half a story. As the prime minister-elect, he will soon be in the arena opposing Arab leaders who are terrorists of equal stature. It was the BBC in the 1970s, at least, that called Palestinians guerrillas, while the IRA were terrorists. It depends on who's buying and who's selling. I don't put Cockburn above having his own rooting interest.
Sharon is a warrior, and war doesn't always have delicate strategies. Israel has been at war for more than 50 years. Thus there have been many atrocities along the way. It would be nice to know the Israelis are also able to commit them.
Peter Schleger, Manhattan
Last American Virgin
I feel compelled to respond to Taki's article entitled "Bill the Bribed," published in the 1/31 "Top Drawer." I believe that articles of a political nature can be controversial and partisan. However, this article is so biased and inaccurate that it should be challenged. I will separate fact from fiction.
I acknowledge that President Clinton's pardoning of Marc Rich and Pinchus Green was inappropriate. However, the tone and content of the article was one-sided. It did not acknowledge many of the achievements of the Clinton administration. It made many allegations without citing any evidence or facts to back them up. One fact that is ignored is that presidential pardons have historically been used at the end of a sitting president's term of office. It is an American tradition and the presidency has great leeway in granting pardons. Of course, not everyone can be pardoned. Mr. Taki makes no mention of this and goes on to say that Belgium is "probably the most corrupt country in Europe." However, his reasoning is specious at best and not relevant to our country's history of granting pardons. In addition, there are too many claims in his article to challenge in a brief letter to the editor. However, Taki's last paragraph is the most inaccurate. He states that "Clinton lied under oath in a court of law and got away with it." It was widely reported in the media that President Clinton had to pay a substantial fine and his law license was suspended for five years in Arkansas.
In short, this article appears to be pro-Republican as well as misleading. It does not even acknowledge that the economy has enjoyed the longest period of prosperity in history. It also does not mention important progressive legislation that had been enacted by President Clinton's administration. In summary, I reaffirm that this article is misleading, inaccurate and unfocused on the issue of presidential pardons.
Walter Messner, Manhattan
The editors reply: New York Press regrets the error.
Napster Diving
In response to William S. Repsher's statement, "Napster was the first, and most likely will be the last, of its kind" ("Music," 1/31), let me simply say: horseshit and fiddlesticks!
Napster's one fatal weakness was its use of a centralized registry to reference which songs were available and which songs were being downloaded by users. Because this centralized registry operates as a single point of failure, Napster's service can be shut down with relative ease. What Repsher completely ignores is existing technology like Freenet, which uses anonymous distributed registries to accomplish the same task without the single point of failure flaw. Shutting down something like Freenet (there are also similar programs available) would be akin to shutting down thousands upon thousands of anonymous, separate mini-Napsters. Even with all their money, the recording industry will never be able to extend itself to that degree.
Repsher might also want to brush up on the concept of person-to-person networks, since that's the key to what's really going on here. I don't know anyone who downloads music from actual websites anymore. These "smaller P2P companies" he refers to?never use them. Never would. Who does? Geezers? What people need to realize with respect to the question of downloading music over the Internet is that you can't jump back into the airplane. While the morality of this issue is clear?it's stealing?the reality is equally clear?it's here to stay. Without a fundamental restructuring of how the Internet operates and how encryption is designed, music (and movies, once bandwidth is improved) will always be available to anyone who wants it at any time for free. The RIAA can keep going to court, shutting down one service after another, but the courts will never be able to stay ahead of the technology. The minute one door is closed, another smarter, more anonymous one will open up. It's a brand new world.
If the RIAA was truly devious and wanted to get rid of Napster and its relations, they'd spend less money on lawyers and more money absolutely flooding the Internet with new, pernicious viruses. That's the only real way to get people to stop downloading.
Josh Tate, Los Angeles
Annihilate This Week
MUGGER: Enjoyed your comments very much. Will start reading your column regularly now.
Lesley Van Borssum, Monrovia, CA
Bragging Rights
MUGGER: I just finished your latest column and was, as usual, very impressed.
I write because several weeks ago ("e-MUGGER," 1/29) you mentioned something about John McCain's health, and then you mentioned it again in this latest piece: "The delusional McCain (who may be seriously ill)..." I had watched him two months or so ago on tv and thought that he looked like death. Your comment a few weeks past and this latest one have only made me more curious as to the state of his melanoma (which I, and it sounds like you also, suspect spread to some vital organ). My grandfather has melanoma and I've had several older relatives who have been sick, and McCain looks like a dying man. My question is whether or not there is some basis for your suppositions other than the same observations I have made? Are there rumors in Washington that suggest he is ill?
