Village Voice: "E-thics"

(Revised slightly on 28 Feb 06.)

Mike Green (Her Hair Jelly, Prepared Party, Pre-Cave, Nest (adj.), Boat Of, Peach of Immortality, Wÿfe, Miss High Heel, &c.) only twenty minutes ago forwarded the link to Nick Sylvester's "E-thics" piece in the most recent Village Voice. Very interesting...

In researching his article, Mr. Sylvester contacted Marc Weitz at Menlo Park Recordings. He received my email address from Mr. Weitz.

(Note: To Live and Shave in L.A. have enjoyed an eleven-year relationship with Menlo Park. The label will soon release Noon and Eternity, TLASILA's forthcoming album. Constant readers are only too familiar with (im)pertinent background details...

I thought it might be illustrative to trace this still-esteemed alt-tabloid's (arguably) perfervid machinations... From initial contact to the Voice art department's last-minute panic (no photo was run, although I can't blame them for choosing the Cage pic) to flubbed publication, "E-thics" was a queer (f*cking) bird.

Here is the full text of email #1, a response by Menlo Marc to Nick Sylvester's opening query. Out of regard for Marc's privacy, I have deleted his comments (save for his thoughtful introduction). Nick's inquiry may be found beneath.

The email was sent 2/15/06; Nick's original dated from 2/14:

nick, let me introduce tom.. tom, this is nick.... tom's probably the best person to ask about this...

On Feb 14, 2006, at 1:27 PM, Sylvester, Nick wrote:

hi menlo park,

we're looking to run a piece on the new TLASILA, specifically how it fit into that hilarious mothers against noise website bit. hoping you might have a hi-res photo and maybe a few minutes in the next day or so to talk? lemme know what you think--hope to hear from you soon.

best,

nick

Nick Sylvester
Senior Associate Editor
The Village Voice
212.475.3333

---

Here is the full text of email #2, wherein I responded to Mr. Sylvester's inquiry. It was also sent 2/15/06:

Hello Nick,

(Hi Marc!)

If you should need to contact me about the new album, email is best. As we have no relation to the site you mentioned (apart from our apparently being listed on one or more of its pages), you'd likely do best to contact its creator(s). I won't be able to help you.

Otherwise...

Best,

TS

---

Email #3: to insure that I would not be misunderstood, I sent a second missive to Mr. Sylvester. Full text, dated 2/15/06, follows:

Hi Nick,

To clarify, if you're indeed "looking to run a piece on the new TLASILA, specifically how it fit(s) into that hilarious mothers against noise website bit," then I've nothing to give you. Neither the group nor the new album "fit" into that or any other website "bit," any more than Nam June Paik could have given you an objective comment about sales flyers emanating from Rudy's TV and Carpet Outlet in Albuquerque. It's almost heartening that someone's fumbling about with context, but ultimately, it's of little interest to us.

Limited scope, inaccurate characterization.

Hope this finds you well.

Regards,

Tom

---

Email #4, written 2/15/06. It's Nick's response to my second letter. (I've again deleted Mr. Sylvester's VV phone extension.) He evidences a flair for the risible...

lets leave rudys tv and carpet outlet out of this ok

thanks for the clarification. here's mine: several people have confirmed menlo park and/or TLASILA were involved in the mothersagainstnoise site. beyond just wanting to get my facts straight, i want to write how brilliant i found the whole ordeal, talk to you about some of the ideas i had and hear your own. to me this is parody, meta-guerilla, democratic in design (the website had something of a take back the internet feel to it, when everyone had a personal homepage and those little icons like under construction or netscape 2.0, etc.), representative of how i've always understood TLASILA, and indicative of much more in terms of music industry type stuff, artist/audience relationships, etc. i don't think you're giving yourself enough credit. when you have a moment, let me know if you'd like to talk (212 475 3333 x12xxx), and whether you can send a press photo of the band over here.

all best,

nick

---

Here's email #5, again from 2/15/06. My exasperation was palpable:

Nick,

Honestly, I have nothing to do with the site. I've only seen it once; Aida Ruilova sent a link, I looked around, and that was it. Rat Bastard claims to know who created it (some noise dude in WI or MN), but I've no idea. That was November. Chris Grier forwarded a later VV blog link in which someone maintained we'd been signed to Universal Vivendi (now THAT was funny), but since then, I've been otherwise occupied.

