the eXile - [sic]

Issue #20/101, October 12 - 26, 2000

JACK THE LOSER

Dear eXile cunts,

To Mark Ames & Matt Taibbi: If I ever run nose-to-hook-nose with either one of you whilst walking down ‘my’ street, I’ll unhesitatingly break my lifelong vow of pacifism to give you two yids a beating that’ll leave no other option to your next of kin but to carry out a subsequent compost-mortem. Having seen both of your deformed bodies via the web, I can safely say that John Dolan yet again misinformed the eXile’s readers when in issue #05/60 he heaped flattery upon Mark Ames, describing him as being ‘tall and young and Sephardic’. (What Dolan forgot to mention is that Ames also looks like an explosion in a pubic hair factory.) As far as that curse Matt Taibbi is concerned, W.H. Auden once said of his own face that it looked like a wedding-cake left out in the rain; Matt Taibbi’s sad visage on the other hand looks like a cake left out in acid rain. While you two anxiously await our fated meeting, I have a project for you. First, break into General Makashov’s house; then, sneak as quietly as possible into his bedroom and silently shave off his head to see if he’s the Antichrist of Book of Revelations fame. If he isn’t, at least it was worth it for a laugh.

To John ‘Red Diaper Baby’ Dolan: Didn’t understand my ‘rant’ or were you just pretending not to? People like you love to point out the state Eastern Europe’s laissez-faire economy is in as ‘proof’ that market economies don’t work. Small wonder Berkley—a university that granted doggerel poet Thom Gunn and sadomasochistic S&M boulevardier Michel Foucault professorships—had you on their staff. Want to know why you were never a ‘contenduh’? Because your prose is fifth-rate, your wit is lukewarm, and your literary criticism is even more worthless than David Lodge’s. I would rather drink stale urine from Boris Berezovsky’s arse-pit than read another one of your socialistic book reviews.

John Dolan: One more reason opening the eXile is like opening a fold of used lavitory paper.

Scott, Nottinghamshire, UK

Dear Scott,

Hey, you know, what, buddy? We remember you. You’re “Scott Cameron”, from Nottinghamshire, who sent us a similarly wrathful letter about two years ago. We didn’t answer you then because we try in general not to answer the Mark David Chapman types; it makes them feel like they have a relationship with us, which only leads to more unpleasantness down the road. You know, first we answer you, then, next thing we know, you’re standing in the doorway with a rusty can-opener, saying, “John Dolan-I’m your biggest fan!”

We don’t need that shit, Scott, trust us. Especially not from a thing as absurd as a British rightwinger who sneers at Foucault for his Sadomasochistic tastes. How many tories like to spank and get spanked? The percentage must be somewhere in the high nineties. Didn’t Paul Johnson’s longtime dominatrix, stung by Johnson’s smug accounts of his happy monogamous marriage, just publish a detailed account of her spanking sessions with him? Do you like to spank people, Scott? You probably do. You probably save three pounds a week from the tips jar so that you can pay for it twice a year. Two visits a year to Rosie, all twelve stone of her, who never lifts her fat pink face out of her Guinness during the session. You go home and you feel better, emboldened; you crawl into your laundry-strewn hole of a bedroom and fire off a vituperative e-mail to a bespectacled professor ten thousand miles away in New Zealand, failing to hear the vowel “a” at least once every other sentence or so (“lauditory”, “pedegogue”, “lavitory”). You wait and wait and wait; six pounds in the jar, nine, then twelve and fifteen-still no response from New Zealand. A year passes. Time for another letter! “Don’t you remember me, Dolan?” you write. “Didn’t understand my ‘rant’ or were you just pretending not to?” Dolan, late for his lecture, panics and sends your letter to the home office in Moscow: “Do something about this guy. I think he wrote something to us once.” The editors in Moscow check the files. Indeed, a Scott from Nottinghamshire wrote us once. But is it the same guy? THAT Scott from Nottinghamshire began his letter by writing, “After reading every single one of your mordant and occasionally lauditory reviews on Amazon.com (and the eXile), I’ve reached the conclusion that you’re either in possession of a brain slightly larger than a leprechaun’s testicle, OR, like many of today’s gormless pedegogues, you’re completely and conspicuously oblivious to 85 years of world history.”

It doesn’t sound very much like this “Scott from Nottinghamshire”, who writes, “I would rather drink stale urine from Boris Berezovsky’s arse-pit than read another one of your socialistic book reviews.” Then again, a man who finds urine in an arse-pit could easily go ahead and read every review written by a writer he swears he’ll never read again. That’s the trouble with this kind of business, Scott, it’s tough to figure. Eyewitnesses in Whitechapel might tell you the man they saw get into the carriage was a nobleman, but then the very next day you’ll get a bloodstained letter in the mail which says, “Heere is a peece of her livere.” Nobody with brains would spell like that. But then again, not all noblemen had brains. Do you follow us, Scott? Are you still there, buddy?

TIGHT SNAPPER

Dear eXile,

i started reading the exile in january during my spring semester in moscow. i really appreciate your investigative reporting—you really have a unique position in which you are capable of cutting through a lot of the propriety and bull crap so many of us are trapped within. since my return to the good ole usofa (which i appreciate far more after having lived in russia) i bought the exile book and read about your investigation of the harvard-usaid scandal. as you probably know, the usjustice dept just filed a lawsuit in this case. but harvard’s scandal doesn’t surprise us hear at yale! just wanted to let you know that I really appreciate your journalistic efforts (overlooking those unsavory elements of the exile i would be happy to see eliminated—read, the virulent misogyny) and it really brightened my day to see a new ‘issue’ of the exile in my inbox in the form of johnson’s list. thanks!

Christina Bost

Yale University

The eXile replies:

Dear Christina,

Thanks for the letter, but why don’t we just cut to the chase? You can send the picture of your snapper to me or to editor@exile.ru in any graphic format. Flash photos come out better. In any case, thanks again for writing and look forward to hearing from you soon.

Christina Bost replies:

glad to see you didn’t disappoint me on the misogyny bit come to yale and you can see it yourself (you wish) chb

ps—good to see you’ve got spunk

The eXile replies:

We’ve got your spunk. We’ve got your photograph, which we found on your personal Yale website, below your tribute to the movie “The Graduate”. Exile readers, feast on this snapper-carrier!

CANCER BOY, CONT’D

[This letter is from Chris Baldwin, whose letter was published in the previous issue.]

Dear eXile,

Who would want to buy cancer? I showed your response to all of my friends and they all asked the same question. Why is cancer for sale?

Dear Chris,

The headline said “Cancer Boy,” not “Cancer Buy.” We just said you had cancer, not that you’re going to buy it.

Chris Baldwin responds:

What for? I don’t have cancer.

The eXile responds:

Yes, you do, Chris, you just don’t know it. You have cancer. A fatal case of cancer!