Issue #28/83, February 10 - 17, 2000  

eXposed!

dear editors,

Gee guys, it sure must be hard being you, what with the constant pressure of trying to be what you’re not. In fact, I just admire the hell out of you for your stamina all these years. Like maintaining that precarious balance of portraying yourselves as proud lowlives who don’t give a damn about anything and anyone, and the sadly desperate need to prove yourselves as discerning, educated people who are more clued up than everyone else in town. (Tip for eXholes seeking to emulate: read a Russian classic, probably in translation. Before you forget what it was about, talk about it at parties in an informed yet offhand way between tales of borderline heroin overdoses, while not forgetting to pour scorn on anyone who hasn’t read said novel.) This insistent bragging about your drug habits. Not that I particularly disapprove, it’s just that it’s funny seeing you sweat to find new opportunities to prove what (discerning and educated) wasters you are and how little you fear being busted, when you no doubt leave little mud trails in your pants at the mere sight of a cop eying you. Just wait til the Butyrka ring pirates meet you boys. And it must be a drag when you find some new and obscure club or bar and actually like it, but then have to rubbish it and never be seen there again simply because other expats also decide it’s not a bad place. Or come to that, maintain the act of being mojo-charged babe magnets when you are sweating lardfaced fucks whose only attraction is that you have a U.S. passport, speak halfway decent Russian and have a few bucks to wave in front of gullible Russian 16-year-olds.

Sterling work, keep it up,

Liam

Liam bites, writing back:

Now why would I want to do a thing like that? Unless of course you actually want me to pen insults and derision. But hey, I’ll do that for free.

GALLIPOLI

I say, Ames

We are a party of British adventurers, recently arrived in Moscow for the purpose of constructing turkey farms in the Moscow oblast, and have encountered a small problem. The problem is that we cannot find suitable material for bedding-down our turkeys and consequently are gringing from dear old England, machinery to shred copious quantities of paper which we shall then use to bed our birds and absorb large quantities of turkey-dung. Ames, Old Chap-might it be possible to acquire from you the unwanted copies of your esteemed Organ (say up to 4 tons per month) which we may then transform into ecologically-useful turkey-dung absorber?

Instantly improved circulation statistics. Enthusiastic approval from your co-warrior, Mr. Pratt. And for you, personally, a turkey or two supplied to order, either on-the-hoof, or freshly plucked, according to your culinary or-ahem!-reportedly necroleptic whims.

So, What say you, Ames eh, what, By Jove, Can you render us assistance?

Speak up, Man.

Lord Turkington

Once the screaming, knees-a-slappin’ laughter finally settled down in our offices after we read your British-humor-filled letter, we realized that your letter was about turkeys. Given the fact that neck-chin structure of nearly every British woman over the age of 16 resembles a turkey, it comes as no surprise that you wanted to start a farm here, a "home away from home" as it were. Instead of using our newspaper to collect turkey dung, we thought you might want to use our newspaper to cover your wives’, sisters’ and mothers’ necks. You can wrap the eXile up like scarves, and no one will notice how bloody ugly they are.

SOUR VINOGRADS

Very Nice Paper. Were is your address, editorial e-mail etc? Political Trading Card RE: Vinogradov; Any relation to the Vinogradov envolved in the doctor’s plot against stalin, January 1953?

Signed LIGNATOR Quesnel B.C.

Dear Lignator,

SIC-HAN SIC-HAN

Dear Mark Ames,

Excellent observations on the slime that is Bradley and of the American suckers. I guess it helps being in Moscow you aren’t blitzed with Lamestream Media. I had a chuckle reading your remarks on firearms here in USA. You know you have to wonder about these elitists who all have guns not wanting the peasants to have them... The guy who owns New York Times, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, has a pistol permit...he just doesn’t want the working guys to have one. Dianne Feinstein, D-CA. Made a big show of turning in her carry revolver, but told no one she had another. In terms of Statists vs. the individual and working class folks re: guns this was pretty interesting: One disarms one’s enemies that is how Clinton and his ilk see the American people. The Swiss have an old slogan: "If the government cannot trust the people, the people cannot trust the government". I love eXile it is where I turn to be informed, entertained, and well whatever it is I get out of it hahahahaha. There isn’t anything else like it...

Stay well...

Rasputin was the kind of holy man I could relate to...

Dear To...

You agree that guns are good and Clinton/Bradley are scum, and you live in the US... Welp, what’re yuh gonna do about it, just sit there complaining, or are you gonna put your gun where your keyboard is? While we cannot go around explicitly advocating assassination, we sure as hell UNDERSTAND IT!

