SECTION TWO

The Blacklisted Journalist Picture  The Blacklisted Journalistsm

COLUMN FORTY-FOUR, APRIL 1, 1999
(Copyright © 1999 Al Aronowitz)

THE SAGA OF MANUEL MENÉNDEZ (CONT'D.)


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MANUEL MENÉNDEZ

PART 9: THE LAST "N" WORD

In my email correspondence with Manuel, I've goaded him for his political rightism by calling him a "fascist pig." His Archie Bunkerism continues to pain me as much as it at first took my by surprise. After all he's been through, I thought he might have learned to be more tolerant. He continues to tell his story through his emails:

The Andrew Hill Manuel refers to below is a reader in England whom I've befriended and whom, in turn, I've encouraged to befriend Manuel. Andrew's email [see the Email Section of Column Forty-One (/column41.html)] takes issue with Manuel's use of the "N" word.

We resume Manuel's story, as told by his emails:

To: info@blacklistedjournalist.com
Subject: Please, don't.
Date: Tue, 08 Sep 1998 02:49:51 PDT

Tuesday, September 8, 1998.

Caro Maestro:

. . .As for my status here in England, I have a Spanish passport that I never cared about. It was only when I arrived here that I learned I'm a European Union citizen and as such have the right to work, and am entitled to Social Security benefits.

I lost this job along with another hundred TV monitors, it was a massive lay off: they devised a computer program that can recognize the TV ads already in the data base, so only the new ones are processed. That's technology for you, like Chaplin in "Modern Times."

Take care:

Manuel.-

* * *

From: "manuel menendez" <Manuel_Menendez@hotmail.com>
To: info@blacklistedjournalist.com
Subject:
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1998 10:22:04 PDT

Friday, September 11, 1998.

Caro Maestro:

Don't worry about Arenas, it's the best it can be done. Between the Spanish orthography and the translation from Mac to PC, what can you expect? It's good enough as it is, the readers will understand, despite some foreign diacritical marks.

Go ahead with the article about me, if it helps you make up for the awful quota you have set yourself. I know what it means, but I fill the same: the stinking breath of death watching over my shoulder, and knowing fully that life is so short, if lucky, ten years ahead. Myself, I'm a walking heart attack: isquemaia and coronary sclerosis, and despite it I go on chain smoking and boozing, and downloading THC whenever I can.

All that counts now, Maestro, is my novel. A friend from the Herald was telling me that Eliseo Diego Jr., an asshole I knew on my youth, has just won the "Alfaguara Prize" in Spain, $175,000 US, plus all the royalties and the publicity both sides of the Atlantic. A sheer asshole. Says my friend that the novel is shit. But he got the dough and the recognition. He says also that mine---sent him MS---it's best he had read on in 40 years of Cuba revolutionary literature.

Take care:

Manuel.-

* * *

From: "manuel menendez" <Manuel_Menendez@hotmail.com>
To: info@blacklistedjournalist.com
Cc: RMadri7239@aol.com
Subject: Arenas

Saturday, September 12, 1998.

Howdy, Maestro.

No, unfortunately I lost the Arenas' negatives during my debacle in Canada, and you can't imagine the sense of loss. Had I had them, his picture would be hanging in this scruffy room, and would be a spur to keep me going. Because he was a force of nature. I don't like anything he wrote, furthermore I think it's crap, except his autobiography, "Before Night Falls." Which is incredibly good. I have tried to contact Jon Kral of The Herald, but he doesn't answer. Anyway, he did me a favor once, it's too much to ask him to steal the negatives again.

I'm having breakfast: a glass of cheap Macaulay whisky with a chaser of Carlbersberg Special Brew, 9% alcohol, what the junkies drink over here. You know, Mr. Al, Cuban writers are getting big money in Spain. This guy I knew once, Eliseo Diego Jr.: Alfaguara Prize, $175,000 dollars US. Another girl I also knew, Zoé Valdés: $65,000, Planeta Prize, and another girl, Daina something, $35,000.

