[Austin-ghetto-list] jaxon's rant, part 8

[jaxon41]

Hi Folks--

Okay, in part 7 we're starting to see a xenophobic thread develop.  Kinda
like that funny teevee commercial a few years ago where grizzled cowboys
were squatting around a campfire, only to discover in horror that their hot
sauce (chili powder?) was made in "NEW YAWK CITY!?!"  Unacceptable-- we need
Pace brand from El Paso or whatever it was.  What do Yankees know about hot
sauce/chili powder??  Not a hekk of a lot, most Texans would argue, and
maybe Ventura's literary GLOP, his "food for the brain," falls into the same
category.

When it became quite clear that the Chronicle wasn't going to treat me
fairly, I wrote letters to both LB & NB on 23 Oct (same day as the foregoing
letters-to-editor were printed).  This time I sent both, instead of just
venting my anger to keep my sanity like earlier.  Seems like I mailed these
items before picking up that issue of the Chron, as I generally post things
on the mailbox in the wee-morning hours before hitting the sack; I'm not
awake and out & about till late afternoon.  This has been my schedule for
years, and it's one I'm comfortable with.  Who needs to squint at the hot
Texas sun while in its blazing fury?  A lifetime of these squints has
already cut some deep furrows into my brow, and I don't need more of them,
skin cancer, etc.  They don't call Anglo-Celts like me "rednecks" for
nothing.  I used to tan easily but now I just turn a painful bright pink.
The Texas sun is not kind to us Scotch-Irish folks over the long term and
never has been:

Louis Black, @ Austin Chronicle PERSONAL

I see that you will not change your mind about printing my response to
Ventura's slander, despite the many letters of outrage you've been receiving
on this subject (unsolicited on my part, I assure you).  Hey, it's your
paper so do whatever you please!

But Louis, this little exercise of editorial dictatorship is going to turn
and bite you on the ASS.  As you may have figured out by now, in running
this malicious review & then choosing to stand behind it, you've lost not
only my friendship but the RESPECT of the entire Austin creative community.
Thanks  to the Internet (comix@indra.com, but keep it a secret), both V's
review & your despicable editorial standards are now being judged by a
national audience as well.  Good luck; you're going to need it.  jaxon

So, I'm thinking Louis Black is a hopeless case.  Screw him, but he's just
the editor, right?  Maybe he only gets a fat, regular paycheck and doesn't
own a sizable chunk of Chron ownership/stock/whatever.  Maybe he'll take
early retirement & move to Timbucktoo, and the Chron will hire a more
enlightened person who's willing to work with Austin's artists.  After all,
Nick Barbaro is the "publisher," which usually means the person who owns the
outfit.  Thus it seemed appropriate to send a letter to Nick too.

I've always liked Nick and his beautiful wife Sue ("S. Emerson Moffat");
she's a stunner.  I used to go over to Ramsey Park where the Chron softball
team had games every Sunday afternoon.  Sam was just a toddler then so I'd
take him--decked out is his basball uniform, cap & tiny glove--over with me.
Quality time with the kid.  They all got a kick out of Sam, who would run
down foul balls & hand them to somebody with serious demeanor; then he
started pitching them infield with accuracy.  People would clap & Sam loved
it; he was a "natural."  Jeff, you know what I'm talking about, as you were
a regular at these games when back in town from your Cuban jaunts.


Sue was always in the backstop bleachers & I used to imagine that her and
Nick's decision to have a child of their own (Zeke) was inspired by seeing
how cool mine was.  Every once in awhile I'd catch that maternal, protective
look in her eye when Sam was about to fall to his death, clamoring around on
the bleachers in wild abandon.  Since Nick's mother was a Miss America, I'm
sure that Zeke's got some super genes and will turn out to be a handsome
fellow:

Dear Nick,

I see with regret that your editor has refused to print my retuttal to V's
slanderous review, or even to post it on your website.  And yet he has the
nerve to say he RESPECTS me and my work.  Well, if this is how he treats an
old friend whom he "respects," I'd hate to see how he behaves toward his
enemies!

