Happy Birthday, Thomas Wolfe

110 years-young, today. Is it just me, or does Wolfe's hair always look like he just finished a very long very fast drive in a convertible?

You Can't Go Home Again is officially Wolfe's final novel. The last few pages—Credo, and his afterward—is very fine, indeed, and contains prose that most writers can only aspire to. It is also as relevent today as it was when it was written, 73 years ago:

I believe that we are lost here in America, but I believe we shall be found. And this belief, which mounts now to the catharsis of knowledge and conviction, is for me—and I think for all of us—not only our own hope, but America's everlasting, living dream. I think the life which we have fashioned in America, and which has fashioned us—the forms we made, the cells that grew, the honeycomb that was created—was self-destructive in its nature, and must be destroyed. I think these forms are dying, and must die, just as I know that America and the people in it are deathless, undiscovered, and immortal, and must live.

I think the true discovery of America is before us. I think the true fulfilment of our spirit, of our people, of our mighty and immortal land, is yet to come. I think the true discovery of our own democracy is still before us. And I think that all these things are certain as the morning, as inevitable as noon. I think I speak for most men living when I say that our America is Here, is Now, and beckons on before us, and that this glorious assurance is not only our living hope, but our dream to be accomplished.

I think the enemy is here before us, too. But I think we know the forms and faces of the enemy, and in the knowledge that we know him, and shall meet him, and eventually must conquer him is also our living hope. I think the enemy is here before us with a thousand faces, but I think weknow that all his faces wear one mask. I think the enemy is single selfishness and compulsive greed. I think the enemy is blind, but has the brutal power of his blind grab. I do not think the enemy was born yesterday, or that he grew to manhood forty years ago, or that he suffered sickness and collapse in 1929, or that we began without the enemy, and that our vision faltered, that we lost the way, and suddenly were in his camp. I think the enemy is old as Time, and evil as Hell, and that he has been here with us from the beginning. I think he stole our earth from us, destroyed our wealth, and ravaged and despoiled our land. I think he took our people and enslaved them, that he polluted the fountains of our life, took unto himself the rarest treasures of our own possession, took our bread and left us with a crust, and, not content, for the nature of the enemy is insatiate—tried finally to take from us the crust.

I think the enemy comes to us with the face of innocence and says to us:

"I am your friend."

I think the enemy deceives us with false words and lying phrases, saying:

"See, I am one of you—I am one of your children, your son, your brother,and your friend. Behold how sleek and fat I have become—and all becauseI am just one of you, and your friend. Behold how rich and powerful Iam—and all because I am one of you--shaped in your way of life, of thinking, of accomplishment. What I am, I am because I am one of you, your humble brother and your friend. Behold," cries Enemy, "the man I am, the man I have become, the thing I have accomplished—and reflect. Willyou destroy this thing? I assure you that it is the most precious thing you have. It is yourselves, the projection of each of you, the triumph of your individual lives, the thing that is rooted in your blood, and native to your stock, and inherent in the traditions of America. It is the thing that all of you may hope to be," says Enemy, "for"—humbly—"am I not just one of you? Am I not just your brother and your son? Am I not the living image of what each of you may hope to be, would wish to be, would desire for his own son? Would you destroy this glorious incarnation of your own heroic self? If you do, then," says Enemy, "you destroy yourselves—you kill the thing that is most gloriously American, and in so killing, kill yourselves."

He lies! And now we know he lies! He is not gloriously, or in any other way, ourselves. He is not our friend, our son, our brother. And he is not American! For, although he has a thousand familiar and convenient faces, his own true face is old as Hell.

Look about you and see what he has done.

Dear Fox, old friend, thus we have come to the end of the road that we were to go together. My tale is finished—and so farewell.

But before I go, I have just one more thing to tell you:

Something has spoken to me in the night, burning the tapers of the waning year; something has spoken in the night, and told me I shall die, I know not where. Saying:

"To lose the earth you know, for greater knowing; to lose the life you have, for greater life; to leave the friends you loved, for greater loving; to find a land more kind than home, more large than earth—

"—Whereon the pillars of this earth are founded, towards which the conscience of the world is tending—a wind is rising, and the riversflow."

I don't believe prose gets better than this. And if I had to choose a text written by someone other than myself that best reflects what I believe, this may be it.

