smSECTION TWO
sm
COLUMN FORTY-THREE, MARCH 1, 1999
(Copyright © 1999 Al Aronowitz)
THE SAGA OF MANUEL MENÉNDEZ (CONT'D.)
MANUEL MENÉNDEZ
PART 8: HE STARTS A FAST, WANTS A WEBSITE
The saga continues, as told by Manuel's emails, including copies of emails sent to other friends of Manuel. Some of the emails to his friends are in Spanish and, although some of the Spanish accents were corrupted in transmission, they are included herein.
Subject: Madrigal, getting contact with.
Date: Fri, 07 Aug 1998 01:25:35 PDT
From: "manuel menendez" <manuel_menendez@hotmail.com>
To: jose.javier@sympatico.ca
CC: actionab@passport.ca
Friday, August 7, 1998.
Jose:
I write in English so Joy can read this e-mail too, and so it doesn't fall in the hands of your kids. I'm still kicking around, but without much enthusiasm, even if, for the first time in my psychotic syndrome, I'm having a manic phase. So far my manic depression had been unipolar, depression only. As for the you know what, the bonzo spectacle, it seemed a good idea at the time. Now I don't think so. I was on the brink of making my exitus, and I thought it was more dignified to go that way than my corpse being discovered by the stench, decomposed, like Terry's, my Canadian neighbor, who overdosed. But subject closed.I submitted the first chapters of my novel to a literary agent in Barcelona. I just gave up my perfectionism, I can always polish it later, this was a draft. Every morning at 9 AM when I arrive in this pigsty I check the answering machine and my e-mail, but nothing from her so far. I'm on tenterhooks.
So I'm very glad you sent me Madrigal's web address. Perhaps I'll send him the M.S. depending on what he says. And to you all too. How's "The Popular" going? I hope that Ecuador bastard gets bankrupt. I'm calling Madrigal now and I'll keep in touch.
Manuel.-
* * *
Subject: Punctuation, disregard of.
Date: Fri, 07 Aug 1998 01:44:21 PDT
From: "manuel menendez" <manuel_menendez@hotmail.com>
To: info@blacklistedjournalist.com
CC: actionab@passport.ca
Friday, August 7, 1998.
Cher Maitre:
Don't worry about Spanish punctuation and diacritical marks like és and ís and Ÿs, that is a perfectionism I can't afford. Just publish the stuff as it comes, and when I use italics, put the sentence in quotes. That will do the trick.I'm happy, because William Flatus Clinton is on the ropes. Serves him right. Bush would have been a better president. Although a preppy bastard he had the balls to volunteer in War World II. At least he wouldn't be getting $30 million blowjobs in the Oval Office. I would like very much to see him impeached. Because he sold the Cuban people down the river, and revoked the 1962 Cuban Immigration Act, and is sending back to Castro's infernal jails dehydrated Cuban rafters whose only crime is to seek freedom and to believe in the American Dream, in the Promised Land. May he rot in hell, the draft-dodger, he who smoked joints but didn't inhale.
Take care and keep in touch:
Manuel.-* * *
Subject: "Iroko"
Date: Sat, 08 Aug 1998 00:49:48 PDT
From: "manuel menendez" <manuel_menendez@hotmail.com>
To: RMadri7239@aol.hotmail.com
CC: jose.javier@sympatico.hotmail.com
Sábado, Agosto 8, 1998.
Broder:
Llegué cansado y deprimido del trabajo, trabajando overtime toda la noche, pero tu e-mail me levant- el ánimo. Lo que te voy a mandar es la tercera parte de la novela, "Iroko," 'ceiba' en Yorubá. La tengo entera en la cabeza, diálogos incluso, y la submitiréa ya formateada en Microsoft Word 6.01 - Microsoft Office 1998, que tengo pero aún no he instalado, para MACINTOSH. Odio a la IBM y a Bill Gates, ese hijeputa. Es decir que el trabajo de tipografía sería mínimo. Hasta la portada la tengo en mente. Lo que me falta, Madrigal, es tiempo: no se puede ser escritor de fin de semana, es un trabajo full time. Por desgracia, voy a tener tiempo de sobra en los próximos meses: el 31 de agosto nos dan lay-off a 120 de nosotros: inventaron un software que hace nuestro trabajo, así que no hacen falta monitores humanos.La novela, bueno verás las partes más conflictivas, es muy problemática. El Marqués de Sade escribía libros sucios con palabras eclécticas tales como "coprofagia" y "escatofilia." Yo no, estoy escribiendo un libro limpio pero en palabras obscenas, tal como habla el cubano. José Z. Tallet experiment---con el dialecto cubano, y Cabrera Infante flirte---con él en el primer capítulo de "Tres Tristes Tigres," pero el resto de ese libro es en el Español más puro. Yo escribo en Cubano, en el vernáculo de la calle y la esotérica jerga carcelaria y óáóiguista. Y otros capítulos están escritos en Inglés, no por capricho sino por necesidad. ¿CÍmo tú hablas del arte de un jugador profesional de blackjack, si no en Inglés? En Español simplemente no hay equivalentes.
