| 9 unpublished letters to the Los Angeles Times |
| Writers write to publish and one place to publish is the editorial page of the local paper—in my case the LA Times. Over the years Ive written maybe 50 letters and have scored for 6. I have a friend who works for the paper and he said: that isnt bad. Maybe so Joe but what about the other 44 rejects that failed to make the grade Times-wise? Fortunately we now have the internet at our disposal and websites such as bflowriter.com to resurrect some of these masterpieces. Here they are: Story: Jay leno is quoted to say he opposes a new smog check law that would no longer exempt several of the cars in his classic car collection. Letter: Im with jay Leno on this one—the smog check law. I drive an ‘88 Honda Accord with 132,000 miles on it that has failed the smog test three times and Jay has this splendid collection of classic cars that is exempt from the test but that isn’t the point. Jay is a star. A star is the American version of royalty. As royalty they are entitled to certain perks and privileges the rest of us have dismally failed to claim for ourselves. At the top of the list is: peace of mind. I refer you to the last scene in the movie The Madness of King George. The King is standing on the steps of the palace addressing this vast, hideous throng of scum--his subjects--and he turns to his son and says: “Look happy. That’s why we’re here.” Story: Iraq and the rehabbing of some generals of the former regime to restore order. Letter: I have been saying this for months: we need to put some of these people back in power. But dont stop with a handful of the Generals. Lets proceed with the logic of this strategy and apply it 100%--all the way up to Saddam. He is the man for this job—to straighten this situation out pronto. We/ll rebuild the palace, deliver him to the door and provide all the money, supplies and weapons as required. Its perfect! Story: Barry Bonds and steroids Letter: The public has a short memory. The huge uproar that occurred in 1927—the year Babe Ruth hit 60--is long forgotten. The Babe loved hot dogs. They were like spinach for Popeye—that triggered some mechanism in his system that transformed him into a homerun machine—a beast. And he admitted it. He said: yes-it’s the hot dogs. So what? They are legal. Deal with it”. And that was the end of it. Story: scandal at abu garhib Letter: Now that traditional methods of the interrogation of prisoners such as sadism, humiliation and physical abuse are no longer in the cards, its time to reverse direction and apply a more subtle and humane approach. Has anyone thought of offering these poor devils some decent sex? We have the perfect candidate for the job right here in Los Angeles: Heidi Fleiss. We/ll send Heidi over with a few of the girls to put this operation in gear. Personally, with a deal like this on the table, Id be spilling my guts. It’s a natural! Story: monkey attack. A man and his wife whose preference pet-wise was for a monkey over a dog or cat--and they attend a “birthday” party for the chimp of some other retard and the retards chimp snapped and attacked the guest and nearly killed him. He bit off 4 fingers and then attacked the guys crotch Letter: My sympathies are with anyone who has four fingers bitten off by a monkey but its not surprising these animals have tired of being hunted down and dragged off to captivity—into the zoo or, what is worse, someones house to be photographed in bed with the “parents” at birthday time. They are dumb animals but not that dumb. The jungle is their home. Life there is more uncertain but less humiliating. Story: Pete rose and the hall of fame Letter: I have a solution for the Pete Rose Hall of Fame dilemma. Wait until Pete drops dead—then vote him in. In this way we accommodate both sides of the issue. We get Pete into the Hall but also, by way of punishment, he dies thinking otherwise. Its perfect! Story: idealistic writer-type takes high school teaching job For this one I wrote two letters: 1) I like this Acuna guy. He going to teach them Bukowski—great writer (Los Angeles born and bred) and a true inspiration human being-wise. Yes he was an alcoholic, yes he was an incurable horseplayer and yes, on the subject of women, he didnt have a faithful bone in his body. Its too bad Buk is no longer with us. He could show up with a few six packs and give a rousing pep talk. 2) The situation at LA Unified is like the Dutch kid in the fable trying to plug the holes in the dike. He has ten fingers and there are four thousand holes in the dike. Teaching these kids to read and write is like teaching the blind to see. It cannot be done. Acuna sees the job as a ”challenge”. The word is incorrect. The only challenge involved here is to maintain your sanity for 20 years until the pension kicks in. I hate to cast a pall on Acunas teaching aspirations but he would be wise to revert to his former plan-—staying home to write while the wife works. He has a splendid option here he would be foolish to disavow. He will be happier, more satisfied by far, an absence of stress and, best of all, no longer at the mercy of the District--that couldn’t care less. Jack Spiegelman (retired teacher) Story: Interrogation of suspect in the world trade center attack Letter: Yes—torture the son of a bitch. And this is the way to do it—with music. For every man there is a certain type of music they cannot tolerate. For example—mariachi. Lock this Mohammed character in a room, naked, with the lights on and crank up the mariachi. Sooner or later—and my guess is sooner —he will crack. I guarantee it. Story: The driving range at Los Angeles City College. Of them all this is my favorite—when LACC decided to lease a corner of the campus to a Korean for the purpose of erecting a driving range. Who the architect was for this project was not revealed but up goes the range and over the fence are the balls driven to rain down upon a child care center. Letter: Our only hope is for the students who complete the program at LACC to demonstrate more brains than the administrators who negotiated this driving range deal--with a child care center on the other side of the fence down at the far end. Maybe they should keep the range open and close down the college. |
home
heidi and one of her girls
the solution to
restoring order
in Iraq
restoring order
in Iraq
bukowski and friend