Unfortunately, I can't present my novel to any contest in Spain: I speak favorably of ETA, the Basque patriots, they call them terrorists in the Spanish press, just like the IRA up here. And it's a bilingual novel, and I use profusely obscene language. I guess I'm 25 years ahead of these times. Like Joyce and William S. Burroughs, only twenty times more obscene.

Go on and publish my stuff, even my personal letters, I gave you a license to kill signed sealed and delivered. I'll keep sending you stuff in English. Whatever I can do for you, Pop, my self appointed father, it's all yours. You know, my carnal father never read a newspaper in his life. He emigrated to Cuba in 1926 when he was 14 years old, and knew nothing but terrible hardships. But you are my equal, the father figure I chose, someone who can understand me, who speaks my same language.

Go on and publish whatever you want, anything that can help you filling your lengthy Three Star column every month. And why not? Give the readers my e-mail address, right now I'm living on cyberspace, without human contact of any kind. E-mails would be welcome.

Loves you:

Manuel.-

* * *

From: "manuel menendez" <Manuel_Menendez@hotmail.com>
To: info@blacklistedjournalist.com
Cc: RMadri7239@aol.com
Subject: Pop, I love you.

Saturday, September 12, 1998.

Pop:

None of your own children have the title to this addressing. Because they don't plain see as far. Even with psychotherapists' visits, where the shrink always blames you. Fuck them, the fruit of your very loins. I'm your son by election, just plain fuck them. You were square with your late wife, you feel innocent of that account, that's right? So who gave your sons the right to pass judgement on you? You're an artist, the same as me, only you have 20 years advantage, having known right there The Beatles and Bob Dylan, and having smoked with then, capturing every word in your subconscious. That's enough to live for. As I told you once: Talking with Shakespeare.

Well, I just wanted to repeat again I love and admire you: surviving your brain eruptions, until you got a Three Star Website. Perhaps not a Nobel but certainly a Pulitzer, if there were justice. Which it doesn't. Which makes me a marginal writer, away from prizes and publication in Spain. But retrenched on my ideal: it doesn't matter the obstacles ahead: I'll follow my way, and fuck them all. Maybe 40 or 50 years hence the delirious critics will say I was the greatest Cuban writer of my generation. No big deal, a title given by default: there's no one else. Nothing to be proud about, just a small accolade.

I enclose one of the last three chapters of my novel. I'd like to see it published on the Web, more precisely in your column, and hoping to rise it to 4 Stars. And why not? Publish my e-mail address. All messages welcome.

Manuel.-

* * *

From: "manuel menendez" <Manuel_Menendez@hotmail.com>
To: info@blacklistedjournalist.com
Cc: RMadri7239@aol.com
Subject: 37th Column
Date: Tue, 22 Sep 1998 16:26:30 PDT

Tuesday 22, September 1998.

Caro Maestro:

I didn't like your piece on me. Not at all. You did to my public persona what Starr's report did to Clinton. And to compound the injury, you finish the piece with a diatribe against the Republicans, the innocence of the Big Creep, the right wing conspiracy and following set-up. But you can publish anything you like: this is a free country. Clinton can worry about his public opinion ratings: me, I don't give a fuck. I never smoked Monica's cigar, which you don't even mention.

The only thing that worried me is that I hadn't had a smoke in eight days, but sometimes small miracles happen, and I found in a drawer some old little dry pieces of mediocre hash, which saved the day, the night rather. I have no pictures of myself or of Reinaldo Arenas, neither do I know the editorials who published him, mainly Spanish and French. But you can search on the Web "Reinaldo Arenas' Estate," which, I'm not sure, he gave to Princenton it was? Well an Ivy League University.

Take care, and publish whatever you want, as long as I can help you writing your column, which I know means "life" to you.