Read him. He has a thing to say, and you'll be better for hearing it.

Even a man who's pure in heart, and says his prayers by night...

...Can become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms, and the autumn moon is bright.

Tonight is among the highlights of the year for Pumpkin Boy and I.

We begin the Universal Horror cycle, first with Frankenstein, then Dracula, and currently our favorite of all, The Wolfman. Earlier we saw The Abominable Dr. Phibes, and Dr. Phibes Rises Again. After, The Mummy (the 1932 version starring Boris Karloff, of course. Pumpkin Boy and I are all about authenticity—preferably in beautiful black & white).

And these pictures define our Halloween film-going experience.

Enjoy this clip from 1941's immortal The Wolfman:

Goodbye Pronto Mart. We Already Miss You. Shop at Speedway Market!

In honor of Constance and Roger and the Old Pronto Mart that served Hyde Park for more than 30 years—and to spite the Poetry-Hating Money-Grubbing Californians that took their jobs away—a poem by Albert Huffstickler, dealing appropriately with the subject of loss.

AUTUMN SONG
It's a time of people gone:
Helen, the street dancer, dead,
Melvin, old black man in the
neighborhood almost as long as
me-oddjobbing to extend his
monthly check. He's diabetic
too, has a foot infected, may
have to have it off, Pete the
barber says. No more scouring
the neighborhood for yard work.
It was his neighborhood too
even though he lived somewhere
else, showed up on the bus
every morning to be fed his
morning coffee by Stephanie
at the bakery. I couldn't
understand half he said, it
was mostly about work or the
lack of it. So he's gone-
another one of those fringe
people, not someone you focus
on, more like seen from the
corner of your eye, hardly
noticing till they're gone.
It's autumn today, the first
chilly grey day we've had,
and Helen's gone and Melvin
and don't forget mad Anthony
who talks to the air and
bums change for beer, his
smell a menace that you're
glad to buy off. Autumn.
People gone, the earth's
immense sorrow exemplified by
the loss of her strays.
The wind mourns, the grey air
troubles the trees and our
thoughts and something in us
is grieving-for Helen,
Melvin, Mad Anthony but
most of all ourselves.

Paula Jane and I leave for awhile, and the whole place goes to hell

First the Cactus Cafe, now this...

I was talking to our friend Steve, from back home in Austin, and he informed me that the Pronto Mart at 43rd and Duval, catacorner to Quacks, et al, has changed ownership, resulting in the dismissal of the staff there, all of whom were really good people. I don't know all of their names, but Constance, who has been there forever (and is a poet!) and Roger (a musician!) and the rest were friendly and unique, and great ambassadors for the Austin Way of Life (AWOL, baby, and don't forget it). Steve also informs me that local neighborhood poet legend Albert Huffstickler's poem had been removed from the wall next to the door, which is unthinkable. No doubt they're charging for air now, too.

Change is the rule of life, I understand, but we don't gotta like it, do we?

(Don't gotta patronize em, either, cause from what I hear they're snippy, baldly commercial types, who probably would've been happier staying in California)...

Now, for God's sake, will y'all mind the store a little better 'til I get back home? Next thing I know, somebody's gonna make off with Threadgills or East Side Pies, and leave a couple of Walgreens in their place...

(Buncha butterfingers—sheesh!)...

R.I.P., Rick Sanchez

Yeah, I know—the goober's not dead, just fired. Though to him, it may feel a little like death.

Sanchez made some pretty stupid comments in an interview with Sirius Satellite Radio's Pete Dominick a few days ago, provoked by years of ridicule from one of the best, Jon Stewart. After calling Stewart a "bigot" with a "white, liberal establishment point of view" who "can’t relate to somebody who grew up poor," Dominick protested that Stewart, as a Jew, has experienced racism himself. Sanchez laughed—"He's such a minority. ... What, are you kidding?"—then uttered the words that are no doubt reverberating in his head now, and for some time to come, whenever he tries to sleep. "I’m telling you that everybody who runs CNN is a lot like Stewart, and a lot of people who run all the other networks are a lot like Stewart, and to imply that somehow they—the people in this country who are Jewish—are an oppressed minority? Yeah."

