This really annoyed me. I was just reading a recent issue of VICE magazine from New York. Its a pretty cool magazine. Its funny, its original, its zany and off the wall. VICE is considered pretty "hip" and "cutting edge." A magazine for the '00s (or whatever you call this wretched decade).
And there was this full-page, full-color comicstrip by this cartoonist Peter Bagge in the issue of VICE. The comic is about this White Liberal who makes this heroic speech about "integration" and "civil rights." But the punchline is (get this) that the White Liberal is actually afraid to walk in Black neighborhoods because of the violent crime. What a brilliant "insight" by this Peter Bagge fellow, about 20 years too late. (I sent VICE a copy of a comicstrip I did on the exact same subject back in 1992.)
In the next issue of VICE they printed a full-page comic by R. Crumb's daughter Sophie Crumb. (So I sent VICE a copy of my TWISTED IMAGE newsletter from 1991 where I printed some cartoons by Sophie Crumb.)
So what a "hip" and "cutting edge" magazine VICE is.
Then I was reading in the newspapers about all the hopelessly unassimilated immigrants in France who are rioting and burning down their neighborhoods. I've been warning people about the dangers of Mass Immigration for the last 15 years. And all I have to show for my trouble is a lot of abuse I've taken from a lot of geniuses who are eager to point out what a racist, xenophobic, idiotic bigot that I am. I remember getting into a discussion with R. Crumb (who lives in France) about the very issue of Mass Immigration about 5 or 6 years ago. He wrote back telling me what an idiot I was and suggested I change my name because the name "Ace Backwords" was having a bad effect on my thinking, like auto-suggestion where I end up "ass backwards in my thinking on virtually any subject I direct my mind towards." (So I wrote Crumb another letter the other day and asked him if those brilliant French were having any second thoughts about their "liberal" immigration laws now.)
And I know this is all just so much sour grapes. And I know how I look when I start ranting like this: Just one more bitter asshole. And I AM just one more bitter asshole. Which I hate. Because its so EASY to be a bitter asshole. And most people are.
I spent the last four years working on my next book, ACID HEROES. Its a critical look at the Beatles and LSD and the '60s counterculture. I sent it out to some publishers a couple months ago. Nothing but rejection slips. Nobody will publish the damn thing. And I wonder if its another one of those deals where people will be making money TWENTY YEARS FROM NOW writing about this very subject. But in the meantime, I'm just one more bitter, useless failure.
People would regular come up to me and tell me: "You'll be famous long after your dead." And that might be true. But I always hated going there. Because every failed dilletante plays the Van Gough card who never sold a damn painting in his lifetime because -- just like them -- he was so far "ahead of his times." And blah blah.
I once read this Greek myth about a guy who was cursed by the gods. They gave him the power to foresee the future. But they gave him the curse that nobody would believe him until it was too late. Thats me for you. One more raving prophet without honor. Or maybe I'm just nuts. Or maybe YOUR nuts. But lets not get personal here.