Manuel.-

* * *

From: "manuel menendez" <Manuel_Menendez@hotmail.com>
To: info@blacklistedjournalist.com
Cc: RMadri7239@aol.com
Subject: A mellow cigar.
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1998 15:19:54 PDT

28/09/98

Cher Maitre:

You know, at the bottom I'm sorry for Clinton. He asked an aid once how he ranked among American presidents, and he answered he was third rate. Now he's even lower than that, at the bottom of the ladder, and even the Democrats in the house are asking for hide. I'm aware that Starr is a skunk, a barroom brawler, and that his report was a masterpiece of innuendoes and obscenity, but what the heck, it was lot of fun. As little Bobby sang in "It's alright, Ma, I'm only bleeding:" "Even the president of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked..." But he was talking about the bathroom, not the Oval Office. My friend Madrigal wrote to me something that goes to the gist of the scandal: "I only hope it was a Cuban cigar, so he dies by the same sword he was trying to wield..." Because Clinton sold us Cubans down the river, and is returning dehydrated balseros, the rafters, to Cuba, to face long terms in prison or forced labor camps. Since he was governor of Arkansas, he has deep hatred of Cuban refugees, regards them as scum who have no business in the U.S. of A. Why? because they are prospective Republican voters. He signed the Helms-Burton law just because the day before Cuban MIGs downed two unarmed planes of Brothers to the Rescue. That's what Castro wanted, to keep drumming on "the Blockade" as a scapegoat for his own personal failures. But you know, in my opinion the Big Creep should not be impeached, just censured. The French are more civilized in that respect: everybody knew that Francois Miterrand, that crypto-communist and ex-Nazi-collaborator, kept another woman and had children by her, another family. But nobody cared. Well, I'm just waiting to see Monica Lewinsky in the nude on Playboy. Who would turn down 5 million bucks for showing your ass? I would do it myself for 100 quid.

Take care, and loves you.

Manuel.-

* * *

From: "manuel menendez" <Manuel_Menendez@hotmail.com>
To: RMadri7239@aol.com
Cc: info@blacklistedjournalist.com
Subject: e-mails are plain shit
Date: Sat, 03 Oct 1998 05:28:38 PDT

03/10/98

Madrigal:

e-mails are plain garbage, good enough for a telegram but not for a decent letter. I just finished a long one, explaining all travails and difficulties, and the communication fell down and I lost one hour of writing. To give you the gist: I spent three in bed, I could not move, the pain was atrocious but I had no strength to go to the drugstore. While UTI I tripped and fell in the bathroom, and hit the bathtub with my forehead, I don't know how long I spent unconscious on that wet floor. I guess I have some broken ribs, and I strained by back. But what I regret the most was that trying to stand I ripped the washbasin and the tiles. Tomorrow I'll try to fix them, if not I'll have to pay a mason.

My greatest worry right now is my writer's block: I have had three weeks of leisure and time and haven't written a single original page, to the extent that I'm thinking about dropping the novel and start an easier book, semi-autobiographical, entitled "Silence, Cunning and Exile." That's from Joyce. In Spanish. It's a monologue which starts with me during the Papal visit to Cuba, am detained, and talking to other inmates in the Combinado del Este penitentiary. It's my story backwards, going back into time, from present to past, until my childhood under Batista's time. No other voice intrudes, and I recount and embellish all my travels around the world. Things that many people, no even in Spain or Latin America would understand but which addresses the Cuban suffering during the "Special Period." I'm sure that when Castro falls it will be a bestseller in the free island. Well I don't dare to write more. Take care all of you and write: my loneliness is appalling inside this self-made prison.

Manuel.-

* * *

From: "manuel menendez" <Manuel_Menendez@hotmail.com>
To: info@blacklistedjournalist.com
Subject: Writer's block, fighting
Date: Mon, 05 Oct 1998 06:47:45 PDT

5/10/98.

Howdy, Maestro: Rereading Arenas' Crucifixion after a long long time, I'm amazed that I wrote it myself. The same happens with the early chapters of my novel that I was just polishing: it's not me, my persona, but like someone possessed, someone else at the keyboard. What you say about poets is true. And even more astonishing is being a poet-songwriter at the same time. Like old Bobby, that despite his meanness was a fucking genius: everything he writes is in rhymes. I can't afford it really, but am going to order his "Masterpierces" collection. It costs a bundle. I hate plastic money, but have no choice but to live on my VISA. Take care and e-mail.

