Newspaper Page Text
Not An Olympic Commentary 7Cc W oCe 19
Jared keeps calling me saying he
needs articles. Any volunteers 'out
there? More letters to the editor, more
regular columns, how about some film
reviews? It was good to see all those
letters in the last issue, a particularly
eloquent one from the Indigo Girls,
whose comments about that tactless (I
thought about exactly what word to
use here for awhile, something in
between innocently ignorant and heh
heh heh vicious and came up with
TACTLESS) cartoon held out such a
calm, level, peacepipe ’hand. New
opinions are a dime a dozen and this
paper is free so mine is a bargain. I'd
say that there is a difference between
censoring and editing. Everything we
do and say has to answer to our own
personal editorial policies. And when
what you opine speaks to and affects
others, as mediums like radio,
television, publications, etc. do,
you've got to, at some point, take an
EDITORIAL STANCE..
Now I would have enjoyed Tom
Roberson's cartoons in past issues of
the Flagpole, and 1 would like to
assume that Tom meant me harm with
his negatively stereotyped portrayal of
lesbian women. But would Tom have
drawn and would Jared have run a
cartoon portraying Aunt Jemima
standing on line to see School Daze
and talking jive? Think about it.
There's no difference between the two
- neither of them is funny, both feed
steortypes that need to be starved to
death.
On the heels of this whole
discussion, I came upon a magazine
in my bathroom that featured an
excerp from a new book called
Psychotic Reations and Carberator
Dung. Greil Marcus compiled a
selection of. Lester Bang’s writings, I
guess mostly from Creem magazine
and the Village Voice, and the article
I read, "The White Noise
Supremacists" was the best thing I've
read in many months. Bangs revolu
tionized ROCK WRITING by
conquering the aside, by writing with
honesty and passion. Now more than
ever Bang is revered and
appreciated, enjoying a posthumous
celebrity, and how ironic that as his
style has prompted a whole school of
rock criticism, so many of the students
have missed the beat, all bite and no
brains, we looked up this word too:
vitriol. Vitriolic just for the sake of it.
Anyway, it looks like a book to read.
Thoughtful words in an arena where
they are strangers. And so starts the
list.
1. Psychotic Reactions and
Carberator Dung. Lester bangs/Greil
Marcus.
2. Ironweed. Read the book instead.
Therein you will find all the comic
tragedy in Francis Phelan that Jack
Nicholson left behind in a golden
Albany gutter. I know that sounds
corny maybe, comic tragedy, but it's
the truth, (and it tips the scale towards
tragic) and Meryl Streep knows it as
Helen, a once actively performing
singer now ruined by bad luck and the
bottle. Streep is incredible and
everyting she does here, from slanted
eyes to limping walks to lecturing
strangers, shows the pain of
KNOWING BETTER, of knowing that
it's all downhill and you remembe the
view. Good script, horrible direction,
worse editing, read the book. Yeah - •
nice opening shot.
3. One night a few weeks ago, Mamie
Fike of Long Low Rumble was playing
with some friends. She put down her
violin and a moment later it was
accidenally stepped on, Yikes. Help
her fix it or get a new one by coming