Bueno, ya verás por ti mismo este engendro de mi imaginaci-n que comienza en Labana en 1963, y prosigue con los campos de la UMAP en Camagúey, la inevitable fuga en balsa en la Corriente del Golfo, la vida de un castrado enseñando Español en la Berlitz en Manhattan, continúa en la búsqueda de venganza de sus castrantes, y del máximo sacrificio que se puede hacer en la vida: matarse con tal de donarle un órgano a quíen se ama.
Creo que puedo permitirme los 800 dílares: simplemente me hipoteco, y como decimos allá en Labana: "A singar por los portales." Perdóname, broder, pero de ti no me acuerdo, pero sí de Manolito Ballagas de una fiesta que fui en casa de José Mario, en los 60, cuando Manolito le llevó a Allen Ginsberg su traducción de "The Howl" al Habana Libre. Memoria fugaz, pero es natural después de todos los electroshocks que me metió Mederos en Carbó Serviá.
Importántisimo: ¿Qué máquina tu usas, IBM o Macintosh? ¿Y qué sistema operativo? Take care, and keep in touch.
Manuel.-
* * *
Subject: Novel.no [pno puedo escribir más de cinco minutos,
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1998 02:12:59 PDT
From: "manuel menendez" <manuel_menendez@hotmail.com>
To: RMadri7239@aol.com
CC: info@blacklistedjournalist.com
Miércoles, Agosto 12, 1998.
Broder:
Con éste van cuatro e-mails que te mando, pero con este servidor de mierda no puedo escribir más de cinco minutos o pierdo el mensaje. Lo más importante: ¿Qué computadoras están usando tú y Manolito? ¿IBMs o Macintosh? Porque si son IBM, el problema de la compatibilidad es una grandísima jodienda a la hora de formatear. Y no puedo mandarte los diskettes en Text, porque todos los acentos y marcas diacríticas se pierden, y son esenciales para mi novela, que es como una sinfonía para word processor. La sintonía está cachicambeando, así que mando otro e-mail, y aver si retazos llegan.Submití a la única agente literaria en Barcelona, y en toda España, los primeros once capítulos de la novela, los más conflictivos porque se desarrollan en la UMAP. Y fui y sigo fiel al lenguaje: No voy a poner a un óááóígo o a un marión perdido hablando castellano castizo. Otro problema: la novela está escrita a la vez en dos idiomas: el vernáculo cubano y el dialecto del hampa, y otros en Inglés. Es inevitable: el "héroe" deviene en jugador profesional de blacjack, y en el Español no existen equivalentes, tengo que escribirlo en InglŽé: No queda alternativa. LO que repesenta un novela escrita a la vez en dos idiomas. Lo que quizás sea un tour de force desde el punto de vista literario, pero nadie que no sea bilingúe la leería.
Sigo en otro e-mail, ste esta fallando.
Manuel.-* * *
Subject: Clinton, Christmas turkey
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1998 12:11:27 PDT
From: "manuel menendez" <manuel_menendez@hotmail.com>
To: info@blacklistedjournalist.com
CC: actionab@passport.ca
Dear Mr. Al:
Your William Jefferson Clinton is as full of shit as a Christmas turkey, and he just blew the lid when bombing the wrong guy, Osama bin Laden, in Taliban's Afghanistan of all places. Just to cover up and distract the attention from Lewinsky's affair. This is a dangerous guy, unscrupulous, asking for a fatwah. He don't know shit from Shinola about Islam, and is playing with fire. Mark my words: You'll see an increase of 100% of terrorism against the US in the next five years. For the price of covering up a fellatio by a shicksa.
Loves You:
Manuel.-* * *
Subject: Publishing
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 02:58:39 PDT
From: "manuel menendez" <manuel_menendez@hotmail.com>
To: info@blacklistedjournalist.com
CC: jose.javier@sympatico.ca
Monday, August 24, 1998.
