Dear Dirty America

I haven’t seen so much Charlie worship since I broke the news story in 2011 about the Hollywood Walk of Fame’s plans to award Charles Manson a star for his contributions in music on the famous puke-splattered Los Angeles sidewalk.

I had sources from the streets. I didn’t realize that printed and published, it would cause a stir. You just never know what people will get up-in-arms about.

They might as well have said Je suis Charlie back then as well, those who supported the idea, those who appreciated a real outlaw musician the likes of which a Willie Nelson could never have imagined for himself. After all, it’s a cause to rally around. Better than watching YouTube videos all day.

credit: Daily Truffle

If only we’d been innovative enough to announce that we, too, were Charlie.

To flood the streets in Hollywood and demand a fair treatment of a man who, yes, maybe influenced young girls to murder famous people, but also he did tricks with singing and songwriting that even the Beach Boys couldn’t resist lifting and capitalizing upon.

If only we’d had the audacity to pressure the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, which publicly blasted the idea of giving Mr Manson a Hollywood star (where would they put it, anyway? Next to Bill Cosby’s?), as they quietly stuffed the plans for the controversial award back up their asses where the anti-Charlies claimed the Walk of Fame board had pulled it out of in the first place.

I could have had the I Am Charlie signs whipped up before the masses even knew they wanted them.

As the Commerce insinuated to local celeb beat writer, Celebrity Gobbler (now deceased), “This Manson jig is a PR NIGHTMARE.”

Because some desperadoes are not fit for this society. Some are too edgy for the likes of good Americans, even Hollywoodies. Some people are too real for the edginess of the illusion.

In fact, even the black-clotted hearts of the Charlie Hebdo editorial board found a lick of humor too offensive for their tastes. That was in 2009. A cartoonist named Maurice Sinet, going by the pen name Sine, made a quip about the young Sarkozy converting to Judaism for the money. “He’ll go a long way in life, that lad.”

Sine was nailed for “inciting racial hatred” and Antisemitism. He shouldn’t have linked being famous and Jewish with the privilege of being gifted prominent social positions.

Never mind the caricature created by another Hebdo cartoonist depicting the Trinity in a threesome, or the Prophet Muhammad in a position you wouldn’t even want to imagine your dog in. The journal fired him. They chucked his colored pencils into the street. As some of the Parisian intelligentsia said about the case, “You have freedom of speech, but some types of speech are freer than others.”

If a lack of free speech cost Sine his job, it might have saved him his life. Life is chock full of blessings, but you have to practice seeing it in just the right way.

The exiled cultural philosopher, Hubert Humdinger, told me, “You don’t make fun of those who pull the strings, that’s all there is to it. Unless you’re as naive to this world as a tufted titmouse. Then, your singing days are limited.”

credit: Carlos Latuff

ANNE FRANK SAVAGED?

When a friend posted to Facebook the Hebdo double standard for ‘racial- and religiously-sensitive’ humor, an esteemed professor from UC Santa Barbara refuted the point that Jews, too, were shamelessly mocked in major publications. “Take the Onion, for example,” he wrote in rebuttal, “look how they savaged Anne Frank.”

That wouldn’t have been my first example of backing evidence.

The article he referred to was from 1998. Its title is “Ghost of Anne Frank: ‘Quit Reading my Diary'”.

Anne Frank, in the satirical article, is embarrassed about millions reading about her first kiss. I have insider sources who’ve said the writers for the Onion have savaged a roasted chicken with more vigor than that.

Here’s an idea:

imagine if they’d placed her, little Miss Frank, center of shining attention, right in the middle of an orgy of emaciated  Jews in a unisex gas chamber, where it is discovered the poison gas escalates the sense of climax to such a degree that choking to death at that moment is a pleasure. Word gets around the camps. The ‘chamber’ experience is transcendent. The Nazis have outdone themselves.

Is that hilarious? Does that strike your funny bone?

Then draw it and sign it Charlie Hebdo. Send it ASAP to the surviving cartoonists and writers in France. They could use fresh ideas now that they’re selling millions of copies to everybody who’s one with Charlie. You don’t have to give Dear Dirty America credit, but you can, if you like.

Or, imagine if a conspiracy theorist claimed parts of Frank’s diary were written in ballpoint pen, as opposed to fountain pen — a type of pen that did not exist during Frank’s short life on earth. The insinuation is clear. The Frank sob-story is a myth created to strike sympathy in the hearts of millions of schoolchildren around the world every year. As adults, they might be more willing to go along with the genocide of the Palestinians if they were indoctrinated early to have loyalty and sympathy to Israel and the Holocaust.

Why are scholars and researchers who question the numbers and claims of the Holocaust booted from their university positions? Why isn’t even serious inquiry open to such an important and grisly world history topic?

I apologize to the family readers out there. If your children just read that, there is a slim chance you’ll be able to reverse the thought. But a person has to realize the difference between dehumanizing hack satire, as well as the double standards found in today’s world about what can be savaged, and what is off limits.

JE SUIS CHARLIE?

If you’re confused, you’re in good company. Most of the Hermit Kingdom is baffled as well. Their access to international news sources is extremely limited. And admittedly, Dear Dirty America hasn’t been keeping up well with the Charlie Hebdo debacle like it should have been. We are, in terms of online websites in North Korea, as my readers say, “Almost number one!”

As one North Korean reader asked me in a letter, “Je suis Charlie Mansoon?”

I wrote back, “You are whoever you want to be. But no, they don’t mean that Charlie. Different one. Charlie Hebdo. They make Charlie Mansoon look sane.”

[Je Suis Charlie Manson from http://politikapolka.tumblr.com/; Gaza blood pool by Carlos Latuff]