This ugly little affair is far from over, and the Chron is going to look
pretty bad because of Louis' behavior.  If you want to get an idea of the
fuss, check out comix@indra.com starting 9 Oct; my rebuttal was posted
earlier this week.  The Comics Journal, I learn, has picked up on the
controversy & will play it to the hilt.  So, Louis' big stink is now on a
national level--way beyond the city limits of Austin.  Brace yourself...

Don't you have any say at the paper anymore?  This could all have been
avoided with a little fair play--if you'd told Louis to print my defense
against V's "review," like I expected you would when I handed it to you.
Considering the nature of the charges, that was the right thing to do, don't
you think?  Instead, Louis opted to lose my friendship, along with the
respect of a great many other local creative people.  You wouldn't believe
all the supportive calls & letters I've received since the review appeared.
But Louis, in his paranoid state of mind, imagines that I've been out
beating the bushes to produce these letters of outrage at what the Chronicle
has done to me.  jaxon

PS.  Found this old issue while packing for a move.  I notice that even in
those [early] days my stuff was stuck in the back pages, but at least you
weren't calling me a racist back then!  Thanks a lot...

I was moving at the time out of a rent house I'd lived in for 13 (unlucky
number, right?) years on Bellvue St, just off Medical Parkway.  Sam had been
born in this house, spent his first 8 years there, and thought it was "his"
home.  Little guy couldn't understand why he had to up-and-leave all his
buddies on the neighborhood.  The owner was a real nice fellow who had grown
up in this house his father (a carpenter) built when Med Pkway was called
Alice Street.  Mr. Owner gave me his 1st edition copy of the "Texas History
Movies" booklet that he's kept since it came out in 1928 and he used it as a
kiddo in school.  Gettin too old for upkeep chores, he sold "my" house and 4
others on the block to several Yuppie ladies from Chicago; I won't get into
their sexual preference lest I get a bad "gender" rap on top of everything
else I've got going against me.  They gave me a sincere story about how they
wanted my place & the 4 other houses to be "fixed up" so they could remain
"family units," so then these families could stroll over to Central Market
and do their shopping, bla blah.  Without even opening a can of paint, the
Nice Ladies flipped the property a few months later and doubled their money!

J. David, you may recall my bitter rants against slumlords and the Austin
real estate market at this time (and you too, Artie; hope I didn't hurt your
feelings).  Did these gals perhaps feel a wee bit guilty about how they were
using Daddy's money?  Probably not.  Daddy would be proud when they told him
they'd turned a profit of $100,000 in 60 days on "my" house alone.  Yep, the
girl's kinda kinky, but she's got her pa's gift at getting rich without
breaking into a sweat. Austin is a Groover's Paradise, for sure, and those
dumb Texans are chickens for the plucking.  Keep at it, Gurls!!

For a country boy raised in an environment where land is EVERYTHING, I have
a happy-go-lucky attitude about real estate.  I'm almost as much of a
dumbshit about it as Tecumseh, that Shawnee chief who said:
Sell a country!?!  Why not sell the air, the clouds, and the waters, as well
as the earth?  Did not the Great Spirit make them all for the use of his
children?"  After six decades of hindsight I can only reply: "Give us time,
Chief.  We're working on it."  J. David tried to cheer me up (or rather,
calm me down) by remarking in his dry fashion that the last great attempt to
do away with private--as opposed to communal--property had flopped: Russia.
So I finally took Dave's advice and became an owner of "real" estate myself.
Now I'm just as anti-Communist as the rest of you guys, and God help anyone
who tries to mess with my piece of Texas.  GROWL, SNARL...

Anyway, the issue of the Chron found during my move and passed on to Nick
was the one where I did a cartoon called "I's Lyin when I say there'll never
be another like it."  It was about a projected Condo {"Island") on the south
bank of town lake about where the Amer-Stats plant now is.  At the time
there were NO highrises on the lake--all open space.  The Tamale House at
its Congress-First St. location was still a popular, cheap dining spot.  Now
we've got lots of tall targets for terrorists, with more going up all the
time.