Re Menlo Mark's alleged involvement: again, no clue.

Hate to blow your lead, but those are the facts.

I don't mind chatting about other stuff, but I really can't help you re MAN. I'm not being disingenuous, Nick - it's another person's effort. (Besides, my musings on genre are well documented; my interest in noise is zilch. You should already know this about me. Why further flail a dead mule?)

If you wish to contact Rat, go to squelchers.com and click on the email link. He seems to have a bead on the author of the MAN site...

Yours,

TS

---

I wish I weren't so scrupulous, for I next erred. I rang up Nick at his Voice cubicle. As he seemed not to be able to understand that I had nothing to do with the site in question (nothing, twits), I felt an obligation to convey the information in a more immediate fashion. We spoke - amiably enough - for approximately fifteen minutes. The bulk of our conversation centered on TLASILA, Noon, aesthetics, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, genre, the various noise scenes, university, the supposed culprits behind MAD, etc.

Nick dashed off handwritten notes during our chat. (I heard what I took to be the sounds of pages being flung from their moorings. I'm uncertain if he recorded our talk, however.)

His Voice piece includes quotes rather rudely excerpted from our conversation, posited within slabs of not terribly subtle, innuendo-laden text:

"They also pointed out that, on the actual M.A.N. site, the only noise offender to have out-links was To Live and Shave in L.A. Universal Music, they concluded, had invented the M.A.N. website to create buzz for the band's upcoming spring release."

"Except that, according to Tom Smith, leader of To Live and Shave in L.A. and a 30-year veteran who famously played with Pussy Galore, Universal is not putting out the next TLASILA album; small indie Menlo Park is."

(Note: this information appeared on the Voice's blog pages well in advance of Nick's article. The steely-eyed among you will recall I refreshed NS's memory re the Universal claim just a few lines above...)

"It's really not me, I gotta tell you," says Smith over the phone. "But we deserve to be on a fucking major label. Fuck yeah. Give me the cash. If anybody needs to be on a major it's us."

(Note: these quotes - not entirely exact in themselves - did not abut consecutively. Sylvester employed a generous dollop of narrative compression. No big deal - it's standard for the industry - but it should be pointed out to you nonetheless.)

"So who's responsible? And for what? Smith denied a role in the spoof (though he does share a last name with M.A.N.'s founder), so did Menlo Park. Perhaps the mothersagainstnoise.org founders themselves just created this pass-the-buck drama to drum up interest in their own product: a free noise compilation, currently entering its second volume. Either way, when the agency disappears into the background, the product still remains, and that's the goal—even if Smith, currently an ethics grad student, insists, "I'm not at a point where I want to lie about this shit.""

Sweet.

Anyhow, we'll save the best, most incriminating bits for last. Nick sent a later email (dated 2/23/06) in which he asked for clarification regarding the school I attend:

thanks again for your help with the piece; just had one fact-checkingquestion--you said you're studying ethics, but at where? just wanted tosqueeze that in. hope all's well, nick

Please note my reply (also from 2/23):

Hello Nick,

I'm well, thanks. Hope you're doing well too.

Re education: I've taken a circuitous route. I dropped out of Valdosta State University (in Georgia) in 1976 when punk came a-calling; moved to NYC, then Athens, then DC, then Miami, plying various (anti)-musical trades. While living in South Florida (where we assembled TLASILA ca. '91), I was invited to teach a course on B- and Z-cinema at Miami-Dade Community College. The bug took hold. I lectured on film (sans degree) until '94, and really enjoyed the experience. (That's how I became friends with Doris Wishman.) Anyhow, TLASILA began to take off around then, so I put everything on hold. Finally, after the OHNE tour in 2002, I returned to my alma mater. (It would have been stupid to start again as a frosh after having earned enough credits back in the 1670s to be a junior at VSU.) Got my degree (Mass Media) in 2003; began the Ethics degree in January 2004. I'll wrap that up in May. I'm post-grad, and I've done the student teaching thing for a while. Want to go to grad school in NYC...