Secondly, on a lighter note, I just want you to know that I genuinely look forward to your column every week and usually print it at work but then save it like one does that last piece of cake. I like to read it at just the right time, whether on the bus or on my couch, because it unfailingly has me laughing, nodding my head and, most importantly, thinking. I pass it along to anyone who will take it. I leave copies on the bus hoping others will pick it up, and I fax a copy to my dad in Atlanta every week. I know that exposure is not important to you (at least in terms of gaining fame), as that is not part of your personality, but I feel that your writing is so dead-on on a consistent basis and that it is such a breath of fresh air compared to the liberal scripts being recited and written by so many other pundits.
Bragg Van Antwerp, Manhattan
Fry Her, Tuck
MUGGER: When Tucker Carlson (2/14) appears with his mother Margaret on CNN, he seems very prone to the peer pressure of the left-wingers on the panel. He projects his opinions in a very deferential manner at times, so as not to upset his mom.
He's too eager to please when around the girls. You're right, he needs to get a job at Fox News where, I'm sure, his backbone would stiffen a bit.
G. Chapline, Houston
Flying Foxes
MUGGER: Way to go with the critique of Tucker Carlson. Maybe if he read O'Reilly's book he'd understand why CNN is sinking while Fox flies.
Jane Geraci, Houston
No Galen-try
MUGGER: Hmmm. You pick the strangest times to get civil; I guess we can chalk it up to misplaced gallantry. I'm a Democrat, and even I disagree with you about the appropriateness of Rich Galen (2/7) trashing Jean Carnahan's vote against John Ashcroft.
Carnahan is not your typical recent widow, and criticizing her for anything at this point is not "unseemly." When she decided to fill her husband's Senate seat she became a very public figure, one of the most well-known women in the country, and is certainly open game for any type of criticism regarding her public duties.
Mike Brewster, Manhattan
Russ Smith replies: This is the face of modern liberalism. Yes, Jean Carnahan is a public figure and is not a neophyte in the public arena. However, 42 Democrats voted against Ashcroft, some of them smearing him in the process. Galen had a vast array of hypocritical targets to pick from. To blast a woman whose husband and son died just last fall is worthy of creeps like Alan Dershowitz, Todd Gitlin and James Carville. Mrs. Carnahan didn't grandstand on the Senate floor, reading talking points from special-interest groups. She stated her opposition to Ashcroft and voted no. I didn't agree with that vote, and in the future there will be ample opportunity to criticize, even skewer, her for backing proposed legislation, but right now she's no doubt still in mourning.
Jr. Ewing
MUGGER: Waaaay back in kindergarten, my twin brother was suspended for throwing a block at the teacher, who escorted him out the door with the words, "Come back when you grow up!"
No kidding.
Barry Ewing, Bainbridge Island, WA
American Boh Hunter
MUGGER: Reading your stuff on Baltimore awakens my 1970s memories of drinking frosty mugs of National Boh at Bertha's, the Horse You Rode in On and the Block. God bless Baltimore. What a wonderful place for a young man to come of age.
You should have punctuated your commentary with: "Fuck Russell Baker and fuck Clyde Haberman!"
Tony Harrison, Greenland, NH
Hippie Brawl!
MUGGER: Rolling Stone's Robert Love perfectly conveys the experience of listening to the Beatles as both "joyful" and "jarring." He goes on to say that there is "so much more to hear in these songs than ever came through the car speakers or dorm stereo."
So why MUGGER characterizes these observations as "cotton-candy bullshit" (2/14) is difficult to fathom. As best as I can figure, MUGGER enjoyed listening to his transistor radio in the 1960s, but now would lump a Dave Clark Five disposable pop tune together with a timeless classic by the Beatles. They're all 1960s-era rock 'n' roll junk in MUGGER's world.
Let's get down to specifics, MUGGER. Here's what's joyful about this album: the renewed realization that in a space of six years this group of twentysomethings produced a string of artistic and commercial masterpieces, each one incredibly different from the rest.
And here's just one example of why the album is indeed "jarring": I would swear that behind the vocals of "Paperback Writer," one can hear the sound of a cheap typewriter cranking out mediocre manuscripts. The methodical staccato of those drums/typewriters adds an hilarious dimension to the song. Brilliant, but an element that completely escaped my attention on that old car radio.