Manuel.-

* * *

From: "manuel menendez" <Manuel_Menendez@hotmail.com>
To: info@blacklistedjournalist.com
Cc: RMadri7239@aol.com
Subject: Enough of Clinton-Lewinsky
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 06:30:40 PDT

12/!0/98.

Dear Mr. Al:

First things first: don't waste your time trying to reproduce Spanish diacritical symbols: whenever I say "compañero" just plain write companero without the Castilian "~". And when I use the acute accent, as in "poesía," just ignore it: just write plain poesia, without accent at all. If I write "Camagüey" with umlaut, just discard it. And when I employ Italics, just use quote marks. It's too much for you to write your long monthly columns and besides embroil yourself into linguistic minor details.

Having said that, I think that William Jefferson deserves to be censured, but not impeached: the punishment is out of proportion with the fault; and the fault is not having sex on the Oval Office, but lying through his teeth afterwards, to a Grand Jury. The president of the US is the one who has to set the example. What a contrast to the judiciary committee chief, Henry Hyde, who frankly admitted to adultery. Had Bill the Handsome told the truth during his Paula Jones deposition, he would have lost respect among the American people and elsewhere, but he wouldn't be now in his present position. But he lied and lied again, giving rope to Starr to hang him.

Sure, Starr's report was obscene and demeaning to the United States at large, but I don't believe on Hillary's "extreme-right conspiracy." If she had a just an atom of decency on her she would have divorced Handsome while he still was a governor. But no, she clings to power, that's all she cares about. Sort of a Lady Macbeth in all this tragicomedy. Both are indecent and immoral, and deserve what has come to them.

Had he been an honest, responsible head of state he would have told the Grand Jury: "Yes, I had sexual relations with 'that woman' but never I came to intercourse." And he would have been in the clear. But he is a despicable, arrogant hypocrite, a liar who didn't inhale, a draft dodger, contemptible and 50 years hence he will be just a couple of lines in America's history, as insignificant as another Fillmore. Lacking in dignity and moral fiber. So don't send me any more of your Democrat manifestos: they occupy undeserved space on my hard disk.

I'll only tell you this: neither Bush, Dole or Colin Powell would have indulged on fellatios under the portrait of Abraham Lincoln. Even JFK kept his dirty liaisons in motels, out of the White House. And Al Gore is no better, a mediocre opportunist, with as much charisma as an alley cat. And in the 2,000 elections, if I could vote, I would do so for George W. Bush, the Texas' Republican Governor. At least he is not a liar and an honest man.

Don't misunderstand me as you usually do: I'm not the "fascist pig" you so fondly character-assassinate. I hate the Christian far right as much as you do, but Clinton deserves what he's got, after a political trail paved with lies and moral cowardice.

Loves you:

Manuel.-

* * *

Wednesday, October 14, 1998.

Caro Maestro:

I'm not in the least interested in a racial controversy with Mr. Andrew Hill. I neither have the time nor the inclination. I only can say that he has my house address, my phone number and e-mail address. If he had any particular interest about my racial opinions, he could have approached me directly, instead of questioning me on your Website.

My derogatory opinions come precisely from my experiences in Cuban and Canadian prisons, and from what right now I see in London in this black ghetto where I live. To put them on a nutshell, for his benefit, and, once more, yours: There are black men and there are niggers. The same that there are white men and white trash. Sure, I don't like niggers, but I don't like Australians either: I suffered plenty racial discrimination myself Down Under.

Nelson Mandela is a black man; Winnie Madikizela Mandela is a nigger. Martin Luther King was a black man, Louis Farrakhan is a nigger. So is, in my opinion, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who immediately after King's assassination went live on TV showing a bloodied shirt and saying that King had died on his arms, which was a self-serving lie, and the reason why Coretta King still doesn't talk to him after all these years. Niggers are also O.J. Simpson, a double murderer acquitted by a black jury, and Marion Barry, the crack smoker and embezzler re-elected as mayor of Washington D.C. by a black constituency, after his spell in jail.