That's the long version. Valdosta State University. It ain't Oxford (or even Oxford, MS), but they've got an excellent philosophy faculty.

Best,

TS

---

I explicitly informed NS that I was post-grad, but not yet in graduate school. (I've taken the GRE, and I did quite well, at least for one with such a poor grasp of algebraic concepts, but I still haven't decided on my final ports of call. I've multiple disicplinary interests, and many options available.)

He ends his piece by fudging the facts on my university status (no big deal for some of you, perhaps, but why not get things right?), and implies prior to his wholly unnecessary lie (mis-statement, benign omission, unintended fib, whatever) that my (moral) agency is perhaps questionable. Ladies and gents, we call this a logical fallacy. An author establishes false premises, holds someone with no relation to the premise accountable to said premise, and then assails them for violating the precepts of the premise.

This omission - in and of itself not a David Irving-level falsehood - was crucial for the advancement of Syl's syllogism, his poisoned well, his inherently flawed argument.

Nick, you're a sniveling little cunt.

You have as much right to blather about ethics as I do to rave with "authority" about, hmm, The Killers.

(I could have gone with Arctic Monkeys, but I actually quite like them, Oasis/Franz Ferdinand/Strokes dullards that they perhaps privately are...)

Granted, your piece didn't inflict harm on anyone (least of all TLASILA - we received free press, etc.), and your assertions, while arguably snarky and insipid, were scarcely libelous.

I'm pissed because you appealed to our better nature, then fucked us for an idiotic punchline. You can't get much lower.

Why should I care?

I have an obligation to take you to task for not truthfully following through on the specifics of our discourse. I had nothing to do with the MAN site. I didn't find it relevatory, transgressive, or in any way eye-opening. Rather, I saw through it, and immediately discarded it.

Instead, you inferred an antipodal stance. Is "slack-ass" a required human resources determinate at Village Voice?

My comments on being signed to a major label were predicated with the absurd proviso that we receive "a billion dollar, non-refundable advance," and that we tour with U2. You rather conveniently failed to print this, seeing to blunt what I thought to be a throwaway remark and shift its significance into an altogether desperate realm. Yes, I do feel that our work is of sufficient originality, quality and nascent appeal such that any company insane enough to ink us to a deal would ultimately benefit from the relationship. My exact words were: "more so than those other idiots," meaning I feel that TLASILA would be a far more interesting mass media proposition than Fall Out Boy, James Blunt, or Joss Stone. Alas, I live in a dream. My band is but a blip, and no matter how good our next fifty albums might be, we will likely remain a sub-cult at best.

You, on the other hand, seem to have been huffing Pam from a brown paper bag when you slipped and fell on your keypad. Ethics demands more of us than an AskJeeves search.

Tojours,

Tom Smith

Comments

Spaulding said…
I blame Steev Mike...
ommyth said…
Steev had nothing to do with it, for I am he...
Spaulding said…
No really though...

You can't deny the suspicious nature of the M.A.N. "spoof," especially as it pertains to TLASILA and *nd*e*'s Universal Music.

Obviously, Mr. Sylvester went too far trying to discredit you with "information" that doesn't even pertain to the whole M.A.N. thing or perhaps even, well, you or your possible involvment. I mean, I don't know what drove his suspicions of YOU so far, so far as to question your educational status- especially since you were kind enough to get back to him and start (and maintain) an open dialogue. He obviously got something worthwhile out of you.

Limited scope, inaccurate characterization indeed.

Thing is, though- he apparently had sources that "confirmed" Menlo/TLASILA/Universal/Doris Wishman played a role in the creation/running of the site. Obviously I don't know the logistics of your conversation with him... but I think you know what I mean when I say I think there was a certain individual whose direction you could have pointed him toward.

I dunno- it's pretty stupid of him to put you in a false light. It'd be interesting to see what the article would have looked like had he found the madM.A.N...

