Hello, teenage America!

I'm speaking to you tonight through the filter of my personal secretary. I've brought her on board for a few hours to handle my extraneous paperwork -- you know, bills, restraining orders, land titles, promotions, and the standard beheadings that are part of my daily routine.

I was in Washington DC yesterday, so I fell behind on my correspondence. (And BTW, the traffic from DC to Baltimore was friggin' insane.) I got home Thursday, planning to sign the behading requests, but I was waylaid by a bottle of Vladimir vodka (Vlad the Impaler).

I wanted to say a few words, as I always do, about the poetic avant garde. My beef this week is with Rae Armantrout, who in an essay linking experimental writing to feminism believes that the foundaiton for such a link is that women are divided internally, fighting against themselves. In my opinion, Rae is setting the feminist movement back over 100 years. Making such authoritative statements without any justification or logic is pure misogyny. The only reason women are divided against themselves is because of people like Rae, who are trying to build up their own power bases by playing on fears, neuroses, and the easily manipulated minds of graduate students. Her statement is the equivalent of calling Miss Cleo and Cleo telling you that you are about to face a big decision, or that there will be much change in your life, or that she foresees family problems. Well, bloody-fucking-hell-of-course she does! Miss Cleo wants your money. She will play on your fears, and so with Miss Armantrout.

I am not denying centuries of male domination across the globe, but for Miss Armantrout to state that ALL, i.e., 100% of women on the face of the earth are "divided", is no better than medieval beliefs that women were "overemotional," "hysterical," and too prone to falling in love.

Don't buy anything that Miss Armantrout is saying. Women are divided -- and so are men. We all have our problems. But I only wish that I were as whole and complete as some of the women that I've looked up to.

Well, the weekend has gotten off to a fine start. Kung-fu movies, and I didn't kill any kittens. (My secretary, a staunch feline advocate, saw to that.) I finished "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," and I should get through most of "American Psycho" by early Saturday evening. Then I'll have lunch with Mom on Sunday afternoon, and on to buffalo wings and vodka tonics on Sunday night.

YOU WILL NEVER TAKE THE NECRONOMICON!

[Ed. note: Yes, gentle reader, authorial voice has been advised that Bret Easton Ellis is a name-dropping hack, but in the name of American letters, he will persevere. And of course the personal secretary is a magical realist conceit -- what do you think this is, real life, or a freakin' Bret Easton Ellis novella tucked in your Prada bag?]