[Austin-ghetto-list] jaxon's rant, part 2+

[jaxon41]

Went to Miss Emma's 50th B-day party at Jovita's on Sept 1st and saw some of
you Listers' smiling faces there.  Stole Micael Priest's empty chair and
plopped down with son Samuel at a table where Danny Garrett and Sam Yeates
were sitting.  Start talking about SY's son
Shay, 14 like mine, and how they use/misuse the Internet.  Tell SY that Sam
likes to surf porno site teasers and how one on nekkid ULTRAFAT ladies was
really gross.  Knowing that SY has a website displaying his nude paintings
and thinking this would be better exposure to the female body for Sam than
porno stuff, I ask SY how to get in.  Easy, he says; just type in "Sam
Yeates, artist" & hit Search.  So I file this info in my memory bank and
enjoy party. Emma, how come you still look as good as you did when I first
met you on 33rd Street over 30 years ago?  What's your secret, gurl??

Meanwhile, the Chron brings out their 20th Anniv. issue.  It's pretty good,
nostalgia-wise, so I send Louis Black this email: "Enjoyed your 20th
Anniversary issue.  It would have been better if you'd run part of my strip
"The Rise and Rapid Decline of Austintacious" done for  the Sun.  Especially
the last two pages where I prognosticated visually what Austin was in danger
of becoming--traffic gridlock, wall-to-wall highrises on town lake, loss of
the relaxed lifestyle, etc.  Don't know if you remember this strip, but it
was reprinted in my anthology God's Bosom.  Why put the date of my
"alienation" from the Chronicle in your timeline?  "Disappointment" would
have more aptly described it.  Ventura crows "Freedom of the press, baby!"
in his latest article, but that's what I felt you were denying me, and
that's why your handling of the matter grated on my sense of ethics.
Anyway, I'm sorry that this episode of disenchantment arose between us and
wish you continued success with the Chronicle until your brain cells fade
and you have to be pried loose from your editorial desk with a crowbar."

Why did I send this to Louis, who treated me so shitty 3 years ago by
denying me the basic right to have a voice against my accusers?  He, of
course, was the MAIN REASON Ventura panned Lost Cause so viciously.  He put
both V. and Jesse Sublett up to this "Let's plaster Jaxon" scheme,
supposedly because he had "problems" with the book--as we shall later see in
his "This week we lose a friend" chickenshit excuse for denying me a
response in his "free press" organ.  As stated earlier, I don't like to bear
grudges and try to Move On if possible.  Maybe I was fishing for the Chron
to rerun those two pages, if not for pay at least for the satisfaction of
showing readers what a good fortune teller I was: Austin today is indeed
becoming as fucked-up as I said it would.  Then it was funny; now it ain't
so amusing as we sit in bumper-to-bumper traffic at a crawl on IH-35 with a
"haze" on the skyline.  Whatever, I was in a fence-mending mode when I sent
this message over the past weekend.

Okay.  Young Sam's at a party with his buddies at the JCC, and I've got the
computer at night for a change.  I remember Sam Yeates' website & decide to
try it.  Works; about 20 of his beautiful mystic creations are there for the
world to gaze at in sharp, full color.  Gee, this is cool.  Wonder what's
out there under "Jack Jackson, artist"?  Roadrunner searches and guess what
the sole thing about me is???  Ventura's shitty review of my book Lost
Cause!!!!  It's posted under something called "Weekly Wire" with
www.bignoise.com in tiny type at the bottom.  Check it out, and I think
you'll agree that his review is just as slanted, assinine, and wrong-headed
now as it was when it first appeared 3 years ago--a hatchet-job, plain and
simple.  And there it is, still circling the globe with all its poison
dripping down like that red paint "Cover the World" illo.

Can anybody tell me anything about who this outfit is?  Who pays to keep
this insulting review IN-MY-FACE 3 years after it was printed in the
Chron???  Correct me if I'm wrong, but this piece of shit will stay on as
long as somebody pays "Weekly Wire," and anybody who punches in MY NAME (not
Ventura's, as seems the right way to post such items) will be exposed to HIS
opinion of MY racist work.  Isn't this a blatant invasion of my privacy???
Isn't it the same thing as one of telebob's ex-wives posting every kind of
horrible shit about his personal life on a website and then keying it to HIS
name, so that unsuspecting souls who want to know about "Bob Simmons, radio
whiz" will read it?  Aren't there laws to protect people from this sort of
malicious abuse?  Doesn't someone have to make a conscious decision about
how an article will be "keyed" when placing stuff like this on the internet?
Why is V's writing accessible to the world under MY NAME, unless he
specified that it be?  Jesus Christ, this is a horrible aspect of
cyberspace.

Anyway, after I sent Louis Black my conciliatory email I got one back from
Lee Nichols of the Chron, asking for my phone number so they could "contact"
me.  That's odd.  Here's this person sitting at a computer, writing me at my
home address.  Ain't that being in contact?  Who needs a phone number any
more?  This is my reply:

Dear Lee:  My phone number, 451-8153, has not changed for 18 years.

