all your heroes are dying

Fred "Mister" Rogers : Inhabiting a make-believe world with children well into his 70s and employing a character named Mr. McFeely to accompany him, one might be tempted to suggest pedophilic undertones in Fred "Mister" Rogers oeuvre. After all, normal heterosexual adult men don't want to have anything to do with kids, and when you start throwing hand puppets into the mix, it seems like something from the McMartin preschool case. But I'll take the high road. Fred Roger's chief crime is that it was always a beautiful day in the neighborhood and he liked you just the way you are.

Susan Sontag: "The white race is hte cancer of human history," wrote the ostensibly white Ms. Sontag. A hypocritical rad-chic darling who derided capitalism while gorging on huge foundation grants, she thought Against Interpretation was a catchy book title. Lost in metaphors, she spouted nonsense such as, "If there were no speaking or writing, there would be no truth about anything." Wrong--truth exsisted long before postmodern writers came along. And if you'd never likened white Americans to cancer, you still would have been a white American who died from cancer.

Timothy Leary: The Weather Underground facilitated Leary's escape from prison after a weed bust in the early 1970s. Upon his recapture, Leary spun around and ratted on his accomplices in order to receive a reduced sentence. "I would prefer to work constructively and collaboratively with intelligence and law enforcement people who are willing to forget the past," came the frightened-into-complicity statement of hte snowy-haired Brain Yeti who encouraged us to "question authority." The fact that he turned snitch on people who tried to help him forces me to question his authority to tell anyone to question authority.

Bob Marley: Though he sang of impoverishment and repatriation to Mama Africa, Bob Marley's father was a relatively affluent pasty-white plantation overseer and Navy officer. And though several reggae artists released music far superior to anything Marley ever squeezed from his dreads, he has achieved mythic status mainly due to his belief in Rastafarianism, one of the stupidest religions ever concocted. When skin cancer was discovered on his big toe, he declined life-saving amputation because his religion "don't allow a mon ta be dismantled." The cancer quickly spread to his brain, stomach, and lungs. Haile Selassie? Highly retarded.

Jack Kerouac: His unbearably effusive "masterpiece" On the Road is the literary equivalent of the liquor-induced internal hemorrage that cut him down at age 47---a sloppy cranial menstrual cycle in sever need of an editorial tampon. The main character's name is Sal Paradise--how stupid is that? Written while "on the speed," On the Road may have inspired countless "stream-of-consciousness" imitations, but the "stream" was a rank piss of a hopeless alcoholic, and hte "consciousness" was that of a homophobic cock-sucker who went on collegiate gay-bashing jaunts with jock friends before bedding dozens of men.

Iron Eyes Cody: Cody gained his fame as the "crying indian" in the 1970s "Keep America Beautiful" campaign. In the most watched public service announcement in United States history, people watched a teardrop snake down his craggy, presumably Native American visage after motorists chucked a bag of garbage near his feet. But although he claimed to be Cherokee, offered supplications to the "Great Spirit," and was America's Token Indian for decades, he was an Italian poseur born "Espera DeCorti." His TV teardrop wasn't even real--it was a lil squib of glycerine. Cody was to Native Americans what wiggers have become to blacks--patronizing, insulting attempts to vampirize someone's culture without having endured any of the attendant suffering.

It is 7:46 in the AM and I just spent the past 4-5 hours listening to motown and completely rearranging my room. I have no idea why. I still cannot sleep.