As it happens, my best friend here in London is Sydney Bunbury, a black man, a Guyanese. But the three who mugged me and broke my ribs on Kings Cross in plain day were niggers.

Mr. Hill refers to my stay in Cuban jails: from every ten convicts, nine were black and one white, the latter generally political. And a great part of my suffering was due to the abuse and harassment of the black inmates, instigated by the penal authorities. As for Canada, criminal statistics dealing with race are not published in the press, because to do so would be "racist." However, according to the police, Jamaicans constitute only an 8 or 9% of the population in Toronto and Ontario province at large, but make around 50% of the penal population.

As for the US, there are more blacks in prison than in college, and not because lack of opportunity or affirmative action programs: it's just that the easy money is in drugs or basketball. There's a controversial book, "The Bell Curve," that asserts that the general I.Q. of the American population is declining at the rate of 1% a year, due to the blacks and Hispanics. I'm inclined to believe it.

Want a broader picture? Take a look at Africa, where the majority of politicians are kleptocrats and savage dictators, who came to power exploiting tribal differences. The Idi Amins, the Mobutus, the Kabilas, the Sani Abachas et al. Look at Zimbabwe, the former Rhodesia or look at Kenya, both prosperous countries at independence and now a shambles; and wait till Mandela dies, and you'll see South Africa, the most powerful economy in the region, also going down the drain.

I have nothing against black people, and I suffer like anyone else when I see the scenes of famine in Sudan. And I don't "hate" niggers, I just despise them, or rather, the things for what they stand. The most usual sight here in this ghetto of Hackney are niggers in BMWs parading around in working hours, speaking on cell phones. Where do they get the money from? Certainly not from the sweat of their brows, but from stealing and pushing dope.

As for Mr. Hill's interest in George Bush's war record, he served as the youngest US naval carrier pilot in the Pacific until 1945, and won the "Distinguished Flying Cross" and three Air Medals. Bob Dole volunteered to the Marines in 1941, and a year later, also in the Pacific theater, was wounded and his left arm permanently paralyzed. As for general Colin Powell, a black man and a Republican, his record speaks for itself.

How different from the record of that draft dodger, non-inhaler junky, fellatio addict, William Jefferson Clinton. You know, the problem with you radicals and pinkos is that you can't distinguish the tree from the woods. That you think in idealistic general patterns, but are divorced from reality, ostrich like, the same as Marxists with respect to economic matters.

How many Nobel Prizes, have been won by blacks? Except a couple of political Peace Prizes? Or even Pulitzer Prizes for that matter? How many black Chess masters have you seen? How many black classical musicians (to me Jazz is noise, not music) have you heard? Unless you compare Satchmo with Mozart. Sure, you have the Muhammed Alis and Mike Tysons, but put in the ring an 800 pounds gorilla and they would be done for. In general, blacks are intellectually inferior. The same as Jews excel in intelligence. I read somewhere, in a book of neurophysiology, that Jews' brains have around 40 billion neurons; Japanese about the same; Caucasians about 30 billion, and blacks around 10 billion. Where are the black Einsteins and Stephen Hawkings? Or, for that matter, the black Van Goghs and Rembrandts, Leonardos and Michelangelos? Sure, you have Ben Johnson, fabulous sprinter, even if doped, and Michael Jordan, a nice, decent guy: but put a trained chimpanzee on the court and he would score more hoops.

A little anecdote: the day I was going to be released from the Combinado del Este penitentiary in Havana, the political commissar, a black himself, came to my ward and told the inmates, 90% of them black: "that skinny whitey down there is going free." So they organized me an "acto de repudio:" they jeered at me, punched me, cornered me, and threw urine at me, powdered milk, merchromine, shoes, and whatever missile they could find. They didn't allow me to wash myself or treat my injuries. I still remember their names and faces: scum. That's niggers for you. And in ten of them, one is a black man, with decency and integrity, and the remaining nine are despicable niggers.

Having said that, I have nothing more to say on the subject.

Waiting for hate-mail:

Manuel Menéndez
<Manuel_Menendez@hotmail.com> ##

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