Caro Maestro:
Don't get pissed-off with me: I am a man whose all his dreams have just deserted. I have to goad on your favorite topic, the Big Creep fellatios, so you'll bite the hook and write. I'm a ferocious anti-communist reactionary, but History is on my side.
I discovered through a Cuban friend a basement bargain editorial in Cincinnati, which prints you 250 or 500 copies, paper-back but good paper and good typography, for $800-$1000. Dirt cheap, to the extent I sent the guy the third of my novel, and I'm going to publish it no matter if I get in hock with my VISA card for the next 15 years: I'm not going to live that long, anyway.I know you are proud, so am I, I wouldn't ask anyone to lend me money, not even for the publishing of my novel, which I don't know what to think about. But maybe you can manage to publish your stuff: it's certainly cheaper and more permanent than a CD ROM. And these Cuban guys have in store a score of ISBN numbers, which is essential if you want to sell. Think it over. By the way, my novel, "Iroko," is dedicated to you. 'Cause despite your liberal platitudes, you are my best friend in this convulsed planet.
Take care and love:
Manuel.-* * *
Subject: Fucked up computer
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1998 02:06:30 PDT
From: "manuel menendez" <manuel_menendez@hotmail.com>
To: info@blacklistedjournalist.com
CC: RMadri7239@aol.com
Tuesday, August 25, 1998.
Mates:
I have five e-mails on my mailbox but I cannot open the screen. Please e-mail me ASAP to see if I can reboot this crap, if no, I'll have to erase and reinstall the whole shebang, which would be a real pain on the neck.Thanks and sorry:
Manuel* * *
Subject: Publishing, hopefully
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1998 08:47:13 PDT
From: "manuel menendez" <manuel_menendez@hotmail.com>
To: info@blacklistedjournalist.com
CC: actionab@passport.hotmail.com
Tuesday, August 25, 1998.
Cher Maitre:
What you say makes a lot of sense, but these guys are no crooks, on the contrary, there are patriots willing to share the cost of the book. You are used to the world of Dylan, the Beatles and Ginsberg, who reeked of success and moolah. These guys are different. They are committed to the cause. By the way there's one of them who translated "Howl" to Spanish, and whom Ginsby fucked that night in the active position at the "Habana Libre' hotel, in 1964 or so. When the Cuban cops deported Ginsby they were amazed that he had an electric tooth-brush, something unseen in that fucking island. But I digress.The point is: I think it's a great idea, inspired no doubt by a spiked cookie. I scored myself half an ounce of good ganja, dirt cheap. On the side I'm imbibing daily two liters of 9mm Carlsberg beer, what the junkies drink. There's also plenty Thunderbird here, by the way. Add to that about a dozen espressos per night, and thirty hand-rolled Smith & Wessons per day. But who gives a fuck, Mr. Al? Not my family, what's left of it, for sure.
I only communicate with machines: 8 hours a day the whole week to make some overtime, the night-shift in front of an IBM, and then I come here "home" to this scruffy pigsty, and sit in front of a Macintosh. I'm not human, I live on cyberspace, the same as you. Is it worthwhile? Absolutely. Ask an artist what he lives for, to create.
Take care:
Manuel.-* * *
Subject: Viagra and Euthanasia
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1998 13:28:14 PDT
From: "manuel menendez" <manuel_menendez@hotmail.com>
To: info@blacklistedjournalist.com
CC: RMadri7239@aol.com
Thursday, August 27, 1998.
Dear Mr. Al:
I might be a fascist pig, and proud of it, but you are a kosher Democrat, who cares only about his golden check, and belongs not in New Jersey, but in a condo in Miami, playing Bingo and drinking orange juice, exerting Gray Power with all its stupidity. I think everybody in the USA over 60, including myself, should by euthanized by the government, to make lebensraum for the younger generations. 85-year-old geronts taking beds on intensive care units, at $800 apiece per day, at the expense of the tax payer. All of them should be exterminated without mercy: the old, the mentally retarded, the niggers, and start the Millennium with a clean slate.By the way, you know, a 50 mg Viagra pill which costs in the US $5, sells here for 20 quid. 75% profit. I have no head for business, but we could have done a mint. Hasn't been approved in the EU, until late October. So traffickers go to Andorra to buy them and to resell all over Western Europe. Maybe we can still do a deal, 50-50? The market here is inexhaustible. I just put and ad on the billboard on my job and all the flaccid-pricked bigshots would be eating out of my hand. If you are game, I'll send you the money, and you get the receipt and send the stuff. I'll handle this side, but make up your mind soon.
Manuel.-
* * *
Subject: Boarding Home.
