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COLUMN SIXTY-EIGHT, FEBRUARY 1, 2002
(Copyright © 2002 Al Aronowitz)

LONG LETTER HOME

Subject: Long Letter Home
Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2001 06:45:03 -0800 (PST)
From: danny finley <dannyfinley@yahoo.com>
To: info@blacklistedjournalist.com

SOULFUL TRIP REVIEWED:  A LONG LETTER HOME

Nashville, December 17, 2000 - -
Got up last Friday to find a note from Carole Record at The Kaffeeklatsch in Huntsville, AL, saying she's had a cancellation and could I come down. So once again I find myself in the Nashville Greyhound terminal with its constituency of Negroes, Mexicans, soldiers, and poor whites all going home for Christmas, or maybe running from the law. I don't get too long to reflect on this because my attention is drawn to four armed security guards standing around in a cluster in the middle of the crowd.  Why Greyhound feels it necessary to have four armed thugs at any given time in their station in Nashville is anybody's guess, and I'm getting ready to go over and ask, when of a sudden one of em outs his pistola, looks like a SigSauer knockoff probably got it at KMart made in China like everything else in America, shucks the clip and hands it to one of the =other peacekeepers, who examines the number one bullet and passes the clip back to the first guy.  This in the middle of a crowd of people trying to get to Alabama, Detroit and I guess Monterrey or somewhere else Latin.

Now comes a very strange ritual: these guys ALL start ejecting their clips and comparing the relative merits of the rounds therein.  That is, this one will go through but leave a very large exit hole, this one because of its relatively low muzzle velocity will go in and start tumbling around various internal organs, whereas this other one, being not only a hollow point but also scored on the outside will produce a very effective shrapnel resulting in a fine, pink mist where there used to be a miscreant.  These fellows are very jolly about it all.  I decide not to make any sudden moves as I don't want a big hole or scrambled organs, and the idea of being a fine, pink mist holds no appeal at all.

I can't believe that the lack of a felony conviction is the only prerequisite to owning a cannon.  D'ja ever notice how Hell's Angels taken singly are just kinda shy quiet fellows who have an interest in motorcycles, but three or four of them together can become like really menacing; the mob mentality an all that?  I start edgin away from these guys, because really I'm afraid a couple of them may disagree as to the actual effect one of these slugs will have, and start looking around for a folksinger to prove their point. Later on I realize that this is just paranoia, because at least one of them has a shoulder patch from the Cumberland School of Police Science, and therefore is a true professional.  Right. I also notice that there is a quiet but rapidly growing no-people zone around these bozos as my fellow Negroes, Mexicans, soldiers and poor whites also start edging away.  I decide to go to that haven afforded by every full-fledged Greyhound terminal: the snack bar. One time, I guess it was my first Greyhound experience, in Ocala, Florida, I had absolutely the best chicken and dumplings ever.  Since then, I have relentlessly searched at every Greyhound occasion for its equal.  I'm sad to report that apparently that gustatory incident was a fluke, because even in Nashville, where one would expect acceptable chicken and dumplings, there is only sad, tough stringy chicken (I guess it was chicken), tepid watery gravy and forlorn lumpy doughy dumplings.  Five bucks.  No stars.

But I did get to observe one mama, delightfully tarted, every feature that could be remotely interesting highlighted.  Big hair, ruby lips and rougy cheeks and, my especial weakness lately, exquisitely applied eyeliner.  A woman friend of mine who's into that shamanistic stuff once had a book that I thumbed through called Women Who Run With the Wolves.  This busstop cafeteria babe looked like a promo for Women Who Run With the Raccoons. She was reading a copy of the new Cosmopolitan.  The title of the article was "Men Unzipped". I been thinking about Cosmo for about a year or so now, ever since I saw a cover touting an article about "Your Orgasm Face."  And I gotta say I'm not sure that this is what Helen Gurley Brown had in mind when she assumed the helm, despite her middle name.  I have been a strong advocate of women's rights blahblah for a long time.  But it seems to me that the basic function of Cosmo these days is to serve as an instruction manual for How to Be a Better Object.  And of course I'm a red-blooded dude an all that, like my pussy as well as the next guy does I guess, and...refer to the part about a weakness for eyeliner...am a total sucker for and great booster of the Feminine Mystique.  But I'd really much rather not be aware that I'm being played here.  Keep my illusions an all that. I think at this point it might be proper to mention that while this Personification of the Promise of Pussy was reading Cosmo, the old lecher at the next table, that is to say, me, was reading An Autobiography of Frank Lloyd Wright...turgid stuff, and if this Cosmo had been devoted to Your Orgasm Face rather than Men Unzipped, I might have asked to borrow it.  I can see a Man Unzipped any time I want.  Orgasm Faces...well.  ##

