[Austin-ghetto-list] jaxon's rant, part 1+

[jaxon41]

Fontaine & Fellow Mavericks Everywhere:
You've been warned, ghettoites--this is a lengthy rant spawned by righteous
self indignation and anger at Thought Policemen posing as Upstanding Liberal
Do-Gooders!  Unless you've got time on your hands, don't even bother to
start on this one.

Seeing Fontaine's post about how the 20th Anniversary issue of the Chronicle
mentioned some of us, I picked up a copy.  I don't usually bother anymore,
after Louis Black sicced his trained attack dogs Michael Ventura and Jesse
Sublett on me three years ago and then denied me space to defend myself in
the rag.  Some of you may remember V's review of my comic book Lost Cause
that I'm talking about, where he called me a shoddy historian, my work
racist, and me a racist personally--along with every other Creative Sin in
the world.  (Thanks Tary for your letter in my defense.)  Louis practices
the kind of editorial policy perfected in Nazi Germany, so why read the
Chron on a regular basis?  Yes, I know--it's the Only Alternative we've got
and I still pick it up when there's a spread on old friends who've died,
like Keith Ferguson, Doug Sahm, etc.  Plus, I hate to harbor grudges; they
eat at you and damage your Inner Self.

So, I start thumbing thru the fat issue to Ventura's column, where he's
pretending that he's Sarah Clark's lifelong friend and crowing "Freedom of
the press baby!"  Right, V--freedom to malign and slander my reputation and
then deny my right to respond to your bullshit charges.  Asshole..  I see
that they run the cartoon I did for their first issue.  Not that they asked
my permission to use it or paid me, of course, but there it is--proof that I
supported these bastards from day one.  Plus, they call me "famed comix
artist Jack Jaxon"--shows you what they know as I never, ever, use my given
name Jack with my penname jaxon.  But, methinks, maybe their heart's in the
right place and it's time to let by-gones be by-gones and patch up my
relationship with the Chron.

Then I get to their timeline (p. 87) where it is noted that in Oct. 1998 I
become "alienated" from the Chron over the Ventura review.  HMMM--why, I
wonder, would they put that in as a memorable event?  Especially since they
(Louis) used Gestapo tactics to hushup the affair once people started rising
to my defense and the review was recognized as a heavy-handed hatchet job by
people knowledgable about the medium of "graphic novels"--which V obviously
wasn't.

Once this review was printed, I went down to the Chron office, rebuttal in
hand and fully expecting them to publish it.  Louis had told me over the
phone that I could respond in a letter-to-the-editor with a 600 word limit.
I wanted more.  I knew--from reports of several people who worked under
him--that Louis was a tyrannical bastard who ran the Chron with a sweatshop,
penny-pinching mentality, but I thought that Nick and Sue Barbaro were
decent people who would recognize the justice of my case and let me be
heard.  Louis wasn't there the day of my visit but I ran into Nick out back
& proceeded to bend his ear in my "I've been fucked over and I deserve
redress" mode.  Nick, of course, stood behind his editor and pretended that
this was all overblown in my mind and No Big Deal.  So much for Freedom of
the Press and a Sense of Fair Play, thinks I.  These guys are just
carpetbaggers getting rich off Austintacious advertising revenue in a pub
that caters to "community values" and the Hip Lifestyle.  They don't give a
shit about artists, art, or moral issues--they're just out to make a buck.
A harsh judgment?  We'll see...

So do I give up?  No way.  Tauruses are nothing if not stubborn; we keep
going, step-by-step, plodding the earth and pulling our plow.  I leave  with
Nick my point-by-point reply to V's smear with this 19 Sept. 1998 cover
letter to Louis:  "Because Ventura's "review" of my book amounts to libel &
slander with malice aforethought, I think I'm entitled to respond to his
accusations that I'm a calculating racist, shoddy historian, etc, etc.  A
600-word letter to the Editor won't do.  Between Michael & Jesse 3 pages
were devoted to tearing me down & labeling the protagonist of my book a dumb
Asshole.  By extension I'm all-of-the-above.  So here's my response to this
crap, along with several panels of art that should accompany it on the same
ground as their smear: a feature article.  I certainly didn't expect to be
blind-sided like this by the Chronicle.  We all go back together a long time
on the Austin scene.  I don't know why you want to hold me up to public
ridicule and try to damage my reputation, both personally and
professionally.  It boggles my mind that you would allow Ventura to piss on
me in this fashion, even if you didn't like the book yourself."  Sorry,
jaxon, you know what happens with Custer Decisions: they're never reversed,
so I was denied.  Thus my "alienation" from the Chronicle.

Next installment--jaxon finds that V's scuzzy review is still in-my-face in
cyberspace.