Slip on a pair of headphones, you cynical bastard. It's obvious you need a good jarring.
Wayne Cotter, North Babylon, NY
Russ Smith replies: Wayne, put the bong down and get a grip. I hardly think the Beatles' work in the 60s was garbage; nor do I put the Dave Clark Five in the same category as the Beatles, Rolling Stones or Bob Dylan. My point was this: the joy of listening to 60s-era rock was infinitely more satisfying when the music was actually released. The anticipation of a new record by one of those groups was overwhelming to a teenager or young adult. There is no more fresh material: discovering a nuance in a 35-year-old hit is interesting, but hardly "jarring."
Bay City Roller
MUGGER: I'm sure you get scads of fan mail so I'll make this short. I stumbled onto your column about six months ago. Since then I've had a pretty lively read every week or so, and thought I'd let you know how much I enjoy it.
I'm out here in the Bay Area, so my knowledge of New York City isn't extensive, but your colorful descriptions of the place have painted a real nice picture. I like your humor, I like your column and I like the points you make. Your observations and reflections are as informative as they are stimulating.
So what do you make of our esteemed Cruz Bustamante getting a little tongue-tied here two weeks ago? Reminds me of Dick Armey's "Barney Fag" deal a few years back.
Scott Neubold, Redwood City, CA
Some Honest Talk About Vaginas
Last week, Lionel Tiger's critical "Dick Jokes for Women" ("Human Follies," 2/7) challenged Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues. Female readers replied with anger, and a lot of references to Greek mythology. One went as far as to say Tiger should not comment on the piece because he "does not have his own vagina" ("The Mail," 2/14).
I have a vagina. I found the piece, using Tiger's words, segregationist. I have yet to see anything but praise for the play elsewhere, and I am relieved someone else does not worship the play, simultaneously making me worry that I fight for the wrong team. But I walked out of the play dissatisfied, a feeling neither a female my age nor my mother, the two people I attended the play with, could relate to.
Unlike Tiger's, my complaint does not accuse the piece of being simply "Dick Jokes for Women," because I think women's history, bodies and lives deserve the attention heaped on them in the form of pieces like Ensler's. We have to make up for things ignored in the past. But Ensler's piece targets a specific audience interested in vaginas. Tiger, his allegations of irresponsible scenes of pedophilia aside, calls the piece segregationist. Males got left behind in the women's movement, he says, as no males enroll in women's studies, and no males have a voice in pieces like Ensler's. I agree with his gripe, and I entertained the thought of a jocko guy walking out of the show dissatisfied that no monologue represented his feelings about pussy.
Well, having a pussy myself, I walked out in shock and disappointment that I felt left out of the subject matter, when the subject matter stayed with me, between my legs all my life. I felt no kindred spirit with Ensler's vaginas. Ensler presents categorical vaginas. And though I can relate to the societally shamed vagina, the victim vagina, the sexually aware vagina, the shy vagina and the mother vagina, many other incarnations went undiscussed. My vagina, like the vaginas of most women I know, experienced sexual freedom early. Our vaginas now deal with consequences of sexual freedom excluded from those vaginas documented in Ensler's monologues.
Ensler left out vagina troubles caused by sexual freedom. Abortion, herpes, birth control problems?all these went undiscussed. Maybe, like many women outside of their 20s, Ensler's characters do not know how to talk about herpes or abortion. Damn it, I need to talk about these things, as do most of my peers. My aunts won't talk to me about problems we all share; my mom avoids talking about the vagina problems she had. I thought Ensler would open up a dialogue I crave, one about the problems we women bring to our own vaginas. Instead, she presented attacks on vaginas by society and men. The disregard for women's roles making trouble for vaginas comes off as pointing a great big finger in the wrong direction, and this may be the source of Tiger's animosity. I walked away from the piece disappointed, too.
I remember the one time I had a candid discussion about vagina troubles, on the back stairwell of my Seattle apartment one summer night. It was the summer I discovered my vagina, a body part my mom had failed to fully explain. The two girls I lived with had sex lives, which I refused to have. School had taught me I had a vagina, even a clitoris, but that summer my roommates taught me about vibrators. And oral sex. G-spots. All from conversation.