You can end this topic/diologue with me about it here... just wanted to chat.

Peace.
Spaulding said…
P.S.

http://img518.imageshack.us/img518/1164/copyofspinmag8rv.jpg

Looks as though Mr. Sylvester was beaten to the punch anyways.

You think?
ommyth said…
007, it's obvious that Sylvester had no story. Instead of running with the truth, or at least seeking an intriguing sidebar, he went for a cheap slag-off.

He's filth, nothing. Cred extinguished.

I knew before I ever rang the cunt that the piece would be farcical, and I resisted cooperation. Of course, I was asked ever-so-nicely to play along... Never again.

He made me look fairly stupid, but he had to work awfully hard to get there. His ignominy is a dead-cert lock, however. No effort necessary.

From an ethical perspective, from even the most limited "journalistic" point of view, he hasn't a stump to lean on. Everybody knows it.

I found the MAN site obvious, uninspired, hardly "meta-". Whatever Spin, the Voice, or others see in it, I could care less. The minds fueling all scenes are hopelessly dull...

The first thing I told Sylv was that I wanted no part of anything.

Apparently, that just couldn't be allowed. The Voice loved me too much to let me go...
Anonymous said…
Hi Tom,

Thanks for responding to the piece. I did record the conversation on tape (I try to have the little hook-up thing on my phone all the time actually). The rustling you heard in the background was probably me just breathing heavy (this is a problem of mine).

The photo department issue is out of my hand and I can't comment on it specifically, though I know sometimes if an image isn't the right orientation, they have trouble using it in the layout. Apologies for any trouble this caused; regarding the post-grad vs. grad student issue, this was a last-minute oversight, and I will happily request a correction.

The piece was about the Mothers Against Noise sites, and how one said the other was a marketing scam to promote the upcoming TLASILA album. I contacted you because this is your band, and I thought you would have an opinion about it all given what I know of your work.

As for me including the detail that you study ethics... the piece is about the ethics of viral marketing. If editors let me write about your upcoming album, maybe there will be an opportunity to work in some Hegel.
ommyth said…
No, thank you for posting.

As noted, you evidence a flair for the risible...

Still, you refused to pay attention. You really, really, really refused to pay attention. This refusal lends credence to the notion that you - you, Nick - are not quite all there.

Neither I nor anyone in TLASILA have anything to do with the MAN site, competing, hacked MAN sites, or viral marketing scams.

Immanuel Kant, Harry Partch, and Fela Kuti - all of whom recently joined with The Killers to record an ode to your inexplicable (fuckin') intransigence - have nothing to do with them either.

But that Hegel cunt...
Anonymous said…
I'm confused about this thread. Is "Nick" in love with "Tom"? Was he dumped because of an internet obsession? There is a strange homoerotic undercurrent here. Did Nick and Tom work together? Were they in a band together? Is this Boy George and JZon Moss again? Help!
Anonymous said…
love you, mean it, hope you win!
ommyth said…
reg, it's good to hear from you...

new faces, trolls - hello, etc.

off to bed,

ts
ommyth said…
Reggie, apologies for not responding in full to your post from last night. I had to get some sleep...

Andrew's recently been signed to Universal Japan (not the domestic affiliate), and he and fellow TLASILA-ian Don Fleming are working to complete AWK's long-delayed follow-up to The Wolf.

That's likely the subtextual origin of the "Shave signs to major" nonsense. If Sylv or any other Voice/Spin cretins had bothered to apply themselves to their homework, they would have parked their mottled, overstuffed asses at Andrew's fan board. As you are doubtless aware, that site is a locus for outrageous conspiritorial palaver. That's just one of many such blog/chat lacunae, each of which (including the Voice's blog) offers little more than the waste of one's precious time.

Is it possible that AWK is behind the MAN, er, controversy? Of course. Is it possible that Nick Sylvester, as has been suggested, has a love jones for yours truly? I shudder at the thought, but yes, of course.

I can only speak for myself, for TLASILA.

We didn't make the site, and we have no further interest in the story, such as it is.

