BURP V. SONG Mojo Lorwin doesn't know his ass from a ...

Mojo Lorwin doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground ["Poor Kerouac," 11/22]. This is understandable, since it's apparent from his content-free stench and flow that Lorwin can shit from his head and write about what he hasn't the faintest idea. This may be ideal, since his readers are likely in the same narcissistically smug and airless culture pit, contemptuous of all tradition, full of passionate conviction that mere raw and unselfconscious creativity ain't all it's cracked up to be.

Like too many of his "alternative" journalism predecessors, Lorwin's convinced that critical obligations can be assumed and summarily dodged by cooking up a lead so shocking that his ignoramus half-readers will sail through the mess of what follows in a self-congratulatory trance.

Dude, you are so cool!

If you don't know who Dos Passos, Cheever or Henry Miller were, or about the jazz of the day, HUAC, Ike, fallout shelters or any other feature of American culture before Howard Stern it's easy to gloss your ignorance with ad hoc responses and variations on a sneer. The fact is, nobody in America before or since wrote books as raw and restless and improvised as Kerouac's or sang and performed songs as shocking and electrifyingly original as Dylan's.

Granted this will be hard to stomach for those who can't distinguish art from morality from politics. It appears that Lorwin has suckled so long at the teat of corporate product that he can't tell a burp from a song.

Renardo Barden, via email

RHYMES AND OTHER INSIGHTS

As an aspiring writer with "prophetic insight" into our times Mojo Lowrin should know that hack work is the shortest, most shit-strewn path to the unintended joke. See: Lorwin's claims of Kerouac's artistry that "there's no there there." Kerouac took enormous risks and wrote with deepand realinsight. His project had nothing to do with "getting the big metaphysical stick out of the collective ass." Admit it, Lorwin, you just made that up.

You know nothing about Kerouacexcept that your job rhymes with his first name. And I trust that your own words will taste "in retrospect, so crude and obvious." We hardly need another flip hatchet job on Kerouac, who was a great writer. Your attack is much like your insight that "we're in the '50s again"nothing new at all, and not even accurate. And as for you snickering editors: the worst of Kerouac's sentences contains more poetic flesh, pound for pound, than every ream of New York Press ever dumped on our fair city.

Julien Poirier, Manhattan

MOJOLORWIN replies

Whether or not it's the 50s again (it is! see my next article), something is wrong when scatological references replace sexual ones. Kerouac would be so dissapointed. From Poirier's "shortest, most shit-strewn path"to Barden's "stench and flow" we seem like a society with an anal fixation gone mad. If it were up to my editors that "collective ass" line would have been followed by one about "the reluctant opening." Jesus Christ.

That aside, I enjoyed the rage of Poirer and Barden, for both of whom I clearly represent the anti-Christ. I'll fess up to being a [prophetic] young hack ranting about shit he wasn't alive for who "can't distinguish between art and morality and politics." Poirier, though, writes in a voice significantly more "alt-press" than my own.

But more seriously, I've got to object to Renardo Barden, if that is your real name, for the crack about my "passionate conviction that mere raw and unselfconscious creativity ain't all it's cracked up to be." I worship raw creativity. I just don't think Kerouac had very much. (Dylan I love, which you would have been able to tell from my article). Plus, I think literary output in the '50s dwarfs every decade since. I just don't think that was Kerouac so much as Nabokov, Ellison, Salinger, Bellow and even Ginsberg.

Now back to burp music and the sweet, sweet teat of corporate product.

Mojo Lorwin, Brooklyn

A TRUE FRENCH PATRIOT

Mr Jean-Marie Le Pen is not a fascist ["Honh Honh, Oui Oui," Dan DiSalvo, Dec. 9]. He is a French patriot who doesn't want his Catholic grandchildren to be forced to pray to Mecca in 10 years' timeand who has the courage to say so.

Valrie Dabbs, London

ANTABUSE FOR THE WORM FOOD

After having cussed my whole family out again, I took the bold step. It's called Antabuse. It's the pill that makes you get sick as a dog if you drink. I called off Christmas and Thanksgiving, citing my inability to handle my family without being drunk. I'd suggested to my doctor that he write me out Antabuse. Yeah, it sucks to be me. The doctor seemed amazed and began to wonder just what had gotten into me. He asked me, "are you sure you want to try this?"