We spent much of our summer on the back porch of our building, drinking red wine or apricot beer and talking. One night we started a dialogue not only about the positive parts of sex, but the complications. Five young women discussed our bodies and what we had done to them. It started when Sarah, 19, said she wanted a tubal ligation, and could not find someone willing to perform her procedure because of her youth. Most of us expressed outrage: freedom for our bodies, blah, blah, blah. One of my roommates, Jessica, spoke up in agreement with the refusing doctors. She had an abortion at 18, on her own, at Planned Parenthood, with no one to hold her hand. She admitted she wished she had just protected herself from pregnancy with birth control. Not only did she get pregnant, she got herpes. Controlling pregnancy with a tubal ligation would not control exposure to STDs. Sarah said she just could not risk the ineffectiveness of birth control, because she would feel like she killed a baby. Jessica, insulted, admitted that she knew when the baby would have been born, and it haunted her, and she wished she never got an abortion. Looking straight at Sarah, Jessica said to talk to her when she had a baby inside her at age 18. A life decision stays with you for life. Birth control makes the decision short-term. The tubal ligation faded from Sarah's plans within months.
In the same conversation, glamorous Bridgette, who I have since seen in cameos on MTV, asked Jessica how she dealt with her herpes. Jessica talked about the pain, how they came and went, how they never seem to go away. Bridgette admitted she wanted to compare herpes to her genital warts. The warts, as they grew large, needed to be burned off by cryotherapy, or freezing. She talked about the pain, and going to the clinic with her boyfriend. He had them, too. The virus can hide in your body for months. Everyone paused to reflect on the possibility that the disease might be in them.
Except me. I kept my legs crossed adamantly, afraid of anything and everything that could happen down there. Little did I know I would have plenty to discuss in a couple of years. My hypochondriac roommate Leah asked Bridgette questions about getting genital warts. Leah went into her own vagina problems, going over her frequent yeast infections due to her sexual escapades with her boyfriend. She told us about having her boyfriend get tested for HIV, herpes and anything else they can test for before she agreed to have sex with him. What a lucky man he was. He was uninfected.
HIV, genital warts, abortion, herpes. None of these words enter into The Vagina Monologues. Ensler's based her writings on actual interviews. I wish she interviewed me. My vagina has a lot to say; and I have a lot to apologize to it for. Sounds ridiculous, apologizing to a body part, but all the women I talked to that evening on my back porch in Seattle can relate, and many others can, to the remorse we feel for mistreating a body part Ensler rightly points out as being vital. It is how most of us come into this world. Including men. And Tiger rightly pointed out the omission of men's perspective from Ensler's piece. Those of us with vagina troubles or no vagina at all get left in the cold during Ensler's piece. She simplifies a complex subject. Like Tiger, I want a dialogue, none of this monologue bullshit anymore. Get some men in on this conversation. I know somewhere out there a bunch of guys sit on a back porch talking about their girlfriends' abortions or their own STDs.
One of the most amazing comments I have heard concerning vaginas came from a 15-year-old male, soon to come out as a homosexual. I asked him what sex was like, as he was sleeping with a senior cheerleader girl, and I still avoided the whole subject. He said nervously, "I feel like an intruder."
I want to know men's takes on the vagina. I think we would all be pleasantly surprised at what some men have to say about it. I mean, what must it be like first seeing all those folds of pink and smelling that new smell? I will start asking these questions of random men at parties, when they near drunkenness.
Laura Scott, Brooklyn
More About Vaginas
The labels Lionel Tiger slaps on The Vagina Monologues?self-righteous, whiny, alienating?are much more accurately applied to his own review.
Poor us, we men! No longer the only population catered to at Madison Square Garden or in universities. Instead of celebrating this development, Tiger reacts with defensiveness. The Vagina Monologues is much more than just a litany of nicknames for the female genitalia and the account of statutory rape with which Tiger has such problems (these were true stories?kudos to Ensler for including them, even if it's not flattering to women). What about the ones dealing with the oppression of women in Afghanistan and the violation of them in Bosnia? How one could say the Monologues lacked heart? Seems heartless, if you ask me.
Furthermore, Tiger's either/or presentation of female monologue versus male-female dialogue ignores the fact that both can and should occur simultaneously. Just as ethnic minority empowerment movements do not negate the value of cross-cultural dialogue, neither does feminism preclude intergender collaborations. If the empowerment of women relates to being assertive without being called a bitch (or whiny and self-righteous), then the empowerment of men relates to being assertive without getting angry, as Tiger did, and showing vulnerability without being called a faggot, or a pussy.
That women get together to reclaim this last word and this body part that men have for so long tried to exploit should not be criticized. Yes, some of feminism feels offensive and exclusionary to men, and Tiger makes the good point that men should be included in dialogues on gender as well as in social programs designed to help families. In order