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1998 01:06:12 PDT
From: "manuel menendez" <manuel_menendez@hotmail.com>
To: RMadri7239@aol.com
CC: info@blacklistedjournalist.com
Friday, August 28, 1998.
Broder:
I write to you in English so I cover all my friends at the same time: José Luis, Joy, and Mr. Al, my cherished teacher and adopted father. Yes indeed, I read "Boarding Home" fresh from the presses, from Spain, seems this guy Rosales won a Mickey Mouse prize or other there. Seemed nice at the time, although Little League. I had completely forgotten it until you mentioned it on your last e-mail: if that's considered the best novel produced in exile, then I'm a Premo Cervantes, maybe even a Pulitzer. I'm eager, broder, to hear your opinion about the draft I sent you, the first third of the novel or so.I'm going to have plenty of time, because this morning at 6 AM I was ignominiously and unceremoniously laid-off, after a year and a half of perfection, doing better Italian ads than the natives. My third language, and sometimes the guineas themselves came to me for advice. So be it. Mediocres kept their jobs, I was thrown in the clutches of a Welfare system designed to discourage the applicant. To boot, I bought The Guardian this morning, and learned that we are in for a world depression as big as the Big Depression in the 30s. So I'm going to harvest "The Grapes of Wrath" myself. Russia went to hell, Japan busted, and the Dow Jones fell in a single trade day 356 points, the biggest drop in the history of the NY Stock Exchange. According to the paper the prospects ahead are grim, and closures and unemployment will hit a massive blow to the UK's economy, one of the weakest and most vulnerable of the European Union.
So from today on, no more booze or ganja, I have to live in less than 5 quid a day. Good time to fast, to lose weight and cleanse my mind and body. And to work, to write systematically, locked in this stuffy ugly bad-vibed room.
Take care, and write, each and every of your e-mails gives me hope to go on. The same is valid for the rest of my friends. More than ever in my life I have needed the reassurance of what talent I got.
Manuel.-
* * *
Subject: Attachment
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1998 22:16:23 PDT
From: "manuel menendez" <manuel_menendez@hotmail.com>
To: info@blacklistedjournalist.com
Monday, August 31, 1998.
Dear Mr. Al:
I couldn't open the attachment you sent. As for the photo, use that same one, I have no other. I'm only on my second day of fasting and already feel weak and dizzy. But whenever I'm tempted to eat, I just look at my mother's last letter. I dream with her every night. I'll never get used to her loss, the bitterest I ever suffered, worse than my father's: at least I was at his side when he died.Take care:
Manuel* * *
Subject: Sacco & Vanzetti
Date: Wed, 02 Sep 1998 13:23:43 PDT
From: "manuel menendez" <manuel_menendez@hotmail.com>
To: info@blacklistedjournalist.com
CC: RMadri7239@aol.com
Wednesday, September 2, 1998.
Bravo, Maestro! Your article about Sacco and Vanzetti is the best I have read from you so far. Reminds you of Truman Capote. I wish you had included the last words of Bart while being tied to the chair: "I'm innocent!"Just three things I found: the pistol was a .32 Spanish "Star." And the correct Italian spelling is "Coraggio" and "La Notizia". I attach some stuff I was writing right now.
Take care:
* * *
Subject: Eureka
Date: Fri, 04 Sep 1998 06:42:20 PDT
From: "manuel menendez" <manuel_menendez@hotmail.com>
To: info@blacklistedjournalist.com
Friday 4, 1998.
Cher Maitre:
What I sent you was just the first half of a chapter of my novel, and it's unfinished yet. I just wanted you to see what I'm up to. It's not for publishing yet. I would like to start my own Website but don't know how. I started yesterday the painful bureaucratic trail for collecting unemployment, a veritable nightmare and hours in a line. You are producing plenty stuff, and your columns get longer and longer. About S&V, it's a shame it's not published in some magazine.Take care and keep in touch:
Manuel.-* * *
Subject: Chapter 13
Date: Sun, 06 Sep 1998 06:03:52 PDT
From: "manuel menendez" <manuel_menendez@hotmail.com>
To: info@blacklistedjournalist.com
CC: RMadri7239@aol.com
Sunday, September 6, 1998
Dear Mr. Al:
I attach 13th chapter of my novel. I don't know if it is too long for your column, but if you want to publish it, it's all yours. I think it could be refreshing: while the hippies were enjoying acid in High Ashbury, my hero was dying of thirst in Gulf Stream.Loves you:
Manny. ##CLICK HERE TO GET TO INDEX OF COLUMN FORTY-THREE
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