Silver bullets for the big bad--

[MASCARO at humnet.ucla.edu]

Jules Siegel,

Despite your command that I reply interlinearly, I don't want to.  Is that ok?  You 
certainly trashed me pretty good in that---werewolf--opus of yours, even got me 
laughing a little. But I have been down that road before.   I don't think I resorted to 
the kind of nasty little name calling you seem to excel in, but I understand how 
thin skinned a guy can get to be when almost his only claim to fame is that TRP 
stopped talking to him in 1968.  (uh-oh, I'm getting in a fight again, and I really 
don't want to do that).  Your reply to George Haberberger re: the grandmother 
reference really speaks for itself in showing how you have some trouble 
distinguishing  between a writer and his work, or between fact and fiction (duh, yes 
Diana I might be offending the professoriate by speaking on such a simplistic level):

>George Haberberger wrote:
>> 
>> >[6] I am not sure what your statement about your grandmother means. Did
>> >this really happen? Are you talking about drug-induced hallucinations?
>> >If you are, I think that it would be useful for you to examine the
>> >source of the pain it expresses with someone you trust deeply.
>> >
>> 
>> This is an allusion to Hunter S. Thompson's "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas".
>> 
>> George
>
>Thanks, George. Never been much of a Hunter S. Thomspon fan, as I always
>felt he gave drugs a bad name, as well as encouraging by example stupid
>overdosing, mixing the wrong things, and generally abusing substances
>that are really antidotes to the general horror of our time. He wasn't a
>psychedelic prophet, he was a tawdry glutton.

So if you can defame Thompson (amd so ludicrously misunderstand gonzoism in 
all of its beauty) for no reason at all, I guess I can poke at you a little.  But I really 
was conceding to the wishes of this list when I tried to back off criticizing you.  I feel 
the scorn of social disapprobation as much as anybody.
  But the notion that I think of P. as some sort of god and resent the fact that you (of 
all people) are here to show us his--human--side, is ridiculous.  Of course he's just 
a guy.  He's also one of the 20th century's best writers.  Those two facts are 
completely separate, in my opinion.  We are curious about his life,sure, but where 
do you come off with this hubristuc air of having special access because you can 
connect us with somebody who was intimate with him a long time ago?  I am 
bugged by your egoism in this regard.  For proof I refer to the number of queries re 
P. that you answer with some version of: "I can best answer that by talking about 
myself."  But, hey, Mr. Werewolf, as I said, the list likes what you are doing, and 
doesn't think my concerns are very strong.  I yield to that pressure.

A few points:  You write:
>  you post a quote from
>someone else and attribute it to me. This isn't being cute. It's
>slovenly. It wastes people's time. It creates confusion. Please try to
>remember to use your Pampers next time you have to go out in public.

Please tell me specifically how I misquoted you, because I didn't do that on purpose, 
but hey, that --pampers--thing, wow, am I cut or what?

Regarding the Drug question:  I think you have repeatedly connected P.'s writing to 
his drug use , and you admit to doing so, and I think that is an uncool thing to do,  
Not because I don't like drugs, far from it, but because it gives idiots ammunition 
to criticize P. (I have heard professors do this).  More importantly, it reifies drug use 
innapropriately.  Let's talk about P.s avoidance of Pork as a source of his artistic 
vision to see how preposterous all such speculation is.  What's in GR is there 
because he wanted it there, not because he was too stoned to tell. You imply  
otherwise, I think.  But if I am wrong, please show me and I will apologize.

Ok big chiil now, Siegel la werewolf.  I am probably almost as old as you are, and I 
went through the same times.  If you wanna keep fighting, I'll be there, but maybe 
we can cool it now.

john m