LETTERS

Might I suggest a small experiment? Give your Strategic Triad two months off. Send them to look for yellow rain in Laos and Afghanistan. And while they’re huntin’, look around for other work from other writers. Maybe they’ll be sadly missed. But on the other hand . . .

—Alex Cox

Los Angeles

August 19, 1983

DEAR EDITOR:

I am sicker than shit of hearing you people in your 40s belittle and feel unhappy about your age. What the hell are we who have just made 20 supposed to think about reaching 40? That age is supposed to be the time when you really cut loose. Fuck what men think, goddamn it! Be yourself and LIVE. Time is too precious and short and dangerous for you to be worrying about being 40. Do you realize that we all, at one time or another, lamented turning 20 (I did) because we thought our teenage years went by too fast and we’d no longer get away with being silly and foolish? . . .

—Rebecca Williams

Los Angeles

August 19, 1983

DEAR EDITOR:

Thank you for Ben Pesta’s excellent review of New York George Restaurant. However, in many ways it worked like one of those Good News/Bad News jokes.

We’ll skip over the fact that it opened with a bathroom joke (can you imagine the Los Angeles Times starting one of their reviews that way?) and get right to the heart of the matter.

I can’t show it to my mother!

Even worse, she can’t show it to any of her friends. She has no idea that the discotheque my brothers and I were involved in was a major watering hole for hoodlums. Not her young Jewish princes, oh no! And then to quote me when I said, "Sometimes we fuck up." Her son’s restaurant gets a review and it has an F-word in it! Unbelievable! . . .

—George Goodrich, a.k.a. N.Y. George

Los Angeles

EDITOR’S NOTE: Sorry. Sometimes we fuck up. ä

February 3, 1984

DEAR EDITOR:

Regarding the introduction to your "Silver Lake: Home of the Avant-Garde" shopping guide, a note to set the record straight.

Mack Sennett’s "Keystone Kops" studio was not located at Sunset and Hyperion; it was at 1712 Glendale Blvd., in Echo Park (which was then called Edendale). The original sound stage now houses the Center Theater Group.

Walt Disney’s first studio was located at 4649 Kingswell. It then moved to 2719 Hyperion, near — but not on — Rowena.

The famous piano stairs from the Laurel and Hardy classic The Music Box are located at 923-27 Vendome St., not on Micheltorena.

And it was Echo Park (then Edendale) which was called "Red Hill," because it became a refuge for progressives trying to avoid the communist witch-hunts.

Sorry, but the inaccuracies did merit a reply.

—Larry Gross

Echo Park

EDITOR’S NOTE: Well, at least we spelled "avant-garde" right.

December 28, 1985

DEAR EDITOR:

I am writing to complain about the politically slanted features in your publications. I recently read a long article on Nicaragua by one Jay Levin. The article did not make even a pretense at evenhandedness, but instead spouted the usual trendy left-wing line about how awful American policy is and how wonderful the Sandinista regime is.

The raison d’être of your publication is cultural and social activities in Los Angeles, not the particular biases of your employees and writers. I urge you to correct the situation.

—Richard P. Sybert

Los Angeles

EDITOR’S NOTE: Evenhandedness is no substitute for the truth. If you want to read evenhanded nonsense, try elsewhere. The raison d’être of the Weekly very much includes the biases of our writers, whose job it is to describe the world as they see it.

June 13, 1986

DEAR EDITOR:

The only thing that overshadows the Weekly’s incessant claims of American imperialism is its overwhelming arrogance. Every time a letter rebutting one of your articles is printed, it appears with a counter-rebuttal giving the writer or editor the last word. More often than not, the reply is as slipshod and tripe-filled as the original article.

Suffer me an example: Donald Pelletier rebuts against an article written by Marc Cooper, which is followed by a rebuttal. What does Cooper have to say this time? Nothing new, but he does call Pelletier a name ("Only a fool would not understand . . ."). In fact, name-calling seems to be the bottom line at the Weekly.

—Ben Eshbach

Burbank

December 26, 1986

DEAR EDITOR:

I hope that in the future you will see the importance of verifying the letters sent to your attention. In the case of Rhody Davis’ letter, a thorough verification would have revealed that the letter was not, in fact, written by Ms. Davis and in no way reflects her opinion of Celeste Fremon’s article "The Great Sorority Rush." You would also ä have discovered that it was written by Dan Halstead, a.k.a. Danny Cohen, a fledgling agent at the Bauer Benedek Agency. I think all your readers would rest easier knowing that the Weekly’s editorial page provides a legitimate forum for dissenting opinion — rather than an accessible stage for scorned ex-lovers to exact their petty revenge.