YOU’VE GOT GLOBE & MAIL

January 21/00

Dear Sirs: Last week in the Globe & Mail (Jan. 15th) Neil Bissondath (well-known CanLit author) wrote a piece about Solzhenitsyn’s work with the angle "righteous Old Testament figure/novelist descends into sordid world of politics, loses face, etc..." The wording of the article reminded me of a (very?) recent Exile review of S’s latest novel (something involving wooden "philosophical" dialogues between the protagonist commissar/priest and his revolutionary girlfriend). If you can, please advise where I can find that review because I think a lot of it was lifted by N.B. for his Globe article.

Regards,

Terry McGraw

Vancouver, B.C.

Dear Mr. McGraw,

This is not a big surprise to us, considering that your entire nation is nothing but a cheap attempt at plagiarizing the United States, and hence, the eXile. Even you, Mr. McGraw, are desperately imitating us even as you read this. We consider it a compliment. As for the stolen Solzhy review, please refer to our book reviewer John Dolan at John.Dolan@stonebow.otago.ac.nz

A LOUD [sic]-ING SOUND

Exile,

Advertise with you? You must be kidding. Go and look at your web page it’s like 2 months old. What are you brain dead? Only boyscouts of America may think of advertising with you. Your web page and therefore a whole newspaper sucks big time. You can hear a loud sucking sound.

Bye, suckers.

Dear Alec,

That loud sucking sound is actually the sound of our office intern teabagging the eXile editors. We’re not sure what advertising you’re talking about, but once our intern’s done teabagging us, we’ll do our best to get to the bottom of this whole mess.

I ONCE HAD A LIFE

as a former guest bartender @ the duck on ladies nite i really miss the lowdown on the lowdown what gives

xoxo

Dear XOXO,

There is no life after guest bartending at the Duck on ladies’ night. There are only the memories to keep us going. And the painful sores. And the sarcoma blemishes, the itchiness, and diarrhea.

FREELANCE BEIGEIST

Dear Mr. Limonov,

I read your article "Putin and Zhirinovsky" (19 Jan. 2000) on a listserve in

America. I am a freelance journalist for The Washington Times and Radio Deutsche

Welle who spent some time in Russia during the Duma elections. Could you tell me more about what you describe in your article as an "enigmatic event and a fearful one." What is at stake in the March elections? And what are people fearing could change if Putin is elected? Though liberals, in particular, fear that he may return Russia to some kind of autocratic rule, is this likely to happen? Also, could you tell me something more about your publication, The Exile?

Thanks.

Best Regards,

Jason Keyser

Dear Mr. Keyser,

You know, there’s nothing that Mr. Limonov loves more than engaging an earnest apprentice such as yourself in an exchange of ideas and viewpoints on the pressing topics of the day. So, tell us this: name one reason why you, Jason Keyser, shouldn’t take a long drive into the Appalachians, put a shotgun under your chin, and blow your head off? That’s a question that has Mr. Limonov, and us, really stumped. Thanks.

A MODEL READER

From: Strac4oh@aol.com

To: exile.promo@matrix.ru

Subject: e mail

Date: Friday, January 28, 2000 2:41 AM

howdy, dobre veecher, and etc................don’t you have any more letters to the editor? i’m back in the states now, but used to enjoy reading them while i lived and worked in the magic worker’s paradise.(actually, i want to send a few myself now and then, you degenerates). so, get on the stick and answer this now, or else you will pay parking fees to 14 year old mafia kids when parking anywhere near the arbat. also, you will never be able to buy $8.00 milkshakes at the diner ever again! I have spoken. p.s. furthermore, may you drink vodka that came out of my diev’s basement

if you do not heed my words.

From: Strac4oh@aol.com

To: exile.promo@matrix.ru

Subject: e mail, sorry

Date: Friday, January 28, 2000 2:46 AM

just figured out how to do it. from now on, i can actually send e mail to the editors. (as long as i keep my vodka consumption below 500 grams/hour)

thanks

yoshik

We recommend that you drastically INCREASE your vodka consumption. And if you’re really cool, you’ll add a couple dozen Valiums into the mix. Then your letters are bound to make sense.

PRATT SELLS, BUT WHO’S BUYING?

who is that s.pratt? seems he is just out of propaganda college somewhere around london. another question is whom he is addressing to? if to englishspeaking

russians - they would swallow anything written in this language. if to westerners they wouldn’t read such stuff, Ôcause they are sick of blair/clinton slogans.

Pratt is addressing his columns directly to you. Which is why we fired him.

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