Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 13:51:05 -0700
From: William Abernathy
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: "NOT BORED!"
Subject: Re: cowardly little weinies
NOT BORED! wrote:
No one appreciates misrepresentation, *especially from a group that is said to be planning to dress up as the Yuppie Go Home guy for Halloween.*
Au contraire, Mister Bun! I love good misrepresentation: like mustard and kraut, it is the spice of a weenie's life. In fact, I once dated a Miss Representation, victor of the Art Academy Beauty Pageant (she aced Miss Impression, Miss Expression and Miss Construction in the talent section, and always seemed to suffer modeling for the undergrads with the most dignity).
We got little response from "the crowd" that day because A). it was raining steadily that day [we -- and this is not the editorial "we," but a reference to a total of 7 very committed anarchists -- performed in the rain] and B). there was, consequently, no "crowd" there.
Well, sniff, sniff! As I remember it, there *was* a crowd before you started...
Mister Yuppie Go Home Guy, I misread you the whole time. I thought you had a sense of humor: that you were only *kidding* when you put up those "More Trash, Fewer Yuppies" posters. Believe me, they were a fucking laugh riot. All the while, I labored under the misimpression that you had adopted/co-opted the name of the London Psychogeographical Association in an effort to continue their assault on both tired Marxism AND tired anarchism--you certainly have the impenetrable jargon-addled complexity of their style down cold! I had thought that the crazed, inchoate and incoherent rambling of the Yuppies Can't Go Home poster was *satire,* and certainly a reaction *to* your acts of vandalism, rather than the prolix footnote you have revealed it to be. Only now do I come to realize that you are engaged in a self-parody so arch that not only was *I* taken in, but that *you yourself* don't get the joke!
And yes, we *do* get a lot of reactionary graffiti. We also get cowardly little weinies who would prefer gossiping behind our back to confronting us, directly, in person, when they have the chance.
I'm sorry I failed to live up to your militant standards of confrontation and direct action. Perhaps we should have stormed the stage, but frankly, you didn't seem to rate. When you and your cadre were up there repelling the audience with the explosive force of soap bar tossed into a clutch of left-bank Marxist intellectuals, I, along with the two splendid-looking young ladies I was counterrevolutionarily chatting up, chose instead the direct action of turning our backs on you and your dullsville vanguard and heading for dinner. Alas, I didn't form a closer comradeship with them, but hey, no revolution is won with a single bayonet thrust...
Whoops! Looks like my ideology's totally unmasked!
For those of you who missed it, Mister Yuppie Go Home Guy (AKA Bill Brown) took to the stage after a spiff Latin combo had left a decent-sized, cheerful crowd. Beneath a hastily-erected picture of that master of historic preservation, Mr. Popularity in Polish Neighborhoods Worldwide, Joe "Higher Body Count Than Hitler" Stalin, YGHGuy tried to get the audience to chant "Yuppie Go Home" along with him. No dice, comrade. (Why? Not because we weren't there, or because we have any particular slant on your impotent crusade against global capital, but because you're a tedious little man whose only claim to fame is a wave of property damage inflicted upon a neighborhood you quite paradoxically claim to defend.) Mister Brown then proceeded to read a bunch of poetry, or a screed, or a rant, or whatever you want to call it, about the evils of capitalism. Or something like that. While I'm sure your oration was as trenchant and insightful as it was entertaining, I fear I could only stomach about 30 seconds or so before I was running for Bedford, trying not to suck in bugs as I yawned convulsively.
So stick with it, Bill: the police are always looking for new crowd-dispersal techniques--As long as Amnesty International doesn't put up a stink about the cruelty of it all, they just might hire you on.
Bill Not Bored
William Bored. Terribly bored.
--
William Abernathy
william@inch.com
http://www.inch.com/~william
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