I rode a tank, held a general's rank, when the blitzkrieg raged

[Terrance]

David Morris wrote:
> 
> >From: Terrance
> >
> >If our list definition, clearly not what Pynchon describes in his essay, is
> >expanded to include Mick Jagger, than we are talking about a a different
> >Badass altogether. Aren't we? P's essay asks, is it ok to be a luddite? I
> >don't see how Mick Jagger has much to do with this question. The question
> >we have raised here, and I'm just being lazy, actually very busy and so I
> >have not taken up Scott's actual question to the list, is about Blicero's
> >being a Badass.



> 
> Jagger came into the discussion with your proposal that a Badass is a "man's
> man," thus ruling out Blicero as one.

No, I did not bring jagger into the discussion. You did. 
Moreover, I did not say the badass is a man's man, this was
also yours. 
Also, P says that the Badass is usually male and he is
admired almost universally by men for being big and bad. 

Here is what I wrote: 

That he, mostly a male and not a female (don't want to get
into this homophobic bull shit again, but I doubt a cross
dressing bi-sexual Sado-masochist is quite what P has in
mind here) is universally admired by men for  being both
Bad, Bad in the sense that he is able to work mischief on a
large scale, tells me that Weissmann/Blicero ain't no
Badass. This sounds a bit more like Pig Bodine, Slothrop in
certain scenes.  

And the return of the repressed, the wish, the 
imaginative construction from parts, against the machine
order and 
it's concentration of capital, loss of jobs through
automation, creating 
a struggle at the base level, i.e. Irish-American and
African-American after the Civil War, I thought, might be
hinted at in Pynchon's early short story, The Secret
Integration, and the imaginative African-American boy Carl
Barrington, constructed from the dreams, or the withdrawal 
fever or Mr. McAfee, the junk yard parts that fall into the
boys imaginations, the parents use of machines (look these
name brands up and they spell ROCKET, the films spell racism
and revolution)  for terror, to maintain the lily white
world,   with that perfect touch of humor. In the future
there will be no work, machines, the boy whose father owns
the junk yard tells him and he tells the others, will do all
the work, so the boy decides he wants to be a comedian, a
prankster.
It's P's best short story imho, better even than Mondaugen.  

> 
> >"Now, given that kind of time span, it's just not easy to
> >think of Ned Lud as a technophobic crazy."
> >
> >This is important I think, the Badass is not nuts.
> 
> OK, and Franky and King Kong had their reasons also.  But I don't think this
> would disqualify Blicero either.
> 
> >he is usually male, universally admired by men
> 
> This one doesn't fly.  There are MANY men that HATE the Badass.  That's why
> he's usually killed off.
> 
> >P turns what he calls Luddite fiction and this is where is becomes very
> >clear that B/W is not a Badass and Mick Jagger is not even in the book.
> 
> This doesn't fly either, because this letter doesn't mention GR, so any
> Badass discussion which applies this letter has to remain open.
> 
> David Morris
> _________________________________________________________________
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