Yep, Austin has Gone to Hell faster than even I--a lifelong, confirmed
pessimist/cynic-- could have imagined.  As time passes I'm beginning to feel
more like that Edward G. Robinson character in Soyulent (sp?) Green.
Somebody put me out of my misery!!!  But as I slip into Eternal Sleep I want
to see scenes of the Austin skyline and my old haunts from the Sixties.  I
am NOT READY for what Austin has become, thanks to Gary Mauro, Kirk Watson,
and other Chamber of Commerce-type politicians that we once imagined were
Our People.  Gary, of course, allowed developers to build Central Market &
its attached Condo Row on State land--a decision that screwed up my old
neighborhood by making gentryfication inevitable.  And Kirk--how shall we
reward Kirk?  Let's put HIS name on that new bike bridge across the lake, so
stupidly designed that no bicycle person wants to use it.  "Kirk Watson's
Monument to Bad Judgment," or something like that on the plaque marking the
entrance/exit.  Typical of other accomplishments under his administration
(like our C of A utility bills).  And fuckin' highdollar highrises downtown
that none of Us could afford to live in even if we wanted to.  DON'T LET ME
GET STARTED!  Sorry real estate Listers, but I'm hoping for another Bust
before it's Too Late--while there's still something left of what we loved
about Austin.  Yes, yes, I know that the entire surface of the planet Earth
is destined to resemble the Moon's, but I'd kinda like for it not to happen
within my lifetime, you know?  YIKES!!

Neither Louis nor Nick bothered to reply, seemingly in hopes I'd forget
about this problem and it would "go away."  But Mike Ventura was reading
some of the letters/email Louis had been getting.  His column in the 27 Nov
1998 issue made reference to them, while congratulating himself for saving
the Children of the World from my racist crap.  The dumb fucker probably
still thinks ("feels?") that way:

"To go from a crucial issue [how I find the word "closure" obscene] to,
well, a different issue: the wails of protest at my review of JJ's Lost
Cause.  Several letters pointed out, with historical references, that the
Henry repeating rifle had been invented in 1857.  I said Jackson had goofed
on this detail, while really it was me goofing.  One letter-writer said I
should apologize for this, but an honest mistake needs no apology; an
admission is sufficient.  My other judgments [against his book] stand--more
strongly, if anything.  It is interesting that no missive I read mentioned,
much less defended, Lost Cause's distorted racist portrayal of black
behavior during Reconstruction elections in Texas--a depiction very much
like D.W. Griffith's 1915 Birth of a Nation.  (So much for progress.)  If my
article prevents one parent or one teacher from handing that distortion to
one child, it was a good night's work [for me]."

Yes boys and girls, this is the type of shit you have to put up with when
you do comic books about Texas history.  Except it's not usually some
liberal left-winger like Ventura dumping on you, but nut-cases on the Right.

After V's self-righteous parting shot, the furor did indeed go away.  I was
even generous enuff to send Louis a cartoon invitation card to my
Housewarming Party in the month of November over at the house we bought on
Aurora Drive, sort of Inner City Austin these days.  Lynn Howell suggested I
invite V too, so we could pitch him into the funky creek/drainage ditch that
runs behind my house.  Louis didn't show up, perhaps expecting the same
treatment--or at least a pie in thee face.

Sam nows walks acroos Koenig Lane to high school at McCallum, where his
momma (Tina, daughter of former UT classics professor John Herington)
graduated from.  I write letters to the Amer-Stats every time some
progress-minded character advocates turning Koenig Lane into an east-west
freeway connecting IH-35 to Mopac.  They won't print them, of course, cause
the letters are too snide and "anti-growth."  I'm sure many of you
ghettoites have had the same problem with your comments being blacklisted by
the Amer-Stats, right Rodger?  I know Ol' Bruce Marshall has...

Next-to-last installment:  The Comics Journal prints an interview with me
about the Chron's censorship, along with an accompanying review of Lost
Cause by somebody who knows what a graphic novel should be.