Best,

TS
Display Name said…
Perceptional Control
Spaulding said…
NOT YOU AGAIN!!!
Spaulding said…
Another digression:

Perhaps to clarify, but moreso to reiterate...

The M.A.N. website is/was registered under Universal Music. Because TLASILA was the only band mentioned that was given a link, and because Andrew W.K.'s name also appears on a (few?) page(s), as does Mr. Moore's Sonic Youth, people automatically attributed the site to TLASILA. The band was linked and a few of its members were specifically "targeted."

It made TLASILA/Andrew W.K. look the "guiltiest" once it was determined that it was a hoax, spoof, viral marketing campaign.

What I find funny, maybe more fucking stupid than funny, is how quick people were so quick jump to the conclusion... "AHA! THIS MUST MEAN TLASILA HAS SIGNED WITH UNIVERSAL!" and actually try to run with it.

This Sylvester kid calls himself a journalists? Rather than doing some actual research and using the leads and information he's been given, this guy writes an article that clearly lacks any sort insight or relevance to the case he was attempting to crack in the first place. (AND NO HEGEL!)

If he would have done MINIMAL research, if he would have interviewed SOMEONE other than Tom Smith, who (even if he WAS behind the M.A.N. site) clearly wasn't going to reveal anything or wasn't capable of revealing anything - perhaps his work would have looked more like the following:

"Hmm... TLASILA? Mentioned on this site. Andrew W.K.? Mentioned on the site. Andrew W.K. is a member of TLASILA. Andrew W.K. was (is) with Universal Music. Clearly, since I have done my research, I know that in the last year, there have been some pretty strange thinkgs going on over at A.W.K. HQ... What is this S*ee* Mi*e business? Hey! These crazy "S55M" sites from last November (2004) were registered under Universal. And moreover, HIS website is STILL registered under Universal Music and HAS BEEN this entire time(!)... Andrew is clearly more suspect in this instance than Tom Smith. Let's get an interview with him...

Nope, better run with "Village Voice REVEALS: TLASILA signs with Universal, Tom Smith Orchestrates M.A.N. Marketing Hoax!"

FUCK YOU, TOM SMITH! THE REAL FANS ALWAYS FIND OUT FIRST! AND YOU'RE NOT REALLY ENROLLED IN COLLEGE, EITHER, BITCH! TAKE THAT!

What's even better is that, like I said, Nick Sylvester and the Village Voice were outscooped by Spin... by a longshot. Anything he was going to write about in relation to anyone in "noise" and M.A.N. was going to be completely worthless anyways.

Maybe he will just park it over at Andrew's board (which, by the way Tom, isn't really a waste of time at all!). Then he can write his "Oh hey, where did Mr. Party-Man go? This is sooooo weird!" article a year and a half late, too.
ommyth said…
Roe, darling!

I agree with you. I'm suffering from a bit of vertigo as well.

You good?

Best,

Tom
ommyth said…
Actually, 007, I'm enrolled at VSU, I have mountains of classwork to attend to each day (four senior level ethics courses, and Russian 1020), I do a bit of student teaching as a post-grad student, and I look forward to grad school... (My sister was an academic, and such foul predilictions seem especially to infect siblings.)

That Sylv mucked up the designation was relatively unimportant; that he fudged it as a sort of fulcrum to pivot the assertion that I was "scamming" and thus lacking in moral agency was, however, completely insane, and deserving of my ire. He seems wholly unprincipled. I could give a billionth of a fuck if the Voice - in requisite, wan retaliation - slams TLASILA every minute, every day, for the next million years. What Nick displayed was a complete abrogation of ethics, disguised as an expose of a viral marketing hoax. What a fucking fool...

How many times should I have to deny that I had a hand in the creation of something? Where did Nick's sources originate? The Hanson/American Tapes board? AWK's board? An "I Love Music" thread? All worthless, essentially unverifiable soures. He approached me, I told him the truth. His intransigence suggests extreme microcephaly...

