From Pathetic Life #11
Friday, April 21, 1995
I slept with the space heater inches from my body, the hot air aimed directly at my chest all night long, and still couldn’t overcome the chill from working in the wind yesterday.
Chilled to whatever’s left of my soul…
♦ ♦ ♦
I’ve been a good kid and deserve a day off from the zine, so today’s guest host will be Bruce Anderson of the Anderson Valley Advertiser.
The AVA is a cheeky weekly paper from a small California town, I’ve mentioned it in the past, but descriptions can’t do it justice, so instead — a couple of excerpts from Bruce’s writing:
Anna Taylor, the KZYX radio personality and professional poor person, is suing me for defamation of character, a charge which seems to suggest she thinks she has some. Taylor wants $5,000 because I said in last week’s paper that her marathon case against CDC for tax-funded repairs to her house is as phony as she is.
Taylor is famous in the Valley for dishing it out but not taking it, constantly calling up local talk shows to insult or malign whomever happens to be in the way of her leisurely, mostly tax-funded life.
Well, let me make it real clear, Judge Lebowitz, or whichever little judicial Saab-driving yuppo fills in for you as you duck out on this one: The taxpayers can feed me for the rest of my life at the Low Gap Hilton before the Widder Taylor gets a nickel from me.
Not being local to Anderson Valley, I don’t know diddly about Anna Taylor or Judge Lebowitzl, but that doesn’t matter as much as this:
No other newspaper in America would print anything approximating the above. Somebody’s going to be offended, and your local paper is owned by a company that makes money by offending no-one.
The Anderson Valley Advertiser is about telling the truth, more than making money. That’s why I subscribe, despite never having been to Anderson Valley.
Because it’s part of its community, the AVA runs announcements of public events and meetings, at no charge, and with no meddling. Well, except when Bruce is feeling meddlesome, like this recent moment wherein the editor sarcastically rewrote a listing about an upcoming open meditation session:
Saturday, 1:30 – 4:30 PM, in the Round Room at the Mendocino Community High School, 45220 Covello Street, Mendocino:
No matter what your meditation background is; whether your meditation style is traditional or not; in fact, even if you’ve never meditated before but would like to give it a try, we hope you’ll join us for a quiet celebration of our diverse spiritual community.
We plan two sitting meditations and a walking meditation. Tea will be served for the sitting meditations. Our mantra for the sitting meditations will be “Umm.” Then, for the walking meditation, “Duhhhh,” we’ll march off the bluffs, single file, holding our ceremonial teacups in the Fourth Chakra Position, forever freeing the North Coast of two generations of Purple People.
I’m not sure where that press release ends and the satire begins, but that’s why I read even the small print in the AVA.
It’s a newspaper with an attitude, a piping hot toaster strudel for your brain, once weekly. $██ buys six months, payable to AVA, PO Box 459, Boonville CA 95415.
If you’re stubborn or cheap as hell or still stupidly skeptical, send me a couple of bucks and I’ll mail you a leftover AVA fresh off the floor of my messy room.
This is an entry retyped from an on-paper zine I wrote many years ago, called Pathetic Life. The opinions stated were my opinions then, but might not be my opinions now. Also, I said and did some disgusting things, so parental guidance is advised.
Addendum, here and now: The AVA is still published by Bruce Anderson, but now it’s on-line only. And I still subscribe, and you still ought to.
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