SECTION TWO

The Blacklisted Journalist Picture The Blacklisted Journalistsm

COLUMN THIRTY-EIGHT, OCTOBER 1, 1998
(Copyright © 1998 Al Aronowitz)

THE SAGA OF MANUEL MENÉNDEZ (CONT'D.)

manuel.jpg (51153 bytes)
MANUEL MENÉNDEZ

PART 3: SLANDER AND LIBEL

I consider Manuel Menéndez such a talented writer that I long ago got his written permission to publish in THE BLACKLISTED JOURNALIST all his manuscripts, letters and email. But when I sent Manuel an advance peek of Column 37, he replied with this email:

Dear Mr. Al:

What you did to my public image was sheer slander, but I don't give a fuck. Like when I had to wear geriatric napkins to keep the blast furnace running; lurid details about my sex life or rather lack of it, my impotence; how I fucked up that bloody drill, everything negative, any shit you could pile on me. When did Reg Hartt bounce me from his joint? There were so many interesting things to say about my life. . .

I don't know why you keep cataloging me as "a fascist pig." I'm opposed to fascism, communism and anti-Semitism. I despise niggers, and I think all these 15 years Negresses on crack who transmit the dependence to their fetuses, and live foreverafter on the dole, should be cut off from the tax-payers cornucopia. They don't know even who the father is. Fuck them, let them fend for themselves. I have no pity for them.

I'm open minded, I support abortion, I'm an atheist and despise the whole spectrum from the Baptists to the Methodists, Anglicans, Catholics, tinsel Buddhists like your late friend Ginsberg, you name it. I don't like what Starr stands for, neither his bigoted background. But I hate even more the Big Creep, that arrogant hypocrite. I don't care which party he comes from: is the same shit. But I choose the lesser of two evils, and I would vote Republican because Bush and Dole were war heroes, not draft dodgers. Had JFK been alive right now, I would vote for him, because I vote for the Man, not the Party. It's not Clinton's womanizing that bothers me: it's all his pattern of lies since he was a nobody in Arkansas. Arrogant and despicable, and a coward to boot.

And Al Gore is no better. Talking about fascists, there's a cryptofascist for you, who publicly condemned the tobacco industry and later took bribes from the poisoners. I hope he get indicted too, for his abuse of office. As for the other niggers like Vernon Jordan, Jesse Jackson and that buddy of yours Amiri Verraco [Baraka?], who nobody knows, I don't give a fuck about their standings and opinions. They rank to me beside Marion Barry: black trash.

As for Hillary Rodham, she hasn't on her a single atom of decency and of shame.


Manuel said
he was just
playing with me


She should have divorced ages ago, before Monicagate, but she clings on to power, sort of a Lady Macbeth in all this dirty affair. . .

Obviously, by considering Manuel a literary lion, I've caught a tiger by the tail. Immediately, I phoned Manuel to tell him that if he objected to THE SAGA OF MANUEL MENÉNDEZ that much, I'd substitute another piece for it in Column 37.

"No, no!" he said. "I was just trying to goad you!"

I'd started addressing him as "fascist pig," so I guess I'd been goading him, too. Once, he signed an email, "Attila the Hun." But then, I've long ago stopped using the pejorative N word and I wish he'd stop, too. On the other hand, I don't believe in censorship.

I've published Manuel's letters because it's they that best tell his saga. After all, he is a master storyteller. And Manuel's saga is certainly a fascinating story. I can sympathize with him, if not with certain of his beliefs, because I, too, feel as if I've been unfairly treated. (I've finally become aware that the only solution is to be able to laugh at it.) Otherwise, I find Manuel's sex problems particularly interesting because they are so much like my own. Which is why he and I communicate so candidly about our sex lives, or at least the absence of same. At the age of 70, I can say that I never made it with all the women I wanted so desperately to go to bed with (although, actually, I've gone to bed with many more women than I've fucked. And I didn't want to just fuck, either---I wanted to have full-blown romances with them all.) No, I never got laid as often as I wanted to. I now have a lady friend, but, with all the pills I've got to shovel down my throat every day in the wake of my heart operation, I no longer have much of a sex drive. I used to smoke a lot of cocaine, thinking that would help get me laid more often, but the cocaine only left me with a limp love muscle. So much for my own sex life. (In a way, I envy President Clinton, too.)

But enough dirt about me. I'll resume Manuel's story here by letting him tell it in his own words, using the email he's sent me since we left off in Column 37:

Sunday, April 19, 1998, 4:30 PM. . .

There's some more stuff you haven't seen yet, and a whole chapter of my novel, which is in English; the other three are in Spanish. But it would fill your column, take some weight off your shoulders, less pressure for you. I have read on the Web all you have published so far, especially the first columns about The Beatles and old Bobby.

As for my sex life, resurrected Lazarus, tomorrow Monday I have the day free, and will withdraw whatever I have left on the ATM, and screw Michele my belle again. My brother-in-law, the doctor, will visit Cuba in two weeks, and I guess he'll leave my sister and nephew enough dollars to last for a while, so I don't feel so guilty spending dough in hookers.

It's going to take time to enjoy sex fully, the penis is, after all, a muscle that gets atrophied when not used. But the real trick were these injections I used, they are called "Caverjet," and come in two sizes, 10 and 20 micrograms. They are effective, dirt cheap and easy to use. I'm using the 20 mgs dose. Why don't you try them? They have been a blessing for me, why not you too? I plain can't wait until tomorrow to get her in the sack, like Cynara's lover: faithful to her after my fashion. . .

Saturday, April 25,1998. (12:30 PM)

Caro Maestro:

I attach a copy of an essay I wrote for a gay magazine in San Francisco, and I don't know if it was ever published, certainly they didn't pay me and stole the two beautiful photos of Reinaldo Arenas I sent, irreplaceable, which would have enriched more this contribution. . .

There's much more to Manuel's saga. But I'll end this installment with the manuscript that came attached to the above email. ##

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