You're right about Andrew's fan board being a trip. I've found it very entertaining, even on those occasions when the crazy dude posting as "Tom Smith" becomes active. (And no, I'm not he.) As a source of hard news or even remotely verifiable fact, however, it's basically not worth anyone's time... An amusing way to snuff a few hours, certainly. As a means perhaps to ferret evidentiary elements for an ultimately half-assed investigation of a parody of an anti-noise site, which may have itself been a parody? Are you shitting me?

At least this fucktard has delivered several metric tons of free publicity to our carriage house doors. Maybe he's the viral marketing vector!

(Nah... Nick's clearly too thick for that rarified level of "meta"...)

Hail Lucifer,

TS
Anonymous said…
hello, i would like to start off by saying that I am a Christian, I
come from a Christian home and that my parents are Pastors for the
Salvation Army. I think you generalizing a little too much when you
talk about noise music and underestimateing the real evils of pop
music. Pop music is all about trying to have sex with others, and
sometimes not just one other, and about getting rich and drunk. Other
than greed and infidelity, I guess pop music isn't so bad, except
there is also the problem that behind the catchy rythms are depressing
lyrics that make teens depressed and want to be in love. Teens are
not really capable of know what love is, and so what they hear is that
love is having sex, and even the modern pop singers sing about sex a
lot.
I currently attend a Christian college, and it was when I was 15-18
that I was most affected by music. That music was not noise music, it
was indie and emo music. That style of music is very depressing not
only in lyrical content but also in the melodies that they play.
Several times I tried to kill myself. Right now, I am a fan of
several noise bands, including Wolf Eyes, and honostly, I don't really
think its all that bad. I don't read the lyric sheet becaus what the
music is really about was best stated in an interview with a member of
the band The Locust. He said that what noise music is really about is
looking passed the ugly exterior of something and being able to find
something of beauty and worth. So while noise music may seem
abrassive, there are layers of it that are not, and are quite good.
The music teaches people something about being shallow. Noise is not
for everyone because not everyone wants to look for beauty. You could
compare music to artwork, you could have a nice painting that looks
real and you could be called shallow for liking it, but if you look at
a Jackson Pollock painting and find beauty in it than its such a
deeper beauty because its not evident, its extravagent. If we had the
mentality that noise writers had about their music and applied that to
society that would be a really beautiful thing.
Anonymous said…
I am a 15 year old student from new zealand who plays bass guitar in a local noise band, I also have christian beliefs

I do not know why you are trying to fight a certain genre (at the moment the fad is being against noise) because I have heard Racist country music, Satanic Blues Music, and Jazz music based around heroin addiction.

Hitler didn't like Jews because they were jewish, you do not like noise bands because they play a certain type of music.

Why bother trying to abolish noise music, everytime you hear your husband use and electric drill or turn a T.V. to the wrong station resulting in static are you going to classify him as a rebellious, violent, Nihilistic, drug addicted, sexually perverted, self-mutilating, offensive, occultic, god hating, terrorist?

I would like to refer to a well known and highly liked noise band called, Lightning Bolt.

Lightning bolt are made up of two people, drummer Brian Chippendale, and bassist Brian Gibson.

They are both vegetarian, love thier cats, Do not participate in any drug taking or alchohol abuse, Chippendale has a girlfreind (hardly sexually perverted isn't it?), and when playing live shows they hand out water and earplugs, what insensitive people they are.


Do not just dislike people because of the music they make/listen to, Alot of Rapists, Murderers and Terrorists may have listened to various music, including some you may enjoy and find wholesome, good hearted songs.
ommyth said…
Thank you, anonymous and TSISM, for your thought-provoking posts.

We trust you'll return often!

Regards,

TS
Anonymous said…
MAN is not a game to be played by children like you.
Anonymous said…
Whoops: http://www.gawker.com/news/village-voice/the-voice-is-even-more-fucked-up-than-usual-157816.php
ommyth said…
Dear anonymous (avec Gawker link),

Oh my God!

It seemed obvious after his odious "E-thics" piece that V. Voice wanker-shitter Nick Sylvester was just a lil' off-center, but this new plagiarism scandal seals it.