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, Sanchez is not a particularly good journalist. He's a dumber version of Broadcast News' Tom Grunick (Aaron Altman would never have permitted himself to be tased on camera—Grunick may have done it, but would've carried it off more stylishly). He represents much of what is lacking in modern American journalism, being a guy without a lot of smarts, or instincts, or intellectual curiosity, but possessed of a certain sellable look, and a certain schtick, with a fuckload more ambition than talent.

On the other hand, there's a certain justice to what he says about the rather arbitrary nature of Stewart's relentless targeting of him—as an attempt to balance out his criticism of Fox "News", by finding some poor bastard at CNN to make fun of. Sanchez believes the ridicule is rooted in racism, because of his Cuban origin, and he believes that CNN demoted him from the prime-time anchor chair for the same reason. He is unable to see what most others see, which is not his Cubanness, but his mediocrity, and more to the point, the sometimes ludicrous persona he projects. He is not taken seriously in spite of his origin, not because of it.

It should also be said that although what Sanchez said was wrong-headed and repellent, it is whispered among millions every day, most of whom are perceived to be rational, socially integrated contributors to society. While his summary execution by CNN is understandable, it is hardly helpful to the perceptions held by these individuals, who are clucking their tongues and commiserating their bigotries secretly, believing them to have been affirmed. Perhaps mercy would've been the better course here—mercy, and some dialogue confronting what he said, and why he said it.

As you may know, Sanchez was born in Cuba, and came to America with his parents as a toddler. Reading his bio at wikipedia, I was moved by the way he characterized his childhood. "I grew up not speaking English, dealing with real prejudice every day as a kid; watching my dad work in a factory, wash dishes, drive a truck, get spit on. I’ve been told that I can’t do certain things in life simply because I was a Hispanic." I was also struck by the reason he stated on-air for using the name "Rick Sanchez", instead of his birth-name, Ricardo de Reinaldo: "I want to be respectful of this wonderful country, he said, "that allowed us as Hispanics to come here, and I think it’s easier if someone’s able to understand me by Anglicizing my name." I think all of us, if we look deeply enough at ourselves, can sympathize with that kind of insecurity, and yearning.

So, yeah, there's a human cost to this. And I think it's pretty sad. Here's hoping we haven't heard the last of Ricardo de Reinaldo...

And in tribute, here's Rick Sanchez being tazed, for about the millionth time.

Terry Crabtree—Big-shot Editor, Paris Review?

Reading Lorin Stein's Editor Abroad feature at Paris Review Daily, I read about his sojourn in Pittsburgh, where he saw one of his heroes, Chuck Kinder, who is a legendary creative writing taecher at the University of Pittsburgh. If this is ringing a few bells, it should—Kinder was, indeed, the inspiration for Grady Tripp in Michael Chabon's Wonder Boys. The story of the 3000 page manuscript is true, only it didn't blow away. Honeymooners: A Cautionary Tale was published in 2001 (weighing in at a svelte 368 pages) on behalf of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, by none other than Lorin Stein. Which, by extension, makes him Terry Crabtree, a thought that is simultaneously amusing and horrifying.

If I discover a memoir piece about a tuba player, or perhaps a book edited about Joltin' Joe and Marilyn, I'll report back...

Christine O'Donnell, Mama Grizzly

According to Newsweek's cover, O'Donnell (who is the Tea-Party and Palin sanctioned Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate from Delaware) is a credible politician, with influence over the fate of our nation's children. As you saw from the video, she also loves meatballs—the only reason she didn't become a hare krishna. As she alluded to in the clip,she flirted with witchcraft, telling Bill Maher,"I dabbled into witchcraft — I never joined a coven ... I hung around people who were doing these things. I'm not making this stuff up. I know what they told me they do." She added: "One of my first dates with a witch was on a satanic altar, and I didn't know it."

O'Donnell has also been under fire for exaggerating her educational background—saying she graduated from Farleigh Dickinson University, when she hadn't quite done so—and for outright lying about being a graduate student at Claremont, Princeton, and Oxford.

She hasn't had a job since being fired by ISI nearly 5 years ago, and has been running a scam ever since, running around fanning the ignorance of white people far and wide to raise money for her quixotic political aspirations. She has been living off of this money (according to numerous sources), and has been cited on eight occasions by the FEC for failing to supply timely contribution reports. She is accused by Citizens for Ethics and Respinsibility in Washington of making false statements on those FEC reports, in effect using campaign funds as her "personal piggy-bank".

