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ooooo ooooo .oooooo. oooooooooooo HOE E'ZINE RELEASE #540
`888' `888' d8P' `Y8b `888' `8
888 888 888 888 888 "When Yesterday Was Tomorrow"
888ooooo888 888 888 888oooo8
888 888 888 888 888 " by AIDS
888 888 `88b d88' 888 o 3/27/99
o888o o888o `Y8bood8P' o888ooooood8
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Why is it that every bitch in HOE, under their calm veneer of
mockery and mischief, is actually a wellspring of deep emotional current?
(PAGANINI, of course, is except by virtue of not being a HOE BITCH, but
rather an AIM one.) Why beneath all innocuous surfaces are there fiery
tempests of rage and neglect? And why, as one who enjoys all sorts of
emotion, do I find it reprehensible? Why are you all so fucking sorry?
I think we've got to analyze the nature of this particular emotion
against the emotion that drives such things as GREAT ART, CONSTRUCTIVE
BEHAVIOR, etc., etc. Why is a self-indulgent file by meenk bemoaning how
bad her parents were worse than Samuel Butler's _Way of All Flesh_; why is
a letter from Styx to some dippy broad stupider than _Adolphe_? Aren't
they driven by the same types of emotion? Aren't they fueled by similar
sorts of injuries?
What's the difference? Is there one? Where is it? What is it?
Will I ever write a sentence again? Who knows? What's there? How are
you? When did you get here? That's a very nice bike! You can ride it if
you like! It's got a bell, it rings, and things to make it look nice!
I'd give it you but I borrowed it. I've got a mouse named Gerrold.
Anyhoo, I think when we look at something like _The Way of All
Flesh_, by someone who was very cleared wounded, deeply, by his parents,
we get a sense that, yes, there is the same exhibitionism here that we
find in HOE files, no question, but that there's something more. It's as
if the emotional current that Butler taps into isn't simply /his own/, but
as if he's tapped into the much deeper waters of the collective human
experience.
It's the difference between a shallow pond and the Marinas Trench.
Because Butler is abstracted from the text, and here is the
impartial writer, we are allowed to see the actions of the overbearing
parents in an objective light. We are not force fed a perception that
otherwise could not be commonly shared. We are allowed to see things in a
relatively clear light.
And please, don't mistake me here, I'm not trying to imply that this
is the case with all good writing. I just think there's an important
contrast between this and Meenk's epic work on Mom & Pop, the dynamic
fucked up duo, two sets of work which say the exact same thing: Isn't it
god damned terrible how I was raised?
In Meenk's HOE files, we find a source of emotion, but it is the
emotion of the ego, the self-contained universe. And worse yet, unlike
Butler, who was clearly try to undergo a catharsis and PURGE himself of
these emotions, Meenk seems to be in love with the fact that this excess
baggage of childhood turmoil allows her to produce such candied prose.
The words are dripping with this emotion, and such, the prose has a slick
feel to it, and the subtext is this: "HERE I AM. I HAVE BEEN HURT. I
HAVE BEEN HURT. HERE I AM. BECAUSE I HAVE BEEN HURT, I AM GIVEN LICENSE
TO BECOME AN EXHIBITIONIST AND WRITE THIS NONSENSE, AND IN TURN HURT YOU.
ABUSE IS A CYCLE. TELETYPE DID ME. I HAVE BEEN HURT. HERE I AM..."
All the files blend into one, because they're all broadcasting the same
message.
(And please, don't mistake me here, I /like/ Meenk. This isn't a
personal attack on her, just on the general effect of giving someone a
workspace in which they can wax poetic about the fucked up shit that has
happened to them in life. Nor is this HOE specific. It's as if there a
satelitte boradcasting this type of emotion on to the earth, and when
people get in front of vi, joe, jed, Microsoft Word, Wordpad, WordPerfect,
or notepad their brains immediately tune into it and it forces them to
produce files like this. Meenk is no exception. You are all guilty,
swine. All of you are culpable in the eyes of God, and you will all burn
in Hell.)
From reading HOE alone, I occasionally wonder if perhaps I am an
android or alien, or some equally awful science fiction cliche, because I
am lacking this baseline of self-indulgent personal emotion. Or maybe I'm
just an idiot incapable of understanding the softer aspects of humanity,
the vulnerability. Or maybe I'm in denial and need to undergo Janov's
Primal Scream therapy, or maybe I'm just a perl script that lacks
self-awareness or modification, and I can't escape this emotionless rut
that I'm build for myself with arrays and hashes.
But whatever it is, I'm glad I can recognize this trash for what
is. And I'm glad that my programming doesn't allow me to produce it.
Take it for what it's worth.
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[ (c) !LA HOE REVOLUCION PRESS! HOE #540 - WRITTEN BY: AIDS - 3/27/99 ]