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TERRORISM IN JERUSALEM

Subject: FW: What I saw last night in Jerusalem
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2001 20:34:46 -0500
From: "Julian Tepper" <jutepper@erols.com>
  
To: <jutepper@erols.com>

Here is a message from my son, Greg, whom many of you know. Greg recently completed activity duty with the Israeli infantry. He has been managing an internet bar in Jerusalem, and will be in the US soon to complete his final two years of undergraduate work. He will be home on December 19, for about a week, along with his brother Rob, a budding actor in Los Angeles. Their older brother John resides in Jerusalem. Taylor and Callie are most proud of their brothers, as are Deb and I. Words do not exist to allow me adequately to express the nature and extent of my happiness to have Greg and Rob home, even if just for a short while:

I was at work, managing the bar, chatting with customers outside.  I work in the Russian Compound, about four or five blocks from where the attacks were last night.

I was outside and heard a boom, followed seconds later by another.  I knew what it was (a car bomb went off around the corner from the bar this past summer).

Within a few seconds people came running up the street.  There were two soldiers outside the bar (they're there every weekend for security). The soldiers and I tried to figure out where it had happened.  I asked people running by and all they were saying was "around the corner."

I thought it may have happened at Mike's Place, a bar around the corner where I have a lot of friends that work.  I immediately evacuated the bar (it was full) instructing everyone to take their bags and move in the opposite direction of the attack.  In this situation, as was the case last night, there are often secondary attacks, and I didn't want a bomber coming into the bar full of people.  Thankfully, everyone was very calm and walked out, no one leaving anything behind.

Once the bar was closed and secured I ran to Mike's Place, fearing that my friends may be hurt and hoping to help.  All this transpired in a matter of about 40 seconds to a minute.  I saw right away that Mike's was not hit, and from there saw commotion at Yoffo St.  I ran to help.  It may have not been wise, but my instincts or army training kicked in and I ran.

There were police and ambulances, people running and generally confused.  I was at Kikar Tzion (Zion Square).  I went towards the wounded.  I immediately saw a man with blood coming down his face, broken glass and blood on the ground near him.  I, with one or two others, helped him a few yards away to where another injured man was sitting.  Someone was trying to get MADA (Magen David Adam---the emergency medical services).

A young kid was being helped towards us.  He was having trouble walking so I grabbed an arm and leg with someone else and we carried him to where the other wounded were.  He was worried about his cell phone.  He was in shock.

I continued down that street and took a right, heading up Hillel Street, which is right behind Kikar Tzion and runs perpendicular to the Underground, a dance club.  I ran up Hillel and took a right towards Ben Yehuda, the main pedestrian mall.  There were two police and a five or six people there.  The police were trying to keep them back.  I assume the five or six people wanted to help or to look for friends.  I was right across from a popular ice cream stand, where youngsters sit out all night.  I've eaten there before, with friends or family. 

The five or six men ran past the police, and as they did I did as well.  I thought I saw a friend on the ground.  There were five or six people there, lying on the ground.  Some were getting CPR.  Some with legs or arms twisted or gone.  There was blood everywhere.  At this point I wasn't running, but moving quickly.  I saw a piece of a body, I didn't recognize what part.  There was a bone sticking out of it and bits of flesh everywhere.  I moved around the wounded, checking that I did not know any of them.

A police office was yelling, "Does anyone have a pen!" over and over.  I didn't have one.  I think they needed it for a tracheotomy.  There was nothing I could do there and so I went back the way I had come.

I saw a few people helping a kid, probably 16 or 17.  He was in shock, had blood on him, but I don't know where it had come from.  I tried to help him to where the other wounded were, along with some other people.  He kept saying he didn't want to go anywhere, was asking for his mother.  I don't know if she was there.  When I tried to put his arm around my shoulder he screamed.  He was hurt somehow.  Others took him into a cafe to sit down.

I went back again the way I had come, towards Kikar Tzion.  I told a soldier who had a wound on his head that there were wounded that needed treatment.

I got to the the square and the police started yelling for everyone to get away, that there could be another terrorist.  I went back towards Mike's Place.  On the way I saw some kids I know from the bar and told them to get away.  I got to Mike's, had some water, and went back to my bar.  The other workers were there (the owner had reopened so they could come inside).  A few people were shaken up and we had them sit down and drink some water.  I didn't hear the car bomb, I was inside.

After a few minutes the police came and told us to go home.  The walk home was crowded, the streets full with people trying to get home or not knowing where to go.   Thank G-d I'm ok, and my friends are ok.

It wasn't till an hour later that I saw blood on my pants.  Jewish blood, shed by terrorists.  These people are no different than the ones that hit America.  I am very angry.  No one should see what I saw.  No one should deal with what the wounded and the families of those children killed now have to deal with.  I pray that we should all have peace.  ##

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