"'The small elite don't get us. They call us wacky. They call us wingnuts. We call us, 'We the people.'"

She may have a point. They are all around us—they are your Aunt Marlene, your Uncle Ray. The fat lady across the street who peers out the blinds at you when you walk to the car in the morning, and calls the police the moment one of your visitors parks on the street in front of her house. They are the moon-faced goobers racing up beside you to chide you about your Obama sticker. Their anger and resentment grows every time they look at the White House and see a family there that doesn't coincide with their world-view.

They are so close, and so many, it is tempting to believe that what Al Capp said, long ago, is true: "We have met the enemy, and he is us."

(But can she protect our kids, d'ya think?)...

(By the way, O'Donnell's 15 points down in the polls, and sinking fast. Even in this toxic environment, we're not that far gone. Yet.)

Midseason Halloween Movie Report

No doubt you've been wondering how Pumpkin Boy and I are faring on our quest for a record-breaking 131 horror films watched during the Official Season (Sept. 1 through Oct, 31).

You'll be glad to know that we are well on track, having seen seventy-seven films as of close of business last night, and eighty going into tomorrow. They are:

I Bury the Living, I Sell the Dead, The Seventh Victim, Ghost Ship (the real Ghost Ship, from 1944), I Walked with a Zombie, The Spiral Staircase, The Devil's Curse, House of the Devil, The Frozen Ghost, Weird Woman (5 times), Phantom of the Opera, Paranoiac, The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, The Lost Skeleton Returns Again (3 times), The Undying Monster (8 times), Voodoo Island, The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake, Devils of Darkness, Witchcraft, Die Monster Die!, The Dunwich Horror, Horror Hotel, I Madman, The Believers, Calling Dr. Death, Dead Man's Eyes, Strange Confession, Pillow of Death, The Cat People, Curse of the Cat People, The Leopard Man, Bedlam, The Body Snatcher, Isle of the Dead, Homicidal, 13 Ghosts (1960), The Tingler, Cult of the Cobra, The Premature Burial, Dracula (1931), My Son the Vampire, The Woods, Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, The Alligator People, The Headless Ghost, Dead of Night, Return of the Vampire, Triangle, Tenebre, Deep Red, Dementia 13, The Thing (1951), Tales of Terror, A Bucket of Blood, Them!, The Black Cat (1963), The Devil Bat, Brides of Dracula, Curse of the Werewolf, Kiss of the Vampire, Nightmare, Night Creatures, The Evil of Frankenstein, The Monster Walks, The Exorcist, The Exorcist III, Dominion, The House on Haunted Hill (1959), From Beyond the Grave, Mark of the Vampire, The Ring, The House of Wax (1953), Creepshow, 73, Curse of the Demon, The Skull, The Omen, Carrie, Rosemary's Baby, The Fearless Vampire Hunters, and Revenge of the Zombie.

As you can see, we have barely touched our vault of Universal Horror, or Vincent Price, either, so we have many of our favorite films to look forward to over the next 30 days. Pumpkin Boy is pleased, to say the least—his propensity for boastfulness is not his most attractive quality—

—but then we've done well, and I suppose a little self-congratulatory trash-talking is harmless enough. (He's dancing, by the way. You just can't see his feet)

Correction

Paula Jane reminded me that the impregnator of Stacy Hamilton was, in fact, Mike Damone (AKA, "Little Prick"), not in fact car stereo magnate and senatorial candidate Ron Johnson.

Johnson merely statutorily raped her.

My apologies.

Gotta love those repubs!

Stereo-King Ron Johnson, who impregnated under-age Stacy Hamilton in a baseball dugout in 1981, claims that global warming is an "unproven" science that shouldn't be used to dictate U.S. policies. "The point is, because we're not certain, because it's not proven, the last thing we should do is penalize our economy."

Johnson, Wisconsin's Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate, further said that even if scientists are right, he "isn't sure...we could do anything about it, anyway." Global warming is like rape in that way, the irrascible businessman told the Associated Press. "When it's inevitable, it's best to just lie back and enjoy it. Anyone have any suntan lotion?"

The aging car stereo-maven went on to say that he saw the future of the USA as an opportunity for all Americans to achieve streak-free radiance, while enjoying the benefits of low taxes. "No spray-on tans for our children," he vowed.