Common Sense	Common Sense Archive

My friend Edward and I were joined by Edward's handsome friend, visiting from Texas. A tall, lanky Southerner, the friend has been to some Radical Faerie events, seemed a counter-cultural type, had 70s-style long hair. It was a warm fall Saturday. We headed out to a nice Asian cuisine restaurant for lunch. The place was packed. We had to wait for a table. Two TV screens were mounted above the bar, which was in front of us. As we waited to be seated, my eyes were drawn to the screen. Being broadcast was a football game. I said to Edward and his friend: "If I could only get rid of one thing from the face of the planet, it would be football." We were seated. My new friend asked, regarding banished football, "Why?" I was about to explain, but Edward took over and made the case: ugly, violent, team-military, the worst aspect of heterosexual culture, etc. None of this criticism had ever occurred to our Texas friend, though he seemed to agree with most.

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"If I could only get rid of one thing" While we ate lunch, my cortex churned and I recalled that back in 1970, in Harper's magazine, there was a piece about "homosexuals." It was written by Joseph Epstein, a Jewish soi-disant New York intellectual, a type that the mephitic New York culture finds abundant. In this piece, Epstein remarked, and I paraphrase: if I could rid the world of homosexuality, I would do it instantly something like that. Epstein is a perfect representation of that up-tight Jewish type. But I suppose when you are a marginalized person, stewing in vicious hatreds, any utterance should be expected. I recall my friend Howard (white, Jewish, queer) who once told me about an apartment he had rented on Beacon Hill. The building was owned by a black couple who ran a number of "civil rights" organizations of which they were the only members. There was a washer-dryer combo in the basement. Howard noticed that the washing machine had been filled with concrete. He asked the landlady why the washing machine was filled with concrete. She replied: "That's so no white person can wash his clothes in it."

Here in Boston, we have this interesting phenomenon. Each of our two leading daily newspapers (the Christian Science Monitor doesn't count!), has, as a regular op-ed columnist, a frothing right-wing Jew. To whom are they supposed to pander? Why two? Is the right-wing Jewish phalanx so extensive that each paper in liberal Boston must have its own frother? The Jews tend to be more liberal than the rest of the elements in the population. A political demographer I once read noted, regarding the ballot box behavior of our friends: "The Jews live like Episcopalians, but they vote like Puerto Ricans." Excepting perhaps the recent, and unusual, mayoral election in New York City. I suspect there are more queers than Jews in the metro Boston area (yes, some would count twice: Jewish and queer), yet neither major metro rag has a queer Op-Ed scribe. What does that tell us? No queers and two Fifth Columnist Op-Ed columnists. Such are the times.

My kulture's better than yours

One of the Fifth Columnists, taking the Silvio Berlusconi line, suggested that Western culture was in fact superior to Arabic and Islamic culture and indicted a war against Islam would be fine with him, though he did not indicate, as this type never does, that he was ready to sign up to burn down the mosques. Of course, when this type talks Western culture, I think of the ancient Greeks and their glorious history of homosexuality and pederasty and their full pantry of pagan deities and not the uptight Hebrews with their paltry and mean-spirited monotheistic abomination and their ban on depiction of the human form.

"If I could only get rid of one thing" There have been many attempts to get rid of the Jews throughout history. Epstein wanted to get rid of homosexuality (read "queers"). And everybody hates something. There's so much to hate. There is no reason to acquiesce to the hideousness of so much which regularly assaults us well, me at least. Maybe you, too.

The older I get, the more insane everything seems, the more surreal the reports of events and events themselves. Why live with the crazy? Why not just press that button and have it gone? This is touchy territory. Shall I hit the button and end all sports? Well, in fact, some sports are OK. The swimming. The diving. The long-distance running. These are single-person events, in which the ambientes can do well. The teams are different. What kind of person gets off on football? It is the emblem of the pathology of life in this country the very emblem of its social pathology.

So let's go, get ready to press that button: or, thanks a lot and out with the garbage:

First to go: football and its entire culture the rallies, the reporting, the endless TV loops, the trophies, the fat-assed men, bye-bye. Next up?

The Vatican, all its buildings, personnel and artifacts, yes, all those lovely paintings and gee-gaws the hideous fetishization of art, another pathology. And, to be even-handed in this matter: bye-bye to the so-called church of The Latter Day Saints, poof, press the button, gone.

This is fun. I could go on all day so much to delete: the entertainment industry, hip-hop music, hamburger joints, loudmouth radio jocks, my shopping list is very long and very sincere. Hope the batteries last. My wish list to make a better world!

Author Profile:  Mitzel
	Mitzel was a founding member of the Fag Rag collective, and has been a Guide columnist since 1986. He manages Calamus Books near Boston's South Station.
	Email:	mitzel@calamusbooks.com
	Website:	calamusbooks.com