Dear Dr. Sinatra,
A close friend of mine (and, I assure you, an upstanding, decent fellow) recently got into some trouble. Due to occasional, unforseen instances of making “wrong choices,” his reputation, career, marriage, and peace of mind have been compromised. What it boils down to could be considered accidents involving a sort of “sexting” (pictures and conversation over the Net due to improper diet and overwork and, above all, pervasive loneliness due to government interference in normal marital intimacy). This friend fought against these and other obstacles valiantly but was ultimately and unjustly overcome. His whole life has been upended by people who simply won’t leave him alone and seem intent on preventing his resumption of a normal life/career. Two questions: why can’t these hounding hoards “get a life” and how can he get back at them legally for the emotional distress they’re causing him?
We’ve never met, but you were recommended highly by our mutual friend L.L.
Just call me
- A. Weener
Your letter touched me deeply, Mr. Gingrich (yup, Lindsay told me you’d be writing me — we tell each other everything). To keep your buddy’s anonymity, I’ll call your friend Arny Weiner here and will address him directly. Okay, you ol’ hot dog, you….
I’m not gonna grill you for more details on your so-called wrong choices; what your problem boils down to is this:
How to turn this Weiner into a Winner? Sounds like a question for my pal Charlie Sheen, who’s been kind of a dick himself lately… but after all, you’re asking me, which is in many ways the same thing.
The public (most of whom are idiots) are unaware of how incredibly pervasive “sexting” is among celebrities. These rich and famous most often learn the invigorating pastime from their children or pre-teen “tricks” and, once hooked, they’re lifers. Your biggest “wrong choice,” Arny, was ignoring the cardinal rule of celebrity: keep this tripe among yourselves and never feed it to the commoners.
Now, I may sound stern but I’m not quite angry. Heck, there’s a lot about you that I admire. The fact that at no time during the past several decades did you attempt to legally change your surname exhibits either an extraordinary amount of courage or a sweetly endearing naïveté. As those photos you sent out clearly prove, just like America herself, you’re proud of your name and everything it stands for. When you stand straight and firm, people are bound to notice.
Sadly, you may have opened the lid and hurt us a lot more than you think, Weiner. There’s a can o’ worms in your meat, my man, and nobody wants another bite.
But the exposure’s been done. Look at it this way for a moment: many other famous people have foisted very “personal” portraits of themselves on the public since the beginning of time or the 1990s, whichever is more recent. There are always those who’re offended, those who’re turned on or amused or repulsed… the difference is that most of them didn’t just happen to have been in Congress (so to speak; equally true with a small c.
Check out Yoko Ono’s short Erection, a non-narrative documentary about a relatively brief incident during which a part of John Lennon was caught in a state of blood-rage. People paid money to see this thing decades ago in New York and select other venues around the globe. The film never made any lists of cinematic blockbusters; the financial take was unlikely to have covered the cost of the film stock and processing. But Lennon and Ono were, for some non-fiduciary reason, determined to share John Thomas Lennon with the entire world. Sort of like that occasional weirdo caught near a school playground with his pants down (a practice I outgrew myself in my teens).
What are the fundamental motives for these actions? Do people find such awesome beauty in their personal parts that they feel their dissemination will oil the earth’s rusty axel? Are they artists who feel people must admire their beauty to fully understand art itself? Do they foresee any response save rapture upon the unveiling of their own treasured Penus Di Milo?
Artists are allowed to do stuff like that. You’re not an artist, you’re a congressman. Congressmen aren’t artists at anything except being rich and being able to convince the public that they actually care about the non-rich. Face it… you guys have more demons in you than 99% of the population, but you’re so adept at hiding them from anyone who’s not in Congress and not rich… that on reflection, yeah, you are artists all right. Artists at Bee Ess, that’s for sure.
Famous people have always been and will always be exhibitionists to some degree , and they’re mostly idiots too, but very few end up destroying their lives because of it; any “communication” with non-celebrities is done in cognito! They have traditionally experienced their greatest joy when they expose themselves. Jim Morrison. Madonna. Avril Lavigne. Clay Aiken. Herb Alpert. They all freely admit that they expose themselves through their music. Except Jim Morrison, and the already-mentioned John Lennon. They’re the only ones, those two, who went too far, and look how they ended up. Think about some extra security, dude, until this all mercifully blows over. Until that time…
Look, what you were doing was just trying to share yourself — the real you — your own art with some cute commoners. No one can deny that those photos revealed your true essence more thoroughly and perfectly than any other celeb who’s still on the scene. Those cylopsean portraits might be perceived as unseemly, but they contain such raw candor that one can nearly see the brain within. Revealed clearly is the bed in which that brain resides. Damn man, you’re better than Bon Jovi. All these “role model” rants are made by hypocrites whose own souls are well-represented in your pictures. They see mirror images of themselves and they dig their fortune at having completely exposed their own brains.
The only reason I wouldn’t want you representing me in Congress has nothing to do with your exhibitionism or narcissism but your lack of intelligence regarding possible repercussions to the exposure of your art. If we don’t even mind that our representatives are rich, the wiser among us will always draw the line when it comes to those who are demonstrably retarded. My advice: go back to school. It’s never too late.
Yours in Christ,
Hose
