Dear Nasty May 10, 1985


 

Dear Nasty:

What happens when a computer gets too personal?

Answer: turn it off.

A bad joke from computer nerds of America, although I don’t know enough about computers to be a computer nerd. I mostly use the machine like a typewriter. It works well enough for me.

It’s been a very long time, and I’m very glad to have received a letter from you. I hope it’s not too hot and sticky down there in the boonies of South Carolina.

Dead Horse died an indignant death some time ago. Although Pauly and I as well as some other friends got involved with some video projects, we hoped would get broadcast on cable TV. It was a good dream. Unfortunately, our politics got us thrown off the air.

We did a parody of “Gone with the Wind,” only we called it “Gone with the Ducks,” in which I played the role of a professional duck walker – suspected of the heinous crime of killing the ducks’ master. In another skit, I played a British soldier from the Falkland Islands, who’d lost his lover, a sheep, during the war.

“Scrap Paper Review” is my current project involving some of the brainer people from college. Some of it makes sense, most of it is extremely radical and anti-Reagan (although I’m not very comfortable with the radical left either meaning we have no friends and might explain why we make no money.) Such are the breaks.

The next issue, which I am typing as we speak – in on The Bible which should make good churchgoers everywhere drool with rage – although some of those who have submitted material happened to be good and wholesome Christians.

You asked me about Emerson. What’s to like? He’s one of America’s best philosophers, but like William James, he talks in circles.

My favorite writers are William Faulkner and Graham Green.

Pauly likes James Joyce. Hanks likes Norman Mailer. I think they talk in circles, too.

I suspect I’ll never be famous. It’s a struggle enough just to keep writing every day. Right now, I’m in a slump. I’ll come out of it. Editing Scrap Paper helps, but I’m not sure how long I can keep it up since it doesn’t make money. No one currently associated with the venture has a money sense – least of all me.

It the paper survives and goes some place, maybe I’ll hire you for one of my books.

Stay away from The Grateful Deal. They are the most successful bad band in history, supported largely by its cult following. The early albums such as American Beauty and Workingman’s Dead are the best of the lot and worth more than just one listen. The rest have the feel of a living room jam session, a few good bits but without the sense to throw the bad stuff out.

I’m a Beatles fan myself. As for more contemporary stuff I like The Firm, Erik Clapton, Joe Walsh, the broken-up members of Eagles like Hennelly, the late John Lennon and his song Julian, and a whole assortment of rock and roll.

I tend to stay away from top fifty stuff in general, but with modern radio that’s hard.

The family is surviving well enough. Harry is still up in his mountain hideaway. It seems that all the brothers had a tendency to slip away into their own private worlds. Grandma and my mother are still with Teddy in Toms River. Ritchie is in Graystone. I bring him home to my apartment on weekends.

I recently broke up with my girlfriend, Fran, and I’m still down about it. I spent three hard years with her before it all got too crazy.

I envy your being able to swim. It is still cold here. Last night, it slipped into the upper 30s. You’re welcome to come visit provided you’re willing to put up with primitive living. The building is falling down around me and I’m a bit of slob.

I’m currently working three part time jobs. Three nights a week I bake donuts for a Dunkin Donuts in Wayne, two mornings and one night, I bake at another in Bloomfield, afternoons five days a week I sit in a Fotomat booth where I read and write,

I never saw the Zeppelin movie, but I like most of their music, especially Houses of the Holy. A good, but slightly risqué rock and roll film is out called Purple Rain.

I haven’t seen Dr. Chief in a while now, but I doo keep in touch with many of the professors who are still on campus. But Chief does get our newspaper.

As far as your little secret is concerned, I’m mum about it. You’ve grown up some since I’ve last seen you, a regular woman. I like to see you again sometime to see how the years have worked out for you. I’ve aged a bit, but act just like the kid I really am.

I’m going through a little legal trouble with my ex-wife, which only makes the hurt over Fran all the worse. But we all carry on. It’s just hard jumping back into the rat race of dating after three years. Yet everybody seems to be going through the same thing lately.

Well, I’ve got to get some rest. Take care and write soon. It’s wonderful hearing from you again, something I missed over the last few years.

Say hello to Nonsense and Nothing. I hope they are doing well, too!

 

Love,

Nuts

 

1985 Menu


email to Al Sullivan

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

An old nemesis December 11, 1985

Image
    Surisky hated me from early on in grammar school, although “hate” may be too strong a word to describe his reaction to me. I was simply available to him for abuse, Third grade was pivotal for both of us. Prior to that, we were simply feeling our way through Catholic School routine, emerging eventually as whole personalities from the muck of early childhood. He came across as a thug, trying to convey the image of a tough guy. He wore a leather jacket and spiked boots, and snuck into see James Dean movies. Third grade was tough on everybody, including the teachers, who considered us the worst class in the history of the school – even in the safe grades of Kindergarten, First and Second. Two of the three nuns retired after passing us on. But it was in the third grade that we began to work our magic, driving even the stout-hearted nuns crazy. Later, the nuns tried to break our spirit. But we fully represented our age and had the full impact of the 1960s behin...
Read more

The clock is ticking July 18, 1985

Image
  We’re talking love here – silly fictional love with all the connotations of disaster. I seem to be on the meat chopping block with Safire looking for qualities in me that are lacking in her husband. The fact that there is a husband in the first place greatly disturbs me. All this said, I’m uncertain as to why I haven’t ended this already, except to know she is too much like my ex-wife to pass up without a closer examination. Even the way she thinks: slow, methodical, going from point A to point B. It has only been a week since she blurted out drunk that she wanted me in bed. It seems like much longer. And she hints of something more permanent, suggesting that I might fill in for her husband for a much longer duration. The night before last she suggested I come see her in her trailer, as if she is legally separated from her husband, when in fact she is supposed to be biding time until he finds them both a place to live in Baltimore. This is the same kind of smoke and...
Read more

Pauly leaves Passaic for the final time July 24, 1985

Image
    Pauly is leaving Passaic again. This comes after two years of us rubbing shoulders after he had been cast out of paradise in Towaco, after his goddess, Jane, went and married that man Pauly calls “a bum.” This has been a tough two years, filled with Pauly’s typical manipulation, his usual shaping of reality to his own needs often at other people’s (mine) expense. When Pauly first came I had Fran’s cultist brother as a temporary guest and Pauly spent most of his time trying to push me into getting that guest out. A few months later – in November – Fran got the ax from her ex and changed her mind about moving in with me after I had committed the spare room to Pauly. He assumed she meant more to me than he did and was already packing when I told Fran no. She had no place to go except for her father’s house, a father she had a love/hate relationship with, and she held it against me, even though we continued to see each other romantically. Pauly being Pauly drove ...
Read more