If the reason you wish to contact me is about permission to print my letter,
permission denied.  It was a personal letter to Louis.  Why deny permission?
Because since sending this letter I have learned that Ventura's sleazy
review is still posted on the internet under MY NAME, not his.  Enter "Jack
Jackson, artist" and you'll see what I mean.  It's the only entry there on
Roadrunner--this 3 years after the review was published, and the logo of the
Austin Chronicle is plastered all over it.

What this means is that innocent people who have heard about me & want to
learn more about me are hit with this shit.  Somebody--either Louis or
V--took pains to make sure the world would read this crap.  I WANT IT
REMOVED.  Putting it there under my name was mean-spirited, vindictive, and
coldly calculated.  It is damaging to my professional reputation and my
ability to earn a living, meant to hold me up to ridicule, and amounts to
personal slander.  Louis and Ventura could hide under "freedom of the press"
when publishing this review in your rag, but posting it on the internet is
something else entirely.  Now you're both liable for damages, and I'm pissed
enough to drag you hypocrites into court.  Intent is the factor: if you did
not intend to harm me, why didn't you post the favorable cover article on me
that you ran (by Jesse Sublett) shortly before the Hardin book came out?
That was about "Jack Jackson, artist" too, but it was ignored in your rush
to give the world a nasty, racist profile of me.  Who's going to consider
this "fair"?  Not a jury in Texas, I'm willing to bet.

Until I saw this post, I was willing to mend fences with the Chronicle.  You
ran my cartoon from the 1st issue (without asking my permission or paying
me; send me $100, my standard reprint fee, NOW), but I was willing to let it
slide, thinking maybe it was an attempt to patch things up; thus my email to
Louis.  But now I see that you've still got V's review posted, so all deals
are off.  Know what I'm gonna  do?  I'm gonna put everything connected with
this sordid affair on the Web--our correspondence, your refusal to print my
response, the fuss it generated, my response which you wouldn't print, The
Comic Journal's article about the Chronicle's censorship, EVERYTHING!!
It'll be posted to come up alongside V's review and keyed to both your names
[for Eternity].  So anyone who punches in ["Michael Ventura, artist/writer"
or] "Louis Black, editor" will be able to read the TRUTH for a change.  Two
can play your dirty game Louis, and that's just for starters.  jaxon

As you can see my fellow Lovers of Truth and Justice, I have thrown down the
gauntlet.  I don't have to take this kind of shit from nobody.  I'm not a
racist and never have been.  Some of you have known me for 40 years.  Has
any one of you ever heard me utter an ethnic/racial slur at someone who "is
what they am" because of an accident of birth?  If so, tell the group and
I'll shut up about not being a racist.  In addition to being a lifelong
starving artist, I have been a Lifetime Fellow of the Texas State Historical
Association since 1993.  There's only 75 Fellows total, and I have to DIE
before somebody gets my spot.  This past summer I was inducted into the
Texas Institute of Letters.  Last time I checked, neither outfit wants
racists as members, nor do they honor writers whose work reflects racist
ideas.  For somebody who's never met me to hold my work up to the world as
racist and say that I'm a racist personally is something I ain't gonna stand
for.  I've been damaged by this Asshole Ventura, and I want--not
revenge--but equity, vindication, and satisfaction.

To get it I need the help of my Ghetto support group, whose knowledge of how
the internet works dwarfs mine.  I'm computer illiterate, because only this
past summer did I buy a new IMac for Sam and become wired.  What I want to
do is exactly what I told Louis I intended to do: post this whole sordid
affair on the Web so it'll come up anytime someone types in the names of
Jack Jackson, Michael Ventura, Louis Black, or the Austin Chronicle.  I
don't know HOW to do this, and need some instructions; Cartoonist Mack White
tells me I'm already paying Time-Warner Cable for a "limited" website on my
monthly bill, but I don't have a clue how to open a site & fill it in.  I,
of course, will do all the input work.  Why continue to plaster you guys
with my spleen on this email venue when what I really need to do is put my
whole ball of wax out there alongside V's malicious review.

As a greater concern, I want the world to know the truth about the
Chronicle's (Louis Black's) neo-Nazi editorial policy and how he thinks that
because it's HIS paper he can push around "small people" like me.  Louis
must learn that he needs to think twice before deciding to butt-fuck old
friends.  I  figure I'm the purrfect purson to teach him a lesson on the
Meaning of that not-so-old saying, "What Goes Around, Comes Around."  If
this sounds like I secretly crave Revenge to you ghettoites, I've got
another term for what it really represents: it's called setting the record
straight--something that editors have to deal with every day, and something
that Louis has not yet done for me.

So what say you?  Am I gonna be helped in presenting my case, or should I
spread my buns, relax, and enjoy being shafted by these slimemoles? jaxon

Next installment--my response to Ventura's article, 3 years after-the-fact