I replied, very sincere and sober, "Hell yes!" Incidentally, the more pitiful I got, the more he just had to laugh. What a professional. I think it was when I called myself a probable inbreed that got him. He reassured me that he wasn't laughing at me, but with me, even though I wasn't laughing.

Today was the first day of the rest of what's left of my life. It's half over, and it hasn't been half bad. It may be closer or farther away than I know. I'm glad I don't. At least I have a sense of humor about this shit huh? I'm worm food too.

How about giving Larry Brown a minute to sort his shit out, Hollander? ["Can Larry Brown Save the Knicks," C.J. Sullivan and Dave Hollander, Nov. 2] It's not like you put him to work in a championship situation. Kennedy said that it's not our wins or losses, but rather our contribution to the human spirit. So, the next time you see a guy puking his guts up outside a bar, hope that it's because he took his Antabuse and is now conditioning himself like a Pavlovian dog.

Ever notice all this turns around at the same time? I put down the bottle, and picked up the Antabuse. The Knicks won their first game. America is fed up with lies and bullshit. The leaves in the trees are falling down. The next season is upon us.

Be glad you're still here. A lot of people didn't make it. I hear around 2000 or so for sure. Maybe the people are the government's Antabuse. They'll puke if they get a good dose of us huh?

James Wes Brown, via email

Just another lost reader

Well, I never thought I'd say it, but there's absolutely no reason to read New York Press anymore. Are you guys giving NYU creative writing students college credit to write articles? Idiots complaining about how crappy their apartments and living situations are, Williamsburg hipster pingpong (I almost threw up after reading that one), an article on how the city SMELLS??!?! And to top it all off, in your most recent publication, a completely disgusting article about some loser who can't come properly (Kevin Giordano - Revenge Vol 18, Nov 16). Hey Mr. Giordano, get a life or a real job, it does wonders for one's self esteem. Gone are the days of Jeff Koyen, Judy McGuire (Dr. Dot who?) and of course the incomparable Matt Taibbi who makes most (if not all) of your writers look like snot-nosed 3rd graders. Wimblehack enough said. If your mission is to lose readers, congrats. You've lost one more right here.

Will Redmond, via email

THE CASE FOR STRIPPERS

Dr. Dot is amazingly far off the mark on the matter of men going to strip clubs ["Making Men Happy," Dr. Dot, Nov. 2]. Charlie Sheen once said that he didn't pay hookers to come over to his house, he paid them to leave. The same holds true for strip clubs. We go to strip clubs because the girls at strip clubs are hot and fun and they stay at strip clubs. They don't come home and complain about the dirty dishes in the sink, they don't ask if whatever they're wearing makes their ass look fat. They don't bitch you out for showing up late or hanging out with your friends. They wiggle against the pole, smile at you and take your money. It's an equitable exchange with a finite timeline. At the end of the night you go home to your house and the stripper does whatever it is that strippers do when the sun comes up. A woman cannot salvage a relationship by becoming more stripper-ish in terms of sex play. She can however, reinforce a good relationship by being supportive and fun outside of the bedroom. It also helps if she laughs at her man's jokes.

John Doyle, via email

Hey Jim, Next time an o'doul's

Jim Knipfel exposes perfectly what we urbanites are faced with daily: Whether or not to help unfortunates who are in need. ["No Damage Done," Jim Knipfel, Nov. 9]. Do we ignore them completely (while hopefully giving to charities, at least), or give them money and possibly contribute to a drug or alcohol addiction, or what?

I have resolved to buy one hungry person a bit of food daily. Plus, any time I see someone passed out on the street or in some kindof potentially explosive situation, I simply call 911.

Knipfel and Morgan were truly noble for trying to talk to this troubled fellow, even though it was highly unsettling. Know that the best of us experience this duality, wanting to help out but not wanting to be conned. Perhaps buying doof or non-alcoholic drinks might be the best solution, along with a sympathetic ear.

Pete A. de Matto, Jersey City