I hate to laugh at this woeful twat's expense, but HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Read the Gawker scoop:

Here’s what we know: This week’s Voice had a cover story by hotshot young Nick Sylvester reporting that men around New York are using Neil Strauss’s The Game, about pickup artists and their techniques, and that women are increasingly aware of this and outsmarting their would-be seducers. We know said cover story has been removed from the Voice website. We know that the Voice’s acting editor-in-chief Doug Simmons, to whom we were referred when we called because the paper’s PR director has left the company, hasn’t returned our message. And we’re reliably informed that the newsroom — such as it is anymore — knows some sort of big shit is going down but isn’t being told what.

Here’s what we hear/speculate/gather: People quoted in the story claim they never spoke to the reporter. Editors at the paper now believe Sylvester likely fabricated material. Writers at the paper believe this is because young Sylvester — a former Harvard Lampoon kid who writes criticism for the Voice and indie-music reviews for Pitchfork — didn’t quite get the whole big-reported-cover-story thing, which he wasn’t really ready for and which Simmons was pushing him to do. Simmons, merely the acting editor, is trying to make a splash so he can get the job permanently. This is not the sort of splash he had in mind. Sylvester may or may not have fainted in Simmons’s office while being berated. And everything in the usually boisterous office is being kept very need-to-know...

--

A cached version (thank you Google!) of Sylv's allegedly purloined cover story will soon be replicated on the TLASILA blog...

---

anonymous, we love you!

TS
Anonymous said…
Who gives a fuck...that MAN thing was stupid in its first trimester, much less this long after its unfortunate birth. But it did give you a good chance to roll out previously published bio material.
ommyth said…
anonymous (of the 'trimester' quote),

i agree. i didn't ask to be dragged into this moronic story, and i'm now pleased to at last be extracted from it.

hope you enjoyed the 'previously published bio material,' all of which i'm fairly certain was deployed a-fresh... perhaps just for thee!

anyhow, thanks for participating.

ts
ommyth said…
What's the story, Roe?

TS
ommyth said…
No, Roe, I was joking with 007 earlier in the thread. I'm fairly certain that "Steev" was a test nom de guerre of AWK's, but as a fan of his, you probably already knew that... Anyway, Ms. Roe, I hope that you're well.

Best Wishes,

Tom
Anonymous said…
Tom, I don't usually post replies in response to blog topics but as a fan and an admirer of your art (I've been following you -- not stalking! -- since your Peach of Immortality days) I couldn't resist commenting on this one as it winds down. As someone who is familiar with and has always enjoyed your writing -- essays, reviews, poems and lyrics -- my first question is "Why aren't you writing for the Voice instead of Sylvester?" (My guess is that you would be sickened by such an "opportunity".) My second question is "Given your wealth of knowledge and experience, proven good taste and (in my opinion) superior prose style, why did you even bother to respond to this clown? I can't say that I've read everything Sylvester has ever fabricated (oops, written!), but the stuff I've seen hit me as the same-old-same-old -- another attitude-heavy Wunderkind slapping a varnish of hype over inferior product. I don't understand why you would rise to defend yourself against his transparent, largely incoherent attack.

You must have your reasons, and I admit I'm curious about them. I don't mean to pry, but why was this important to you? Doesn't your work speak for itself?

What sort of ethics do you study or espouse? Was this a motivating factor?

I'm looking forward to more from you and To Live & Shave in L.A -- best of luck to you.

FiveStar
ommyth said…
Hello FiveStar,

Thanks for taking the time to post. I mean no offense, but I'm weary of the thread and wary of responding to additional questions. I never wanted anything to do with the story, and I want no part of it now.

Although I am flattered by your kind words, I'm more inclined to rebut your appraisal. I don't think of myself in those terms.

I responded to the Voice piece because it was both predicated on rumor and constructed around a false premise. The article concluded with the inferrence that I was of low moral character (agency) because I'd taken part in the activity suggested by and established in Sylvester's false premise.

It was outrageous, and I had an obligation to respond. I could care less if someone writes a negative review, but an outright lie couched in an unverifiable assertion? No way.

I've had my say; my message was received and acknowledged.

Gotta get back to this pile of Russian homework.

Cheers,

TS

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