Last week I mentioned my secretary, Mariana. mh to her friends and employer. I was going to talk, this week, about how difficult it is to get through the day-by-day bullshit of nickel&dime-death that society lays on us, without being surrounded by competent, helpful associates. I was going to talk about my mailman, George O’Brien from the Sherman Oaks P.O. branch; about my dear friend and CPA, Eddie London; about my auto mechanic, John Wilkes; about my doctor, John Romm; my agents, Marty Shapiro and Mark Lichtman; my housekeeper, Eusona Parker; my attorney, Barry Bernstein; my travel agent, Linda Wolk; my bankers, Al Court and Syl Bunyevchev. That’s what I was going to talk about. Another of my “Ain’t life beautiful” columns, to try and cheer your asses up.
But today got a blight on it.
Today, the leaves withered and the bush turned black and fell to ashes.
So, instead, you get one of my “You stupid fucking bastard” columns. Maybe you’d be advised to pass me up this week, if you’re feeling good. Or come back to this column when they dump bat guano on your parade.
Last week, a guy came to interview me for his Doctoral Thesis, and he was sharper than hell. He asked me questions light-years beyond the usual “Where do you get your story ideas” questions. At one point he said I seemed to be dichotomous in my reactions to people: on the one hand my writing was clearly humanistic, and I cared about people … on the other I was always railing and cursing “the Common Man” and saying what swine and assholes they are. I couldn’t answer him. It’s true. I am very ambivalent about the human race. Sometimes I weep with joy at the nobility, grandeur and heroism of which individuals are capable … at other times, had I a gun in my hand, I would without compunction riddle the bodies of people who commit such awfulnesses against other humans that my mind and soul cannot contain the pain. So I asked Mariana if she would try and explain me to this guy. And when he re-ran the tape for me, Mariana said something (and I’m paraphrasing) about how I really, at core, was on the side of The People, as opposed to The Establishment, or Big Business, or The System. She didn’t actually say I was a good guy at heart, but she tried to explain to him that my thinking wasn’t entirely fucked. And finally, at the end of her discourse, she must have shrugged (it sounded like a shrug) and she said she didn’t really understand me, either.
Well, here’s another of those ambivalences, friends. Last week I did a number on how good life is, and this week I want to lay on you four things I heard about today that make me want to rush out into the street with bombs!
The CBS news gave me two of them. The first was a story out of South Africa, where they have apartheid … you know about apartheid, right? Blacks and whites are separated. Right?